In this article, Jason Margolis draws from complexity theory to explore the twenty-year negotiation between formal and informal teacher leadership in research and practice, making the case that there has been a drift toward a conception of semiformal teacher leadership in the field. Through both theory and examples, he illustrates how semiformal…

While many educational practitioners and researchers can speak to the benefits of teacher leadership anecdotally and theoretically, tracing direct evidence of impact via traditional quantified measures, like student achievement, has been challenging. In this paper, we argue that the logic underlying traditional teacher leadership assessment does…

Some recent district-level teacher leadership programs have incorporated both instructional coaching and formal evaluations into teacher leaders' (TLs) responsibilities, which research suggests could challenge the relational dynamics necessary for effective coaching. Using a sensemaking lens, we conducted a qualitative case study of one district's…

Hybrid teacher leadership (HTL)--that is, teachers whose official schedule includes both teaching K-12 students and leading teachers in some capacity--seemed poised to evolve as a more systemic enterprise at the turn of the century; however, implementation has been surprisingly sporadic. In this article, we explore Washington (a state long known…

Teacher leadership is increasingly recognized as a promising strategy to improve the quality of instruction in U.S. schools. Despite the rising number of teacher leadership programs in the country, there is a paucity of knowledge about the work that teacher leaders (TLs) engage in, how educators experience teacher leadership and the impacts of…

This article outlines the program design, benefits, and challenges of a university-wide, near-peer faculty-mentoring program. The mentoring exchange facilitates group leadership by early-career faculty who have recently succeeded at the steps incoming faculty will face. Five primary themes emerged from qualitative analysis of six focus groups:…

Education leaders are perennially seeking new ways to build the capacity of teachers to enhance learning experiences for all students. Teacher leadership, which we define as teachers' support of the improvement of teaching and learning beyond their own classroom, has long been a source of interest and experimentation (Wenner & Campbell, 2017;…

This article looks across six years of teacher leadership research to explore what today's teachers want (and don't want) from teacher leaders. A secondary analysis was conducted on volumes of teacher leader data, focused on teacher leader-teacher interactions, using a "justice" and "integrity"-oriented framework.…

Purpose: This article focuses on a specific model of teacher leadership in schools--the studio classroom. In answering the call for more targeted studies of teacher leadership, the study is designed to assist educational leaders in putting in place the organizational and social structures that allow teacher leaders to have the most positive impact…

This two-year study examines an emergent model for promoting classroom change amidst systemic professional development efforts--the hybrid teacher leader (HTL). Utilizing ecological and teacher social network frameworks, the relative strengths and weaknesses of educators who both teach and lead teachers are explored. In-depth qualitative data from…

This article examines teacher leader role development and definition by looking at one emergent model of distributed leadership: the hybrid teacher leader (HTL). HTLs are teachers whose official schedule includes both teaching K-12 students and leading teachers in some capacity. Participants included six HTLs across four school districts over 2…

This study looks closely at the work of five teacher leaders within a grant designed to promote middle- and high school-level content area literacy teaching and learning. Drawing from research on teacher career cycles, teacher compensation, and distributed leadership, the five teacher leaders' motivations, meanings, and approaches to teacher…

This article explores the social and professional dynamics "when teachers face teachers" seeking to impact colleagues' instructional practices to improve student learning. Specifically, it examines a group of 40 teachers leading staff development sessions at their schools in an effort to bring more literacy strategies into the pedagogies of…