Developing Teacher Confidence Part II – Identifying areas of development

As discussed in a previous newsletter on Building Teacher Confidence and Intrinsic Motivation the first step to building teacher confidence and having them be intrinsically motivated is to support them in rediscovering and articulating their vision as teachers. This reconnects them to their WHY they became teachers in the first place and helps them identify what they actually find rewarding in their teaching. The next step is to develop purposeful action.

In a recent article Justin Baeder in his EduLeadership blog discussed the findings from the Learning in Leadership Study that indicated that what really helps engage people in their work is

1. Being good at their work
2. Getting the opportunity to do work they find rewarding

So if we can support the teacher to become crystal clear about what there is to develop themselves in that will enable them to become much more effective in their work and find it more rewarding then we can not only engage teachers in their work but also build their self-confidence.

Why this makes a profound difference is that a big missing in many schools is a strong mentorship culture that takes graduate teachers (or even non-graduate teachers) and then coherently and consistently develops them to be masterful teachers over the years. It more often than not is an ad hoc process built on a lot of hope.

A simple process that can be done with a teacher is to ask them what areas do they struggle with and would like to develop their capacity in? Some of the areas teachers have identified include:

• Honest conversations with colleagues in potential conflict circumstances
• Confidence to speak up
• Seeing myself as a leader
• Stepping up into a leadership role
• Using digital technology / ICT
• Being more organised
• To have other teachers develop independent learning structures for students and have consistency across the year level
• Not being overwhelmed by the busyness and stress of my teacher responsibilities
• Develop ability to allow the team to take ownership of the initiatives in the department

We would then use the table below top have the teacher unpack what it is like NOW, how they would like it to be in the FUTURE (thus creating a vision for the way they would like it to be), possible CAUSES of the way it is now, and then possible ACTIONS they see they could take to get from the NOW to the FUTURE. What we have found is that this process brings a lot of clarity to teachers coming up with a range of actions to tackle the possible causes of issues rather than be in a deficit mindset about the problem or issues.

Planning

For more information about what we can support you with teacher leadership contact Adrian at adrian@intuyuconsulting.com.au