McCosh Teacher Leadership Project:
"A Community of Learners"

The McCosh Teacher Leadership Project grew out of the Breakfast Club during the third year of the project. Teachers researched professional topics, chosen with guidance from the team's university partner Dr. Toni Potenza, and made in-depth presentations to their colleagues during monthly inservice sessions. After their presentations teachers became in-house resources for other teachers.

"You have created this community of learners," commented Toni. "We're never 100% experts. We're always learning. . . And you're doing this in a community of people you feel comfortable with so if you screw up it's not the end of the world. . . I can't think of a nicer working arrangement than to have that kind of support system in place where you don't have to feel afraid all the time that you don't know every single thing about every single kind of practice. But that you have others that you can learn from. "

Teachers have responded favorably to this method of collaborative staff development as well, citing greater professional self-confidence and stronger collegial bonds as some of the benefits. The Teacher Leadership Project, which is continuing after the end of the CLC Project, was expanded this year to include the creation of hands-on materials.

Click on Topics for a complete list of topics presented during the 1996-97 school year.

Click on Project Assessment for teachers' evaluation of the Teacher Leader project.

Click on Language Arts to return to the Language Arts Page.

Click here to go to the project web pages on developing teachers' leadership capacities

	The McCosh Teacher Leadership Project grew out of the Breakfast Club during the third year of the project. Teachers researched professional topics, chosen with guidance from the team's university partner Dr. Toni Potenza, and made in-depth presentations to their colleagues during monthly inservice sessions. After their presentations teachers became in-house resources for other teachers.
"You have created this community of learners," commented Toni. "We're never 100% experts. We're always learning. . . And you're doing this in a community of people you feel comfortable with so if you screw up it's not the end of the world. . . I can't think of a nicer working arrangement than to have that kind of support system in place where you don't have to feel afraid all the time that you don't know every single thing about every single kind of practice. But that you have others that you can learn from. "
	Teachers have responded favorably to this method of collaborative staff development as well, citing greater professional self-confidence and stronger collegial bonds as some of the benefits. The Teacher Leadership Project, which is continuing after the end of the CLC Project, was expanded this year to include the creation of hands-on materials.
Click on Topics for a complete list of topics presented during the 1996-97 school year. Click on Project Assessment for teachers' evaluation of the Teacher Leader project. Click on Language Arts to return to the Language Arts Page.