How teacher effectiveness can be improved by transformational leadership

Topic: Teacher Effectiveness and Behavior: Their Relationship and Impact on Student Learning

The purpose of this dissertation topic is to review the efficacy of teacher learning and how it correlates to student performance. Research has shown a large disparity between student outcomes and external factors such as school resources, social-economic status, and racial makeup (Amber, 2012). Many of these factors also impact teacher effectiveness and behavior as they directly impact the learning environment in which the teacher operates in. This further creates a compounding effect as teachers are less like to innovate their curriculum, enhance classroom culture, or to improve operation efficiencies. Although these factors are distinct from teacher efficacy, they all have direct correlation on teacher effectiveness and behavior. As a result, this document will look to review leadership theories that can impact one or more of the factors above, and how these frameworks can ultimately improve student outcomes.

The teaching profession is one of the oldest and most storied careers in human history. Its history can be traced back to 561 B.C. where Confucius is created with being the first private teacher in human history. Since this period, the ancient Greeks adopted many of the confusion principles and used private teachers as a means of educating their children. By the time of the middle ages, much more prolific institutions such as Cambridge University were established. Here, teacher training now became much more mainstream and in certain areas of the world required. The colonials during the time of the nations founded erected laws that required elementary schools to be built for every 50 families in an area and a Latin grammar school to build for every 100 families. The 1800 and 1900’s where the transition towards high schools, increases in teacher training, and increases in teacher pay. By the early 1900’s the teaching system as we know it today, predicated by elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, technical schools, colleges, and universities, were all well established. The primary element during this phase was race, as noted in the introduction. Cases such as Brown v. Board of Education allowed for more equitable treatment of minorities within this education system established over many centuries. Today, teaching is transitioning into online and hybrid technologies requiring teachers to have a much more varied and flexible skills set. Legislation such as “No Child Left Behind” ushered in an era of teacher accountability, standardized testing , and emphasis on basic classroom skills. This brief history of the educational profession is vital as it informs of society on the models and leadership methods will be successful going forward. For one, many of these models must be able to account for the rapid change occurring in the industry overall as it relates to technology and how services are rendered. Likewise, policies must recognize many of the failings of the past and leverage them to promote a better atmosphere for both student and teachers to thrive. For example, historically, women and minorities were often excluded from many of the teaching innovations discussed above. Until the early 1900’s schools were primarily catered towards wealthy white men and excluding many others within the nation. The leadership theories that will be adopted for the future must be flexible enough to accommodates changing industry dynamics that as the history above has shown, are bound to occur. Next, they must look to leverage a multifaceted approach that empowers and inspires students from different racial and economic backgrounds. Finally, as the history above has shown, the leadership theory must afford room to innovate and change as the overall learning environment and regulation changes.

To begin the first leadership theory that will help improve teacher effectiveness and behavior is that of transformational leadership. Transformational leadership uses a deep sense of shared purpose to motivate students and other staff members. This form of leadership can usher in many of the school and administrative changes discussed above. Namely, the need for a much more dynamic learning environment along with teacher accountability. Transformational leadership theory can accomplish this through a concerted effort to help improve teacher and student performance. Research conducted by James Burns recognized that transformational leadership looks to advance both motivation and morale of all stakeholders. As noted in the history section above, the current literature highlights the evolution of the school system and the concerns over the qualifications of principals and teachers to lead and manage schools in the midst of increased demand for accountability and performance (Hasan, 2013). Transformational leadership through research has been shown at very successful at delivering the desired results and performance (Danielle , 2019). It is one of the few leadership theories that can properly acquiesces to the demands of various stakeholders including governments, communities, peers, student’s, and business organizations.

The first element of transformation leadership that improves teacher effectiveness and behavior is that of an enhanced commitment and satisfaction of teachers. Research has shown that teacher commitment and job satisfactions are directly correlated to enhance performance (James, 2008). Here, teachers are much more likely to innovate, work longer hours, and in some instances, take leadership roles as they feel much more empowered in the work environment. Transformational leadership exacerbates these findings as it allows teachers to take more control of the manner in which they teach and relate to students. Research has found that this is particularly powerful for minority students who often feel as though they are underrepresented in the larger society (Jeff, 2015). Racial tensions, lack of peer accountable, broken families, and low socio-economic status often discourage risk taking on the part of minority students, research has shown. Though transformational leadership, teachers can better influence student behavior by adapting lesson plans and the overall learning environment to better suit the needs of all students, irrespective of race (JinPin, 2017). This ultimately enhances outcomes, particularly for minority student’s as they often feel confident in their abilities. They also believe that they have the backing of teachers and staff who have a vested interest in their overall outcome.

As it relates to a direct impact on student performance, research has shown that math and reading scores are heavily improved through transformational leadership. However, the research provides does not provide specifics as to what element within the leadership approach contributed to the positive correlation (Gina, 2008). Here more research remains to be done to identify the specify elements within the transformational leadership process that ultimately helps induce this positive correlation. However, a number of factors have generally been known to increase teacher effectiveness. First as noted above, empowering teachers allows teachers to properly innovate in a manner that benefits their particular classroom setting. In addition, principls and school leadership leverage transformational leadership to properly reward high performing teachers while help to uplift lower performing teachers. This ultimately incentives strong instructor behavior which is in stark contrast to current systems. The current education systems often reward both higher performing and mediocre teachers similarly. In addition, it is difficult to fire lower performing teachers due to the overall power to teacher unions. What occurs is a flight of quality as more high preforming teachers leave the profession as they are not appreciated or compensated adequately, their peers are receiving the same benefits for lower performance, and the teaching environment is not worth the effort many of these teachers are giving. Currently, many states in the union are experiencing teacher shortages as many highly qualified teachers simply leave for more fruitful endeavors (Michael, 2013).