Caleb Hatfield
Teacher, Mentor, Leader
Artifact 1: Teacher Leader Interviews
One of the many beneficial projects I worked on during my masters course work was interviewing current teacher leaders at my school, American International School in Egypt. Through these interviews, I was able to learn about best practices from experienced colleagues. Many of the conversations I had revolved communication and collaboration with other teachers. Additionally, several teacher leader discussed the importance of supporting fellow teachers. I was impressed by the level of servitude expressed by each interviewee. It reminded me that teacher leadership must utilize group processes to help colleagues be successful.
Artifact 2: Science Dept. Meetings
While serving as an 8th grade science teacher, I often participated and helped run science department meetings within my school. These meetings were essential in establishing a department wide mission and maintaining our core values. Additionally, we communicated details specific to our grade levels to ensure vertical alignment and transparent transitions from one grade to the next. Through the use of the many skilled teachers in these meetings, we used our collective wisdom of best practices to establish essential knowledge and skills for our students. As a teacher leader, I helped to guide communication between other teachers and record important information for future meetings.
One of the many roles of a teacher leader is to work to establish a school culture that is focused on collaboration as a means to raise student achievement. In my experience, environments that established healthy and professional learning communities were more successful and housed happier students and teachers.