Leading for teacher learning

x, 106 leaves ; 28 cm. --Through their own unique learning styles, teachers constantly strive to improve their practice in order to meet the needs of their students as well as the ever increasing and changing demands for which they are responsible. An essential role of a school’s leadership is to actively support this learning to ensure the utmost success on behalf of the teachers and more importantly their students. This project endeavours to answer the following question in attempt to help school leaders better understand, and therefore respond to, the needs of their teachers: In what ways can educational leaders, such as principals and vice or assistant-principals support the professional learning of middle school teachers? In addition it explores teachers’ and leaders’ views on effective activities that are currently being used and those that could be used by educational leaders to most effectively support their individual professional learning. This exploration takes the form of semi-structured interviews with middle school teachers and principals. The results of the interviews are presented in a case-by-case format as well as a general thematic format of emerging trends from the data. These results are then compared to relevant previous research. The conclusion, which strongly advocates for the development of strong, personal relationships between teachers and school leaders, reports a review of the author’s suggested recommendations on how these relationships might be fostered and a summary of her own personal learning experience