Leadership for Professional Learning: Perspectives, Constructs and Connections

This book brings together a collection of inquiries into the connections between educational leadership, understood as an activity that can be performed by both educators and students, and professional learning, understood as an activity undertaken by educators to improve teaching and learning within educational settings. The book is framed by two reviews of the academic literature, which together provide a broad overview of the published literature as well as a more targeted look at where this work intersects with issues of educational equity. The remaining chapters, which include both conceptual and empirical pieces, explore leadership for professional learning from multiple vantage points, including student leadership, teacher leadership, senior leadership, and shared leadership across roles. Collectively the chapters contribute to challenging the commonly accepted notion that the exercise of leadership is the sole purview of those in positions of status, and honoring the complexity of interactions among students, teachers, and senior leaders that influence teaching and learning outcomes. In so doing they inform both future practice and research.

All but one of the chapters in this book were originally published in the journal, Professional Development in Education.

Sue Swaffield is Associate Professor at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education, UK. She co-founded the Leadership for Learning Cambridge network in 2001. Her university teaching and research in the fields of educational leadership, school improvement and assessment for learning build on two decades teaching and advising in state schools.

Phil Poekert is Director of the University of Florida Lastinger Center for Learning, USA. Beginning his career in the classrooms of New York, California, and Florida, Phil has led efforts in practice, policy, and research to improve student success against three critical milestones―kindergarten readiness, third grade reading, and algebra―at scale.