Abstract:

The Learning and Innovation Networked Communities (LINC) is a tripartite partnership between the Emirates Schools Establishment (ESE), the Emirates College for Advanced Education (ECAE), and its Continuing Education Center (CEC) with the objective of transforming United Arab Emirates (UAE) schools into centers of excellence in the preparation of teachers and students as cohorts of future-ready agents of change. The LINC initiative focuses on preparing teachers and students through a teacher leadership framework. Promoting and scaling up pedagogic innovations to strengthen teaching and learning are the essence and the center of teacher leadership. Teacher leaders design innovative approaches of reflective practice and inquiry, work alongside their colleagues to support student achievement, bring about shifts in both their own and other teachers’ classroom practices, all within the professional-learning communities (PLC) contexts. Through time-stamped explicit research and development approach, the LINC program is investigating the extent to which UAE teachers and systems leaders such as cluster managers develop policies, systems and cultures across networks and clusters of schools and are able to support teacher learning and spread good practice.

A group of 10 college faculty worked with over 13 schools and more than 300 teachers across Abu Dhabi districts the past two years. They offered 11-week Action Research (AR) workshop sessions in the form of modules on Virtual lab inquiry-based science learning, Collaborative Teacher Leadership Inquiry, Special and Inclusion Education, Using AI as a Teaching Assistant, Mathematical Problem-Solving Competitions, and Lesson Study. Through focus groups, interviews, and questionnaires, preliminary results indicate that among the most beneficial outcomes mostly mentioned by participants, was teacher-to-teacher interactions and collaborations. Having the opportunity to collaborate with teachers from within a school and teachers from other schools was found to be a strong motivating factor for respondents. Other outcomes included critical friendship, classroom management and student attendance, increased student engagement, college faculty transformation, development of teacher’s self-efficacy, growth mindset, and improved teacher questioning among others. Moreover, responses (n=75) to most recent survey showed that 76% of participants (mean = 5.50, std=0.71) feel highly confident in implementing effective educational practices in their classrooms or in the school environment, while 73% (mean = 5.44, std=0.75) feel that participation in the LINC PD programs have influenced their educational practices and strategies. Overall, more than 76% of participants strongly believe that the partnership with the college through the LINC initiative have positively contributed to their professional growth. There were also challenges such as finding time and scheduling, teachers’ regular attendance especially at the beginning, voluntary vs mandatory participation and data collection for research and evaluation. However, with an IRB-approved research application, an increasing buy-in from teachers and school leadership as evidenced by close to 120 attending a “writing retreat” event, and the multiple professional development requests LINC has received so far for next year, LINC is poised to set the stage to make teacher leadership a central pillar for teaching and learning in the UAE.

Keywords:

Teacher Leadership, Professional development, Teacher Training.