ABSTRACT
Professional development schools (PDSs) engaged in rethinking curriculum, teaching, and learning create leadership roles for teachers as they redefine teaching from a formulaic exercise in which teachers implement curriculum designed by others to a creative act that is responsive to students’ experiences, talents, and needs. The focus of PDS work on reconceptualizing teaching and learning creates new forms of teacher leadership linked to new forms of teacher learning. Learning by teaching, learning by doing, and learning by collaborating occur within both the teaching teams and the student groups. The chapter highlights teacher leadership roles that have materialized in highly-developed PDSs where teachers serve as mentors and teacher educators, curriculum developers and decision makers, problem solvers and change agents, and researchers engaged in knowledge-building. As teachers become mentors and teacher educators, as they assume greater responsibility for the collective profession, they become more comfortable with the notion that seeking and leading collective improvements in practice are aspects of a professional role.
