The perceived ideal qualities of secondary school mathematics leaders
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30862/jhm.v5i1.249Keywords:
Leadership Traits, Mathematics Teacher Leaders, Teacher LeadershipAbstract
Effective school leadership is critical for school success. Teachers as leaders have extraordinary influences not only in their classrooms but also in the general school framework. The aspect of teacher leadership provides self-knowledge and the courage to act on that knowledge. However, there is no consensus on what defines teacher leaders and the specific qualities that characterise them. In this study, the insights of twelve conveniently sampled graduate teacher candidates in one of the teacher training institutions in Brunei Darussalam were explored. They were asked to describe the ideal leadership qualities that a secondary school mathematics teacher leader should possess. There were many variations in their responses. However, the overarching finding was that mathematics teacher leaders should have ideal qualities that make them functional within and outside of the classroom. Key attributes such as effective classroom management, content and pedagogical knowledge, effective communication and problem-solving skills, and the ability to contribute to maintaining a healthy school-community partnership were mentioned. This study concluded that in defining teacher leadership, it is essential to define the concept based on teachers’ ability to influence others to achieve set goals within and outside of the classroom.References
Allen, M. (2017). The SAGE encyclopedia of communication research methods (Vols. 1-4). Sage. https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483381411.n608
Almansour, Y. M. (2012). The relationship between leadership styles and motivation of managers: Conceptual framework. Journal of Arts, Science and Commerce, 3(1), 161-166. Available at https://silo.tips/download/the-relationship-between-leadership-styles-and-motivation-of-managers-conceptual
Amalu, M. N., & Njoku, J. N. (2018). Mathematics teachers’ leadership styles and learning motivation among secondary school students in Cross River State, Nigeria. British Journal of Education, 6(8), 26-36. Available at https://www.eajournals.org/journals/british-journal-of-education-bje/vol-6-issue-8-august-2018/mathematics-teachers-leadership-styles-and-learning-motivation-among-secondary-school-students-in-cross-river-state-nigeria/
Asamoah, D., Shahrill, M., & Abdul Latif, S. (2022). A review of formative assessment techniques in higher education during COVID-19. The Qualitative Report, 27(2), 475-487. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2022.5145
Bass, B. M. (1997). Does the transactional–transformational leadership paradigm transcend organisational and national boundaries? American Psychologist, 52(2), 130-139. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.52.2.130
Bolkan, S., Goodboy, A. K., & Griffin, D. (2011). Teacher leadership and intellectual stimulation; improving students’ to studying through intrinsic motivation. Communication Research Report, 28(4), 337-346. https://doi.org/10.1080/08824096.2011.615958
Braseth, E. A. (2021). Principals’ leadership of mathematics teachers’ professional development. Frontiers in Education, 6, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.697231
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2012). Thematic analysis. In H. Cooper, P. M. Camic, D. L. Long, A. T. Panter, D. Rindskopf, & K. J. Sher (Eds.), APA handbook of research methods in psychology, Research designs: Quantitative, qualitative, neuropsychological, and biological (Volume 2, pp. 57-71). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/13620-004
Burkett, M. C. (2011). Relationship among teacher leader style and efficacy of classroom management. Unpublished Doctoral Thesis. The University of Southern Mississippi. Available at http://aquila.usm.edu/dissertation/413 on the 8/10/2017
Burns, J. M. G. (1978). Leadership (6th ed.). Harper & Row.
Callingham, R., Beswick, K., Carmichael, C., Geiger, V., Goos, M., Hurrell, D., Hurst, C., & Muir, T., (2017). Nothing left to chance. Characteristics of schools successful in mathematics: Report of the Building an Evidence Base for Best Practice in Mathematics Education Project. University of Tasmania, Hobart. Available at http://ecite.utas.edu.au/137076
Cherry, K. (2014). Lewin’s leadership style. Available at http://psychology.about.com/od/leadership/a/leadstyles.htm
Creswell, J. (2009). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (3rd ed.). Sage.
Criswell, B. A., Rushton, G. T., Nachtigall, D., Staggs, S., Alemdar, M., & Capelli, C. (2018). Strengthening the vision: Examining the understanding of a framework for teacher leadership development by experienced science teachers. Science Education, 102, 1265-1287. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21472
Danielson, C. (2006). Teacher leadership that strengthens professional practice. ASCD.
Darling-Hammond, L., & McLaughlin, M. W. (1995). Policies that support professional development in an era of reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 92(6), 81-92. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172171109200622
Ekpiken, W. E. (2016). Leadership in an organisation; Education Perspectives. In J. E. Okon, A. Akuegwu & E. S. Uko (Eds.), Emerging issues in educational planning and supervision (pp. 332-350). University of Calabar Press.
Harrison, C., & Killion, J. (2007). Ten roles for teacher Leaders. Educational Leadership, 65(1), 74-77. Available at https://pdo.ascd.org/LMSCourses/PD13OC010M/media/Leading_Prof_Learning_M2_Reading1.pdf
Hill, H. C., Ball, D. L., & Schilling, S. G. (2008). Unpacking pedagogical content knowledge: Conceptualising and measuring teachers’ topic-specific knowledge of students. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 39(4), 372-400. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40539304
Hiller, N. J., DeChurch, L. A., Murase, T., & Doty, D. (2011). Searching for outcomes of leadership: A 25-Year Review. Journal of Management, 37(4), 1137-1177. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206310393520
Hite, R., & Milbourne, J. (2018). A proposed conceptual framework for k–12 stem master teacher (stemmate) development. Education Sciences, 8(4), 1-25. Available at https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1201500.pdf
Ismail, S. F. Z. H., Shahrill, M., & Mundia, L. (2015). Factors contributing to effective mathematics teaching in secondary schools in Brunei Darussalam. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 186, 474-481. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.04.169
Jääskelä, P., Häkkinen, P., & Rasku-Puttonen, H. (2017). Teacher beliefs regarding learning, pedagogy, and the use of technology in higher education. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 49(3-4), 198-211. https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2017.1343691
Jaidin, J. H., Shahrill, M., & Jawawi, R. (2015). Institut Pendidikan Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah (IPSHB): ‘Nurturing our legacy’ Memupuk Warisan Kitani. In B. Tengah & N. R. Mokhtar (Eds.), Tradisi dan Reformasi Pendidikan–Merista Jasa Sultan Omar’ Ali Saifuddien Sa’adul Khairi Waddien sempena 100 Years (1914-2014) Formal Education, Brunei Darussalam (pp. 271-279). Akademi Pengajian Brunei Universiti Brunei Darussalam and Yayasan Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah.
Kani, N. H. A., Nor, H. N. H. M., Shahrill, M., & Halim, R. H. A. (2014). Investigating the leadership practices among mathematics teachers: The immersion programme. International Journal of Contemporary Educational Research, 1(2), 113-121. Available at http://ijcer.net/tr/pub/issue/16049/167827
Lin, W., Lee, M., & Riordan, G. (2018). The role of teacher leadership in professional learning community (PLC) in international baccalaureate (IB) schools: A social network approach. Peabody Journal of Education, 93(5), 534-550. https://doi.org/10.1080/0161956X.2018.1515833
Morsidi, N. M. H., Sian, K. J., Shahrill, M., & Abdullah, N. A. (2015). Cultivating leadership into secondary mathematics classrooms: Putting belief into practice. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 186, 248–256. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.04.166
Muijs, D., & Harris, A. (2007). Teacher leadership in (in) action: Three case studies of contrasting schools. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 35(1), 111-134. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741143207071387
National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics [NCSM] (2019). NCSM essential actions: Framework for leadership in mathematics education. NCSM. Available at https://www.mathedleadership.org/docs/resources/essentials/EssentialActions-ExecSummary.pdf
Neumerski, C. M. (2013). Rethinking instructional leadership, a review: What do we know about principal, teacher, and coach instructional leadership, and where should we go from here? Educational Administration Quarterly, 49(2), 310-347. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161X12456700
Ngambi, H. C. (2011). RARE total leadership: Leading with the head, heart and hands. Juta and Company Ltd.
Obiwuru, T. C., Okwu, A. T., Akpa, V. O., & Nwankwere, I. A (2011). Effects of leadership style on organisational performance. Australian Journal of Business and Management Research, 1(7), 100-111. Available at http://www.ajbmr.com/articlepdf/ajbmr_17_16i1n7a11.pdf
Okon, J. E. (2016). Transformational leadership in education: Background issues and emerging realities. In J. E. Okon, A. Akuegwu, & E. S. Uko (Eds.), Emerging issues in educational planning and supervision (pp. 332-350). University of Calabar Press.
Schott, C., van Roekel, H., & Tummers, L. G. (2020). Teacher leadership: A systematic review, methodological quality assessment and conceptual framework. Educational Research Review, 31(June), 100352. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2020.100352
Shahrill, M. (2014). Exploring educational administration: The relationship between leadership and management. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 4(1), 525-539. https://doi.org/10.6007/IJARBSS/v4-i1/557
Shahrill, M., Jaidin, J. H., Salleh, S. M., & Jawawi, R. (2014). Realising teacher quality at the M-Level. In Official Conference Proceedings of the European Conference on Education 2014, Brighton, United Kingdom (pp. 323-338). The International Academic Forum (IAFOR) 2014 Nagoya, Japan. Available at http://papers.iafor.org/wp-content/uploads/papers/ece2014/ECE2014_02828.pdf
Shahrill, M., Noorashid, N., & Keasberry, C. (2021). COVID-19: Educational Practices and Responses in Brunei Darussalam. In Globalisation, Education, and Reform in Brunei Darussalam (pp. 325-354). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77119-5_16
Sherin, M. G. (2002). A balancing act: Developing a discourse community in a mathematics classroom. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 5(3), 205-233. Available at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1020134209073
Shimabukuro, V. (1993). Profile of an ideal Catholic school teacher: Content analysis of Roman and American documents, 1965 to 1990. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. University of San Francisco, United States.
Smith, P. S., Hayes, M. L., & Lyons, K. M. (2017). The ecology of instructional teacher leadership. The Journal of Mathematical Behavior, 46, 267-288. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmathb.2016.12.005
Stronge, J. H. (2002). Qualities of effective teachers. ASCD.
Stronge, J. H. (2007). Qualities of effective teachers (2nd ed.). ASCD.
Tsakeni, M., & Jita, L. (2017). Followership and sustainability of school leadership for Science and Mathematics: A distributive perspective. Journal of Education (University of KwaZulu-Natal), 69, 237-256. Available at http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2520-98682017000200011
Tsang, V. H. M., Finti, H. N. F. M. M., & Shahrill, M. (2014). The leadership styles of secondary mathematics teachers in Brunei Darussalam. In F. Uslu (Ed.), Abstracts and Proceedings of the International Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities (pp. 923-931). Istanbul, Turkey: International Organization Center of Academic Research, OCERINT. https://doi.org/10.13140/2.1.1122.4322
Vale, C., Davies, A., Weaven, M., Hooley, N., Davidson, K., & Loton, D. (2010). Leadership to improve mathematics outcomes in low SES schools and school networks. Mathematics Teacher Education and Development, 12(2), 47-71. Available at https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ940921.pdf
Wachira, P., Pourdavood, R. G., & Skitzki, R. (2013). Mathematics teacher’s role in promoting classroom discourse. International Journal for Mathematics Teaching and Learning, 13(1), 1-38. Available at https://www.cimt.org.uk/journal/wachira.pdf
Ware, C. (2010). Teacher perceptions of leadership style: An analysis of age and gender. Unpublished Doctoral Thesis. University of South Carolina, Columbia, United States. Available at https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/433/
Wenner, J., & Campbell, T. (2017). The theoretical and empirical basis of teacher leadership: A review of the literature. Review of Educational Research, 8(7), 134-171. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654316653478
York-Barr, J., & Duke, K. (2004). What do we know about teacher leadership? Findings from two decades of scholarship. Review of Educational Research, 74, 255-316. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543074003255
Yow, J. A. (2013). Leadership from within secondary mathematics classrooms: Vignettes along a teacher-leader continuum. Journal of Mathematics Education at Teachers College, 4(1), 61-66. Available at https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/jmetc/article/view/777
Yukl, G. (1998). Leadership in organisations (4th ed.). Prentice-Hall.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
License and Copyright Agreement
In submitting the manuscript to the journal, the authors certify that:
- They are authorized by their co-authors to enter into these arrangements.
- The work described has not been formally published before, except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture, review, thesis, or overlay journal. Please also carefully read Journal of Honai Math Posting Your Article Policy at http://journalfkipunipa.org/index.php/jhm/about
- That it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere,
- That its publication has been approved by all the author(s) and by the responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – of the institutes where the work has been carried out.
- They secure the right to reproduce any material that has already been published or copyrighted elsewhere.
- They agree to the following license and copyright agreement.
Copyright
Authors who publish with Journal of Honai Math agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.
