How Instructional Leadership Teams Can Catalyze Effective Practices

(Originally titled “How Teacher Teams Can Transform School Practices”) 

            “The time is ripe for faculty-wide conversations around strengthening instructional practice,” says New York City principal M-J Mercanti-Anthony in Educational Leadership. This is important, he believes, because many teachers are unaware of recent research findings and continue to use outmoded and, in some cases, discredited practices with their students. 

            Mercanti-Anthony lists four reasons why the best thinking on teaching and learning is not being implemented more widely: 

• Teacher and administrator training programs have gaps, especially in cognitive science. 
• Educators’ egos are caught up in their work, and feedback can be taken personally.
• Schools’ egg-crate culture often prevents highly effective practices from being shared.
• Many teachers are wise to the “faux discovery” process: they’re asked to try out a new practice and gather data, only to learn they’re being manipulated into adopting it. 

How can principals address these impediments and foster sincere, productive discussion of best practices? 

            Mercanti-Anthony believes the key is good use of a school’s instructional leadership team (ILT). Members should be recruited based on their capacity and willingness to explore the research, take a fresh look at teaching and learning in the school, and commit to weekly meetings. It must be clear that other groups in the school will deal with discipline policies, the bell schedule, planning school events, and test data, allowing the ILT to be laser-focused on instruction. A step-by-step roll-out of an ILT’s work over time:

• Studying the science of how people learn – Mercanti-Anthony suggests that the ILT spend several months exploring often-untapped research findings, including:
• Retrieval practice;
• Spaced review;
• Interleaving;
• Connecting abstract concepts with concrete examples;
• Building metacognitive skills so students self-monitor and learn from mistakes;
• Asking questions that get students thinking deeply and elaborating. 

During this exploration phase, some ILT members may begin experimenting with new ideas in their classrooms.  

• Choosing one strategy – The ILT organically chooses a strategy to introduce to the faculty – for example, putting retrieval practice to work with the “brain dump” plan. “ILTs should resist the temptation of introducing more than one strategy at a time,” says Mercanti-Anthony. 

• Taking the practice to scale – To get the idea widely adopted, the key is peer-to-peer discussion groups, lesson study teams, and teachers visiting classrooms trying the new practice. 

• Repeating – Once the initial strategy is launched, the ILT chooses another, studies it in depth, and follows the same dissemination strategy. 

            If the ILT follows these steps, says Mercanti-Anthony, colleagues won’t see subsequent ideas as “one more thing.” He sees this as a multi-year process, “providing resources, suggestions, and assistance in keeping the process moving forward.” 

“How Teacher Teams Can Transform School Practices” by M-J Mercanti-Anthony in Educational Leadership, March 2025 (Vol. 82, #6, pp. 28-34)

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1078 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.