In an era of educational transformation, teacher leaders play a pivotal role in facilitating systemic change within schools. This dissertation presents a single-case action research study investigating the support structures provided by a Team Lead Communities of Practice (TL CoP) to nurture teacher leaders. The primary aim of this research is to explore the effectiveness of the TL CoP in supporting teacher leaders at one school site. Utilizing qualitative data from interviews, participant journals, researcher memos, and agendas, this study captures the perspectives of team leads of interdisciplinary teams. The findings emphasize the need for flexible support systems tailored to the unique challenges teacher leaders face. Offering teacher leaders agency in their learning is paramount to their success. Additionally, structured time for collaboration and problem-solving within the TL CoP is crucial. One significant revelation is the importance of role clarity. Team leads need a clear understanding of their responsibilities to effectively lead teams and drive systemic change. This research contributes to the literature on educational leadership by highlighting the vital role of teacher leaders and the potential of TL CoPs in supporting their development. It advocates for the creation of such communities as a promising strategy to empower teacher leaders, providing them with essential support, dedicated collaboration time, and role clarity. As schools evolve to meet the demands of the 21st century, the insights from this study offer guidance for educational stakeholders seeking to cultivate a culture of leadership and foster systemic change through teacher leadership.

As students gain access to personally-owned Mobile Communication Devices (MCDs), schools have begun to embrace MCDs as mobile-learning (m-learning) teaching and learning tools. A research gap currently exists for the innovation of m-learning with student-owned devices, which this study attempts to fill by answering the following Research Question: What are the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Levels of Use of teachers at a high-performing, high SES suburban high school? To answer this question, I answered 5 sub questions: (1) What instructional decisions did BYOD user-level teachers make with regards to m-learning? (2) How did teachers collaborate on BYOD with colleagues during implementation? (3) How did teachers participate in voluntary professional development for BYOD and m-learning? (4) Was there a difference in Levels of Use between early career and veteran teachers? (5) What barriers to successful implementation did teachers at this school report? To answer these questions, I conducted a Levels of Use interview with 2-3 teachers from each academic department (n=28), at a school that was in its third year of BYOD implementation, as well as observed 18 of the teachers during instruction. I triangulated data from a first and second interview with observation data, and analyzed these data sets to profile the different Levels of Use among the teachers, and present recommendations for research and practice. I rated all participants between Level 0: non-use and Level IVB: refinement; no teachers in this study were above Level IVB. The findings indicate that teachers made instructional decisions based on their Level of Use, and although they did not participate in ongoing professional development specific to BYOD, they did work with others based on their Level of Use. Few teachers participated in voluntary professional development, and cited time as a factor. This study also finds that personal experience with technology and lesson planning for student-centered learning is a greater indicator of successful BYOD implementation than age or teaching experience. Finally, the most commonly reported barriers to successful implementation of BYOD were time, equity/access, and student behavior.

This study was designed to capture the conversations and practices of seven educators who navigate teaching and learning decisions in their Title 1 elementary school. This case study was conducted to answer the research question, "What are the behaviors and practices of a newly formed collaborative team of educators working within a professional learning community (PLC)?" In order to understand how this collaborative team worked together, data was collected through a survey, interviews, focus group discussion and questionnaire, observations of collaborative team meetings and artifacts generated from the team's work. The findings revealed that (1) participants spent the majority of their collaborative team time focusing on how to best prepare students for district and state standardized assessments; (2) teachers described themselves as learners who look to their colleagues to enhance their knowledge and skills; (3) members of PLCs need dedicated collaborative time to ensure all students and adults in the organization learn at high levels; (4) discussing and using student learning data can be difficult; (5) educators gravitate to colleagues who have similar philosophies and beliefs and (6) PLCs need supportive district, school and teacher leadership to accomplish their goals. This research study provides validation that the PLC process is a complex process of professional development designed to support school reform in an era of increased school accountability. The recommendations for school leaders are to create supportive leadership structures that allow all students opportunities to learn, build trusting environments, and provide clarity and focus of the vision for all stakeholders. District leadership needs to establish a priority for PLC work by embedding the processes in the vision, mission and goals of the district, examine policies to ensure they support the concepts of PLCs, provide access to resources and create a forum for critical conversations about teaching and learning. Policy makers need to ask the right questions so that they can design appropriate accountability systems that encourage collaboration.