Empowered to Lead
Question More, Connect More Deeply, Lead with Purpose
Strand Description
This strand is designed for educators who want to develop their skills as leaders, support colleagues or other adult learners, and effect change in the educational environments where they work. Teaching can be an isolating activity. Through this strand, we will explore ways that participants can spread the innovative pedagogical approaches they have been using by inspiring others, creating networks, and contributing to change at multiple levels outside of the classroom. These levels might include within your grade level team or department, in your school as a whole, with your administration, or maybe in the broader community. We will analyze our work environments and identify appropriate levers for change. We will also explore principles of adult learning so that participants can design personalized action plans to support change in their schools and communities.
Strand Outcomes
The goal is for each participant to build their personal capacity for supporting educational change around instructional technology in their schools and communities. We will use questioning techniques to identify purpose and analyze factors in our work environments that either support or limit change efforts. By exploring strategies for increasing communication and collaboration and building change networks, participants will develop their leadership skills. Each participant will develop personalized goals and an initial action plan for increasing their impact and effecting change in their communities.
Strand Leaders
Rebecca Buchanan | Associate professor, Curriculum and Instructor | University of Maine | Orono, Maine
Rebecca Buchanan (she/her) is an associate professor of Curriculum, Assessment and Instruction, part of the School and Learning and Teaching at the University of Maine College of Education and Human Development. Dr. Buchanan studies teacher learning, broadly defined. She is interested in the intersection of personal identity, professional development, school reform, literacy and language. She employs qualitative methods and discourse analysis to investigate how teachers learn in and across multiple contexts by connecting their own personal and professional pasts with the present.
Jen Bishop | Library Media Specialist | Scarborough Middle School | Scarborough, MAine
Jennifer Bishop (she/her) is a Library Media Specialist at Scarborough Middle School with an unconventional path to the profession — her academic roots are in accounting and economics, but a role as an ed tech in 2008 sparked a passion for school libraries that never faded. She went on to earn her teaching credential and her MLIS from the University of North Texas. Jen is driven by collaboration, curiosity, and the belief that the best learning happens when you’re willing to ask questions, tackle problems creatively, and never stop growing.
