What Can You Do with a Master’s Degree in Teacher Leadership?

As a teacher, you have the opportunity to improve the lives of the students in your classroom every day. But what if you could teach the teachers? Or help schools run better and more effectively serve their students? With an M.Ed. Degree in Teacher Leadership, you can hone your God-given talents and make an impact far beyond the threshold of your classroom.

There are many reasons to get a Master’s in Teacher Leadership. You’ll learn to better collaborate with colleagues and take the initiative on administrative tasks that can impact multiple classes, your school, or even the entire school district. A graduate program helps you define yourself as a leader and refine your pedagogy so you can continue to teach students while you lead.

Teacher Leadership Expands Your Career Options

With a Master’s Degree in Teacher Leadership, you can broaden your knowledge and expand your career options. Stay in the classroom and impart your wisdom to your colleagues as a master teacher, teacher mentor, or department head. Work as a student dean or school director. Become a consultant in education. Or take your skills and pave a path in business. There are many opportunities you might explore. Here are just a few:

• Project-Based Learning Coach

Project-based learning is a method to involve students in project-based assignments that allow them to view a topic from a wider perspective and to improve their teamworking and critical thinking skills. As a project-based learning coach, you could design and implement subject-focused projects in classes across your school or district. For example, in a unit on climate change, you might create a project that builds a recycling program for area businesses. Or in an effort to contextualize art, you might have students curate works from a particular era or region.

• Teacher Mentor

As a teacher mentor, you would work with teachers who are new to the profession and offer them advice on how to navigate both the school and classroom, and their individual career path. You could be a sounding board for questions, issues, and concerns, and help them handle professional challenges. You could infuse the theories you learn in your M.Ed. studies with your own career experiences to offer examples and insight. As a mentor, you help other teachers embrace the profession for all that it offers, providing guidance, encouragement, and support.  

• Curriculum Development Specialist

If you enjoy research and have a desire to improve student learning outcomes, you might want to transition into curriculum development. As a specialist, you would use data such as student test scores, graduation rates, and retention rates, to improve your school’s curriculum. You would find new textbooks, innovative technologies, and updated teaching methods that the faculty can use to improve student learning. You would also help teachers revise old materials and implement new activities and assignments that can better engage students.

• Instructional Coach

As an instructional coach, you’re part mentor and part curriculum specialist. Your goal is to help the faculty become better instructors. You research new teaching methods and technologies and show teachers how to implement them in the classroom. Like any good coach, you teach, watch, and guide. You might sit in classes, observe how teachers engage with their students, and offer guidance on how to improve. With your help, teachers can improve their lessons, communicate better with their students, and develop as professionals.

• Department Chair or Team Leader

Your knowledge of teacher leadership could help you become a department chair or a team leader. In this role, you lead a group of teachers based on grade level or subject area. You collaborate with your team to set and meet goals, and to develop new policies and programs. You lead team or department meetings, evaluate the progress made toward your goals, and report back to school administration.

• Educational Policy Analyst

The policies created by administrators often impact entire districts, states, and regions. As an educational policy analyst, you analyze school policies and collaborate with faculty and school administration to develop new policies or improve old ones. You might research differing policies in other schools or school districts, keep up with important topics and issues in education, and collect data from students, parents, and teachers. If your interest in education policy surpasses your interest in teaching, you might transition to a policy role with the school system or school board.

Master of Education (M.Ed.)

M.Ed. - Master of Education Teacher Leadership

The program will provide teachers the opportunity to expand their leadership opportunities and add to their existing credentials. The mission of the Limestone Teacher Leadership M.Ed. is to improve the lives of those we serve by positively impacting the learning outcomes of P-12 students, providing high-quality professional development for educators, and contributing to our profession in our local community, state, region, country, and abroad. The M.Ed. program supports this mission by offering a curriculum that encourages action research and experiential learning.

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