The Fellowship is designed using an evidence-based model to broaden and transform leadership within schools while directly addressing each school’s challenges. School leadership teams, comprised of the principal and teacher-leaders, meet throughout the school year based on their schedules and for a summer institute to work with MSU K-12 Outreach to learn practical strategies and approaches for:
- Leading turnaround and addressing low achievement in their schools with the goal of improving student achievement;
- Fostering excellence and leadership within their own teaching staffs;
- Improving daily classroom instruction and collaboration.
Since 2007, more than 1,600 teachers and principals from across Michigan have participated in the Fellowship of Instructional Leaders program. The Fellowship experience increases the capacity of principals and instructional leaders to improve all aspects of the instructional core – content being taught, the knowledge and skills of teachers, and student engagement.
The instructional core is part of MSU’s framework of instructional program coherence shown by research to be a primary characteristic of schools with significant and sustained student achievement.
The Fellowship of Instructional Leaders draws upon the extensive resources of the MSU College of Education, including faculty with state, national, and international expertise. These faculty specialize in urban education, leadership development, teacher quality and effective instruction, literacy and mathematics instruction, special education and inclusion, educational technology, curriculum alignment, assessment and data analysis, comprehensive school reform, and student and family support. Two independent research evaluations demonstrate that the Fellowship increases the capacity of school leadership teams to transform their own schools.