Teacher leadership for professional learning: a case study of a master teacher studio in Zhejiang Province, China

Promoting teacher professional learning by empowering established master teachers as leaders is a priority in many societies, including America, Australia, and Canada. Yet, few systems have implemented strategies that allow this to happen at scale. China is one of the few societies that engage master teachers in spreading learning. They do this through several initiatives, one of which is through Master Teacher Studios (MTSs). This article investigates how teacher leadership is enacted in an MTS and how the studio leader nurtures teacher learning across schools. Teacher leadership is widely touted as powerful means for improving teacher professional learning within and beyond schools. However, relatively few empirical studies have examined how teacher leaders promote teacher professional learning, especially in China. This paper uses one provincial-level MTS in Zhejiang province, an economically and educationally advanced region in China, to explore the leadership practices of the MTS host, a master teacher in promoting the MTS members' professional learning. The paper identifies three major leadership strategies adopted by the host of MTS: acting as a conduit between local government and studio members, yanchuan shenjiao ('mentoring in words and demonstrating in deeds'), and providing studio members with intellectual, social, and emotional supports.