PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - MARGOLIS, JASON
TI  - The Semiformality of Teacher Leadership on the Edge of Chaos
AID  - 10.17763/1943-5045-90.3.397
DP  - 2020 Sep 21
TA  - Harvard Educational Review
PG  - 397--418
VI  - 90
IP  - 3
4099  - http://harvardeducationalreview.org/content/90/3/397.short
4100  - http://harvardeducationalreview.org/content/90/3/397.full
SO  - herp2020 Sep 21; 90
AB  - In this article, Jason Margolis draws from complexity theory to explore the twenty-year negotiation between formal and informal teacher leadership in research and practice, making the case that there has been a drift toward a conception of semiformal teacher leadership in the field. Through both theory and examples, he illustrates how semiformal teacher leadership has the potential to afford school systems and educators both information and processors of information they likely would not otherwise have. Teacher leaders, in roles that are neither inflexible or ill-defined, can carve out intentional spaces on the edge of chaos to promote professional learning and communication in ways that solely school teachers or solely school leaders may not. In these spaces, productive complexity, agency, and systemic learning can coevolve.