A Multi-Tiered Professional Learning Approach to Build Middle Leaders' Capacities to Lead During Times of Crisis and Beyond

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic created a need to transform the content and delivery of professional learning for middle leaders. This chapter discusses an innovative multi-tiered professional learning approach to build middle leaders' capacity to lead during times of crisis and beyond. It explores how the approach works and its impact on middle leaders. Data were collected via online surveys and feedback from live interactive professional learning sessions. The chapter proposes the approach as a model to build collective middle leadership capacity to lead in times of crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as for and in emergencies. The findings from data collected show that the multimodal platforms, such as social media lives, websites, webinars, YouTube, and Zoom that were used to deliver professional learning, fostered collaboration, knowledge, and skill acquisition and built and improved the well-being of middle leaders. Additionally, the multi-tiered professional learning approach built a global professional learning community of middle leaders.