scholarly journals The middlescence principal : professional growth in times of increased accountability

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Charlotte M. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Career Development ◽  
School Improvement ◽  
Student Performance ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Professional Growth ◽  
School Administrators ◽  
Implementation Process ◽  
School Level ◽  
Negative Effects

Middlescence is a term coined for a professional in mid-career and how this can be "a time of burnout or rejuvenation" (Morison, Erickson, and Dychtwald, 2007, p. 1). This qualitative narrative case study explores the lived experiences and perceptions of a highschool principal in mid-career and the challenges that he, as do other public school administrators, face when confronted with increased accountability and student performance demands across the country. Effective school research, leadership and career development provide a theoretical foundation for this study. Although the study examines the participant's entire professional experiences, much emphasis has been placed on his mid-career period and the school's improvement implementation process. Specific focus identifies the signs of burnout and his desire and need for rejuvenation. The story of one identified principal is studied to understand what lead to burnout and the strategies that supported his growth and rejuvenation. In relation to middlescence, in-depth unstructured interviews allow for an understanding of the lived experiences of this principal and how it relates to career development and professional growth. The principal selected in this study had a historical career change in principal positions every three years during the first part of his career in school administration. What we know about principal retention suggests that school leaders are crucial to the school improvement process and that they must stay in a school a number of consecutive years for the benefits of their leadership to be realized. In addition, emerging research and theory has found that "Principal turnover has direct negative effects on student- and school-level achievement, and that the strongest impact appears immediately after turnover occurs" (Bteille, Kalogrides, Loeb, 2011). The leader in this rural Missouri school found himself on a trajectory of burnout and feeling the need for rejuvenation. Through this narrative study, the principal, in middlescence, was found to be transformed. Now in his 8th year at the same school, he attributes his stability to the leadership within the district and the professional coaching and informal mentoring that occurred. Critical conversations were held that instilled a sense of urgency to improve. In addition, he participated in the Missouri Professional Learning Communities project. Along with his leadership team, the school implemented this model with fidelity and was recognized within the state for deep implementation. Throughout this process, the participant created a network of support and trusted colleagues that continue his professional learning. The major finding from this study found the importance of relevant training, consistent coaching, and the mentor relationship, all of equal importance, for the success and growth of the middlescent principal. This research study can be used by other school administrators, district leaders, and preparation institutions to better support administrators in mid-career. Recognition of the signs of burnout will also trigger the guidance necessary to focus the principals toward rejuvenation. Keeping our quality leaders in our schools is important to the continued success in school.

scholarly journals Leadership Styles of Principals and Teachers of Nigerian Unity Schools: Using School Environment as a Tool For School Achievement

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 98
Author(s):  
Khalil Yusuf Uthman ◽  
Yahya Bn Don ◽  
Abd Latif Kasim
Keyword(s):  
Transformational Leadership ◽  
School Improvement ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
School Environment ◽  
School Achievement ◽  
School Level ◽  
Learning Collaborative ◽  
The North ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Teachers And Students

Collaborative, non-traditional leadership practices have attracted little attention in research about sustainable school achievement in Nigerian unity schools.  The involvement of teachers in the administration of schools is well justified and arise from the need to boost school environment for the sake of attaining school achievement. The absence of teachers in the administration of unity schools impedes the proper attainment of school achievement. The purpose of this research is to reports on the outcomes of transformational leadership efforts in Nigerian unity schools aimed at enhancing the use of teachers in the administrative set-up.  This study was carried out in seven selected unity schools all located in the north-eastern part of Nigeria. The study used  Multifactor questionnaire 5x, School level environment questionnaire (SLEQ) and School Improvement questionnaire (SIQ) with 5 Likert-scale that involved the use of 800 questionnaires which were sent in which 790 were returned and 760 found valid for data analysis. Participants were drawn from a wide range of disciplines across the sampled schools. The establishment and operation of these school relied on a transformational leadership methodology by principals that facilitates acts of initiative, innovation, vision and courage through group interaction rather than through designated hierarchical roles. This research used the quantitative approach.  The study found out that transformational leadership approach is effective in overcoming problems associated with lack of involvement of teachers in the building of a fruitful environment capable of bringing a good school achievement through cultivating the habit of a transformational leader, the principals of unity schools enabled teachers and other stake holders to engage in peer-led professional learning, collaborative curriculum and pedagogical development, and to facilitate wider institutional change (school achievement). This paper demonstrates that the transformational leadership model for a high school achievement reported here is effective in building capacity for both teachers and students via involvement of teachers in building the environment. The model is flexible enough for a variety of institutional settings, and hence, recommends the use of teachers in secondary school’s administration.

scholarly journals Leadershipstile im Kontext von Schulentwicklungsprozessen

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franz Hofmann ◽  
Matteo Carmignola
Keyword(s):  
School Improvement ◽  
Leadership Styles ◽  
Leadership Style ◽  
School Administrators ◽  
Educational Quality ◽  
School Level ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Discussion Section ◽  
Leadership Model

AbstractThe focus on educational quality on the single school-level and the aim for ongoing school-improvement direct the attention to investigating the quality of leadership of school administrators. However, despite a large number of educational leadership models, some do not provide a sound theoretical framework, as they confound domains and tasks with the leadership style or identify leadership styles that are based on inconsistent assumptions of motivational psychology. In this paper, a leadership model for the specific context of leading school improvement processes is designed using a functional approach, which is based on the theory of personality systems interactions (PSI). We identified four styles of leadership enactment: the (1) visionary-enthusiastic, the (2) (latent) anxious-goal-fixated, the (3) passive-avoidant, and the (4) self-directed style. The newly developed instrument was validated for a sample of n = 901 teachers and k = 75 principals. In the discussion section, particular attention is paid to the self-directed style, for which favorable effects can be postulated both in the change management of school improvement processes and in regard to the motivational experience of teachers.

scholarly journals The Australian Context: National, State and School-Level Efforts to Improve Schools in Australia

2021 ◽  
pp. 133-157
Author(s):  
David Gurr ◽  
Daniela Acquaro ◽  
Lawrie Drysdale
Keyword(s):  
School Improvement ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Clinical Teaching ◽  
State Level ◽  
School Level ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Literacy Leaders ◽  
Student Reading ◽  
History Of ◽  
Learning Schools

AbstractAustralia, like many countries, has a history of colonisation and extensive controlled and humanitarian immigration, with this shifting from an Anglo-Celtic emphasis to include, in succession, an emphasis on migrants from Europe, Asia and Africa. This chapter provides several perspectives on evidence-based school development in this changing context. The first focus is on national school-wide improvement initiatives: IDEAS (Innovative Designs for Enhancing Achievements in Schools), which utilises professional learning communities to improve student outcomes; and PALL (Principals as Literacy Leaders) which provides principals with literacy and leadership knowledge to support teachers to improve student reading performance. The second perspective explores the state level through considering work at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education in terms of evidence-based teacher training through the development of a clinical teaching model, and evidence-based school improvement through the Science of Learning Schools Partnership. The final perspective is at the school level, where the development of two schools in challenging contexts are described: the first a school formed from the closure of three failing schools; the second a school that was at the point of closure when the current principal was appointed to turn-it-around.

scholarly journals Fostering Professional Learning through Relational Teacher Development: Reconceptualizing the Delivery of Professional Development

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Kitchen
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
School Improvement ◽  
Teacher Development ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Professional Growth ◽  
School Teacher ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Professional Renewal ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
Journal Entries

This article explores the importance of relationship in professional development and professional learning. The four-year relationship between the author and an experienced elementary school teacher is examined. Central to the research puzzle is how the relational stance adopted by the author contributed to the dramatic professional renewal of the teacher. Field notes and journal entries are primary sources of data for this narrative inquiry. Relational teacher development, seven learnings identified as contributing to their shared professional growth, is used as a framework for analysis of the data and is then interpreted in relation to continuing professional learning and school improvement.

scholarly journals The Essential Three (e3): A University Partnership to Meet the Professional Learning Needs of Rural Schools

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Ohlson ◽  
Jerry Johnson ◽  
Shane Shope ◽  
Jennifer Rivera
Keyword(s):  
Professional Learning ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
School Administrators ◽  
Implementation Process ◽  
Rural School ◽  
National Standards ◽  
Learning Needs ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
Instructional Frameworks

The Essential Three (e3) is a professional learning series that focuses on supporting rural school districts and school leaders as they engage in the important work of prioritizing and determining areas of instructional focus. As educators transition to new rigorous state and national standards and face the challenges of learning newly adopted instructional frameworks/evaluation tools, the e3 training has offered educators much needed guidance and support within high-needs, rural districts in Florida. As the result of a partnership between the North-East Florida Educational Consortium (NEFEC) and the University of North Florida, teacher leaders and school administrators have now implemented a streamlined process to increase rigor, collaboration, and student engagement within the learning environment. This work details the comprehensive implementation process, as well as various promising practices for educators and rural school leaders to impact policies and instructional practice.

Light touch, heavy hand: principals and data-use PLCs

2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 376-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Huguet ◽  
Caitlin C. Farrell ◽  
Julie A. Marsh
Keyword(s):  
Professional Learning ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Equal Opportunity ◽  
Data Use ◽  
Opportunity To Learn ◽  
School Level ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Principal's Role

Purpose The use of data for instructional improvement is prevalent in today’s educational landscape, yet policies calling for data use may result in significant variation at the school level. The purpose of this paper is to focus on tools and routines as mechanisms of principal influence on data-use professional learning communities (PLCs). Design/methodology/approach Data were collected through a comparative case study of two low-income, low-performing schools in one district. The data set included interview and focus group transcripts, observation field notes and documents, and was iteratively coded. Findings The two principals in the study employed tools and routines differently to influence ways that teachers interacted with data in their PLCs. Teachers who were given leeway to co-construct data-use tools found them to be more beneficial to their work. Findings also suggest that teachers’ data use may benefit from more flexibility in their day-to-day PLC routines. Research limitations/implications Closer examination of how tools are designed and time is spent in data-use PLCs may help the authors further understand the influence of the principal’s role. Originality/value Previous research has demonstrated that data use can improve teacher instruction, yet the varied implementation of data-use PLCs in this district illustrates that not all students have an equal opportunity to learn from teachers who meaningfully engage with data.

scholarly journals Hastening slowly: insights about teacher development from an evaluation of courses at the WCED’s Cape Teaching and Leadership Institute

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Meyer ◽  
Lydia Abel
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Teacher Development ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
School Level ◽  
Western Cape ◽  
Leadership Institute ◽  
Service Training ◽  
Education Administrators ◽  
The Impact

In the area of teacher professional development, South African education administrators face the challenge of reconciling two imperatives that have entirely different implications for programme time frames and budgets. On the one hand, there is an urgent need to improve the pedagogic content knowledge of many teachers to improve the overall standard of teaching and learning in the public school system. Considering the scale and urgency of the matter, centralised course-based in-service training seems to be the only affordable alternative. On the other hand, researchers have long warned that once-off course-based training on its own has limited impact on teachers’ practice, and has to be accompanied by further professional support in the school and classroom, or be abandoned in favour of more enduring professional learning communities. The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) has grappled with this dilemma in the Department’s various professional development initiatives for teachers, a mainstay of which is the training offered by the Cape Teaching and Leadership Institute (CTLI). This paper presents some of the data and findings from an external evaluation that ORT SA CAPE conducted in 2011–2012 of courses offered by the WCED at the CTLI. The hierarchy of INSET outcomes proposed by Harland and Kinder (1997) was applied to record changes in the practice of 18 teachers at eight schools. The progress of five of the teachers is discussed to illustrate the interplay between school-level factors and the experiences of individual teachers which influenced the impact of CTLI training on their teaching.

scholarly journals Communities of practice and PISA for Schools: Comparative learning or a mode of educational governance?

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
International Student ◽  
Student Assessment ◽  
School Level ◽  
Topological Spaces ◽  
Global Learning ◽  
Policy Cycle ◽  
International Student Assessment ◽  
New Variant

This paper examines the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) PISA for Schools, a new variant of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) that compares school-level performance on reading, math and science with international schooling systems (e.g., Shanghai-China, Finland). Specifically, I focus here on a professional learning community – the Global Learning Network (GLN) – of U.S. schools and districts that have voluntarily participated in PISA for Schools, and how this, arguably, helps to normatively determine ‘what works’ in education. Drawing suggestively across diverse thinking around contemporary modes of governance, and emerging topological spaces and relations associated with globalization, and informed by interviews with 33 policy actors across the PISA for Schools policy cycle, my analyses suggest that GLN allows the OECD to discursively and normatively constrain how ‘world-class’ schools and systems, and their policies and practices, are defined. However, and in light of the productive capacities of power relations, I also argue that GLN provides opportunities for local educators and leaders to undertake meaningful collaboration and sharing, and to find policy spaces outside of those defined by more performative discursive framings of school accountability. To this end, I explore how GLN may help to foster alternative policy spaces from which educators can ‘talk back’ to national and state authorities, and potentially promote more ‘authentic’ understandings of, and possibilities for, schooling accountability.

scholarly journals A logical approach to supporting professional learning communities

2011 ◽  
pp. 599-620
Keyword(s):  
Student Performance ◽  
Stem Education ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Virtual Community ◽  
Content Management ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Collaborative Tools ◽  
Integration Strategies

Collaborative knowledge sharing requires that dialogues successfully cross organizational barriers and information silos. Successful communication in person or in a virtual community involves a willingness to share ideas and consider diverse viewpoints. This research examines a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) content management system called NASATalk, which offers public and private blog posts, file sharing, asynchronous discussion, and live chat services. The service is designed to provide a virtual environment where educators can share ideas, suggestions, successes, and innovations in STEM teaching and learning activities. This study features qualitative data from STEM education groups that helped extend the design of the NASATalk Web 2.0 collaborative tools and features. The analysis shows that the context, e-collaborative tools, integration strategies, and outcomes varied, but also contributed additional space, time, tools, integration strategies, and outcomes through the virtual collaborative learning environment. This study is designed to inform the STEM education community as well as those offering virtual community resources and tools of the added value of using virtual communities to help STEM educators work together in collaborative, virtual environments to discuss ways they can improve their instruction and student performance.

scholarly journals Principal-Led State Evaluation Policy: Teacher Perceptions at Four High Schools

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Frasier
Keyword(s):  
High Schools ◽  
Teacher Evaluation ◽  
Teacher Perceptions ◽  
Classroom Practice ◽  
School Administrators ◽  
State Level ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
School Level ◽  
Evaluation Policy ◽  
Teacher Evaluation Policy

While policy makers have attempted to standardize teacher evaluation, policy is implemented and enacted by school administrators. This study addresses the following question: Considering the legislative efforts to remove control of evaluation from local figures, do teachers perceive school principals as influencing the implementation of state-level evaluation policy and, if so, in what ways? I examined interviews from 14 teachers across four high schools within a district in North Carolina derived from a larger mixed method case study of teacher perceptions of evaluation policy and classroom practice. The results suggest a state-centralized teacher evaluation policy, such as the one utilized at the time of this study, can look vastly different to teachers at the school-level due to principal enactment of the policy. Furthermore, the data suggest the following themes influenced policy implementation: the capacity of principals to evaluate in a timely manner, what a principal chooses to value in a policy, and the perceived effectiveness of a principal as an evaluator of teaching. By taking a closer look at what is happening “on the ground” between teachers and principals in four schools utilizing the same state-level evaluation policy, the lessons learned in this study can help inform future policies.

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