Fostering and Sustaining an Inclusive and Cognitively Diverse Learning Culture that Promotes Innovative and Agile Thinking (original) (raw)
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Schlechty likens the reactionary nature of school systems to a seismic shift, acknowledging that educational leaders make decisions based upon assumptions about the environments in which they exist. This responsive and evolving nature of education has often been described as a swinging pendulum. Each swing of the pendulum creates an environment in which schools serve as hotbeds for educational innovation. Stemming from a variety of sources, the changes are numerous, as educators and lawmakers attempt to respond to the needs of students and the ever growing demand for teacher accountability. In many instances, just as the pendulum indicative of one innovation reaches its summit, those who are left in its umbra are left to ponder what comes next. Yet, as various educational innovations are introduced, administrators encourage strict fidelity to the model while teachers scramble to figure out how best to implement the latest change within their individual classroom. At the same time, administrators must be concerned with ushering in the innovation while simultaneously managing those responsible for its planning, instruction, and implementation and establishing or maintaining accountability. Principals often serve as the intermediary between external decisionmaking bodies and the school's internal staff who must execute the changes. This paper describes one such pendulum swing that took place as Stark Elementary School (all names are pseudonyms) attempted to implement a two-way immersion (TWI) program: a unique form of bilingual education. With ultimate goals of fostering bilingualism, biliteracy, cross-cultural competence, and high academic achievement in students, TWI programs integrate native English speakers and speakers of another (target) language for content area instruction that is delivered in both languages . The current Online Journal for Workforce Education and Development Volume VI, Issue 1 -Spring 2013 2 discussion centers on the case of Stark and the social changes that occurred during implementation efforts.
Leadership of Inquiry: A School-Based Improvement Model in a Lebanese Private School, 2022
Leadership of Inquiry: A School-Based Improvement Model in a Lebanese Private School Inquiry into practice is a strategy for professional and organizational learning. There is an opportunity for both professionals, and the organization to improve as school practitioners encounter organizational challenges, examine their individualized and collective perceptions, seek evidence for interpretation, engage in response, and probably re-shape their organizational knowledge. The purpose of this study is to establish an inquiry stance into administrator practice as a tool for a school-based reform initiative. The study mainly examines how a newly formed inquiry team at School X enacts their work while also addressing how both professional and organizational learning is supported and influenced. The study tried to construct its procedures and strategies through an ongoing process of critical adaptation of ideas through Inquiry to what is relevant and useful to the school setting. Indeed, it engaged teachers and administrators in an inquiry, informed by their contextually grounded knowledge and educational change and school improvement literature to achieve this study's reform subject. Given the study's focus, the researcher selected a naturalistic research methodology embedded in the constructivist paradigm. This case study is descriptive and focuses on the process, meaning, and depth of understanding of the reform process. The researcher used multiple data collection techniques and inductive analysis because it is more likely to identify the various realities found in the data and decide transferability to other settings. The findings present the inquiry processes and precisely how the team shaped norms of behavior, implemented strategies to conduct their work, and the types of structured activities they engaged in as they get involved in the organizational inquiry. The inquiry team has reported improved instructional practice, increased trust, enhanced collaborative skills, and empowerment due to inquiry participation. The greater focus is on student achievement, which conceptualizes professional learning, enhanced practice, and organizational learning as the means to this end. The positive relation between inquiry, practice, and organizational learning provides new insights into how these variables interrelate. Moreover, the results show that the "organizational inquiry team" is seen as a strategy to facilitate organizational learning, professional learning, and creative solutions to school change issues. Eventually, an inquiry-based school team can make its own evidence-based instructional decisions to address students' individual needs and drive the transition to help more comprehensive school improvement work. Although the collaborative inquiry is a promising school reform initiative, the ultimate goal is to incorporate this method as a new way of "doing school improvement" into the school fabric.
The literature of trust, self and collective efficacy, positive psychology, and positive organizational scholarship suggests a foundation for moving educational systems from deficit orientations to strengths-based approaches. This is especially critical in contemporary educational settings given the high systemic and individual stress levels due in part from No Child Left Behind. Individuals and systems under threat will often rigidly respond to stress, limiting the creative approaches necessary in these complex times. Therefore, an approach that creates resilience in the system to broaden its view and build its social, intellectual, and emotional capital is necessary. The authors offer in this conceptual piece the theoretical, the empirical, and the early stages of a developing, strengths-based, reflexive inquiry model necessary to support resilient organizations and facilitate leaders in implementing and deepening the processes of effective schools.
Leading Schools for Innovation and Change: A Case Study of Successful Schools
Journal of TESON
This study explores the role and leadership management practices of head teachers in public schools. In schools, the leadership goals are for developing innovative and excellent student outcomes. The data were collected from interviews with five head teachers or principals of five schools. The findings showed that the innovative head teachers adopted several leadership strategies to enhance the school's success and quality enhancement. An innovative model for innovative leadership was developed that provided a road map of the influence for their leadership. This study makes clear that head teachers have experienced noticeable success in school’s quality enhancement through establishing innovative cultures. The findings of this study imply that leadership behavioral changes can lead to great positive impacts in improving school’s teaching and learning quality.
Strengthening a Culture of Collaboration Through Intentional and Strategic Collaborative Practices
2021
Collaboration can inspire professional learning, improve teaching practices, and impact student learning and well-being. Yet, not all types of collaboration yield these desired results, as is in the case of Elementary School (ES) at Paradise International School (PIS; a pseudonym). This Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) presents a problem of practice (PoP) that addresses the lack of intentional and strategic collaborative practices at PIS. Within a pragmatic worldview, this OIP is grounded in a socioconstructivist theory, one that frames three chosen interrelated leadership models: transformational, constructivist, and distributed. A synthesis of these theoretical foundations results in three leadership principles and 10 leadership behaviours that underpin this OIP, which is steered by this change vision: teachers work and learn interdependently in high-performing teams and are collectively responsible for the learning and well-being of all students. This vision, along with the key priorities and the diagnosed needed changes, were utilized to develop the outcomes and goals of the change. Furthermore, after examining the possible solutions to address the PoP, a researchand practice-based decision was made to implement coteaching and collaborative inquiry in an integrated manner. The change path model was chosen to lead the change process and used to develop the 2-year action plan. The multifaceted action plan of this OIP has three integrated components: an autonomous and programmed change implementation plan, a context-specific monitoring and evaluation framework, and a participatory and persuasive communication plan. This OIP concludes by considering ways to ensure the sustainability and evolution of effective collaborative practices at PIS.
Transforming Education and Changing School Culture
2015
An increasing number of schools and districts are building a common language of instruction and collaborative structures for instructional problem solving through the use of instructional rounds. Pioneered by Richard Elmore and colleagues at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, instructional rounds build on the model of medical rounds used in teaching hospitals and engage teachers and administrators in data collection and analysis around a school-wide problem of practice. This case study examines the experiences of the Simpson County Schools in Franklin, Kentucky, where one of the authors formerly served as a district administrator. In 2009, the district initiated a multi-school effort to implement instructional rounds. Many districts adopting instructional rounds initially involve only administrators, but the Simpson County Schools invited classroom teachers to participate and play key leadership roles in the process. The case study describes the instructional rounds process, the decisions made by district leaders to involve a wide array of stakeholders in their instructional rounds initiative, and the overall effects. Teachers in the district readily embraced the instructional rounds protocol, and administration and facilitation of the rounds process has now evolved into having classroom teachers serving as primary leaders. Implications for school culture and change leadership are discussed.
Management in schools in a multiethnic environment
2014
The keynote speeches were delivered by Prof. D-r Lena Damovska from the Faculty of Philosophy of the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, who described the concept and experiences of student's practicum in the country, by Mr Frank Crawford, education transformation expert from Scotland, who presented the Scottish and European inclusive practices in teacher training and Prof. Mark R. Ginsberg, Dean of the College of Education and Human Development at the George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, who highlighted the pathways for teacher training that lead to positive impact in multicultural environments. This Conference is a result of six years of intense cooperation between the OSCE Mission to Skopje and the five teacher training faculties in the area of pre-service teacher training and practicum placements of future pedagogues and teachers and it is a unique example of excellent cooperation between the OSCE and the five teacher training faculties. The event was dedicated to advancing the theory and practice of preparing future education professionals for work in multicultural environments and it promoted collaborative exchange between academia and practitioners involved in the practical training of future teachers. This, first-of-its-kind conference organized in the country, gathered nearly 100 university professors, teachers, pedagogues, students and education experts, guests from Albania, Bulgaria and Serbia.
Educating Leaders within the Context of an Inclusive Education Reform Agenda
International Journal for Cross-Disciplinary Subjects in Education
The quest for inclusive education necessitates a systemic process of initiating school reforms in order to create quality, participatory and socially just educational communities for learner diversity. Head teachers' role is considered as being crucial in this process, for they are expected to lead transformative changes to challenge the status quo, and to mobilize contextual struggles for the realization of an inclusive discourse. To this end, head teachers need to be afforded relevant professional development opportunities to catalyze changes commensurate with the principles of inclusion and social justice. The aim of the article is to explore the extent to which Cypriot head teachers are institutionally and professionally empowered to effect transformative changes under the light of current governmental rhetoric on the necessity to create 'humane and democratic schools' for learner diversity.