Author(s): Stoisch, Elizabeth Leisy, Michelle L. Forman, and Candice Bocala
Published: June 2019 in Learning Professional
URL to article
Research Focus Area: Strategic planning strategies for school leaders
Abstract:
More than a decade of research suggests that improving the quality of instruction and student learning requires leaders to set a vision for instruction, promote teacher learning around that vision, and foster organizational conditions for teacher collaboration and growth (Louis, Dretzke, & Wahlstrom, 2010). Yet designing professional learning that enhances instructional leadership has proven challenging. Previous attempts may have been unsuccessful because they targeted only school principals rather than teams of leaders or because they were conducted away from school sites rather than being job-embedded. Increasing school leaders’ “knowledge” of curriculum, instruction, and assessment is insufficient. Improving instructional leadership requires increasing school leaders’ “direct involvement” with teachers in these core areas. A team-based approach to professional learning is more effective in enhancing the instructional leadership capabilities of administrators and teachers. Instructional leadership teams are a promising model for such an approach. These teams involve administrators and teachers in collectively improving teaching and learning through collaborative professional learning and a shared commitment to instructional improvement. This shared approach to leadership requires joint practice and learning. The authors have worked collaboratively with district, school, and teacher leaders over the past 10 years to develop an approach they call the “internal coherence approach” to school improvement. With this approach, instructional leadership teams can transform their organizations from low-performing or stagnant to high-performing or improving.
Research Question(s):
How can school leaders design professional learning that enhances instructional leadership?
Methods:
Intervention
Setting:
Boston public schools, school districts in California, Texas, and New York. Developed over the course of 10 years
Key Findings:
- Students learn at higher levels in schools where principals and teachers mutually contribute to leadership, as opposed to schools that lack teacher involvement in instructional decision-making.
- The internal coherence approach addresses the challenge of sharing decision-making authority by fostering shared leadership in an environment that reinforms norms of public learning and safety for risk-taking.
- In the internal coherence approach, principals involve teachers in sustained dialogue and decision-making about student instruction while remaining central agents for change.
- Educators often cannot see the connections between students’ needs and professional learning opportunities and resources, which can lead to frustration with professional learning. The internal coherence approach was designed to help instructional leadership teams create a consistent through-line from their vision for student learning to their goals for teacher learning.
- The internal coherence approach
- Raises the level of teachers’ efficacy beliefs (beliefs that they can improve student achievement through intentional and effective practice), which drives improvement in their ability to enact school leaderships’ vision for student learning
- Collective efficacy – the idea that the faculty, working together, has what it takes to improve student learning – is particularly important for schoolwide improvement.
Implications:
- School leaders must optimally position educators to fortify their beliefs in their collective ability to improve student learning. This encourages the productive behaviors that can fuel future improvement efforts. They can do so powerfully by adopting the following essential practices:
- Develop a vision for the instructional core
- setting a vision is more powerful when leaders work collaboratively to make critical instructional decisions than when principals work in isolation.
- Develop a strategy for instructional improvement
- this practice requires instructional leadership teams to identify what will be learned, who will do the learning, where this learning will occur, and how it will be coordinated to support schoolwide improvement
- Use the Internal Coherence Survey to analyze current organizational capacity
- Instructional leaders need systems for collecting, analyzing, and acting on data that reflects progress toward the school’s established vision, especially data on organizational factors that enhance teacher learning. Leaders should pay particular attention to those factors that leaders they influence, such as the extent to which teachers view their professional learning as meaningful and have sufficient time and support for collaboration in teams. The internal coherence survey was developed to fill this purpose.
- The survey provides an opportunity for all educators in the organization to participate in the improvement process by sharing their perspectives on critical school conditions.
- The researchers recommend that all faculty members responsible for instruction complete the survey annually.
- Develop a vision for the instructional core
Limitations:
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