By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | SCHOLAR | July 17, 2012School leaders must develop processes and techniques to effectively prepare teachers and other school level leaders for facilitation of lasting effective school improvement. Periodic assessment of traditional practices and careful evaluation of proposed improvement plans are essential to validating the need for improvement in education (Gorton, Alston, & Snowden, 2009). However, introducing lasting change and improvement require the cooperation and support of a variety of people. A landmark study conducted by Labonte et al., (1995) highlighted that a promising answer to integrating school improvement initiatives is supported by comprehensive faculty units (as cited in Gorton et al., p.133). The rationale for a school-wide approach is be based on the premise that a comprehensive effort rather than separate, add-on services are most effective in upgrading an entire educational program in a school (Glickman, Gordon, & Ross-Gordon, 2007).
Professional
development is essential in preparing teachers for their role as partners with
school leaders in leadership for change (Gorton et al., 2009). Joyce and Showers (2002) recommended
professional development that includes developing knowledge, the demonstration
or modeling of skill, and the practice of skill and peer coaching. Another source suggests that the best
model for staff development involves learning communities that meet regularly
for the purpose of exploring best practices, collaborating, and conducting
action research (Sparks
& Loucks-Horsley, 1989). There are ample models of professional
development programs to satisfy the various needs of any educational
organization. The supervisory goal
is to improve the school by enabling teachers to become more adaptive, more
thoughtful, and more cohesive in their work (Gorton et al., 2009). The platform for supervision then
becomes a collaborative experimentalism striving toward nondirective
existentialism with a developmental framework (Glickman et al., 2010; Zepeda,
2007). In return, the benefit of
professional development is that it can boost teachers' careers, preparing them
for supervisory positions.
Teachers
will become collectively purposeful as they gain control over decisions for
school improvement; therefore, teacher‘s learning should be related to their
experiences, needs, and learning strengths (Glickman et al., 2010). Additionally, teacher‘s learning should
include: opportunities for collaborative action, reflection, and critical
thinking that should be directed toward teacher empowerment (Glickman et al.,
2010). In theory, professional
development, learning communities, and constructivism – all broadly related to
social learning theory – directs attention to the ways adults learn (Blasé
& Blasé, 2003). However, in
practice, the reality of life in schools for adults will remain grim unless
school leaders seek opportunities for adults to grow and to learn from the work
they accomplish.
Assuming
that there is a need for staff development, the steps in planning a staff
development program need to consider and apply principles of how adults learn
best. The literature on career
stages and adult learning shows that adults have unique learning needs; no one
model can be applied across all adult populations (Glickman et al., 2010;
Zepeda, 2007). An understanding of
adult learning constructs and career stages theories can assist school leaders
and teachers in developing a sustainable program of development aligned with
current and future developmental learning needs. With growth and development as the goal of instructional
supervision, the school leader must recognize and understand the relationship
between leadership style and its direct effect on motivation.
Zepeda
(2007) suggested the implications noted within Maslow‘s hierarchy of needs
indicates that teachers want to feel psychologically safe and secure along with
having a sense of belonging with others.
A school leader‘s words, demeanor, and actions can communicate rejection
or acceptance of school faculty and their proposals (Zepeda, 2007). In order to facilitate teachers’
desires of feeling useful and being productive in their profession useful
evaluation is necessary. Zepeda also
helps make the assertion that teachers need to know whether they reaching the
mark that implies they exhibit proficient performance and application when they
teach; also, if they are missing the mark that would indicate proficiency, they
want to do better. As teachers
develop, they want to assume more leadership within the school, to give back
what has been given to them (Zepeda, 2007). Motivated teachers are empowered to make a difference in the
lives of others and continue professional development that facilitates personal
lifelong learning.
One specific
way a school leader can attempt to facilitate a school change is to establish a
school improvement committee to provide overall direction and coordination of
school improvement efforts. Fullan
(2002) referred to this method as cultivating leaders at many levels. The school improvement committee should
be charged with the responsibility of assessing the need for change,
encouraging efforts to improve the school, coordinating and providing
assistance to those efforts, and monitoring and evaluating progress and
achievements (Gorton et al., 2009).
In order for the committee to be successful, its membership should be
voluntary rather than required, and each member should have something useful to
offer (Gorton et al., 2009). It
will be equally important for the committee to be supported by the rest of the
school.
A framework
that has implications for practices in gaining support for change and
professional development is the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (Hall & Hord,
2006). The Concerns-Based Adoption
Model is a framework that describes, explains, and predicts how staff may
behave throughout the school-wide change process (Hall & Hord, 2006). The model describes how people
considering and experiencing change evolve in the kinds of questions they ask,
known as the “Stages of Concern”, and in their use of whatever the change is,
known as the “Levels of Use” (Hall & Hord, 2006). Because the choices from the committee involve change, and
there are likely to be teachers with varying degrees of experience and
acceptance of the change, it is important to revisit the “Stages of Concern”
and “Levels of Use” from this model.
Accomplishing school-wide change involves meeting teachers where they
are on this continuum and helping to move them towards change.
Hall and
Hord (2006) asserted using a model such as this helps the school leader as a professional
coach understand where staff are in the process and how to assist them in
becoming more engaged with change and more comfortable and skilled with use of
new practices over time. Hall and
Hord suggested when people question or resist change, they need time and
support to understand and incorporate the changes that are being asked of them. As with any change, it is important to
attend to where people are and address the questions they are asking when they
are asking them. Some of the
questions staff members ask will be self-oriented and other questions from staff
may be at the task-oriented. After
these self- and task-oriented questions are largely resolved, people can focus
on impact (Hall & Hord, 2006).
It is important to look for ways to support them in order to help them
become willing to try the change and develop their expertise (Hall & Hord,
2006). Teachers may need a bridge,
such as coaching or support, to transfer their learning from training to
application or to move from one level of the continuum to the next. There are many points on each
continuum, and each staff member can be at any point along the way.
The key
change agent in the implementation of school improvement is the school
leader.
Good leaders
change organizations; great leaders change people. People are at the heart of
any organization, particularly a school, and it is only through changing people
- nurturing and challenging them, helping them grow and develop, creating a
culture in which they all learn - that an organization can flourish. (Hoerr,
2005, p. 7)
If the school leader helps others in becoming more
effective, then the school leader is able to build relationships and create
communities of practice that are learner centered (Fullan, 2002; Hoerr,
2005). Brooks and Normore (2010)
found the following qualities of an organization that point to quality leaders:
(a) collegiality, (b) experimentation, (c) high expectations, (d) trust and
confidence, (e) tangible support, (f) reaching out to the knowledge bases, (g)
appreciation and recognition, (h) caring, celebration, and humor, (i) involvement
in decision making, (j) protection of what’s important, (k) traditions, and (l)
honest, open communication. These
qualities build a “we are all in this together” attitude that Sergiovanni
(2000) called an organization's “life world.” Sawyer (2007) stated that the highest level of creativity
comes from group genius. This
reinforces the importance of the school leader being crucial to the successful
implementation of any proposed school improvement effort.
In promoting
school improvement it is important for individuals within the organization to
be able to cope with the ambiguity of the change process. “Organizations don't change unless the
people that drive them do” (Hall & Hord, 2006, p. 7). School leaders that hope to administer
change must be aware of the principles that guide it (Hall & Hord, 2006). “Change is a process not an event” (Hall & Hord, 2006,
p.4). Kline and Saunders (1998)
stressed the importance of the following conditions to facilitate the change
process:
1. Assess the current learning culture to create a benchmark,
Then have:
Then have:
2. Positive expectation that dilemmas can be resolved.
3. Support for the learning process itself.
4. Willingness to delay closure long enough to arrive at
significant Gestalts rather than forced and trivial ones.
5. Communication processes that bring people together to
consider in a friendly and noncompetitive atmosphere many different
perceptions, templates, habits of thought and possible solutions, from which
the most useful may then be chosen.
6. A cultural habit that encourages exploring apparently
meaningless ambiguities with the expectation that meaning can be found in
them—as an expression of both a personal and organizational commitment to
learning over the long haul.
7. The establishment of contexts within which meaning for new
possibilities can be found as they emerge.
8. A set of modeling skills, strategies and techniques or
mechanisms that allows people more easily to construct meaning out of apparent
chaos.
9. A cultural understanding, which is shared throughout
management of the systemic interactions that will inevitably be present as
complex Gestalts are formed.
10. An intuitive feeling for how complex interactions will be
likely to occur. (p. 32 as cited
in Tolliver, 2012)
The third point noted by Kline and
Saunders (1998) is one of the key elements of creative thinking, using logic
and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative
solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems. Kline and Saunders (1998) fourth point is similar to Senge
(1990) concept of the team learning to work together in new ways, and
incorporates convergent and divergent thinking.
Kline and
Saunder (1998) present this change model as “The Great Game of Business,” with
three elements: a) know the rules, b) keep score, and c) have a stake in the
action (p. 35). The process begins
with an assessment of the culture from an institutional perspective to learn
what everyone thinks, which is facilitated by an individual perspective that leads
to taking responsibility for what is thought to be the problem and how to
address it. Lalas and Morgan (2006)
stressed searching for factors that may be inhibiting the organization. Information collected through this type
of assessment aids the organization in: (a)
gathering useful data that can inform the decisions to make improvements or
take corrective action, (b) linking the results of what the organization aims
to accomplish to the decisions that need to be completed taking into
consideration the options available and alternatives to those options, (c)
identifying measures or indicators of performance and the actions needed to
improve or correct performance, relative to the goals of the organization, and (d)
creating consistency in decision making by implementing systematic processes
(Suwimol, 2005).
The bulk of
the learning within the organization comes from the discussions and the
decisions for direction that follow the assessment process. Learning is “a systems-level phenomenon
because it stays within the organization, even if individuals change…
Organizations learn as they produce.
Learning is as much a task as the production and delivery of goods and
services” (Nevis, DiBella et al., 1995, p. 80). Once the need for change has been established, the school
leader should attempt to develop and evaluate the current system in place and
teachers level of support needed.
Next, the school leader needs to select from various alternatives, a new
approach or system to replace or modify the current school practices and
professional development. The
challenge is for the school leader to select improvement plans that show
potential for improving education in the school. This requires “looking in two directions at once: at the
current reality and the positive outcome that can be developed from it” (Kline
& Saunders, 1998, p. 70). In
conducting an evaluation of a proposed improvement plan, the school leader and
the school improvement committee should consider the following questions
(according to Gorton et al., 2009):
1.
What are the
objectives of the improvement plan?
2.
Are the objectives
relevant?
3.
How will the
improvement plan accomplish objectives?
4.
How difficult will the
improvement plan be for people to understand?
5.
Does the staff have
the proper skills to implement the improvement plan?
6.
What are the costs of
the improvement plan?
7.
What are the
advantages and disadvantages to implementing the proposed change?
These questions address some of the preliminary downfalls of
why changes are sometimes unsuccessful.
For most
proposed changes to effect school-wide improvement, it will be important for
the school leader to develop an understanding of those who will be
affected. Generally, the groups
affected the most are faculty, students, and parents. Teachers concerns focus on the tasks that will affect them
personally (Gorton et al., 2009).
If these concerns are eliminated, then the teacher’s questions are
likely to reflect concern about how to perform the tasks associated with the
improvement plan (Gorton et al., 2009).
If these concerns can be resolved, then the teacher’s concerns will
center on how the improvement plan will affect the students (Gorton et al.,
2009). When instituting a change,
it is important to create an atmosphere of trust among those affected by the
innovation. Additionally, the
school leader should make every effort to be sure that the faculty or its
representatives are involved each step of the change process, that they
understand the improvement plan, and that they have the skills necessary to
implement change.
Suggested Citation
Tolliver, A. R. (2012). How school leaders can effectively prepare teachers and other school level leaders for school-wide improvement. [Education Project Online]. Retrieved online at http://www.educationprojectonline.com/2014/08/how-school-leaders-can-effectively.html
Tolliver, A. R. (2012). How school leaders can effectively prepare teachers and other school level leaders for school-wide improvement. [Education Project Online]. Retrieved online at http://www.educationprojectonline.com/2014/08/how-school-leaders-can-effectively.html
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