Education Commons^™

Ending The Status Quo: Kentucky Parents Increasingly Choose Nonpublic Education Options, Gary Houchens

Educational Administration, Leadership, and Research Faculty Publications

This research report documents enrollment trends for Kentucky students in nonpublic education (homeschooling and private schools) during the years 2017-2022. Using data from the Kentucky Department of Education, the analysis finds that nonpublic education participation has grown by more than 20,000 students during this time period to almost 100,000 students. This trend indicates a clear demand for more education options and policy makers should respond accordingly.

Operationalizing And Measuring Personalized Learning In K–12 Schools: The Development And Implementation Of An Innovation Configuration Map, Gary Houchens, Trudy Crossbourne, Jenni Redifer, Antony Norman, Jie Zhang

Educational Administration, Leadership, and Research Faculty Publications

In 2012, theIn 2012, the United States Department of Education announced the Race to the Top-District grants. One joint award was made to two large educational cooperatives in the same state that together represented 111 mostly rural schools in 22 districts. One of the grant’s identified four essential projects was the implementation of personalized learning. This article describes how the grant’s external evaluation team worked with grantee leadership and school districts to operationalize personalized learning and then develop and implement Innovation Configuration Maps to measure school-level personalized learning environments. Developmental steps, adoption processes, and preliminary school-level results are reported. United …

Reasons For The Theory-Practice Gap In Education Administration, Gary Houchens, Ysuf Badavan, Nuray Kisa

Educational Administration, Leadership, and Research Faculty Publications

The theory-practice gap can be defined as "a failure to apply or to relate the concepts, ideas and theories to professional conditions". The aim of this research was to explore the reasons for the theory-practice gap in the field of educational administration. Participants included 380 school administrators working in primary, secondary and high schools and 57 researchers working in different higher education institutions in Ankara. The views are collected through the questionnaire with two different forms, namely Reasons of Theory-Practice Gap in the Field of Educational Administration developed by the researchers. Data were interpreted by percentages, frequency distributions and chi-square …

Enhancing Instructional Leadership Through Collaborative Coaching: A Multi-Case Study, Gary Houchens, Thomas A. Stewart, Sara Elizabeth Jennings

Educational Administration, Leadership, and Research Faculty Publications

Purpose – Executive coaching has become increasingly important for enhancing organizational leaders’ professional effectiveness. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a growing body of research literature that examines how coaching techniques help school principals improve their instructional leadership.

Design/methodology/approach – Using a protocol based on a theories of practice framework (Argyris and Schön, 1974) to support principals in deepening their self-reflection, this study added the element of a guided peer-coaching component in a group setting.

Findings – Results confirmed the effectiveness of the coaching protocol for assisting principals in deepening their self-awareness and critical reflection regarding their …

Transforming Education And Changing School Culture, Gary Houchens, Ric Keaster

Educational Administration, Leadership, and Research Faculty Publications

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 …

Deep Impact: How A Job-Embedded Formative Assessment Professional Development Model Affected Teacher Practice, Thomas A. Stewart, Gary Houchens

Educational Administration, Leadership, and Research Faculty Publications

This study supports the work of Black and Wiliam (1998), who demonstrated that when teachers effectively utilize formative assessment strategies, student learning increases significantly. However, the researchers also found a “poverty of practice” among teachers, in that few fully understood how to implement classroom formative assessment. This qualitative case study examined a series of voluntary workshops offered at one middle school designed to address this poverty of practice. Data were gathered via semi-structured interviews. These research questions framed the study: (1) What role did a professional learning community structure play in shaping workshop participants’ perceived effectiveness of a voluntary formative …

Double-Loop Learning: A Coaching Protocol For Enhancing Principal Instructional Leadership, Gary Houchens, Janet Hurt, Rebecca Stobaugh, John L. Keedy

Educational Administration, Leadership, and Research Faculty Publications

Executive coaching has become increasingly commonplace in both the corporate and non-profit sectors as a means of improving professional effectiveness but there is a dearth of empirically-based protocols geared specifically toward the growth needs of school principals. This qualitative case study explores the implementation of a principal coaching protocol using a theories of practice framework based on concepts originally articulated by Argyris and Schön (1 974) and further explicated by the authors in previous publications. This study examined the extent to which a coaching protocol based on theories of practice enhanced principals’ self-perceived capacity for reflection and effective instructional leadership. …

Theories Of Practice: Understanding The Practice Of Educational Leadership, Gary Houchens, John L. Keedy

Educational Administration, Leadership, and Research Faculty Publications

Argyris and Schön (1974) first articulated the concept of theories of practice, and elements of the concept have become standard vocabulary in literature on organizational learning. Relatively few empirical studies, however, have explored the legitimacy of this concept for understanding how educators approach problems in their professional practice (Lipshitz, 2000). As accountability pressures for school improvement mount, the imperative for understanding effective school leadership behaviors makes the concept of theories of practice more appealing. The purpose of this article is to examine the structure of theories of practice as understood by Argyris and Schön and the implications for understanding the …