Education Commons^™

Learning From Post-Observation Conferences: Emerging Measures Of And Mechanisms To Improve Principals’ Feedback To Teachers, Alyson L. Lavigne, Shanena Allen, Shiquan Shao, Jorge Americo Acosta Feliz

Journal of Educational Supervision

As principals seek to strengthen their impact on teaching and learning, it is critical to understand how principals provide feedback to teachers about their instruction and the focus of those conversations. This study examined the content and quality of principals’ (N = 4) verbal feedback to teachers (N = 11) during post-observation conferences (N = 11) and teachers’ perceptions of that feedback. In post-observation conferences, principals emphasized students’ opportunities to learn and supportive classroom environment, but rarely provided feedback on curriculum sequencing, the balance of procedural and conceptual knowledge, and teachers’ review and feedback to students. The …

Distribution Of Instructional Leadership Roles Within A School Organization, Zora Wolfe, Kim-Kathie Knudsen, Abbie Mahaffey

Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning

Educational leaders are tasked with many managerial responsibilities as well as instructional leadership roles. However, effective instructional leadership is a critical factor in improving student achievement. The purpose of this study was to explore how instructional leadership is distributed within a school organization, specifically examining the perceptions of district, building, and teacher leaders in relation to their roles in instructional leadership and the barriers to effective instructional leadership. Qualitative interviews were conducted with district office leaders, building leaders, and instructional coaches, and their responses to the questions were reviewed, categorized, and coded using Crewell’s Data Analysis Spiral (2011).

Data from …

Administrators' Capacity For Supporting Reform-Oriented Science Instruction: An Urban School District Case Study, Venicia Ferrell, Joanna K. Garner

Center for Educational Partnerships Publications

Secondary school administrators play a vital role as instructional leaders, but little is known about their knowledge of science practices and perceptions of strategies for supporting reform-oriented science instruction. This multiphase, mixed-methods Q-Methodology study explored administrators' perceptions of instructional leadership and, in particular, high-quality science instruction. After a concourse of 40 items was developed through a review of literature and an expert panel, n = 22 administrators from one urban school district completed a Q-sort and a post-sort questionnaire in which they commented on a lesson excerpt. Principal components analysis with varimax rotation was used to assimilate the participants into …

Socioscientific Issues-Based Instruction: The Messier Side Of (Leading) Science Teaching, Savannah Graham, Mark Bloom, Sarah Quebec Fuentes, Jo Beth Jimerson

Journal of Educational Supervision

The present case centers on a socioscientific issues-based lesson taught by a preservice teacher (PST) in an AP Biology class. The PST designed and delivered a lesson on disease transmission and ways to avoid infection with connections to the COVID-19 pandemic mask mandates and vaccine reticence. The Principal received several emails from parents (positive and negative), citing the incorporation of political issues and critical race theory into the science lesson. With this framing, the case depicts how the Principal, PST, university supervisor, and cooperating teacher navigate the situation. The case highlights the role of school leader as instructional leader. In …

Advancing A Democratic Pedagogy And Supervision Framework: An Illustrative Case Of Teacher Questioning In Secondary Mathematics Instruction, Esther A. Enright, Douglas Wieczorek

Journal of Educational Supervision

This article pushes back against the evalu-centric view of improvement (Hazi, 2018; 2020) in the supervision literature by advocating for a democratic pedagogy and supervision framework developed to support instructional supervision and evaluation dialogue between teachers and leaders. This democratized approach honors and centers the teacher’s expertise and learning as well as the leader’s in the observation, debrief, and reflection process. Through this decentering of expertise in the instructional supervision cycle, our goal is to build leaders’ and teachers’ mutual capacity to develop, implement, and sustain democratic instructional supervision cultures in classrooms and schools. Additionally, we illustrate our framework through …

The Intersection Of School-Based Leadership Practices And School Grades In The State Of Florida, Wendelynn A. Mcpherson

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

The purpose of this non-experimental, quantitative study was to examine to what degree 12 self-reported leadership behaviors were associated with and predictive of school grades in the state of Florida. The study participant sample was exclusively comprised of educational leaders from elementary schools located in Florida. In this descriptive study, elementary principals were surveyed to determine the frequency of leadership behaviors (independent variable) and school grades (dependent variable). Two research questions and hypotheses were posed to address the study’s research problem. Research question one utilized a simple linear regression to assess the predictive variable of the overall leadership practices for …

Role Enactment And Types Of Feedback: The Influence Of Leadership Content Knowledge On Instructional Leadership Efforts, Sarah Quebec Fuentes, Jo Beth Jimerson

Journal of Educational Supervision

Instructional leadership is a primary task of school leaders, but this work may be complicated when leaders and teachers do not share content area or grade level expertise. Work around leadership content knowledge (LCK) acknowledges that school leaders cannot know everything about teaching in the content areas, but suggests leaders can work to bridge this divide. Still, little is known about how leaders’ LCK intersects with their efforts to support improvements in teaching and learning. The purpose of this study was to explore ways in which LCK facilitates or, in its absence, hinders instructional leadership efforts. Thirty-one teachers and school …

The Forgotten Element Of Instructional Leadership: Grading, Thomas R. Guskey, Laura J. Link

Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology Faculty Publications

Getting the school team coordinated on grading and reporting policies—and the purpose of grading—is too often overlooked in instructional leadership.

Support Provided By Administrators For Mathematics Teachers: A Case Study Of One North Louisiana High School, Jessica M. Hunter

Doctoral Dissertations

National and International assessment results as well as general student unpreparedness for college and beyond in terms of mathematical abilities indicate a need for increased student achievement in mathematics (Hart, 2005; National Center for Education Statistics, 2017; Peterson, Woessmann, Hanushek, & Lastra-Anadon, 2011). The purpose of the study was to explore effective leadership traits of secondary school administrators that foster and support teachers of mathematics. Research specifically made connections to instructional and transformational leadership practices, actions, and traits. This exploration was investigated through a case study using interviews completed by high school educators, administrators, and district leaders.

A sample of …

A Collective Case Study To Examine Administrators' Instructional Leadership Perspective Of The Role Of Instructional Coaches And Teacher Librarians In California Public Schools, Melanie Ann Lewis

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this collective case study was to develop an understanding of why California K-12 public school administrators distribute instructional leadership responsibilities to either instructional coaches or teacher librarians and how the two roles compare within the context of the implementation of the California Common Core State Standards in ELA/Literacy. The study addressed the following research questions: Why do administrators select instructional coaches/teacher librarians to help them provide instructional leadership? How do administrators and instructional coaches/teacher librarians work together to provide professional learning within daily instructional practice? How do administrators evaluate the effectiveness of the instructional coaches’/teacher librarians’ instructional …

An Investigation Of The Relationship Between Selected Superintendent Attributes And Instructional Leadership Practices, Leatha G. Williams

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The purpose of this descriptive, quantitative, survey-based study was to examine the relationship between selected superintendent attributes and their overall instructional leadership practices score calculated from the participants’ responses on the Instructional Leadership Practices Survey. The study used t-Tests, Chi-Square and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to analyze the relationship between the dependent variable of superintendent leadership practices score and the predictive variables of superintendents’ length of tenure in their current district, superintendents’ total tenure as a superintendent, superintendents’ total experience in education, whether the superintendent was hired from within or from outside of the district, superintendents’ instructional leadership perceptions and …

Instructional Leadership Of Principals And Its Relationship With The Academic Achievement Of High-Poverty Students, James Gray

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

This quantitative research study focused on teachers’ perceptions of the relationship between the instructional leadership skills of their principals and the academic achievement of students in high-poverty schools in the Northwest Tennessee CORE region. All 14 of the participating schools were above the 50 percent threshold to be considered a high-poverty school. According to the overall effectiveness rating levels for TCAP performance on the 2014-2015 Tennessee Department of Education Report Card, four schools were rated as below average performance, three schools were rated as average performance, and six schools were rated as above average performance. The teachers surveyed (N …

A Principal Striving For Effective Instructional Leadership In An Era Of Accountability, Matthew J. Mazzoni

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this case study was to explore a principal's experiences and how they aligned to Hallinger and Murphy's (1985) effective instructional leadership practices in an era of accountability. This study of effective principal leadership is timely and relevant due to the recent implementation of national and state mandates for principals to be instructional leaders through the adoption of a distributed leadership model. This seventh year principal, also the researcher-participant in this study, had the responsibility of overseeing approximately 100 professional and support staff members and approximately 750 students ranging from pre-kindergarten to the eighth grade. The pre-k to …

Counselors And Principals: Collaborating To Improve Instructional Equity, Carl A. Lashley, Jaimie Stickl

Journal of Organizational & Educational Leadership

School districts are held accountable for the performance of all students. This increased responsibility has caused principals and their faculties to become increasingly concerned about using performance data to improve achievement, attendance, promotion and graduation rates, dropout rates and at-risk student performance, and other indicators of school quality. An often overlooked resource in the school’s efforts is the school counselor.

School counselors are well-prepared to assist principals with data utilization and making recommendations for individual student, classroom, and school-wide improvement. Collaborative relationships between principals and school counselors can contribute significantly to school improvement efforts and to professional learning and capacity …

Implementing State Initiatives In A Pk-1 Primary School: A Case Study Exploring Instructional Leadership, Jennifer Baldwin

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed methods case study is to explore the practices that a principal has used to address the individual needs of students through instructional and cultural changes, which resulted in increased student achievement. Using Lambert’s (1998) Leadership Capacity Survey, the espoused beliefs of the principal are correlated to the teachers’ ratings of the principal’s performance. The findings indicate an overall emergent theme that the principal uses broad-based leadership and skillful participation to establish reciprocal trust among the staff by creating teacher leaders. An additional theme of the community’s principal illuminates the work the principal’s efforts to establish …

The Impact Of High Stakes Testing On School Leadership, Yanira Oliveras Ortiz

Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Dr. Oliveras-Ortiz describes principals' view of changing classroom environments because of the state of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness tests. Further, she shares instructional leadership viewpoints of campus principals and proponents and opponents of high-stakes testing. This mixed method study surveyed and interviewed principals from four large school districts in Texas to understand their perceptions of changes in their leadership practices working under accountability practices.

Teacher Effectiveness And Student Achievement On Staar: Implications For School Leaders, Yanira Oliveras Ortiz

Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Dr. Oliveras-Ortiz conducted a correlational study to examine the relationship between teacher effectiveness and student achievement in a north Texas school district. Results show that the issues school administrators face are much deeper than instructional practices and test preparation. Implications for practice are discussed.

Considering An Overhaul To The New Principal Preparation Program, Vance Vaughn, Yanira Oliveras Ortiz

Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Vance Vaughn and Yanira Oliveras-Ortiz provide suggestions for university faculty and administration preparing principals in their article, Considering an Overhaul to the New Principal Preparation Program. They recommended the importance of understanding accountability and reconstitution in the new age of accountability. In their case study research they examined three school districts over a five year span. From this research, they determined that universities need to include training on walkthroughs and appraisal systems, the correct use of data, and an understanding of curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

Crafting Leaders For Educational Change: Head Teacher’S Perspectives, Sultan Alam

Professional Development Centre, Gilgit

This research reports a study conducted in Gilgit-Baltistan of Pakistan. The purpose of the study is to explore the CELM experiences of a government school head teacher. A qualitative case study method was used to investigate the subject matter. The participant was selected on the basis of pre-determined criteria that s/he has participated in the whole intervention programme, and completed all the mandatory tasks assigned during the whole intervention period. The findings of the study showed that CELM intervention has been instrumental in bringing about a significant effect on the professional approaches of the head teacher. On one hand he …

A Multiple Case Study Of Principals' Instructional Leadership In "Level 5" Schools Of Excellence For Improvement, Janice V. Mccoy

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

After 28 years of federal and state policy development, regional and local initiatives and various budgetary appropriations, the status of American schools continues to decline. Lyne (2001) reported that Finland, Japan and Korea had the world's highest literacy in reading, math, and science, while the United States ranked 15 in reading literacy, 19 in mathematical literacy, and 14 in scientific literacy. Many factors may contribute to the decline in America's schools. However, with the prevailing economic decline in the United States schools continue to struggle with student achievement, especially students with who are low socio-economic. In addition, to meeting the …

The Effects Of Scheduling On Criterion-Referenced Assessments In Arkansas High Schools, Sheila Marie Trinkle

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine the differences in achievement on the end of course assessment in Geometry and the Grade 11 Literacy exam administered to students in Arkansas during the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 school years. The three main types of scheduling are the traditional schedule with seven or eight periods; the A/B, or the alternating block; and the 4 x 4, or accelerated block. The traditional was utilized by 90% of schools in Arkansas during this time frame. The A/B block and 4 x 4 block were used almost equally, each representing approximately 5% of Arkansas schools. …