Alphabet Soup!Alphabet Soup!
ABPC Alabama Best Practices Center
KLN Key Leaders Network
PCN Powerful Conversations Network
SLN Superintendent Leaders Network
IPP Instructional Partners Pilot
ACCRS AL’s College-and Career-Ready Standards
FA Formative Assessment
+Guiding Questions
1. How can we “lead the way” in helping identify and address our district’s priorities for leadership development?
2. What current and possible structures and practices are nurturing collective leadership across our district?
3. How can we use Leithwood and Seashore Louis’ findings to enhance instructional leadership in schools across our districts?
4. In what ways can we act to nurture both individual and collective efficacy among principals in our district?
5. How can we harness family and community energy to ensure successful implementation of CCRS?
+ Organize Your Teams
• Facilitator
• Recorder/Reporter
• Time Monitor/Materials
Manager
• Directions Clarifier
+Norms for Dialogue
• Listen actively
• Employ questioning to seek deeper understanding
• Respect other viewpoints
• Suspend judgment
• Voice what needs to be said to advance the dialogue
+Activity 1: Priming the Pump
What? Ink Think
Why? To activate prior learning about Linking Leadership to Student Learning
How? Individual reflection and collaborative thinking to surface insights and understandings (p. 3, Activity Packet)
+Key Point
“To learn how leadership contributes to student learning, we must ask how leadership affects instruction.” (p. 27)
+Moving This Learning into Action Back Home
• End in Mind: Planning to Take Action Back Home
• Process: Going Deeper into Key Concepts and Identifying Priorities for Action
• 3 Key Areas: Collective Leadership, Instructional Leadership, and District Development of Principal Efficacy
+Revisiting Collective, Shared, and Distributed LeadershipChapters 2, 3, and 4, Linking Leadership to Student Learning
+Definitions: Leadership Terms Used in Text
“Collective leadership…refers to the extent of influence organizational members and stakeholders exert on decisions in their schools.” (p. 3, Leithwood & Seashore Louis)
“Shared leadership…denote[s] teachers’ influence over, and their participation in, school-wide decisions with principals.”
(p. 31, Leithwood & Seashore Louis)
+Definitions, cont’d.
Distributed leadership refers to “the allocation of leadership responsibilities and influences, usually based on [principals’] understanding of school goals and the expertise that is available within the staff. Leadership arrangements can shift depending on the focus of the improvement activity.”
+Clarifying Terms: District- and School-Based Leaders
School-based leaders = principals, assistants, and teacher leaders
District-based leaders = superintendent, assistants, and central office staff
District leaders = Both district-based and school-based leaders
+Activity 2: Revisiting Collective, Shared, & Distributed Leadership
What? Walk-about Interviews
Why? To determine “where we are” and “where we might go” in our exercise of leadership across our districts
How? District team collaborative responses to identified questions; cross-district interviews; and district team synthesis (pp. 4-6, Activity Packet)
+4 Core Leadership Practices
• Setting direction
• Developing people
• Redesigning the organization
• Improving the instructional program
+Redefining Instructional Leadership
“Teachers and principals agree that the most instructionally helpful specific leadership practices are:
a.Focusing the school on goals and expectations for student achievement
b.Keeping track of teachers’ professional development needs
c.Creating structures and opportunities for teachers to collaborate” (p. 57)
+2 Key Factors Associated with Instructional Leadership
• Instructional Ethos—influencing the context in which instruction takes place
• Instructional Actions—actively providing direct instructional support to teachers
+Activity 3: Comparing Our Expectations for Instructional Leadership to Research-Based Findings and Conclusions
What? Force-Field Analysis
Why? To assess current strengths and areas for growth in instructional leadership across our district
How? Using the list of leader behaviors in charts on pages 71-74, engage in team dialogue about strengths, growth potential, and district strategies to support instructional leaders (page 7, Activity Packet)
+Importance of District Development of Principal Efficacy
“One of the most powerful ways in which districts influence teaching and learning is through the contribution they make to principals’ feelings of professional efficacy, in particular their efficacy for school improvement.” (p. 108)
+Efficacy Defined
“Efficacy is a belief about one’s own ability (self-efficacy) or the ability of one’s colleagues collectively (collective efficacy) to perform a task or achieve a goal. It is a belief about ability, not actual ability.” (p. 108)
“The Little Engine Who Could”
+How Does Efficacy Affect Our Leadership?
• Strongly influences what we choose to do or not (risk-taking)
• Affects the amount of effort we will expend on a given activity (determination)
• Determines how long we will sustain our efforts in dealing with stressful situations (persistence/ perseverance and resilience in the face of failure)
+Self-Efficacy Beliefs Influence Motivation By Determining:
1. The goals that people set for themselves
2. How much effort they expend and how long they persevere in the face of obstacles
3. Their resilience in the face of failure (p. 109)
+Implications for Policy and Practice (pages 117-118)
• District leaders should consider school leaders’ collective efficacy for school improvement to be among the most important resources available to them for increasing student achievement.
• District improvement efforts should include, as foci for immediate attention, those eight sets of conditions that the best available evidence now suggests have a significant influence on principals’ sense of efficacy for school improvement.
• Principals who believe themselves to be working collaboratively toward clear, common goals with district personnel, other principals, and teachers in their schools are more confident in their leadership.
+
Activity 4: Assessing Our District’s Practice Related to Principal Efficacy
What? Here’s What, So What?, Now What?
Why? To analyze district conditions that support principal efficacy and relate them to your district
How? Review district conditions associated with principal efficacy; engage in team dialogue to identify district priorities and potential actions (p. 8, Activity Packet)
+Identifying District Priorities
Purpose: To review leverage points for improving leadership for student learning and select priorities for focus in our district
Approach: Use planning template on page 9 to guide district team discussion and planning
+Examining Claims
• Turn to page 89 in Linking Leadership to Student Learning.
• Closely read the four claims presented in the grey box.
• Select the claim that you believe might be most important for dialogue back within your district. Be ready to share your selection along with your responses to the following questions with your district team :• Why did you select this claim? • What would be the purpose and expected
outcomes of this dialogue? • Who should be engaged in the dialogue?
+Activity 5: Family and Community Engagement
What? Reading, reflection, and dialogue
Why? To assess the extent to which your personal beliefs and experience align with findings and conclusions presented by authors
How? Individually read and respond to 4 excerpts; engage in dialogue with district team (pp. 10-11, Activity Packet)
+Activity 6: District and School Characteristics Related to Family/Community Participation
What? ACE text-based protocol
Why? To review authors’ findings and think about how these apply to your district’s policies and practices
How? Individually read to identify ideas that affirm, challenge, and extend your thinking. Dialogue as a team to identify implications for your district. (pp. 12-13, Activity Packet)
+
Activity 7: Using Implications to Address a Current Challenge
What? Using research implications to think about how more effectively to involve family/community in supporting implementation of CCRS
Why? To collaboratively apply learnings to a real-life challenge
How? Review implications; identify a focus for planning; examine resources; and begin planning a family/community engagement activity. (pp. 14-15, Activity Packet)