Describing and measuring leadership within school teams by applying a social network perspective

Despite the growing number of studies that acknowledge a crucial role of distributed leadership within schools, limited knowledge exists on how to describe and measure this multi-faceted concept. In a social network study with 130 respondents, from 14 Dutch school teams carrying out collaborative innovation, we theoretically describe three core aspects of the social interaction process of distributed leadership: collective, dynamic, or relational. Furthermore, we empirically explore how to measure all these three aspects of distributed leadership from a social network perspective, whereas most research focuses on either collective or dynamic. Our findings indicate that three network measures (density, reciprocity, indegree centralization) form a coherent combination to measure distributed leadership in school teams in terms of collective, relational, and dynamic, respectively. Furthermore, based on the combination of measures we found differences in distributed leadership between school teams. Thus, adding the relational aspect in addition to the collective and dynamic aspects seems to be informative to measure distributed leadership. Our study motivates to take a social network perspective, instead of the mostly used aggregation approaches, to measure distributed leadership in school teams

Nieuwe aanpak? Collega’s wijzen de weg

Hoe zet je een succesvol docentontwerpteam (DOT) op? Lessen van vijf scholen die aan de slag gingen met digitale leerlinggegevens en differentiati

Leadership practices in collaborative innovation: A study among Dutch school principals

School principals and teachers are expected to continuously innovate their practices in changing school environments. These innovation processes can be shared more widely through collaboration between principals and teachers, i.e. collaborative innovation. In order to gain more insight into how school principals enact their leadership practices in leading collaborative innovation, we interviewed 22 school principals of primary, secondary and vocational education in the Netherlands. All participants have implemented the same collaborative innovation programme, aimed at enhancement of collaboration between teachers and school principals within schools, that has already been implemented by 900 Dutch schools. They were interviewed twice during the implementation year. Interview transcripts were analysed using an open coding strategy looking for leadership practices. Based on 11 leadership practices, we described two main leadership patterns: school principals enacting leadership practices as either a team player or as a facilitator. We conclude that our findings suggest a wider repertoire of leadership practices than is reported in previous studies. Future studies would need to address the generalisability of the practices and patterns as found in this specific context of collaborative innovation

Describing and measuring leadership within school teams by applying a social network perspective

Despite the growing number of studies that acknowledge a crucial role of distributed leadership within schools, limited knowledge exists on how to describe and measure this multi-faceted concept. In a social network study with 130 respondents, from 14 Dutch school teams carrying out collaborative innovation, we theoretically describe three core aspects of the social interaction process of distributed leadership: collective, dynamic, or relational. Furthermore, we empirically explore how to measure all these three aspects of distributed leadership from a social network perspective, whereas most research focuses on either collective or dynamic. Our findings indicate that three network measures (density, reciprocity, indegree centralization) form a coherent combination to measure distributed leadership in school teams in terms of collective, relational, and dynamic, respectively. Furthermore, based on the combination of measures we found differences in distributed leadership between school teams. Thus, adding the relational aspect in addition to the collective and dynamic aspects seems to be informative to measure distributed leadership. Our study motivates to take a social network perspective, instead of the mostly used aggregation approaches, to measure distributed leadership in school teams

The GC-Rich Mitochondrial and Plastid Genomes of the Green Alga Coccomyxa Give Insight into the Evolution of Organelle DNA Nucleotide Landscape

Most of the available mitochondrial and plastid genome sequences are biased towards adenine and thymine (AT) over guanine and cytosine (GC). Examples of GC-rich organelle DNAs are limited to a small but eclectic list of species, including certain green algae. Here, to gain insight in the evolution of organelle nucleotide landscape, we present the GC-rich mitochondrial and plastid DNAs from the trebouxiophyte green alga Coccomyxa sp. C-169. We compare these sequences with other GC-rich organelle DNAs and argue that the forces biasing them towards G and C are nonadaptive and linked to the metabolic and/or life history features of this species. The Coccomyxa organelle genomes are also used for phylogenetic analyses, which highlight the complexities in trying to resolve the interrelationships among the core chlorophyte green algae, but ultimately favour a sister relationship between the Ulvophyceae and Chlorophyceae, with the Trebouxiophyceae branching at the base of the chlorophyte crown

Oberon: Oberon

Vanaf 2013 tot en met juli 2017 hebben 61 samenwerkingsverbanden tussen lerarenopleidingen en scholen (32 po, 19 vo, 10 mbo) met subsidie van OCW gewerkt aan het versterken van de samenwerking bij het opleiden en professionaliseren van (startende) leraren. Om de effectiviteit van de regeling te kunnen meten is een meerjarig monitor- en evaluatieonderzoek uitgevoerd (voor-, tussen- en eindmeting) uitgevoerd door Oberon, in samenwerking met de Universiteit Utrecht. Doel van het onderzoek was zicht te krijgen op de wijze waarop de samenwerking is vormgegeven en versterkt en of, en hoe de samenwerking heeft geleid tot tevredenheid van betrokkenen over aspecten van opleiden en begeleiden en ontwikkeling van vaardigheden van studenten en startende leraren. Methode van onderzoek en alle uitkomsten kunt u lezen in de rapportage van de eindmeting waarin de ontwikkeling in de samenwerkingsverbanden vanaf de start is meegenomen