Teacher Learning and Instructional Change: How Formal and On-the-Job Learning Opportunities Predict Change in Elementary School Teachers\u27 Practice

Recent education reform has emphasized the importance of teacher learning in improving classroom instruction and raising student achievement. This article focuses on teachers\u27 learning opportunities, including formal professional development and on-the-job learning that occurs through interactions with colleagues. Using data from 30 elementary schools in a mid-sized urban school district, the authors concurrently explore the relationships between teachers\u27 formal professional development and on-the-job learning opportunities and instructional change. Results suggest that formal professional development and on-the-job opportunities to learn are both significantly associated with changes in teachers\u27 instructional practice in mathematics and English language arts

Managing to Lead: Reframing School Leadership and Management

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Meaningful & Sustainable School Improvement with Distributed Leadership

School leadership is broadly acknowledged to be the lynchpin for school success. Yet, amongst the countless demands that school leaders face, making wise leadership choices is increasingly challenging. On what should leaders focus their attention and how should they prioritize their improvement efforts? How can they identify, understand, and make headway on the difficult challenges that will substantially enhance the educational experiences of their students, and how can they bring their faculty together with commitment around these improvement efforts? In this essay we lay out a research-informed framework for advancing meaningful school improvement using a distributed leadership approach. This report was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Opinions in this paper reflect those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE), the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, that of the funder

Infrastructure Redesign and Instructional Reform in Mathematics: Formal Structure and Teacher Leadership

Designing infrastructures to support instruction remains a challenge in educational reform. This article reports on a study of one school system\u27s efforts to redesign its infrastructure for mathematics instruction by promoting teacher leadership. Using social network and interview data from 12 elementary schools, we explore how the district\u27s infrastructure redesign efforts were internally coherent with and built upon existing infrastructure components. We then explore relations between infrastructure and school practice as captured in the instructional advice- and information-seeking interactions among school staff, finding that teacher leaders emerged as central actors and brokers of advice and information about mathematics within and between schools. Further, changes in school advice and information networks were associated with shifts in teachers\u27 beliefs about and practices in mathematics toward inquiry-oriented approaches consistent with district curriculum. We argue that the district\u27s redesign efforts to support teacher leadership coupled district curriculum and school and classroom practice in mathematics

Conceptualizing School Leadership and Management From a Distributed Perspective: An Exploration of Some Study Operations and Measures

A distributed perspective on school leadership and management has garnered considerable attention from policy makers, practitioners, and researchers in many countries over the past decade. However, we should be skeptical of its appeal as a measure of worth. While optimism is high with respect to taking a distributed perspective, we urge caution by arguing for more attention to research fundamentals in the form of study operations and research measures before seeking causal inferences. The question is not, does distributed leadership work? but rather, how are leadership and management related to school and classroom conditions and school outcomes? To answer this question from a distributed perspective, we need to engage study operations and measures when taking a distributed perspective in school leadership and management research. This article attempts to extend that conversation

Infrastructure Redesign and Instructional Reform in Mathematics: Formal Structure and Teacher Leadership

Designing infrastructures to support instruction remains a challenge in educational reform. This article reports on a study of one school system\u27s efforts to redesign its infrastructure for mathematics instruction by promoting teacher leadership. Using social network and interview data from 12 elementary schools, we explore how the district\u27s infrastructure redesign efforts were internally coherent with and built upon existing infrastructure components. We then explore relations between infrastructure and school practice as captured in the instructional advice- and information-seeking interactions among school staff, finding that teacher leaders emerged as central actors and brokers of advice and information about mathematics within and between schools. Further, changes in school advice and information networks were associated with shifts in teachers\u27 beliefs about and practices in mathematics toward inquiry-oriented approaches consistent with district curriculum. We argue that the district\u27s redesign efforts to support teacher leadership coupled district curriculum and school and classroom practice in mathematics

Governing the governors : a case study of college governance in English further education

This paper addresses the nature of governors in the governance of further education colleges in an English context (1). It explores the complex relationship between governors (people/agency), government (policy/structure) and governance (practice), in a college environment. While recent research has focused on the governance of schooling and higher education there has been little attention paid to the role of governors in the lifelong learning sector. The objective of the paper is to contribute to the debate about the purpose of college governance at a time when the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) commissioning era ends, and new government bodies responsible for further education and training, including local authorities, arrive. The paper analyses the nature of FE governance through the perspectives and experiences of governors, as colleges respond to calls from government for greater improvement and accountability in the sector (LSIS, 2009a). What constitutes creative governance is complex and controversial in the wider framework of regulation and public policy reform (Stoker, 1997; Seddon, 2008). As with other tricky concepts such as leadership, professionalism and learning, college governance is best defined in the contexts, cultures and situations in which it is located. College governance does not operate in a vacuum. It involves governors, chairs, principals, professionals, senior managers, clerks, community, business and wider agencies, including external audit and inspection regimes. Governance also acts as a prism through which national education and training reforms are mediated, at local level. While governing bodies are traditionally associated with the business of FE - steering, setting the tone and style, dealing with finance, funding, audit and procedural matters – they are increasingly being challenged to be more creative and responsive to the wider society. Drawing on a recent case study of six colleges, involving governors and key policy stakeholders, this paper explores FE governance in a fast changing policy environment