scholarly journals Leadership in action : the influence of leadership practices on reform

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lisa Ruhman

The purpose of this study was to explore how schools and administrators can be most effective in meeting the needs of students while managing accountability measures such as the Common Core State Standards and ensuing Missouri Learning Standards. Although literature regarding leadership theories is prevalent (Bass and Avolio, 1994; Northouse, 2010; Sergiovanni, 1996), there remains a gap in how quality leadership translates into effective schools with high achieving children (Wallace Foundation, 2012). For struggling schools to advance reform efforts, research must determine how school leaders can best support student achievement throughout the process. The present study sought teacher perceptions of effective leadership behaviors necessary for successful reform. Learning leadership (LL) was the comparative tool utilized to better understand effective governance. Employing a mixed method study, the researcher provided an online, single instance survey with embedded open-ended questions to obtain practitioner insights to explore possible relationships between LL and student achievement amidst reform. The results indicated a potential relationship between the characteristics of educational leaders and positive reform results, however, further research is required to verify the actual implications of each LL behavior. In addition, gender appeared to have a significant role in the perception of practitioner insight, with females being prone to greater agreement of a successful link to instructional support. It is possible that a gap still remains between behaviors deemed supportive by teachers and those displayed by administrators. Additionally, the study highlighted the need for further study of administrative perceptions throughout large-scale transition, and the content of administrative degree programs offered by colleges and universities.

AERA Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 233285842110171
Author(s):  
Karen C. Fuson ◽  
Douglas H. Clements ◽  
Julie Sarama

Litkowski et al. compare preschoolers’ performance on three counting items to various standards. We clarify that the items Litkowski and colleagues found to be too easy for kindergarten were actually goals for 4s/PKs in the National Research Council’s report Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood: Paths Toward Excellence and Equity but that they were included as kindergarten standards to ensure that all children had an opportunity to learn these crucial competencies. The helpful analysis in their article of the variability across present state early childhood standards indicates that the kindergarten Common Core State Standards–Mathematics need to remain unchanged for the same reason. We suggest that research funding in early childhood is better spent on research on high-quality instructional contexts for all children than on survey research. And we address the important question of what more-advanced children should learn in kindergarten by pairing standards those children already know with crucial standards that need a lot of time and attention.


2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Geiselhart

In an environment of globalisation and rapidly expanding deployment of interactive digital communication, this paper takes a complex systems approach to the mapping of large scale global indicators onto electronic flows of information and intent. It argues that democracy is being transformed by online technologies, and that governments which embrace and encourage citizen inputs and monitoring of public information can establish vital groundwork for more effective forms of global governance. Growing awareness of issues that transcend jurisdictions makes such transformations both necessary and increasingly acceptable. The prism for this bird’s eye view is the Australian Government’s evolution in its uses of information communication technologies (ICTs) for citizen engagement.


2020 ◽  
Vol 102 (3) ◽  
pp. 42-45
Author(s):  
Kristin E. Harbour ◽  
Evthokia Stephanie Saclarides

To support continuous professional development model in the teaching and learning of mathematics, many districts and schools have begun hiring elementary mathematics coaches and/or specialists (MCSs). However, limited large-scale empirical research exists that determines how the use of MCSs affect student learning and achievement. Kristin E. Harbour and Evthokia Stephanie Saclarides begin to fill in this gap by using data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress to explore the relationship between the presence and responsibilities of elementary MCSs and 4th-grade student achievement in mathematics. Based on their findings, they share practical implications for districts and administrators to consider.


2021 ◽  
pp. 009539972110642
Author(s):  
Trine H. Fjendbo ◽  
Christian B. Jacobsen ◽  
Seung-Ho An

Leadership training is key to promoting more active leadership, but the effects of leadership training can depend on the gender context. Gender congruence between manager and employee can affect how the manager employs leadership behaviors adapted from training and how employees perceive leadership behavior. Quantitative data on 474 managers’ 4,833 employees before and after a large-scale field experiment with leadership training enable us to examine changes in employee-perceived leadership following training. The results show that gender congruence between manager and employee is associated with stronger leadership training effects on employee-perceived leadership behaviors. Female gender congruence shows the most pronounced effects.


2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 397-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael W Kramer ◽  
Eric Anthony Day ◽  
Christopher Nguyen ◽  
Carrisa S Hoelscher ◽  
Olivia D Cooper

The increased reliance on interorganizational collaborations (ICs) has created new challenges for leaders. They must attempt to apply leadership theories and behaviors developed primarily for leading within one organization or group to leading collaborations of multiple organizations and stakeholders. To provide insight into this issue, this study examines leadership behavior in an IC developing a strategic plan to promote changes to address public health and safety concerns related to substance abuse. Combining observations and interviews, we followed a statewide interagency taskforce in a southwestern state of the United States from its inception through completion of its strategic plan within a 10-month deadline. Findings show different leadership behaviors were integrated and evolved over time to strike a balance between decision-making effectiveness and efficiency. In particular, the findings support recent research on examining leadership behavior holistically to develop a ‘fuller full-range’ leadership perspective (Antonakis and House, 2014), especially in terms of how collectivistic and instrumental leadership should complement transformational leadership, and by demonstrating that the combinations of leadership change over time and occur at multiple levels. These findings provide guidance for future practice and research on ICs promoting change.


Author(s):  
Romina Jamieson-Proctor ◽  
Glenn Finger

Teaching and learning in the 21st Century requires teachers and students to capitalise upon the relative advantage of integrating Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to enhance current curriculum, pedagogy and assessment approaches, as well as transform teaching and learning. While most educational systems agree that ICT has the potential to transform teaching and learning, attention has been given recently to the challenge of how to measure and evaluate the impact ICT is having on teaching and learning. This Chapter argues that the most important focus in measuring ICT use needs to be on student use of ICT, as policies and teacher professional development initiatives by themselves are insufficient to ensure that student learning is either enhanced or transformed through ICT use. Insights are provided into the development of a contemporary instrument, for use by Education Queensland, Australia, which aims to measure teacher perceptions of the quantity and quality of student use (as opposed to teacher use) of ICT in the curriculum. The instrument enables teachers and schools to identify their current and preferred levels of student ICT use, and from this, to generate discussion about the integration and transformational potential of ICT and to develop strategic plans to achieve their preferred level of student use. This Chapter also provides summaries of the implementation of the instrument in two large Queensland education systems, and argues that ICT research, such as this approach, which enables large scale, evidence-based research to measure student outcomes as a result of using ICT in the curriculum should be a matter of priority to effectively monitor and manage learning with ICT.


2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 752-781
Author(s):  
Michael O. Martin ◽  
Ina V.S. Mullis

International large-scale assessments of student achievement such as International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement’s Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Program for International Student Assessment that have come to prominence over the past 25 years owe a great deal in methodological terms to pioneering work by National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Using TIMSS as an example, this article describes how a number of core techniques, such as matrix sampling, student population sampling, item response theory scaling with population modeling, and resampling methods for variance estimation, have been adapted and implemented in an international context and are fundamental to the international assessment effort. In addition to the methodological contributions of NAEP, this article illustrates how the large-scale international assessments go beyond measuring student achievement by representing important aspects of community, home, school, and classroom contexts in ways that can be used to address issues of importance to researchers and policymakers.


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