Leading Successful Novice Teachers

Instructional leaders have the ability to set the culture and climate of a school campus to be inviting, welcoming, and collaborative. Therefore, it is important that school leaders provide professional development opportunities to novice teachers that support growth in developing a sense of confidence and competence in content and pedagogy. Hence, the instructional leader becomes an important stakeholder in the life of a novice teacher.

Transforming Elementary Mathematics Classroom Practice: Ideas and Innovation from a Leader’s Perspective

The purpose of this chapter is to highlight common challenges that school leaders encounter when seeking to implement change in the teaching and learning of mathematics at their schools. Specifically, the chapter will offer innovative ways that international elementary principals successfully have influenced systemic change in K-5 mathematics classroom practice. The challenges highlighted are not unique to international educators, but the context from which we speak is situated in the international educational environment. We offer practical, but theoretically based guidance for school leaders looking to implement, support, and sustain authentic change in the culture and practice surrounding the math development of students. The first half of the chapter will provide context and a situational perspective relative to the complex relationship between principals, as instructional leaders, and their ability to influence classroom change. Key events that have made conversations about the teaching and learning of mathematics prominent in schools around the world also are highlighted. The second half of the chapter details actionable ideas grounded in research that elementary principals or curriculum leaders can implement to help shift classroom teaching and learning at the elementary level. Ultimately, these shifts are designed to enable higher levels of mathematics achievement for all K-5 students.

Rural principal perspectives of leadership development needs

Rural school principals often face issues of professional isolation and lack of access to leadership development opportunities. To address these challenges, the Elgin Children’s Foundation launched its Principal Support Program (PSP) in 2017 to support the development of effective school leaders in three states with high rural student populations in the Appalachian region. The PSP posited four components as essential for principal development: professional development, networking, mentoring, and learning plans. The aim of this qualitative study was to determine what PSP participants believed to be the most effective in terms of principal development. Results indicate that because of PSP training, rural principals grew from managers to instructional leaders and changed their mindsets and practices regarding shared leadership. Principals believed that they benefited most from the networking and coaching that the PSP provided. Future professional development for rural principals should consider a focus on opportunities to learn with and through others.

Middle Management and Instructional Leadership: The Case of Natural Sciences’ Heads of Departments in South Africa

Natural sciences heads of departments often find themselves in the middle, shuttling between one role as part of the school management team, and another as an ordinary classroom teacher whose role as subject and instructional leaders is made even more complex because of the several duties incorporated in the subject which brings together other science disciplines, with each having its own disciplinary culture and expectations. The crucial role played by this group of teachers in the area of management and instructional leadership can go a long way in determining effective output in teaching and learning. This study reports on a mixed methods approach to explore the practices of natural sciences heads of department, as they provide instructional leadership to the teachers in a multidisciplinary context of their subject. This research involved 30 participants who responded to the questionnaire and 6 purposively selected subject heads of department interviewed and observed from four districts in the Gauteng Province of South Africa. The data collected through questionnaire, semi-structured interview and observations were analysed using descriptive statistics and content analysis. The results from this investigation revealed that natural science heads of departments devise creative ways to mitigate the challenge of differently qualified natural science teachers. These study concludes that the effectiveness of heads of departments as instructional leaders is influenced by the immense pressure from the dual roles of managing from the middle, which also appear to affect the optimal implementation of the natural science curriculum.

Enabling School Librarians to Serve as Instructional Leaders of Multiple Literacies

Research has demonstrated that school leaders have little to no understanding of the instructional leadership role of the school librarian and have received little to no training in how to lead this population (Lewis, 2018; 2019). Though the standards of the school library field state that school librarians should be equipped and able to serve as instructional leaders of multiple literacies in K-12 education, barriers exist that inhibit this from becoming a reality in many schools. One of these barriers is a lack of administrative support in the form of a district library supervisor to develop a vision for and provide support to the district’s school library program and its personnel. Very little research has been conducted to examine the support needs of in-service school librarians (Weeks et al., 2017), and no research has been conducted to explore how to equip existing leadership to effectively lead its population of school librarians in a school district that lacks an official district library supervisor. The purpose of this study is to explore how school district leaders can foster the development of an effective school library in which school librarians serve as instructional leaders of multiple literacies.

ACADEMIC WORKLOADS: INPUTS TO INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERS’ PRODUCTIVITY AND JOB SATISFACTION

This study was conducted to determine the significant effect of academic workloads to productivity and job satisfaction of elementary teachers in selected schools in Liliw District, Laguna. It is important to value the teachers’ productivity and job satisfaction because the researcher believed that these influences teachers’ turnover and quality of teaching. The independent variables included the academic workloads of elementary teachers. On the other hand, teachers’ productivity and job satisfaction are used as an indicator for dependent variables. It aimed to answer the questions such as the mean level of respondent’s academic workloads in terms of: Teaching Load Allocation, Working Hours, Preparation Time, Coaching and Mentoring and Ancillary Function. Also, the mean level of instructional leaders’ productivity in terms of Community services and linkages, Research, Professional Development and Awards and Recognition as well as the mean level of instructional leaders’ job satisfaction in terms of Work Condition, Job Security, Salaries and Benefits, Working Environment; and Social Satisfaction. Presented the summary of findings, ancillary function had a significant effect to instructional leaders’ productivity as to research and job satisfaction as to Job Security, Salaries and Benefits. Preparation time had a significant effect to teachers’ job satisfaction as to work condition and social satisfaction. Ancillary function and preparation time had significant effect to teachers’ productivity as to community services and linkages and professional development. Therefore, the null hypothesis that academic workloads have no significant effect on instructional leaders’ productivity and job satisfaction among selected elementary schools in Liliw, Laguna at 0.05 level of significance was partially accepted. Based on the drawn conclusions resulted to the following recommendations: Rebalance the workload on a regular basis, it may be recommended that automating faculty workload to ensure faculties in institutions optimally spend their time and align with the interests of the institution to maximize efficiency and effectiveness in all areas of operations. Faculty workload management system can help administrators to determine how best to divide the work. Furthermore, creating an action plan based on evaluation scores to enable faculty members to attend workshops, courses and conferences that promote the development of skills for both teaching and research can also be an option for the Academic Workloads of teachers to be improved.

Role of Headteachers as an Instructional Leader

To create a better grasp of the important concepts, topics, and difficulties in the area, this paper evaluates the current theoretical and empirical literature on the headteacher as an instructional leader. We investigated the role of the "headteacher as an instructional leader" in this study. We provided a working definition of instructional leaders, discussed the various roles played by headteachers in educational institutions, identified challenges faced by headteachers, identified gaps in current knowledge in the field, and analysed data collected from workshop participants from across Pakistan. A 19-item questionnaire was utilised as a data-gathering instrument. Analyses were carried out to understand more about the job of the headteacher and the obstacles that he or she faces. The paper concluded with recommendations to address the problems that headteachers encounter in order to improve their efficiency and effectiveness as instructional leaders.

Teachers’ and middle managers’ experiences of principals’ instructional leadership towards improving curriculum delivery in schools

Background: This study was designed to explore teachers’ and middle managers’ experiences regarding their principals’ instructional leadership practices aimed at improving curriculum delivery in schools. Literature on instructional leadership indicates how failing schools can be turned around to become successful if principals consider instructional leadership to be their primary role within schools. The authors, therefore, argue that it is the responsibility of principals to ensure that learners’ results are improved through intervention and support provided by the principals to capacitate teachers and middle managers in delivering the curriculum effectively. Globally, literature promotes the significance of the continued professional development of teachers, and many scholars allude to the pivotal role principals or school heads play in teachers’ skills advancement.Aim: The aim of this article was to identify principals’ instructional practices that improve curriculum delivery in schools, which are examined through the experiences of teachers and middle managers.Setting: The study was conducted in two schools in the Gauteng province of South Africa.Method: The researchers employed a qualitative approach, utilising three domains of instructional leadership as its framework, and these are defining the school mission statement, managing the instructional programme and promoting a positive school learning climate. Four teachers and four middle managers were purposefully selected at two schools for data collection conducted through semi-structured individual interviews, which were analysed using thematic content analysis.Results: Three themes emerged, namely, understanding good instructional leadership practices, teacher development as an instructional practice and instructional resource provisioning.Conclusion: The study highlights the importance of teachers and middle managers in understanding that principals are merely not school managers or administrators, but rather instructional leaders whose primary role is to direct teaching and learning processes in schools. Principals need to create time within their constricted schedules to become instructional leaders, which is their main purpose in schools. If the roles and responsibilities of middle managers are not explicit, their ability to simultaneously perform the dual task of being teachers and middle managers will be compromised.

Curriculum Evaluation: Inputs for Principal’s Instructional Leadership

One of the most important components in education is the curriculum. It undergoes evaluation and development to be responsive to the needs of the times. It adapts to the kind of teachers and learners because teaching and learning are dynamic. The main drivers of the curriculum are the education leaders primarily the principals who are the instructional leaders. The main task of the principal is instructional leadership which means overseeing the teaching and learning process starting with the curriculum. However, the administrative tasks of the principals deprive them of becoming effective instructional leaders. This study aims to present the experiences of the researcher in curriculum evaluation under different principals in a private sectarian school in Manila and seeks to identify how principals can take a strong leadership presence in the challenges in instruction and curriculum evaluation. A critical reflection which is an extension of “critical thinking” and asks us to think about our practice and ideas and then it challenges us to step back and examine our thinking by asking probing questions was used as the method in this study. The researcher looks back into his experiences and identifies the key points in curriculum evaluation vis-à-vis the tasks of instructional leadership. It found out that curriculum evaluation, primarily an integral part of instructional leadership. The principals have to do curriculum evaluation as a collaborative task and process. Moreover, curriculum evaluation with instructional leadership should be giving importance to professional development and mentoring of academic heads and teachers.