21st Century Leadership Skills Practiced by School Leaders in Pakistan During COVID-19 Pandemic

21st-century leaders need strong leadership skills to effectively lead schools. They must use and implement 21st-century skills for long term change. The study aimed to identify the practices of secondary school leaders of Rawalpindi city about [recommended] 21st century 4 Cs leadership skills (Competence, Character, Compassion & Courage) during the pandemic of Covid-19. This was exploratory research following the quantitative research approach. One hundred and nine school leaders were selected through a simple random sampling technique to complete an adapted survey questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used for analyzing and reporting the findings. Quantitative data analysis indicates that school leaders are using 21st-century leadership skills during Covid-19, but the level of use is dissimilar to the recommended 21st century 4 Cs leadership skills. It was identified that school leaders use relationship (mean= 4.21), Accountability (mean= 4.45), and Self-Belief (mean= 4.37) skills more than other sub-skills in their leadership practices. The findings recommend that policymakers and professional development organizations should plan workshops on these recommended leadership skills for school leaders so they can perform well under situations like Covid-19.

PERAN LEMBAGA PENDIDIKAN DALAM PENINGKATAN KUALITAS GURU PENDIDIKAN ANAK USIA DINI

The big problem that is still faced by national education until now is the issue of quality, effectiveness and efficiency of education. It has become a common understanding that the issue of educators is far more important than the problems of curriculum and other educational components. With the following important aspects educational institutions can play a role in improving the quality of their educators, including: (1) salaries and welfare standards that are appropriate for their lives, (2) qualification standards, (3) competency standards and efforts to improve them, (4) certification system for educators and educators and professional transfers that do not meet competency standards, (4) honest and transparent selection / recruitment, (5) career development standards, (6) preparation of prospective educators and education personnel in line with competency standards, and more emphasizing practice and with strong theory, (7) education and training system in professional training and education institutions and (8) empowering professional development organizations.

Regional Collaboration for Sustainability via Place-Based Ecology Education: A Mixed-Methods Case Study of the Upper Valley Teaching Place Collaborative

Place-based Ecology Education (PBEE) has emerged as a compelling approach to achieving the sustainability goals of Environmental Education (EE), including helping children understand, care about, and take action to protect the environment. Collaboration for teacher training can amplify and expand the reach and effectiveness of PBEE within a given geographic region. This case study of a collaborative of five PBEE professional development organizations provided a noteworthy example of collective evaluation. The primary data source was quantitative and qualitative analysis of 156 survey responses from K-12 classroom teachers, administered from 2016 to 2018 in the Upper Valley region of New Hampshire and Vermont. On average, teachers reported medium-sized (Cohen’s d 0.4 to 0.6), statistically significant changes over the prior year for all six PBEE core practices measured. Teacher responses to open-ended survey items suggested that PBEE often involves coordination between and contribution from multiple players with different roles but similar goals. Cross tabulation with quantitative results suggested that collaboration within schools was a central factor associated with high levels of PBEE practice.

Person centered coaching

Executive coaching is a tool for professional development. Organizations want results, people want fulfillment and to perform. How much room should there be to accommodate both needs which we consider complementary? Coaching is inherently humanistic. However we find both theories and practices that do not truly respect this paradigm.The goal of this research is to test whether a new form of coaching following the Person Centered Approach (PCA) (i.e., humanistic), can promote personal and professional development. With this in mind, a PCA coaching training course was developed. The 13 participants (all white collar workers, mostly team managers) were asked to answer a trigger question. The resulting contents underwent a lexical analysis using Alceste software.Three classes were identified: the first relates to the course as a group cohesive force, promoting professional development, a second class resumes the value of the followed methodology, and a third one about skills and attitude development. We conclude that humanism and coaching can coexist, developing people in a holistic manner, making them aware of the several life dimensions – personal, organizational and social.