"Leadership" Please respond to the following:
Examine the concept of participatory leadership. Propose three ways to engage in participatory leadership.
Evaluate three specific qualities of your leadership style. Examine why you feel comfortable with that approach to leadership.
Peer Response:
Participatory Leadership practices help shape the future of education in terms of possibilities and opportunities. Participatory Leadership practices and theories help us reflect on the pitfalls of oppositional talking or debating and the creative power of true dialogue. There are many ways to engage in participatory leadership (Schlechty, 2009).
First participatory leadership it enables us to work with large groups using relatively minimal resources and generate meaningful information to inform evaluation design and practice. It can bring tremendous strengths to our evaluation practices as it incorporates skills to engage groups and communities in an inspiring way around what to do with the current struggles of our educational system. Second engagement is team building through collaborative efforts. The leader guides his team to produce an enterprise that is a result of group accomplish (Schlechty, 2009). To do this, he must meld a mix of diverse workers with sometimes conflicting ideas and methods.
Final way to engage in participatory leadership is by engaging with other by allowing the input of suggestions of others. Participatory leadership is not a goal. It is a strategy for achieving a goal efficient delivery of quality goods and services by unlocking the human capital within the organization (ARCHIVE, 1990).
My leadership style is forever transforming to fit the needs of students, educators, and team members. Three qualities of my leadership style are a commitment, strategically focused, and, dependence on God. It is critically important that you be able to paint a vivid picture of where your group or organization is headed. In the end, you should use the vision to motivate and guide action.
Make your vision a shared one with your group. I feel comfortable with my approach to leadership because it sets the tone and approach for my organization. Great leaders are aware of their own style and make the effort to learn how their style comes across to their team. They learn to flex their leadership style to individual team members so that they communicate and behave in ways that motivate and inspire. My leadership style stands forever transforming to fit the needs of students, educators, and team members.
Initial Question 2
"Changes in Schools" Please respond to the following:
From the e-Activity, select two of the eight roles that you believe to be the most challenging to adopt. Analyze why it is difficult for schools to adopt each of these roles and provide one suggestion to facilitate the adoption of each role.
Create your own definition of effective teacher leadership. Propose three ways that effective teacher leadership can lead to positive change in your work environment.
Peer Response 2
The superintendent causes the system to think and act strategically-knowing how and when to deploy resources (time, people, space, information, and technology).
The superintendent builds system capacity so that schools can start and sustain change efforts.
From the article this week, above I picked to challenging implementations I think would be difficult for us to adopt. It has to do with the superintendent because I find that is one area that can get muffled a lot.
I feel that at times, we are not given the true space, voice and choice, and support to really flex our professional muscles. At the school level, I think that our principal does a great job, with trying to take the resources that he is given and make sure that we are given this type of space, but if it was up to the district I do not think this would even be a concern to them.
Teacher leadership, to me is evident in the form of Professional learning communities. This is something that I in my school facilitate as a leader.
If I had to choose five attributes of a PLC (professional learning community) they would be that PLCs: "ensure student learning", are "systematic and school wide", embody "culture of collaboration", "focus on results", and take "hard work and commitment" from a dedicated team (DuFour, 2004). All of these attributes cover the large scope of PLCs and when implemented correctly, describes what schools can achieve.
PLCs use data driven by results in order to remediate and target direct instruction. DuFour stated that "the [PLC] model flows from the assumption that the core mission of formal education is not simply to ensure that students are taught but to ensure that they learn" (2004). The focus of PLCs is on learning rather than teaching.
PLCs "ensure that students learn" which is one of the attributes. DuFour discusses 3 critical questions that drives PLCs: "what do we want each student to learn, how will we know when each student has learned it, how will we respond when a student experiences difficulty in learning?" (2004). Teachers respond differently to remediation; some responses neglect the needs of either proficient students or not so proficient students.
Other teachers spend time before or after school remediating with students. DuFour (2004) concludes that a school that is "systematic and schoolwide" provides "timely" support for students, intervention that is not based on remediation but "provides students with help as soon as they experience difficulty". "Systematic" PLCs provides directive time for students to "devote extra time and receive additional assistance until they have mastered the necessary concepts" (DuFour, 2004).
PLCs foster a "culture of collaboration". PLCS do not work effectively if it is not given the adequate time for collaboration between teachers. Provini (2015) states that "PLCs work best when schools have a culture that supports collaboration". Provini goes on to state that "PLCs enable teachers to continually learn from one another via shared visioning and planning, as well as in depth critical examination of what does or doesn't work to enhance student achievement".
Collaboration should not just stop at the classroom door. Collaboration should not only embody discussions of the social climate of the school, duties between faculties (hallway monitor, lunch duty, bus duty, etc.), or even discipline efforts. DuFour states that "the powerful collaboration that characterizes professional learning communities is a systematic process in which teachers work together to analyze and improve their classroom practices" (2004).
DuFour, (2004) states that "PLCs judge their effectiveness on the basis of results". Provini discusses the steps of PLCs by stating "prior to beginning the process teachers review student achievement data to identify a specific standard or standards on which many students are not meeting the goal" (2015). During these meetings the group of teachers discuss learning targets and how they should implement them into the lesson, which then creates data driven instruction.
The last attribute of PLCs is "hard work and commitment"(DuFour, 2004). Provini states that "PLCs emphasize teacher leadership, along with their active involvement and deep commitment to school improvement efforts; PLCs therefore benefit teachers just as much as they do students" (2015). The PLC paradigm is a lot of hard work. Any grand plan is and requires dedication. PLCs "[articulate] a clear, specific and compelling vision" and require "staff members who are personally invested in them" (Provini, 2015).
PLCs are designed to focus on student's perspective of learning rather than, teaching. Data gives PLC members information that guides lessons creating opportunities for direct instruction. Remediation then is not left to only summer school option, but can be implemented during the school year at a specific systematic time. PLCs bring a lot to the school community and helps raise the bar of learning.