"In Collective Efficacy in a PLC: Lessons, Paradoxes, and Research From a Turnaround District, authors Matt Navo and Jared Jack Savage explore the strategies and change initiatives that transformed Sanger Unified School District from one of the lowest-performing school districts in the state of California to one of the top-performing districts. Throughout the book, the authors explain the importance of collective team efficacy and the professional learning community (PLC) process in transforming teams districtwide. The book provides valuable, in-depth insight into the real-world lessons Sanger educators learned as well as the challenges they experienced. By reviewing research from experts and the authors' own experiences, K-12 educators will gain the practices and tools necessary to implement effective change in their own schools and districts"--
How did one of the lowest-performing and most dysfunctional school districts in California become a top turnaround district? It all came down to one thing: building collective team efficacy. Through the support and guidance of this resource, you will reflect, find parallels to your own story, and apply the real-world lessons learned at Sanger Unified to the school community you serve. Understand how collective team efficacy is crucial for organizational improvement. Study the research and real-world examples that support the strategies and concepts introduced in the book. Learn how to define a team's purpose and a school's vision in a way that builds a foundation for a strong professional learning community (PLC). Review challenges to collaboration, and discover strategies to combat these threats. Examine the Theory of Action model to assess and build collective team efficacy. Contents: About the Authors Introduction Chapter 1: Building Culture to Enhance Collective Efficacy Chapter 2: Building Purpose to Enhance Collective Efficacy Chapter 3: Building Vision to Enhance Collective Efficacy Chapter 4: Building Belief and Accountability to Enhance Collective Efficacy Chapter 5: Building Autonomy to Enhance Collective Efficacy Chapter 6: Building Collaboration to Enhance Collective Efficacy Chapter 7: From Paradoxes, Research, and Leadership Lessons to a Theory of Action--Building Collective Team Efficacy Epilogue Appendix References and Resources
Linking Leadership to Student Learning Linking Leadership to Student Learning clearly shows how school leadership improves student achievement. The book is based on an ambitious five-year study on educational leadership that was sponsored by The Wallace Foundation. The authors studied 43 districts, across 9 states and 180 elementary, middle, and secondary schools. In this book, Kenneth Leithwood, Karen Seashore Louis, and their colleagues report on what they found. They examined leadership at each organizational level in the school system—classroom, school, district, community, and state. Their comprehensive approach to investigating school leadership offers a balanced understanding of how the structures within which leaders operate shape what they do. The results within will have significant implications for future policy and practice. Praise for Linking Leadership to Student Learning "Kenneth Leithwood and Karen Seashore Louis offer a seminal new contribution to the leadership field. They provide a rich and authoritative evidence base that demonstrates clearly just why school leadership is so important and how it promotes successful student learning." —PAMELA SAMMONS, Ph.D., Professor of Education, Department of Education, University of Oxford, Oxford "This ambitious, groundbreaking, and thought provoking treatment of the link between school leadership and student learning is a testament to the outstanding work of these exemplary scholars. This is a 'must read' for academics and practitioners alike." —MARTHA McCARTHY, President's Professor, Loyola Marymount University, and Chancellor's Professor Emeritus, Indiana University "The question is no longer whether school and district leader's impact student learning, but rather how they do it. The authors provide a convincing answer, one that recognizes the crucial interaction between leader and locality." —DANIEL L. DUKE, Professor of Educational Leadership, University of Virginia
When George Bernard Shaw wrote his play, Pygmalion, he could hardly have foreseen the use of the concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy in debates about standardized testing in schools. Still less could he have foreseen that the validity of the concept would be examined many years later in Irish schools. While the primary purpose of the experimental study reported in this book was not to investigate the Pygmalion effect, it is inconceivable that a study of the effects of standardized testing, conceived in the 1960s and planned and executed in the 1970s, would not have been influenced by thinking about teachers' expectations and the influence of test information on the formation of those expectations. While our study did pay special attention to teacher expectations, its scope was much wider. It was planned and carried out in a much broader framework, one in which we set out to examine the impact of a standardized testing program, not just on teachers, but also on school practices, students, and students' parents.
Take your professional learning community to the next level! Discover a systemwide approach for re-envisioning your PLC while sustaining growth and continuing momentum on your journey. You’ll move beyond isolated pockets of excellence while allowing every person in your school system—from teachers and administrators to students—the opportunity to be an instrument of lasting cultural change.
This book presents a theory of learning that starts with the assumption that engagement in social practice is the fundamental process by which we get to know what we know and by which we become who we are. The primary unit of analysis of this process is neither the individual nor social institutions, but the informal 'communities of practice' that people form as they pursue shared enterprises over time. To give a social account of learning, the theory explores in a systematic way the intersection of issues of community, social practice, meaning, and identity. The result is a broad framework for thinking about learning as a process of social participation. This ambitious but thoroughly accessible framework has relevance for the practitioner as well as the theoretician, presented with all the breadth, depth, and rigor necessary to address such a complex and yet profoundly human topic.
This open access book presents a comparative study on how large-scale professional development programs for teachers are designed and implemented. Around the world, governments and educators are recognizing the need to educate students in a broad range of higher order cognitive skills and socio-emotional competencies, and providing effective opportunities for teachers to develop the expertise needed to teach these skills is a crucial aspect of effective implementation of curricula which include those goals. This study examines how large-scale efforts to empower teachers for deeper instruction have been designed, how they have been implemented, and their outcomes. To do so, it investigates six programs from England, Colombia, Mexico, India, and the United States. Though all six are intended to broaden and deepen students’ curricular aspirations, each takes this expansion of curricular goals in a different direction. The ambitious education reforms studied here explicitly focus on building teachers’ capacity to teach on a broader set of goals. Through a discerning analysis of program documents, evaluations, and interviews with senior leaders and participants in the programs, the book identifies the various theories of action used in these programs, examines how they were implemented, and discusses what they achieved. As such, it offers an indispensable resource for education leaders interested in designing and implementing professional development programs for teachers that are aligned with ambitious instructional goals.
This open access book presents contemporary perspectives on the role of a learning society from the lens of leading practitioners, experts from universities, governments, and industry leaders. The think pieces argue for a learning society as a major driver of change with far-reaching influence on learning to serve the needs of economies and societies. The book is a testimonial to the importance of ‘learning communities.’ It highlights the pivotal role that can be played by non-traditional actors such as city and urban planners, citizens, transport professionals, and technology companies. This collection seeks to contribute to the discourse on strengthening the fabric of a learning society crucial for future economic and social development, particularly in the aftermath of the coronavirus disease.
