Instructional Rounds Proposal.docx

THE INSTRUCTIONAL CORE AND ITS EFFECT ON THE 21ST CENTURY EDUCATION SYSTEM

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF EDUCATION

to the faculty of the Division of

ADMINISTRATIVE AND INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP

of

THE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

ST. JOHN’S UNIVERSITY

New York

by

Adams, Tracy M.

Brock, Cecilia

Cotten, Stacey D.

Crandall, Arlene B.

Finck, Elisabeth S.

Greene, Martin K.

Harrison, Jennifer M.

Kennellopoulos, Helen

Licato, Kimberly N.

Mc Cabe, Patricia A.

Rodgers-Ammirato, Jacqueline

Tornatore, Augustine E.

Zizza, Jason W.

Submitted Date_________ Approved Date_________

____________________ ___________________

Student’s signature Mentor’s signature

Table of ContentsComment by Rory Manning: We need to eventually complete this page with the associated page numbers for each section. Not at this time though.

Chapter 1: Background Information-Helen, Jenn and Gus

Definition of a good school-Gus, Stacey and Elisbeth

Current state of instructional supervision Gus

Guiding Questions-Helen and Jenn

Definition of TermsTracy

Chapter 2: Review of the literature

Leadership Theory Pat and Cecilia and Arlene

The seven principles of the Instructional Core = everyone contributed

Theories of Action =Introduction:Martin/every group to edit their contribution

Chapter 3: Methodology Kim and Jason

Theoretical Framework and Visual Model-Tracy

Data Collection StrategiesKim and Data Analysis Method

References-Stacey

Chapter 1: Introduction

General Background

Designing instructional strategies requires leadership in community building.  That is, in getting the stakeholders to agree about what makes a good school.  Through public conversations, educational leaders stimulate the various constituencies in the school community to engage in this conversation and to come to some sustainable definition of what student learning, professional teaching, and educational accountability mean to them and to their particular school.  This definition of a good school is a matter of values, not a matter of science or research.  Once this definition of a good school is established, research and inquiry can help in determining the effectiveness of that particular model. The definition of good schooling varies.  Not all schools attempt to be the same type of school.

In the SAGE Handbook of Educational Leadership, Haas and Poyner (2011) note that efforts to arrive at a set of commonly accepted values represents a political struggle between two sets of values, traditional transmission values and the progressive transaction values.  Research and development in instructional strategies must address these same value issues, specifically, what is the model of good instruction represented in the strategy.  Similarly, before one can adopt a good practice, one needs to specify one’s definition of good. A practice that may be good in one school with its set of values may not be good in another school with its set of values. Referring to Haas and Poyner’s two value orientation, one can say that traditional schools tend to emphasize the adoption of research in good practices in other schools while progressive transactional schools tend to engage teachers in inquiry to create knowledge about good teaching in their particular context.

As the recent interest in vouchers and charter schools make clear, citizens will sustain a system of public education only so long as they understand and believe in the efficacy of the system of public schools. Creating a community of belief requires leadership that involves stakeholders in creating a shared meaning about what a good school is and in judging, either implicitly or explicitly, how well that model of schooling achieves their aspirations. Leadership involves both advocacy (the process of designing) and inquiry (the process of documenting and judging).

Through social interaction and public discourse regarding the construction of problems and of viable solutions, groups create a shared meaning or social action theory that strategically represents their sense of a “good school design.” Through such direct means as parental choice for enrollment, newspaper scorecards, school board elections, and budget votes, the public judges the efficacy of their schools. Even more directly, through the creation of charter schools, some segments of the public both design and assess the efficacy of their children’s school. For the public at large, acceptance of students’ performance indicators and belief in the validity of the teacher evaluation systems are central to the act of judging the adequacy of schools. As observed by Bryk and Schneider, “gross incompetence is corrosive to trust.” The bad apple, left unnoticed, tends to ruin the whole barrel, at least as far as parents’ judgement of the school goes. Thus, an effective supervisory process is a central element in building the public’s trust in schools.

The school as it exists is a representational model of the social action theory (shared meaning of what it means to be a good school) constructed by the stakeholders. The most effective leadership requires social accountability among stakeholders, not only among school personnel. Leadership is an active process and occurs in the context of this social action theory/school design. Teacher evaluation systems, therefore, reflect the social action theory and rest on some assumptions about the role and function of the teacher in the educational life of the community. That role may be highly restricted, formal and narrowly conceived or may be expanded and more civic in nature. The evaluation system is embedded in the culture of the school, which incorporates the predominant social action theory. Schools as cultures often have competing belief systems that are seldom acknowledged. Some teachers enact one belief system about what it means to know and work, while some other teachers enact another belief system. This same line of thought exists with evaluators of teachers who can view classroom instruction very differently based on their belief about what it means to know and work. This study will consider the organizational functions the evaluation system fulfills, whether a more technical system that complies with the law (APPR policy) or a more constructivist system that promotes inquiry and community building (Instructional Rounds), and its impact on the measure of self efficacy of the instructional leadership.

Definition of a good school

Various educational experts (veteran teachers, supervisors, and administrators) came together to engage in a healthy conversation about about how stakeholders have alternate views on the definition of a good school. The general consensus of the elements of a good school from the group are as follows.

A good school is a school that always keeps in mind that the students come first. The school would have evidence of learning taking place, that exhibits relational trust and that has an educational visionary at the helm. It needs to be a place that is not afraid of change and that works as a team. It should be a place that exhibits growth where the students and staff are empowered. A good school would provide a safe physical environment with learning opportunities for both student and adult learners where curiosity and innovation are key components and well established variables that exist within the school community

A good school must take into account all the educational needs of the individual students and create a program of instruction best suited to meet the student’s goals. Additionally curricula should be incorporated that is relevant to the student’s lives and provide authentic assessments. All administrators and teachers need to be supported. A positive learning environment needs to be established where all students are accepted and educated no matter where they are academically, socially and/or emotionally. A good school embraces a safe learning environment. A safe environment promotes student learning.

A good school has a clear and concrete mission statement supported by teachers, students, parents, administrators and community members. All stakeholders help to carry out the mission of the school and work towards meeting the state standards. There is a solid academic curriculum that remains consistent among teachers throughout different disciplinary areas. Good schools should produce students that will become global citizens with 21st century skills that will aid them in the process of becoming college and career ready.

A good school promotes lifelong learners through a positive learning culture. It prepares students socially and academically to embrace future goals and feel successful.

The Current State of Instructional Supervision

Self analysis is crucial to obtain an understanding of how well any system, or person, is functioning and to see where improvements can be made. Administrators and supervisors provide the analysis of their teaching staff through observations, viewing data, lesson plans, and by walking around the building and engaging staff, students, and parents in conversations about the educational system. Unfortunately, there are numerous problems with the current state of instructional supervision. Following is a discussion regarding what the problems are in today’s instructional supervision.

One of the major issues of instructional supervision is the declining amount of time available to devote to it. The time that was spent in classrooms and discussing "good teaching" has moved its way into observations, evaluation and accountability. The lack of time also affects the ability to provide the appropriate feedback to the classroom teacher. The other responsibilities that come with the instructional supervisory position slowly erode the "instructional" component of leadership.

While unions play a role in protecting workers’ rights, the teachers’ union can interfere with moving a building or a district forward. One example would be the opportunity to provide students with online learning. Currently, most unions are resistant to the 21st century changes in our society. In addition, the APPR legislation had to be negotiated with each individual teachers’ union and the intent of revamping the evaluation system and the reality of what was agreed upon do not match. It is frustrating when there are opportunities to move the system forward and to create policies to do so and that cannot happen due to resistance from the unions.

Some other issues that exist are: there is a gap in knowledge amongst educators, there is a lack of unified training so that supervisors can look for different approaches to teaching coupled with a lack of knowledge of instructional methodology (not taught in teacher education programs) and there are different values and belief systems between teachers and supervisors. In addition, there is a focus on analyzing teacher instruction, but not student learning. We also see a discomfort and resistance to change on many levels. Many times, we have heard from staff or board of education members that "we've always done it this way." Lastly, there can be a lack of supervisors' understanding of the protocol being used, with a lack of transactional trust and there are teacher issues with observations being used as evaluation (APPR). Trust must be established between the stakeholders, as well as the players in the instructional core.

There has been a lot of controversy about the current revisions of APPR. The new and improved evaluation system can be manipulated in order to make every teacher highly effective. Most districts did not have any teachers rated as ineffective, yet there are poor teachers out there influencing our students. The new system is not doing what it should be doing- fairly evaluating teachers while documenting the teachers who truly need a teacher improvement plan. Also, placing ownership for students’ test scores directly on teachers is not an appropriate measure of a teachers instructional abilities. The state assessments are there to measure student knowledge on each subject, they are not there to measure teacher effectiveness.

APPR started off as an evaluative tool for improving instruction but has turned into a political, time consuming and directed towards teacher performance. Teacher performance is not measured the same across districts. It has caused administrators and teachers to take away time from discussing curricula concerns and instruction but rather worrying about the observation process (pre-observation, observation, post-observation) and overall teacher scores. There is no clear consensus of the terminology, process and how outcomes are achieved from district to district.

Research Questions

This study will examine and consider the organizational functions the evaluation system fulfills, whether a more technical system that complies with the law (APPR policy) or a more constructivist system that promotes inquiry and community building (Instructional Rounds). With this analysis in mind, it is significant to question the impact of each type of system on the measure of self efficacy of the instructional leadership. The following subsidiary questions will also be addressed:Comment by Rory Manning: We need to come to consensus on these questions. Please provide any input.

· How do the seven principles affect the implementation of the new instructional program?

· Does the district use the instructional core to implement a new instructional program when building the teachers’ knowledge and skills?

· Does the district use the concepts promoted in instructional core when implementing a new instructional program to focus on the role of the content in the classroom?

· Does the district use the instructional core while implementing a new instructional program affect the role of the student in the instructional process?

· Does the district use the instructional core while implementing a new instructional program affect the relationship between the teacher, the student, and content?

Definition of Terms

The Public Educational Leadership Project (Public Education Leadership Project at Harvard University, 2014) defined the elements of the framework.

Instructional Core: The core includes three interdependent components:teachers' knowledge and skill, students' engagement in their own learning, and academically challenging content.

Theory of Change: The organization's belief about the relationships between certain actions and desired outcomes, often phrased as an "if… then…" statement. This theory links the mission of increased performance for all students to the strategy the organization will use to achieve that goal.

Strategy: A coherent set of actions a district deliberately undertakes to strengthen the instructional core with the objective of raising student performance district-wide. Gaining coherence among actions at the district, school, and classroom levels will make a district's chosen strategy more scalable and sustainable.

Stakeholders: The people and groups inside and outside of the district - district and school staff, governing bodies, unions and associations, parents and parent organizations, civic and community leaders and organizations.

Culture: The predominant norms, values, and attitudes that define and drive behavior in the district.

Structure: Structures help define how the work of the district gets done. It includes how people are organized, who has responsibility and accountability for results, and who makes or influences decisions. Structures can be both formal (deliberately established organizational forms) and informal (the way decisions get made or the way people work and interact outside of formal channels).

Systems: School districts manage themselves through a variety of systems, which are the processes and procedures through which work gets done. Systems are built around such important functions as career development and promotion, compensation, student assignment, resource allocation, organizational learning, and measurement and accountability. Most practically, systems help people feel like they do not have to "reinvent the wheel" when they need to get an important, and often multi-step, task done.

Resources: Managing the flow of financial resources throughout the organization is important, but resources also include people and physical assets such as technology and data. When school districts carefully manage their most valuable resource--people--and understand what investments in technology and data systems are necessary to better support teaching and learning, the entire organization is brought closer to coherence.

Environments: A district's environment includes all the external factors that can have an impact on strategy, operations, and performance (i.e. regulations and statutes, contracts, funding and politics).

Chapter 2: Review of the Literature

This chapter is presented in three sections. The first section provides a brief overview of leadership theory as it pertains to all facets of school management and personnel supervision. The second section explores the notion of the instructional core as described by City, et al (2010) in Instructional Rounds in Education: A Network Approach to Improving Teaching and Learning. The third section describes some theoretical underpinnings of theories of action in the instructional rounds process.

Leadership

Designing instructional strategies requires leadership in community building. Sergiovanni (1994) writes that in building schools "we become connected for reason of commitment rather than compliance" and that “people are bonded to each other as a result of their mutual bindings to shared values, traditions, ideas, and ideals".According to Harvard University Pres (1996) his thesis is that we might better understand, design, and run schools as social rather than formal organizations and, in particular, as communities. His reasoning is that the universal need for a sense of belonging, of being connected to others and to ideas and values too often goes unfulfilled in schools as they are currently conceived. His prescription is that reformers and theoreticians alike should recognize that schooling is first and foremost about relationships between and among students and teachers, and that community building must be the basis for school reform efforts that seek to improve teaching and learning; all else will come more naturally when authentic communities flourish. There are several leadership models that have been utilized in school systems in an effort to accomplish the goal of improving instruction.

Transactional leadership is a theory of leadership that focuses on exchanges between the leader and follower. It follows the patterns of a managerial style that rewards and punishes the workers in order to create the type of work required by the leader. Bass and Avolio (1994) suggest that there are three forms of transactional leadership. The management-by-exception-passive maintains the status quo. The leader sets the standards and waits for problems to occur. The second type is management-by-exception-active. This type of transactional leadership sets the standards and monitors the behaviors of the workers. The monitoring process diminishes risk taking. The third type of transactional leadership is constructive transaction. In this style the followers are invited into the management process by focusing on goals and achievement of the work.

Transformational leadership is the theory and belief that leaders can enhance the motivation, morale, and performance of followers through a variety of mechanisms. Imbedded in the foundation of transformational leadership theory is the belief that individual consideration, intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation and idealized influence are paramount.

Leithwood suggests that transformational school leaders are more or less in continuous pursuit of three fundamental goals: helping staff members develop and maintain a collaborative professional school culture fostering teacher development and helping solve problems together and effective. Leithwood focuses on second order change. (Leithwood 1992)

Transformational leadership is the theory and belief that leaders can enhance the motivation, morale, and performance of followers through a variety of mechanisms. Imbedded in the foundation of transformational leadership theory is the belief that individual consideration, intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation and idealized influence are paramount (Transformational Leadership, Bass and Riggio, 2008).

Leithwood suggests that transformational school leaders are in pursuit of three fundamental goals: helping staff members develop and maintain a collaborative professional school, culture fostering teacher development and helping solve problems together and effective. Leithwood focuses on second order change. (Leithwood 1992)

Dr. Edwards Deming, a statistician who assisted in the census after World War II, developed a fourteen point management philosophy. By following the fourteen points outlined by Deming when companies improved quality they would decrease expenses, as well as increase productivity and market share. (Deming 1986)

Waldman narrowed Deming’s fourteen points into five factors that outline the actions of an effective leader. Waldman speaks to the leader’s ability to stimulate change in an organization, have the ability to establish teams, with provide resources and support and welcome continuous improvement within the organization. Waldman continues to discuss and outline that leaders establish and ongoing atmosphere of trust by remaining cognizant of what motivates employees, to have a vision of the meaning of their work and to understand the conditions needed for employees to operate at optimum capacity. Waldman reiterates Demings attempts to humanize the process of designing instructional strategies, focusing more on the process and long-term perspective and moving away from goals based on quotas, or highly numerical and short term goals.

Servant leadership is both a leadership philosophy and set of leadership practices and emerges simply as a desire to help others. As opposed to exercising “top down” authoritarian leadership, the servant-leader shares power, assists people to develop and reach their highest potential, and puts the needs of others before their own. Servant Leadership is most closely associated with a participative leadership style which involves employees at all levels in decision-making. According to Greenleaf (1977) the focus of this type of leadership is to promote the performance and satisfaction of employees by understanding personal needs, healing wounds caused by conflict, being a steward of resources, and being an effective listener. Keith (2008) states that servant leadership is ethical, practical, and meaningful. He identifies seven key practices of servant leaders: self-awareness, listening, changing the pyramid, developing your colleagues, coaching not controlling, unleashing the energy and intelligence of others, and foresight. Application of these practices is seen to have long-term positive results in worker engagement and morale, relationships with others, and speed in implementing change. Overall, staff identify more closely with the school or district because their individual needs have been given attention and conflicts have been addressed.

Hersey and Blanchard (1996) describe their leadership theory as a situational leadership style. The leader adapts to the needs of the followers or employees. The one constant in the world right now is change. An underlying premise of their theory is that leadership is done with people, not to people. Artistry and sophistication is needed with each of the four styles within situational leadership. The leader selects the style to match the particular situation. The variety of styles are needed according to Hersey and Blanchard (1996) because of the constant changes and variety of situations that challenge leaders today.

The four styles of situational leadership are designed around the needs of the follower and the task. The first style is telling or directing. In this style there is a high task-low relationship balance. The follower is unable or unwilling to perform a task. The second style is the participating or supporting style. The relationship here is high task-high relationship. The individual is unable but willing to perform the task. The third style is persuading or coaching. The relationship is low task-low relationship in this style. The employee is able but unwilling to perform the task. The final style is delegating which has a relationship of low task-high relationship. The individual is able and willing to perform the task.

Table 1: Transmission Leadership versus Progressive Transactional Leadership

Progressive Transaction Leader

Traditional Transmission Leader

· Facilitates master crafts people

· Designates role models

· Mentors role models

· Gate keeper to the politics

· The filter between the district and building level administration

· Continues to encourage life-long learners

· Not "Sage on the Stage" more of a "Guide on the Side"

· As a decision maker, serves to dispense information, assign tasks and evaluate work

· Promotes within a team

· Stimulates learning by: demonstrating, inviting, discussing, affirming, facilitating and collaborating

· As a task master, explains and enforces curriculum and policy changes and determines and assigns work to be done

· Creates a supportive community of learners, wherein collaboration and assistance are encouraged

· Creates a climate wherein competition and comparison are encouraged but not always to the benefit of the students

· Effectively communicates high expectations

· Encourages professional development

· Continued learning

· Response to individual teacher interest

· Encourages and supports continuous learning

· Top down leadership

· Lack of trust

· Trickle Down Theory

· Telling one what to do

· Directed to completed

· No collaborative practices

· Do it because I said so

· Supportive

· Good listener

· Non-threatening

· Encourages risk taking

· Punishment behavior

· Fearful of consequences

· Top down model

· Risk taking diminished

· Shared decision making

· Self-efficacy

· Risk taking diminished

· Lack of support

· Afraid to think outside the box

· No opportunity for creativity

· Dependent on decisions of the leader

The Seven Principles of the Instructional Core

As discussed in City, et al (2010) the instructional core is composed of the teacher and the student, in the presence of content.” Hawkins (1974) original framework, that has since been developed further, indicates that the nature of instructional practice is determined not by the individual qualities of each element, but by the relationship between all three. In addition, Elmore (2010) says all three things need to be done at the same time, and if one of the elements is not being done, then instruction and learning cannot be improved. According to Doyle (1983) the center of the core is the instructional task, which he defines as “the actual work that students are asked to do in the process of instruction - not what teachers think they are asking students to do, or what the official curriculum says what the students are asked to do, but what they are actually asked to do”. City et al (2010) provide a basic framework with seven guiding principles for intervening in the instructional process so that the quality and level of student learning can improve.

Figure #1: The Instructional Core diagram demonstrates the essential interaction between student, teacher and the content that creates the basis of learning. (Elmore, 2010)

The First Principle

Increases in student learning occur only as a consequence of improvements in the level of content, teachers’ knowledge and skill and student engagement. According to City, et al (2010) there are three ways in which student learning is improved: 1) Increase the level for knowledge and skill that the teacher brings to the instructional process; 2) Increase the level and the complexity of the content that students are asked to learn: and, 3) Change the role of the student in the instructional process. Acknowledging the elements of instructional core assists educational leaders to identify what they are trying to improve, and, according to Elmore (2010) “if you change one, you have to change them all.” Comment by Rory Manning: This section needs to be tightened up a bit. A more narrative form would help make the section flow better.

Standards only operate by influencing the level of the content that’s actually being taught; their effect in actual classrooms depends on whether there are materials that reflect the standards, whether teachers know how to teach what the materials and standards require, and whether students find the work that they are being asked to do worthwhile and engaging.

Improvement

When a teacher is observed during a lesson, the conversation that takes place after usually a reflection of the lesson going well instead of referencing what the students were actually doing and evidence that they understood the main objective. The role of the student can’t be neglected in the instructional process. “We focus much more attention on the textbook adoptions and curriculum alignment, for example, that we do on analyzing students’ actual responses to the content, what motivates them to high levels of engagement with the content and their actual role in the instructional process.” (City, et. al, 2010) The outcome of the relationship between the teacher, student and the content is dependent on the what each element brings to the instructional process.

Typical change in instruction focuses on structure and processes that surround the core, rather than knowledge and skill that the teacher brings to the instructional process, level and the complexity of the content that students are asked to learn, or change the role of the student in the instructional process. Professional development needs to influence teachers in what they do, not what they think they ought to do. The quality of PD depends on what teachers are being asked to learn, how they are learning it, and whether they can make the practices they are being asked to try work in their classrooms

Administrators’ influence on the quality and effectiveness of classroom instruction is determined not by the leadership practices they manifest, but by the way those practices influence the knowledge and skill of teachers, the level of work in classrooms, and level of active learning by students.

Elmore also cautions districts as they wrestle with creating instructional change in this climate, "If you don't have a way of connecting instruction to management, organization, and accountability, you're behaving irresponsibly." He advises focusing on those things that make the instructional core work.

Everything else is instrumental – everything outside the core only influences what’s inside the core.

·

Much of what policy makers and administrators do in the name of school improvement never makes it to the instructional core, no less, the classroom. They may only create conditions that influence what goes on inside the core.

· The primary work of schooling occurs inside the classroom, not the organizations and institutions that surround it.

· Schools don’t improve through politics and management, they improve through the complex and demanding work of teaching and learning.

The Second Principle

Within the framework of the Second Principle the elements of change and effect are explored and discussed. The Second Principle examines when one variable of the framework changes other variables will be effected. For every action there is an equivalent reaction.

In Instructional Rounds in Education, according to the Second Principle, “if you change a single element of the instructional core, you have to change the other two to affect student learning” (City, Elmore, Fiarman and Teitel, 2010, p. 25 ). If implementing a new program, you cannot just focus on one aspect of the program. One must also assess teacher skill level and knowledge when implementing a new program. The three variables of the instructional core are interrelated and interconnected, so that when one is changed or affected the others are also impacted. Often times the students are forgotten during the process of implementing a new program.

When implementing changes in the instructional core one must remain cognizant of the expectations for student learning. If all the elements are not changed at the same time, this may produce low-level teaching of high-level content This is called “knocking the corners off the grand piano to get through the door”(City, Elmore, Fiarman and Teitel, 2010, 25). For example, teachers may assign high-level text or complex problems and then give fill-in-the-blank worksheets. The teaching and the content are not aligned. Another example is when teachers walk through a straight procedural explanation of how to find the answer and they do not allow the student to participate in their own creative discovery process. Also, often times the student is taught to be a recorder and one hears “ should I copy this down,” instead of teaching a student to be a thinker and allow them to complete the process of thinking and discovering what is important to learn and know.

When the instructional core is not aligned appropriately the other two elements, one will get random innovation across classrooms and are not necessarily systemic . In order for this to be successful and aligned correctly, one must invest in professional development that does have a clear understanding and purpose of where it leads. It is imperative to remember to change the role of the student in the instructional process because one is setting themselves up for a disconnect between teaching and learning. Teachers are the ones that do most of the work, students need to be engaged in the change and do some of the work as well. The idea and the implementation of teacher and student collaboration nede to be in existence for success for all.

Often times, when programs are implemented and evaluated one always asks “How did the lesson go,” and focuses on how it was delivered rather than asking about the evidence of what the students actually know as a consequence of the teaching. Educators are comfortable in changing teaching and content in isolation, rather than including the role of the student in their practices. Overall, education focuses on theory and not the actual practice and consumption of learning. Historically the focus of education has been on what is being taught rather than what is being learned by the student.

In order for Educators to remain focused on the instructional core of student, teacher, content connection, the following variables need to remain illuminated when implementing changes: students interests and engagement in the learning process, the ability to explain what they have learned, and focusing on the what and not the how. Also, educators should focus on the delivery of content, based on student learning and acquisition of knowledge and not teacher delivery. The instructional core needs to be realigned, becoming student centric and move from being teacher centric. A so, a realignment of formative assessments that are student focused rather than teacher focused will move the focus of what is looked at in education from “head down,” to “head up.”

According to Elmore (2010) on page 27 of Instructional Rounds in Education, the instructional core provides a heuristic for assessing the likelihood that any systematic improvement strategy, or any particular change in policy or practice, will result in any real improvement in student learning.

· How will this affect teachers’ knowledge and skills?

· How will this affect the level of content in the classroom?

· How will this affect the role of the student in the instructional process?

· How will this affect the relationship between the teacher, the student, and content?

In order to implement change successfully and effectively one must always remember all three components of the instructional core. Focus and purpose are primary when assessing the changes that may be implemented and use of the questions above can be utilized as a guiding framework.

The Third Principle : If you can’t see it in the core, it’s not there

The third principle is a good rule for the design of large scale improvement strategies. What matters most is whether you can see it in the core. If you can’t see it, it’s not there. The central idea is the academic task. An example of this is in the classroom visitations and the discussions that take place later on during the team meeting. As a result, the student work varied from classroom to classroom. The teachers’ interpretations of the students’ skill levels were different amongst each other. The variability of student performance was a result of the teaching that was going on and the actual tasks that students were asked to do, not, a result of a students’ prior knowledge. The basic principle is that teaching causes learning. The students were being asked to do different tasks although the curriculum was exactly the same amongst the four classrooms.

In classroom one, the teacher invested too much time on the explanation of the task. As a result, when the students were released to do work, they were confused on what to do.

In classroom two, the teacher spent very little time on the task. As a result, the students may misinform each other.

In classroom three, the teacher passed out the task to be completed, assigned student roles and circulated the classroom answering individual students’ questions. As a result, the student work may vary.

In classroom four, The teacher spent a few minutes on how the task was connected to the previous day’s work. In addition, the teacher asked the students what they had learned from that work and led the students through a discussion of a model task that was similar to the one they were being asked to do. The instructor put the students in groups, assigned roles and circulated through the room. As a result, the students truly understood what they were supposed to do and made connections to what they had done earlier. Students were engaged in many different levels of work within the classrooms, regardless of the fact that it was a common curriculum unit. In the fourth classroom, the students were highly successful in accomplishing the task presented to them. When the teacher was the main source of information, the students were confused about the task and there was a variety in their engagement levels. This is much more of a common practice in American schools.

Principle 4: Task predicts performance

Susan Weston (2011) makes the point that simple, low-level assignments will not equip students for complex, demanding, high-level work. Such high level work is required on the current common core assessments as well as in most careers. The best predictor of performance is a measure of what students are actually doing. Mere memorization tasks do not evidence understanding of the learned material. Evidence based learning is critical in order to truly know that students are learning. In evidence based learning observers are focused on the students’ performance rather than the performance of the teacher (City, Elmore, Fiarman, Teitel, 2009).

There is long term research on the struggle in education whenever reformers attempt to move from basic learning to higher level thinking tasks. In 1976, Davis and McKnight (Doyle, 1983) met with strong resistance from high school students when they attempted to shift information-processing demands in a mathematics class from routine or procedural tasks to understanding tasks. The students refused to cooperate and argued that they had a right to be told what to do.

Today we see that same pattern of reform in the implementation of common core standards. The idea that "task predicts performance" practically radiates out of the Gates Foundation strategies for supporting the common core standards in literacy and mathematics. (Weston, 2011). In the math common core standards, the focus is student engagement with tasks that demand active struggle to find the mathematical connections and apply mathematical practices. In the literacy common core standards, the focus is student tasks which combine demanding reading with significant writing on important academic content. In both approaches, the students themselves are called on to do the heavy lifting and develop the important intellectual muscles they will need to meet the expectations of higher education, good jobs, and effective civic participation. A key component to achieving the common core standards is the improvement of instruction in order to create appropriate tasks that raise the bar of learning in the classroom.

When assignments are not taught or are not taught explicitly, students lose out on the academic and intellectual experiences that assignments offer. According to Harvard researchers who have studied classroom dynamics, the "task predicts performance" (City, Elmore, Fieman, & Teitel, 2009). If assignments are not of high quality and are not relevant to the curriculum, then learning will also be of low quality and loosely connected to the curriculum, if at all. Teaching and learning constitute a reciprocal process. Ineffective instruction is often distinguished by a loosely regulated plan, and students spend classroom time going through the motions of learning but do not produce solid evidence of that learning. In such classrooms, the purpose for doing activities is lost, and learning loses energy and meaning.

In contrast, a well-crafted assignment ensures that instruction will provide students with a goal and the power to get there, enabling them to engage in rigorous and interesting academic contexts as they acquire the content and skills necessary to participate in academic coursework. Most important, assignments create teaching and learning opportunities to think and learn about ideas, topics, events, and questions—about specific content in the curriculum. This is why a quality assignment is the hallmark of effective instruction. High quality assignment should include the elements listed in Figure ***

· Made connections to previous days work

· Discussed version of what needed to be done before they begin assignment

· Understanding of the importance of the task

· Routine established

· Elements of explicit teaching

Figure Elements of instruction that create a task that predicts performance (City, Elmore, Fieman, & Teitel, 2009)

The elements of instruction have been developed into frameworks by both Hollingsworth and Ybarra (2009) and Archer and Hughes (2010). These frameworks can be used to structure lessons to include the type of instructional elements that will support the rigorous tasks for all students in order to increase the performance level in our classrooms (Appendix A and B).

The Fifth Principle

The connection of doing the right thing and knowing the right thing to do, leads to the fifth principle. Accountability, in this view, is the way we steer the system toward a good collective result, using performance measures, standards, rewards and sanctions (Elmore, 2010, p. 31). Elmore calls for consistent, well monitored efforts to create a strong, visible, transparent common culture of instructional practice.

According to Elmore (2010), students and teachers should “know what to do, that they know how to do it, and most importantly, that they are able to derive some personal meaning and satisfaction from having done it” (p. 32). Having a good deal of professional energy in a building leads to competence of school leaders to be able to observe, analyze, and affect instructional practice. In theory and realistically, the teachers feel supported and student growth is a positive common target for all. Before an accountable system can be put in place, all stakeholders must buy into the improvement plan.

Within a school district the way an accountability system may be implemented can be influenced by many different factors. Leaders need to take into consideration that every classroom is different depending on the teaching style and the make-up of the students. Professional development may or may not exist or may be different from building to building. Parent participation will affect the success of the communication of new instructional methods and techniques. Administration needs to take into consideration the long-term effects, including the pros and cons, before making a final decision.

Author Kevin Carey (2012), an educational consultant based in California, draws lessons from educational reports and proposes a three-pronged approach to putting leadership back on a path to national leadership in education.

· Measure a school’s performance based on indicators of success, like graduation rates, college enrollment, remediation, and degree or certificate completion, rather than proxy measures, like standardized test scores.

· Better analyze performance data. For example, rather than comparing a school’s performance to an overall benchmark score, look at the school’s individual progress year to year to see where exactly it is making gains and where it’s not.

· Send highly trained, independent consultants to schools to review, observe, and judge performance. These tailored visits will allow for more directive, personalized feedback that will better drive improvement efforts.

About 10 years ago, Harvard professor of educational leadership, Richard Elmore, worked with a group of Connecticut superintendents to create a program to bridge the gap between what is expected to be accomplished in the classroom and what actually goes on in the classroom. To do so, he turned to the basic framework of instructional rounds that is familiar to anyone who has watched a medical drama on television: doctor’s rounds.Comment by Rory Manning: 10 years ago from when? Would be more useful to include a date? Book was published in 2010, so are we talking about 2000?

According to D’Orio (2011) the idea behind the rounds movement is that administrators first must identify a “problem of practice.” This is an idea that the school wants to study within the district. Next, the Superintendents and Principals visit classrooms together. They spend about fifteen minutes in each spot using the problem of practice as a lens. The administration then diagnosis the classroom practice. The goal of this step is to decide if what they observed in the classroom vaguely resembles what they thought was going on.

All stakeholders will get together to “brainstorm” a solution to the problem that was identified. This will allow district and building administration, teachers, students’ and parents the opportunity to raise questions and concerns on how solutions and ideas may be implemented. Accountability systems should be put in place to support instruction through staff development, parent workshops and creating a resource center. Future studies need to be conducted to assess if programs being used are effective throughout the years. A commitment from all stakeholders needs to be in place for ongoing accountability.

Principle Six:

We learn to do the work by doing the work, not by telling other people to do the work, not by having done the work at some time in the past, and not by hiring experts who can act as proxies for our knowledge about how to do the work.

Principal Six of the Instructional Core states that we learn to do work by doing the work, not by telling other people to do the work, not by having done the work at some time in the past, and not by hiring experts who can act as proxies for our knowledge about how to do the work. The example that is provided in Instructional Rounds in Education involves the medical rounds. Unfortunately, in education, there is nothing more than student teaching, which is a one semester course. There needs to be a teacher apprenticeship program where students truly learn to become teachers by actually teaching in the classroom for at least a year. Studies do show that nations which have apprenticeships train their teachers to be available for the challenges of the twenty-first century learner. Employing new teacher mentoring programs has proven to be successful in improving teacher retention rates and increasing student achievement rate. America does not offer the social process for inducting people into the practice, like what is done in the medical profession, according to City, Elmore, Fiarman, and Teitel.  The long term apprenticeship program should also apply to administrators too. Many administrators receive their certification and don't have true "trench" experience. Administrators also should have to serve in the classroom for at least 7-10 years before they move up into administration. There is no quick fix or quick solution to problems. Teachers and administrators need to be ingrained into the work, the classroom, the "trenches." Also, why do many administrators quickly forget that they were once educators as well? Sometimes, unrealistic expectations are placed on the faculty. Elmore warns that we are learning by doing the work, not by telling other people to do the work. He advocates "instructional rounds" (groups observing one another, processing together, sharing and learning from one another's experience and practice). Elmore also urges us to engage in sustained description and analysis (to endeavor to understand practice and its impact on learning) before engaging in judgement and evaluation. People are quick to judge when walking past a classroom or observing in a class without understanding the entire picture of what is going on. Sometimes, it may appear that a teacher may be doing something out of the box, but there could be valid reasons as to why that course of action is being taken.  People tend to respect and connect more to leaders who have been in their shoes. There is a deeper level of understanding when the administrator has done the work themselves. This is similar to what Common Core is expecting of our teachers and students. Lessons need to be student centered, problem/project based, and evidence based that tie into Principle Six.

Principle Seven: Description before analysis, analysis before prediction, prediction before evaluation.Comment by Rory Manning: Jacqueline will take her presentation contents and convert them into a narrative for for this section.

Culture of Instruction

· Language is culture and vice versa.

· Focus on the language that is used to describe what the observers will see.

· Teachers also must focus and utilize common language.

· Develop a common language.

PROBLEMAbsence of common language

· Student engagement???

· Cooperative learning???

· Differentiated Instruction???

What does it mean to each observer?

· Must develop a strong descriptive common language BEFORE analyzing, predicting, and evaluating.

Description

· Describing what you see going on in the classroom.

Analysis

· Getting people to:

· work at grouping what they see into mutually agreed upon categories.

· Make some judgments about how the categories are related to each other.

Prediction

· If you were a student in this classroom and did exactly what the teacher expected you to do, what would you know how to do?

· Learning to use the evidence of observation and the analysis to make causal

· Using evidence to discuss what kind of student learning we expect to see.

“Was this good teaching or not?”

· What is the next level of work in this classroom, school, or system?

· CLINICAL PRACTICE – Our job is to make the practice better over time, not to mete out rewards and punishments.

Positional Authority

· Could you do what you are evaluating teachers on?

· Evaluating personnel could not themselves do what they are asking teachers to do.

· Teachers KNOW this.

High – Medium – Low

· Levels of practice

· Strong descriptive language

Changes in conversation

· “How is the classroom organized?

· “Does the organization of the classroom support the kind of work we expect students to do?”

Marzano and Kendall Designing and Assessing Educational Objectives: Applying the Next Taxonomy, Corwin Press, 2008

Instructional Rounds

We learn to do by doing the work.

· REPETITION

· REFLECTION

· ANALYSIS

Not by…..

Creating more policies

Spending money on the next new idea

By asking people to do what they are not trained to do.

Everyone pretending that they know what to do.

Theories of Action

A theory of action has been described as the core of a strategy. The roots of which can be found in the works of Chris Argyris and Donald Schon and their studies of individual and organizational learning (Argyris, Schon 1978.) A theory of action represents a level of planning behind decision making. An example of such is found in the reason why the decision is made to use one particular plan of improvement over another. To demonstrate the decision making process an IF, Then statement can be used. If teachers are provided professional development then student achievement will increase. However, this example is very general and does little to demonstrate linkage between the IF and THEN. In order to be effective a good theory of action must reflect a predicted course of action, checkpoints and evidence of the desired outcome. The linkage between the action and the outcome must be clearly outlined and monitored for best results to take place. (Elmore 2010 pg 39)

Why do organizations resist vision?Comment by Rory Manning: This section needs some attention. Again, reformatting to make the section flow in a more narrative form.

· Organizations resist “vision” not because of some perverse instinct on the part of people to resist change, but because the existing structures and practices provide a story line that people understand, and the vision often fails to provide an alternative that they find equally persuasive and understandable.

Theory of Action

· A line of narrative that helps lead people through complexity and distractions.

· It is a map that carries the vision through the organization.

· Provides a way testing the assumptions of the vision and the actual reality.

Argyris and Schon: Single Loop Learning and Double Loop Learning

· Single Loop Learning: describes the situation upon which we act on the world, receive feedback on the consequences of our actions and adapt our behavior to the feedback.

· Double Loop Learning: The process of single loop learning with the addition of reflection on the process and to improve on how we learn from our actions.

· The capacity to engage on double loop learning is what distinguishes more successful and less success individuals in organizations.

Figure **** The model describes two ways that we can learn from our experiences and calls these single-loop and double-loop learning. The model is based on the work of Psychology and Organizational Development Professor, C. Argyris.

Theory of Action Requirements

1. It must begin with a statement of a causal relationship between what I do—in my role as superintendent principal, teacher, coach, etc. –and what constitutes a good result in the classroom.

2. It must be empirically falsifiable; that is, I must be able to disqualify all or parts of the theory as a useful guide to action that is based on evidence of what occurs as a consequence of my actions.

3. It must be open ended; that is, it must prompt me to further revise and specify the casual relationships I initially identified as I learn more the consequences of my actions.

The author encourages people to state their theories of action as if-then propositions, in part to stress the casual nature of the statements and in part to reinforce that these are testable propositions that should be subject to revision if the goal is improved learning.

Algebra

· An urban district decided to require all students to complete a rigorous algebra course before the end of 9th grade

· The district decided to make this change because the data suggested that whether and when the students take algebra was a strong predictor of whether they would advance to post secondary education

· 40% did not have the prerequisite math skills to take algebra

· Large variability in math instruction due to previous initiatives

What is the story line?

· How does a system get from its current state to the one required by the district’s new vision?

· Explicit theory to make good intentions a reality

· Give-and-take of the concrete details can deepen and refine the theory and make it more practicable

· Important to commit to a theory of action in written form

· Put into words the steps and contingencies that have to be mastered in order for a broad vision or strategy to result in concrete action that influences student action

THEORY OF ACTION

· Instructional rounds is a tool to better understand the current state of the district in order to form a theory of action

· The theory of action provides a through-line to the instructional core-what are the vital activities that need to happen to improve teaching and learning

· The district may need to push some treasured initiatives or orphans (stand alone programs that do not fit the instructional core) aside for the moment

ACCOUNTABILITY

· The theory of action can serve as glue for accountability relationships, particularly when the theories are made public

· What role people play in implementing the new program

· What support principals and teachers need in order to implement the new program

· The more explicit a theory is, the easier it is to be accountable for the desired result

EXAMPLES OF THEORY OF ACTION

· Result of multi-year study in Farmington, CT School District include:

· Table 2.1 Two Theories of Action

· Figure 2.1 Details of Point 2 of the School Based Theory of Action

· These theories of action are highly detailed because they were developed over several years

· The reader is cautioned that these are final products. Initial theories of action do look like if-then statements.

Theory of Action as a Falsifiable Hypothesis

Second Main Requirement of a Theory of Action

Empirically Falsifiable - I must be able to disqualify all or parts for the theory as a useful guide to action that is based on evidence of what occurs as a consequence of my actions.

· Grand strategies of improvement at the system and school level typically lack enough operational detail to help people understand what the story line behind the strategy is and whether the strategy is working.

· Second Key Component of a Theory of Action - it should be falsifiable. One should distinguish between the vision that informs the strategy, the strategy itself and the theories of action that operationalize the strategy. The strategy states the broad outlines of how the vision be achieved.

· Buried in this strategy are a host of contingencies, someone with need to address in order for the strategy to work.

· The system's capacity to deliver on the knowledge and skill required to improve instruction at the classroom level falls short of what is needed in make the strategy work. The strategy has to be played out to discover the shortfalls.

· Observations of the classroom and of the teachers and administrator team meeting might show that while the language that teachers and administrators are using to describe what they are doing corresponds to the lofty goals of the vision and the strategy, the actual practice in the classroom doesn’t.

· A revision of the theory of action should place more emphasis on monitoring the quality of professional development and the level of support that teacher and principals receive in understanding and implementing higher level instruction in the classroom.

· The PD should take place close to where the teacher/administrator and the observations are frequent enough, there will be noticeable change with the knowledge and skill expected them to master.

· Theory of action is falsifiable in the sense that we can monitor whether moving the PD closer to the classroom really does make a difference and whether a higher frequency of interaction between teachers and administrators around instructional practice has greater impact on student learning.

· The presence of the administrators is also important. Everyone involved needs to knowledge to it to work, both teachers and administrators.

· Tuning the Theory of Action is a key component as well which follows the format: descriptive, analytical and predict.

· Rounds can create a culture of collaborative problem-solving when discussions are about the actual instruction happening in classrooms. The drive for specificity and discipline that comes from a close examination whether a theory of action is working (testing the hypothesis) carries rewards in increasing the connection of vision and strategy to practice.

· We need to state what we are doing and then testing our theories against the reality of the environment in which they have work. The principle of falsifiability allows us to take our best ideas into practice, to see where they break down, and to modify them in light of experience.

Revising the Theory of Action and Double-Loop Learning

People learn to treat their theories of action as touchstones for their own professional and cognitive development

· If you tend to your theory of action over time, it becomes like a diary, a record of the progression of learning in practice

The requirements of open-endedness and successive discussion and revision are important for two reasons

· These norms model the process of double-loop learning.

· The norms of open-endedness suggests that devolving your practice is a continuous process over time.

· Model knowledge and skill in practice as a collective rather than an individual good.

· Creates the expectation that your colleagues are engaged in a process of learning

· People learn that it is acceptable to incorporate other peoples’ ideas into their own practice and to ask advice from their colleagues about particularly intractable problems they are facing

The purpose of developing and using theories of action (Argyris and Schon):

· Is to build our capacity to reflect on the process of learning itself and to begin to build an understanding of how each of us develops his or her practice.

· They argue that cumulative learning occurs when the events are connected, individually and collectively by reflection not only on the solutions to specific problems but also on improving the learning that enables solutions to emerge.

· Good theories of action then become distillations of the individual and organizational learning that comes with rounds.

Double-loop learning is:

· The process of single-loop learning with the additional stage of reflection on the process by which we read and adapt to the consequences of our actions and try to improve how we learn from our actions.

· Real learning occurs through a process of trial and error.

· Pay attention to the evidence of whether our predictions about what will happen next are accurate.

· It would be useful if the culture of schools were more forgiving around learning.

· Instructional rounds can be a safe haven for double-loop learning.

Constructing a theory of action:

· When Superintendents develop and share their theories of action, principals often follow suit, either because they are interested in making their work visible or because they are involved in networks in which it is an expectation.

· The leader’s personal theory of action becomes, of necessity, the collective theory of action of the organization, and the various connections between one step in the process and another.

· The central issues of school improvement are cultural.

· They make connections between the individual and organization.

Chapter III: Methodology

The researchers’ purpose in this chapter is to present the procedures that will be used to examine the overarching question that will guide this study. This study will examine and consider the organizational functions the evaluation system fulfills, whether a more technical system that complies with the law (APPR policy) or a more constructivist system that promotes inquiry and community building (Instructional Rounds), and its impact on the measure of self efficacy of the instructional leadership. The following questions will be addressed:

· How do the seven principles affect the implementation of the new instructional program?

· Does the district use the instructional core to implement a new instructional program while building the teachers’ knowledge and skills?

· Does the district use the instructional core while implementing a new instructional program to maintain the level of content in the classroom?

· Does the district use the instructional core while implementing a new instructional program affect the role of the student in the instructional process?

· Does the district use the instructional core while implementing a new instructional program affect the relationship between the teacher, the student, and content?

Theoretical Framework

Professor Richard Elmore is one of the key organizers of the Public Education Leadership Project (PELP) at Harvard University Graduate School of Education, which was a collaboration of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Harvard Business School. These two groups really took on the challenge to examine how "the art and science of management could help could help public school improve student performance." School systems on a whole, whether small town districts or large city school districts, are complex organizations. Schools are not the same as Fortune 500 companies, but when PELP examined and evaluated high performing businesses and high performing schools, there were definite similarities where there was a high correlation of effective leadership lead to high performance either in workers in a business setting or teachers and students in a school. The mission is to:

To improve the management and leadership competencies of public school leaders in order to drive greater educational outcomes. To truly serve all students and meet the demands of the new accountability environment, leaders at all levels of a school district must work to ensure that all students have rich learning opportunities and achieve at high levels throughout a system of schools. (http://pelp.fas.harvard.edu/book/coherence-framework)

The PELP Coherence Framework (Figure #) was the outcome of the faculty and staff's goal to illustrate how organizations of all types have "integrated systems with independent parts" adapted from The Congruence Model of David A. Nadler and M.L. Tushman in the early 1980's. Their model was a visual to help display "the key causes or drivers of performance and the relationship between them." (Mind Tools) The Congruence Model was based on the principle that "the higher the congruence, or compatibility, amongst these elements, the greater the performance."(Mind Tools)

Figure #: A visual representation of the central role of the instructional core in research and development in instructional strategies in schools.

“The PELP Coherence Framework is designed to help district leaders identify the key elements that support a district-wide improvement strategy, bring those elements into a coherent relationship with the strategy and each other, and guide the actions of people throughout the district in pursuit of high levels of achievement for all students” (Elmore, 2011, p. 1)

The use of this framework lends a visual model to show all the interconnections within a school system, which helps to display how outside environmental factors penetrate the culture, structure, stakeholders, resources and the system as a whole, which in turn, influences the strategies used to affect the instructional core. It's considered "a nested model - designed to work at the classroom, school and systems level." (Elmore, 2009)

Typical change in instruction focuses on structure and processes that surround the core, rather than; knowledge and skill that the teacher brings to the instructional process, level and the complexity of the content that students are asked to learn and change the role of the student in the instructional process. Standards only operate by influencing the level of the content that’s actually being taught; their effect in actual classrooms depends on; whether there are materials that reflect the standards, whether teachers know how to teach what the materials and standards require and whether students find the work that they are being asked to do worthwhile and engaging.

Data Collection Strategies

Data for this qualitative study comes primarily from a suburban district outside of a major city in the Northeast. These schools contain approximately 350,000 students and is the one of the largest county school districts in this particular state. It is a diverse school district, with approximately 10 percent white students, 30 percent African-American students, and 60 percent Hispanic students. Approximately 40 percent of the students are eligible for the Free and Reduced Lunch program and 11 percent are classified as English Language Learners.

Our measures of assessment come from an online survey of teachers given to 500 teachers in the district in the spring of 2014. The survey yielded a response rate of 90 percent. As part of the survey, teachers were presented with common curriculum presented to them during the fall of 2013. The surveys questioned their personal opinions in relation to their ability to instruct their students utilizing this common curriculum and how they affect the teachers’ knowledge and skills. In addition, how it affects the overall content and curriculum .

We administered a similar survey to district administrators and the questions presented related to the same curriculum and their ability to help guide instructors through this curriculum both through the observation process as well as within discussions during grade level meetings. The focus is to examine the district’s use of the Instructional Core to implement a new instructional program while building the teachers’ knowledge of skill utilizing the seven principles?

In conjunction with the surveys of the instructors and administrators, we conducted a survey of all 5,000 elementary students. In this paper, we use the responses of these students to the following question:

How will this curriculum change the role of the students in the instructional process?

A survey of the parents was not part of this study however the district provided us with access to data from a parent climate survey that the district conducts on a yearly basis. We used this information to understand the overall climate and feelings of the parents from the community. In addition, informal parent interviews took place during Open School Night and various events throughout the academic school year.

Data AnalysisComment by Rory Manning: In the end, we will need to put these two tables in standalone pages.

Table 1: Principal Task Effectiveness, Instructor Satisfaction and Parent Climate Survey Grades

Dependent Variable: Instructor Satisfaction Parent Climate Grades

(1) (2) (1) (2)

Instruction Management

Internal Relations

Organization Management

Administration

External Relations

School Size

Elementary School

Middle School

High School

Teacher’s Years in Current Job

Teacher’s Age

Teacher holds Master’s degree

Constant

___________________________________________________________

Observations

____________________________________________________________

Adjusted R-squared

____________________________________________________________

Standard errors in Parentheses

Table 2: School Administration's Assessments of Leadership Effectiveness

Dependent Variable Accountability Grade Teacher Satisfaction Parent Climate

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Instruction Management

Internal Relations

Organizational Management

School Size

Elementary School

Middle School

High School

Constant

____________________________________________________________

Observations

____________________________________________________________

Adjusted R-squared

____________________________________________________________

Standard errors in parentheses

____________________________________________________________

References

Archer, A., & Hughes, C. (2010). Explicit instruction:effective and efficient teaching. New York, NY: Guilford Publications, Inc.

Argyris C, Schon D. (1978). Organizational Learning. Accounting, Organizations and Society

Bass, B.M. & Avolio, B.J. (Eds.). (1994). Improving organizational effectiveness through transformational leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications

Carey, K. (2012). Some Assembly Required: Building a Better Accountability System for California. Washington, D.C.: Education Sector.

City , E., Elmore, R., Fiarman, S., & Teitel, L. (2010).Instructional rounds in education. Cambridge, MA 02138: Harvard Education Press.

D'Orio, W. (2011, March). Why Aren't School Leaders More Like Doctors? Scholastic Administrator.

Doyle, W. (1983). Review of educational research. Academic Work, 53(2), 159-199. Retrieved from http://rer.sagepub.com/content/53/2/159.full.pdf html

Elmore, R. F. (2009) Using the PELP Coherence Framework to Advance Equity. Mid-Atlantic Equity Center on Vimeo [Webinar] Retrieved from http://vimeo.com/6833602

Greenleaf, R. (1977) Servant leadership: a journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.

Haas, E., Poyner, L. (2011) The Sage Book of Educational Leadership: Issues of Teaching and Learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

Harvard Educational Review. Winter 1996 edition. Harvard Educational Press.

Hawkins, D. (1974) I, Thou, and It. The informed vision: essays on learning and human nature. pps 49-62. New York: Agathon Books.

Hersey, P. & Blanchard, K. (1996) Great ideas revisited: Revisiting the life-cycle theory of leadership. Training & Development, 50 (1), 42-47.

Hollingsworth, J., & Ybarra, S. (2009). Explicit direct instruction (edi): the power of the well-crafted, well-taught lesson. Flower, CA: DataWorks Educational Research.

Kent, K. (2008). The case for servant leadership. Westfield IN: The Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership.

MindTools: Essential Skills for an Excellent Career. Retrieved from http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newSTR_95.htm

Public Education Leadership Project at Harvard University (2014, March 1) Retreived from http://pelp.fas.harvard.edu/

Romeroperada, A. (2012, November 13). [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.afs.org/blog/icl/?p=2653

Sergiovanni, (1994). Building community in schools. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Tushman, M. (2002). Winning through innovation : a practical guide to leading organizational change and renewal. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business School.

Weston, S. (2011, January 30). [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://prichblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/powerful-idea-task-predicts-performance.html

Appendix A

Explicit Direct Instruction (EDI) Lesson Design Components

· Learning Objective: A statement describing what students will be able to do by the end of the lesson. It must match the Independent Practice.

· Activate Prior Knowledge: Purposefully moving something connected to the new lesson from students' long-term memories into their working memories so they can build upon existing knowledge.

· Concept Development: Teaching students the concepts contained in the Learning Objective.

· Skill Development: Teaching students the steps or processes used to execute the skills in the Learning Objective.

· Lesson Importance: Teaching students why the content in the lesson is important for them to learn.

· Guided Practice: Working problems with students at the same time, step-by-step, while checking that they execute each step correctly

· Lesson Closure: Having students work problems or answer questions to prove that they have learned the concepts and skills in the Learning Objective before they are released to work on their own.

· Independent Practice: Having students successfully practice exactly what they were just taught.

Appendix B

Explicit Instruction: Effective and Efficient Teaching by Anita L. Archer and Charles A. Hughes

1. Focus instruction on critical content. Teach skills, strategies, vocabulary terms, concepts, and rules that will empower students in the future and match the students’ instructional needs.

2. Sequence skills logically. Consider several curricular variables, such as teaching easier skills before harder skills, teaching high-frequency skills before skills that are less frequent in usage, ensuring mastery of prerequisites to a skill before teaching the skill itself, and separating skills and strategies that are similar and thus may be confusing to students.

3. Break down complex skills and strategies into smaller instructional units. Teach in small steps. Segmenting complex skills into smaller instructional units of new material addresses concerns about cognitive overloading, processing demands, and the capacity of students’ working memory. Once mastered, units are synthesized (i.e., practiced as a whole).

4. Design organized and focused lessons. Make sure lessons are organized and focused, in order to make optimal use of instructional time. Organized lessons are on topic, well sequenced, and contain no relevant digressions.

5. Begin lessons with a clear statement of the lesson’s goals and your expectations. Tell learners clearly what is to be learned and why it is important. Students achieve better if they understand the instructional goals and outcomes expected, as well as how the information or skills presented will help them.

6. Review prior skills and knowledge before beginning instruction. Provide a review of relevant information. Verify that students have the prerequisite skills and knowledge to learn the skill being taught in the lesson. This element also provides an opportunity to link the new skill with other related skills.

7. Provide step-by-step demonstrations. Model the skill and clarify the decision-making processes needed to complete a task or procedure by thinking aloud as you perform the skill. Clearly demonstrate the target skill or strategy, in order to show the students a model of proficient performance.

8. Use clear and concise language. Use consistent, unambiguous wording and terminology. The complexity of your speech (e.g., vocabulary, sentence structure) should depend on students’ receptive vocabulary, to reduce possible confusion.

9. Provide an adequate range of examples and non-examples.

In order to establish the boundaries of when and when not to apply a skill, strategy, concept, or rule, provide a wide range of examples and non-examples. A wide range of examples illustrating situations when the skill will be used or applied is necessary so that students do not underuse it. Conversely, presenting a wide range of non-examples reduces the possibility that students will use the skill inappropriately.

10. Provide guided and supported practice. In order to promote initial success and build confidence, regulate the difficulty of practice opportunities during the lesson, and provide students with guidance in skill performance. When students demonstrate success, you can gradually increase task difficulty as you decrease the level of guidance.

11. Require frequent responses. Plan for a high level of student–teacher

interaction via the use of questioning. Having the students respond frequently (i.e., oral responses, written responses, or action responses) helps them focus on the lesson content, provides opportunities for student elaboration, assists you in checking understanding, and keeps students active and attentive.

12. Monitor student performance closely. Carefully watch and listen to students’ responses, so that you can verify student mastery as well as make timely adjustments in instruction if students are making errors. Close monitoring also allows you to provide feedback to students about how well they are doing.

13. Provide immediate affirmative and corrective feedback. Follow up on students’ responses as quickly as you can. Immediate feedback to students about the accuracy of their responses helps ensure high rates of success and reduces the likelihood of practicing errors.

14. Deliver the lesson at a brisk pace. Deliver instruction at an appropriate pace to optimize instructional time, the amount of content that can be presented, and on-task behavior. Use a rate of presentation that is brisk but includes a reasonable amount of time for students’ thinking/ processing, especially when they are learning new material. The desired pace is neither so slow that students get bored nor so quick that they can’t keep up.

15. Help students organize knowledge. Because many students have difficulty seeing how some skills and concepts fit together, it is important to use teaching techniques that make these connections more apparent or explicit. Well-organized and connected information makes it easier for students to retrieve information and facilitate its integration with new material.

16. Provide distributed and cumulative practice. Distributed (vs. massed) practice refers to multiple opportunities to practice a skill over time. Cumulative practice is a method for providing distributed practice by including practice opportunities that address both previously and newly acquired skills. Provide students with multiple practice attempts, in order to address issues of retention as well as automaticity.