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HOW PRINCIPAL SUPERVISORS BUILD PRINCIPAL CAPACITY FOR INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP
Get PDFThe purpose of this Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) is to assist districts, specifically senior educators, in utilizing practices designed to improve the capacity of principals for instructional leadership related to deep learning. This OIP is built on a theory of action that recognizes that principals play a critical role in creating the conditions for teachers and students to learn in meaningful ways. Under certain conditions, central office staff have a positive mediating role in enhancing principal instructional leadership and ultimately student learning. It is the premise of this OIP that when principal supervisors establish learning focused partnerships with principals, they increase the likelihood that principals will effectively impact teacher practice and create the conditions for students to learn at high levels. Building learning focused partnerships primarily involves creating communities of practice (CoPs) between principals and supervisors as well as among principals and teachers. This process is undergirded by the co-creation of leadership standards that serve as benchmarks for effective instructional leadership practice. Adaptive and distributed leadership approaches are utilized in response to this problem of practice and drive the implementation plan which focuses on reshaping the roles and practice of principal supervisors to make it possible for them to deepen adult and student learning
Student Reengagement in an Alternative High School
Get PDFAbstract
Alternative high schools have been an option for students who do not succeed in the regular system in the hopes that doing things differently would help these students graduate. This Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) examines the situation of an alternative high school in a small French school board in Ontario. Student disengagement is reflected in poor attendance and impacts credit completion and graduation rates. Many solutions to improve engagement have been put forward with mitigated success. An analysis of the organizational readiness for change reveals that the organization feels the urgency of finding a solution to the problem. To prepare for the change, a leadership approach is elaborated by drawing mainly on Helgesen (1995) and Fullan’s (2014) work. This change intervention requires intensive planning as it involves a change in paradigms in order to have a lasting effect. By becoming a trauma-informed school, the alternative high school will not only become a safe haven for students, it will also instill a culture of collective efficacy and self-care for staff. It will provide opportunities for staff to develop positive relationships with students, which studies reveal is a strong factor in reengagement. A detailed plan to communicate has been elaborated. It is important to keep looking at the alternative high school with a critical lens to bring it to a level where it becomes a tool in fostering equity and social justice.
Keywords: reengagement, trauma-informed school, school resiliency, teacher-student relationshi
Implementing Authentic Formative Assessment to Improve Student Learning
Get PDFThis Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) capstone addresses the Problem of Practice (POP) pertaining to the lack of a robust system of authentic formative assessment at the Department of Business Administration (DBA) in an Arabian Gulf University. A synthesis on the literature around formative assessment has informed a conceptual model for the POP which highlighted the importance of formative assessment and its positive influence on student learning. This OIP designs a comprehensive and systematic plan which guides change towards the improvement of the POP, targeting stronger system performance and enhanced outcomes for student learning. Using an organizational culture lens, this OIP examined cultural and contextual gaps within the DBA and pinpointed necessary changes to support the integration of formative assessment. Through the amalgamation of transformational and instructional leadership (Day & Sammons, 2013; Hallinger 2003; Marks & Printy, 2003) practices and using the Change Path Model (Cawsey et al., 2016) and Kotter’s (2014) eight accelerators for change, this three chapter OIP sets a vision for change and delineates a foundational change plan for implementing formative assessment at the DBA. The plan centers around two goals: (1) building faculty capacity and (2) building cultural capacity. Strategies elected for the achievement of these goals include faculty Professional Development (PD), the formation of an instructional leadership team, peer coaching, Teacher Learning Communities (TLCs), faculty empowerment, and the promotion of values pertaining to assessment for learning within the DBA culture
Building Teacher Self-Efficacy to Improve Student Literacy
Get PDFLiteracy rates in schools across Nunavut has been a prevalent issue in recent years. Students are graduating with lower literacy levels than in many other parts of Canada. More specifically, the school in which I work also suffers from this issue. This organizational improvement plan has a problem of practice at its core that probes how current research can assist me, as principal, in supporting teachers to more effectively implement a balanced literacy program throughout my school for the purpose of improving students’ literacy levels in both of the community’s languages – English and Inuktitut.
In order to address this gap in literacy skills, a comprehensive strategy is devised to be implemented aligning with best practices in literacy instruction. A distributed leadership approach will be used to collaboratively lead school staff towards effective execution of this plan utilizing Kotter’s 8 step Change Path model. Initial stages of this plan center on developing a shared vision of literacy in the school, and then reading skills, and writing skills at the K-9 level. Future considerations to this organizational improvement plan include foci on improving parental engagement with the school, and on writing skills at the high school level. Training for some aspects of balanced literacy has been conducted in previous years, however effective implementation has not been conducted in the past, thus the primary challenge of plan implementation is garnering staff support with this strategy.
Keywords: Distributed Leadership, Shared Vision, Balanced Literacy, Teacher Efficacy