Teacher led school improvement: Teacher leadership in the UK

Teacher leadership is increasingly being seen as a key vehicle for school improvement and renewal. However, research on this phenomenon is limited, especially outside of the US.This article presents findings from an empirical study of teacher leadership in the UK, aimed at exploring both the ways in which teacher leadership can influence school and teacher development, and what in-school factors can help or hinder the development of teacher leadership in schools. The study was undertaken using a qualitative case study approach, purposively selected as being sites where teacher leadership was operational.Data indicated that teacher leadership was characterised by a variety of formal and informal groupings, often facilitated by involvement in external programmes. Teacher leadership was seen to empower teachers, and contributed to school improvement through this empowerment and the spreading of good practice and initiatives generated by teachers.A range of conditions needed to be in place in schools for teacher leadership to be successful, including a culture of trust and support, structures that supported teacher leadership but were clear and transparent, strong leadership, with the head usually being the originator of teacher leadership, and engagement in innovative forms of professional development.     

Teacher careers and school improvement

A recent national curriculum guide for upper secondary schools in my home country, Iceland, requires secondary schools to work towards equality and five other overarching aims. This requirement raises questions about to what extent secondary schools have to change their curricula in order to approach these aims or work towards them in an adequate way. Textbooks on curriculum theory commonly invite their readers to choose between different perspectives that are presented as mutually exclusive. From one perspective, they tend to emphasize academic subjects, to the exclusion of perspectives that focus on improvement of society or individual development. There are, however, reasons to doubt that organizing a curriculum emphasizing general aims such as equality excludes using academic subjects as its principal building blocks. In this paper, I argue that if we take equality seriously as an aim of education, we should indeed emphasize academic school subjects, just as advocates of liberal education have done for a long time. Focusing on subjects and focusing on aims, such as equality, are therefore not mutually exclusive perspectives but two aspects that must coexist in any reasonable and sound pedagogy.     

Teacher development and school improvement: The process of teacher change

The overall goal of the present study was to investigate the relationship between teacher success in implementing innovative programs, teacher perceptions of self-efficacy, and the teacher-perceived value of the programs. Using behavioral observations, interviews, and questionnaires, teachers' performance, self-perceptions, and attitudes were measured at several time points during the initial year of implementation of an innovative adaptive mainstreaming program. Significant increases were observed in both teachers' levels of success and their perceptions of self-efficacy. Moreover, the timing of the most significant improvements suggests a natural sequence of development leading from improvement in teacher implementation of an innovation to subsequent increases in their perceptions of self-efficacy.     

Dialogue evaluation: a possible contribution of evaluation to school improvement

Conclusion Evaluation can play an important role in improving education within a school, but to make this possible it must change its nature--and not merely in a technical way. So far the relationship between art evaluator and a client has been conceived essentially as an asymmetric one. Such asymmetry goes against the principles of constructive dialogue and presupposes a distinction between evaluator and client that has to be reconsidered. The distinction, suggested by prominent evaluators with the good intention of developing client-oriented approaches to evaluation, stresses the importance of serving the information needs of identified clients rather than the research interests of individual evaluators. Original language: English David Nevo (Israel) Ph.D. Professor of Education and Head, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, School of Education, Tel Aviv University. Professional interest in evaluation theory, programme evaluation, school-based evaluation and student assessment. Current research is focused on combining internal and external evaluation, and working with schools to improve evaluation. Author ofSchool-based evaluation (1995). Editor-in-Chief ofStudies in educational evaluation.     

The POE in the primary school: An evaluation

The POE (Predict-Observe-Explain) is a technique for identifying students' knowledge and understanding of science concepts. It has mainly been used for physical science topics at secondary and tertiary levels. In the present study, 60 preservice teachers each implemented and evaluated POEs with groups of primary children. The children were studying a range of topics from the NSW Science and Technology K-6 Syllabus and represented a range of year levels. The evaluations were generally positive. The children responded to the technique enthusiastically and the teachers were able to identify both their understandings and their process skills development. The main problems were the difficulty of inventing suitable POEs in some topics, especially topics on communication, and problems caused by the use of oral rather than written responses. The study concluded that it is a suitable technique for primary science.     

The role of feedback from the school leader during teacher evaluation for teacher and school improvement

Since the turn of the century, teacher evaluation has been introduced around the world with the intent to improve teaching. However, in the literature on teacher evaluation, often findings reveal critical accounts about the effectiveness of feedback in teacher evaluation for teacher and school improvement. This article presents a qualitative study in eight schools where teachers did indicate to find the feedback they discussed with school leaders during teacher evaluation processes useful. In this study, we investigate whether we can identify what teachers actually do with this feedback and which factors contribute to their response. Our findings demonstrate the importance of school organizational characteristics and an integrated leadership approach for the feedback response of teachers. Also, our findings reveal how teacher evaluation is used in these schools to further school improvement.     

Teacher evaluation policy as perceived by school principals: the case of Flanders (Belgium)

In Flanders (Belgium), a new teacher evaluation policy was issued which placed a lot of autonomy with school principals to develop and implement a new teacher evaluation system. In this study, we explore how Flemish principals perceive the new teacher evaluation policy and what influences their perception. Results demonstrate that principals perceive the policy as clear, but they are rather negative about the need, practicality, and complexity of the summative teacher evaluation. This perception is influenced by policy, context, and individual factors as is demonstrated in our qualitative analyses.     

Teacher and school determinants of perceived classroom discipline: a multilevel analysis of TALIS 2013

Learning Environments Research - Classroom discipline is a significant concern in most educational systems and a critical element of an effective learning environment. In this article, we present a...     

School leadership and school improvement: an examination of school readiness factors

ABSTRACT

This article reports on an investigation into the influence stemming from school leadership as an important consideration in relation to school improvement. School readiness, based on [Schiemann, W. A. 2014. “From Talent Management to Talent Optimization.” Journal of World Business 49 (2): 281–288. doi:10.1016/j.jwb.2013.11.012]. Accountability, Capability and Engagement (ACE) leadership model, was assessed through self-reported school leader behaviours, attitudes, perceptions, and school improvement attributes. To clarify, school readiness refers to how a school principal optimises staff and other school resources to best achieve school improvement agendas. School readiness survey results and student achievement outcomes for one entire school district were analysed, indicating that school readiness did indeed impact student achievement. Findings reveal a need for school leaders to focus more clearly on overall school alignment and optimisation behaviours, and these are discussed in relation to specific leadership recommendations and how leadership can better support and encourage school improvement in terms of educational accountability.     

浅析小学语文课堂评价的实施困境与解决路径

推行素质教育,主渠道在于课堂教学改革,怎样激活课堂,发挥学生的主体作用,提高课堂教学效益,其中课堂评价是十分关键的一环。小学语文课堂评价带有知识性与人文性相统一的特点,它更加注重个性化、灵活化、多样化的评价语言。小学生的内心情感尚未成熟,小学语文课堂评价有益于学生知识与情感的发展,研究它自身的内涵、必要性、实施困境以及解决路径,对提高小学语文课堂评价的水平和展现对学生的人文关怀都具有十分重要的意义。     

Teacher salaries and teacher aptitude: An analysis using quantile regressions

This study investigates the relationship between salaries and scholastic aptitude for full-time public high school humanities and mathematics/sciences teachers. For identification, we rely on variation in salaries between adjacent school districts within the same state. The results indicate that teacher aptitude is positively correlated with teacher salaries with an elasticity point estimate of 0.132. However, using quantile regressions, we find the elasticity estimates form an inverted U-shape across the scholastic aptitude distribution, and that higher aptitude teachers are more profoundly affected by the percentage of students eligible for free lunch and local street crime, while lower aptitude teachers are more profoundly affected by local education support. Furthermore, studying mathematics/sciences teachers, we find that while the elasticity estimates maintain an inverted U-shape, scholastic aptitude is not correlated with changes in salaries for the lower 40 percentiles of the aptitude distribution.     

中小学校督导评估指标体系的问题与改进

学校督导评估指标体系是广泛应用于督导工作中的评价工具,它的科学性、有效性直接影响着教育督导效能的发挥.本文以多个评估指标体系文本为分析对象,结合教育评价理论和系统论原理进行深入剖析,发现了当前指标体系构建中存在的一些问题,进而提出相应的改进建议.     

Philosophical perspectives on school effectiveness and school improvement

This article discusses critically the implementation of the National Literacy Strategy (NLS). The following issues are addressed: the importance of literacy in advanced societies; increasing public concern about literacy standards in English and Welsh primary schools; the perceived need for a large-scale intervention into the teaching of literacy from the standpoint of international comparisons and school inspection evidence. The literacy process, its complexities and controversies, are considered and critiqued, along with the extent to which the NLS is able to accommodate the implications of research findings. In conclusion, the evaluation reports on the impact of the NLS are discussed.     

Data feedback for school improvement: The role of researchers and school leaders

The aim of this study is to better understand the role of researchers and school leaders in supporting school improvement through data feedback in the context of more responsive forms of accountability in the Netherlands. A process evaluation was conducted concerning the first three years of a collaborative project of a multi-management group of 18 primary schools and a group of researchers. The results show that implementing a system of data feedback starting from a shared vision on the need to learn from data, fostered processes in the school of learning from data for school improvement. The results also show a growing inquiry habit of mind amongst school principals, whereas the researchers learned how to take their role in the collaboration by providing conditions that enhance school improvement from data feedback. The results indicate that the collaborative process can be characterised by several learning functions and thus contribute to a better understanding of how the conditions for data feedback and school improvement can be enhanced.     

普通高中学生评价改革的视点与评析

普通高中学生评价改革亮点突出、成效显著,但同时也彰显诸多不足,有观念层面的也有实践层面的.成效与缺失的辩证存在,既成为学生评价改革继续推进的力量之一,也成为改革遭遇挫折的原因之一.当前,认真总结经验、理性梳理问题、通透改革路向仍为必需.