The characteristics and perceptions of teachers engaged in leading professional communities

Following educational reform in Israel, teacher-leaders create and lead professional development communities (PDCs), which are professional learning communities with a focus on in-service professional development and/or improving pedagogical effectiveness. Interviews with 30 teacher-leaders and all four district-level program coordinators revealed that, prior to assuming the role, teacher-leaders developed their professional and leadership skills largely in a self-directed manner. They described their PDCs as cohesive and dedicated, cooperative, involving peer-learning, and as creating a knowledge bank of teaching methods and tools. PDCs enable teachers to advance projects within the school and affect school culture. Principals’ involvement with PDCs varied, with their usually considerable involvement very favorably regarded. This article describes these findings and discusses their implications for the professional development of teachers in the international context.     

Perceptions of educational leaders regarding contemporary reform initiatives in Egypt

ABSTRACT

Many educational reform initiatives worldwide do not result in deep and sustainable change. Limited studies have looked at reform initiatives in countries like Egypt. The purpose of this mixed methods study is to examine educational reform initiatives in Egypt throughout modern history using a transformative leadership lens, and to explore the perceptions of educational leaders regarding the more contemporary reform initiatives. The findings show that historically, large-scale reform initiatives in Egypt, which had transformative and sustainable results, were typically associated with a more comprehensive ideological inclination. More contemporary educational reform attempts were not transformative because these were perceived to be top-down reforms that were driven by foreign-aid agencies, and had no support from stakeholders.     

Inclusive educational leadership to establish a co-operative school cluster trust? Exploring perspectives and making links with leadership for learning

ABSTRACT

One remarkable feature of the contemporary school landscape in England is the number of schools that have chosen the co-operative framework to shape their work and relationships. When a group of schools decides to become a co-operative trust, leadership challenges arise both in the process of establishing an inclusive collaborative cluster and in living out co-operative values. To add to the limited literature on co-operative school leadership, a study in a school cluster trust explored headteachers’, governors’ and teachers’ perspectives and beliefs through interviews, group discussions and questionnaires. These data sources revealed some of the motivations for, benefits of, and strategies to support inter-school collaboration guided by the co-operative values of democracy, solidarity, equality, equity, self-help and self-responsibility. Importantly, a range of perspectives on the extent to which leadership was viewed as, and appeared to be, an inclusive practice undertaken by all members of the cluster was identified. A particular contribution of this work is that it exemplifies resonances between the values and principles of the co-operative movement and those of the Leadership for Learning framework. Since these two models are being increasingly adopted and integrated into a variety of educational settings, the research findings may inform leadership practice more widely.     

How schools train principals to use new teacher evaluation systems: A comparative case study of charter school and traditional public school principals

Over the past decade U.S. policymakers, practitioners, and researchers have sought to examine if changing teacher evaluation policies and systems have resulted in changes in identifying quality teachers and/or increased student achievement. This research generally shows most states have experienced little change in how teachers are rated. Researchers are now exploring why, in many cases, teacher evaluation reforms have failed to produce the desired systematic changes of better identifying quality teachers and better distinguishing teacher performance. Embedded within this line of inquiry is how principals (and other evaluators) are trained to use new teacher evaluation systems. This comparative case study observed six principals (three charter school principals and three traditional public school principals) in the U.S. state of Michigan as they learned and enacted a new teacher evaluation system. Additionally, all principals were interviewed three times throughout the school year, in an effort to examine how their initial teacher evaluation training impacted their evaluation of teachers. The research questions that guided this work were: (1) how are principals initially trained when their school adopts a new teacher evaluation system?; (2) in what ways does the training received by charter school principals compare to that of traditional public school principals?; and (3) how does initial training impact how principals evaluate teachers? Results indicate principals are trained to navigate the logistics of new teacher evaluation systems, but are not trained to evaluate teacher performance. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

Impact of distributed leadership on teacher job satisfaction in China: The mediating roles of teacher autonomy and teacher collaboration

Teacher job satisfaction is a heated topic worldwide. Among the possible factors influencing teacher job satisfaction, distributed leadership is very important one. Given very few studies have investigated the effects of distributed leadership on teacher job satisfaction through teacher autonomy and teacher collaboration, this paper is important. It is expected to provide international readers with a better understanding of how these variables are practised in the Chinese context. Specifically, we aim to achieve two goals. The first goal is to investigate the direct impact of distributed leadership on teacher job satisfaction and the second one is to explore how distributed leadership indirectly affects teacher job satisfaction through teacher autonomy and teacher collaboration. The data are from the 2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) (n = 3976). Structural equation modeling revealed statistically significant positive effects of distributed leadership on teacher autonomy, teacher collaboration, and teacher job satisfaction, respectively. The further analyses indicated that the indirect effects of distributed leadership on teacher job satisfaction through teacher autonomy and professional collaboration were statistically significant. However, distributed leadership had no indirect effect on job satisfaction via exchange and co-ordination. Based on the findings, we propose some suggestions to improve teacher job satisfaction, such as strengthening communications between school leaders and teachers, and providing adequate autonomy to teachers. The detailed relationships among these variables are discussed in connection with Chinese educational context.     

军人企业家领导特质研究——以万科集团总经理王石为例

全球众多成功的知名企业家中有很多都是军人出身,因而有人评论说世界上最大最优秀的商学院不是哈佛,不是斯坦福,而是西点军校。为此,本文首先运用文献分析法,探讨了军旅生活塑造了军人哪些独特的品质;采用案例分析法,对万科集团总经理王石的个案进行了深入分析。研究发现,军队造就了军人企业家与众不同的特质,而这些特质又很大程度上影响了他们的经营决策,进而帮助这些企业家领导企业走向成功。     

变革型领导与企业绩效关系研究 ——失败学习的非线性中介作用

当前创新已成为引领企业发展的第一动力，创新失败也逐渐正常化。本文基于高层梯队理论和“过犹不及”理论，探讨了创新失败情境下CEO变革型领导对企业绩效的非线性影响，并引入失败学习（单环与双环）作为中介机制。通过层次分析，研究发现，CEO变革型领导对失败学习有显著正向影响；CEO变革型领导与企业绩效具有显著倒U形关系；失败学习（单环与双环）与企业绩效具有显著倒U形关系；失败学习（单环与双环）在CEO变革型领导与企业绩效的关系中起到中介作用。     

失败视角下变革型领导对员工创造力的影响

基于失败视角,本文运用社会信息加工理论,探究变革型领导对员工创造力的跨层次影响及团队失败共享信念和员工归属感在其中的作用,对60个团队中302对领导—员工配对数据进行分析,得到结论：变革型领导对员工创造力具有显著的跨层次正向影响,且对团队失败共享信念具有显著的正向影响;团队失败共享信念在变革型领导与员工创造力关系之间起到跨层次中介作用;员工归属感在团队失败共享信念与员工创造力关系之间起到正向调节作用。     

Emerging Educational Institutional Decision-Making Matrix

The ＂emerging educational institutional decision-making matrix＂ is developed to allow educational institutions to adopt a rigorous and consistent methodology of determining which of the myriad of emerging educational technologies will be the most compelling for the institution, particularly ensuring that it is the educational or pedagogical but not the technological imperative that drives the technology integration agenda. The matrix is designed to be used after some initial research into an emerging technology. Once a technology is put through the matrix, a member of options are available： （1） shelving the technology; （2） putting the technology on hold and maintaining a watching brief until the technology matures in the market; and （3） researching the product further by conducting a trial or placing in testing sandpit. After further research, the technology can be tested as a pilot to determine how well or otherwise, the technology works within the institution. If an emerging technology has more than one product associated with it, a second and third step in the matrix has been developed, and the second step assigns a rating to each of the categories within the matrix. With many products containing similar features, a third step has been developed to compare products on a feature level.     

Perceptions of the school self-evaluation process: the case of Abu Dhabi

The Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) has initiated educational change and school improvements. As part of the school reform agenda, ADEC has introduced school self-evaluation-Irtiqaa (SSE-Irtiqaa). This research probes the effectiveness of school administrators (SAs), including principals, vice principals, academic principals, and heads of faculty, and their perceptions of the implications and implementation of SSE-Irtiqaa. The study also intends to improve school quality and help benchmark Abu Dhabi public schools with international academic standards, by tracing challenges faced during the SSE-Irtiqaa process. Public SAs are the participants of this study. This research is an exploratory case study that employed a qualitative research tool. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with 14 administrators representing 6 public schools in Abu Dhabi. Findings and recommendations shed light on the areas and paths of development required to facilitate and improve the SSE-Irtiqaa process.