Leadership Influence on Teacher Support Teams in High Poverty Elementary Schools PDF Download

Author: Jason Alan Steingraber
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Educational accountability
Languages : en
Pages : 103

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Book Description
The increased accountability to schools and districts to meet federal standings has lead to commencing systematic approaches to the needs of all students. In order for teachers to be able to facilitate instructional strategies that are differentiated and functional for all students they must receive leadership and support. The importance of expertise and leadership in the educational process is paramount, for there is more power in a leadership model and not necessarily in a model that designs its own standards. This need for expertise and leadership has lead to collaboration among general and special education experts, as well as the students' families, achieves an integrated and effective approach in response to struggling learners. First supported by senior administration in school districts, the Teacher Support Team (TST) initiative relied upon a selected team within each school to show what it can achieve for students. This leads to the significance of distributive leadership in the TST and creating relational trust by allowing those in the organization to take leadership roles and distribute the leadership appears to be imperative. This allows for greater participation in the organization, as well as greater morale and a relieved workload for the leader. It also encourages leadership in the organization, which benefits the organization as a whole. The overall purpose of this study was to establish a connection between the role of distributed leadership and the impact of TSTs on elementary students of high poverty. To achieve this, information was gathered from high poverty elementary schools in the Sunnyside Public School District. The study examined key respondents' perceptions on the leadership within the TST. A mixed method of gathering both qualitative and quantitative data was chosen as the most appropriate approach to collect the data. The project began by the researcher contacting six high poverty elementary schools within the Sunnyside Public Schools and requesting their participation in the research project. The purpose of narrowing the research to schools that serve a high poverty population is to ensure similarities within the students and communities. Each TST was made up of the building administrator, a TST coordinator, and other teachers as noted by the team. Each team was provided an opportunity to participate in the research activity and it was assured the data was anonymous and not reflective of employment performance or used as an evaluative tool. The approach to the design was a mixed methods research study. Based on the data gathered via a survey, quantitative information was gathered in order to address the research questions. In additional to the quantitative approach, a qualitative aspect was analyzed. This mixed methods approach was chosen due to the potential to discover true meaning to the research questions. It was also anticipated the mixed methods approach would allow for further research designs to come to the forefront. Descriptive analyses were preformed to support the research questions and sub-parts to the research questions. Finding of this study displayed both favorable and less favorable confidence in the leadership of the TST coordinator and the TST itself. The concerns of the TST coordinator and the TST itself were focused on time being wasted, weak leadership, and teachers who were frustrated with the results of the TST process.

Author: Andrea Velez
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Educational leadership
Languages : en
Pages : 121

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Book Description
The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the extent to which teachers’ collaboration and administrative leadership contribute to teacher retention in high poverty New York City schools. This case study used a grounded theory design of inquiry to examine the perceptions of twelve New York City teachers and three New York City principals about leadership actions intended to support new teachers in high poverty schools and investigated collaboration among teachers, support of school administration, as well as professional development opportunities available for teachers in schools with high poverty and high retention rates. Findings in this study indicated that study participants identified (1) various opportunities for professional development, (2) appointed teacher teams and scheduled times to meet, (3) pedagogical support from administration and teacher leaders, (4) positive relationships with staff that contributed to collaboration, (5) being provided with a mentor during their first year, and (6) receiving targeted support from instructional coaches contributed to their decision to remain at their school. Themes that emerged from the findings from teachers who participated in this study were pedagogical support, teacher collaboration and instructional leadership. Themes that emerged from the findings from the school leaders were professional development, teacher collaboration and hiring. This study concluded that school leaders who act as instructional leaders positively influence teacher retention. Another conclusion of the study is that school leaders felt it was important to provide opportunities for teachers to engage in collaborative work. Also, a school’s ability to provide professional development to teachers can contribute to a teachers’ decision to remain at their school. Another conclusion from this study is that a school’s ability to foster positive professional relationships can be instrumental in a teacher’s decision to remain at the school. Lastly, having processes and procedures in place for hiring new teachers was perceived to contribute to lower turnover rates in schools.

Author: Vivian Troen
Publisher: Corwin Press
ISBN: 1412991331
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
While most educators believe working in teams is valuable, not all team efforts lead to instructional improvement. Through richly detailed case studies The Power of Teacher Teams demonstrates how schools can transform their teams into more effective learning communities that foster teacher leadership. The benefits of successful teacher teams include: improved performance for both teachers and students; meaningful professional development; group adoption of a new curriculum; shared insights into student work; better classroom management; support for new teachers; new roles for teacher leaders; and opportuniteis for mentor support.School leaders will find guidelines, methods, and concrete steps for building and sustaining effective teacher teams. Also included is a DVD with video case studies and one CD with reproducibles. The most important reason for building teacher teams is to enhance student learning through improved instruction, and that story is at the heart of this book.

Author: Janet Chrispeels
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 0761928863
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
Learning to Lead examines the dilemmas principals face in engaging teachers in shared leadership. The text makes a contribution to the field of educational leadership, administration, and leader preparation through cases and the description of professional development initiatives to prepare pre-service principals and administrators for shared leadership. Authors from the United States, England, and Australia present a broad brushstroke of principals sharing leadership through original field-based research, set within a theoretical framework of democratic schooling. to explore the importance of principals sharing and distributing leadership. Until recently, most of the focus has been on teachers and collaborative leadership building. through real-life single and multiple case studies, the text addresses how principals and their staff's struggle with the challenge of shared leadership, and how they attain some of the promise leading to teacher growth and development, as well as to higher levels of student learning. the cases in the text provide pre-service principals and administrators with excellent examples of the real-life applications of various theoretical concepts. a variety of models and approaches of shared and distributed leadership are presented in school, district, and regional contexts, allowing students to see the commonalties that these settings share, as well as the differences between them. impact that those strategies have on teachers, school culture, and learning opportunities for students. Examples of preparation programs and the support that teachers want, if shared leadership is to be effectively implemented to meet student needs, provide future principals with the tools and insight that they need to be successful.

Author: Nina Bascia
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402032013
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 1129

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Book Description
Nina Bascia, Alister Cumming, Amanda Datnow, Kenneth Leithwood and David Livingstone This Handbook presents contemporary and emergent trends in educational policy research, in over ?fty chapters written by nearly ninety leading researchers from a number of countries. It is organized into ?ve broad sections which capture many of the current dominant educational policy foci and at the same time situate current understandings historically, in terms of both how they are conceptualized and in terms of past policy practice. The chapters themselves are empirically grounded, providing illustrations of the conceptual implications c- tained within them as well as allowing for comparisons across them. The se- re?exivity within chapters with respect to jurisdictional particularities and c- trasts allows readers to consider not only a range of approaches to policy analysis but also the ways in which policies and policy ideas play out in di?erent times and places. The sections move from a focus on prevailing policy tendencies through increasingly critical and ‘‘outsider’’ perspectives on policy. They address, in turn, the contemporary strategic emphasis on large-scale reform; substantive emphases at several levels – on leadership and governance, improving teacher quality and conceptualizing learning in various domains around the notion of literacies and concluding, ?nally, with a contrasting topic, workplace learning, which has had less policy attention and thus allows readers to consider both the advantages and disadvantages of learning and teaching under the bright gaze of policy.

Author: Sally J. Zepeda
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317919467
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 167

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Book Description
The Call to Teacher Leadership demonstrates the many ways teachers can be leaders without having to opt out of the classroom full-time. It examines formal leadership positions – instructional coordinators, lead teachers, department chairs, etc. – as well as informal leadership roles – nurturing colleagues, supporting the instructional program, participating in decision making, etc. With practical examples and case studies, this book provides details about how teachers have participated in the leadership of their schools and districts. Examples come from elementary, middle, and high schools across the country.

Author: Kenneth A. Leithwood
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 940091573X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 1188

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Book Description
EDITORS This introduction to the International Handbook of Educational Lead ership and Administration describes some of the motivation for devel oping the book and several assumptions on which is based much of the work represented in its 31 chapters. A synopsis of the contents of those chapters is also provided. SOME KEY ASSUMPTIONS It is sometimes suggested that the search for an adequate understanding of leadership is doomed to fail. After all, there is little evidence of agreement about the concept in spite of prodigious efforts dating back hundreds if not thousands of years. Such a view is captured, for exam ple, in Bennis' observation that: Of all the hazy and confounding areas in social psychology, leadership theory undoubtedly contends for top nomination. Probably more has been written and less is known about lead ership than any other topic in the behavioural sciences. (1959, page 259) We do not find this state of affairs discouraging (nor entirely accurate) and, of course, it did not prevent Bennis from proceeding either. One reason for our desire to continue in the face of such discouraging words is that a great deal of leadership research aspires to develop a general theory, a theory which applies to all or most domains of organized human activity. This aspiration inevitably produces decontextualized and, therefore, abstract categories of practice. Howard Gardner's (1995) depiction of leadership as story telling is a case in point.

Author: Greene, H. Carol
Publisher: IGI Global
ISBN: 1799827895
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 525

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Book Description
Rural poverty encompasses a distinctive deprivation in quality of life related to a lack of educational support and resources as well as unique issues related to geographical, cultural, community, and social isolation. While there have been many studies and accommodations made for the impoverished in urban environments, those impoverished in rural settings have been largely overlooked and passed over by current policy. The Handbook of Research on Leadership and Advocacy for Children and Families in Rural Poverty is an essential scholarly publication that creates awareness and promotes action for the advocacy of children and families in rural poverty and recommends interdisciplinary approaches to support the cognitive, social, and emotional needs of children and families in poverty. Featuring a wide range of topics such as mental health, foster care, and public policy, this book is ideal for academicians, counselors, social workers, mental health professionals, early childhood specialists, school psychologists, administrators, policymakers, researchers, and students.

Author: Christopher Day
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781909437760
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 68

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Book Description

Author: Sam Redding
Publisher: IAP
ISBN: 1648025897
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Because everyone from policymakers to classroom teachers has a role in achieving greater equity for children from poverty, this book provides a sweeping chronicle of the historical turning points—judicial, legislative, and regulatory—on the road to greater equity, as background to the situation today. It provides succinct policy recommendations for states and districts, as well as practical curricular and instructional strategies for districts, schools, and teachers. This comprehensive approach—from the statehouse to the classroom—for providing children who come to school from impoverished environments with the education in which they thrive, not merely one that is comparable to others, truly enlists everyone in the quest for opportunity and performance. The next step toward equity may be taken by a governor, but it may also be taken by a teacher. One need not wait for the other. Press Relaease Redding, S. (Ed.). (2021). Opportunity and performance: Equity for children from poverty. Information Age. Copyright: Academic Development Institute • historical and legislative background for understanding current situation • analysis of poverty’s impact on learning from multiple perspectives • likely effects of COVID pandemic on learning and what to do about it • proximal (classroom) and distal (system) levers for change • actionable steps for teachers, schools, districts, states • what can be done to disrupt poverty’s impact on learning, "right here, right now” • disproportionately positive effects (DPEs) of high-impact strategies • goalposts for measurement of progress by schools, districts, states • glossary of terms and discussion prompts Last year, 2021, saw a host of books and articles addressing aspects of “equity,” some mounting the bandwagon of advocacy and some arguing what the term itself actually means. But where were the clear-eyed analyses and practical solutions for educators? After more than a year of focused attention to equity by five education scholars, their book, Opportunity & Performance, entered this stream of publications. The team is associated with the Academic Development Institute and their collaboration was supported by the National Comprehensive Center. This book is unique and distinct from others in several ways. First, the authors agreed early on to put boundaries around a topic that could otherwise run loose with ambiguity. As they were all educators, the book would focus on equity in education. As equity could be viewed from the perspective of a variety of groups that seek it—racial and ethnic groups, children with disabilities, and English learners prominent among them—the team of authors chose to devote the book to the one historically underserved group that most pervasively suffers in terms of academic achievement and that includes the other groups. That group is children from poverty. The five authors are not only researchers, their careers bristle with experience in schools and agencies that work with schools. From different disciplinary fields within education, they have all created and implemented strategies to improve learning and to measure that improvement. The authors were determined to logically and persuasively link their conclusions from the research on poverty, on learning, and on the nexus of the two. They wanted the book to be useful. They sought a respectful tone that would encourage common ground and constructive action to open doors of opportunity and achieve greater learning for students from impoverished environments. The book’s authors and external advisors brought to the work a diversity of professional background and expertise on historically underserved students, children from poverty, effective instruction, systems change, and methods for evaluating progress. Equity of opportunity: Each student—despite family income, race, ethnicity, gender, language, or disability—has the opportunity to attend schools, access courses and programs, and be taught by teachers that meet standards of quality on a par with schools attended by their peers. Equity of performance: The schools, courses, programs, and teachers that serve students from historically underserved groups reorient their curriculum, instruction, and support services to ameliorate disadvantages these students may disproportionately bear, optimizing learning results for these students. The Book's Authors Linda Cavazos, Ph.D., is a researcher and technical assistance provider with more than 25 years of experience in education supporting the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse learners and directing projects in the areas of equity, diversity, inclusion, literacy, and cultural and linguistic competence, responsiveness, and sustainability. Allison Layland, Ph.D., is the Chief Education Strategist for the Academic Development Institute (ADI) with projects in several regional centers. She has con¬sulted with 11 state education agencies on effective implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and has more than 20 years of teaching and leadership experience in general and special education at the school, district, and state levels. Sam Redding, Ed.D., is Chief Learning Scientist and a consultant to three regional centers. Dr. Redding also served as the Associate Director of the Center on School Turnaround (WestEd) and as Senior Learning Specialist for the Center on Innovations in Learning (Temple University), and Director of the Center on Innovation & Improvement. As a Senior Research Associate at the Laboratory for Student Success, he headed the Lab’s research and implementation of comprehensive school reform. Janet S. Twyman, Ph.D., BCBA, LBA, Dr. Twyman is a consultant for the Academic Development Institute. Throughout her career as a preschool and elementary teacher, school principal and administrator, university professor, instructional designer, distance learning architect, and educational consultant, Dr. Twyman has been a proponent of effective learning tech¬nologies that produce individual and system change. She has presented to and worked with education systems, organizations, and institutions in over 50 states and countries, including speaking about technologies for diverse learners and settings at the United Nations. Bi Vuong, MPA, is the Managing Director, Education Practice with Project Evident. Before joining Project Evident, Bi was the Director of Proving Ground at the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University. She also launched the National Center for Rural Education Research Network. Prior to Proving Ground, she served as the Deputy Chief Financial Officer for the School District of Philadelphia. Bi serves as a consultant for the Academic Development Institute with project assignments for several regional centers. The Book’s External Advisors Patricia Edwards, Ph.D. is professor of language and literacy at Michigan State University, a member of the Reading Hall of Fame, with research and publications on multicultural literacy, parent involvement, and related topics, especially among poor and minority children. Sheneka Williams, Ph.D. is professor and chairperson of the Department of Educational Administration at Michigan State University with a outstanding body of research on educational opportunity for African American students. T. V. (Joe) Layng, Ph.D. is a behavioral scientist with a distinguished career in research and practice, advancing learning through effective instruction for diverse students; Dr. Layng’s work focuses on the integration of technology with instructional design and systemic behavior interventions. Contact: Dr. Sam Redding at [email protected]