Leading learning communities

A collegial conversation – talking about instruction helps teachers find new ways to engage Students

by Holly Holland

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This article presents a discussion between teachers from different backgrounds regarding their planning and implementing of assessment strategies.

Balanced Leadership: What 30 Years of Research Tells Us About the Effect of Leadership on Student Achievement

by Tim Waters, Robert J. Marzano, and Brian McNulty

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This paper provides a review and quantitative analysis of 30 years of research into the impact of leadership on schooling.

Best Practice: A Technocrat’s Dream!

by Dean Fink

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This article looks at creating school leaders. The author argues that lists for “best practice” to measure school leaders against does not equate to successful leadership. The only kind of practice that principals need to concern themselves with is the kind that contributes to and enhances students learning.

Building Trusting Relationships for School Improvement: Implications for Principals and Teachers

by Cori Brewster and Jennifer Railsback

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This article provides a review of the key research on the importance of building trusting relationships. Building trust between educators within a school has been identified as an important factor in developing effective schools and improving outcomes for students.

Creating and Sustaining Effective Professional Learning Communities

by Ray Bolam, Agnes McMahon, Louise Stoll, Sally Thomas, Mike Wallace et al.

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This UK research study looks at the effect of school-based professional learning communities (PLC) on student achievement, and sustained teacher professional development.

Culture Shift Doesn’t Occur Overnight – Or Without Conflict

by Rick DuFour

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In this commentary, Rick DuFour examines an area currently under close scrutiny in New Zealand: the impact that teacher practices have on student learning. He asks, “What happens in our schools when, despite our best efforts in the classroom, a student does not learn?”

Developing the person in the professional: building the capacity of teachers for improved student learning: the missing basket – personal learning

by Jan Robertson and Lesley Murrihy

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This report provides examples from research of how some school leaders and researchers, in New Zealand and England, have developed successful holistic, professional learning programmes for teachers.

Got a Minute? Can Instructional Leadership Exist Despite the Reactive Nature of the Principalship?

by Sheryl Boris-Schacter

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This article is an account of the author’s decision to take leave from her academic position to fill an interim position as a primary school principal for a whole school year. Her focus was on the extent to which principals can find a way to balance the administrative side of managing a school, and also provide pedagogical leadership in order to improve teaching and learning.

How friends can be critical as schools make essential changes

by Kathleen Cushman

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This classic article uses a case study approach to explore the efficacy of critical friendship groups (within schools and between schools) as a professional development approach, in particular where school change is a focus.

In Search of the X Factor: The Secret of Maintaining Continuous School Success

by Marie Graham

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This article examines how a group of principals who met regularly for professional support, initiated collaborative research into effective leadership. The article also presents the results on the research.

Leading Learning and Teaching Primary Schools

by Geoff Southworth

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In this article, Geoff Southworth draws on research findings, inspection evidence, and first-hand experience to describe four strands that, woven together, seem to form the thread of leadership and leading "learning and teaching" schools.

Leading Learning: Creating High-Achieving Learning Environments

by Robyn Collins

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This article identifies factors that lead to greater success in terms of students' learning in all schools, which includes the development of school-wide learning communities.

Leading Under Pressure: Leadership for Social Inclusion

by Daniel Muijs, Mel Ainscow, Alan Dyson, Carlo Raffo, Sue Goldrick, Kristin Kerr, Clare Lennie, and Susie Miles

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This article looks at ways to improve educational attainment for all students through the removal of barriers to engagement and achievement. It examines the types of school leadership that might assist in improving social inclusion for young people and their families. There is a useful discussion about what is meant by social inclusion.

Professional learning communities writ large

by Michael Fullan

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This article emphasises the need to look further than the community of a single school if there is interest in an educational infrastructure that will build capacity over a long period

Seven Practices for Effective Learning

by Jay McTighe and Ken O’Connor

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This article considers assessment practices that improve both teaching and learning and provide descriptions and examples of summative, diagnostic, and formative assessment.

Supporting Pioneering Leaders as Communities of Practice: How to Rapidly Develop New Leaders in Great Numbers

by Margaret Wheatley

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In this article Margaret Wheatley laments the current ways that most institutions are leading and suggests alternative ways of constructing the notion of leadership that will appeal to a new generation of 'leadership pioneers'.

Teacher leaders and reflective practitioners: building the capacity of schools to improve by promoting research and reflection

by Despina Pavlou

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In this article secondary school principal, Despina Pavlou presents the story of her own school which uses action research to create a self-reflective culture to nurture school improvement.

Teachers as learners

by Louise Stoll, Jan McKay and David Kember, and M. Cochrane-Smith and S. Lytle

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This is a set of summaries, and links to three classic articles on teacher learning by Louise Stoll, 1999; Jan McKay and David Kember, 1997; and M. Cochrane-Smith and S. Lytle, 1999. Ideas from the summaries could be used as possible starting points for discussion, and it also suggests how these ideas might impact on school professional development programmes.

The Current Work of New Zealand Teaching Principals

by Graham Collins

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This paper provides a concise look at some of the major issues facing teaching principals in New Zealand schools.

The flywheel effect: educators gain momentum from a model for continuous improvement

by Timothy Kanold

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This article describes a successful high school in the USA, and poses questions about ways in which already successful schools can continue to improve their outcomes for students.

The Learning-Centered Principal

by Richard DuFour

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In this article, Richard DuFour argues that the notion of the “instructional leader” is a flawed one. Using his own past experiences as an instructional leader - a principal who focuses particularly on teaching and curriculum — he shows that the initial approaches he used in this role focused on the wrong kinds of questions.

What Do Teachers Bring to Leadership?

by Gordon A. Donaldson Jr.

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This article looks at relationships and the development of teacher leaders. It moves away from the concentration on ‘official leadership’ structures within a school, to look at the ways in which effective teachers contribute to the development of a professional culture that influences the practice of others who work with them.

What Headteachers Need to Know About Teaching and Learning

by Peter Hill

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This article considers what heads need to know about teaching and learning to be effective educational leaders. The discussion examines three key leadership roles: leading and managing change, motivating and managing people, and designing and aligning systems, processes, and resources.

Creating and Sustaining Effective Professional Learning Communities

by Ray Bolam, Agnes McMahon, Louise Stoll, Sally Thomas, Mike Wallace et al.

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This UK research study looks at the effect of school-based professional learning communities (PLC) on student achievement, and sustained teacher professional development.

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