Leading the Evolution by Ruyle Mike;O'Neill Tamera Weir;Iberlin Jeanie M.;Evans Michael D.;Midles Rebecca;

Author:Ruyle, Mike;O'Neill, Tamera Weir;Iberlin, Jeanie M.;Evans, Michael D.;Midles, Rebecca;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Marzano Resources
Published: 2018-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

“Rewarding short-term growth is important, because this whole shift will take time and energy to make it happen long term. Teachers and kids need to be celebrated regularly. . . . It creates an infectious energy.”

—Middle school teacher, Colorado

Being Personally Involved in Developing Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment

Teachers in effective PCBE schools continually stress the importance of feeling that their leaders are actively involved with them in the trenches when learning how to operate curriculum, instruction, and assessment in the new model. It is critical for principals to roll up their sleeves and get into the deep work of identifying learning goals, creating proficiency scales, aligning assessments with the scales, and adjusting instruction based on assessment data. Being personally involved in the development of curriculum, instruction, and assessment epitomizes the lifelong learner and is exceedingly important; it lends credibility to the principal as a true educational leader. This specific behavior can be a challenging part of a principal’s job, yet evolutionary change will simply not happen without highly informed leaders who effectively communicate knowledge of curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

Although knowledge of curriculum, instruction, and assessment is an important responsibility for leaders to cultivate during the evolution to a PCBE model, personal, hands-on involvement in curriculum, instruction, and assessment is even more critical. Marzano et al. (2005) advised leaders to be directly involved in helping teachers design curricular activities and address instructional and assessment issues. These behaviors are the essence of transformational instructional leadership. Leaders don’t simply delegate responsibility to evolve schools and classrooms; they are actively involved in learning the new system personally and helping teachers grow and evolve as well. Because virtually all principals were teachers with their own areas of expertise, knowledge, and skill at some point, they may find it daunting to give advice to teachers who are experts in other content areas. But the PCBE system is usually new for everyone, and it is important for principals to get involved in the evolution at the ground level—that is, in the classroom itself. Mindful leaders are humble enough to be in professional meetings and successful classrooms where they learn from their educational colleagues, and then take that knowledge to the entire group. This is the time not to sit on the sidelines but rather to get in the game and have the impact necessary to improve systems.

Administrative collaborative teams play a critical role by providing time for leaders to discuss and become more adept in the theoretical as well as practical issues in education today, making them better able to cultivate, implement, and lead the initiative long term.

“It’s painfully obvious when principals don’t really know what they’re talking about. They talk in circles and it’s not clear. You just want to tell them to stop talking! Or else, even worse, they just back off completely and tell teachers to collaborate and figure it out. That’s cowardice and nothing gets done. The principal here rolled up her sleeves and got right in there with us—every step of the way. We learned it together and were all on the same page.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.