When I ask myself what one thing would I most like to change in the next year at my school, I know the answer would be our school culture, which I want to be more professional, with greater levels of trust, collaboration and commitment. However, that is a big issue, with a lot of variables, especially in the context of conducting small-scale research such as that required for my dissertation. So I am in the process of trying to break that down a little.
What can I, as a leader, do to build a school community which has a shared sense of responsibility, actions and accountability for student learning? From an researcher's perspective, I am acknowledging that my research is driven by my belief that a school's primary purpose of should be to work towards ensuring high level of learning for all students and that this is most likely to be achieved in a culture of collaboration, creativity and reflection.
Firstly, the school community consists of several sub-sets: teachers, TAs, administrative staff, parents and students. This may be too big a group to work with - would it be better to look at one sub-set with the aim of establishing practices that could be extended to (or naturally permeate out to) other sub-sets?
So, I might narrow things down a little, by asking: How can I, as a leader at the school, encourage commitment, participation and shared accountability for student learning in our teaching community?
Literature review: Building learning cultures; the role of leaders in developing commitment, participation (collaboration?) and shared accountability; effect of leaders on collective teacher efficacy/ teacher commitment; building shared accountability for learning in schools; facilitating sharing; strengthening teacher commitment, etc.
Possible action research questions:
What can I do to create a shared set of assumptions and norms?
What school practices can I develop to establish teacher commitment to student learning?
How will establishing a set of shared norms and assumptions affect teacher commitment to and accountability for student learning?
How will the establishment of small teaching groups that meet regularly to discuss learner needs, lead to a collective commitment to/ understanding of the school's purpose and school learner needs?
How will working collaboratively as a staff group affect shared accountability for student learning?
Suggested actions:
1. establish PLC in order to
Early days, but I think it can be summarised as: I’m trying to find out how strengthening our capacity to work together, as a teaching community, to identify and analyse student learning needs, can improve our school practices and therefore student learning.
I’m also reflecting on my role as a leader of that process and how I can improve my own practice.
What I hope to achieve is school wide systems and structures that support collective decision-making and shared accountability for student learning; a strong sense of commitment to our schoolwide learning goals; and effective leadership practices to establish and maintain those
Important areas to develop my thinking about:
What can I, as a leader, do to build a school community which has a shared sense of responsibility, actions and accountability for student learning? From an researcher's perspective, I am acknowledging that my research is driven by my belief that a school's primary purpose of should be to work towards ensuring high level of learning for all students and that this is most likely to be achieved in a culture of collaboration, creativity and reflection.
Firstly, the school community consists of several sub-sets: teachers, TAs, administrative staff, parents and students. This may be too big a group to work with - would it be better to look at one sub-set with the aim of establishing practices that could be extended to (or naturally permeate out to) other sub-sets?
So, I might narrow things down a little, by asking: How can I, as a leader at the school, encourage commitment, participation and shared accountability for student learning in our teaching community?
Literature review: Building learning cultures; the role of leaders in developing commitment, participation (collaboration?) and shared accountability; effect of leaders on collective teacher efficacy/ teacher commitment; building shared accountability for learning in schools; facilitating sharing; strengthening teacher commitment, etc.
Possible action research questions:
What can I do to create a shared set of assumptions and norms?
What school practices can I develop to establish teacher commitment to student learning?
How will establishing a set of shared norms and assumptions affect teacher commitment to and accountability for student learning?
How will the establishment of small teaching groups that meet regularly to discuss learner needs, lead to a collective commitment to/ understanding of the school's purpose and school learner needs?
How will working collaboratively as a staff group affect shared accountability for student learning?
Suggested actions:
1. establish PLC in order to
- help teachers develop positive teacher identity
- build collaborative practices
- develop a sense of ownership
- create culture of mutual trust and support
Early days, but I think it can be summarised as: I’m trying to find out how strengthening our capacity to work together, as a teaching community, to identify and analyse student learning needs, can improve our school practices and therefore student learning.
I’m also reflecting on my role as a leader of that process and how I can improve my own practice.
What I hope to achieve is school wide systems and structures that support collective decision-making and shared accountability for student learning; a strong sense of commitment to our schoolwide learning goals; and effective leadership practices to establish and maintain those
Important areas to develop my thinking about:
- What will I need to DO to make that happen? (Action Cycle one)
- What criteria will I use to measure how the situation is changing?
- How can we extend this to other part so the school community?
- How can we use these practices to weather teacher turnover?