Investigating the Links to
Improved Student Learning
Seashore-Lewis, K; Leithwood,
K.; Wahlstrom, K; and, Anderson,
What School Leaders Do to
Improve Student Achievement
Consider:
Prior Research has Identified Four
Categories of Core Leadership Practices:
• Setting Directions
• Developing People
• Redesigning the Organization
Discuss:
What can principals do
specifically
in each of these
Compare:
Top Three Answers
What leadership practices on the part of school
principals are considered, by principals and teachers,
to be helpful in supporting and improving classroom
instruction?
• Focusing the school on goals and expectations for
student achievement
• Keeping track of teachers’ professional development
needs
Implications for Practice
• Instructional improvement requires a school-wide
focus on goals and expectations for student
achievement.
• Principals play a key role in supporting and
encouraging teachers’ professional development
needs. Leaders have a role to play in keeping track
of those needs, as well as providing resources and
materials to improve teachers’ repertoire of
Implications for Practice
• Policy makers and practitioners should avoid promoting, endorsing, or being unduly influenced by conceptions of instructional
leadership which adopt an excessively narrow focus on classroom instruction. Classroom practices occur within larger organizational systems which can vary enormously in the extent to which they support, reward, and nurture good instruction. School leaders who ignore or neglect the state of this larger context can easily find their district efforts to improve instruction substantially frustrated.
Instructional Leadership:
Digging Deeper
Study Questions
1. What does instructional leadership look like to
teachers?
2. Are teachers’ reports of instructional leadership
similar in substance to what principals have to
say about instructional leadership?
Types of Evidence Examined in the Study
• Teacher Surveys
• Student Achievement Data
• District leader, Principal and Teacher interviews
Teacher Survey Results
• The survey contained 131 items which asked about principal leadership behaviors deemed likely, in previous research, to influence teachers’ instructional behavior.
• After factor analysis of the responses, two factors emerged: • Factor 1: 10 items – Instructional Climate
• Factor 2: 7 items – Instructional Actions
Factor 1: Instructional Climate
Instructional Climate is about influencing the
context in which instruction takes place.
Discuss:
How can principals do this?
Factor 2: Instructional Actions
In order to turn their visions of high student achievement into reality, high-scoring principals are actively engaged in providing direct support to teachers.
Discuss:
How can principals do this?
Interview Findings: Three Behaviors Distinguishing
High-Scoring from Low-High-Scoring Principals
1. High scoring principals have an acute awareness of
teaching and learning in their schools
2. High scoring principals have a direct and frequent
involvement with teachers, providing them with formative
assessment of teaching and learning.
Other Study Findings
•
Intentional classroom visits are more effective than
“popping in” or being visible
•
Principal engagement with individual teachers to ensure
that the school’s vision would be realized was seldom
occurring
•
Many teachers prefer to be “left alone”
•
Department heads provide little or no instructional
leadership
•
Discussions about teaching and learning occur informally
between colleagues and peers
•
Instructional leadership was more commonly
Discussion:
Consider:
District Instructional Leaders:
•
Clearly communicate expected standards for high
priority areas of instruction
•
Have a detailed plan for improving instruction across the
district
•
Are active and effective in supporting excellent
instruction
•
Clarify the steps that school leaders and teachers need
to take to improve the quality of instruction
•
Actively monitor the quality of instruction
Implications for Practice
1. District leaders should acknowledge, and begin to reduce, ways in which principals are limited in their capacity to
exercise instructional leadership by the work required of them in their role as it is currently structured. District administrators are normally aware of the managerial effectiveness of their principals regarding immediate tasks and problems. District leaders need to find ways to help secondary and elementary school principals work with teachers in order to improve. They also need to help principals structure their work schedules in order to find sufficient time to do this.
Implications for Practice, continued…
3. Principals need to be held accountable for taking actions that are known to have direct effects on the quality of teaching and learning in their schools. Creating a vision for instructional
improvement is not enough. Districts should expect principals to take targeted action aimed at implementing instructional leadership within each school.
4. Most districts will need to have honest and in-depth
discussions with their principals to develop procedures for systematically and practically monitoring implementation of instructional leadership. The needs and circumstances of elementary and secondary school principals may need to be differentially addressed, however the bottom line would have each principal expected to take specific steps to enact
