Leadership Development

Principal Academies

The Collaborative provides leadership development opportunities for new and experienced school leaders that enable participants to engage in reflective practice and develop strong professional networks. The goals of the Academy are to assist school leaders to:

• understand the role of effective principals and identify and learn to implement specific behaviors of successful school leaders;
• utilize theories of leadership and organizational change to develop a deep understanding of how to accelerate learning for students and all members of the school community;
• identify and learn to implement behaviors that ensure that all students have access to the best knowledge, the most qualified teachers, and the safest environment.

The Principals’ Academies focus on the following key aspects of instructional leadership: the instructional core, that is, the relationship between students and teachers in the presence of content; organizational improvement such as the hiring of highly qualified teachers to ensure learning by all students; and leadership, teamwork, and networking strategies to successfully manage change and establish professional communities that focus on instructional improvement.

In addition, the Academies provide principals and other school leaders a place to meet in a supportive and stimulating environment to learn not only from reflection on their own practice, but also from formal and informal interactions with other as well as with state and national leadership experts. School leaders also have opportunities to develop effective school improvement plans, use student achievement data to determine progress in, and continuing challenges to student learning, and practice strategies for decision-making and problem solving to ensure that all students are learning.

Content-Focused Leadership

The aim of the content-focused leadership seminars is to assist school leaders to:

• make instructional quality a top priority of their work and learn behaviors for making that a reality;
• deepen school leaders’ understanding of what good teaching and learning look like in mathematics and science and ability to use that understanding to drive decision-making;
• develop the capacity to undertake effective classroom observations and continually assess the quality and level of content and instruction delivered in classrooms;
• develop effective questioning, coaching, and facilitation skills toward working more effectively with teachers.

Content-focused seminars are held in schools so that school leaders can observe teachers at work in classrooms. Following the observations, focused dialogue based on learning theory and evidence from the observations, provides school leaders with an opportunity to identify the critical attributes of effective classroom teaching and learning. The use of the locally-developed Classroom Observation Protocol facilitates conversation and helps shift the principal’s role from one of manager and evaluator to that of instructional leader.

Content-based case studies are also used during the seminars to provoke conversation and problem definition, and enhance the skills of school leaders to analyze classroom interaction, provide effective and timely feedback about instructional practice, and design and ensure implementation of effective improvement plans for teachers.

School Team Leadership Institutes

The Collaborative’s School Teams Leadership Institute is focused on helping build school teams’ commitment to improve current practice, to learn about the change process and to look carefully and critically at what is working and what is not working in their schools.

School teams, comprised of seven to ten professionals from each participating school, including the principal, assistant principal, counselor and five to seven teachers, closely review student achievement data, data on enrollment and completion in key courses, and determine the expectations and beliefs about student learning that defines the culture of their school. The teams then define specifically why and how their schools must change, hear from teachers and principals from previously low-performing schools that have made major improvements, and draft preliminary action plans for sharing with their entire school faculty and staff.

The Teams Leadership Institute provides follow-up sessions for three years, affording schools the opportunity to deepen learning about elements of the school improvement process and to continue to revisit, revise, and monitor plan implementation and progress toward student achievement goals.

Classroom Observation Protocol

The Classroom Observation Protocol is a locally developed classroom observation instrument that focuses on key aspects of instruction that include:

• strategies and activities used by teachers to help students understand the content of a lesson;
• cognitive demand level of learning tasks to ensure that students are provided assignments across the spectrum from low (memorization and performing procedures) to high (applying knowledge to new situations or demonstrating understanding of concepts; 
• teacher’s questioning skills to increase students’ understanding of key concepts; and,
• classroom discourse between teacher and student to deepen student conceptual understanding, identify misconceptions, and generate new learning.

Download

• Classroom Observation Protocol.pdf

Cognitive Coaching

Cognitive Coaching is a coaching model developed by the Center for Cognitive Coaching in Denver, Colorado and has been one of the Collaborative’s leadership development components. The model provides processes and tools to raise leaders’ ability to engage in reflective practice. It provides strategies for school leaders to use as they engage in professional, evidence-based conversations with teachers toward the analysis, evaluation, and improvement of classroom practice.

Downloads

• MSP Classroom Observation Protocol

Principal Academies

Responding to surveys about their experience in the Collaborative’s Leadership Academies, many school leaders expressed that the Academies provided a far deeper and more enduring leadership development experience than they receive elsewhere. Other important outcomes of the leadership sessions include:

• deepened knowledge and understanding of the role of effective principals and of specific behaviors of successful school leaders;
• learning to utilize theories of leadership and organizational change to forge policies and practices more closely aligned to the goals of school improvement;
• developing a deeper understanding of how to accelerate learning for students and all members of the school community;
• being motivated to be more aware of the school leader’s role in the school improvement process and the need to be passionately committed to ensuring high expectations for all students; and 
• being provided a safe place to be candid with themselves and their peers about where they need help as leaders and how they will hold

Content-Focused Leadership

As a result of participating in the Collaborative’s Content-Focused Leadership seminars, school leaders:

• significantly improved their knowledge about good mathematics and science teaching and learning in the classroom;
• increased their focus on improved classroom practice guided by standards and frameworks;
• gained a deeper understanding and knowledge about the importance of the instructional core and the processes of planning and teaching specific content;
• became members of a network focused on the work of instructional improvement;
• learned about the latest and best research on instructional leadership and how to apply that knowledge to their current role;
• gained a deeper understanding and rationale for why the principal must be the instructional leader in the school and create new learning opportunities for teachers and administrators; and
• increased their support for common planning time among teachers and for intensive teacher professional development.

School Team Leadership Institutes