Courses

This course module provides practical strategies to assist school leaders in creating a learning community that will shape a school’s shared vision, facilitate collaboration through teams and committees, and establish a climate that supports child-centered education in a collegial and caring environment, enhancing student achievement.

The Standard:

Effective educational leaders develop, advocate, and enact a shared mission, vision, and core values of high-quality education and academic success and well-being of each student.”
(National Policy Board for Educational Administration, 2015)

Module chapters include an examination of the differences between mission and vision, how to refine a shared vision, goal setting, and the essential characteristics of learning communities.

Chapters contain exercises that you will be asked to complete, and resources you can use for continuous learning.

This course module guides the school leader in effective use and analysis of data to improve student achievement, enhancing skills as an instructional leader and improving teacher effectiveness.

NPBEA Standard 4, Curriculum Instruction, and Assessment(g):

Effective leaders use assessment data appropriately and within technical limitations to monitor student progress and improve instruction.”

NPBEA Standard 9, Operations and Management(g):

Effective leaders develop and maintain data and communication systems to deliver actionable information for classroom and school improvement.”

NPBEA Standard 10, Continuous Improvement(g):

Effective leaders develop technically appropriate systems of data collection, management, analysis, and use, connecting as needed to the district office and external partners for support in planning, implementation, monitoring, feedback, and evaluation.”

This course module defines and clarifies various types of student achievement data and reviews the types of visual representations of the data. Critically, it presents ways to interpret these visual representations, focusing on the issues presented by the data that should be addressed in setting curriculum and classroom improvement plans.

Assessment plays a major role in how students learn, their motivation to learn, and how teachers teach. Assessment is embedded in the learning process, helping teachers to gain insight into what students understand, how they learn, and how they can be better served. Student learning is best supported when instruction and assessment are based on clear learning goals, and differentiated according to student learning needs.

This course module presents a comprehensive overview of tools and processes for the assessment, evaluation and reporting of student achievement. Assessment and evaluation practices must be fair, transparent and equitable for all students, and based on evidence of student learning.

Ensuring that well-qualified personnel exist in every classroom is a guiding principle in the life of a school and the purpose of staff development. This course module focuses on the contemporary view of staff development as a component of continuous school improvement.

The Standard:

Effective educational leaders develop the professional capacity and practice of school personnel to promote each student’s academic success and well-being.”
Standard 6: Professional Capacity of School Personnel, Professional Standards for Educational Leaders (NPBEA, 2015)

The importance of human capital and the context, process, and content necessary for continuous professional staff development are stressed.

In the role of leading human resource development, you are required to foster ongoing school improvement, centered on student learning, through building human capital. Human resource leadership roles and responsibilities for principals and assistant principals include recruiting, selecting, nurturing and retaining personnel.

The definition of and reason for staff development is becoming increasingly clear from the results of ongoing school improvement research. It has moved from a focus on individual teacher requirements to staff requirements, with emphasis on the learning needs of students. Staff development approaches have become learner-centered and results-driven, taking place inside the learning environment as a routine systematic process, rather than one-shot professional activity centered on information acquisition from outside experts.

This course module provides information and describes skills needed for teaming to make a difference at the school site. Effective school teams go through an evolution as they move toward collaboration and productivity. Facilitating higher functioning and higher efficiency means breaking down barriers such as isolation among teachers, and increasing commitment to the school’s mission and vision.

Effective school teams make a difference for students and teachers in a variety of ways, but before colleagues can function effectively as a team, everyone involved must learn how to be a member of a team. When groups of educators work together, evidence shows that students and teachers flourish academically and socially. Team building is an essential skill that allows educators to capitalize on getting results that produce optimal student success. Teaming combines the expertise of many minds, skills and perspectives. The synergy that results from multiple minds at work is typically more effective than the outcome any one person could achieve.

Many educators work in teams as part of a professional learning community (PLC). Professional learning communities provide an extended learning opportunity to foster collaborative learning among colleagues and are often used in schools to organize teachers into working groups. Due to their specialized focus and nature, professional learning communities are also explored in more detail in the ASAP course modules Creating a Learning Community and Shared Vision.

The learning environment is made richer through collaboration, community, collegiality, celebration and recognition. Schools and districts that have demonstrated the greatest improvement in student outcomes are characterized by deep collaboration between administrators and teachers.

Clifford Geertz (1973), a noted anthropologist, defines culture as a “historically transmitted pattern of meaning.”

Understanding a people’s culture exposes their normalness without reducing their particularity…It renders them accessible.”
Clifford Geertz

Recognizing and honoring culture in a school environment goes beyond the business of creating an efficient learning environment. It focuses more on the core values necessary to teach and influence young minds.

It is important to note that this course does not deal in-depth with cultural diversity in the school community. That is found in the ASAP course module Diversity. This course module digs deeper into how to access and assess a school’s culture, reduce isolation of teachers, build collaboration and shape the culture of success.

Diversity crosses through and impacts all of the Professional Standards for Educational Leaders. As an element common to all aspects of leadership it supports academic press and is foundational to productive culture.

Education leaders must be aware of the breadth and depth of diversity in the school system. This course module describes key concepts, and references guiding legislation, initiatives, and contemporary research related to honoring diversity, promoting human rights, and preventing discrimination and harassment.

Engaging in this module will help individuals reflect on personal experiences with diversity and will provide participation in practical activities that assist in understanding the leader’s role in relation to diversity and ensuring that diversity is recognized and acknowledged at the school site.

Lesson topics in this module include:

• Understanding diversity
• Culturally responsive pedagogy
• Promoting human rights in schools
• Diversity practices in schools
• Multicultural Education
• Closing the achievement gap in schools

This course module focuses on recommended classroom management procedures and routines that help to develop relationships and build community. Cooperative learning, intentional relationships, and character education are components of an effective classroom community where students feel responsible for their learning, and have an obligation to each other and the school.

Many teachers who are new to the profession have had little training in the area of classroom management. Experienced principals have encountered this and have strategies for supporting teachers in what is a major component to teaching success. They create a plan and timeline for improving classroom skills and set goals around best practices in classroom management, including classroom organization, lesson preparation, and classroom routines.

A goal for the principal is to help teachers understand that classroom management is more than routines and organization. Building a sense of community in the classroom has many benefits for students. Effective educators start at the beginning of the school year to create opportunities for their students to forge supportive and collaborative relationships and to identify and reinforce the community’s shared values.

Instructional capacity can be described as the quantity and quality of resources provided to the school to ensure high quality instruction (Jaquith, 2013). Efforts have traditionally been focused on improving curriculum materials and training teachers on new instructional methods.

Schools are complex social organizations that interconnect and rely on other social systems. Their instructional capacity cannot be viewed as component-based. Effectively building capacity requires the ability to see the “bigger picture”, recognizing the many challenges to school improvement are unique to each school community (Cohen and Ball, 1999).

Among the many roles of the school principal, ensuring academic success for all students through shared vision and instructional leadership, and creating and maintaining the school environment to achieve that success in a safe and welcoming school are primary responsibilities. To these ends, building capacity is among the most important things a principal can do in guiding his or her school to better teaching and learning. It is the reason, more than any other, that professional development departments exist in school districts.

The components of instructional capacity are explored in greater detail in the ASAP course modules associated with each, including Instructional Leadership, Staff Development, Team Building, Assessment & Evaluation, and Operational Leadership. In fact, there are elements in every course module related to the instructional capacity of an educational organization. In this course module we define instructional capacity, the goals in building and improving it in the school, and strategies and methods for achieving greater instructional capacity to support continuous school improvement.

This course module is a guide to independent and collaborative strategies and activities that promote effective instructional leadership. An effective instructional leader recognizes that improving student achievement is directly related to fostering excellence in teaching and learning. Standard 4: Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment, of The Professional Standards for Educational Leaders (NPBEA, 2015) states:

Effective educational leaders develop and support intellectually rigorous and coherent systems of curriculum, instruction, and assessment to promote each student’s academic success and well-being.”
Professional Standards for Educational Leaders, NPBEA, 2015

Instructional leaders foster excellence in teaching and learning by:

• Assisting teachers to create active learning environments
• Being a resource for effective instructional practices
• Modeling instructional design for effective teaching and learning
• Supervising instruction and empowering teachers
• Evaluating personnel

In the role of instructional leader, consider the term ‘principal’ as both an adjective and a noun. The principal instructor in a school is the school principal. The role of the principal has changed dramatically over the years, with additional responsibilities tied to operational management and accountability. No longer is it expected that the principal be the most skilled and knowledgeable teacher in the school. Many schools employ teachers with greater expert knowledge in the subjects they teach than the principal. This evolution of instructional capacity makes it all the more important that the principal know how to lead, without having to be able to perform every task that expert faculty and staff are best equipped to do. Rather than being the teacher of teachers, the principal must be the leader of leaders, empowering teaching leaders to excel.

Please be advised: Some of the exercises and assignments in this course module require the participation of others (a peer, mentor, or small group). Who you collaborate with is your choice, but as you begin this course module, you should approach colleagues you trust, or share this course module with, to arrange for the participation of others when required.

This course module provides strategies and best practices for guiding parent involvement and developing and sustaining meaningful relationships and partnerships in the broader school community. Creating an environment that values two-way communication with families and stakeholders promotes and supports student success.

The Standard:

Effective educational leaders engage families and the community in meaningful, reciprocal, and mutually beneficial ways to promote each student’s academic success and well-being.”
(National Policy Board for Educational Administration, 2015)

Developing and sustaining effective partnerships builds mutually beneficial alliances supporting student achievement from elementary through secondary school grades, including such initiatives as school-to-career transitions for graduating students.

This course module provides fundamental information, vital strategies, and opportunities to practice effective communication. The module addresses communication through writing, oral communication (including public speaking), nonverbal modes, and communication in crisis situations.

Effective communication skills are foundational to almost all successful personal, social, learning, and work activities. They are essential in:

• clarifying your thoughts.
• clarifying the meaning of others not only from their words but also their nonverbal cues.
• interacting and conversing effectively with staff, students, stakeholders and others.
• effectively conveying information, feelings, and opinions.

Oral communication involves private or group discussions; school, district, and public presentations; and planned or impromptu interactions with audiences. Most school leaders are prepared to convey basic information and opinions through short, informal communications on familiar topics, but many are challenged when presenting and analyzing complex information and issues through more sustained discussions. Specific skills, used consistently, are also required in listening and responding effectively to what others say.

School leaders who are effective in written communication not only use good grammar and appropriate language, but have the ability to write and respond to everything from brief communications expressing a few basic ideas about familiar topics, to more complex communications which analyze and explore important subjects and complex issues with significant and sometimes long-term ramifications.

The skilled communicator enhances relationships with parents and the community and helps to create an environment that values diverse cultures and welcomes staff, student, family and community engagement.

This course module examines the managerial aspects of leadership and the significance of efficiency, preparedness, and effectiveness in managing the learning environment. Operational leadership and effective management is vital to the success of a school in creating a safe, orderly, and efficient place to learn.

NPBEA Standard 9: Operations and Management

Effective educational leaders manage school operations and resources to promote each student’s academic success and well-being.”

Effective leaders:

1. Institute, manage, and monitor operations and administrative systems that promote the mission and vision of the school.
2. Strategically manage staff resources, assigning and scheduling teachers and staff to roles and responsibilities that optimize their professional capacity to address each student’s learning needs.
3. Seek, acquire, and manage fiscal, physical, and other resources to support curriculum, instruction, and assessment; student learning community; professional capacity and community; and family and community engagement.
4. Are responsible, ethical, and accountable stewards of the school’s monetary and non-monetary resources, engaging in effective budgeting and accounting practices.
5. Protect teachers’ and other staff members’ work and learning from disruption.
6. Employ technology to improve the quality and efficiency of operations and management.
7. Develop and maintain data and communication systems to deliver actionable information for classroom and school improvement.
8. Know, comply with, and help the school community understand local, state, and federal laws, rights, policies, and regulations so as to promote student success.
9. Develop and manage relationships with feeder and connecting schools for enrollment management and curricular and instructional articulation.
10. Develop and manage productive relationships with the central office and school board.
11. Develop and administer systems for fair and equitable management of conflict among students, faculty and staff, leaders, families, and community.
12. Manage governance processes and internal and external politics toward achieving the school’s mission and vision.

As you can see, that’s a long list. Strong operational leaders understand, develop, implement, and advocate for effective policies that are in the best interest of all students. Putting students first requires effective educational leadership, but while doing that there is a lot of business to be managed.