Learner Centered Leadership Program

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Learner Centered Leadership Program

• An Emerging Model of Professional Development for
  School Administrators

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What is learner centered leadership?

• Focus on learning.
• Focus on systems thinking
• Focus on community

3
Who is involved in the program?

• Three distinct but intertwined groups
• 32 prospective administrators
• 32 novice administrators
• 32 exemplary administrators

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Prospective Administrators

• Gender Ethnicity
• 56 Female 22 African American
• 44 Male 44 Caucasian
• 34 Hispanic

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Novice Administrators

• Gender Ethnicity
• 74 Female 19 African American
• 26 Male 3 Asian American
• 42 Caucasian
• 32 Hispanic
• 3 Native American

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Novice Administrators

• Professional Positions
• 49 Assistant Principals
• 13 Deans of Students
• 6 District Personnel
• 13 Intervention Specialists
• 19 Principals

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Exemplary Administrators

• Gender Ethnicity
• 57 Female 30 African American
• 43 Male 53 Caucasian
• 17 Hispanic

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Exemplary Administrators

• Professional Positions
• 7 Assistant Superintendents
• 9 District Directors
• 84 Principals

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Retention of Participants

• Group of Participants-Start of
  Participants-End
• Prospective 32 29
• Rising 31 31
• Accomplished 30 30

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Stages of the Grant Project

• Development of Relationships
• Negotiation and Cultivation of Action Plans
• Implementation of Action and Mentor Plans
• Reflection and Celebration

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Assessment of Needs-TELSA

• TELSA Average Results (Rising Administrators,
  February 1, 2003)
• Category Difficulty Importance Frequency Sum
• Lead analysis 2.84 3.46 4.1 10.4
• design and
• development
• Lead implementation
• of instruction 2.24 4.2 2.93 9.37
• Lead evaluation 2.39 3.69 3.66 9.74
• of instruction
• Lead staff 2.48 4.01 3.46 9.95
• development
• Learner-Related 1.86 4.49 2.2 8.55
• Duties
• Staff-Related 2.42 4.43 3.32 10.17
• Duties
• Budget Other 2.83 4.2 3.9 10.93
• Admin. Duties
• Communication 1.83 4.0 2.58 8.41
• Skills

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Assessment of Needs-LEADNA

• LEADNA Average Results (Rising Administrators,
  February 2003)
• Number of completed surveys 102 LEADNA Class
  Score 4.22
•  Area Class Average Norming Group Score
• Strategy 3.82 3.33 
• Communication 4.29 3.50 
• Knowledge 4.20 4.50
• Learning 4.35 4.00 
• Influence 4.12 4.00 
• Relationships 4.49 4.00 
• Delegation 3.33 3.70 
• Priorities 4.42 4.00 
• Integrity 4.59 3.11 
• Confidence 4.11 3.78

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Brainstorming Session

• What are the most serious issues facing new
  building administrators?
• Student achievement for all students
• Label/school improvement plan
• Implementation of plan
• Morale issues
• Steeping into established group dynamics
• Management vs. leadership (development of staff)
• Proving self to community
• Hiring of qualified staff/retention of qualified
  staff
• Balance of personal and professional life
• Transition from teacher to administration
  position
• Effect on staff relations
• Learning about staff needs, training, learning
  styles
• Time management
• Identify resources/experts/how to delegate
  responsibility
• Analyze data/desegregation of data
• How to present and motivate staff
• Articulation needs of k-12
• Establishment of self as leader/not following
  past leaders footsteps

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Brainstorming Session

• What type of training/support would you like to
  see as part of this program?
• Dealing with parents effectively
• Changing faculty attitudes
• Legal issues/discipline
• Special ed/legal issues
• Getting buy-in school community (establishing
  shared vision)
• Grant writing/how, where, when
• Cross grade opportunity for articulation
• Planning, running, facilitating meetings so that
  they are effective and meaningful
• Getting resources for parents, students, school
  from the community (i.e. Counseling)

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Assessment of Need-Brainstorming Session

• Novice Exemplary
• Leadership vs. Management Communication
• Effecting Change/Dealing w/ Learner-Centered
• Resistance Leadership
• Student Achievement/Success Human Relations
• for All Students Management

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Assessment of Need-Mentor Expertise

• Category Average
• Lead analysis 3.83
• design and
• development
• Lead implementation 3.92
• of instruction
• Lead evaluation 3.79
• of instruction
• Lead staff 4.38
• development
• Learner-Related 4.27
• Duties
• Staff-Related 4.49
• Duties
• Budget Other 4.0
• Admin. Duties
• Communication 3.81
• Skills
• Self-Development 3.64

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Goal-Pose problems

• The scenario provided was
• You are the team of administrators in a school
  with a teacher who doesn't seem to follow the
  school rules concerning dress, for himself and
  for his students. He is an 8th grade teacher,
  whose students do well on the AIMS test and is
  very popular with students and parents.
• What, if anything, would you tell the teacher,
  concerning his decision to wear ripped jeans to
  school, and to allow his students to chew gum in
  class, listen to Sony Walkman tapes, and
  generally, does his "own thing?"
• What might you tell other teachers who complained
  about the dress and attitude of this teacher?

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Goal-Use various mediums

• Website
• Co-instruction
• Team decision-making

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BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS

• CREATING THE CAPACITY FOR AN INTER-DISTRICT
  MENTORING PROGRAM FOR SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS

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Introduction

• Professional development opportunity for school
  administrators
• Mentoring Model
• Need to develop capacity for mentoring by
  building relationships
• Challenge considering history of no collaboration
  or sharing among four districts

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Description of Participating Districts

• High Needs Urban Districts with Culturally and
  Language Diverse Populations
• 87 of students from ethnic minority.
• 65 of students are English language. learners
• High Percentage of Students Living in Poverty
• 82 of students living at poverty level.

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AIMS Comparison
From the four districts, 33 of 57 schools
participate in grant program. On average,
students from participating schools score 2.5
points lower than the average score of all
schools from the four districts and 26.75 points
lower than the average student score at the state
level.
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SAT 9 Percentile Ranks
Students from participating schools are 2.3
percentile points below the percentile rank
average of all schools from the four districts
and 19.5 percentile points below the state
average percentile rankings.
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Definition and Rationale for Mentoring Model

• Focus on Inter-District Sharing and Collaboration
• Mentoring as an extended process of personal and
  professional growth.
• According to Johnson (1997), mentoring means to
  facilitate, guide, and encourage continuous
  innovation, learning, and growth to prepare for
  the future (p. 13).
• With this as the framework and definition,
  effective mentoring relationships require a level
  of trust, respect, ethics, and communication.

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Stages of Mentoring (Zachary,2002 Bess, 2000)

• Preparation/Initiation-focus on developing
  relationships
• Negotiation/Cultivation-focus on defining
  experience, expectations, content, and process.
• Enabling/Separation-focus on learning as the
  result of working through problems/conflict.
• Closure/Redefinition-focus on reflection of
  learning and celebrating successes.

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Building Relationships-A Three Fold Process

• Formal Workshops (led by district teams to serve
  as an introduction)
• Informal activities (socials, hikes,
  get-togethers that break down personal barriers)
• Team Challenge (series of problem-solving
  initiatives that require trust, communication,
  cooperation, teamwork)

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Formal Workshops

• Topics for these workshops included data-driven
  decision-making, effective school correlates,
  school reform process, and facilitative
  leadership.
• Evaluations done in form of feedback form that
  collected scores based on a Likert Scale from one
  to four (1least satisfied, 4most satisfied) and
  personal comments.

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Formal Workshops

• Overall, how satisfying was the learner-centered
  leadership activity?
• 3.6 out of 4
• I gained new understanding, ideas, and insights
  regarding educational leadership.
• 3.6 out of 4
• The facilities provided a comfortable place to
  conduct the activities.
• 3.6 out of 4
• The presentations were well organized, engaging,
  and informative.
• 3.75 out of 4
• The average return rate of feedback forms for
  these five workshops was 75.6 with a low return
  rate of 55 for the September workshop and a high
  return rate of 90 for the June activity.

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Formal Workshops

• Three Themes from
• Analysis of Comments
• Relationships,
• Leadership, and
• Growth

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Relationships

• Meet people from other districts.
• The activities were seen as worthwhile because
  they made it easier to get acquainted and to
  have real conversations with other
  administrators.
• Process of changing groups worked extremely
  well, because it forced us to get out of comfort
  zones.
• The most common comment-having the time and
  opportunity to listen to other administrators in
  a collaborative and positive environment.

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Informal Grant Activities

• Morning Socials
• Importance of telling stories to break down
  barriers.
• Hikes and other physical activities to promote
  health of administrators

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Team Challenge

• Philosophy of challenge courses
• Persons have more resources and are more capable
  than they think they are.
• A small heterogeneous group has the resources
  within it to successfully cope with significant
  challenges.
• One learns more when presented with problems
  rather than solutions.
• Significant, long-lasting learning can be
  achieved through intensive, short-term
  experiences.

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Team Challenge

• Purposes of the course are to
• Enhance team performance, communication, trust,
  leadership, calculated risk-taking, and the
  ability to set achievable goals.
• Increase a participants sense of personal
  confidence and ability to appreciate diverse
  ideas and abilities.
• Improve problem-solving skills in a unique
  educational setting.
• Provide an alternative approach for the effective
  use of the group process.
• Facilitate the inclusion process by providing
  opportunities for all participants to participate
  regardless of limitations.

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Team Challenge

• Importance of debriefing, or guided reflection
  to transfer learning to real-world situations.
• The Team Challenge required all of us to depend
  on one another to get ideas and figure things
  out. After these activities, I am not as afraid
  to step out of the box, to take my time, and to
  use different strategies, not being afraid to
  say, I cant quite do this in order to get the
  help I need to take on different challenges.

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Team Challenge

• To align with our purposes, we got to see
  ourselves in positions outside our role of
  leaders. And we saw ourselves vacillating
  between being a leader and being a follower.
  Since our role is to be leaders, our goal is to
  tie these scenarios into qualities we want as
  leaders.
• Overall score on feedback form-3.9 out of 4

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Final Thoughts

• Begin to look more seriously at issues facing
  urban, diverse districts.
• Build this into mentoring program and action
  planning.
• Negotiate mentoring expectations and cultivate a
  mentoring plan.

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Final Thoughts

• Improvement in inter-district relationships.
• Dialogue about tough issues in a critical and
  meaningful manner will come with time.
• Movement in a direction that encourages positive
  relationships and tough discussions.
• All members need to embrace the idea of learner
  centered leadership.

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Summer Book Series

• June August 2003

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Ten Titles

• Category A Praxis and Leadership
• Teacher With A Heart by Vito Perrone
• Think Rather of Zebra by Jay Stailey
• Getting To Yes by Roger Fisher
• Endangered Minds by Jane Healy
• Leadership by Rudolph Giuliani

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Ten Titles, contd.

• Category B Theoretical Knowledge
• Con Respito by Guadalupe Valdes
• Teaching To Transgress by bell hooks
• Other Peoples Children by Lisa Delpit
• I Wont Learn From You by Herbert Kohl
• Punished By Rewards by Alfie Kohn

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Thematic Strains

• Leadership
• Diversity
• Assessments
• Communication
• Cultural Capital

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On-Line Discussion Strengths

• Flexibility of responses
• Safe to express ideas
• Freedom from time constraints
• Increase technical skill set
• Narrowing the digital divide

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On-Line DiscussionWeaknesses

• Eliminates verbal reinforcement
• Difficulty with technology
• Impersonal process
• Reduces the level of commitment
• Decreases engaged pedagogy

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Conclusions

• Bridging the gap Theory Practice
• Shared Leadership
• Enriching pedagogy
• Tangential Benefits
• Introduction to new texts
• Increased listserv usage
• Gearing up for next year

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Questions?