Chad R. Lochmiller

Examining Administrators' Instructional Feedback to High School Math and Science Teachers.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore high school administrators’ instructional leadership in math and science. Specifically, the study explored the feedback administrators provided to math and science teachers as part of their instructional supervision. A central goal for this study was to determine how differences in these content areas influenced the feedback administrators provided to teachers. Research Method/Approach: The study was completed in five, comprehensive high schools located in the western United States. A multicase qualitative research design was used to complete this investigation. The study included more than 50 individual participants, including school administrators and classroom teachers. Findings: Three themes were produced from the analysis. First, the feedback administrators provided to teachers focused on pedagogy as opposed to their content understanding. Second, administrators provided feedback that was anchored within their past experience as teachers. This experience shaped how they viewed instruction in math and science. Third, administrators sought ways to make their feedback more meaningful and saw student assessment data as a useful strategy. Conclusions: School administrators’ feedback to classroom teachers about their instruction appears bound within distinct subject subcultures that stem from their past experience as classroom teachers. It is therefore incumbent on administrators to learn how to work across these cultures to support schoolwide instructional improvement. Administrators must recognize how their own position within a particular subject subculture influences the feedback they provide to classroom teachers.

Leadership Coaching in an Induction Program for Novice Principals A 3-Year Study

This article presents results from a study of leadership coaches who worked with novice principals in a university-based induction program for a 3-year period. The qualitative case study describes how the support the coaches provided to the novice principals changed over time. The study reveals that coaches adapted their leadership coaching practice in response to the principal’s needs and shifted their coaching strategies as a result. The article concludes with a discussion of the findings in relation to existing research on leadership coaching for K-12 school leaders and offers suggestions for future research.

Making Sense of Principal Leadership in Content Areas: The Case of Secondary Math and Science Instruction.

ABSTRACT We drew upon sense making and leadership content knowledge to explore how high school administrators’ understanding of content areas informed their leadership. We used math and science to illustrate our interpretations, noting that other content areas may pose different challenges. We found that principals’ limited understanding of these content areas prompted them to reframe challenges in ways that did not require them to possess content-area expertise. Principals relied upon their ability to hire classroom teachers and secure external professional development providers to improve instruction. We conclude the article by noting how the findings expand upon existing understandings of instructional leadership.

Conceptualizing Practitioner-Scholarship for Educational Leadership Research and Practice:

In this conceptual article, we draw upon recent literature to describe the theoretical, epistemological, and methodological anchors that can inform a working conception of practitioner-scholarship. We position practitioner-scholarship at the intersection of an individual’s work as a practitioner and researcher, wherein a practitioner focuses on understanding localized problems of practice through in-depth inquiry. Through our discussion, we highlight three implications for leadership programs. First, practitioner-scholarship demands that all program faculty take a learning orientation. Second, research experiences provided to students should be immersed in leadership practice and directly situated within schools and districts. Third, we advocate increased consistency, rigor, and theoretical depth in methods training for educational leadership students.

Preparing turnaround leaders for high needs urban schools

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe the program structure and design considerations of a 25-day, full-time apprenticeship in a university-based principal preparation program. Design/methodology/approach The study used a qualitative case study design that drew upon interviews and focus groups with program participants as well as program-related documents. Qualitative data analysis was completed using ATLAS.ti. Findings The analysis suggests that the apprenticeship had three specific design features that were intended to support the apprentice’s development for turnaround leadership. These included locating the apprenticeship experience in a turnaround school setting; focusing the apprenticeship on district structures and procedures; and situating the apprentice’s work within the district’s approved improvement process. Research limitations/implications The study was limited in that recurring, on-site observations of apprenticeship activities were not possible. The study has implications for principal preparation programs related to the design of fieldwork experiences, as well as for educational scholars seeking to study the impact of fieldwork on principal efficacy. Originality/value The study contributes to the broader discussion of effective fieldwork experiences for aspiring school leaders, particularly when specific conceptions of leadership are infused within program designs.

Complementary Research Methods: An Introduction and Overview

This chapter serves as an introduction to the edited volume and has three broad purposes. First, the chapter defines complementary research methods as the application of multiple methodologies and methods to the study of related policy and leadership issues. Second, the chapter relates leadership and policy research using the concept of a policy research continuum. This continuum situates leadership and policy researchers as being part of the same research community. Finally, the chapter supports novice scholars, specifically, by describing the ways in which readers might use the volume, and it provides some reflective questions that illuminate the epistemological, methodological, and conceptual ideas undergirding the volume’s contents.

Changing Course in Jefferson City: Reevaluating a District Initiative to Convert Under-Enrolled Elementary Schools

This case positions the reader as the superintendent of Jefferson City Public Schools (pseudonym). Like many urban school districts in the United States, Jefferson City faces a complex milieu of fiscal challenges attributed to inadequate state funding and declining student enrollment. Within this case, the superintendent must address the failing implementation of a district-wide initiative, which converted K-5 elementary schools to K-8 combination schools in response to declining middle school enrollment. The case invites the reader to consider how the district might engage in strategic planning to revise or eliminate the initiative. The case is appropriate for use in administrator preparation programs, particularly those preparing district-level administrators.

Examining the Intersection of Leadership Practice, Administrator Preparation, and Research Methods Training: An Initial Dialogue—Special Issue Introduction

This special issue brings together methodological, theoretical, and empirical discussions that illuminate the challenges and possibilities of preparing practitioner-scholars for educational research. Indeed, this is a timely publication, as educational research has been described broadly as a “hard to do science” due to the inherent theoretical, empirical, contextual, and methodological challenges unique to schools (Berliner, 2002). A central assumption of this special issue is that educational research is unique as is the training that practitioner-scholars require to design and carry out effective research studies. Such unique qualities have been acknowledged in recent discussions regarding the completion of research in practice-based settings, as well as the potential differences between methods training in PhD and EdD programs (Shulman, et al., 2006). As an illustration, Osterman, Furman, and Sernak (2014) found that action research was infrequently used for dissertation work, and called for ongoing dialogue around the role of action research in training educational leaders. Although their study prompts new opportunities to discuss conceptions of what methods training might entail, much more discussion is needed that focuses on the ways in which methods training can be carried out, how conceptions of practitioner-scholarship may be expanded, and whether traditional methodological approaches (e.g., purely qualitative or quantitative) may be useful to educational leaders. The focus on methods training in educational leadership programs is timely given increasing debates about the direction of these programs (Jacobson & Cypress, 2012).

Exploring the Micropolitics of Principal Staffing Advocacy.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the micropolitical strategies principals use to influence school staffing within an urban school district. Design/methodology/approach The author used a qualitative case study approach drawing upon 47 semi-structured participant interviews with 25 individual research participants, 80 hours of observations, and 36 district artifacts. The author completed an iterative analysis using ATLAS.ti with a coding scheme informed by the educational leadership, human resource management, and micropolitical literatures. Findings The findings illustrate that school principals engaged productively within district staffing procedures to influence the allocation and composition of teaching staff within their schools. The iterative analysis identified three micropolitical strategies employed by school principals, including advocacy, acquiring leverage, and networking. First, principals used advocacy to shape personnel staff’s understanding of school needs. Second, principals acquired leverage over staffing by enlisting the support of their school supervisor. Finally, principals networked with colleagues to identify teachers within the district’s transfer system for possible hire. Research limitations/implications The findings have both practical and research significance. Practically, the findings highlight how principals engage in leadership within the context of district staffing processes. With respect to research, the findings address an important gap in the literature as it pertains to principal’s leadership actions in relation to internal district administrative processes. Originality/value The findings of this study are unique in that they challenge the conventional view of district staffing procedures, which has typically framed these procedures as barriers to principal leadership. The findings suggest district staffing procedures can be a forum for productive leadership actions.

Faculty Perceptions of Race to the Top Policy Influence on a University-Based Preparation Program Partnership

Florida’s Race to the Top (RTTT) competition invited university−district partnerships to compete for funds aimed at improving principal preparation programs. In this article, we report findings from a qualitative case study focused on one program partnership funded by RTTT. Drawing upon interviews with faculty and relevant documents, we conducted a thematic analysis to determine how faculty perceived RTTT, the state, and the district influenced the development of the program. Three themes were identified and suggest that faculty perceived the influence of RTTT was filtered by the state’s existing reform priorities. Implications for preparation and directions for future research are provided.