Coral Mitchell

The Instructional Role of Elementary School Principals

To study elementary school principals ʹ understandings and enactments of instructional leadership, we collected data through individual interviews, focus ‐ group discussions, and in ‐ school observations. Three categories captured principals ʹ conceptualizations of instructional leadership: curriculum expertise, formal delivery of professional development, and informal culture building. Their enactment of instructional leadership was influenced by three dimensions: their personal style, degree of coherence in agendas and initiatives, and availability of enabling structures. We anticipated the influence of personal style, but not the impact of coherence and structure, which introduces a new dimension to the literature on contextual influences impinging on individual practice Keywords: school improvement, educational leadership, professional development, school culture Pour etudier la conception et la mise en œuvre du leadership pedagogique chez des directeurs et directrices d’ecole, les auteures ont collige des donnees au moyen d’entrevues individuelles, de discussions en groupe et d’observations sur place. La conception du leadership pedagogique des directeurs et directrices d’ecole a ete analysee a l’aide de trois categories : expertise en matiere de programmes scolaires, prestation de services de perfectionnement professionnel et edification d’une culture informelle. La mise en œuvre du leadership pedagogique a ete etudiee pour sa part a l’aide de trois volets : style personnel, degre de coherence dans les calendriers et les initiatives et mise en place de structures d’incitation. Les auteures avaient prevu l’influence du style personnel, mais non l’impact de la coherence et des structures, ce qui introduit une nouvelle dimension dans la litterature au sujet des influences contextuelles sur la pratique de chacun. Mots cles : amelioration scolaire, leadership en education, perfectionnement professionnel, culture de l’ecole.

Postmodern Expressions of Educational Leadership

Almost four decades ago, Marshall McLuhan introduced the concept of the global village, in which he saw all people as part of a worldwide community connected through global communication and economic networks. He cautioned that survival in such a community would depend on the ability of individuals to think globally even as they acted locally. Today the global village can be said to be a reality, but McLuhan’s caution has gone unheeded. We continue to think locally, even as we engage in actions that bring us into global contact and that have global ramifications. The grand scale of the problems associated with this condition can best be seen in the devastation wrought by global terrorism.

The Frontier of Web-based Instruction

In spite of advances in course design software and experience with online offerings, the question of how web-based education affects teaching and learning remains largely unanswered, and the terrain of online learning remains largely unmapped. In this paper, through the stories of 10 faculties of education and one computer science instructor in Ontario, we map out a small piece of the frontier of web-based course delivery and plot a course for future exploration. We argue that most existing offerings take the form of a “Lone Ranger” or “Greenhorn” approach but that there is a need to move toward a strategic institutional “Wagon Train” approach that consolidates and integrates support for online teaching and learning. We argue, as well, that failures in online instruction cannot simply be attributed to improper instruction or inappropriate course design. Rather, at least part of the problem locates in the ways in which conversation is structured in the online environment.

School improvement in high-capacity schools Educational leadership and living-systems ontology

Although school improvement continues to present as an unresolved educational problem, the required changes are relatively straightforward. Essentially, schools need to be retooled with students’ experiences and high-quality instruction at the center of the design. In this article, we present the findings of research into the leadership of high-capacity learning community schools, wherein the design features yielded school-wide improvement in teaching and learning. Specifically, educational leadership emerged organically throughout the school, and the school leaders took a collaborative, learning-oriented approach to regulating, coordinating, expanding and protecting professional practice. These leadership activities reflected the ontology of living systems, as different from managed systems, and enabled the leaders to create an environment within which authentic teaching and rich learning flourished.

Building and Leading Within Learning Ecologies

This chapter utilizes an ecological perspective to draw attention to the dynamic connections, relationships and mutual influences that impinge on teaching and learning and the consequential implications for school leaders. Presented are concepts and strategies that equip leaders to conceptualize learning systems from an ecological perspective, to examine the mutual influences and interconnections among various aspects of school life and to frame and reframe conditions for enhancing teaching and learning. Concepts and strategies are organized around four domains of conditions: cognitive, affective, cultural and structural. The premise is that reciprocal relationships exist among the domains and that the learning ecology emerges when the domains are constructed and led in ways that enable people to make meaningful collective and individual responses to the compelling disturbances that arise in schools. Constructing the four domains from an ecological perspective requires leaders to pay attention to the processes and patterns of living systems. It challenges leaders to think about holistic patterns of activity and mutual influences within the school. The connections among cognition, affect, culture and structure indicate that the character of the relationships shapes how people teach/or learn. For leaders, the task is to discover the meanings and purposes that underlie specific actions so that they can move beyond judgments about unacceptable or confusing actions and thereby lead to joyful teaching and learning experiences for everyone.

Shifting identities: Negotiating intersections of race and gender in Canadian administrative contexts

This qualitative study used a critical intersectional lens to examine how two black female Canadian principals negotiated their professional identities in administrative contexts. Both principals encountered gender and race-related pressures to fit normative expectations of administrators as white males. Navigating their intersecting identities was described as a precarious balance of accommodating and asserting: this involved authoring and effacing identity, and standing up and standing tall for personal and professional values. These negotiations affected how these principals constructed their professional identities, performed their administrative roles, and achieved equity goals. Implications and recommendations for inclusive administrative theory and practice that acknowledge and value diverse professional identities are discussed.