Rebecca A. Thessin

Supporting the Growth of Effective Professional Learning Communities Districtwide.

Teachers do not magically know how to work with colleagues; districts must support and lead that work if PLCs are to live up to their potential.

Perspectives of school leaders on the administrative internship

Purpose – The purpose of this study was to identify how current K-12 district and school leaders who are alumni of an educational administration program describe how they acquired the essential skills and experiences needed to be effective in the leadership positions. Design/methodology/approach – For this qualitative study, the authors interviewed program alumni of one university leadership preparation program regarding the experiences and training they identified as having prepared them with the necessary skills, knowledge, and attitudes to be successful in their positions, as well as which components of their administrative internship experiences, if any, they identified as having most prepared them for their positions. Findings – School and district administrators indicated they acquired the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to become successful leaders through specific preparation experiences and opportunities. Key experiences cited by alumni included gaining some leadership responsibilities...

Voices of Educational Administration Internship Mentors.

Abstract Within the field of leadership preparation, there is agreement by both scholars and practitioners of the need to engage aspiring leaders in authentic field-based learning experiences that tightly align to coursework (Perez, Uline, Johnson, James-Ward, & Basom, 2011). An integrated approach including mentoring is critical to the success of the internship activities and therefore the overall experience. Using data gathered from interns, as well as issues emerging in existent literature, the researchers developed and administered a survey to mentors to assess the activities, level of engagement, and general feedback on the internship experience for those they supervised, as well as their own development during the interaction. We subsequently conducted interviews of five mentors who had responded to the survey to allow for further exploration of the emergent themes.

Profiles of the Administrative Internship: The Mentor/Intern Partnership in Facilitating Leadership Experiences

This study sought to understand how aspiring administrators and supervising mentors contribute to the intern’s opportunity to lead authentic administrative tasks during the administrative internship. Using case study methodology, we gathered data from six intern/mentor pairs through in-depth interviews, observations, journals, and logs. Several themes contributed to the development of the intern/mentor relationship in three phases: (a) establishing the partnership, (b) cultivating the mentoring relationship, and (c) learning through the leadership experience. Our results informed the development of the Educational Leadership Mentoring Framework, a new conceptual framework that has the potential to enhance the quality of administrative internship experiences.

Identify the Best Evidence for School and Student Improvement.

Empowering teachers to use data effectively as part of a process of instructional improvement calls for schools and districts to engage in systematic collection and analysis of evidence as part of an ongoing school improvement cycle. In research and practice, the author has identified four steps school leaders — supported by central office -- must take in order to launch and implement this work effectively and sustain it over time to lead to improvement. Identify a clear instructional focus to which all teachers can align their work; Lead a schoolwide improvement process that facilitates ongoing learning as part of a plan, do, study, act cycle; collect and analyze multiple types of evidence from teachers and students to enhance instruction; and build a strong team to lead the work of improvement in professional learning.