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Student-centered learning
Quality assessment and quality assurance
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During observations, I will jot down notes and wait until afterwards to record in detail what has been observed. Notes will be typed as soon after the observation as possible. Observation data will be compiled and a coding system will be applied to create a summary of qualitative observations.
Potential Limitations of this Study
Creswell (2005) identifies limitations as potential problems or weak areas of a study. The proposed study does not intend to determine the level of teacher satisfaction select teachers have with the leadership of the principal. This study is motivated to provide and identify strategies through the use of observations and interviews of select elementary school teachers and principals to add information to the knowledgebase
in the district regarding teacher retention. The honesty of the interviewees and personal bias are possible limiting factors. Verification or guarantee of honest responses and total elimination of bias is not possible. The research is limited by the quantity of respondents; thus the sample size of this research may limit the ability to generalize the results of the research to every school in the district. This study is limited to select elementary schools; however, K-12 principals may find similarities within their personal and school demographics and use the data to help improve their teacher retention strategies. Results from the TELLMaryland Survey, teacher and principal interviews and principal observations will be used to review the decisions teachers make about staying or leaving a school. I anticipate the findings of this study will play a significant role in the development of a plan of action within the district for helping principals reduce teacher attrition and promote teacher retention.
On June 8, 2016, a child welfare agency conducted a parent/child observation with Ms. Sophia Mendez and her three children. Ashley M. Mosgrove, social work intern, did the intake and completed the biopsychosocial assessment.
Standard 1 of the Florida Principal Leadership Standards (2011) describe the priority of the school leader as, “effective school leaders demonstrate that the student learning is their top priority through leadership actions that build and support a learning organization focus on student success”. Our number one priority and focus is and always should be our students. They are the reason behind our professions. It is the faculty the ones who should be supported by the administrators. The leaders should celebrate their success, encourage them, support their assertive instructional decisions, and motivate them each day to create the right conditions for learning. The principals must plan to project growth the most accurate possible, employing all the help that they could get for this challenging task. Students should not be affected because qualified teachers are not available. Strategic schools use the resources at had to relocate, and alleviate the human resources problems.
According to Blase, Blase, and Phillips (2010) educational leaders in high preforming schools effectively balance administrative and instructional leadership and provide stability, predictability and support. The current paradigm of educational leadership is management of facility, budget, school safety, and student discipline. Administrators must place more emphasis on methods to balance the responsibility of instructional leadership. It will require effective leadership characterized by their ability to redesign their schools into an effective organization. This can be done by a leader’s willingness to take risk. Risk taking would involve the leaders’ commitment to work collaboratively with teachers to set school wide and classroom goals suited to meet the unique needs of the students. It would require educational leaders to refuse to adopt a manufactured educational program but to make a commitment to their students and teachers to create a learning environment that is unique and relevant. Educational leaders would evaluate teachers on the effectiveness of their instructional practices. Each teacher would be held accountable for data that supports the need for goals developed for their classroom and methods used to track progress, use of instructional strategies, how assessment will be incorporated to drive instruction and monitor learning, and the effective use of assessment
PROMPT 1 Middle and higher education are my work contexts as a teacher. Ethnographic observation seems to be hard to plan and apply since most of my students have a part-time job and they do not spend much time at home. Ethnographic observation demands a lot of time and planning. However, it is worth it since it provides teachers with the opportunity to develop themselves as researchers and to improve their professional practices. It allows teachers to know students contexts and the marginalized literacy practices they perform.
For the location of my naturalistic observational study I chose a public park with a splash pad which I frequently visit with my daughter. Since this site is quite popular with locals at any given time of the day there are at least over a dozen people present. As the park is designed for the entertainment of children the age group of the people varies. There are young children accompanied by their parents and grandparents as well as teenagers in groups. Therefore the above discussed park proved to be the greatest preference for me to observe the behavior of people in a natural setting.
In her article “Teachers Hiring Teachers,” Mary C. Clement (2013) describes the benefits of using teachers in the teacher hiring process, strategies and considerations while doing so, and moving past obstacles that may be encountered. She draws evidence from the principal at Berry Elementary and Middle School in Mount Berry, Georgia as she outlines their best practices. This article supports the idea of “cultivating leadership in others,” one of the five key practices of effective principals outlined by The Wallace Foundation (2013). In my opinion, this article provides a worthy example of the benefits realized through advancing teacher leadership.
Thinking about normal social interactions and normal social behaviors, I think of comfortable. When I sit down with a friend, a usual routine is followed, “Hey, how are you, what’s new?” (e.g. My turn, your turn). These questions between my friend and I include eye contact, attention, and facial expression. Usually, I feel that I give my friend my undivided attention. Other normal characteristics include: remembering what the person has just said so a comment can be made, as well as each comment is appropriate and in relation to the current topic. Moreover, the duration between each question or comment is short.
Many times our first thoughts regarding educational leadership are turned to our first experiences as a child. For most, this individual is the school principal. Teachers and students may have a skewed view of this authority figure. He or she is often the focal point of decision-making and discipline. The principal is the singular driving force that combines teachers with their colleagues and students with their teachers and peers (Goldring, 2...
The gleaming sun caressed my squinting face as I glanced up at the magnificent blue sky decorated with white, fluffy clouds that resembled white cotton candy. I was outside exploring the vast backyard. It was only my first morning in the United States. My stepfather, my siblings, and I had just arrived from the Philippines to our new home in Rhode Island seven hours ago from the T. F. Green Airport at around midnight. Last night, was my first time seeing my mother after a year has gone. I was finally able to live with my parents! Since I was two years old, my grandparents had raised my siblings and I. When my biological father had divorced my mother, my mother and stepfather later sought work in the Middle East to support our private education.
Qualitative methods can be traced back to the ancient Greek historians. Herodotus, who is often called the father of history, traveled widely in the ancient world and recounted in his Histories the stories he had heard from the people he met. His successors down the ages recorded their observations of people that they encountered in their travels. These kinds of observations eventually became formalized in the discipline of anthropology. In clinical research, qualitative methods were first used in case histories, for instance, Breuer and Freud’s (1895/1955) first cases, which began the psychoanalytic tradition, and Watson and Rayner’s (1920) study of ‘‘Little Albert,’’ which helped establish the behavioral tradition. There is also a tradition of participant observation methods in mental health research, though they are more often conducted by sociologists than by psychologists. Classic examples of participant observation studies are Goffman’s (1961) Asylums and Rosenhan’s (1973) ‘‘Sane in insane places’’ study (Barker and Pistrang 2002).
I planned to observe and collect empirical data including sights (images), sounds, and narrative, documenting my data in field notes at the time of observation.
Thomas Sergiovanni (2015) describes three essential dimensions of leadership as “the heart, head, and hand of leadership.” The heart describes those characteristics within the school leader that reflect personal “beliefs, values, and dreams.” The head of leadership refers to the practice of teaching and educating. The hand of leadership reflects actions taken by school leaders with respect to management behaviors. (p. 5) Within these elements, there is room for personal choice in how leadership is practiced and it is incumbent on new principals to find an individual leadership style that responds to the uniqueness of each school.
York-Barr, J. & K. Duke (2004) what do we know about teacher leadership? Findings from two decades of scholarship. Review of educational research 74(3), 255-316.
The role of teacher leader has been defined as “teachers who aspire to stretch beyond their classrooms to engage in leadership roles that take many shapes and forms, both “informal and formal”. (ECS, 2010). Teacher leadership has also been described as “the process by which teachers, individually and collectively, influence their colleagues, principals, and other members of the school community to improve learning practices with the aim of increased student learning and achievement.” (ECS, 2010). In years past, a majority of teacher leadership roles took the form of department chair, committee chair, grade level chair, etc. It was more of a representative role versus a leadership role. Their responsibility primarily involved dispersing information from administration to their counterparts and taking information back to administration from the group. Their position lacked decision-making power and true leadership that brings about “real” change. These tasks are still viewed as opportunities for teacher leadership; however, recently, the
Education is a very important aspect in the life of a child. The level of success a student has in the classroom is greatly influenced by their teachers. Students, as well as their parents, depend on the teachers to guide them through their education. But who guides a teacher to perform successfully in the classroom? Principals and teachers play an important role in schools. A good relationship among school leaders and teachers is necessary and play an important role in making improvements in the school. Leadership refers to the “process in which one person successfully exerts influence over others to reach desired objectives”. (Okoji, 2015) Good leadership involves honesty, vision, confidence and commitment. It is the ability to inspire a