In our ever evolving educational system, new initiatives are always surfacing. Classroom teachers are often the recipients of these changes. Whether the initiatives begin at a national, state, county, or building level, how successfully they are implemented depends on a variety of factors. As Kotter and Rathgeber (2006) demonstrated, there is an eight step process for successful change. Excluding one of the steps or not fully embracing the steps could set educational initiatives up for failure. Let us begin with an example of a successful journey that followed the roadmap of the eight step process (Kotter & Rathgeber, 2006). Like Fred, our principal is very observant with the vision and direction of our county. He noticed that not …show more content…
He had secured the county’s reading specialist to lead a variety of professional development activities throughout the school year to support us. The administration team would conduct walk-throughs to ensure we were utilizing what we learned. This new vision was to enhance what many of us were already doing and to ensure we were all on the same page. Similar to the penguins, communicating the new vision was met with a mixture of emotions. The majority of the teachers were supportive while a few naysayers, such as NoNo were skeptical (Kotter & Rathgeber, …show more content…
Professional development activities focused on this initiative continued throughout the school year as well as the sharing of successes during faculty meetings. Pressure was put upon teachers who did not adapt to the new vision. The principal would observe in those teachers’ rooms more frequently and hold additional conferences with them. Eventually, a couple of the “NoNo” teachers retired. By following the Eight Step Process of Successful Change (Kotter and Rathgeber, 2006), our school victoriously integrated
I had the pleasure of being able to shadow Superintendent Shirley Hall of the Maplewood School District. Ms. Hall took the reins of the district over in 2012 from a very popular superintendent who was credited with making great strides within the district. Although Ms. Hall had very large shoes to fill, she seems to be doing it with grace and enthusiasm. She credits the previous superintendent with making systemic changes and establishing the overall forward momentum of the district, but recognizes that she cannot rest on past success. Her goal is to take the district to the next level of educational excellence by focusing her and her administrative team's efforts on the P.E.L.P. coherence model from Harvard University. This model focuses the leadership's attention on the interdependence of the various aspects of their school district and how they reinforce one another to support the implementation of an improvement strategy. One of Ms. Hall's mantras was change, but not just for change sake, deep change for sustained improvement. Therefore, although Ms. Hall's predecessor was able to put the district on the right path, Ms. Hall has taken the baton and run with it; establishing her own style and path to excellence.
Fratt, L. (2007). Professional Development for the New Century. (Cover story). District Administration, 43(6), 56-60. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.
This essay aims to give an in-depth analysis of strategies by applying Kotter’s Eight Stage process framework on how change can be implemented successfully. It will further discuss reactions and resistance to the planned changes that one may encounter from staff and parents.
Generating momentum for change can be innovative or challenging. The Change Leadership Group believes the successful leadership of transformational improvement process in schools and districts require sharpening capacities in two quite different directions at the same time:
[1] Goldratt, Eliyahu M. and Cox, Jeff (2004). The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement. Retrieved from http:// ishare.edu.sina.com.cn
Organizations need to understand the ten principles presented by Hall and Hord (2001): Change Principle 1: “Change is learning- It is as simple and complicated as that” (p. 6). Moreover, the name change implies a learning process for each and every participant. Sometimes knowledge can be fun and easy for some individuals, but at times, it might be a problem for others. In the process of transformation, the people need to be permissive for new ideas to flow in order to learn and understand the changes that are going to take place in the organization. Change Principle 2: “Change is a process, not an event” (p.8). This principle guides the leaders to make sure that the staff understands that implementing a change is not something that is just going to happen in one occurrence, but rather it is a process that is going to take time. Leaders or staff will not be able to determine the extent of the change they are trying to adopt. Change Principle 3: “The school is the primary unit for change” (p. 9). The staff has to be aware that their individual actions wi...
With my background as Supervisor of Curriculum and then as both principal and superintendent, I have a background of collaborating with teachers in developing and then implementing curriculum guides, curriculum maps, professional development plans and innovative programs. Establishing an instruction...
circumstances. For this reform effort to be successful, it will take district and school leaders that act as both instructional leaders and politicians. As the instructional leader, they must ensure that every child every day receives an education rooted in high expectations and facilitated by staffs that genuinely believe that all children can learn and deserve the best opportunities to do so. As
Changing situations throughout the world affect all organizations in business today. Therefore, most organizations acknowledge the need to experience change and transformation in order to survive. The key challenges companies face are due to the advancements in technology, the social environment caused by globalization, the pace of competition, and the demands regarding customer expectations. It is difficult to overcome the obstacles involved with change despite all the articles, books, and publications devoted to the topic. People are naturally resistant to fundamental changes and often intimidated by the process; the old traditional patterns and methods are no longer effective.
Traditionally, teacher development typically occurs through trial and error in the isolated confinements of each teacher’s classroom with some periodic whole-group professional development (Goddard & Goddard, 2007). Within the past few decades, many schools and districts, including ours, have considered and experimented with Professional Learning Communities (PLC) as an alternative framework in guiding a more efficient development program for their teachers. PLCs are focused on enhancing student learning through developing teacher practices. The concept of PLC relies on using structured collaborative sessions amongst teachers within the school to build internal capacity. Through PLCs, teachers critically reflect on current practices, brainstorm solutions, and obtain help and advice from others in a supportive growth-oriented environment over an extended period of time (Vescio, Ross, & Adams, 2008; Nelson, 2009; Scher & O'Reilly, 2009; Bolam, McMahon, Stoll, Thomas, & Wallace, 2005). The theory of change guiding PLCs holds that by providing teachers with targeted support from within the school community, as oppose to hiring additional outside experts, professional developments can become for efficient. Implementation of effective PLCs requires intentional effort, school-wide and possibly district-wide restructuring of teacher schedules, and additional resources. For schools considering implementing PLCs, it is important to understand the logic of action and the benefits of PLCs as it relates to teacher improvement and increased student achievement.
This a newspaper article has information on how a school has had achievements due to professional development and other community involved activities.
As you can see the school board handles many issues from budgets, to tenure, to performance scores, to conferences. Although this paper did not cover everything in the meeting, it summarized what took place, and what affects it would have on teachers. The decisions made no matter how big or small can influence how and what task a teacher performs. The school board meeting was interesting because you are able to see how the changes could affect you personally.
How do we make change happen in education? Considering current framework in light of the ever-changing context of schooling, appear to view classroom-based teachers as having little to no authority, as being incapable of initiating school wide change according to their will. Mostly, teacher has been considered in two roles. The first role of the teacher as a receiver and implementer of the strategies & practices formulated by others, i.e. national policy efforts or principal change initiatives. The second role of the teacher as a leader of official reform initiatives, such as those found in policies created by school district and school level principal. Moreover, both roles of the teacher also place more value on the school’s context rather than on the teacher’s potential to make change independently. Under these prevailing roles of teachers, it is very hard for teachers to initiative for school improvement without the help of traditional school leaders. The time has come to enforce new role of the teachers that is more consistent with the 21st century’s learning framework and can provide better service to the students, where Teachers are more active than recipients and more central to school improvement than taking the lead on implementing externally-driven reforms. Thus, by studying the two dominant roles ...
Change is not always viewed as an opportunity, it is frequently observed by teachers, students, and administrators as a burden rather than an avenue to success (Graff, 2011). There are a vast number of elements that ...
The state’s new evaluation system was in response to administrators who produced, “superficial and capricious teacher evaluation systems that often don't even directly address the quality of instruction, much less measure students' learning” (Toch, 2008). Too often, the “good-ol-boy” attitude would insure mediocre educators would remain employed. Realizing this was often more the rule then the exception, the governor created educational mandates to focus, “on supporting and training effective teachers to drive student achievement” (Marzano Center, 2013). Initially, they expected the school districts and the teachers would have issues and experience growing pains, but in the end the goal was, “to improve teacher performance, year by year, with a corresponding rise in student achievement” (Marzano Center, 2013).