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.
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:
Laura Jimenez’s article “The Next Frontier of Education Reform” was a well thought out article about the possibility for a new program called LEAP or LEarning Together to Advance Our Practice to help improve the failing system of improving our public school educators. Jimenez uses accurate data to show the reasons behind the need to reform educator professional development and shows different examples of how this could be accomplished. She largely looks at the DC public school system’s IMPACT and the newly created LEAP projects.
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.
Several of the major reform initiatives of the 1980s and early 1990s argued that improving education requires improving teacher quality and, accordingly, teacher education. Numerous changes in teacher recruitment, preparation, and certification were proposed. (For a detailed list, see Hartley, Mantle-Bromley, and Cobb 1996.) In response to the calls for reform, general teacher education programs raised admission standards/exit requirements; revised curricula to reflect multiculturalism and new K-12 standards; paid more attention to pedagogy, teaching practice, and relevance; included clinical experiences in public schools and other learning environments; and proposed new model standards/principles for licensing beginning teachers (Lynch 1997).
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
Richter, K. B., & Reigeluth, C. M. (2007). Systematic transformation in public school systems. The F. M. Duffy Reports, 12(4), 1-24.
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...
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.
[1] Goldratt, Eliyahu M. and Cox, Jeff (2004). The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement. Retrieved from http:// ishare.edu.sina.com.cn
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.
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 ...