Educational Leadership Key Challenges and Ethical Tensions - Essay Example

?Summary of Four Strategies for Educational Assessment and Improvement Patrick Duignan, 2006 , Educational Leadership – Key Challenges and Ethical Tensions Cambridge University Press, Victoria, 2006, 176 pages, ISBN: 13 978-0-521-68512-2. In a thought-provoking publication of challenges and ethical decisions leaders in education must grapple with, a three year study of the methods and practices of the leaders in education addresses salient points over which educators lose sleep at night. Duignan describes several themes centered around the following issues: 1.) The functions of leadership. 2.) Paradoxes concurrent with educational leadership 3.) Leadership competencies and evaluation standards. In essence, leadership requires essence and authenticity, an exploration of the need for educational leaders to hone the universal qualities of leadership with an emphasis on ethics and management during uncertain times. Duignan describes capable leaders as authentic in values and intent. The author describes a detailed framework by which the inherent paradoxes, and tensions of educational leadership can be navigated. Wisdom, effectiveness, and ethics are deemed crucial for those that lead institutions of learning; and educational districts. To implement the work of Duignan, an investigation should be conducted on the most successful administrators, principals, tenured educators, and managers towards the goal of a management, rubric; higher-level grading for administrators themselves; with the option of financial incentives for the districts of high-achieving leaders as permitted by state and federal law. While a point-value system would prove difficult to reliably implement in the judgment of managerial decisions not limited strictly to the financial sphere, leaders in education can be offered guidance during Teacher's meetings and conferences to cover the above points, and a few other recommendations described below: Sharing wisdom via dialogue with vital personnel and a willingness to listen to alternate viewpoints, through a re-thinking of the organizational culture. Conferences and meetings with more of a 'round table' format, in essence. A guiding should also be a focus on seeking a higher purpose into the nuts and bolts of educational practices; in terms of core values, possibly as relating to the school mission-statement. This requires soul-searching for the determination of core values for the district, in addition to the ethical focus and morality initiative in terms of interactions, and actions. To lead with authenticity, both the educators and educated must be encouraged to take responsibility for their own actions and progress. Students must be taught to ‘own up’ to short-comings with an emphasis on continuous improvement. Districts following Duignan’s guidelines should encourage honest authenticity in administrators and seek to achieve a more authoritative presence. While most districts follow similar policies; for implementation an obvious recommendation would be to use proper, respectful titles for students when addressing adult district employees. These recommendations should be added to the professional development regimens that most districts already employ as a matter of course. Sylwester, Robert. 2006. The School Administrator. December 2006. American Association of School Administrators. Publications. Features, Cognitive Neuroscience Discoveries and Educational Practices. An article on cognitive neuroscience discoveries by Robery Sylwester begins with analogies from the biological world as a means to rouse educators into action. In the way that an organism must use its sensory system to understand, and navigate its environment, so must the school employ reason to determine whether and how it must improve, and to propel itself from point A to point B should the latter prove more desirable. This is because, as animals our brains give us the ability and obligation to move around should our needs require it, and that only a sessile, vegetative plant should be content to stay rooted and unmoving. There are also analogies of developmental dichotomy, from young to old, or from employed to unemployed. The initial premise is a critique of educational professionals that wish to eliminate recess, or art courses, and expect students to function in class. Those that possess such expectations, the author quips, act as though they were teaching a grove of trees as opposed to live children. The meat of the article describes advances in neuro-science, as pertaining to its uses in education, and endorses a specialized teaching experiment conducted to assist the learning of students with dyslexia. Sylwester then digresses into current neuroscience, how it pertains to education, and makes recommendations on ways to utilize the latest scientific discoveries for the benefit of educators. Investigations into neuroplasticity elucidates the ways in which cognitive agility is heightened during youth, and retards in the elderly. Studies of dyslexic students and the educational programs meant to aid them provide insights into overall pedagogic strategy. Can we find the means to allow an older brain to learn with the same eagerness as a young one? Next is a description of the connection between emotion and memory. Sylwester describes the research of the ways in which emotional involvement/investment stimulates the brain to forge new connections, and retain impactful information. Also is a summary of brain hemisphere studies; how communication between different halves of the brain, and the specialization herein. Improving the cross-talk between brain-halves will allow for better recall, more problem-solving acuity, and arguable a more refined ability to comprehend inter-relationships as simplified by the term ‘wisdom’. Subsequent topics include the importance of the arts and humanities, theories of multiple intelligences, and speculations on conscious learning, that willingness to bring out from within our best potential in a way that other animals, (and no plants) have yet matched. In terms of application; special attention should be paid to descriptions of – in this case special programs for the disabled. Sylwester mentions a dyslexic study and how readings of the brain activity of the subjects involved yielded insights in terms of brain plasticity. Studies like this should be combed over and mined for potential for ways to not just aid the disabled, but for improvement of those already in a ‘typical’ classroom setting. It should be truly worth pursuing to identify ways to adopt these specialized methods to improve the grasp and cognition of ‘normal’ students, as a tool to improve reading ability. Ground breaking work is needed for those with learning/developmental disabilities; but any methods derived from those studies should be appropriated to improve the aptitude of students not labeled as having any special needs. This study in particular recommends a system called ‘Fast-for-Word’, which improved language skills for the dyslexic, as verified by fMRI scans of the participants. Learn whatever can be learned about the program, then mine it for potential to improve the language performance of all students wherever possible. The brain plasticity studies should also be investigated as a tool for continuous, and adult education programs, as the neuro-plasticity studies did have the additional goal of improving the mental flexibility of the elderly, as mentioned above. While a specific plasticity enhancing program is not defined for older adults in this investigation; teachers and school-district officials should remain watchful of advancements in this area for those districts with an interest in adult education. The discussion in this article about emotional investment as it pertains to learning should give added credence to the implementation of catchy, pneumonic devices for memorization. Rhymes and anagrams that relate to complex curriculum can and should be employed throughout all grade levels. Sacchetti, Maria. Jan, Tracy 2005 Globe Staff Romney wants teacher merit pay Key is students' performance The Boston Globe, Boston.com September 22, 2005 A controversial plan proposed in Massachusetts could see qualified Teachers earning up to a $15,000 increase in their pay per year based on their students' test scores. The plan was proposed by Governor Mitt Romney, with ambitions for several educational initiatives to be sent to the Legislature. Administration officials discussed the details, under condition of anonymity in this Boston.com article. The controversial proposal includes $68 million a year in teacher bonuses, projected to award approximately 25,000 teachers per year, roughly a third of the state's teachers. The Boston.com article paints the plan as ‘dangerous waters’ for the former presidential candidate. In the same year, Governor Schwarzeneggar of California had to back off from a similar plan to link teachers' pay to their students' performance. Teachers also, are uniting against the idea. The logistics of such a plan can invite complications, and according to the article, the Boston district attempted a similar idea in the early 2000’s, but the unions and school districts could not form a coherent agreement on the way to evaluate teachers. Similar plans have failed due to similar issues, but also the possibility of corruption. Both teachers and school administrators could find themselves grappling with the temptation to ‘fudge’ grades and test scores if district funding is tied to performance. If the school must do its own reporting, then such fraud would prove difficult to assess. For practical implementation; strict merit-systems may not be appropriate for all districts; for the above reasons. In addition, a strong case can be made for the importance of cultural activities, such as music and the arts, which do not easily lend themselves to obvious, numeric scoring, as math, science, and reading might. Programs of this sort should be seriously considered for districts that are on the verge of losing accreditation due to persistent academic under-performance. This would be desirable in an inner-city environment. In such settings, younger teachers may be ‘vetted’ in some districts before they gain the seniority to move to more placid settings. But merit pay could be employed as an added incentive to keep effective teachers that do have options in less-favored districts. To compensate for the potential corruptions that could arise from such measures, an alternative would be to measure merit based on externally-administered tests. State-wide examinations could either be developed, or appropriated as the basis to determine merit-pay. These systems could be adjudicated by state-level administrators without any particular connection to the individual teachers. And this system, if implemented, should be entirely separate from actual district funding as it presently stands. But merit programs should indeed be used sparingly. The Boston.com article reports that out of all teachers hired via sign-on bonuses, half had quit within three years in Massachusetts during the early nineties. Green, Susan K. Smith, Julian III. Brown, Kenyon E. 2007 Using Quick Writes as a Classroom Assessment Tool: Prospects and Problems. Normes. Journal of Educational Research & Policy Studies Before and after a departure from classroom routine; such as a fieldtrip or an educational assembly, a journal article by Susan Green recommends a learning device described as Quick-writes. As an answer to vital needs of classroom assessment, “quick writes” have been developed to assist with science unit assessments as a rubric to quantify change in student comprehension over time. This tool assists teachers to fulfill the learning needs back in class, and as method of surveillance for the needs of instructional modification when and where it becomes necessary. In essence, a quick write is a short, written response to a specific question requiring students to explain in their own words a particular principle or phenomenon. Quick writes can duplicate some of the flexibility available at higher grade levels for examination purposes by allowing students more flexibility in their responses. This can shore-up weaknesses encountered in standardized, multiple-choice type questions; especially for the teacher who’s objective is truly how to gauge the full breadth of student knowledge, and not simply to generate a raw number based on someone else’s state-mandated performance regimen. Furthermore, giving students the freedom to express concepts in their own words facilitates the development of critical thinking skills regarding the curriculum, far better than simply regurgitating a one-word reply. In this study, Quick-writes are explored for their learning potential, and assessed in parallel with other, more conventional testing and assessment methodologies, in this case specifically intended for the third grade level. For practical use in the classroom setting; Quick-writes or like devices could be employed, ideally preceding one or all of the following: 1.) Prior to a field-trip to a museum 2.) Preceding a new curriculum unit in the sciences, geography, or other social studies. 3.) Before an assembly by a guest-speaker. 4.) Immediately prior to an educational movie. For instance, on the day before a field-trip to a ranger station, perhaps to learn about forest and/or wetlands wildlife. The instructor might ask the students to explain in a one-sentence Quick-write what a tadpole is, or the converse – where do frogs come from? Upon returning to the classroom setting after the event, students will be instructed to answer the same question again, and to see whether – and by how much their responses have changed. This can grant the teacher a comprehension of the individual child’s learning process; address deficiencies in the class as a whole, and give insights on which students need what additional assistance, based on their facility for absorbing information. This assessment style may be of particular value for kinesthetic learners, who require hands-on participation in a functional activity in order to truly learn. Ideally, the students should be aware of the policy in a general sense, but prior to the event, the learning experience is likely to be enhanced if they don’t know precisely what question will be asked beforehand, to limit the likelihood of ‘canned answers’ from overnight research from the more diligent students. Quick, immediate, and spontaneous assessment should yield the most accurate picture of understanding pre- and post-event. References Green, Susan K. Smith, Julian III. Brown, Kenyon E. 2007 Using Quick Writes as a Classroom Assessment Tool: Prospects and Problems. Normes. Journal of Educational Research & Policy Studies Patrick Duignan, 2006 , Educational Leadership – Key Challenges and Ethical Tensions Cambridge University Press, Victoria, 2006, 176 pages, ISBN: 13 978-0-521-68512-2. Sacchetti, Maria. Jan, Tracy 2005 Globe Staff Romney wants teacher merit pay Key is students' performance The Boston Globe, Boston.com September 22 2005 Sylwester, Robert. 2006. The School Administrator. December 2006. American Association of School Administrators. Publications. Features, Cognitive Neuroscience Discoveries and Educational Practices. Read More