5311 Week 5 Discussion Board
In Case Study #2 (Martin, 2019), I determined that the poor implementation of the new program was the root cause of the bad morale on campus. I don’t think that his decision to put it in was off base or incorrect given the circumstances. Where he fell down was in several areas of implementation as highlighted in competencies 7–12 (Martin, et. al., 2022). First of all, he did not include any of the campus staff in the planning and rollout. There is a lot of experience there and would have helped tremendously. Second, he did a “one and done” training session and expected everything to change immediately. This was made worse by the poor evaluations. Instead of giving small, short targets to move things forward, he only pointed out what was wrong. For my field experience, one area that is an option for me to add in is creating a PL experience and plan for the staff. Our campus has started into a long term implementation of Understanding By Design (UDL). This is something that I am very familiar with and do in my class regularly. In my class, I routinely have a wide range of learner abilities and levels. For example, in my current 10th graders, they range in math ability from those struggling to stay afloat in geometry to students excelling in pre-calculus. Last year, I had one who was in calculus already in the 10th grade group. UBD helps me in providing rigorous opportunities for all of my learners to reach the class goals and demonstrate their learning growth. Our overall campus has this kind of dynamic throughout it. UBD can give our teachers a method to maintain high standards while providing support for students to help them achieve those standards. We were about to roll it out campus wide, but it had been slowed down tremendously due to complications from COVID and the past two years of difficulties. For me, my biggest area of growth in this program is working on bringing my experiences to the campus without it being a comparison type situation or rushed because it was something I was used to doing. This will be a win-win for me and the campus along with something that I and others on the campus are passionate about. References: Martin, G. (2019, October), Case Study #2. [PDF]. https://luonline.blackboard.com/ultra/courses/_183930_1/cl/outline Martin, G. E., Danzig, A. B., Flanary, R. A., & Orr, M. T. (2022). School leader internship: Developing, monitoring, and evaluating your leadership experience (5th ed.). Routledge.
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In Case Study 1 (Martin, 2019a), I determined that the root cause of the problem that King Community College brought up was a lack of a direct connection between the the school and the students’ immediate needs at home. KCC complained that students were not prepared and did not finish the program. The teachers said that the students were not motivated to come to school and were more worried about getting home to go to work. The demographics point to a low socio-economic situation in the community. This points to the curriculum and KCC as not being relevant for the students’ immediate needs.
The second case study (Martin, 2019b) deals with a new principal, Mr. Kelly and his efforts to implement a new literacy program at his school. The program is proposed by the district administration and is in line with district policies. After the program is implemented, Mr. Kelly is pointing out where teachers are falling short on the program and morale among the staff is starting to fall. Competency #7: Managing Group Processes This competency from Martin, et. al., (2022), mostly deals with meeting and making the best use of time. At the end of the section, it brings in working with groups to meet goals and manage activities. Mr. Kelly did not do well in this area as he brought in the new program. He started with about 20% of his teachers already struggling before the new program was put in place. Starting a new program takes time and a lot of practice. Utilizing the leaders on staff to help with grouping the teachers to collaborate on the new system would help with the implementation Competency #8: Supporting Others with Appropriate Leadership Style Mr. Kelly seems to only have used a Directive leadership approach. He never involved any of the staff in the implementation or review of the new system. The staff had no input at any time on the system or how to bring it into the classroom. After it was brought into the classroom, the only feedback and information came from Mr. Kelly himself. Competency #9: Using Power Ethically Mr. Kelly was not overtly abusive of his position of power. At the most basic, he employed a coercive power model. It is not a strong use of coercion. The expectation was the staff implemented the new system and he would evaluate them. At the same time, he was exercising his authority under a Legitimate Power model. The biggest problem was that he really did not do much with the opportunity presented. He might have done better using a referent or expert power model to work alongside the teachers and leverage the abilities of those on staff. 25% of the students are scoring high, so not all students and not all teachers were struggling before putting in the new system. Competency #10: Crating and Managing a Positive Culture and Climate The area is a huge shortfall for Mr. Kelly. The school was performing poorly and implementing a new program to help change things. Mr. Kelly needed to do a better job of building up the staff and building on the things that were working in the school. Mr. Kelly did not look for other factors that could be contributing to the over all school performance and the performance of the 20% of the teachers who’s students did not keep up year to year. Through the implementation and the evaluations, it seems that Mr, Kelly was trying to fix the school instead of lead it. Competency #11: Initiating Change The feedback was mostly negative which only hurt the climate as they were going through the difficulty of implementing a new program. Change takes time to bring about improvements. The staff does need to watch out for the areas they are not doing well with in the new program. At the same time, they need to know what they are doing well and they need their efforts to be recognized. In addition, new programs require a lot of on-going training and evaluation. Mr. Kelly only put the training at the beginning. As the year progresses, it is hard to maintain the drive with the new program without constant reinforcement, support, and training. Competency #12: Evaluating Student, Personnel, and Program Performance The evaluations given by Mr. Kelly seem to be very limited in scope and understanding. He seems to be expecting huge and lasting changes immediately after a single 2 day training after he went to a 2 week training. None of it matches up and leads to a successful implementation. References: Martin, G. (2019, October), Case Study #1. [PDF]. https://luonline.blackboard.com/ultra/courses/_183930_1/cl/outline Martin, G. (2019, October), Case Study #2. [PDF]. https://luonline.blackboard.com/ultra/courses/_183930_1/cl/outline Martin, G. E., Danzig, A. B., Flanary, R. A., & Orr, M. T. (2022). School leader internship: Developing, monitoring, and evaluating your leadership experience (5th ed.). Routledge. Case study #1 (Martin, 2019) presents a scenario with a new principal, Mr. Rogers, facing several negative situations related to the students and their post-high school prospects. In analyzing the situation, there appear to be a number of areas to focus on. Martin et. al. (2022) provides six leadership competencies and questions to help in the analysis.
Martin, G. (2019, October), Case Study #1. [PDF]. https://luonline.blackboard.com/ultra/courses/_183930_1/cl/outline Martin, G. E., Danzig, A. B., Flanary, R. A., & Orr, M. T. (2022). School leader internship: Developing, monitoring, and evaluating your leadership experience (5th ed.). Routledge.
1. Developing Trusting Relationships: State a behavior (or lack of behavior) that interferes with building trust. Provide evidence and/or an example from the case study. There was no clear evidence that Mr. Rogers spent time developing a relationship of trust with the staff (Martin, 2019). All of the peer responses that I read in the discussion board were in agreement with this assessment. The analysis of the question in Martin, et. al., (2022) about relying on others is a key indicator of this shortcoming. Mr. Rogers did not meet with campus members to analyze the problems or look for common solutions. Instead, he came in with his own solution at the very start. 2. Leading in the Realization of the Vision: State a behavior (or lack of behavior) that interferes with the realization of the vision. Provide evidence and/or an example from the case study. The consensus among the peer discussions reviewed and my own analysis point to a lack of vision on the part of Mr. Rogers and by extension, no shared vision between the stakeholders in the school. The first question in Martin, et. al., (2022) about a clear vision is missed in the scenario. From the actions of Mr. Rogers, such as doubting that the teachers would use new equipment if they had it and worrying about the college making their concerns about LHS public, it seems that Mr. Rogers is reacting to problems instead of analyzing the situation in comparison to a shared vision for the school. 3. Making Shared Decisions: State a behavior (or lack of behavior) that interferes with shared decision making. Provide evidence and/or an example from the case study. The assessment from my analysis on shared decision making is in line with that of the peer discussions. Mr. Rogers is making decisions independently of the teachers and the community. In the first year, he started planning to implement an early college program without first consulting the teachers. Many of the faculty leaders have been at the school for more than 15 years. Discussions with these individuals would have provided insight and helped forge alliances by making collective decisions about the direction the school should go in. 4. Communicating Effectively: State a behavior (or lack of behavior) that interferes with effective communication. Provide evidence and/or an example from the case study. Most of the discussion posts reviewed pointed to an ineffective communication strategy employed by Mr. Rogers. In the first year, he came out and announced a radical change to the school by implementing an early college program. This idea created a lot of push-back from the staff that signaled a lack of a safe and open communication system between them all. In the second year, Mr. Rogers held a faculty meeting where he announced the poor review of LHS by the college. 5. Resolving Conflict & Issues: State a behavior (or lack of behavior) that interferes with conflict/issues resolution. Provide evidence and/or an example from the case study. The consensus among my peers seems to be that there is conflict within the staff as indicated by the negative and low perception of the students by the faculty. A few noted the conflict between the faculty and the college as well. In all of these cases, the conflict was not dealt with by Mr. Rogers and was instead either ignored or he took sides. 6. Motivating and Developing Others: State a behavior (or lack of behavior) that interferes with motivating/developing others. Provide evidence and/or an example from the case study. All of the peer discussions reviewed indicated a lack of motivation by the faculty and a lack of effort to meet the needs of the students and staff to help drive motivation within these groups. Mr. Rogers was reacting to the individual events and pushing for changes without working to meet the needs of those he was seeking to induce a change within. References: Martin, G. (2019, October), Case Study #1. [PDF]. https://luonline.blackboard.com/ultra/courses/_183930_1/cl/outline Martin, G. E., Danzig, A. B., Flanary, R. A., & Orr, M. T. (2022). School leader internship: Developing, monitoring, and evaluating your leadership experience (5th ed.). Routledge. The primary problem introduced by the case study (Martin, 2019), is that few students from Landon HS are attending King Community College and of those that do, few finish the program. The remainder of Cast Study #1 provides demographic information about the school and community, a brief history of the principal’s (Mr. Rogers) interactions with the staff, and a few other background pieces of information such as the changing demographics of the community. The school is in a rural community with a large population of low socio-economic families. The community is starting to see an increase in families moving to the area that are in higher socio-economic brackets. The school faculty do not seem to be in alignment with the principal and KCC over the prospects of the students. From the scenario, there are several near-by colleges that students from LHS attend after graduation. There are also several demographic groupings at LHS. Currently, approximately half of the student population come from families that did not attend college. At the same time, more professional families are moving in which will alter that percentage. The information given does not indicate what group of students are performing poorly at KCC and there are no concrete indicators given as to the areas they are struggling with. All that is provided is that they are not finishing the two-year program. The first information needed would be to find out more about the students who are attending KCC and what specific areas of deficiency they are experiencing. From the information given, the next area for investigation is why students are not performing well at LHS. The teachers say that they are more interested in going to work than going to school. There are several options to explore at this point. The scenario discusses the Mr. Rogers views and the teachers views along with demographic information. It seems that most students are in a low socio-economic demographic. Their parents work, but do not make enough money for the family and the students have to work as well. This does not help the students to see a value in school. This would lead to exploring why the school is not partnering with the community and the college to improve employment opportunities through avenues such as trade programs and associate degrees. These questions lead to a more root problem of a lack of unified, shared vision for the school that incorporates the school, students, parents, community, and college. Each group has their own goals and agendas which are not aligned and creating conflict. Additional data still needed to verify this as the root problem and help with moving toward solutions would be related to the local economy and the school. There is only some data given about the demographics. It would be helpful to have better information on what students do after leaving high school. How many go straight to work, how many go for some secondary education, how many go to college. Additionally, data on how many students work during high school will be informative. From there, data on teacher interventions and classroom activities along with the results of those will help in identifying strategies that work and strategies that do not. Another area of inquiry would be to find out what the objectives were for the students who went to KCC. Were they looking for a trade certificate, a 2-year degree, or looking to move on to a 4-year college? This data will help in discussions with all of the stakeholders to clearly identify the needs of the students. From this analysis, there seems to be a need for all of the stakeholders to work together to create a shared vision for the school. If the students and families are more worried about paying current bills than going to school, then traditional educational incentives and opportunities will not be as relevant. By working together to include the parents and the community in the vision planning, Mr. Rogers can help to align the school with the current needs of the students. From the information given, it does not seem that the educational work at LHS is aligned with the job market needs locally. By including teachers in the discussions, the teachers are able to build upon the strategies that have worked in the past and better align them with the students. Having conversations and an aligned vision with the community will help the teachers provide activities that are more motivating to the students because they are more relevant to their current situation. Having KCC involved in the building of the vision and action steps helps the college to align their offerings with the community and educate the community about the opportunities and support they offer. As these groups work together, they will also have a chance to include in their planning support for the current economic needs of the students. The scenario states that working is a top priority for the students right now. If the school can work with the community and the teachers to better accommodate this environment, then the students will be more motivated to continue with their studies to meet their goal. References: Martin, G. (2019, October), Case Study #1. [PDF]. https://luonline.blackboard.com/ultra/courses/_183930_1/cl/outline Martin, G. E., Danzig, A. B., Flanary, R. A., & Orr, M. T. (2022). School leader internship: Developing, monitoring, and evaluating your leadership experience (5th ed.). Routledge. Case Study #1 (Matin, 2019) was an interesting scenario that I have seen in various ways many times. I was very interested in seeing the viewpoints and analysis of my peers. I had my interpretation of the reading, but I am very aware that I bring my unique viewpoint that has its own blind spots. I have enjoyed reading through the posts and seeing the various ideas and thoughts. In general, we were all in alignment together. Just like any concept that deals in averages, everyone has various divergences. I found many that went into greater depth than I did on some competencies (Martin, et. al., 2022). The theme was in alignment, but I was able to see a different viewpoint and nuance. I have learned that what is important or substantial to me is not necessarily the same for others. I have a very strong dislike for making avoidable errors. I am very willing to take a calculated, researched risk knowing that the result may not come out as intended. At the same time, I prefer to get as much input and outside information as I can before deciding, so I don’t make preventable mistakes. It would be interesting and informative to see how each person’s unique analysis coalesced into a final root cause. It was not always obvious, but there did seem to be some that could reasonably go to a different conclusion than mine did.
I have always taught my students to trust the process when making decisions and working through a problem. The work of analyzing the competencies for mistakes and successes was very helpful in making an in-depth determination. I also found a great deal of benefit in reading through the peer discussions. I did not make any large shifts in my analysis, but I did see other nuances that came to the surface. One in particular was my consideration of trade programs. Ironically, I teach a CTE class, but my initial analysis did not include that on the list. I was originally focused on 4-year college analysis. Bringing in the different viewpoints helped me to see more than I had seen otherwise and also to be aware of things that I overlooked myself. I do believe that I worked down to a useful and workable root cause of the problem. Doing a root cause analysis is something that I do routinely. I enjoy puzzles and solving problems. Root cause analysis is something that I teach my students as well. We spend a great deal of time and effort into collaborative problem solving and analysis. At the same time, I am very confident in my analysis because the situation presented in the case study is something that I have actively been working on with schools around the country. I have been fortunate to be a part of a team working with low socio-economic school to create a collaboration between the teachers, administrators, students, parents, local business and industry, and community colleges. What we have been doing has been making an impact in those communities. My experience along with the detailed analysis process gives me a high degree of confidence. References: Martin, G. (2019, October), Case Study #1. [PDF]. https://luonline.blackboard.com/ultra/courses/_183930_1/cl/outline Martin, G. E., Danzig, A. B., Flanary, R. A., & Orr, M. T. (2022). School leader internship: Developing, monitoring, and evaluating your leadership experience (5th ed.). Routledge. |
About 5311This is my first course in my principal certification program. The course focus on leadership. ArchivesCategories
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