Florida Educational Leadership Standards

Florida Educational Leadership Standard 2: Instructional Leadership 16

Florida Educational Leadership Standards

Standard 2: Instructional Leadership

Standard 2: Instructional Leadership – High Performing Leaders promote a positive learning culture, provide an effective instructional program, and apply best practices to student learning, especially in the area of reading and other foundational skills.

Knowledge

I have the knowledge and understanding of:

· Student growth and development

· Applied learning theories

· Applied motivational theories

· Curriculum design, implementation, evaluation, and refinement

· Principles of effective instruction

· Measurement, evaluation, and assessment strategies

· Diversity and its meaning for educational programs

· Adult learning and professional development models

· The change process for systems, organizations, and individuals

· The role of technology in promoting student learning and professional growth

· School cultures

Dispositions

I believe in, value and am committed to:

· Student learning as the fundamental purpose as schooling

· The proposition that all students can learn

· The variety of ways in which students can learn

· Life long learning for self and others

· Professional development as an integral part of school improvement

· The benefits that diversity brings to the school community

· A safe and supportive learning environment

· Preparing students to be contributing members of society

Skills

Throughout my internship experience and coursework at FGCU I have learned and evidenced through integrated essays and artifacts the following list. As an administrator I will facilitate processes and engage in activities ensuring that:

· All individuals are treated with fairness, dignity, and respect

· Professional development promotes a focus on student learning consistent with the school vision and goals

· Students and staff feel valued and important

· The responsibilities and contributions of each individual are acknowledged

· Barriers to student learning are identified, clarified, and addressed

· Diversity is considered in developing learning experiences

· Lifelong learning is encouraged and modeled

· There is a culture of high expectations for self, student, and staff performance

· Technologies are used in teaching and learning

· Student and staff accomplishments are recognized and celebrated

· Multiple opportunities to learn are available to all students

· The school is organized and aligned for success

· Curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular programs are designed, implemented, evaluated, and refined

· Curriculum decisions are based on research, expertise of teachers, and the recommendations of learned societies

· The school culture and climate are assessed on a regular basis

· A variety of sources of information is used to make decisions

· Student learning is assessed using a variety of techniques

· Multiple sources of information regarding performance are used by staff and students

· A variety of supervisory and evaluation models is employed

· Pupil personnel programs are developed to meet the needs of students and their families

Florida Educational Leadership Standard 2: Instructional Leadership

The fundamental purpose of schooling is student learning. The principal is the educational leader who is ultimately responsible for ensuring that this occurs. Educational leaders take on many roles; they manage, they operate, and they decide. Above all, they influence the norms, values, and culture of a school. A school where student learning is a norm, is valued, and is integrated into the culture will be effective and successful. According to a Mid-continent research for education (McREL) study there is a significant correlation between principal leadership and student achievement (Florida Department of Education, 2006).

Through the development of organizational culture, a combination of shared norms, beliefs, values, that center on student learning, administrators have the responsibility to ensure that a commitment to relevant curriculum and best instructional practices are a key factor in the shared vision of the school. In this way, the school administrator is the steward of the curriculum in a school.

“The curriculum is all of the educative experiences learners have in an educational program, the purpose of which is to achieve broad goals and related specific objectives that have been developed within a framework of theory and research, past and present professional practice, and the changing needs of society”. Curriculum goals can be grouped into two broad areas generally agreed upon by scholars: goals that relate to society and its values, and goals that relate to the individual learner and his or her needs, interests, and abilities. Five broad, general curriculum goals, which can be used to argue the purpose of schooling include citizenship, equal educational opportunity, vocation, self-realization, and critical thinking (Anctil, Hass & Parkay, 2006).

Human development knowledge gives administrators, curriculum planners, and teachers that ability to utilize and design curricula that focus on the nature and needs of individual learners. The generally accepted stages of human development include infancy, childhood, early adolescence, middle adolescence, late adolescence, and adulthood. The childhood stage is typically experienced in a student’s elementary schooling; the adolescent phases occurring through middle and high schooling. Understanding the needs of learners at various levels of education is a useful tool in guiding curriculum. Humans have much in common as learners, but human nature also causes us to be individuals with specific needs and differences, making it difficult to define the development of a human at any particular age. Five aspects to human development which are used to guide curriculum planning and planning for instruction include the biological basis of individual differences, physical maturation, intellectual development and achievement, emotional growth and development, and cultural and social development (Anctil, Hass & Parkay, 2006).

Several theories of human development have had influence over curriculum planning in the last century. Many of these theories determine that there is a fixed order to developmental changes, and learning occurs as each person passes through the stages. Jean Piaget developed a theory of cognitive development. His theory suggests that children learn through interacting with their environment and that a child’s thinking progresses through a sequence of four cognitive stages. Erikson developed a model of psychosocial development which follows a person’s emotional growth through eight stages of life, each involving some sort of psychosocial crisis that must be overcome before moving onto the next stage. John Dewey, a theorist well-known in the educational field, developed a cognitive-development approach that recognized that moral education also has its basis in stimulating the active thinking of a child about moral issues and decisions. Lawrence Kohlberg, building off of Dewey and Piaget’s theories of moral development, developed a model for moral education which suggests that people progress through levels of development when reasoning the difference between right and wrong (Ornstein & Hunkins, 2004).

In the Educational Leadership course Foundations of Curriculum and Instruction I constructed a timeline of Historical Foundations of curriculum, cross referenced with relevant legislation, political and economic events, and the party in power. This timeline, outlines the onset of behavior and cognitive theories, including the influence of John Dewey as he came onto the education scene.

While not defined but generally agreed upon, learning is a change in an individual’s knowledge or behavior that results from experience. There are two families of learning and motivation theories, behavioral and cognitive, each with a significant amount of underlying subgroups. An administrator needs to understand the key features of each family, as they lead and support the school teacher in incorporating various forms of instructional strategies in school lessons. Because the learner has unique and individual needs, most curriculums are based on both learning theories.

Behavioral learning theories focus on changes in behavior that can be observed, which are a result of stimulus-response associations made by the learner. Learning is a result of the design, not an accident. Reward response is a major component of stimulus-response learning theories, in that a response must be rewarded in order for learning to take place. John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner, are considered the two developers of the behaviorist approach to learning (Anctil, Hass & Parkay, 2006).

Cognitive learning theories focus on the mental processes people use as they acquire new knowledge and skill. This is an unobservable behavior, because the cognitive process involves processing, storage, and retrieval of information from the brain. The source of learning for the cognitive theory, is the individuals own original actions and thoughts. Cognitive learning theories emphasize personal meaning, generalizations, principles, advance organizers, discover learning, coding, and superordinate categories (Anctil, Hass & Parkay, 2006).

A current education practice which finds its roots in cognitive learning theory is the use of Thinking Maps. Thinking Maps are a set of eight visual tools use to graphically represent the following thought processes: defining in context, describing, cause and effect, compare and contrast, classifying, building analogies, part to whole, and sequencing. Utilizing the maps creates a connection in the brain between the thought process and the actual content being used with the map. This program was adapted by Osceola Elementary and I was given the opportunity to serve as a trainer for staff. See for further detail.

Motivation is the explanation of why people do the things that they do. Motivational patterns are evident in human behavior, observable through one’s direction of decisions, persistence, and intensity. Motivation also falls into two families (approaches) of behaviorist and cognitive. Extrinsic views, behaviorist approach, of motivation states that people are motivated by external rewards and punishments. Intrinsic views, cognitive or humanist approach, states that people are motivated by internal capacities, such as aspirations, perceptions, attitudes, or thoughts that can be motivating or demotiviating (Owens & Valesky, 2007).

A student’s learning style is the approach to learning that works best for them. There is no one size fits all when it comes to learning styles. All students are capable of learning. Finding the learning styles and instructional strategies that fit with individual students is part of the responsibility of an administrator in their role as the instructional leader. A school that chooses one approach will not be successful, as they will not be meeting the needs of all the learners. Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences suggests that there are numerous ways in which individuals connect with the world, and are therefore attributed to learn better through different approaches.

Throughout my experience in the Educational Leadership program I have spent a significant amount of time learning about Exceptional Student Education. I have researched the history , law, theory, and current best practices for students with disabilities.

In 1997, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), was reauthorized and amended. The changes made to IDEA affect the way that educational stakeholders, including administrators, teachers, parents, and related service providers, provide quality education, special education and related services, and early intervention for students with disabilities.

The principal is ultimately responsible for ensuring that the practices of the school meet the legal requirements of IDEA, but they are also a key component in so much more. Principals must make certain that their school meets the diverse needs of students and their families through many facets of the school including the organization, curriculum and instruction, staff development, school climate, and assessment (Warger, Eavy & Associates, 2001).

IDEA was developed to guarantee that children with disabilities have access to a free appropriate public education (FAPE). FAPE involves special education and related services designed to meet their individual and unique needs, ultimately preparing students for life post-schooling. The principal has many responsibilities in the implementation of IDEA that are laid out in Standards of Excellence written by the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP). Categories of Standards of Excellence which fall to the responsibility of the principal are organization, leadership, curriculum and instruction, staff development, school climate, and assessment (Warger, Eavy & Associates, 2001).

There are three NAESP Standards of Excellence pertaining to Curriculum and Instruction which are the responsibility of the school principal: 1. There is an established curriculum framework that provides direction for teaching and learning, 2. The common core of learning is supported by adequate financial and material resources, and 3. Effective instructional practices are essential to accomplishing the schools mission (Warger, Eavy & Associates, 2001).

A NAESP Standard of Excellence in the organization category is that Placement and grouping practices are determined by child needs. Guidelines for principals in meeting this Standard of Excellence include the principal ensuring that placement decisions are made by a placement group including the parent and child, understanding special education is not a place but a system of instruction and services to ensure opportunity, ensuring all children are full participants in the school community, implementing procedures consistent with the overall intent of the IEP team, and ensuring that both regular and special educators share responsibility for the educational achievement of children with disabilities (Warger, Eavy & Associates, 2001).

There are different ways of organizing the special education system within schools that are believed to be successful. The law states that students must be placed in the least restrictive environment (LRE), meaning “that to the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities, including children in public or private institutions or other care facilities, are education with children who are nondisabled; and that special classes, separate schooling or other removal of children with disabilities from the regular educational environment occurs only if the nature or severity of the disability is such that education in regular classes with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily”. The law also states in regards to placement that “each public agency shall ensure that a child with a disability is not removed from education in age-appropriate regular classrooms solely because of needed modifications in the general curriculum” (Warger, Eavy & Associates, 2001).

It is my belief that the Inclusion method of schooling is the best practice to meet the needs students and IDEA. While inclusion has been in development over the past century, only in recent decades has it become a widely used and accepted system of special education. There is little empirical evidence to suggest that inclusion does or does not result in student achievement, making this a prime area for future study. For details see the following artifact on inclusion research from the course Foundations of Curriculum and Instruction.

I was fortunate to have completed half of my practicum at a full inclusion school. Osceola Elementary School opened 7 years ago as a fully inclusive school. All staff members, students, and families were made aware of this from the inception, as it was a part of the shared vision of the school. The mission of Osceola Elementary is to provide and outstanding education for EVERY student. Working with organizations such as the Florida Inclusion Network (FIN) and the district ESE department, Osceola teachers became versed in concepts such as co-teaching, accommodations to meet specific student needs, and collaborative planning.