Teachers Leading Educational Reform

Distributed Leadership Matters
Distributed Leadership Matters: Perspectives, Practicalities, and Potential

Author: Alma Harris

Are you committed to improving the learning outcomes of young people, whatever their context and whatever it takes?
Do you believe that the key to school and system improvement resides in supporting teachers to be the very best they can be?
Do you agree that collaborative learning with impact is achievable and sustainable?

The answers to these three questions lie at the heart of this book. The first question is about moral purpose, why we as educators do what we do in order to make a difference to young lives and life chances. The second question reinforces that teachers are not our best resource; they are in fact our only resource in securing better outcomes for young people. Teachers matter far more than they know. The third question implies that professional collaboration is one way in we can achieve better teaching and learner outcomes. We have everything we need to improve our schools and districts within them, the real challenge is to make more powerful and effective professional connections.

This book is the educator's guide to turning these three questions into answers.

Features:
1. Even though the theory of distributed leadership is now well known and firmly established in the minds of those who think and write about leadership the important matter of how to make it happen is less well traversed territory. Accounts of distributed school leadership still tend towards theory, debate, discussion, ideological bias and analysis rather than practical application.

This book makes a direct contribution between theory and practice. It argues that distributed leadership is not just a powerful analytical frame or the latest leadership theory but it is also a leadership approach that, if properly constructed and enacted in schools and districts, can result in better learner outcomes. The book proposes, that under the right conditions, distributed leadership can be a positive influence on organizational change and improvement.

2. Throughout this book there are questions or points to consider that aim to do two things; firstly to prompt focused reflection and secondly, to highlight and reinforce the central argument and themes that run throughout the book.

3. The last chapter is a deliberate departure from other chapters in the book as it provides a practical framework aimed at supporting professional collaboration in districts and schools.

4. This book argues that it is the practice of leadership that is most important if the goal, in schools and districts, is to secure better instruction and improved learner outcomes. This book anchors distributed leadership in the core work of instruction and argues that to be most effective, leadership distribution has to be first and foremost focused upon improving learner outcomes.

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Distributed School Leadership: Developing Tomorrow's Leaders
Distributed School Leadership: Developing Tomorrow's Leaders

Author: Alma Harris

Tomorrow’s schools will need new forms of leadership. The old hierarchical models of leadership simply do not fit any longer. We need to develop new leaders at all levels of the system if we are serious about sustaining improvement and change. But, how do we go about this?

The book focuses on the why, how and what of distributed leadership by offering a practical insight into what it looks like in schools. It argues that our new system leaders are already in schools and that the main challenge is to develop them and maximise their collective capacity to make a difference. Drawing on the ‘Developing Leaders Programme’, which aimed to develop young leaders in schools, it provides practical examples and case-study evidence of distributed leadership in action. The main aims of the book are to:

* provide a clear account of more widely distributed leadership
* offer evidence about its positive impact on organisational and individual learning
* give case-study exemplars and practical illustrations of how it works in practice.

The book also considers the leadership of networks and the new forms of partnership schools are engaged in. It looks at how lateral capacity is built and the part distributed leadership plays in generating leadership capacity between schools. It will be of interest to headteachers, aspiring school leaders, teachers and educational professionals.

Edition Number: 1
Published: 30th July 2008
ISBN: 9780415419581
Number Of Pages: 177
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Teachers Leading Educational Reform: The Power of PLCs
Title: Teachers Leading Educational Reform: The Power of Professional Learning Communities

Authors: Alma Harris, Michelle Jones & Jane B. Huffman

Teachers Leading Educational Reform explores the ways in which teachers across the world are currently working together in professional learning communities (PLCs) to generate meaningful change and innovation in order to transform pedagogy and practice.

By discussing how teachers can work collectively and collaboratively on the issues of learning and teaching that matter to them, it argues that through collective action and collaborative agency, teachers are leading educational reform.

By offering contemporary examples and perspectives on the practice, impact and sustainability of PLCs, this book takes a global, comparative view showing categorically that those educational systems that are performing well, and seek to perform well, are using PLCs as the infrastructure to support teacher-led improvement.

Split into three sections that look at the macro, meso and micro aspects of how far professional collaboration is building the capacity and capability for school and system improvement, this text asks the questions:

- Is the PLC work authentic?
- Is the PLC work being implemented at a superficial or deep level?
- Is there evidence of a positive impact on students/teachers at the school/district/system level?
- Is provision in place for sustaining the PLC work?

Teachers Leading Educational Reform illustrates how focused and purposeful professional collaboration is contributing to change and reform across the globe. It reinforces why teachers must be at the heart of the school reform processes as the drivers and architects of school transformation and change.

ISBN: 9781138641068
Published on: 27 July 2017
Number of Pages: 240
ACEL RRP: $82.00

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Uplifting Leadership
Uplifting Leadership: How Organizations, Teams, and Communities Raise Performance

Authors: Andy Hargreaves, Alan Boyle & Alma Harris

What does it take to do more with less? How can you do better than before, or better than others? How do you turn losses into wins, or near-bankruptcy into strong profitability, or abject failure into stellar success?

The power of uplift enables any organization to do more with less, beat the competition, and perform better than ever. Leaders who uplift their employees' passions, intellects, and commitments produce remarkable results.

Based on original research from a seven-year global study, Uplifting Leadership reveals how leaders from diverse organizations inspired and uplifted their teams' performance. Distilling the six common characteristics of leaders at high-performing organizations across business, sports, and education, authors Andy Hargreaves, Alan Boyle, and Alma Harris explore the nature of uplift, its impact on performance, and the ways to achieve it within and beyond an organization's walls, revealing how leaders:

* Identify and articulate an inspiring dream that is coherently connected to the best of what the organization has been before
* Pursue that dream at a sustainable pace without squandering resources, incurring excessive debt, or burning people out
* Forge paths of innovation and improvement that others have overlooked or rejected
* Monitor progress by using metrics and indicators in a mindful and meaningful way
* Build teams that naturally pull people into change rather than pushing them through it

Featuring case studies of organizations as diverse as Shoebuy.com, Fiat, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, Marks & Spencer, Cricket Australia, Burnley Football Club, and the Vancouver Giants, as well as world-leading educational systems, Uplifting Leadership provides tools for leaders to incorporate these performance-driving strategies into their own.

For leaders who want their people to try harder, transform what they do, reach for a higher purpose, and stay resolute and resilient when opposing forces threaten to defeat them, Uplifting Leadership provides a path to better performance across any organization.

Published: 13th June 2014
ISBN: 9781118921326
Number Of Pages: 240
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