Chapter 5: Learning How to Lead Improvement: Coaching That Engages Principals
This chapter draws together the previous chapters with strategies on how to engage in change from a collaborative point of view. It also emphasises the fact that change, in all likelihood, will not be successful if imposed on others. It models the impact of Leadership Coaching as an effective tool, provided the coach already has their own ideas, knowledge and skills based around the propsed change, so that coach and Principal can dialogue between their two theories, leading to a shared theory. For this partnership to be successful and truely collaborative they need to enact the values of respect, truth-seeking and internal commitment.
Engaging in others thinking assists the Principal to avoid bypassing the thinking of their staff. In the example given the Principal had no understanding of the teachers thinking around their current practice but only focused her thoughts on the proposed change. To engage the teachers the principal needs to:
1. understand their beliefs
2. articulate her own and
3. create a conversation between the 2.
This in turn helps to make the Principal's thinking transparent.
The words 'substitute rather than add' resonated with me too. In much of our school PD we have asked teachers to let go of something they had been doing and substitute it with something new. We cannot keep adding to what has 'always' been done. On p84 it alludes to the fact that any change requires a shared journey; can the Principal do anything differently that will assist teachers with the proposed change? This can only be done through engaging with rather than bypassing others theories of action.
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Chapter 3 delves deeper in the difference between the 'Bypass' and 'Engage' approaches and also reinforces the need to reduc... -
The first chapter focuses heavily on reducing change to increase improvement. The most interesting point I took out of th...
I agree with your comments on 'substitute' rather than 'add' yet even though we offer this 'letting something go' teachers are reluctant to do so. Are we not engaging them but still being in bypass mode? If staff believe that they should do everything they currently do they are still not going to substitute and it will be just the leadership team asking them to do more.
ReplyDeleteI liked the way the coach approached finding out about the theory of action by asking" can you talk to me about your understanding of what it means to ........." which leads to a dialogue and knowing where your staff is at. Engaging your staff by creating this opportunity to dialogue will offer opportunities to lead to reframing.
I also liked the brief summary on the self referential critique and seeing ideas from the teacher's perspective which is so easy to sometimes miss when you have your own agenda.
Finally do we have these 'coaches' with highly developed interpersonal skills available to support all our principals and leaders?
I very sound summary above which highlight the key points of the chapter. In the role of principal a coach serves to assist one to discriminate between assumptions and investigations. Sometimes one can make assumptions as to why teachers/staff behave in particular way eg the lack of the use of a preferred strategy. I agree that when the strategy fits with the staffs existing theory of action on how children learn for example they readily take up the strategy - even if not asked to. I am becoming more aware of this and this perspective assists in becoming less judgemental about what is happening in the classroom. Empowering teachers to make some decisions about their teaching assists in the dilemma described above in Jen's blog regarding letting less effective strategies go. Some schools are assisting this process by structuring the PL as Action Research in which the teachers choose an element of the data in their classroom to study and then following a process of investigation. This may be worth considering. Being part of the coaching and mentoring program for principals is very supportive not only for beginning principals but also the mentoring principal. One of the key strategies is the Professional Learning Conversations(PLC) enabling the principals to discuss areas of concern. Reading this chapter will assist me in asking more effective questions regarding the three points highlighted in Ellys Blog.
ReplyDeleteElly, I agree with your comments on engaging others thinking to avoid bypassing the thinking of staff. In the example given in the text, the principal was focusing on the practise she wanted the teachers to adopt, not on understanding their current practise. I believe if teachers do not agree or fully understand why a change is to be adopted into their classroom then you will continue to have teachers who are resistant to these changes. The difficulty is changing the mindset of relucent teachers and giving them the support and evidence they require to believe in the change.
ReplyDeleteYou also commented on the ‘substitute rather than add’ to a teacher’s workload. This is a very important point. If teachers understand that the desired change is not just adding to their workload they may be more open to apply the change. In saying that, I would be interested to know how many teachers have fully adopted this concept, with regards to feedback and substituting one idea with another, and how many teachers may have slowly returned to their existing habits due to their own beliefs of what they believe works best in their classroom.
The idea behind the 'substitute rather than add' has always been somethings I strongly elieve in. Jen I think if we are truly reflective and evaluative - and notice teachers going back to their previous beliefs then they are really telling us either that they didn't see a change or improvement worth continuing or we have not really allowed them to evaluate the old and new theory. I really believe we need time to be able to engage in the conversation/ dialogue for the process to really have time for the process to be engaged with and completed.
ReplyDeleteBern this idea of action research excites me as a learner, I feel as if we were starting to go this way when we were looking at 'feedback' but lost momentum along the way.
I really believe action research is the best way to engage all staff and to develop dialogue so we hear their espoused theory rather than guess it is different to ours. As a leader I would love to move towards 'action research' with our staff - again this is a slow process and starting with module meetings would be a step in the right direction. The question I have are we as a leadership team ready to head down this route?
I also was interested in the the following part of this chapter, and it really made me understand how and when it is important to use either the Self Referential Critque or the Bypass.
ReplyDelete2 - The Self-Referential Critique
Involves the following steps:
Listen and identify your partner’s values or wants
Articulate any inconsistencies you notice
Verify whether or not your observations are correct
3 - Bypass and reframing - This emphasised the importance of knowing when to bypass and reframe so that decisions can be made rather than excuses or reasons being restated.