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Drawing on Coburn and Turner's framework for research on data use, this study looks at how contextual factors support interactions around data. In so doing, the authors contribute to the emerging body of literature on administrators supporting high school students' social-emotional learning (SEL).

This two-site case study “follows the data” that were shared with administrators at two high schools based on a longitudinal study of students' SEL. One author of this study has been leading a research project of high school students' SEL in two high schools from two different districts in a Midwest university town since 2017. This study follows what happened in both high schools after the author shared students' SEL data with district personnel.

Findings showed that participants were invested in increasing SEL programming. However, SEL data moved in different ways through the two schools, and all individuals had different ideas about which data were important. Each district dealt with a specific set of organizational norms, existing inequities, and beliefs systems that influenced which SEL data were noticed and how, if at all, data spurred action.

Specific aspects of organizational contexts support and constrain SEL data use. Both cases suggest researchers can guide data use practices that can advance students' SEL. However, each district dealt with a specific set of educational inequities, which influenced which data were noticed and how, if at all, data spurred action. Importantly, data-driven decision-making must be conducted from an equity lens, lest the process replicate existing inequities.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors and conditions that help to explain what it takes to mount district-wide efforts to improve instruction and address inequities.

The authors examined the evolution of administrator social networks related to instruction, equity and race in three districts over a three-year period. The authors documented when and how these social networks support district-wide connections and consider the relationship between network evolution and each district’s efforts to improve outcomes for all students.

The authors found that administrators were most likely to be talking together about instruction, equity and race, and administrator social networks were most conducive to the sharing of information across roles, levels and initiatives when explicit efforts were made to engage administrators in common equity-related initiatives and when discussions of equity and race were part of the public conversation.

Future studies of social networks among teachers and among teachers and administrators would provide a more well-rounded picture of how information and resources related to instruction, equity and race are shared throughout a district.

Results from this study can be used to help administrators reflect on key aspects of their organizational structure and the opportunities for interaction they provide.

Strategic connections among those in different roles and initiatives can foster sharing of different perspectives and support the development of community cohesion and a common understanding of joint work.

This study provides an initial step in bringing together work on social networks and instructional leadership with research related to equity and race in studies of school improvement.

The purpose of this paper is to reconceptualize the theory-practice gap in educational leadership, not as a deficit, but as a necessity for legitimacy within institutional contexts.

This paper draws on institutional theory to reframe the theory-practice gap, which is often seen as a deficit of leaders or preparation programs.

Three vignettes illustrate how aspiring and current educational leaders engage with theory and practice within specific contexts and in relation to specific aspects of leadership. Importantly, the vignettes show that when school leaders decouple theory from practice, they may be doing so to function as legitimate providers of K-12 educational leadership.

The theory-practice gap, while often perceived as something negative, can have certain benefits within particular contexts. Scholars interested in the interconnections of theory and practice would benefit from considering why and how school leaders engage theory and practice.

Implications for leadership preparation programs highlight developing more complex views of the challenges that leaders face in tightly coupling theory and practice. To support future and current leaders, leadership preparation programs need to ensure that their students understand their institutional contexts and the reasons that leaders may decouple theory from action in various ways.

Instead of viewing the theory/practice gap as a deficit, this paper argues for a new way to consider why school leaders and leadership candidates may engage with theory and practice in different ways.

The purpose of this paper is to show how instructional rounds contributes to shared understandings and facilitates the development of relationships among administrators.

This mixed methods study draws on three years of data in a district engaged in rounds. Administrators annually completed a social network survey, which focussed on how often they interacted around instructional issues. Additionally, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews with a purposeful sample of administrators.

Administrators have increased their participation in and understanding of instructional rounds, as well as their understanding of district initiatives. However, results are mixed when looking at the quantitative data. While the theory of rounds suggests that the process would lead to increased interactions, the authors found a statistically significant decrease.

Implications include examining rounds as part of a district’s set of formal and informal structures. Also, results suggest further examination of how turnover impacts networks. Finally, expanding the number of interviews may present a more mixed qualitative experience of rounds.

As districts adopt initiatives based on observations, rounds can be used to support administrators’ growth in understanding these initiatives. Simultaneously, districts need to consider the purpose for both central office and building administrators and how those purposes align with protocols, norms, and practices they use.

This paper advances the empirical knowledge on instructional rounds, which has been gaining popularity, though little empirical analysis exists of the process, how its theory of action is enacted, and how administrators experience rounds.

The purpose of this paper is to examine mentor teachers’ approaches to mentoring preservice teachers in a yearlong teacher residency program (TRP).

This multiple-methods study examined 15 mentor teachers’ approaches over the course of a year in an urban TRP through the lens of Wang and Odell’s (2002) framework for mentoring. Data sources included mentors’ self-assessments over three points in time across one academic year. These self-assessments included numerical ratings of practice (quantitative) as well as open-ended rationales and goal setting (qualitative).

Mentors predominately provided support and technical assistance to the residents learning to teach, drawing on humanistic, and situated apprentice perspectives on mentoring. They worked to develop residents’ self-confidence and exposed residents to a range of practices and school contexts. Glimmers of a more critical constructive approach were apparent in some mentors’ discussions of reflection and collaboration.

This study informs the work of teacher education programs as they develop mentoring structures that align with program visions, expand notions of mentoring, and consider the many roles of a mentor teacher.

Increased emphasis on clinical experiences for preservice teachers highlights the need to attend to the practices of the mentor teachers with whom they work. These mentors, as field-based teacher educators, play a critical role in teacher education, and teacher education programs need to support their professional development as mentors. Understanding mentors’ approaches to mentoring is necessary in order to provide this support.

Teacher residency programs (TRPs) offer an alternative to traditional models of teacher preparation with the aim of developing teachers to work and stay in hard-to-staff schools. Research on these extended field placement programs is limited and typically examines program outcomes or the experiences and development of the pre-service teachers, or residents. This study focuses on a relatively unexamined area of TRPs to explore how providing mentoring and coaching supports the professional development of the in-service TRP coaches.

This study employed a qualitative case study design. Fourteen coaches in an urban teacher residency program were interviewed over a three-year period. Using a semi-structured protocol, participants’ experiences and the influence of program participation were explored.

Findings revealed that coaches experienced professional growth in their instructional practices and deepened or renewed their commitment to teaching. Program components such as evidence-based observational tools and protocols encouraged reflective practice and (re)evaluation of teaching that contributed to beliefs about improved practice.

In-service teachers experience development in their pedagogical practices and may feel a renewed sense of professional engagement through serving as a coach for a pre-service teacher. Additionally, hard-to-staff schools that partner with TRPs to recruit and develop new teachers may find an added benefit in retaining a greater number of veteran teachers who participate as coaches in residency pre-service education programs.

Much of the teacher residency literature explores the outcomes and experiences of pre-service teacher residents and has little focus on how these programs may benefit TRP coaches. Coaches have an essential role in the implementation and influence of residency programs on pre-service teachers, yet little is understood about how the act of coaching impacts the in-service teacher coach. This article suggests that coaches experience meaningful professional benefits of participation in TRPs and has implications for effective residency program design.