Search results

Alternative courses which present themselves when a new university is being planned are to replicate a traditional model, or to explore new ways of promoting scholarship, drawing on the experience of existing universities and their staffs and students, and on perceptions of external needs and pressures for various sorts of learning. The latter course was followed by Griffith University, Brisbane, which opened in 1975. The decision to organize academic activities in non‐departmental schools, each with a unifying theme or problem set orientation, in combination with concern at the cumbersome decision making processes of more traditional forms, led to the design of a relatively decentralized policy making and executive structure: a Council, supported by a range of policy making and advisory committees each with explicit responsibilities and authorities; a limit number of academic and other operating divisions, each headed by an executive officer with substantial delegated authority; and a structure for an emphasis on horizontal interaction.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the policy and practice contexts for school autonomy and twenty-first century learning in Canadian provinces.

This paper reports on an analysis of policies in Canadian provinces (particularly the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan). The authors review policies related to school autonomy and twenty-first century learning initiatives.

In this paper, the authors argue that autonomy is a complicated and multi-levelled phenomena with a measure of autonomy devolved from the state to local school divisions, and yet other elements of autonomy devolved to the school and to individual teachers. The link between autonomy and twenty-first century learning are unclear as yet. This paper attempts to establish the policy contexts for school autonomy and twenty-first century learning without making claims about a causal relation between the two.

The originality of this paper lies in its description of autonomy beyond the school level. Autonomy, as a construct, is rarely examined as a dynamic process among multiple layers of the educational system.

This study examined how principals experienced professional learning that asked them to reflect on their own biases and beliefs, as well as to determine where there are systemic issues of inequity in their schools, and what they planned to do to address those challenges.

Through interviews, observations, and documents, the authors explored the building and sustaining of equity mindsets in education.

The authors analysis led to four overarching themes that collectively answered the research questions about how the principals learned individually and in concert with each other. The themes included the power of the personal journey and commitment, the importance of building a network of support, the benefit of practice-oriented activities that disrupt power structures and inequitable practices in schools, and sustainability.

The study focused on a single institute and as such, findings are not generalizable, but may be transferable.

Schools and school districts may use the findings when designing professional learning, especially as it relates to leading with and for equity and in cross-district collaborations.

This contributes to the literature around concrete ways principals learn and reflect on enacting equity in schools.

In August 1977, the Division for Library Services awarded Library Services and Construction Act Title III funding to a proposal submitted by Denise B. Erwin, Director of the Instructional Materials Center, School of Education, University of Wisconsin‐Madison, for a planning grant to identify and document the need for “Cooperative Media Review Centers” in the State of Wisconsin. This grant provided money for an eight month period to conduct the study and, based on the findings, to submit a report which would include a plan for the development and implementation of such an evaluation program. This proposal was based on work done previously, nationwide in scope and widely reported in the library press.

During the past 25 years, many researchers and scholars have suggested that schools and school organizations often operate with a structural looseness much different from that of the rational bureaucracy. Coupling and linkage are two metaphors which have been developed to describe the intricacies of life in schools and school organizations. Briefly reviews some of the developments of the linkage metaphor, the relationships between coupling and linkage, and illustrates how the linkage metaphor might be useful in developing greater understanding of change processes in schools and school organizations.

The research reported in this article involved a structural change in a Canadian High School. The change resulted in the transfer of control over the budget from the school division to the school staff. It was judged to have been successful and this was attributed to a number of factors: (i) the change occurred when the school's environment was receptive to new ideas and new organizational patterns; (ii) there had been changes in education at the Provincial level; (iii) there was some dissatisfaction with the existing system at the school and the new system reduced this dissatisfaction; (iv) personnel in the school had the support of officials superordinate to them in the school division; (v) the Principal had a sound knowledge of the change agent's role; (vi) the school's staff was involved in planning and implementing the change and each member had a clearly defined role to play; (vii) the Principal was able to maintain the school's newly established control at the school level. In this article these reasons are analyzed and comparisons are made between the findings from this research and those of related studies.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a Year 1 account of a partnership between a university and rural school district focusing specifically on how the project has helped to bridge the theory to practice divide and strengthen university‐district ties.

A design‐based research paradigm was utilized to investigate how creating more authentic and contextually relevant university‐school partnerships and embedding leadership preparation in the context of practice may help build stronger bridges between theory and practice.

The findings highlight that holistic approaches to leadership preparation, developing relationships, coordinating meaningful professional development, realism in design and experiences, and introspection are all ways that cohort members, as well as other district personnel, have been able to build stronger bridges between theory and practice.

The findings can assist universities and districts in developing and supporting partnerships that contribute to relevant, practical, and meaningful leadership preparation.

The authors' analysis highlights that aspiring leadership students who do not engage in meaningful and contextually relevant activities will not be able to bridge the theory to practice gap when working in the actual leadership field. Authentic experiences provide realistic views and understandings of the requirements, challenges, and rewards of educational leadership positions.

This paper reports on a study exploring a sustained coaching model of teacher professional development (PD). The study was undertaken with middle school teachers in a small rural school division in Alberta, Canada. The goal of the study was to theorize about the components of the sustained coaching model of PD that supported or was a barrier to teachers engaging in a year-long PD series.

A grounded theory methodology was used to theorize about the components of a teacher PD model that participants viewed as being a support or barrier to their engagement in the PD. Data were collected from two individual participant interviews: one interview at the beginning of the year and one interview at the end of the year.

Findings indicate that teacher PD should include a constant community, accountability to other participants in that community, and a balance of theoretical and practical support and be provided over multiple sessions. In addition, in order for the PD to be sustainable, barriers to engaging in the PD should be minimized.

A recognition of the complexity of the factors influencing a teacher's interaction with PD provides a lens with which to consider the potential for a teacher's engagement with PD.

The 1980's will be a period of restructuring for Australian education and four factors will be central to this process. 1. School‐based decision‐making will mean Principals are increasingly responsible for managing the education tax‐dollar and accountable to the client community. The School council will be the arena in which educators must explain their actions to and receive approval from parents. 2. New administrative structures, manifested in the formulation of major policy decisions in a consultative arena and the organization of Head Offices along functional lines, means a breaking down of traditional “top down” bureaucracy. Schools and Head Offices will be forced to act collegially rather than hierarchically and Principals will be required to show a new independence and responsibility in management. 3. Regionalization, probably the strongest trend to emerge from the structural reform movement, is a result of the dysfunctions, diseconomies, inefficiency and alienation which set in beyond a certain point in system and geographical size. It is here that the difference between an autonomous school system and a region within a system emerge, and the issue of what functions each locus carries must be resolved. 4. Declining and shifting enrolments, a demographic phenomenon, will mean Principals must learn such new skills and responsibilities as the reduction of staff numbers and the improvement of education in the context of decreasing levels of resources and student numbers. By outlining some of the changes facing educational administrators it is hoped that a calculated and coherent response to the demands of the decade will be possible.

This chapter will address four key areas related to resourcing inclusive education. Consideration will be given first to an international perspective on models of funding, reviewing direct or student-based approaches, and decentralized versus local organization of funding. The relationships between funding and implementation of inclusive education will then be explored, looking at ways of measuring these using indicators or protocols. Third, continuous improvement, planning, and accountability will be reviewed for their role in setting priorities, targets, and benchmarking progress while addressing competing resource needs. Finally, approaches to building capacity to support inclusive practice through a range of approaches will be proffered.