Connecting Leadership with Learning

A Framework for Reflection, Planning, and Action

Michael A. Coplan, Michael S. Knapp

• Publisher: ASCD
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN: 9781416604044
• eBook ISBN: 9781416617839
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

What kind of leadership makes learning possible for all students? How can school leaders help teachers increase their knowledge and improve their instructional abilities? What actions should leaders take to ensure that learning occurs? In Connecting Leadership with Learning: A Framework for Reflection, Planning, and Action, Michael A. Copland and Michael S. Knapp give educational leaders a new way to answer these questions and find solutions perfect for their particular school environment.

Copland and Knapp assert that far too many educational leaders are struggling with outdated curricula, demands that don't align with their school or district goals, and professional meetings that are high on complaints but low on solutions. Instead of prescribing a linear or rigid approach, the authors encourage educators to be attentive and tune into their leadership actions by using the Leading for Learning Framework. The framework provides different vantage points to help leaders reflect on their strengths and weaknesses, plan for improvement, and take actions to foster learning for students, teachers and professionals, and school and district leaders. The Leading for Learning Framework will empower leaders to

*Establish a focus on equitable learning
*Build professional communities
*Engage communities and external partnerships
*Act strategically and share leadership
*Create coherence in their leadership actions

The book includes extended case studies, descriptions of 23 different leadership "pathways, " and many examples from schools and districts that show the Leading for Learning Framework in action.

There is no magic formula for great school leadership, but Copland and Knapp conclude that magic can happen when leaders reframe their efforts to focus more clearly on learning.

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Part One

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Leading for Learning: Establishing the Foundational Ideas

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We begin in Chapter 1 with the story of one student, Hector, and his teacher, Mr. G. Hector and Mr. G. inhabit an all too familiar public school classroom. Their story illustrates a number of the dilemmas that leaders face when they attempt to improve learning for students, professionals, and systems.

We start with a single student and teacher for another reason—it is all too tempting, and often necessary, for leaders to think in terms of aggregates (e.g., the 750 students in this school, the student population served by this district, the average level of achievement in our four high schools, and so on). Aggregates too easily mask the individuals within them. We suggest it is a leader's mission to support the learning of individual students and the teaching of individual teachers. Leadership is ultimately all about learning and teaching and the ways these functions affect each learner, each teacher, and each educational system.

Chapter 2 introduces the Leading for Learning Framework and begins to explore potential responses by school and district leaders to various school dilemmas. These ideas constitute a useful and comprehensive foundation for understanding the connections between leadership and learning in schools and school systems. Chapters 3-7 further illustrate the Leading for Learning Framework and show how different areas of the framework can be applied to complex leadership challenges in a variety of school and district settings.

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Chapter 1

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Hector's Challenge to Educational Leaders

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From the beginning, let's be clear about a fundamental assumption on which this book rests: The primary work of educational leadership is to guide improvements in learning. As such, the leader's work starts and ends with individual students and their learning. A glimpse of a young learner and his teacher, as described in the Leading for Learning reports (Knapp, Copland, & Talbert, 2003), focuses on the challenges that school and district leaders face as they seek to fulfill this responsibility.

Hector's Mathematics Lesson

It is Friday, and the Period 2 Mathematics class is about to begin. Hector and his classmates, a mixture of white and Latino children, crowd in from the busy hallway, find seats, and fumble for their homework sheets. Some never find them; a few—primarily a handful of boys located at seats around the edge of the room—pay little attention to what is going on. The teacher, Mr. G., appears not to notice. Today, Hector is feeling confident; his older sister Marita, who excels at math, spent time at home helping him complete the assignment, the first he has finished this week.

The teacher uses the next 15 minutes to review the 35 assigned problems for solving simple equations with one unknown variable. Mr. G. stands in front of the class asking for the answer to each problem and providing it if no one volunteers promptly. Twice, Hector tentatively raises his hand, as if to offer an answer; the teacher does not recognize him. The students correct their sheets and report how many they got right. Mr. G. then shifts to a 15-minute presentation at the blackboard on the finer points of solving one-variable algebraic equations. Hector begins to fidget during the explanation; his nonparticipating classmates are becoming louder and more noticeable. "I'm not very good at math," he explains in our later conversation. "Maybe Marita will help me."

The class ends with a period of seatwork—more practice solving for x. Seated at his desk near the rear of the room, Mr. G. enters homework scores into his grade book. Hector works sporadically at the seatwork task, but appears distracted by the small contingent of nonparticipating boys who spend the time engaged in unrelated talk. Mr. G. pays little attention, except to broadcast a general "Shh" now and again. At one point, Hector quietly seeks assistance from a nearby classmate, questioning her in Spanish. "No talking, please," says the teacher. Shortly, Hector and his classmates are headed out the door for Period 3. (Knapp, Copland, & Talbert, 2003, p.7)

This snapshot of a lesson, typical of many classrooms, presents fundamental challenges to educational leaders who engage in the important work of improving learning and teaching. In this scene, the teacher is experienced and certificated, and many students are engaged in academic tasks. But students are not probing deeply into the content, and some are completely disengaged from any learning.

Further analysis into Hector's situation brings more dimensions to light. For example, even though the textbook used in Mr. G's class has been an accepted school district resource for teaching mathematics at this level for several years, there is little in the text material that aligns well with current state standards for student learning. Furthermore, although the school has an active ESL program that provides extra support for students who come to school speaking a language other than English, the services are provided mostly through classroom pullout sessions, and students are taught a separate curriculum by instructional assistants who are not certificated teachers. Meanwhile, Mr. G. has never had a conversation with the ELL specialist to discuss the particular needs of his second language learners in mathematics. Nor has he even taken notice of the fact that most of his struggling learners (easily a third of the class) are second language learners, whereas the successful ones are almost all from white families.

A cursory visit to Mr. G.'s classroom wouldn't raise alarms. Many students appear to be learning to solve math problems by following instructions from Mr. G. and their textbook. Influential PTA parents aren't raising any red flags about the nature of Mr. G.'s classroom instruction. He is regarded as a "pretty good" teacher in the community. In fact, Mr. G. is someone who colleagues say likes kids and earns their respect. Nearby classrooms reveal more obvious management concerns for school and district leaders to worry about. But for Hector and Mr. G., the deeper we look, the more it becomes clear that key aspects of the learning situation, both inside and outside the classroom, are lacking.

Mr. G.'s Reflection

After school, Mr. G. stands near the bus line, his typical Friday afternoon duty. He exchanges friendly barbs with some of the students waiting in line, and wishes each child a "good weekend" as they board. Walking back to the classroom, he reflects on the math lesson that transpired earlier. "Most of that class just doesn't seem to get it," he pines. A probe about instructional strategy indicates uncertainty on his part about his plan for teaching kids to solve for x. "Repeating the thing till they get it just doesn't seem to cut it," he reflects. When questioned about the progress of the nonparticipating group in the math class, Mr. G. intimates that he has tried hard to involve them and they "just don't respond; they don't seem to care about learning." But he feels an obligation to "plow ahead." The state test is only three months away. (Knapp, Copland, & Talbert, 2003, p. 8)

Although he is personable with most of his students, Mr. G.'s reliance on a drill-and-practice approach to instruction, coupled with a lack of skills needed to differentiate instruction in intentional and relevant ways, undermines his ability to teach math to all of his students at a high level. The content for his instruction is a far cry from what the district and state standards require. However, Mr. G. has had few opportunities to learn principles and approaches of standards-based mathematics education, nor has he sought any. He is reluctant to change a career-long teaching repertoire that seems to work pretty well for many students. Furthermore, Mr. G. has yet to focus on the instructional challenges posed by the school's growing population of second language learners who struggle to simultaneously master subject content, language, and school demands.

As in many schools, Mr. G. and his fellow teachers operate in relative isolation. Apart from brief collegial conversations that occur over the lunch table or in passing hallway conversations, Mr. G. has little interaction with colleagues at school. When opportunities for professional development occur, most often they are disconnected from the real work of Mr. G.'s classroom, and these opportunities rarely focus on the particular immediate needs of students in the school. Conversations about struggling students typically don't focus on helping teachers to improve instructional practices; rather, they reinforce the idea that students with particular learning needs must go elsewhere in the school to get needed services.

Administrators at Mr. G's school and district are too preoccupied with other things to notice what is taking place in his classroom. On the rare occasions when the principal or assistant principal sets foot in the classroom, it is typically to see Mr. G. about a managerial issue. For example, one week the school's administrators try to work out problems with the new schedule for a year-round school while at the same time attending to three new noncertificated teachers who are struggling with student discipline issues. The only conversation between Mr. G. and the principal that even remotely focused on learning occurred in early October during their 20-minute postconference following Mr. G.'s only formal evaluation of the year. Mr. G. recalls little about that conversation, except for the principal's complimentary comments about the bulletin board display that featured a photograph of each of his 146 students.

In addition, the district central office is trying to respond to pressure from a small, mostly upper-middle class segment of the white community who wants more advanced placement courses in the high school. At the same time, they are answering to accountability pressures from the state and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) regulations to educate more second language learners. District administrators also are negotiating the next teachers' contract and they are at odds with the teacher's union over a number of issues. District administrators rarely engage in professional learning of their own, and when they do, the agenda is not typically focused on how to better support schools to improve learning. Instead, administrators spend this professional learning time focused on managerial concerns that are relatively unrelated to teaching and learning.

Given time to reflect, the vast majority of educators would want more for Hector and the other young learners in Mr. G.'s classroom. They would want more for Mr. G., and they would provide him with more support so that he can provide more powerful and equitable learning opportunities for all his students. Yet, to fulfill that responsibility, educational leaders must ask the following questions:

• How can leaders know enough about student learning and instructional methods in particular classrooms, subjects, and grades in order to focus improvement efforts?
• How can teachers learn to improve their practice, and what conditions can motivate and support their improvements?
• How do family and community conditions contribute to current school conditions, and how can they be a part of the solution?
• Once there is a focus on improvement, what specific actions will provide the greatest influence on changing what teachers and learners do? Who leads this work? How? What resistances stand in the way and what can leaders do about them?
• How can leaders' actions and resources have progressive and long-term effects on teaching and learning?

These questions are not simple ones to answer, and they may appear both overwhelming and paralyzing. However, doing nothing clearly is not an option. School and district leaders who can provide constructive answers to these questions do so based on their understanding of existing and potential connections between their leadership actions and the learning that occurs in their school or district. Our schools will open for business again tomorrow, but without a different type of leadership they will continue to operate as they have in the past. To spur change, leaders need clear goals to improving learning and the ability to visualize ways to move forward. With greater insight, school and district leaders can better understand when and how to take action that will leverage the greatest change.

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Chapter 2

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Essential Ideas and Tasks for Learning-Focused Leaders

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To imagine leading for learning, it is essential to grasp a set of foundational concepts about leadership, learning, and their potential connections. In this chapter, we offer definitions that clarify the constructs of the Leading for Learning Framework and the relationships among them. Then, we examine a strong learning community in action, explore the qualities of school and district leadership that focus on leadership, and analyze learning opportunities that optimize student achievement. This chapter also sets the stage for the latter part of the book, where we will explore leading for learning in school and district settings.

A Strong Learning Community in Action

Understanding the fundamentals of leading for learning begins with images of learning and teaching as it occurs in the classroom. To initiate this discussion, we turn once again to a practical example. Ms. M. is a fourth-year humanities teacher at an urban middle school. Let's look at what is going on in her classroom.

Ms. M.'s Humanities Class

Ms. M. and her colleagues devised a two-year humanities curriculum for their students, built around projects addressing broad topics that span U.S. history from the post-Civil War period to the present. Immigration is one of the topics for her 8th graders, who are African-American and Latino youngsters from predominantly low-income backgrounds. As part of this project, she divides them into three groups (e.g., Chinese, Mexican, and Eastern European immigrants). Students in each group do research and, with a partner, put together a debate, taking either a pro- or anti-immigrant position. To prepare for the debate, and to fulfill other requirements of this project, students are given a set of readings and other materials. Many of them are primary documents, such as the original form from the Homestead Act that people filled out to buy land; illustrations and photographs; advertisements announcing the great land rush and railroad routes; newspaper commentary about immigration; political cartoons, and much more.

Students respond enthusiastically to this curriculum, though few have encountered anything like it in their previous schooling. Ms. M. provides them a great deal of material and structure to help them work productively with this assignment and with each other. For example, the students receive a written outline of the project that includes objectives, checklists of what is needed before starting, the knowledge to be gained, writing plans, assignments, etc. Students hand in multiple drafts of written products and meet with the teacher regarding their progress. Rubrics with a four-point scale, roughly fashioned to correspond to state and district assessment scales, detail grading and assessment for both written products and oral presentations.

Ms. M. and her colleagues emphasize several skills they feel are critical for success in the project work (e. g., how to read text, mark it, and take bullet notes). In choosing which skills to teach, they are also responding to the requirements of the state exams. A fair amount of time is spent, especially at the beginning of the school year, directly teaching these skills. Time is also devoted to teaching the skills needed to engage in successful peer review and collaborative group work (adapted from Knapp, Copland, Ford, et al., 2003, p. 11).

This glimpse of instruction from Ms. M.'s class is a far cry from what takes place in Mr. G.'s classroom. All members of this classroom are a part of a learning community that is pushed to engage in forms of learning they have not experienced before, and they are rising to the challenge. Ms. M. sets high expectations for the written work that will be produced by all students while at the same time she recognizes the need to break down elements of the writing process for students who may need additional support. By using her knowledge of what motivates learning, Ms. M. provides choices in the context of the curriculum that allow students to bring their individual strengths and interests to the topic, and she uses pedagogical approaches that promote l...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Preface: A Call for Leadership That Is Foscused on Learning
• Part One: Leading for Learning: Establishing the Foundational Ideas
• Part Two: Exploring the Leading for Learning Framework in Practice
• Part Three: The Leading for Learning Framework in Action
• Epilogue: Hector and Mr. G. Revisited
• Appendix: Pathways to Learning
• Methodological Notes
• References
• Related ASCD Resources
• About the Authors
• Copyright