Session Information
26 SES 03 A, School Leadership Training Programs for School Leaders’ Professional Development
Symposium
Contribution
As a response to ever-changing societal changes and the challenges it leads to for leadership and learning in schools, the leadership of school development has emerged as one of the key areas within school leadership research (Kovačević & Hallinger, 2019). Simultaneously the professional development of school leaders has aroused the extensive attention of researchers, politicians, and practitioners. Professional development activities range from formal training programs to informal interactions at the workplace (Goldring, Preston, & Huff, 2012). The symposium focuses on formal school leadership training programs (SLTPs) provided by higher education institutions that aim to contribute to school leaders’ professional development and promote school development.
Researchers state that successful SLTPs are embedded in authentic school environments to allow participants to apply what they have learned (Goldring et al., 2012; Simkins, 2012) and strengthen learning on the individual and organisational levels (Aas, 2016). Likewise, Zhang and Brundrett (2010) state that SLTPs can only prepare and develop influential leaders with support from the school context. Additionally, Huber (2011) suggests that professional development to be successful should be centred around experiential knowledge/practices and combine cognitive theoretical ways of learning, cooperative and communicative process-oriented procedures, and reflexive methods. Cognitive theoretical learning includes, among others, lectures and self-study, cooperative and communicative process-oriented procedures including, for instance, group and project work, and reflexive methods containing methods such as feedback and supervision. However, even though the success and effectiveness of SLTPs have received theoretical and empirical support, some researchers point out that most empirical findings about SLTPs are limited to the subjective outcome at the individual level (see, e.g. Jensen, 2016). Thus, the topic of how SLTP can contribute to professional learning and promote school development remains unclear.
In this symposium, we are a group of researchers through the project Research on national school leadership training programs, examining the issues associated with this topic. Specifically, we examine the key characteristics of SLTPs that contribute to professional development and benefit school development and how teams consisting of researchers and educators can facilitate and enhance learning activities that support learning for individuals participating in the programs and their organisations. We examine these research questions in a review study based on data from 44 peer-reviewed articles from nine countries (which cover the three-country perspectives to be represented in a symposium) and three studies using an action research approach and data from national SLTPs for school leaders in Norway. The action research is theoretically informed by Wells’ (1999) approach to knowledge building. In this approach, learning is not a separate form of activity but an inherent aspect of engaging with others in purposeful actions that have significance beyond themselves for all the participants. It involves an ongoing transformation of the learner/participant and, as such, typically occurs not on a single occasion but incrementally over time.
The issues addressed in this symposium lie at the very heart of the content domain of the Educational Leadership Network (NW26). Numerous educational leadership studies have shown that the primary subject of this symposium, SLTPs and professional leadership development, has important implications in school leadership, which is a central focus of NW26. This symposium includes an international review and three empirical papers on the effectiveness of SLTPs. As boundary conditions aligning learning components in the SLTPs and experiential knowledge/practices of those participating in the programs are seen as critical for developing and theorising in school leadership studies, this symposium should contribute to the NW 26 via theoretical and empirical reporting on these contingent components. Finally, a discussant from Sweden will discuss how the papers advance and further the symposium's topic with interest for a European/international research audience that might stimulate discussions and benefit future research.
References
Goldring, E., Preston, C., Huff, J. (2012). Conceptualizing and evaluating professional development for school leaders. Planning and Changing, 43 (3/4), 223–242. Hitt, D., Tucker, P. (2016). Systematic review of key leader practices found to influence student achievement: A unified framework. Review of Educational Research, 86 (2), 531–569. Huber, S. (2011). The impact of professional development: A theoretical model for empirical research, evaluation, planning and conducting training and development programmes. Professional Development in Education, 37 (5), 837–853. Jensen, R. (2016) School leadership development: What we know and how we know it. Acta Didactica Norway, 10(4), 48-68. Leithwood, K. (2010). School leadership in the context of accountability policies. International Journal of Leadership in Education: Theory and Practice, 4 (3), 304–326. Muijs, D. (2010). Leadership and organisational performance: From research to prescription. Leadership and organisational performance, 25 (1), 45–60. Simkins, T. (2012). Understanding school leadership and management development in England: Retrospect and prospect. Educational Management & Leadership, 40 (5), 621–640. Aas, M. (2016). Leaders as learners: Developing new leadership practices. Professional Development in Education 43, (3), 439–453. Wells, G. (1999). Dialogic Inquiry. Towards a Sociocultural Practice and Theory of Education. Cambridge University Press. Zhang, W., Brundrett, M. (2010). School leaders' perspectives on leadership learning: The case for informal and experiential learning. Management in Education 24, (4), 154–158.
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