The Purposeful Principalship

By Pete Hall, Executive Director, Education Hall 

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In Pete Hall's article he makes the statement, "The more reflective we are, the more effective we are." How are you providing opportunities for teacher reflection?
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What is the principal’s job? A better question might be this: What is the purpose of the principalship? Over the past few decades, the primary responsibilities of the school principal have shifted significantly, from one who focuses on the 3 B’s (budgets, buildings, and buses) to one who focuses on the status of learning and teaching. The follow-up question, then, is obvious: What should a principal do in order to positively impact learning and teaching in a schoolhouse?

In a 2015 article for Educational Leadership, John Hattie, author of the mega meta-analysis Visible Learning, revealed a truth about education approaches and practices: almost everything works…to some extent. The key is to identify which strategies yield greater results than the other options available, given the intended goals, learning context, and student needs. This requires teachers to be aware, discriminating, intentional, and deeply reflective. Principals can – and must – create an environment in which this happens, so that learning and teaching can flourish.

Reflective Practice

Like Hattie said, everything works. Have you ever noticed that no two lists of “best practices” are identical? Research supports the utilization of all sorts of different instructional strategies, approaches, structures, time allocations, class sizes, and varying amounts of Febreze sprays – especially on those hot days. Which makes us wonder: are there times that a particular strategy would be extremely effective, and other times that the same strategy would be a recipe for disaster? Well, yes. So what’s the difference? And how can we help our teachers know the difference?

The answer is found in this simple phrase: The more reflective we are, the more effective we are.

Teachers who have developed strong reflective practices are able to discern between a time to use a “best practice” (whether you call it a high-yield strategy, a high-probability approach, or any other name) and a time to put that strategy away and choose another. Reflective practitioners have realized that our choice of instructional strategy must be contextual, matching our students’ needs, learning styles, the learning objective, and a host of other factors. And as a result, they’re able to act on that knowledge and increase the likelihood that their students are successful.

So how does one become a reflective practitioner? First, let’s define exactly what we’re talking about. Our research on self-reflection, published in Teach, Reflect, Learn (2015), The Principal Influence (2016), and Creating a Culture of Reflective Practice (2017), has revealed a predictable pattern of thought that we all go through as we gain expertise and progress towards mastery. We call it the Reflective Cycle:

  1. We start with awareness. What are our goals? What is the context? What tools do we have at our disposal? What’s been successful in the past? Knowing this helps us design a plan.
  2. We then think intentionally. How are we going to accomplish our goals? What steps could we take? What other options do we have? Why would we select one strategy over another? Why might we choose a particular learning activity? How can we populate our plan?
  3. Next, we must assess the impact of our actions. Is it working? Are we making gains? Are our students successful? To what extent? Which students are progressing? Which are lagging? Why do we suppose that’s the case? Are we clear on the cause-and-effect of our approaches?
  4. We must be responsive to the information we gather. What tweaks to instruction, grouping, time management, learning tasks, assessment strategies, or other components can we make? If it’s working, keep doing it. If it’s not, let’s be willing to adapt and adjust.

As we grow, learn, and improve our practices, we cycle through those four steps over and over again. It’s a beautiful trip up an elegant spiral staircase as we rise towards expertise…in our thinking and our professional practice.

Reflection requires us to flex the gray muscle between our ears. And just like the other muscles in our bodies, the brain muscle can become stronger with some dedicated effort and focused workouts. Teachers can work on this on their own, and like going to the gym solo, that can be very helpful. However, in order to truly progress as a reflective practitioner, it’s helpful to have workout partners, guides, and some accountability.

Enter the capacity-builders.

Differentiated Instructional Leadership

A capacity-builder is one who is interested in, and supports the development of, the reflective growth of our teachers. They typically fall into one of three categories: administrators, who may or may not also have evaluative responsibilities; coaches, which is a broad term that we use to include instructional coaches, department chairs, mentors, specialists, and any other non-evaluative support position; and colleagues, which typically consists of partner teachers, teammates, and anyone else that’s in the same trench as a given teacher.

In order to support our teachers’ reflective growth, we must engage in a couple of practices on a routine basis:

  1. Set clear goals and expectations. What are we striving for? What is our expectation for growing our reflective muscles, and how will we contextualize that emphasis with the work we’re already doing around curriculum, instruction, and assessment?
  2. Identify the key vocabulary terms that we’ll be using, and define them together. It’s helpful to be speaking the same language and operating off the same playbook, so the more we learn together and calibrate our vocabulary, the better.
  3. Create an environment in which we’re all working interdependently. If we agree to common goals and see each other as resources to help achieve those goals, we’re more likely to work together – and just like they taught us on Sesame Street, two heads are better than one.
  4. Engage in rigorous, regular feedback practices. What’s better than “talking teaching” with a teacher, anyway? And that’s all feedback really is: a conversation that’s designed to elicit some sort of shifted thinking that drives instructional modifications to better meet students’ needs.
  5. Provide support via instructional coaching. This doesn’t require a separate position as a line-item in the school or district budget, though that’s certainly helpful. We can all coach each other, providing models and job-embedded professional development opportunities that enriches the teaching and learning practices in the school.

The key to success is this: Differentiation. We’ve all at least heard of differentiated instruction, which is an omnipresent term that means we’re going to do whatever we can to meet each individual students’ needs – and we must do the same with our adults. By providing the right support, feedback, coaching, and partnerships to each individual teacher at the right moments, matching their needs and readiness, we’ll be well on our way to creating a Culture of Reflective Practice…where self-reflection oozes out of every nook and cranny and teachers are able to think their way to success.

For instance, depending on the strength of a given teacher’s reflective muscles, they may need specific, directive feedback (Do this), guiding questions (What strategy are you planning to use to address that need?), open prompts (What might you do differently if you could teach that lesson again?), or challenges (How might you include your colleagues in this action research project?). Using another tool, the Continuum of Self-Reflection (originally published in Building Teachers’ Capacity for Success – 2008, and updated in Creating a Culture of Reflective Practice – 2017), gives capacity-builders dozens of options for providing the right support to meet their teachers’ needs.

Lead On!

Capacity-building is the essence of leadership. And in schools, it’s of the utmost importance that we dig ourselves out of our offices and build the reflective capacity of the folks in the trenches. The principal is the #2 factor impacting student achievement. Actually, let’s rephrase that: the principal CAN BE the #2 determinant of student success. That’s if we’re engaged in the work that truly emphasizes learning and teaching: instructional leadership.

When we build the reflective capacity of our teachers, success follows. Education is a business of change – changing curriculum, materials, content, class rosters, priorities, initiatives, research, you name it – and what better way to manage change in a positive, productive way than to reflect on how those changes fit into the big scheme of things? Reflective teachers incorporate the learning context into all their actions, ensuring students’ needs are met at every turn. With focus and a handful of impactful strategies, we can influence how our teachers think about their work – and the more reflective they are, the more effective they are.

And as principals, that’s our purpose.

Pete Hall will be the keynote speaker at AWSA's 2017 Elementary Principals Convention. This year's convention will take place October 11-13 at the KI Center in Green Bay

Pete Hall is a former school principal and current professional-development agent, working with schools, districts, leadership teams, and principals all across the globe. For more information about him go to www.educationhall.com, email him at [email protected], or follow him on Twitter at @EducationHall. 

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