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Topic:

Identifying and implementation of programs practices

Essay Instructions:
Final Response to Challenge C Please review Challenge C before creating your Final Response. Your Final Response may build on ideas you generated in your Initial Response and/or in the Discussion. It also may be developed from ideas suggested by your colleagues. The Case The superintendent has been looking forward to the upcoming school board meeting because the agenda for the meeting includes a discussion about recent student achievement data in mathematics and literacy and her report on the recent principal retreats. During the meeting, the board reviews the student performance data and, based on this review, decides to focus district efforts on initiatives to improve student achievement in literacy and mathematics. The superintendent concurs with the decision, and as part of her report, she explains how the principals' newly shared understanding of the relationships among continuous school improvement, change, and organizational learning could contribute directly to the district's new initiatives. After the board hears her report, they promise to support the schools in their efforts to implement and sustain continuous school improvement. You are hopeful that good things can happen given the strong leadership from the central office; new resources pledged by local foundations and businesses; pent up commitment to improve student performance; and research, discussion, and activities that have occurred around the desirability of change and continuous school improvement. When you think about your own school, you are reminded—f rom your reading and conversations with more experienced colleagues—that how you go about implementing continuous school improvement will affect, among other things, the motivation, ability, and willingness of your teachers and staff to sustain improvement efforts over time. You recognize, for example, that some new programs may not work as well for some students as for others; some teachers may become weary of the extra pressure to achieve high goals not yet reached; key staff may move to other schools or otherwise leave; the proportion of students with special needs may continue to increase; and potential opponents of the new initiatives, who have until now remained silent, may voice objections. The Challenge In order to enhance the prospects for effectively implementing and sustaining continuous school improvement related to the new initiatives in literacy and mathematics, you decide to hold a series of meetings with your teachers and staff to share what you have learned about continuous school improvement, change, and organizational learning. Your goal is to then enlist their help in brainstorming a list of promising structures and practices for implementing and sustaining continuous school improvement—in this case, related to the district's literacy and mathematics initiatives. In addition, you want to have the group consider the values and dispositions that empower people to engage in the challenging work of continuous school improvement. Finally, you want them to identify challenges that might arise as the school implements and strives to sustain continuous school improvement efforts and discuss how such challenges might be addressed. To inform and stimulate your staff's thinking and inspire group participation, you realize that in addition to sharing what you have learned, you will need to provide some examples as well as present some research-based information on these topics. To organize your own knowledge and thinking and to guide your facilitation of the meeting, you decide to develop a set of notes for yourself. In your Final Response to Challenge C, you will create a set of notes in which you: Identify at least four promising structures and practices for implementing and sustaining continuous school improvement and explain how they are interrelated—that is, how they are mutually reinforcing Describe four or more potential challenges to implementing and sustaining continuous school improvement and explain how they might be addressed Describe at least four values, beliefs, and dispositions that empower school leaders, faculty, and staff to engage effectively in the challenging work of continuous school improvement, and explain what school leaders can do to nurture and support these values, beliefs, and dispositions
Essay Sample Content Preview:
RESEARCH PAPER Name Institution Affiliation Course Date of Submission Research Paper Efforts to improve schools are usually focused on identifying and implementation of programs practices and structures that enhance student learning. School reforms are all about putting in place certain policies and programs that aid in the continuous school improvement efforts. One of those structures and capacities for building and reinforcing continuous school improvement is: an environment that enhances energy flow among staff. Leaders and staff within a school work collectively in a way that intensifies the overall energy within the school. They engage productively in creating and fostering a school their focus being the learning of the students. However, what makes up that energy is rarely identified; the energy embodies an elaborate mix of interactions: - The skills, experience and enthusiasm of staff members - The skills, experience and enthusiasm that community members, students and parents bring to the school - The available resources for the schools to operate; these resources include those to do with human, financial and informational levels of facilitation. They also include the external human resources like consultants and other experts (Walters et al., 2009). It should be noted that energy flow is bolstered by the quality and quantity of interactions among members of the staff, the community, the parents and students, and equally also in the way that resources within the school are employed. The other structure and practice for implementing and sustaining continuous school improvement is: an environment that operates under a collective purpose. It is incumbent upon staff members within a school to develop and sustain a common purpose for the school organization and that purpose should be anchored in a keen understanding of the strengths as well as needs of the students. For there to be a collective purpose, there staff members ought to have a common vision for the school. The staffs need to create a common language and shared experiences, they also need to come up with ways of interacting which allows continual reflection on the way they are achieving their purpose, and which provides for mid-course corrections. This way the staff will be able to develop confidence in each other and internalize the shared vision, core values and beliefs (Walters et, al. 2004). Another promising practice that reinforces continuous school improvement is: the strengthening of the evolving culture. There must be a culture where staff can easily express the narrative of what the core in the culture of the school is. This is particularly important at the time the school is undergoing the change. When staff and other stakeholders are able to talk about the school culture, it has the potency of bolstering the shared belief on what is important for the students and also on what the school can be able to attain. Such discussions make the building and sharing of a school identity a reality. The fourth structure that I wish to point out is those structures that decentralize decision making. It is important to increase the number of groups tasked with the implementation of decision; this can increase the opportunities for identifying practices that are effective in the continuous school improvement. These four structures and practices...
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