Eduleadership
Justin Baeder on principal performance & productivity
Physics Envy: Why “Best Practices” Don’t Scale Up Well (and What to Do About It)
Nov 29th
Is education a science, and if so, what kind of science? What implications does this have for instructional leadership?
We typically think of physics as the ideal science – it is consistent, universal, and predictable. An experiment conducted in France can be replicated in Mexico or the United States, and the same results can be expected. If teaching is a science, why isn’t there a similar level of predictability?
This question has enormous implications for both instructional leaders and for policymakers. In the October 2009 issue of Educational Researcher (AERA), Pamela A. Moss, D. C. Phillips, Frederick D. Erickson, Robert E. Floden, Patti A. Lather, and Barbara L. Schneider take up the question of quality in education research in their article “Learning From Our Differences: A Dialogue Across Perspectives on Quality in Education Research” (38: 501-517).
Erickson explains why educational research is constantly (and unfruitfully) compared with natural science research:
The reason social science has suffered from physics envy is the assumption that the social world is basically like the natural world. What makes physics and chemistry work is an assumption of the uniformity of nature—a unit of force, or of heat, or a chemical element is the same in Britain as it is in France or on the face of the moon or in the most far-flung galaxy.
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In the 19th century, as the social sciences were developing (looking over their shoulders at the mathematical physics of Galileo and Newton), there was a serious argument over whether social sciences should model themselves after the natural sciences or try for something else.
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Adherents of what became the meaning-oriented approaches to social inquiry, the hermeneutical approaches described by Moss (2005b), took a position that meaning differences made such a difference between one social setting and another that there was in effect a nonuniformity of nature in social life (as I called it in my 1986 article on qualitative research on teaching; see Erickson, 1986). The notion was that it is local meaning that is causal in social life, and local meaning varies fundamentally (albeit sometimes subtly) from one setting to another. One of the consequences of this notion is deep distrust of the possibility of any generalization at all in social research…
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Close descriptive study of a setting, based on extended participant observation and interviewing, doesn’t try to generalize directly from that setting to others…what happens in Miss Smith’s first grade is fundamentally different as a local ecology (subtly different, despite surface appearances of similarity) from what happens in Miss Jones’s room across the hall in the same school building. (Parents know this—that’s why they fight to get their kids into Miss Smith’s room, away from Miss Jones.) Nor is what happens in Miss Smith’s room quite the same as what happens in Miss Robinson’s room in the next school district. It follows that policy evidence for “scaling up”—trying to get everybody to adopt “best practices”—no matter how well produced technically—just doesn’t tell us what we need to know as educators. Best practices, as specific behaviors, don’t travel intact across the hall in one school building, let alone across the country. (p. 508, emphasis added)
Erickson’s extended argument implies what we, as instructional leaders, have long known: good teaching can’t be measured simply by checklists of “best practices.” Some of our best teachers don’t use the best practice du jour, and some of our most compliant adopters of new best practices are unable to pull everything together to create powerful and coherent learning experiences for students.
This suggests that instructional leadership is going to remain a labor-intensive, and inherently local, endeavor. If we want to improve the quality of teaching and learning in every classroom, we will need to be in every classroom. We will need to know the research, but the research will not save us. It may give us direction and help us understand what is taking place in our classrooms, but it does not (and cannot) provide a recipe for high-quality instruction.
In order to understand what is happening in a classroom and whether it’s good for kids, we need to adopt what Elmore (in Instructional Rounds) calls a descriptive-analytical-predictive approach. Briefly, we must ask three questions:
- What is taking place in this classroom?
- What dynamics does this create?
- What learning do we expect this set of dynamics to cause?
After asking these questions, we can consider what next steps will improve the teaching and learning taking place in the classroom.
How do you see social science research influencing your work as an instructional leader?
Managing To-Do Lists
Nov 23rd
How do you keep track of your tasks? Do you have a to-do list, a random collection of sticky notes, a journal, or a more complex system?
If you keep a to-do list, a common problem is that the list gets too long, and it becomes harder to sort through it. When you reach this point, do you break it into multiple lists, and if so, on the basis of what criteria?
David Allen, in his bestselling book Getting Things Done, recommends collecting tasks on a “next actions” list, and only splitting it into separate project when you actually have multi-step projects.
I find it tempting to subdivide my lists by topic, even when a set of tasks isn’t actually a project – for example, when I have a number of tasks that are all about staff evaluations, but are in fact discrete tasks rather than a coordinated project in the sense that, say, planning a trip is a project. This isn’t a good idea.
The problem with creating too many lists is that they create too many places in which your tasks can hide.
How do you keep your tasks organized and visible, so you can keep track of them and make sure you complete them?
Feedback for Performance: Low-Hanging Fruit
Nov 15th
When giving feedback to improve the performance of those you supervise, where do you start?
If something is painfully wrong, it’s obvious where to focus your attention. If you observe practices that are harmful to students, unethical, unprofessional, or unsafe, it’s easy to know what to address first.
Most of the time, though, we need to provide feedback that isn’t so obvious. When someone is generally doing a good job, how do we decide what to mention, knowing that we have a limited bandwidth for giving constructive feedback?
In this situation, the critical question is “What changes will lead to the largest gains in performance?” More to the point in classroom settings, “What changes in practice will have the greatest benefits for student learning?”
These questions stand in contrast to the typical starting point for feedback, which is the “I noticed…have you thought about…?” line of coaching. Too often, what we notice from a lesson observation is based on a personal interest or pet issue, not the opportunity for improved results.
For example, if I know from informal observations that a teacher’s greatest challenge is adequately preparing for math instruction, I should not allow myself to be distracted by minor areas for improvement that I identify during a formal observation. While it’s important to cite specific evidence when providing feedback, leaders must be purposeful in collecting evidence that will support feedback in the areas of greatest need.
What is the low-hanging fruit for each person you supervise? What feedback would improve their performance the most? Think about it as you prepare for your next observation or discussion.
Feedback for Performance
Nov 1st
If we want to get better results, we can change the working conditions, the inputs, or the actions we take to do the work. As individuals, we often don’t have much control over the inputs or conditions of our work, so the primary point of leverage for improvement is the set of actions we take on the job.
In order to do our work better, we need to get a perspective from someone else on how we’re doing, and how we might do better in the future. This, at the most basic level, is what feedback is.
For an expert supervising a novice, the process of giving feedback is straightforward – observe, describe (with reference to a standard for excellence), celebrate successes, and make suggestions for improvement.
But for principals supervising more experienced staff, the challenges vary. Providing constructive (and not just complimentary) feedback to master teachers is no easy task. Another challenge comes when attempting to provoke thinking to challenge long-established habits or practices.
What challenges do you encounter in giving (or receiving) feedback? What have you found to be effective in improving performance in your organization?
