Unlearning Certainty: An Inquiry Into the Learning of Instructional Leaders During a Process of Organizational Change

• In Event: 29.022 - Principals' Practices in Different Contexts: Behavior, Organizational Change, and Sensemaking

Abstract

This paper explores the work of a group of instructional leaders who are engaged in an effort to transform the teaching, learning, and broader culture of a former “no excuses” urban charter school in light of its new vision—a vision which marries the goal of reorganizing instruction around the student-centered and process-oriented tenets of constructivism with the goal of reorganizing school culture around the deliberative and relational processes associated with the restorative approach. The paper’s findings shed light on the affordances and dilemmas associated with applying non-authoritarian frameworks to situations of leadership as well as to instances of instructional practice; more broadly, they add to the knowledge-base about the nature of individual learning in the context of organizational change.

Author

• Sarah Melanie Fine, Harvard University