Learning to Lead Sustainable School Networks in Chile

• In Event: 61.043 - Structured Poster Session: The Role of School Leadership for Sustainable Professional Learning Networks

Abstract

Objectives
Recent educational reforms in Chile promote collaboration between schools as a principle to foster systemic improvement. This implies a cultural change, since competition has been a prominent feature of the school system for decades. To address this change, the Ministry of Education has launched a strategy of School Improvement Networks, seeking to strengthen collaboration between public school leaders (principals and curriculum coordinators). School networks facilitate collaboration and learning by setting a clear and ambitious shared purpose, using disciplined inquiry to improve their practice, and having leadership capacity to sustain these processes. This paper reports the experience of a training program to develop leadership capacities in principals and curriculum coordinators, in order to support the Ministry’s network strategy.
Perspective and methods
The “systemic leadership” program, implemented in 2016 with 59 school leaders from two regions in Chile, was evaluated through participants’ self-evaluations, and data collected six months after it finished using a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. Descriptive statistics and qualitative content analysis were employed to identify participants’ key learnings.

Results
Results indicate that systemic leaders developed knowledge and skills to facilitate collaboration and learning, but were in need of practical tools to organize their networks. Furthermore they reported new capacity to collectively set the purpose, distribute leadership and organize teamwork in their networks, acknowledging that these can also be useful approaches to promote collaboration and learning in their schools.

Scientific or scholarly significance
This paper shows how networks of schools subject to required cultural change can be supported in working on systemic improvement, including the relation between both intra- and inter-school learning.

Authors

• Álvaro González, Universidad de O'Higgins

• Mauricio Pino-Yancovic, Universidad de Chile, Centro de Investigación Avanzada en Educación (CIAE)

• Luis Ahumada, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso