Integrating Improvements: How Principals Leverage Professional Learning to Reshape School Culture

• In Event: 72.013 - Empowering Teachers Through Professional Learning

Abstract

We know little about how principals create and maintain a positive school culture necessary for teacher collaboration and learning, especially in the context of the demands of new, ambitious content standards. This study explores three principals’ distinct actions to improve their school’s culture by strategically leveraging teachers’ learning through an embedded professional development model called Math Labs. We found that these principals developed school-wide routines to integrate and spread teachers’ new knowledge of students, instructional practices, and collaboration to foster a school culture that made practice public; encouraged risk taking; and supported inquiry-oriented instruction, despite many setbacks and challenges.

Authors

• Jessica Rigby, University of Washington

• Stephanie Forman, University of Washington - Seattle

• Rebecca Lewis, University of Washington - Seattle