Professional Readings
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Professional Readings includes reviews of recent publications and highlights of reports on current issues that affect schools. Your contributions are welcome. Send them to principal@osu.edu. Please indicate if we may use your name in the “contributor” credits.
Leading with a Vision for Effective Collaboration
With the increased demands on all those involved in public education, it is important that administrators develop collaboration skills since they are effective tools for improving instruction and the achievement of students.
Although most administrators use the collaborative skill of listening to teachers, students, and parents almost without thinking about it, effective collaboration requires purposeful actions. The first element to ensure effective collaboration is the development of a shared vision to which all of those involved are willing to commit. This shared vision would be based on commons values and beliefs that lead to common goals.
Effective collaboration also includes elements of respect, communication, and recognition. Administrators can respect their teachers through the use of common courtesy, but also by valuing teachers’ time. Be sure that meetings are meaningful and not just a time for announcements. By sending announcements through e-mail and sending meeting agendas ahead of time, meetings can focus on student learning.
Administrators who develop a technique of weekly communication by newsletter, generally through electronic means, can have regular communication with all staff. Making sure that recognitions, such as “congratulations” and “thanks,” occur in each weekly issue is one way of assuring some collaboration.
In their books, The Leadership Challenge and Encouraging the Heart, James Kouzes and Barry Posner focus on five practices that outstanding leaders undertake:
- Challenge the process
- Inspire a shared vision
- Enable others to act
- Model the way
- Encourage the heart
Successful collaboration is greatly enhanced by the use of these five practices. Engaging in these practices almost ensures that administrators will listen to their staff, be prepared to respond, communicate often, be available, and be part of a true Professional Learning Community in which collaboration is an everyday occurrence.
High School Collaboration
The Principal’s Office invites you to revisit an archived article by Doug DeLong, High School Professional Learning Community: It Does Work! If you have run into barriers as you have been developing your professional learning community, possibly you have a “knowing/doing” gap. Read this article review to see what barriers may be hindering your progress. Find it in the Professional Readings section of the Archives.
