Once a new curriculum is disseminated, a principal, academic masters and heads of the departments are required to help its interpretation for teachers to successfully implement the documented ideas.
How do they do it?
are there some limitations?
How do teachers receive guidance/orders from these administrators?
Noel:
We had such a change in our curriculum in adding the one-to-one laptops in secondary schools. Usually such innovations come with set criteria for monitoring and evaluation, which is partly what the Principal does to ensure successful implementation. The attached gives an idea of how this can be done through an evaluation case study.
Best regards,
Debra
Article Evaluation of a Government ICT Programme for Secondary Schoo...
Hi
if you have a look at the work of Michel Fullan entitled ' The new meaning of educational change, will help you to get some insights regarding the topic.
Facilitator in school development, reinforce all school sectors to make cooperatively learning environments.
Hi,
In Malaysia, the administrators will usually, call for a quick meeting to disseminate the new curriculum and hand out the hard copies. Then after, from time to time, they usually gauge the implementation through interviews with teachers and students plus discussions but challenges are there as to the initial hiccups of implementation as some teachers (old school of thought) are very rigid with the older curriculum and prefer to adhere to it. These group of teachers who are not able to accept change can pose as an obstacle to implement documented policies. Hence, the administrators find this a challenge in the long run.
Hi Noel, i think principals, Academic masters and heads of different department as management team of school their main role is to make sure that such curriculum is well implemented in their schools. To ensure that teachers are really adherence to those changes by changing their ways of teaching. For stance, in Tanzania we are in the move of involving students in the whole process of learning (ie Learner-centered approach) right from the early years to the higher learning institutions. So the management part has the role of ensuring that teachers are really using teaching methodologies which will enable students to be part of the whole teaching and learning process.
Additionally, some changes requires money, so the role of principals is to ensure that there is enough budget to accommodate such changes.
Principals' role in this context has widely been studied and reported in Literature related to "Principal Leadership," for example, the transformational leadership and instructional leadership. The sub-field of Educational Administration and Management would be the best area for you to find relevant research
At a time when educational leadership is a primary focus of education reform, schools of education have come under considerable scrutiny. Some observers have expressed serious reservations about whether these institutions are capable of reengineering their leadership leadership preparation programs to effectively educate aspiring principals and superintendents to lead high-performing schools. (1)
In recent years, however, many graduate schools of education across the country have revamped their programs in an effort to set a course for changing the field of leadership education. The innovations are rooted in five areas: 1) a reinterpretation of leadership as pivotal for improving teaching and learning; 2) new insights into how program content, pedagogy, and field-based learning experiences can be designed to be more powerful means of preparing leaders; 3) the redesign of the doctorate as an intensive midcareer professional development activity; 4) the use of partnerships for richer, more extensive program design opportunities; and 5) a commitment to continuous improvement. Unfortunately, such innovations have gone largely unnoticed, particularly outside the field's professional circles. In this article I explore these areas of innovation and consider how well they are likely to meet the current need for high-performing leaders for our schools.
The choice of the term "enforcement" is interesting. I would encourage you to look carefully into the enactment literature. On this topic, I would HIGHLY recommend Ball's work, especially http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0268093022000043065 (on performativity) and also (extremely useful) "How schools do policy" by Ball, Maguire & Braun (2012) http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16486253-how-schools-do-policy
Ball and his colleagues have probably done one of the most in-depth studies on policy enactment in school contexts, which I think is at the heart of your question.
Following Roles of the principal in New Curricula
1.Allocate the Resources and Also Arrangement for the teacher Training
2.Arrange the Meetings discuss issues with Teacher's and try to solve their problems
The role of the director at the school before the implementation of new curriculum reform in the curriculum , have to do with :
- Knowledge and comprehensive analysis of the new reforms
- Transfer to your computer for the corresponding study
- Acceptance and criticism of the new texts
- Information to faculty , parents and the rest of the school community involved .
- Implementation of the reform with a suitable timetable.
El papel del director en la escuela ante la aplicación de nuevas reformas curriculares en los planes de estudio, tienen que ver con:
- El conocimiento y análisis comprensivo de las nuevas reformas
- Transmisión a su equipo para el estudio correspondiente
- Aceptación y crítica de los nuevos textos
- Información al claustro de profesores, padres de familia y resto de la comunidad escolar implicada.
- Aplicación de la reforma con un calendario adecuado
Roles of the School Principal are:
The role of a principal in implementing new curricular includes but not limited to the following;
- Ensure that all teaching staff are aware and trained in the new curriculum reforms.
- The incumbent principal also needs to acquire in-depth understanding of the new curriculum.
- Ensure that teaching , learning and assessment are carried out according to the new reforms.
- Ensure that LTSM(Learning ,teaching and support materials) are readily available for the smooth transitioning into the new curriculum.
The limitations in the implementation of curriculum reforms and new curricula have to do on many occasions with :
- The resistance that is set to change. Long dedication to the new planning.
- The bureaucracy that hinder new processes Information and training for teachers who have to implement
Las limitaciones en la implantación de reformas curriculares y en los nuevos planes de estudio, tienen que ver en muchas ocasiones con:
- La resistencia que se establece al cambio.
La dedicación de mucho tiempo a la nueva planificación.
- Los trámites burocráticos que entorpecen los nuevos procesos-
- La información y la formación al profesorado que lo ha de implantar...
In this circumstance I think that the principle needs to be certain the reforms really do make sense for all teachers. That is, is the reform truly an improvement for that discipline, teacher's personality, and students. Once they do, then the principle needs to offer convincing evidence, time and other resources to support the faculty. My experience is that adequate resources of time and experience are rarely offered, because they don't show up on the administrative balance sheet.
One of the most important roles a principal can take is to be patient with innovations which percolate up from the ranks, rather than applying the latest academic fad. The quest for uniformity and making education easy to manage are enticing red herrings in education.
The school principal is a leader in the school and is responsible for creating a safe environment of cooperation and collaboration in the process of curriculum change. As most respondents have already said, there is a need for the whole school to understand the change principles and the process of its implementation. This means everybody must be involved in general open discussion about how best it can happen in the particular school context. Effective change in schools relies on a sense of working together, acknowledging other positions and not blindly following the leader.Establishing a general direction and then breaking it down into key modules with clear indicators would be a good way to proceed, once everybody is clear about the direction and has had a chance to voice concerns.
It depends on the country. For example in Greece the government and the Ministry of Education introduce each time the new or reform curriculum. The principal of the school and /or the teachers have nothing to do, just strictly to follow it. I mean they have no right to change it or to adapt to the local community needs.
Curricular reforms must be balanced with good practice, like proper discipline, high teacher expectations training etc.
The role of the Principal should be that of working with the department heads and curricular specialists in the division- this should not be a top down edict but a mutual work in progress- the Principal needs to make sure that all of the teachers involved are in on the process and adoption of what changes are being made and afforded any and all training to make the transition as painless as possible
I am particularly impressed with Judith Gill's suggestion the importance of a "safe environment," and the principal's role in creating that. Books like Crucial Conversations, and Leaders Eat Last, highlight the importance of making it safe for participants.
The principals should develop structures (subject committees,staff development teams & development support groups) to support teachers in their teaching.Furthermore, they should develop the professional learning communities in their schools to improve the teaching and learning focusing on subject and teaching methodology.
Andrew just mentioned something which resonates with me. Meaning. Any reform will probably fail to take root until it has meaning to the faculty. I assume that Andrew's managing meaning represents the interaction which the principal has which creates common meaning to the reforms which has value to the teachers.
Hum, it difficult to enforce school principal to enforce new curriculum because they might first need to read and believe in it first which may take time before they accept it back
Adeniyi, If I understand Andrews "managing meaning" correctly, he means that a principal needs to help all of the faculty to understand what the reform requires (have common meaning) and see value (find meaning) in the reform. If each faculty understands the reform, and sees value in it, enforcement is not such an issue.
The difficulty is that we all construe meaning differently, and changing our interpretations is very, very difficult, especially when we think ours is correct.
The question you are presenting is concerned with implementing an educational change. The profession has been subjected to waves of reform initiatives for the past two decades or so. Moffett (2000) contends that the history of reform has proven to be counterproductive. Elmore (2007) agrees that, despite the amount of money and effort poured into reform efforts, sustainability has been elusive. Historically, teachers have become numb to the panoply of change initiatives (Hargreaves, 2005).
So, the effort and attention that implementation receives is premature, should the aim be to build a sustainable change. Fullan (2007) has studied the question of why sustaining change has been so elusive. Fullan concludes that efforts to institute enduring change have lacked the understanding of how change is received. There are three important stages leading to moving beyond a simple short term change. Fullan has indicated that there has been a rush to implement an idea, yet a critical step has been missing.
Initiating change, typically, has been driven by a top-down mandate. The typical approach, thus, is already lacking a necessary ingredient. Top-down mandates a missing commitment and ownership by the very members who will be accountable for implementing the initiative. Missing this stage shows the staff that input is not significant.
The manner in which a change effort proceeds to the stage of implementing determines how well the initiative will progress. Absenting a strong commitment and ownership by the staff affected, the proposed reform effort will lack the critical mass necessary to be sustained long term.
So, my question is how involved have the players been from the onset? If the change being installed lacks the strength of initial stage, efforts to implement any change can take any direction leadership will hand down.
Fullan, M. (2007). The new meaning of educational change (4th ed.). New York: Teachers College Press.
Hargreaves, A. (2005). Educational change takes ages: Life, career, and generational factors on teachers' emotional responses to educational change. Teacher & Teacher Education, 21, 967-983.
Moffett, C.A. (2000). Sustaining change: The answers are blowing in the wind. Educational Leadership, 57(7). 35-38.
Dear Noel,
We have no inspectors in our country. But, it is quite often you find teachers work together in developing their teaching approaches, including developing their own materials. We do have also in-service education organizations, and it is as well a place for meeting and change ideas.
Best regards,
George
Dear Edward Meidhof,
I concur with you and your literature that if changes and innovation do not engage those at the grassroots levels, who specifically are the implementers at the end, implementation process might not be successful. Marsh and Stafford (1988) have long stated that, if teachers perceive lack of ownership, either of the flowing can occur: deleting it entirely in their minds; giving it minimal time; not teaching in a manner intended; and even developing less enthusiasm regarding its impact (p.101).
However, in curriculum development, whether centralized or decentralized a process is, it a certain level of representation occurs especially when all the views and opinion are organized into a single document, a curriculum. This being the case, a possibility some views and opinions are left out of the final document is there. Probably, this is why toward the end, there are leaders within a school who offer a site-based curriculum management to ensure that teachers are operating within an intended track. It is at this point I am asking: How do they do it? are there some limitations? are there evidences that teachers are following advice and guidance offered by their leaders within their schools?
A site based approach to initiating a reform requires a common understanding of the aims and substance of the initiative. It is at this point that the leader must present themselves the model. It becomes incumbent upon the leader remember what teaching entails and be in constant contact with the cohort to ensure fidelity of the reform. Yes, the leader must act in ways in which he conducts informal summative assessments of his teaching staff. The leader must seriously embrace feedback in this endeavor. Collaboration is a continuum, and an ends to a mean. Lacking this step leaves open the possibility of diminishing the fidelity of the intended reform initiative. One only need to look at the massive whole school reform initiatives that have failed. The underlying issue was lack of continued collaboration and sufficient role models from leadership.
The principal is the key to both initiating and institutionalizing effective curriculum reform. In the absence of her leadership, there is great "curriculum drift" that occurs where teachers return to the familiar. In order for ongoing innovation to work, the principal must create a system of supervision where curriculum innovations are monitored weekly in each teacher's classroom. In addition, the principal should meet on a quarterly basis with each teacher to discuss what innovations are being planned and how they will be differentiated for both high end learners and for struggling learners. The principal then can see if and how the curriculum is being implemented as discussed in the one-to-one conferences and in best practice. Moreover, the use of a checklist of behaviors may guide the principals in observing the new reforms in order to provide a tangible basis for conversation after each observation. Once teachers realize that principals care deeply about their instructional practice on a regular basis, they will begin to be more conscious of their use of materials and strategies that reflect desired practices.
5/26/16
Role of the principal in curriculum reform.
I have been a teacher for 24 years, a principal for 12 years a superintendent for 9 and taught administrative classes at San Jose State University. This response is based on my personal experience.
The principal is heavily involved in any curriculum, more so than any other position in the public school system. (I have never worked at a private school.) He/she is a middle person that must satisfy the board, superintendent, school staff, students, and parents. His/her involvement depends on where the drive for change comes from. The decision to change can come from the state, superintendent, a curriculum committee, the principal himself, or federal government.
I remember one year when I was principal of New Brighton Middle School in California, ADA about 950, when the state mandated change of our reading curriculum from what ever we were doing to “Whole Language.” This order came two weeks, as I remember, before the opening of my middle school for the year. Nobody knew what Whole Languages was or where to find out the actual facts about what it was.
The principal is the key person in successful reform. It is a multi-facetted process that varies depending on how the decision to reform is made. It is best when the principal is involved in the decision. The decision that involves the principal varies from his/her own choice made from determining need through research, a group decision like from a district curriculum committee, or a staff request to adopt a new curriculum. The worst reason for the principal, comes from the top down order where the principal has no choice but is told that it must be done. This is especially difficult if the staff has not been involved with the decision or determining the need.
Knowing staff attitude toward change, for whatever reason, determines the approach that the principal must take when making a change. Staffs are mostly sour to change these days, especially top down. Approach to curriculum change and methods of teaching are often seen as fads by the staff. For instance, Dr. Art Costa says that he, “…has been in education so long that it is his 5th Back To Basics movement since he started teaching.”
No matter what reason, the principal must always determine the following if he or she is to be successful:
- Understanding and being fluent in the new curriculum,
- Determining the need or reason for change at his/her school or district,
- Understanding the mood of the staff and approach to take to develop cooperation with process,
- Determining what the staff needs to know in order to make the change,
- How the change will be implemented and explained to the parents, (explain New Math to parents who have to help their children with homework),
- What direction should evaluation of the change after it is implemented.
(The above list is not in any particular order.)
Many ideas to help the principal work with the staff in making change are included in my book published by Corwin Press:
Schumaker, David R. and Sommers, William A. (2001). Being a Successful Principal, Riding the Wave of Change Without Drowning. Thousand Oaks, California, Corwin Press, Inc.
In Victoria, Australia, school representatives (often parents as well) can hire their own teachers. This means, that the principal and the teachers are able to support and maintain a common philosophy which I believe is essential to the life of a successful school. What curriculum is delivered is often not negotiable yet how curriculum is delivered, when and by whom, is negotiable. When the principal, teachers and the wider community are partners in education, curriculum initiatives are not imposed from above but rather negotiated from within.
I sincerely thank their contributions, their reflections and answers to my question.
5/28/16
I neglected to include a very important step in my previous answer.
Teacher goals and evaluation: Every year I have the entire teaching staff write goals for the school year. Sometimes these goals are mandatory (I provide the goal) and each teacher must write steps that he/she will follow to achieve that goal throughout the teaching year. As part of the goal an assessment process for determining progress towards meeting the goal must be agreed upon with the teacher and me.
At the end of the year I meet with each teacher and go over their progress and proof of progress towards meeting the goal with him/her. If the teacher is on cycle that year for written evaluations from me then that process provides data for their formal evaluation.
This process provides me with data to demonstrate my school’s progress towards implementing the new curriculum.
Dear David, in Tanzania, we have what we call OPEN APPRAISAL SYSTEM (OPRAS) for teachers. It sounds similar to this concluding point of yours. At the beginning, teachers are asked to fill the forms specifying objectives, how they are going to accomplish and what they need to make it successful. And this is done together between a principal and a teacher. However, in most cases, the innovation has encountered a failure because of the management's failure to provide resources,
Yet, that idea is also good
Dear Noel
I suggest that you change the word enforcing to implementing. The former verb has strong "military command" connotations. Paul
Dear Noel,
I think that you mean support, and not enforce. In this sense, I do agree with Paul,
Yes, George, I intended to mean support rather than enforce. Thank you
Another area incredibly important for reform to occur is the school community. When parents understand and are on side with the curriculum being proposed, they work with the teachers rather than against them. This means parents need information, consultation and cooperation. They need to be given an active ( rather than token) voice in decisions.All this takes time and a willingness to foster a generative learning community.
Dear Noel,
In my attempt to answer your question related to 'Reform', I didn't try to present my views on the so-called 'Educational Reform'. Let me now present some of it, details you can see in different works I published. Among others, the one available of Full text in "Research Gate", entitled "The Third World Mathematics Education is a Hope For The World Mathematics Education Development in the 21st Century”. In the history of Mathematics Education, the work on developing Mathematical Curriculum started in the year 1959 as International movement, and earlier in the USA, has brought to us all the problems we face today in mathematics Education. This attempt of developing mathematics education carried the name “Reform”. At the beginning of 1970s, I started to be skeptical with the use of slogans in working on developing school curricula. In different works, I made stress on the need to not make any change in curriculum before making evaluation to find out strengths and weaknesses of the present curriculum, to keep the strengths and work on facing the weaknesses. Also, I spoke about the need for making a test of any new topic, where the education of teacher has to precede any implementation, even for such pilot one. I do refuse complete changes and use slogans like “Revolution, Modern, Reform”. For me this was and still unscientific way, which make many blind.
Sorry, for bringing this problem for discussion.
Wishing you all success,
George
George, I agree. If a reform is simply a new "home-team" to root for (with a catchy slogan), rather than a meaningful change with significant research behind it, there is little point. Gloria's point that all stakeholders need to be included is just as vital in my book. As a model, I have found with college students that it is so much more effective if I make explicit my expectations. (Which sometimes I had not even consciously been aware of myself)
Ie. "The reason you are studying electric and magnetic fields as pre med majors is not just that you understand current technology, but that you develop and grow your ability to think and reason abstractly. We want to make Piaget proud." Suddenly lots of whining and frustration went away. It was now hard with a purpose.
Dear Ryan,
I do understand your point. Here our colleague Noel is speaking about School curricula. I have passed by myself the time where the word reform was used for the first time in the history of School Curricula Development.
I saw how well-known specialists and great mathematicians like Jean Alexandre Eugène Dieudonné led the work of the so-called reform at the end of the 1950s, and I saw the slow down of school mathematics curricula. I saw also the use of romantic slogan "Back-to Basics" at the beginning of 1980s. At the beginning of the 1970s, I was involved in evaluating High School students understanding of mathematical concepts. As a young person, at that time, I was optimistic about the future of mathematical curricula. To those who not seen this time, I say to them that this was a special time and unique in the history of not only Mathematics Education, but in the history of the whole education, since the last had become a science. It was an outcome of two great historical events and their interplay; the Second World War and the lunching of Sputnik.
I do not want here to go to details, as this is practically impossible. Only, I want to say that the word reform and phrase "Curricula reform" had not been pronounced before the "New Math" era. I wrote different works about this era and the one I mentioned above "The Third World Mathematics Education is a Hope For The World Mathematics Education Development in the 21st Century" is quite well known and gives quite a complete survey of that time.
For me, the work for developing School mathematics education is inevitable, but not a reform or a revolution, but a normal evolution. Even in science, Newton's laws still valid after the theory of relativity.
Thank you for your respond and I wish you the best,
George
(Newton's Laws are now considered an adequate approximation of Einstein's for most non-extreme [boring] situations. But Einstein's contributions have broadened our scope to extend our investigations to extreme realms only imagined before.)
If the curriculum has been recently reformed, the director of the center first of all needs to know what he or she is doing legally, and then make sure that the faculty of his or her faculty knows these reforms. Having training sessions with the presence of experts and the Administration, to highlight the news and clarify any doubts that may arise, can be effective. Subsequently, you will have to make it known and highlight it to students and families.
monitoring the teaching and learning process and also provide material and non materials.
I think the organisation of the teacher professional developmement on the new curriculum should be one of the roles of the school principal as an instructional leader in the school.
The manager's role is to follow up, solve problems and overcome difficulties
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