Provides collaborative, data-based strategies to help educational leaders construct portfolios and link leadership growth to school improvement goals. Includes a CD-ROM with resources, tools, and templates.

In face of increased scrutiny on the preparation of educational leaders, this book provides a much-needed resource, exploring the role and use of authentic performance assessment for evaluating leader readiness and performance. Framed by theory and research on school leader performance assessment, Designing Performance Assessments for School Leader Readiness provides an in-depth description of one fully tested performance assessment called the Performance Assessment for School Leaders (PAL). The authors explore how to assess four components of leadership proficiency -- developing a plan for an area of school improvement, creating a professional learning culture among school staff, supporting individual teacher development, and engaging families and community in improving student learning. This book provides real examples and practical guidance on designing and managing performance assessment for aspiring educational leaders, and how the PAL can be used in regional, state and local contexts.

Here is a comprehensive, step-by-step approach for teaching school leader candidates and school leaders alike to develop a standards-based digital portfolio. The book and accompanying web sites provide three different templates and sample portfolios to choose from. In-depth instructions for the creation of a digital portfolio using TaskStream, LiveText, or PowerPoint are included. In addition, the book includes self-assessments aligned with the ISLLC 2008 standards and with the NETS-A 2009 standards and a technology self-assessment inventory-all of which can be used both for planning and for evaluation purposes. The authors provide a wide array of suggested activities, worksheets, and rubrics and address the use of technology by school administrators and the development and use of the digital portfolio in the curriculum.

Developing Portfolios in Education, Second Edition, walks teachers through the practical aspects of creating portfolios and demonstrates how they can be used as an action research tool for reflection and professional development. Authors Ruth S. Johnson, J. Sabrina Mims-Cox, and Adelaide Doyle-Nichols include checklists, visuals, organizational strategies, and hands-on tools to help readers through every step of developing a professional portfolio. Key Features Emphasizes the role of standards as they apply to portfolio content and evaluation Includes chapter-opening scenarios that offer real-world examples of portfolio development New to This Edition Presents a chapter that links portfolio development to action research Contains updated material on electronic portfolio development Provides new step-by-step descriptions of the portfolio process written specifically for teachers Accompanying Student Resources on CD provide video clips of portfolio presentations, sample electronic portfolios for elementary and secondary teaching credential candidates, PowerPoint slides, tables, templates, and links to Web sites.

"Design is the rendering of intent." What if education leaders approached their work with the perspective of a designer? This new perspective of seeing the world differently is desperately needed in schools and begins with school leadership. Alyssa Gallagher and Kami Thordarson, widely recognized experts on Design Thinking, educational leadership, and innovative strategies, call this new perspective design-inspired leadership—one of the most powerful ways to ignite positive change and address education challenges using the same design and innovation principles that have been so successful in private industry. Design Thinking for School Leaders explores the changing landscape of leadership and offers practical ways to reframe the role of school leader using Design Thinking, one step at a time. Leaders can shift from "accidental designers" to "design-inspired leaders," acting with greater intention and achieving greater impact. You'll learn how viewing the world through a more empathetic lens—a critical first step on the path to becoming a design-inspired leader—can raise your awareness of the uniqueness of your teachers and students and prompt you to question the ways in which they experience your school. Gallagher and Thordarson detail five specific roles to help you identify opportunities for positively impacting students, teachers, districts, parents, and the community: Opportunity Seeker. Shifts from problem solving to problem finding. Experience Architect. Designs and curates learning experiences. Rule Breaker. Challenges the way things are "always" done. Producer. Gets things done and creates rapid learning cycles for teams. Storyteller. Captures the hearts and minds of a community. Full of examples of Design Thinking in action in schools across the country, Design Thinking for School Leaders can help you guide your school to the forefront of the new design + education movement, one that will move traditional education into the modern world and drive the future of learning.

In this second edition of Improving Instruction Through Supervision, Evaluation, and Professional Development we’ve maintained the conceptual framework while updating sections to provide the most recent research on instructional strategies that have the most promise of helping all students learn. Modifications of the law resulting from the reauthorization of the 50-year-old Elementary and Secondary Education Act—Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) (2015)—and their implication for practice are embedded throughout this new edition. Updated data collection tools for classroom observations are also provided. We included a link to a website that contains all the observation tools in electronic format so that observers can have the opportunity to collect data on a tablet or laptop, save the observation data as a PDF file and e-mail those data to the teacher observed. This new edition recognizes the reality that all principals are responsible for supervision, evaluation, and professional development of their teachers—tasks that are neither simple nor without conflict. The primary audience of this text is aspiring and practicing principals. We hope to help them understand both the theory and practice of supervision, evaluation, and professional development. However, observing instruction, collecting data for reflection, and having conversations about teaching, are not the sole provinces of principals. Master teachers, teacher leaders, and teacher colleagues can also benefit from the supervisory sections of the book, especially the chapters on high-quality instruction, improving instruction, and the classroom data collecting tools. The book provides numerous tools specifically designed to collect a variety of data in classrooms to improve instruction. Embedded in each chapter are exercises to apply Theory into Practice by responding to a set of questions posed by the key issues of the chapter. After the explication and illustration of the key concepts and principles of the chapter, actual Instructional Leadership Challenges as described by a successful practicing principal for reflection and analysis.

Like the best-selling first edition, this book is filled with strategies to motivate your staff and maintain a high level of energy at your school. This guide will help all educators approach work every day in an enthusiastic, focused, and positive state of mind. This book will help you: -Motivate your faculty with the Friday Focus--a staff memo that works! -Understand the power of praise and how to best utilize it every day -Make sure staff meetings, teacher evaluation, and daily activities raise the energy level in your school -Maximize the holidays, open house nights, and other special events the make your staff feel special

The quality and success of schools depend upon school leadership. Increasingly, in many countries worldwide, this belief has led to designing and implementing appropriate training and development programs for educational leaders. In an international comparative research project, current school leader training and development programs in fifteen countries across Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America are analyzed, compared, and discussed. Preparing School Leaders for the 21st Century provides insights and constructive ideas, for those planning and carrying out school leadership development in different countries and those conducting research in this field. * Part one in the book reflects on roles, tasks, competences, and conceptions of school leadership, exploring the changing context in which school leaders find themselves, focusing on the new demands on the school leaders and suitable leadership theories. * Part two provides a comparative discussion of the various leadership development models, identifying similarities and differences, based on a set of criteria selected and going beyond a mere juxtaposition. In describing common issues and challenges, it also looks for common solutions, and considers what the different countries might be able to learn from each other, and successfully transfer. * Part three identifies current international trends deduced from these programs. Nineteen recommendations for designing future programs are outlined, and instructive examples of best and promising practice are given. * Part four comprises well structured country reports, which provide information about the education system and school system of those countries, about recent changes and their impact on school leadership, about the overall school leader training and development approach.

A well-prepared new principal is essential to the success of an entire school. So why is it one of the least supported positions in the building? The author addresses the key question of how well new principals are prepared and supported. This is an ideal resource for developing a mentoring or induction program for principals, or for enhancing existing programs. This text offers a close examination of the state of principalship and the needs of new principals, as well as a detailed compilation of principal mentoring and induction programs throughout the United States.