Making a Difference - Instructional Leadership That Drives Self Reflection Values

Making A Difference aims to equip educators with a framework for providing instructional leadership that ensures culturally responsive instruction. Changing what is taught, how it is taught, and who it is intended for is one of the most effective ways of contributing to a more progressive, equitable, and inclusive society. This requires instructional leaders to mitigate harmful educational practices from prepackaged curricula and teacher evaluation systems. Through specific structures, schools can support teachers to become culturally responsive instructors through formative feedback structures that can transform schools from systems of oppression into systems of opportunity.

List of contents

Contents

Prologue

Preface

Acknowledgments

IntroductionThe Instructional Leader as an Equity Leader

• To whom and what are we most accountable?
• Why leadership is crucial to the conversation
• Why we need culturally responsive instructional supervision now
• How developing empathy can make our communities better
• Learning to stand up to hatred

Part IAddressing the Feedback Loop Problem in US Schools

Chapter 2Shifting Feedback from Hierarchical to Helpful

• Shifting away from plantation practices
• Reexamining the purpose of feedback about instruction
• Utilizing ongoing conversations to cocreate knowledge and promote authentic accountability
• Leveraging relational trust to promote more inclusive instruction

Chapter 3Liberating Ourselves from Prepackaged Systems

• Why moving beyond the checklist is so important
• How templates prevent critical thinking
• Learning to create feedback practices that are immediately useful
• Developing common language and assumptions about learning
• Meeting policy requirements through pedagogies that lead to equitable outcomes

Chapter 4Learning to Engage in a Community of Culturally Responsive Instructors (CCRI)

• Considering the role of data in acts of educational resistance
• Why autonomy is at the heart of inclusive instruction
• How critical colleagues can collaborate for co-liberation
• Sharing learning as a form of love across a school culture
• Questioning power structures to address systemic inequity
• The challenges of moving forward with the work

Part IIDeveloping a Team of Inclusive Instructional Leaders

Chapter 5Being Intentional about Representation

• Why representation matters
• Shifting away from racial and sexual contracts
• Other sociocultural identities to consider
• Determining how 'instructional success' is measured
• The goal is not to maintain comfortableness
• Being clear about steps for success

Chapter 6Working Together to Determine What Culturally Responsive Instructional Supervision Looks Like

• Determining goals for walkthroughs
• What does equity data look like in a walkthrough?
• How ongoing instructional reflections inform practice
• The process of examining walkthrough data
• Using data to drive professional development efforts

Chapter 7Establishing A Plan of Action When Instruction is Not Inclusive

• Defining what teaching looks like that lacks cultural responsiveness
• Determining feedback and support structures to addresses problematic pedagogies
• Further developing reflective and inclusive instruction
• Seeing criticality as a tool for emancipation
• Developing the scaffolding for transformation

Part III Supporting Ongoing Growth and Development of Culturally Responsive Instruction

Chapter 8Growth Starts with the Self

• Using agency to address the purpose of education
• Owning content expertise
• Learning to address the needs of society over our own comfort
• Knowing pedagogical look-fors when reflecting on teaching

Chapter 9Learning to Grow with Critical Colleagues

• How critical colleagues help to better understand the self and others
• Topics of discussion for critical colleague groups
• Being purposeful with discussions to drive difficult growth edges
• Using every group conversation as an opportunity to discuss equity

Chapter 10Using Peer-Led Classroom Observations to Drive Equitable Outcomes

• How peer walkthroughs can help calibrate building-wide expectations
• Using peer feedback to inform inquiry cycles
• Transforming feedback to deconstruct systems of inequity
• Allowing instructional improvement efforts to evolved over time for more equitable outcomes

ConclusionSignaling a Shift in Where We Must Go

• Resisting technorational approaches to improving instruction
• Using supervision to support a system of opportunity
• Honoring 'getting into good trouble'
• A closing note to practitioner

About the author

Ian M. Mette is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership where he focuses his interests on the development of culturally responsive instructional supervision and developing equity-minded school leaders in predominantly White rural spaces. Specifically, his work targets closing the gap between theory and practice to inform and support equitable school improvement efforts for all students
Dwayne Ray Cormier is an Assistant Professor and entrepreneur specializing in instructional supervision and asset-based pedagogies. His research focuses on developing unplugged and plugged andrological, pedagogical, and supervision tools that assess and codify educators' sociocultural gaps and examine their impact on cultural competence, teacher-student relationships, educational opportunity gaps, and school culture.
Yanira Oliveras-Ortiz is an Associate Professor of Curriculum & Instruction with a specialization on instructional supervision and school improvement. She had led the national implementation of instructional supervision in Belize. Through her work in Belize, she has engaged teacher preparation programs in the development of action plans to move from evaluation to instructional supervision, and from teacher-centered to student-centered instruction.

Product details

• Authors: Dwayne Ray Cormier, Ian M Mette, Ian M Cormier Mette, Ian M. Mette, Ian M. Cormier Mette, Yanira Oliveras, Yanira Oliveras-Oriz
• Publisher: Rowman and Littlefield
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.11.2023
• EAN: 9781475872255
• ISBN: 978-1-4758-7225-5
• No. of pages: 152
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Education > Special education; EDUCATION / Inclusive Education, EDUCATION / Leadership, Educational strategies & policy, Inclusive education / mainstreaming, Educational strategies & policy: Inclusion, EDUCATION / Teaching / Methods & Strategies, Education;Equity;Inclusion;Leadership;Teaching Methods