Dear Jeff,
I would like to suggest a program that the Lookstein Principals' Center of Bar Ilan University effectively employed over a number of years and with which I was directly involved. The concept was to teach administrators the principles of Active Research and thereby turn as many of the staff members in a school as possible into active researchers. Essentially, the project involved identifying some area in need of improvement in the school, creating a project that would appear to be able to postively affect it, research whether there have been appreciable results that met the project's goal, and then continue to tweak and research the issue over either a year, several years, etc.
The benefits of such an approach are manifold, with some of them being: a) Staff will be required to be reflective about their practice in order to identify what area(s) could use enhancement; b) Creativity and research will be needed in order to compose a project that will possibly meet such a need; c) the project may be of interest to a graduate school of education who could work collaboratively with the school; d) how to evaluate the results and effects of such a project will again involve out-of-the-box thinking; e) assuming that the project affects the entire school community, the vary constituents can be involved in the process, leading to greater buy-in to the school's ideals, commitments and processes; f) teachers will be empowered to not only assess their own practice, but attain an overall feel for the school's educational program and objectives.
I believe that several of the projects for which I served as a mentor continue to be ongoing several years out, so such an approach will not only generate additional projects, but also can effect long-lasting positive change in the school environment.
Naturally this is labor-intensive and requires significant collaboration. But in light of Jon Levinson's recommendations based upon PD research, I think that such an investment of time, effort and resources is well-worth it.
Best wishes,
Yaakov Bieler
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2015 04:28PM by mlb.
