week 5blog

 Leadership Role of the School Administrator in Curriculum and Instruction 
FEB 12th, 2019

This article explores the relationship between school leadership and curriculum and teaching. 
In order to improve the quality of school teaching, school administrators must deal with the relationship between teaching and research and guide teachers to conduct teaching research. The improvement of teaching level and the reform of teaching methods often come from teaching research. The teaching of management course with modern management thought and management mode and the guiding of curriculum management with modern education thought are the concentrated embodiment of managers'leadership in school management and the guidance of the planning and development of schools with advanced education thought. We should give full play to the leadership role of leaders in curriculum management. The principal's unique school-running idea, mode of thinking and mode of behavior often determine the development of school characteristics. The educational leader also bears  the responsibility of seeing that  the school-wide educational planning is carried on.(p205)The implementation and development of the curriculum has witnessed the leadership of the principal. The development, integration and utilization of tangible and intangible curriculum resources and the development of curriculum system suitable for schools are the concentrated reflection of curriculum leadership of school administrators.
To promote the implementation of the curriculum, we must understand the teaching objectives of the curriculum. In the practice of curriculum reform, we should improve the curriculum system and construct a new equal and interactive teacher-student relationship that adapts to the teaching methods and learning methods of the curriculum.Just like the article said 'He needs to understand, for example, what significant educational objectives for our times are and how they may be derived.'(p201)
The administrator needs not only to recognize the importance of sequence but to know possible methods of organization to achieve sequence.(p203) In my opinion, when organizing and implementing educational and teaching tasks, school leaders are not only teachers, but also organizers and undertakers of educational and teaching tasks. On the one hand, leaders should establish the concept of lifelong learning, arm their minds with advanced educational and teaching concepts, constantly renew educational concepts, and guide educational cadres and teachers to renew educational concepts. On the other hand, school leaders should first do a good job of teachers, take the lead in completing the task of education and teaching, and deal with the relationship between guidance and practice. Establish scientific development concept, promote school science, rapid development.
At the same time, as curriculum leaders, they should not only understand the importance of teachers'professional development, but also understand the process of teachers' professional development. At different stages, they should give teachers'attention and support, create a multi-dimensional growth space, and promote teachers' sustainable professional development. School administrators should strive to build a platform for teachers'growth, formulate scientific plans for teachers' professional development, and organically integrate the vision of school development with the direction of teachers'personal development and development characteristics. Establish a mechanism conducive to teachers'professional development; cultivate a school culture conducive to teachers' open learning and communication; open up school-based research channels to create a good research atmosphere; establish and improve school curriculum development organizations to form school-based courses with school characteristics; create a favorable environment and conditions for teachers'professional growth.
Education is science and there are objective laws to follow. Scientific educational methods and methods should be applied according to students'age characteristics and cognitive level. It is an important task for school leaders to strive to form curriculum characteristics with personality according to the development process, cultural background, resources inside and outside the school and the conditions of running the school.
In short, the leadership of school administrators is the decisive force in school development and reform, and plays a decisive role in school decision-making and guidance. Leadership does not come from the principal himself, it comes from practice. Without the practice of school management, the leadership of school principals will not affect and play a role, nor will it affect the development of schools.The improvement of curriculum adult-and instruction is the most important task of the school administrator.(p209)Administrator have the responsibility and obligation to maximize the development of schools and students.

Comments

  1. AnonymousFebruary 14, 2019 at 12:04 PM

    Thank you for your post!

    Something you wrote, " school leaders should first do a good job of teachers," resonated with me. I believe that, and it is something I was thinking about as I read this chapter by Tyler.

    How can we ensure that the people who become leaders have experience as excellent pedagogues? And how do we keep them connected to the classroom? I'm feeling the tension of this myself because I've recently moved from the classroom into an administrative role, and it's easy to start to see things more as an administrator. Yet I think you're correct when you write that admins must still be teachers. They must still apply that idea of constant learning and coaching, even though their roles have changed.

    Do we do this by making sure that admins still have a hand in the classroom? And what would that look like for scheduling and work load? Or is there another way we can do this? And is this even the right thing to do?

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousFebruary 14, 2019 at 2:02 PM

    Thanks for your post.

    I agree with what you mentioned that "Without the practice of school management, the leadership of school principals will not affect and play a role, nor will it affect the development of schools". I think the leadership should be based on the specific school context, but not be separate with practice. From my understanding, school administrators ought to have a broad vision to manage and develop the schools, and they are required to think about students' abilities and development as classroom teachers as well. However, is it necessary for school administrators to be teachers at the same time? Is it the only way for them to know their students to improve the quality of school teaching?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

W3 Foundations of Curriculum Development—Developing a Curricular Vision for Teaching

        Just as this article said at the very beginning, the prospective teacher will quickly find out the real mysterious of teaching were hidden to them as children when they enter the field of teaching. When I was at primary school,  I though that teacher is an easy job and  teaching is just to look through the knowledge of the book. However, as age goes on and after entering the field of education, I realized that teaching is big issue which need to be explored consistently. Just like Aristotle said, “the more you know, the more you know you don't know.”         This article provides illustrations of teaching that is mindful of curricular and social purpose in elementary and secondary schools, and discussed how teachers can develop a curricular vision and the skills needed for curriculum vision and the skills needed for curriculum planning and curriculum inquiry, the role of technology and teacher teacher education approaches. ...
Read more

Week 8- Is Your Lesson a Grecian Urn?

I was particularly interested in the article called “Is Your Lesson a Grecian Urn?” and wanted to write about that this week. First, I’ll define what the author calls a Grecian urn lesson: “projects that look creative, that the teacher might describe as hands-on learning, interdisciplinary teaching, project-based instruction, or the integration of arts and tech, but that nonetheless lack any substantial learning for students” (Gonazelez, 2016). Gonazelez points out a lesson where a teacher has students create their own urns in response to studying about Ancient Greeks. She explains that the project simply keeps students busy while it teaches them very little about the content. This type of lesson perfectly captures a lot of my own experiences as a student, particularly in elementary and middle school. I was able to relate to so many of her examples of Grecian urn lessons, like completing a word search, spending way too much time coloring, changing fonts on a document for an hour, or...
Read more

WEEK 10

This article was probably one of the best ones for me. It talks about the hidden politics that was and still can be found in most curriculums. There has been a movement to fight against anti-racism for approximately 100+ years. The most significant piece being Brown v Board (1954), this court case leading to the desegregation of schools throughout the US. Yes, it is instrumental however we see little to no work being done to reform people’s belief or the schools that were conditioning students of color to feel inferior to their white counterparts. Zimmerman, a historian who advocates for fighting against prejudice mentions; “I do not say that a change in our anti-negro textbook will kill prejudice, but I am convinced it is a major step in that direction.” (Zimmerman, 2002) This quote is important because it tells us that there were people who knew that the government needed to take steps. The government was putting a treating a huge problem instead of working towards a cure. Our govern...
Read more