Please discuss the following:* What is the "Essential Knowledge" from your article that the group should understand/ be able to apply to leadership practice?
* How can the school vision become a tool for leaders to assess school effectiveness?
Remember: Each group member must post at least three times: Once for the essential knowledge from their article, once as an answer to the discussion question, and at least once to someone else in the group.
The essential knowledge surrounding this article is that a vision is a necessity in order to be successful as a classroom, school, and district. This article highlighted what a vision is and why it is important. Although there are a lot of different definitions they all revolved around the same major concepts and themes. A vision was identified as “a force which holds meaning for the people of an organization”. Another way vision was put into perspective was “a hunger to see improvement”. This article also referenced what a vision isn’t to help guide educators when creating a school or district vision. The right vision according to this article has 5 components including: attracting commitment and energizing people, creating meaning for workers, establishing a standard of excellence, bridging the present to the future, and transcending the status quo. A truly shared vision inspires people to work toward a common goal and bonds all those involved to a commitment to change. A well written, shared vision provides purpose, meaning, and significance, which empowers and motivates staff and others involved. This article also highlights the teacher’s role in the schools vision and creating their own vision. While school visions look at the whole system, teacher visions focus more on personal actions. However, when the school vision is shared, teacher visions are created with the school vision in mind. Finally, this article discussed the important steps to create a shared vision. The first step being that you need to know your organization. This means you need to know the district and schools existing environment and what it is about. Second you need to involve critical stakeholders. These might consist of business partners, staff, community members, parents, and students. Third, a good vision envisions the future and developing trends. It takes into consideration potential future needs to students and parents, future changes in expectations, and future changes in the community. Finally, after everything you need to put the vision into writing. Overall the article stressed the importance of a school vision in creating a successful atmosphere and learning environment. The article closes with stating, “Vision is not a luxury but a necessity; without it, workers drift in confusion or, worse, act at cross-purposes.”
ReplyDeleteHow can the school vision become a tool for leaders to assess school effectiveness?
ReplyDeleteA school vision is a great tool to help identify the effectiveness of a school and its success. Since a vision consists of common goals that the staff, parents, and students want to achieve, it provides a set of guidelines to strive to meet. A vision puts common goals in writing and it can be referred to on a regular basis and revised to keep the school moving forward. For example: if part of your vision is to create a collaborative relationship throughout the community you can work as a school community to make sure this is happening. You can conduct focus groups, provide surveys, complete inventories to make sure that collaboration is happening. However, if collaboration was not part of your school vision, it might not be valued as much and perhaps your school would not be as successful. Visions help create a picture of what an effective school does to meet the needs of the students and community. If the goals in the vision are being met, then it has the power to make the school more effective, and leaders can assess how they are doing in comparison to the goals set forth in the vision.
I agree with you, Leigh. Using the vision as a set of common goals is critical in making sure everyone is on the same page. By giving the community an easy place to find what the goals are, they too can become involved in making sure the school is effective. I feel that schools can sometimes fall into a very comfortable stage and not really put too much emphasis on the school's vision statement. This is bothersome since in many cases, this may be the only place a community member can see what the school is trying to do to improve itself.
DeleteThe essential knowledge for the "Visions That Blind" article is something that I think most schools are currently trying for. Michael Fullan describes how vision can blind leaders in a couple of ways. The first one is being to focused on a current trend or innovation. This causes the leader to have very narrow thinking. Another way that visions blind is through a very "high profile" type of leader. One who has great presence and turns schools around in a short amount of time may not leave a lasting culture. Everything that was accomplished will soon diminish when the leader leavers. The main thing Fullan described to have a successful school vision is a community of collaboration. Rather than making the vision solely a leader-oriented task, involved the school community to make it "ours." I feel the most important item in this article was how Fullan described the way principals should lead. Principals should not just be instructional leaders, but rather leaders OF instructional leaders.
ReplyDeleteI feel the most important way the school vision can become a tool for leaders to assess school effectiveness is through collaboration. If the school community, as a whole, is involved with this process, I think it holds more credence. Rather than being something that is passed on to teachers and community members, they can look at it as THEIR way of improving the school. It also gives the school an opportunity to really find out what they think is effective. If a vision wants to improve community involvement, yet does not plan any community outreach programs, then they have failed. When schools are able to follow through on the messages they give in the vision statement, it is very reasonable to assume that they are effective.
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DeleteI agree with Leigh on how important collaboration is to establish a clear vision for each school. I found it interesting in Brendan's comments regarding when a leader comes in and turns a school around quickly, then leaves. The leader doesn't leave a lasting impression on the clear vision of the school. It makes me wonder why Loudoun allows principals to move schools so often - stay 3 years in one school then leave for another? If research supports longevity, then maybe Loudoun needs to rethink it's practices. I also agree with Brendan's comment on Leigh's comment regarding making goals easy to find for all in the community. Having met with so many different stakeholders over the last couple weeks, no one (except me) knew where to find our vision statement.
DeleteI think the Visions that Blind article was very informational. I feel like we see leaders jump on trends so much now and it never lasts. The only result is confusion among staff, parents, students, and the community. I know with all the stress of making AMO, some principals feel so stuck and it seems like they are always trying to find a quick fix in a trend to meet some deadline. Although I recognize that administrators are stuck between a rock and a hard place, it is still sad that the value of developing a real community created mission is lessened.
DeleteYes, I would agree. I think that maybe administrators should maybe stay longer to help leave a more lasting impact. It was interesting when I read that in the article. Rather than moving these principals, that appear to be effective, into the Admin. Building and heading some "committee," perhaps we should see if the impact they make is transformational or merely window dressing.
DeleteI would be interesting in data regarding the successfulness of a school once a "good" leader leaves. Are schools more successful when leaders stay longer and builds a better collaboration among the staff.
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ReplyDeleteEssential Knowledge
Delete"The starting point for any change is clear vision". "Vision provides guidance to an organization by articulating what it wishes to attain". It also provides a means for accomplishing it."It has a compelling aspect that serves to inspire, motivate, and engage people", and "inspires commitment". The right vision has five characteristics:
Attracts commitment and energizes people
Creates meaning in workers' lives
Establishes a standard of excellence
Bridges the present to the future, and
Transcends the status quo.
Powerful words! But be sure to make it a shared vision!
"Whether the vision begins with a leader's personal concept or a group's consensual image of a school or district picture of the future, it is important that there be a sense of ownership of the vision".
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ReplyDeleteI would think that developing a shared vision with a group of stakeholders is very powerful. The principal can provide a starting point, but then with guidance can have all stakeholders contribute to the development of a shared vision. With a clear vision, you can then set up goals for the school to achieve - and make then measurable goals. It is extremely important for the vision of the school visible to all stakeholders, to serve as a reminder.
ReplyDeleteI think that the difficulty in developing a shared vision is what holds a lot of administrators back from change. Collaboration of all stakeholders seems to be the key to a successful vision.
DeleteThe article Visions that Blind describes what a vision is, how important it is, and gives guidelines on having a successful vision. Fullan describes the importance of stability within a school. The idea of a principal coming in and changes a schools vision, it becomes successful, then they leave. Stability is needed to have a lasting vision. Principals need to be open minded and allow the teachers and parents to share their ideas. All stakeholders are working towards a successful outcome. The article discusses the 5 parts; attracting commitment and energize, create meaning in workers lives, standard of excellence, bridges the present to the future, and transcends the status quo.. A shared vision is established when all stakeholders are on the same path in reaching the goal. Once a vision is established by the stakeholders the ownership is established.
ReplyDeleteThe article also discussed the different teacher role's and school role's in the vision. The teacher's roles are more personal ideals and the school's role is the "whole system".
The last part of the article discusses the steps to create a shared vision. The discussion of the 8 approaches principals have was very interesting. The collaboration of all stakeholders is important to a successful vision.
The school vision can become a tool for leaders by allowing collaboration between all stakeholders. Having all the stakeholders involved allows for better collaboration. The collaboration allows for a vision that is shared by all members. The vision allows the school to make goals that reflect the vision. The successfulness and effectiveness of the vision can be analyzed by conducting focus groups throughout the year.
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