Change Leadership : A Practical Guide to Transforming Our Schools

by Wagner, Tony; Kegan, Robert; Lahey, Lisa Laskow

• ISBN13: 9780470730638
• ISBN10: 0470730633
• Format: eBook
• Copyright: 2010-04-01
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass

Summary

The Change Leadership Group at the Harvard School of Education has, through its work with educators, developed a thoughtful approach to the transformation of schools in the face of increasing demands for accountability. This book brings the work of the Change Leadership Group to a broader audience, providing a framework to analyze the work of school change and exercises that guide educators through the development of their practice as agents of change. It exemplifies a new and powerful approach to leadership in schools.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Introduction: Reframing the Problem

A Knowledge Economy Requires New Skills for All Students

Greater Supports for Learning in a Changing Society

Reform or Reinvention? Technical Challenges Versus Adaptive Challenges

Organizational Beliefs and Behaviors

Individual Beliefs and Behaviors

Accepting the Challenge and the Risks:Moving Toward Communities of Practice via Collaborative Learning

Improving Instruction

Creating a Vision of Success

Challenges to Improving Instruction

Seven Disciplines for Strengthening Instruction

Using the Seven Disciplines

Launching an Instructional Improvement System: The Critical First Conversations

Developing a Shared Vision

Defining a New Framework for Effective Instruction

Linking the New 3 R's of Instruction

Committing Ourselves to the Challenge

Identifying Your Commitment

Spotting Your Obstacles Through Self-Reflection

Reflections

Why Is This So Hard?

Generating Momentum for Change

Obstacles to Improvement Versus Momentum for Improvement

Generating the Momentum for Systemic Change

Communities of Practice as a Strategy

Exploring Individual Immunities to Change

Attending to Countering Behaviors

A Deeper Look

Finding the Competing Commitment

Taking the Next Step

Reflections

Thinking Systemically

Relating the Parts to the Whole

Arenas of Change

Toward Transformation: Using the 4 C's

Another Use for the 4 C's

The Individual as a Complex System

Hidden Commitments and Personal Immunities

Big Assumptions and Immunities

Reflections

Working Strategically

The Ecology of Change

Phases of Whole-System Change

Change Levers: Data, Accountability, and Relationships

Strategic Change in Action

Putting the Pieces Together: The Ecology of Educational Transformation

Measuring Success and the Challenge of High-Stakes Test Scores

Overturning Your Immunities to Change

Steps Toward Individual Change

Considering Steps for the Most Powerful Learning

Phases in Overturning Your Immunities

Becoming Fully Released from Immunities to Change

Reflections

Conclusion: Bringing the Outward and Inward Focus Together

Hold High Expectations for All Our Students

Involve Building and Central Office Administrators in Instruction

Choose a Priority and Stay Relentlessly Focused on It

Foster a Widespread Feeling of Urgency for Change

Encourage a New Kind of Leader

Develop a New Kind of Administrative Team

Shining a Broader Light on Change

Implications for the Change Leader: Toward Adaptive Work

Concluding . . . or Commencing?

Appendixes

Team Exercises

Recommended Reading

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.