Personal Case Study
I developed this reflection tool because I really wanted to evaluate the process using what I have learned in my global educational leadership studies. I wanted to understand why some of the whole-organization initiatives I have led had seemed like very successful processes, but had failed to produce desired outcomes. In each case, I had successfully engaged most of the staff, but I had little luck engaging with other senior leaders to develop shared ownership, agreed upon goals and a concrete action plan. What new competencies could I acquire to support future initiatives. Before taking a look at my refection, lets get an overview of one selected case:
ICT Integration Self-Study
As a new international school with significant investment in educational technology (elementary students are each given an iPad and secondary students have both an iPad and a Macbook), it’s important that we critically evaluate the integration of these devices. A great place to start is by using the ISTE Essential Conditions framework for evaluation and planning.
I started with an initial evaluation by myself and the IT manager. I shared these results with the senior leadership and explained my plan devote an upcoming staff workshop to more thoroughly evaluating the program in a collaborative setting. I reached out to ISTE to request an advanced copy of their newly revised rubric and created an online tool to facilitate data collection and analysis.
The subsequent workshop was well-received and garnered a lot of very positive feedback from the participants, not just on the collaborative format, but on the potential the process had to initiate positive needed change. Unfortunately, the enthusiasm was not shared by the senior leadership. In response to my 20 page analysis provided to the senior leadership team, I received just two replies. Both were one sentence long to say thanks.
This was obviously not the action-oriented response that I had hoped for; time to reflect:
A few possibilities:
The senior leaders felt threatened by the data
The senior leaders felt threatened by me
The senior leaders didn’t value the data
The senior leaders were too busy to do more
These weren’t helpful on their own. I needed to turn my reflection back onto myself. As Rabotin (2010) says, “What needs to shift in me to enable them to shift?” This is where the Reflective Leader Framework could help. See my entries for the reflection tool below (scroll within the smaller window).
Personal Case Study
I developed this reflection tool because I really wanted to evaluate the process using what I have learned in my global educational leadership studies. I wanted to understand why some of the whole-organization initiatives I have led had seemed like very successful processes, but had failed to produce desired outcomes. In each case, I had successfully engaged most of the staff, but I had little luck engaging with other senior leaders to develop shared ownership, agreed upon goals and a concrete action plan. What new competencies could I acquire to support future initiatives. Before taking a look at my refection, lets get an overview of one selected case:
ICT Integration Self-Study
As a new international school with significant investment in educational technology (elementary students are each given an iPad and secondary students have both an iPad and a Macbook), it’s important that we critically evaluate the integration of these devices. A great place to start is by using the ISTE Essential Conditions framework for evaluation and planning.
I started with an initial evaluation by myself and the IT manager. I shared these results with the senior leadership and explained my plan devote an upcoming staff workshop to more thoroughly evaluating the program in a collaborative setting. I reached out to ISTE to request an advanced copy of their newly revised rubric and created an online tool to facilitate data collection and analysis.
The subsequent workshop was well-received and garnered a lot of very positive feedback from the participants, not just on the collaborative format, but on the potential the process had to initiate positive needed change. Unfortunately, the enthusiasm was not shared by the senior leadership. In response to my 20 page analysis provided to the senior leadership team, I received just two replies. Both were one sentence long to say thanks.
This was obviously not the action-oriented response that I had hoped for; time to reflect:
A few possibilities:
The senior leaders felt threatened by the data
The senior leaders felt threatened by me
The senior leaders didn’t value the data
The senior leaders were too busy to do more
These weren’t helpful on their own. I needed to turn my reflection back onto myself. As Rabotin (2010) says, “What needs to shift in me to enable them to shift?” This is where the Reflective Leader Framework could help. See my entries for the reflection tool below (scroll within the smaller window).
Scroll in the orange box
Results
Completing the reflection process was really challenging, because I often wanted to argue with the premise of the question which assumed that the problem might be with me rather than someone else. This struggle helped remind me that regardless of who it at fault, even as a leader, I can only be directly responsible for my own behavior.
Following the completion of the reflection tool, I reached out to a team member to solicit more feedback. Contacting him in this context had three positive outcomes:
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He felt appreciated and valued in a way that may help him as he develops his own leadership skills,
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I had affirmation of what I did well and the possible reasons for failure, and
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I had new perspectives on how I might engage more successfully with the senior leadership.
He focused in on the problem: “I feel that without this personal connection and level of interaction from administration, then the final feedback was construed as teachers complaining or having other agendas” (Thompson, personal communication, 2016). He then offered a fantastic suggestion of how specifically to work across boundaries and engage with the wider community to influence change:
Maybe it would have been possible to organize a senior leadership session with some outside schools who have completed or are in the process of implementing / reviewing the ISTE Essential Agreements. This might have helped them see beyond their own backyard (and the perception that is was just you pushing a certain ideal), but instead hear from others schools, their own experiences, and what they have learnt from the process. (Thompson, personal communication, 2016)
Conclusion
This reflection process was really valuable for me on several levels. First, it helped me focus on my leadership behaviors and how I might modify them in certain situations (frame shifting). Furthermore, it was very valuable to be forced to to empathize where before I had simply felt frustrated.
I am looking forward to using this reflection tool in the future, and I hope that, with practice, some of these metacognitive exercises will become more internalized and a regular part of my developing practice.