Learning for Leadership: Developmental Strategies for Building Capacity in Our Schools

by Eleanor Drago-Severson, Jessica Blum-DeStefano, Anila Asghar

Overview

Prepare education leaders to support adult professional growth with this comprehensive guide!

Supporting adult professional development—or capacity building—is a challenge in today’s high-accountability atmosphere, especially with new teacher and principal evaluations. Help prepare leaders to nurture human potential and build internal capacities with this one-of-a-kind resource. Through the authors’ practical advice, you’ll learn to

• Employ practices that support leadership development in your schools and districts
• Teach on-the-ground applications for effective professional learning initiatives
• Design and implement action plans based on Four Pillar Practices for Growth that comprise a learning-oriented model of school leadership: Teaming, Providing Leadership Roles, Collegial Inquiry, and Mentoring with Developmental Intentionality
• Help leaders bridge theory and practice with first-hand case study analyses

If you want to improve student achievement, then make schools and districts havens for learning for both students and educators with this comprehensive, highly adaptable, and accessible resource!

"Ellie Drago-Severson is one of our most insightful experts on the development of adult educational leaders. She is unique in her ability to move back and forth comfortably between powerful ideas and promising practices."
—Howard Gardner, Professor of Cognition and Education
Harvard University

"This is not another book about education reform to be read and cast aside—this is a book to be savored. It contributes profoundly to our understanding about how adults learn, the differences in the ways that adults learn, and how we can support and challenge adults as continuous learners within the context of the school day."
—Deanna Burney, Executive Director
Leading by Learning, LLC

"Can those who teach in and lead our schools dramatically improve the development of their students without a new commitment to their own ongoing development? Drago-Severson and her co-authors think not. But more than this, they provide an expansively intelligent, intensely practical, research-based route to realizing this new commitment."
—Robert G. Kegan, Meehan Professor of Adult Learning and Professional Development
Harvard Graduate School of Education

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781452278452
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	08/01/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	962,883
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Ellie Drago-Severson is Professor of Education Leadership and Adult Learning and Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University.  A developmental psychologist, Ellie teaches, conducts research, and serves as a consultant to school and district leaders, systems leaders, and teacher leaders in public, charter and private schools and systems—on professional and personal growth and learning; leadership that supports principal, teacher, school, and leadership development; and coaching and mentoring in K–12 schools, university settings, and other adult education contexts domestically and internationally.  She is also an internationally certified developmental coach who works with leaders to build internal capacity, lead on behalf of social justice, and grow systemwide capacity. 

 

For more than three decades, Ellie’s research, teaching, and partnerships in the field have sought—synergistically—to explore, and extend the possibilities of adult development and developmental leadership as levers for internal capacity building at the individual, team, organizational, and societal levels. Her work explores interconnected streams that focus on: the connection between internal capacities and educational leaders’ practice on behalf of social justice, a developmental approach to feedback for growth, pressing challenges national and international educational leaders are facing and helping them to manage them, leadership preparation and development, a new, learning-oriented model for leadership development, supporting adult development in individuals and teams across and within systems, supporting diverse adult English Language Learners and those who serve them, and growing teacher leadership.  Consonant with the urgent conversations about transforming schools, systems, and society as more learning- and equity-oriented contexts, her work foregrounds how we can support leaders’ internal capacity building in schools, organizations, and leadership preparation programs, and how these capacities inform the gifts leaders are able to give to those in their care, each other, and the world as they lead for social justice. Ellie loves opportunities to accompany school leaders in their vital work—and never takes it for granted. Instead, she considers it a gift.

 

At Teachers College, Ellie is director of the PhD Program in Educational Leadership, teaches aspiring and practicing principals in the Summer Principals Academy, aspiring superintendents in the Urban Educators Leaders Program, leaders from a variety of different sectors in the Accelerated Educational Guided Inquiry Studies (AEGIS) Program, and also coaches leaders in the Cahn Fellows Program for Distinguished Leaders and in her private coaching practice to help leaders grow their practice and themselves. She also serves as faculty director and co-facilitator of the Leadership Institute for School Change at Teachers College. Ellie is author of the best-selling books Helping Teachers Learn (Corwin, 2004) and Leading Adult Learning (Corwin/The National Staff Development Council, 2009)—as well as Becoming Adult Learners (Teachers College Press, 2004) and Helping Educators Grow (Harvard Education Press, 2012).  She is also a co-author of Learning for Leadership (Corwin, 2013), Learning Designs (Learning Forward&Corwin, 2014), Tell Me So I Can Hear You (Harvard Education Press, 2016), and Leading change together (ASCD, 2018).

 

Ellie’s work has earned awards from the Spencer Foundation, the Klingenstein Foundation, and Harvard, where she served on faculty for 8 years and was awarded the Morningstar Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Dean’s award for Excellent in Teaching. Most recently, Ellie received three outstanding teaching awards from Columbia University. She has earned degrees from Long Island University (BA) and Harvard University (EdM, EdD and Post-Doctoral Fellowship). Ellie grew up in the Bronx and is very grateful for the way in which it and that community has shaped her life.

Jessica Blum-DeStefano is an instructor and advisor at Bank Street College of Education, where she teaches adult development and qualitative research methods. Her teaching, scholarship, and approach to leadership foreground the power of growth and interconnection—especially as they relate to individual perspective transformation, authentic collaboration, and capacity building systemwide. Toward these ends, her work is inspired by an interdisciplinary tapestry of ideas—including adult developmental theories, social justice frameworks, the history and philosophy of education, organizational studies, student voice, and qualitative/mixed-methods research—as well as the nine rewarding years she spent as a teacher and school administrator in K-12 alternative education settings. Jessica earned her PhD in Education Leadership from Teachers College, Columbia University, and  holds additional degrees from Emory University (BA), Hofstra University (MA), and Teachers College (M.Phil.) Jessica is a coauthor of Learning for Leadership: Developmental Strategies for Building Capacity in Our Schools (Corwin, 2013), Tell Me So I Can Hear You: A Developmental Approach to Feedback for Educators (Harvard Education Press, 2016), and Leading Change Together: Developing Educator Capacity Within Schools and Systems (ASCD, 2018).

Anila Asghar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education at McGill University. Her research and teaching encompass a number of interconnected areas: cognitive and emotional development; curriculum development; science pedagogy; teacher education; and educational leadership in a variety of international settings. She earned her doctorate from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education and carried out her postdoctoral research at McGill University. She also received an Ed.M. from Harvard University, and an M.A. in Science Education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Part I. Foundations
Chapter 1. New Imperatives for Change in Support of Building Teaching and Leading: The Promise of Supporting Adult Development--Capacity Building--in Today′s Complex Educational World
Orientation
Connecting This Book to Hopes and Urgent Needs in the Field
Situating This Book in the Context of Education Today
A Note About the Cover
Research Informing This Book
Organization of This Book
Our Hopes for You: Enhancing Your Learning and Noble Practice
Reflective Questions
Chapter 2. Leadership for Transformational Learning: A Developmental Model for Building Human Capacity in Diverse Contexts
Introduction and Overview
Constructive-Developmental Theory: A Sneak Peak
Leadership for Transformational Learning (LTL): Course Overview
The Promise of Learning Oriented Leadership
Chapter Summary
Reflective Questions
Chapter 3. A Close-up on Constructive-Developmental Theory: Using Theory to Guide Adult Learning in Schools, Districts, and University Preparation Programs
Introduction and Overview
Informational and Transformational Learning: Why Might This Distinction Matter to You?
Foundational Principles of Constructive-Developmental Theory
Why Ways of Knowing and Holding Environments Matter
Chapter Summary
Reflective Questions
Part II. Lessons and Examples From Leaders in the Field
Chapter 4. Learning about Leadership for Adult Development: LTL Ideas and Practices That Made a Difference for Leaders
Introduction and Overview
New Understandings of Learning-Oriented Leadership and Supporting Adult Development
Helpful and Meaningful Course Learnings
Helpful and Meaningful Course Practices
Chapter Summary
Reflective Questions
Chapter 5. Transferring Powerful Learnings: Supporting Professional Growth from University Classrooms to Real-Life Practice
Introduction and Overview
Hopes for Developmentally Oriented Leadership Practice
Transfer to Practice
Chapter Summary
Reflective Questions
Chapter 6. Integrated Lessons from the Field: Three In-Depth Cases of Developmentally Oriented Leadership Practice
Introduction and Overview
Matt′s Leadership Case: Nurturing the Preconditions and Collegial Inquiry Through Developmentally Oriented, Data-Driven Discussions of Practice
Tara′s Leadership Case: Building Teams for Collaboration and Collegial Inquiry
Adrian′s Leadership Case: Supporting Professional Learning Through Reciprocal Mentoring and Providing Leadership Roles
Chapter Summary
Reflective Questions
Chapter 7. Growing from, through, and beyond Obstacles: Leaders′ Big Challenges and Their Strategies for Overcoming Them
Introduction and Overview
Challenging Norms: Confronting "The Way It′s Always Been"
Facing Resistance: Pushing Forward Despite "Pushback" From Colleagues and/or Supervisors
The Urgency of Time: A Common Challenge
Professional Isolation: The Loneliness of Leadership
Growing Oneself: A Fundamental Need and Responsibility of Leadership
Chapter Summary
Reflective Questions
Part III. Implications for Practice and Policy
Chapter 8. In the Spirit of Closing Well: Implications for Leaders, Schools, Districts and Systems
Looking Back and Ahead: Reflecting on Our Journey Together
Leaders′ Requested Supports: Making Space for Renewal, Deep Connection, and Authentic Learning
Implications: What Schools, Districts, and Systems Can Do . . . and What You Can, Too
New Beginnings
Resource A. Research Appendix
Resource B. Leadership for Transformational Learning (LTL) Course Topics
Resource C. Leadership for Transformational Learning (LTL) Citations for Course Readings
Glossary
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

Learning for Leadership brings right to life the experiences school leaders have had as a result of their work with TC’s LTL course! Dr. Drago-Severson provides a tremendously active and learning oriented model for school leadership. Her examination of real –life lessons learned from her adult students is action oriented in itself. These testimonies not only focus on how intentionally these leaders implemented their learning from LTL but they also put forth the challenges encountered by these thoughtful leaders as well.

Drago-Severson’s work has highly influenced the practice of School Leaders Network in school districts across the nation. As Drago-Severson notes: “ School leaders “ yearn for on-going support” and this book, while clearly illustrating learning, also prescribes critically important lessons for district practice and policy.

Elizabeth Neale

"This is not another book about education reform to be read and cast aside—this is a book to be savored. It contributes profoundly to our understanding about how adults learn, the differences in the ways that adults learn, and how we can support and challenge adults as continuous learners within the context of the school day—a must if we are truly dedicated to improving teaching and learning for every child in every classroom in every school. "

Deanna Burney

"Can those who teach in and lead our schools dramatically improve the development of their students without a new commitment to their own ongoing development? Drago-Severson and her co-authors think not. But more than this, they provide an expansively intelligent, intensely practical, research-based route to realizing this new commitment. "

Robert G. Kegan

"This book is unique in its approach to bridge theory and practice regarding leadership in our schools. The stories, examples, and vignettes are grounded in the real world of leadership and provide concrete, specific examples. "

Jane Ellison

A powerful new framework for supporting leaders. I see Learning for Leadership becoming the foundation for many leadership development programs. Using the adult learning lens, the authors offer a powerful approach to supporting the development and increasing the impact of school leaders. This will serve as a great reference for educators charged with the responsibility to design leadership development programs that make a difference for the participants as well as their staff and students.

Stephanie Hirsch

"This book provides school leaders with the theoretical framework and practical applications to better support teachers’ professional growth and learning. The authors teach us how to create meaningful change through the development of a safe, trusting, respectful environment that encourages reflection, collaboration and professional growth within schools. This book will enable educational leaders to understand and overcome resistance to change and will transform the way they facilitate professional development and guide adult learning in schools. "

Kara Popiel

"Ellie Drago-Severson is one of our most insightful experts on the development of adult educational leaders. She is unique in her ability to move back and forth comfortably between powerful ideas and promising practices. "

Howard Gardner