Analysis of Instructional Practices

     The upside of our curriculum is that it gives educators a lot of autonomy over instructional practices. Instruction needs to be defined from the student’s point of view-those strategies the learner will use to master the content and skills determined in the curriculum (Crowe & Kennedy, 2020, p. 43). Whereas curriculum can be static, instructional strategies are ever-evolving. Even after class last weekend, I learned so many new strategies to add to my toolbox! The TQS (2020) states that teachers should demonstrate acting as a professional body of knowledge by “incorporating a range of instructional strategies” (p. 3). A strategy must be accessible to all learners and engage them in deep thinking. Thus, we know that they are working when students are actively engaged in deep thinking about a learning task as opposed to passively listening and taking notes. 

    In my previous district, we did a lot of professional learning on various instructional strategies and I had the opportunity to assist teachers in planning for instruction. Much of this was dependent on student needs, learning goals, and teaching style. For example, if the teacher was concerned that their students are very quiet and linguistically diverse, we might plan to use a placemat as an instructional strategy for brainstorming as it is a low stress, high yield strategy that can scaffold dialogue for a think-pair-share. When delivering professional learning for teachers, my research primarily comes from but is not limited to books such as Bennet’s (2008) ‘Beyond Monet’ and Echevarria et al., ‘SIOP’ (2017). 

    An integral competency to leadership that the LQS (2020) identifies is “building the capacity of teachers to respond to the learning needs of all students” (p. 4) which can be done by modeling the way and implementing appropriate professional learning to ensure teachers build their capacity in instruction. Personally, I learn best when strategies are modeled for me and can think of one leader who acted as a role model for me in that way. Instruction, for principals, should shift as those professional learning opportunities that support our teachers to learn to the highest level. According to Crowe & Kennedy (2020) “once our teachers understand what they are learning, how they will show mastery, and why they are learning, they must then determine the best ways to learn” (p. 43). As a leader, one must be knowledgeable with research-based instructional strategies because our job is to support teachers with ways to ensure that learning is driven by “highly engaging, effective, and efficient instruction” (p. 43). 

    Albeit an important asset to leadership, instructional strategies are just one piece of the puzzle to effective leadership. Instructional strategies alone will have little effect on teaching if the essence of teaching such as being kind, caring, respectful is absent (Bennett & Rolheiser, 2008). Being a leader is a juggling act of many different skills and as the LQS (2020) mentions, we must always keep fostering effective relationships as the primary driver of our work.

References

Alberta Education. (2020). Leadership quality standards.  

https://www.alberta.ca/assets/documents/ed-leadership-quality-standard-english.pdf

Alberta Education. (2020). Teacher quality standards.  

https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/14d92858-fec0-449b-a9ad-52c05000b4de/resource/af

c2aa25-ea83-4d23-a105-d1d45af9ffad/download/edc-teaching-quality-standard-english-2020.pdf

Bennett, B., & Rolheiser, C. (2008). Beyond monet. Bookstation Inc. 

Echevarria, J., Vogt, M. E., & Short, D. J. (2017). Making content comprehensible for English  

learners: The SIOP model (5th ed.). Pearson. 

Crowe, R., Kennedy, J. (2020). Developing instructional leadership: Creating  a culture of  

         Ownership through the use of strategic learning practices. Learning Sciences Internaitonal.