Attrition rates among school leaders have risen in recent years, and scholars cite a lack of meaningful connections and responsive professional learning as leading reasons why they are leaving the field. School leaders are called to navigate unfamiliar and complex challenges, often working in isolation with limited opportunities for collaboration…

This case study describes a pilot professional development project in which school leaders met regularly in a community of practice to clarify each other's identification of a problem of practice followed by development and implementation of a school improvement plan. Findings indicated positive perceptions of and engagement in the community of…

This research proposes Lesson Study as a professional development structure that allows principals and teachers in secondary schools to meet the demands of English and disciplinary literacy standards. It is a collaborative study between a university and eight schools. The essential questions is, "How can Lesson Study broaden content knowledge…

As instructional leadership involves attempts to understand and improve complex systems, this study explored principals' perceptions regarding possible contributions of systems thinking to instructional leadership. Based on a qualitative analysis, systems thinking was perceived by middle and high school principals to contribute to the following…

For school administrators to facilitate impactful teacher professional development, a shift in thinking that goes beyond the acquisition of new skills and knowledge to helping teachers rethink their practice is required. Based on review of the professional development literature and our own continued observations of professional development, this…

Educational evaluation (Ed Eval) and professional learning communities (PLCs) are two of the nation's most predominant approaches to widespread instructional improvement. Yet key attributes of these reform initiatives are too often experienced by teachers as burdensome, or even detrimental, rather than helpful. The authors of this article contend…

This article discusses the outcomes of a partnership between four high schools and one university to reduce the need for remediation in reading and writing. The purpose of the partnership was to build relationships between secondary and postsecondary faculty and to create a senior year English Transition course for students who did not meet ACT…

In this article, the authors discuss the characteristics and outcomes of a secondary-postsecondary collaborative professional development project. This project was initiated to address the issue of students' difficulties transitioning from secondary mathematics to postsecondary courses. Key characteristics include a climate of mutual respect, the…