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Leadership-Influenced Practices that Impact Classroom Instruction Related to Writing: a case Study of a


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They (Four Blocks) were all hard for me to do the first year, the second year it got better, the third year it got better, so by the fourth year it was, ah now I get it. So the barriers are just an understanding and learning because all of the Four Blocks is an awesome, awesome program, but it was so contrary to what I had been taught to teach. But it is my best teaching. I look at how I taught previously, now I think about how I teach from 2000-2007 and this is the best teaching, every year is like the best teaching that I have done. It is because of the Four Blocks!

John indicated that the professional development was focused: “We talked, focusing on anything Four Blocks. Certainly this district provides quite a bit of professional development. That is the one thing that is different than where I came from.” Likewise, the principal stated: “Support for professional development is so important; I try to give very clear focus.”

When asked how they learned about the specific aspects of the new strategies at professional development, Kathy discussed the fact the professional development started slowly, focusing on the basics for each of the Four Blocks. This focus allowed her to change gradually. As her knowledge level grew, so did her understanding and application of strategy. She said:

We got so much training and the more training we got the better we felt about it [new strategy]. We first started with Pat Cunningham and Deb Smith and then after you get the basics down, then you can build! Debbie Miller, who we got this year, was so good. Our literacy specialist would tweak things. And we went to a lot of workshops. We started slow. We would go to one on working with words; we would go to one on self-selected reading. We would go to one on guided reading, we went slowly and then once you get the basis of it then you get bigger and bigger things.

Gayle and Karla indicated that during their first year of teaching the leaders helped them learn Four Blocks for their entire year, training and teaching them. Karla went on to say that the professional development helped her develop as a teacher and improve each block:

I’d say last year for me was a lot of introductory stuff, but then a lot of this year has been kind of how to improve in those areas … and how to make that better than how I was doing it last year and how to go to that next step with the kids when they’re ready for it. It helped me make the Four Blocks better now this year.

The literacy specialist mentioned that she had intentional levels of purposes in her planning of the professional development and the impact that would have on the teachers. She said:

My main purpose was levels of purposes in the professional development I gave here. It was a top down and a bottom up approach, meaning that I am a whole, a big picture person; so the philosophy behind it was really important to me and why we are doing what we are doing and the big picture kind of stuff . Yet, I also understood that there were people who really needed to know what they were going to do when they went back into their classroom that day. So I really worked at balancing out the professional development between the big picture stuff and logical hands on.

When asked about the progression of clarifying new strategies used with Four Blocks, participants responded that the leaders provided so much professional development around the Four Blocks, Dana reported: “I don’t think you can do a program without having professional development. I know that we have certainly had enough professional development, that any teacher here should be able to almost be an expert at Four Blocks.”

Leadership sub-theme 3.2: Modeling is an important aspect of professional development. During the process of reflecting on how he or she came to understand the new strategies, five respondents indicated that the modeling played a significant role in their professional development.

The principal indicated that, while planning professional development, her goal was to model during the meetings that the purpose of the meeting was to clearly focus on the strategies she expected to see in her classroom observations. She stated:

So when I did a staff meeting or professional development, I wanted it to be crystal clear, this is what we are doing and why, today we are really going to work on guided reading, how you do a guided reading lesson, what is the before, during, after, why do you do it. We will get down to why you connect it and everything else, later but let’s do it right.

The literacy specialist reported that the professional development she offered was modeled, concentrating on a block at a time. She stated:

One of the things we did was we decided that we were really going to get good at guided reading, so we focused that year on guided reading. All of our professional development was on the guided reading block, I went in and modeled and then the second half of the year we did writing. We did self-selected reading and working with words, but it was systematic.

The modeling during professional development helped Stacey see the strategies and how they work and then do them in her classroom. She explained:

The principal would come into the classroom and say, “Do you need any modeling?” Then the literacy specialist would model and say, “This is what we see…. This is how we work.” So we can see it, we can hear it, and then we do it.

The modeling done for professional development also impacted the effectiveness of the strategies being taught. Amy indicated the literacy specialist would come in and teach a lesson and let us observe her and take notes: “Just seeing somebody do it makes it a lot easier. And I think the entire staff as a whole believes in it so much that we really have no way out when you see how beneficial it [the strategy] is.”

In addition, the principal provided her staff opportunities to gain understanding for the Four Block framework by watching it done at a school with an even greater at-risk population:

One of the most powerful things we did I researched schools around here that were doing Four Blocks, 100% free and reduced lunch, poverty area and I took first, second and third grade teachers over there, and they watched their particular grade level room. They watched kids way more poor and way worse off than our kids; so that attitude that they can’t do it or they don’t have any parent support, or no one reads to them at night, can be alleviated. You can see they can read at grade level in first grade. And this school is not as nice as our school. They don’t have a bazillion materials either. Every excuse in the book is checked off: not age appropriate, not developmentally appropriate, don’t have materials, all the stuff you hear. That was good for them because they got to see teachers doing it and see the kids learning it and at grade level. That was very powerful.

Grace was influenced by the offer from the leaders for teachers to observe other teachers: “I have never been offered the opportunity to leave to observe something that was working in another district. That was huge; three of us went over for the day.”

Leadership sub-theme 3.3: Professional development that impacts classrooms is continuous and on-going. This theme emerged from study participants as they were asked to discuss their purpose in participating in professional development. Eight of the study participants told how they were life-long learners and that as professionals they knew they always had to learn more and enjoyed doing so. Having leaders who provided continuous and on-going professional development opportunities was important.

Kate echoed how incredible it was that the leaders provided an abundance of professional development which gave her time to implement strategies:

The leaders provided us oodles and oodles of in-service and speakers and the ability to go somewhere and listen to it. It was fantastic. It slowly gave us time to implement it. It wasn’t like you are doing this right now. It was like take a breath until you feel comfortable with it and go with it until finally you are on board.

The impact of continuous professional development was reiterated by several other individuals. Grace said: “I liked having personal growth as an educator, looking for maybe new ways to deliver the material.” Continuous professional development was also listed by Carla as a reason she continued to change: “To stay fresh, to stay current, to get new ideas, because particularly, as you teach for many years, you can’t get stuck. You always have to be changing; you always have to be improving.” Kate echoed this rationale that professional development reminded her of strategies she had forgotten as well as taught her new ones: “That’s something I meant to try and I didn’t have a chance to, … just new ideas of how to do things because there’s only so much you get from just the books they have on Four Blocks.”

Two other individuals, Kathy and Amy, reported that the professional development was significant in their ability to be effective teachers because they always could benefit from learning more. Kathy reported that professional development both reinforced and taught new things:

My main goal going in to it is to just get new ideas, whatever the subject is, if we’re learning something on writing, to just get some new ideas and just reinforcing what I’m doing. It’s nice to hear how it should be done, or the most beneficial ways students learn best by doing this, and then the reinforcement of, yes, I am doing that.

Likewise, Amy stated, “It doesn’t even have to do with whether you are lacking in an area, I don’t think it ever hurts you to learn a little bit more. I constantly want to learn more!”

Karla indicated that professional development was continuously helping her improve in the Four Blocks strategies; each professional development she went to was something that was going to help her with Four Blocks:

The nice part was that they always told me that it would take a few years for me to get completely comfortable. So if they come in and observe a lesson and I’m missing a part, they are not going to make me feel bad about it, they are going to say to me, “Okay, here’s the part you need to work on. Here’s the part you did really well.” They let me know that I’ve improved in an area, and they always give me something to work on.

Leadership sub-theme 3.4: Sharing after professional development supports new strategies. During the process of reflecting on how she or he came to implement new knowledge from professional development experiences, participants reported that the professional development was influential in changing their strategies. Ten of the sixteen respondents indicated that sharing with their colleague played a significant role in their use of the new strategies. Mary stated:

We work together as a team really, really well. If I don’t understand something, I am going to ask. I am not going to sit here and flounder through the whole thing. And most of the time, as children find out, when you ask a question, there are about five others who have the same question. Sometimes I feel like I am just hanging on by a thread, but we support each other. We talk before school a couple of times a week just informally and I find that we are pretty supportive of each other. Have you come up with any bright ideas for this?

The study participants also believed that sharing at staff meetings held them accountable as the principal asked them to report on their experiences with learning about and using the strategies. One went on to say that attendance at the professional development, combined with reporting responsibilities, served individuals and colleagues well. Mary said:

It was a known that if you were going to go anyplace, plan on coming back to present at the following staff meeting and you will, so don’t think that you won’t. So if you knew you were going to go someplace you better make sure you take good notes because you are not going to come back and say, oh, that was great. It is going to be … how we can use this in our classroom. So there was never a wasted conference. Everybody was going to hear what you did.

Likewise, Liz stated: “Anyone who went to anything about Four Blocks was pretty much expected to come back and share it with everyone who didn’t get to go.”

Since all the staff organized their teaching using the Four Blocks, they had a common instructional framework that allowed their sharing to be meaningful because it was focused on specific strategies. Carla said:

We share … most of us have worked together for such a long time and most of us are so professional and focused on the right things here, that we go back and forth between classrooms, between grade levels. I can’t think today, “Boy, what have you got for this activity, do you have any new ideas? That’s a great thing on your wall, what did you do there?” You go into somebody’s room in this building and you’re looking at walls. You’re getting ideas, you’re thinking, “Oh I’ve done that, but I like what they’ve done there. I’m going to go try that.” We’re constantly giving.

Many study participants stated that the leader-led book clubs were a particularly popular form of professional development in which staff shared with each other their understanding of strategies that were described in the literature and implemented in the Four Blocks framework. Karla explained it this way: “Our focus this year has been on vocabulary with those [book clubs]. We spend a lot of time discussing and reading books about how to improve the children’s vocabulary.” Kate cited that book clubs helped her build on her previous learning:

For me, it’s learning more about how to build on what I’m already doing in a lot of things and how to continuously get better and try new ways of doing it that might work with the kids better than some of the ways that I’ve already tried.

The impact of professional development on the strategies used by the study participants was underscored by ten of the study participants who stated formal planning time after a professional development experience supported the implementation of the new strategies. Dana said all the time planning the use of the new strategies has resulted in great results for the school:

The literacy specialist always tells me, “Don’t say this to anybody else but it [Four Blocks] is time intensive.” It is. The planning I think. But it’s all worthwhile. When you see the results, you know I’m still amazed to where we have come, from the bottom of the heap and now we’re at the top.

Other participants reported that time to plan provided a time to think about the strategies, discuss them with colleagues and fit things together. Liz reported how helpful that planning time was: “Just time, time to plan, to think things through.” Chris said she valued those times: “To plan and do it [Four Blocks], or look through the resources and things.” Likewise, Carla indicated that she could become overwhelmed after professional development and needed time to fit things together. She said:

You don’t know where to fit in it sometimes, there’s just so much, it can be mentally overwhelming to bring a piece back and think, alright, how do I keep what I know I have to keep and add this piece to it? Do I have to change something, or do I have to find room to fit it in?

It is interesting to note that of the sixteen study participants, six indicated they created informal planning times which were spontaneous conversations before school, during lunch and after school for planning how to use the new strategies. The individuals identified that these conversations with colleagues were key in their development professionally. These brief, unplanned conversations about strategies enabled them to try new strategies, to improve their techniques and required colleagues who were available and willing to share. Grace said:

Probably more happens before or after school or in the hallway when you have a question and someone is telling about what they have tried … and it tends to be what you see in someone’s classroom when you are going over something curriculum-wise or lesson plan-wise … or when someone stops and says what was that again or needs a clarification on something.

Karla stated that when she wants to discuss what she learned at a professional development opportunity, she talked to her colleagues: “I like to talk to my colleagues first.” Gayle indicated she will say to her colleagues: “Something about this [instructional strategy] went well or this didn’t go well.” Mary stated there were numerous conversations, almost non-stop: “Perpetually, we are always talking about it, before school, after school.” Stacey talks to others whenever she can and tells her colleagues: “You know I found this works! “

The leaders’ expectation that the literacy framework with its common language and strategies was to be utilized by all teachers encouraged professional conversations. Carla indicated that the professional development required continual adjustment by all. She said:

All the little actions that a teacher does and all the little things that a teacher says make a huge difference on whether this is a concept that the kids learn or not. I like to keep watching people, I like to keep reading about it, I just like to feed on it a lot because I don’t think I’m done tweaking and fixing … I did it this morning and then I run it over to my colleague who is using the same strategies, “This is what it looked like for me”, “OK, I will try it.” …that goes on for a while and we build together.

It is interesting to note that both formal and informal sharing helped the study participants grow, adjust, and use the new strategies. This follow up was frequently mentioned, as was the impact of the writing instructional strategies themselves.

Leadership Theme 4: Knowledgeable Leaders Impact Instructional Strategies

All study participants were asked to reflect on the writing success in terms of the knowledge of their leaders. The sixteen study participants acknowledged the leaders had to be and were knowledgeable sources for answers to their questions about writing and used them as resources.

The impact the knowledgeable leaders had on her implementation of new strategies was noted by Stacey. Knowledgeable leaders had not been part of her past experience, she stated:

I cannot imagine not having my leader be knowledgeable. She had the vision, she has information. I have worked for principals that have not known the knowledge, the subject matter of the curriculum. And they leaned on us. Well, she made it her business to go out, that’s the key. She didn’t expect me to do something that she had no knowledge of. And if I had a question, she’s another resource. That’s a big one, too.

Knowledgeable leaders were also identified by Dana as a significant support in the process of learning new strategies. She mentioned:

The literacy specialist, as far as I’m concerned… is an expert at Four Blocks. She truly is. You could ask her any question. She has gone to enough leadership type, professional development, to find out exactly what we need to know. So that’s a huge part in it, is having somebody that is knowledgeable. And the principal, she went to all the blocks. I don’t think it was necessarily a principal professional development time, but she chose to go and find out as much as she could so that she could help us in anyway.

The principal also took the time to learn all the strategies within the framework. According to Karla, the principal knew everything the literacy specialist knew:

I would go to her with a question if the literacy specialist was unavailable and she [principal] would have the answer, without having to go look it up or tell me that she would have to get back to me. And she would write in the observation, “Here’s what you did well on, here’s what you need to work on.” She was always very knowledgeable.

Two distinct examples in which knowledgeable leaders provided support during the transition to new strategies were provided by Chris and John. Chris said:

The leaders would come and see if you were doing the instruction correctly.

Although most people I think were on-board with the changes happening and wanting to do better, I think having our leaders come around and check and see an idea, are you doing it correctly?

John stated that when he wanted to discuss what he had learned in professional development he wouldn’t be fearful to ask either one of them:

Just to have there a person to ask questions to, to have that piece there. So I think the principal is not just the disciplinarian but they can also answer questions, too. The principal was very knowledgeable and I am always one, whenever I saw the literacy specialist, if I had any questions, I would go right to her immediately.

The literacy specialist impacted teachers in a variety of ways as they learned about Four Blocks. Liz said: “The literacy specialist was very well trained, very well prepared and she threw herself into it and she lived and breathed it. That was really important.” Grace described the literacy specialist as being helpful with reminders, notes, and resources connected to the professional development:

She was a great one to bounce things off from. She would ask, “How was this, how did this go?” She was always a great resource particularly for the reading writing piece to offer suggestions. Remember that part at the workshop, you can’t find it in your notes, she would apt to be able to say I think it is in this section and I have got what you need, I will try to put a copy in your box.

Gayle mentioned that her understanding of Four Blocks was influenced by the literacy specialist showing her where to fit in new strategies:

The literacy specialist is really good with when she brings new ideas in; really letting us know how it works into Four Blocks. It might not necessarily be a Four Blocks strategy, but she was really good with letting us know how to incorporate it into our teaching.

A variation on this theme was offered by the principal who reported it was her decision to be knowledgeable about Four Blocks. The principal stated that she desired to model that she, too, was willing and eager to learn:

I need to be modeling that I am always learning, so the teachers are always learning, so our culture as a school is always learning.…We needed to show kids that the focus here is learning. We don’t run in the hallways because kids are learning in the classroom. It wasn’t all about because I said so; this is the way the school is run because we don’t want to interrupt learning wherever it was going on. I changed the schedule around to make things better for learning.

The literacy specialist stated that teachers had to hear the strategies many times before they were internalized, thus her knowledge helped her teach the strategies in different ways:

You need to say things over and over again in different ways.... I would think we have got it. We have done guided reading for a certain amount of time and it sounds like we know what we are doing, but I would go in a classroom and say, “Yikes, it is not right, we don’t have it yet. We still have a long way to go.

The impact of knowledgeable leaders on instructional strategies is further explored in the following section. Due to the insight and depth of knowledge that the leaders had about the instructional strategies they knew specifically how to support such a coherent literacy framework. The impact of this framework and strategies is further explored in the following section.

Instructional Strategies’ Themes

When asked about how the instructional strategies used by teachers had changed over the last six years, all sixteen responded this was an area of growth.

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