Focused Leadership: Instruction, Learning, and School Improvement

(Paperback)

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Building-level and central office administrators must be both instructional and learning leaders. Instructional leadership means focusing on teacher behaviors that support student learning and helping teachers make good decisions about their own behaviors in the classroom. Learning leadership focuses on the learning itselfhow students absorb, process, and retain information. This guide will assist administrators in their quest to be more effective at what they do; this is meant not as a prescriptive document, but rather a baseline from which to grow. This guide provides information about the intricacies of the teaching and learning process and how these elements are linked. Readers are encouraged to use the guide as a foundation, as a starting point to expand their own instructional and learning leadership. They should modify, add to, and personalize the guide as they challenge themselves to grow. The guide encompasses many components, all of which are important. It should help administrators to know what to look for during an observation, and, perhaps even more important, topics of conversations to have with teachers. Transformational leadership begins with understanding teaching and learning as well as having the ability to generate quality conversations.

Reviews

Any administrator, new or seasoned, can use this book as a guide to not only do the right thing but to do what is right to move a school forward and contribute to the success of each child and teacher. -- Annie Harman, chief academic officer, former principal, Virginia
A great job covering a lot of materialI wish I had this book earlier in my career. Love the last chapter! -- Antonia Fox, middle school principal, Virginia
Building level principals need support in their work of creating learning institutions. They need strategies proven strategies to help them plan for, lead, and develop ongoing leadership in educators that create the high levels of learning essential for their school. Dr. Jones book provides the building level principal with the insight, theory, tools, and concrete practices to handle the work and keep the focus on learning. Filled with practical tips, written in a conversational voice, focusing on leading the learning, this book should be on every principals desk! -- Abe Jeffers, high school principal, Virginia
School principals learn many lessons in a day, a week, a year. One of their biggest challenges is to remember these lessons, use them in the work, and share them with others. Likely a common theme for retiring principals is 'I could write a book' that would help current and future principals navigate the world of schools and learning. Dr. Jones has done just that he takes 40+ years of experience in education, including all that he has learned from some of the world's leading voices in education, and hands it to principals in one resource. His takes his experience as an educator of children, an educator of teachers, an educator of school leaders, and so many others and incorporates it into a resource that is truly invaluable for today's school leaders. Every principal, assistant principal, and aspiring leader will be transformed by reading and implementing these practices. Read on. -- Janice Case, consultant, former secondary principal, California

Author Bio

Roger E. Jones is professor and chair of leadership studies at Lynchburg College, Lynchburg, VA, where he teaches in the masters and doctoral programs. He also directs the Virginia Association of Secondary School Principals (VASSP) Center for Educational Leadership which is housed on campus. He is a member of the Virginia Foundation for Educational Leadership (VFEL) faculty which works with schools in improvement.