Traditional Roles of Instructional Leadership

¶ … Traditional Roles of Instructional Leadership With Emerging Roles

Instructional leadership, or transformational leadership, is where the principal replaces his traditional administrative role with a closer participation and examination into the educational format and running of his school. Traditionally, the school has a hierarchy of roles where the principal, at the topmost echelon, guides and supervises those beneath him, who, in turn, instruct the students what to do. An impassable gap exists between teachers and principal where each has different tasks and each is supposed to relegate them to their own spheres. Instructional leadership, on the other hand, believes that schools can be improved if the administrator occupies himself more with the actual curriculum and personally collaborates with the instructional format of his school. Ever since the 1980s when instructional leadership was first introduced, adherents of the philosophy believe that the principal is advised to unobtrusively mingle himself with students and teachers, observe the curriculum and teaching styles of the classrooms, observe the success of the various teaching models, and see how they can be improved. In a practical sense, periodic meetings where the teachers and principal assemble and discuss their teaching as well as ways to improve their offerings and style implement instructional leadership. The whole is conducted in an informal manner and may be integrated with activities, programs, and anything else that will create a collaborative atmosphere.

Instructional leadership has been found to be compelling for various reasons:

Firstly, it creates a positive atmosphere amongst the principals and teachers brining them closer together rather than apart, subsequently helping them direct their attention to one objective: improvement of the education in the school.

It has been found to produce greater results vis-a-vis the No Child left behind legislation.

There is less conflict in the school, with amiable atmosphere created between teachers and principal and amongst teachers themselves. This distributes to students and parents who pick up on the atmosphere and spread the conviviality. An environment of well being therefore proliferates throughout the school.

The environment of well being, in turn, leverages the level of teaching causing teachers and students to be more interested in both teaching and receiving.

Teachers share perspectives and models learning from oen another. This is beneficial in various ways not least that teachers can share reciprocal insights about how to improve their instructional style, as well as preventing fragmentation of teaching styles in the school and creating a more homogeneous, harmonized school atmosphere.

Ever since the 1980s, however, times have changed and the school's role along with it. The future provides both challenges and changes for the instructional leader.

II. The knowledge and skills that designer of curriculum, instruction, and assessment will need to possess in the next five years

To make instructional leadership work, administrators and teachers will need to catch up with technology as it progresses. This is particularly so since their students are technologically savvy and teachers, in order to keep interesting them and in order to be relevant will have to be up to par with the technology.

More so, technology has become very much a part of the modern classroom and is able to improve education in various ways. For the principal to be the most effective administrator and to effectively interact with teachers and students making lesson s current and improving the educational curriculum, implementation of technology, both in and out of the classroom setting, is a necessity.

According to Terry (1999), principles should be leaders in learning, not merely leaders of learning. What this means is that they should have knowledge of contemporary theories of learning, possess their own preferred approach of learning, and should be able to integrate and use their knowledge on the subject.

As Hill (1996) sees it, the differnce between instructional leadership of the previous decade and instructional leadership of the present and the future is that leadership of the past focuses on teaching and learning, whereas leadership of the present and future involves principals spending more time establishing appropriate preconditions for education and following through with interventions aimed to improve the learning experience. Principals, therefore, have to be experts in a variety of areas -- and this is part of the challenges of the future.

Leadership challenges that will be present in the future.

Instructional leadership is essentially split into three components: (1) administrative, where the principal still ahs to carry out his regular tasks of helping the school move on and succeed, (2) collaboration with students and teachers -- being there with them, listening to them, and joining them in their concerns, (3) educational - being actively involved in the unfolding and transmission of the educational curriculum in his school (Botha, 2006).

Combination of these three duties may be onerous for any single individual and for the school administrator who has to also involve himself with stakeholders and parents, as well as community and other employees, the burden may be overwhelming. This is particularly so as the schools of the future become more rather than less complex. In fact, as Caldwell (2002) shows, many principals lack the time for, and an understanding of, their leadership tasks.

Hill (1996), principals have to be experts in a variety of areas. These include:

Detailed knowledge of each and every student and their individual progress

Detailed understanding of the context and background of the various learners

Detailed understanding of the specific qualities and preferred learning style of each of the students

Knowledge about the different learning / educational theories and their results

The principals' role of the future, therefore, is an amalgamation of management and instructional leadership.

The modern school principal will essentially have to represent three broad areas of leadership:

1. Instructional - where he improves teaching and learning at school whilst expecting the instructors to maintain discipline and motivate their students as well as continuing to set high levels in their teaching