What would happen if we trusted teachers with school success? -- Introduction: To get high-performing schools, maybe it's time to trust teachers -- Teacher autonomy: what it is, who has it, and how it's secured -- When granted autonomy, teachers choose to operate in ways that emulate the cultural characteristics of high-performing organizations -- Eight practices autonomous teachers embrace, which are indicative of the cultural characteristics of high-performing organizations -- Practice #1: Share purpose, which always focuses on students as individuals, and use it as the basis of decisions aimed at school improvement -- Practice #2: Participate in collaboration and leadership for the good of the whole school, not just a classroom -- Practice #3: Encourage colleagues and students to be active, ongoing learners in an effort to nurture everyone's engagement and motivation -- Practice #4: Develop or adopt learning programs that individualize student learning -- Practice #5: Address social and discipline problems as part of student learning -- Practice #6: Broaden the definition and scope of student achievement and assessment -- Practice #7: Encourage teacher improvement using 360-degree, peer- and self-evaluation methods as well as peer coaching and mentoring -- Practice #8: Make budget trade-offs to meet the needs of students they serve -- Implementation strategies for those who want to support teacher autonomy -- It's time to trust teachers.
Summary:
"Examining the experiences of teachers who have already been liberated, this book discusses what teachers would do if they had the autonomy not just to make classroom decisions, but to collectively--with their colleagues--make the decisions influencing whole school success; decisions such as school curriculum; how to allocate the school budget; and who to hire and fire"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.