Purpose: School leaders work in a fast-paced job that requires critical decision-making, often without the luxury of time. Additionally, problems may be new and leave school leaders feeling isolated and ill-equipped to adequately address situations. To that end, this study introduced the use of Reddit, a social media platform, to connect school…

Research suggests that traditional models for principal preparation often do not adequately prepare principals for the challenges of their daily work. This study examines how one private university in the south utilized a Grow Your Own (GYO) concept to provide principal candidates with more authentic field-based cohort learning that revolved…

Purpose: This study explores the achievements and process of a group of Chinese primary school teachers learning from a research-based school-university collaborative project. Design/Approach/Methods: We used qualitative methods to construct our research design, collecting data through participatory observations of weekly meetings, teacher…

Special education is a vital and challenging area of service within American education. The services it provides and the processes which are employed are highly articulated and regulated by an extensive network of federal and state laws. Policy tends to drive decision making processes and accountability more than it guides instruction, decisions…

This paper explores the complex problem of project sustainability, focusing on the leadership of three primary school mathematics leaders. Using cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), the leaders' efforts are reported, highlighting their contribution to project sustainability. The CHAT-informed research design supported the generation of…

Educators' Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) is crucial for fostering positive, supportive, and effective learning environments. This study seeks to improve SEL assessment among educators by addressing limitations of the previous EduSEL questionnaire. Study 1 established convergent validity by comparing EduSEL with a validated SEL questionnaire.…

An urban middle school goes through the transformation of becoming a university-supported lab school. Drawing upon design thinking principles, the planning team cultivates a sense of shared empathy, creative problem-solving, and an ethos of curiosity and learning in a collaborative environment.

This study concerned aspiring educational leaders' problem-solving skill development, specifically through classroom instruction with real-world scenarios. Professional educators obtaining an advanced degree in educational administration at a public university were surveyed in the fall and spring about their problem-solving abilities. Participants…

Although past research has documented that school leaders and teachers lack legal knowledge, this study is the first to ask the critical question whether legal training affects educators' actions and attitudes. School leaders and teachers responded to a survey in the years after completing a graduate-level school law course. They indicated that…

This article reports on a study of the value master's students in a principal preparation program placed on a variety of instructional strategies. The aspiring principals completed a survey with fixed-response and open-ended items. The students' most valued class discussions were about how their personal experiences related to the class topic and…

The purpose of this study was to reflect the leadership strategies that may arise using a constructivist approach based on organizational learning. This approach involved the use of simulations that focused on ethical tensions in school principals' daily experiences, and the development of codes of ethical conduct to reduce these tensions. The…

Over the years, careers have transformed to be flexible and changing rather than stable, life-long commitments to an organization. As such, making work meaningful, controlling the work environment, and taking the opportunity to get required training for the next job are as important as the financial advantages. Educators' careers cannot be…

Purpose: The public expects school leaders to be moral exemplars, yet prior research indicates that teachers and, more recently, school principals may score lower than other career groups on a widely used measure of moral reasoning, the Defining Issues Test. Moreover, little empirical research has been conducted on educators during leadership…

This article presents the perceptions of approximately 300 experienced New Zealand principals who participated in a pilot leadership development initiative funded by the Ministry of Education. The Experienced Principals Development Programme (EPDP) underwent a rigorous evaluation that included formative (mid-point) and summative (end-point)…

Online simulations offer opportunities for trial and error decision-making. What better tool for a principal than to make decisions when the consequences will not have real-world ramifications. In this study, two groups of graduate students in a principal preparation program taking the same course in the same semester use online simulations…