Across the United States performance expectations of principal supervisors are shifting from a focus on compliance to a focus on instructional leadership development. The problem addressed in this study was that principal supervisors were applying feedback and coaching approaches inconsistently as they addressed school principals' growth as…

Intermediary organizations seek to make change in the world by strengthening the practice or building the capacity of direct service providers. In the education sector, these types of organizations often play important roles as technical assistance providers, capacity builders, additional administrators, investors, or funders. At the core of this…

This action research takes place at a small, New England public school system in Hopkinton, MA, and was designed to build the capacity of educators by utilizing a cycle of inquiry to improve Data-Driven Decision Making. The action steps of this study established a building-based Student Learning Team at Hopkinton Middle School which, in…

As part of the Every Student Succeeds Act, the teacher evaluation system includes qualitative and quantitative data to measure teacher quality. Today, school administrators are expected to interpret classroom observation ratings and student growth data to make decisions for instructional improvement. The goal for using an interpretive qualitative…

This applied research study seeks to improve principal capacity as instructional leaders. The need for principals to increase their instructional leadership capacity became evident with the ever-changing requirements of state accountability and student achievement. Using four elements in this study, cohort-based professional development for…

This study is concerned with how teachers use data about students' ideas in science, elicited from embedded formative assessment probes, to make decisions about next steps in instruction. Since Black and Wiliam's (1998) seminal work on formative assessment, researchers and practitioners alike concerned themselves with formative assessment and its…