Educational Leadership Trends
Today’s school principals, assistant principals and administrators face a quickly-changing educational environment. Keeping up with the latest educational trends is an important aspect of effective leadership. Just as professionals in every industry must anticipate what’s coming next to stay ahead of the competition, principals must study educational trends and keep their skills and knowledge updated. It’s clear: when the principal falls behind, students are more likely to follow suit.
Managing trends can be tricky. It’s not easy to differentiate a passing fad from a valuable new way to communicate. And it seems that every week, the “next big thing” to improve the business of educating students comes along.
But it’s also true that many trends have great value and real staying power. One example is the Internet – first dismissed by some – which has been embraced by nearly all educators. Currently emerging trends like social media, the increasing use of technology and performance-based teacher pay, could also be here to stay. So why not brush up on what’s happening now in the fast-paced world of education?
Principals: Expand Your Network Through Twitter
Twitter is a great way for principals to develop relationships with supporters, fellow educators and even news organizations. Creating an account is easy and with a few keystrokes, you can connect with education professionals from coast to coast – and around the world. Imagine developing a relationship with a principal in France and arranging for a Skype presentation to your French classes! Interactions like this take place every day in classrooms across the country.
Does Your School Have a Blog?
Blogging is another method to advance your profile as a principal. The main purpose of writing a blog is providing interesting and useful information to your audience; a common side effect is that a sense of community is created. Interacting with parents and teachers through a blog is one of the best ways to communicate your message while you discover what your audience is really thinking.
Communicate Quickly Through Text Messages
Text messaging to students’ and parents’ cell phones is an instant way to convey important, time-sensitive information. School emergencies and weather-related delays can be announced directly to the people who need to know what’s happening.
Clearly, social media is not going away. Principals who embrace these tools can improve communication and expand resources available to students.
Another Emerging Trend: Aligning Teacher Pay with Positive Outcomes
The Obama administration is providing over one billion dollars to The Teacher Incentive Fund, which it hopes will increase the number of top-notch teachers in the nation’s neediest classrooms. Through school reforms like performance pay for teachers, some believe educators will work harder to achieve results. Teachers might receive bonuses for mentoring their peers, improving student achievement or teaching in troubled schools.
Several states and the District of Columbia are launching new regulations to tie teacher salaries to student test scores or other merit-based pay plans. The idea is not without controversy; teachers’ unions are fighting performance pay proposals in many states, arguing that plans for measuring performance are not well planned. But with states vying for federal dollars that require merit pay, it’s one educational trend that’s likely to stick around – at least in the near term.
The Trend Toward Increasing Technology in the Classroom
Harnessing the increasing availability of high-tech tools will be vital to delivering quality education to upcoming generations of students. Major educational trends that principals need to keep up with include increasing use of computers and the Internet in the classroom, unprecedented access to mobile computing devices and preparing teachers to take advantage of educational technology.
The classroom can now come to any computer anywhere, facilitating learning through 24/7 access to lectures, how-to videos and podcasts. Another great way to support distance learning is by sharing presentations through sites like Slideshare. And online interactive whiteboards make it easy for students and teachers to collaborate, no matter where they might be.
