Activities of instructional leadership as perceived by Malaysian teachers

1. Melalui pembacaan,pemerhatian dan pengalaman bagaimana kah anda dapat menjadi seorang pemimpin berkesan? Nyatakan amalan kepemimpinan yang akan anda laksanakan. • Lihat contoh dapatan kajian tentang kepemimpinan pengajaran di Malaysia

2. Activities of instructional leadership as perceived by Malaysian teachers

3. KNOWLEGDE OF THE EDUCATIONAL ENTEPRISE WILL REMAIN DEFICIENT UNTIL ADMINISTRATIVE BEHAVIOR AND STUDENT LEARNING ARE EMPIRICALLY LINKED (ERIKSON, 1979) • INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP ENCOMPASSES THOSE ACTIONS THAT A PRINCIPAL TAKES, OR DELEGATES TO OTHERS TO PROMOTE GROWTH IN STUDENT LEARNING

4. TASK OF INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP • DEFINING THE PURPOSE OF SCHOOLING • SETTING SCHOOL WIDE GOALS • PROVIDING THE RESOURCES NEEDED FOR LEARNIN G TO OCCUR • SUPERVISING AND EVALUATING TEACHERS • COORDINATING STAFF DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME • CREATING COLLEGIAL RELATIONS WITH AND AMONG TEACHERS (WILDY & SIMOCK, 1993)

5. CONCLUSION of the study • Majority have aspiration to be school principal, and reasons highly ranked for seeking principal ship is to be a change agent, to enhance educational excellence and for their professional advancement. • Having leadership ability and to have an impact on instruction program are not considered as the main reason for seeking principal ship.

6. As a whole aspiring principal will perform a major extent of instructional leadership responsibilities related to promoting a positive school climate. If they were the school principals, their most practiced instructional leadership responsibilities will be to provide an orderly atmosphere for learning and emphasizing students’ achievements. • The least practiced responsibilities as perceived by the schools teachers will be accepting responsibilities for student’s behavior outside school and articulating school goals to public.

7. Evaluating teachers’ performance was not ranked high in importance even though this responsibility is one of the top ranked responsibility of instructional leaders as identified in the literature. Teacher ranked it number 10 from 16 responsibilities listed. • Aspiring principals also focus less on the responsibilities related to managing the curriculum esp. on selecting and reviewing of curriculum materials, devising instructional strategies and introducing new new instructional methods to teachers.

8. Overall mean of leadership effectiveness of the aspiring principals is moderately high. The highest mean score is on the item to be an effective leaders in meeting organization requirements. They score low on the item to get staff doing more then they are expected to do.

9. There is a moderate significant relationship between leadership effectiveness with teacher’s age, teaching experience. This mean that the older the teachers the higher will be their perception on leadership effectiveness, the more experience they have in teaching and administration work, the higher will be their perception on leadership effectiveness

10. IMPLICATION • Aspiring principals should be given an opportunity to learn to be instructional leaders. Understanding of the responsibilities of instructional leaders is a must to ensure future principal can focus on the improvement of instructional quality. If learning is a life-long process and the school goal is to improve quality of education then aspiring principals need to be continuously educated

11. Aspiring principals should understand the basis of shared Instructional leadership because more people should be involved in improving instructional quality. In order to meet the rapidly changing needs of Malaysian students, teachers as well as parents must be given the authority to make appropriate instructional decision

12. Instructional leaders must be knowledgeable about Curriculum and Instruction, must be able to plan continual improvement of instructional program and actively engage in staff development and encourage the use of instructional strategies. Most important of all future instructional leader should be an active participant in staff development.

13. SILA RUJUK KEPADA MAKLUMAT MENGENAI AMALAN KEPEMIMPNAN TRANFORMATIONAL YANG DISARANKAN SEBELUM INI • (RUJUKAN:47636 1992-08-00 Transformational Leadership. ERIC Digest, Number 72) • SILA BINCANGKAN KESESUAIAN KEPEMIMPINAN TRANSFORMATIONAL BERBANDING KEPEMIMPINAN PENGAJARAN UNTUK MENINGKATKAN KECEMERLANGAN INSTITUSI PENDIDIKAN/SEKOLAH

14. DISCUSSION:INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP VS TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP Explanations for principals’ activity and behavior are frequently attributed to the characteristics of the instructional leader and estimated using various measures of school effectiveness, especially student achievement (Pitner 1988). The moniker of “instructional leader” has been explicitly attached to principals beginning with the spread of the effective schools movement around 1980 (e.g., Blumberg & Greenfield 1980; Bossert, Dwyer, Rowan,& Lee 1981) and continues to define their roles since then and into the 2000s.

15. During the 1980s,there was specific pressure from the educational research and policy communities for principals to emphasize activities that would enhance or benefit classroom instruction and learning (e.G., Commission on excellence in education 1983; SCANS 1991). This has often meant that, as managers of organizations whose formal or official function are instruction and learning, principals are responsible and accountable for school outputs such as student achievement.

16. According to the instructional leadership perspective, the opportunity for balanced participation at different levels of school contextualization suggests that principals should and often do adapt or mold their activity to meet the needs appropriate to a variety of school contexts and adjust for conditions in these communities while actively influencing the instruction that takes place within their schools.

17. In the 1990s, a counter movement to instructional leadership emerged, which emphasized transformational leadership and organizational learning and was grounded more firmly in the empirical stud of organizational (e.g., Weick & Wesley 1996). This counter-movement asserted that schools are learning organizations and as such principals’ main objectives are to facilitate and guide student learning and classroom instruction rather overtly direct leaning and instruction( Leithwood, Janti, & Steinbach 1999).

18. In particular, instructional leadership proponents suggest that principals are the most effective of all potential instructional leaders because they are situated within school-level contexts unlike strict or regional superintendents, but not embedded so deeply as to be overwhelmed by students’ individual characteristics as teachers can be.

19. These arguments suggest that principals accomplish” transformational leadership” by fostering teachers’ autonomous development of good instructional practices, rather than telling them how or requiring them to do so. This facilitation or guidance, according to the” organizational learning” approach to transformational leadership, comes largely from principals providing teachers and students with whatever tools are necessary to instruct and learn, respectively, without principals directing the process themselves. In particular, the organizational learning movement focuses on variation in school situations and communities( Fullan 1993 ‘ Leithwood 2000).

20. In other words, the instructional leadership position, which suggests that principals overtly manage and are, therefore, accountable for school outputs because of their position relative to local school needs and conditions, is unreasonable according to organizational learning proponents precisely because every school has unique parents, students, teachers, and other situational and community variables.

21. Therefore, the organizational learning perspective suggests that variation between school communities and situations is the reason why principals cannot direct the development of best instructional practice( and, consequently, student achievement) rather than the reason how they can do it.

22. How do leaders develop the bonds necessary to make transformational leadership possible? Bernard Bass has four interrelated components that he views as essential for leaders to move followers into the transformational style.

23. First is idealized influence. He maintains that genuine trust must be built between leaders and follows. “if the leadership is truly transformational, its charisma or idealized influence is characterized by high moral and ethical standards.” trust for both leader and follower is built on a solid moral and ethical foundation. • The second component is inspirational motivation. “its [transformational leadership’s] inspirational motivation provides followers with challenges and meaning for engaging in shared goals and undertakings.” the leader’s appeal to what is right and needs to be done provides the impetus for all to move forward.

24. Next, is intellectual stimulation,”…intellectual stimulation helps followers to question assumptions and to generate more creative solutions to problems.” the leader’s vision provides the framework for followers to see how they connect to the leader, the organization, each other, and the goal. Once they have this big picture view and are allowed freedom from convention they can creatively overcome any obstacles in the way of the mission. • Lastly, is individual consideration,”…individual consideration treats each follower as an individual and provides coaching, mentoring and growth opportunities.” this approach not only educates the next generation of leaders, but also fulfills the individuals need for self-actualization, self-fulfillment, and self-worth. It also naturally propels followers to further achievement and growth.

25. The transformational leader strives to achieve a true consensus in aligning individual and organizational interests. In true consensus, the interests of all are fully considered, but the final decision reached may fail to please everyone completely. The decision is accepted as the best under the circumstances even if it means some individual members’ interests may have to be sacrificed.