Saturday, September 21, 2013
Decisions, Decisions....
School leaders are regularly faced with critical decisions. Principals are often challenged to respond with action to improve student achievement, follow directives from the central office, support faculty and staff, advocate for students and comply with state law and/or department of education mandates. Give an example of a similar decision making situation with which you are familiar and discuss how it was addressed within your school. Please refer to a decision making model from our studies and evaluate its effectiveness for situation referenced.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was on the School Improvement Team one of the issues that we dealt with as a school was English Language Learning students receiving low reading scores on the End of Grade tests. In our meeting we brainstormed the idea ELL tutoring twice a week after school.
ReplyDeleteI believe we used the Rational Model. The principal identified the problem which was ELL students scoring low in reading on the EOGs. The team generated alternatives. The different alternatives were having a 30 minute block in the school day when these students would be taught, having a teacher rotation schedule to teach students, employing an outside tutor for ELL students, and ELL tutoring after school. The School Improvement Team (SIT) evaluated the idea that students could not afford to miss a block of time in the school day and the school could not afford to hire another employee. SIT also evaluated that the school could not make a teacher rotation schedule because it could not be made mandatory for teachers to work after school hours. The team decided that we would have ELL tutoring twice a week based on teacher volunteers. I also think Contextual Rationality was displayed because our principal wanted to have teachers on an ELL tutoring rotation but that was out of her control. “Although the school administrator wants to make optimal decisions, these are mediated by such realities of organizational life as internal and external politics, conflict resolution requirements, distribution of power and authority, and limits of human rationality” (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2012, pg.140).
The action of ELL tutoring twice a week for an hour and a half with the help of teacher volunteers was followed through. I was one of the volunteers to help with ELL tutoring. Looking back on the decision I believe it was a step in the right direction. Knowing what I know now I do not think we evaluated the outcomes of the tutoring sessions. One of the problems with the ELL sessions was there was not enough teachers to volunteer. There were four or five teachers that participated in tutoring and about 30 to 35 students. I believe we should have surveyed the faculty to see how many teachers could volunteer so we could know what number we were going to be working with. Our school gives out prizes and coupons to different restaurants we could have also given an incentive to volunteer to tutor. After we seen the participation of the teachers we could make them accountable by assigning them a group. We could group them by grade level or by different reading skills that they were comfortable with teaching.
SIT used the Rational Model to guide our decision making. The disadvantage to Rational Model is you cannot generate and evaluate all alternatives which can lead to a misinformed decision.
Chaz Douglas EDL 660
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMarcus Fray
ReplyDeletePrincipals are faced with decisions that effect students, faculty, the school, and even the community on a frequent basis. One decision that stuck out to me that our principal made one year ago was in support of the teaching staff. Like many educators, I am in a district that shares bussing in the afternoon between all of our k-6 students. In our district we have two grades per building, so when transporting students in the afternoon the busses pick up students from 4 different schools. I am in the 1-2 building and we are the final ones to have the students picked up after school. The system last year did not allow enough time for busses to perform this action within the times of dismissal. This caused our teachers to have the students for an extra 5-10 minutes after release time each day for the first 1-2 months of school. With many teachers upset, and schedules altered in that time period a decision was made by our building principal to make up for that time and give it back in a way they best saw fit. This was an issue that had no routine or procedure and had never been encountered before, known as a nonprogrammed decision (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2012). The teachers in our building wanted to know how and when this time could be made up (if possible). Our building principal decided to work a solution into our records day. One day we were to report for grading on our first records day became optional. If you chose, the principal was allowing teachers to do grades at home to make up for the extra time they spent teaching after school was supposed to be let out. The teachers in our building were very happy with this decision and it worked out well for everyone. Also, we were able to do this without missing and staff development meetings, or curriculum time. The work got done as it would have at school but teachers did it in the comfort of their own home.
This decision would fall under the bound rationality model. Herbert Simon created the term bounded rationality to describe the perspective of the decision maker who would like to make the best decision but normally settles for less than optimal (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2012). This model makes clear that you might not have all optimal solutions, but some. Also, alternatives and decisions may be incomplete. There are many things at stake so the decision maker must take all things into consideration to reach a compromising solution (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2012). Our principal used this bounded rationality in making her decision for the extra time put in. She did not lay out every alternative decision, understanding some may not be cost effective, realistic, or could hurt the stake holders involved (students or staff). Overall this was an effective decision made by the leader in our school. She was able to improvise in a cost effective way to compensate for extra time put in by the teaching staff.
Lunenburg, F.C., & Ornstein, A.C. (2012). Educational administration: Concepts and practices (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Last Spring we had an issue of academic cheating with our high school students. It turned out that these students actually had created a system to help them obtain test questions and answers and share them within the group. These students were in the top of their class and many had just been inducted into the National Honor Society. It created a very stressful situation for our principal as he was shocked to find out something like this was occurring in our small school, but also that his own daughter was involved.
ReplyDeleteThis issue was addressed at one of our staff meetings. I believe our principal implemented the Rational Model of decision making as our process followed the six steps of identifying the problem, creating alternatives, evaluating those alternatives, choosing an alternative, implementing the decision and finally evaluating the decision (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2012).
The meeting started with the principal filling us in on what he was aware of and then asking if there was anything else that we as a staff knew. We covered the issue of cheating, but also the ways in which the students were using to accomplish the sharing of information. Once we knew the ways they were using, we started to brainstorm ways of eliminating the opportunities for this ‘sharing’ to occur. One of the ways was that teachers would need to create slightly different tests or quizzes for each hour. After coming up with different techniques to use, we discussed how successful they potentially would be, as well as how much time would be involved in using the different methods. With the help of the principal, teachers came to a consensus on how quizzes and tests would be handled from now on in the building. We also discussed various ways of watching for cheating and evaluating student answers for similarities. The decision we came to was immediately implemented in order to crack down on the problem right away. Several teachers updated tests after the meeting in order to still give them to students that week. After implementing the new methods for tests, we took a few minutes each week at staff meetings to discuss and evaluate how the new methods were working for everyone. Although it created more work for teachers, the staff was happy to be working as a team to cut down on this problem of cheating.
Another hard decision that our principal had to make on his own was to speak to the local media about the discovered cheating in our school. I believe his making this decision would fall under the idea of satisficing, as it involves choosing the first option that will meet an acceptability standard (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2012). Of course he didn’t want to spread the news that we had discovered a major ring of cheating, but he felt it was best for the community to hear it from the school leader than through the grapevine. In order to eliminate rumors being spread, he decided to inform the community of what happened, the steps that were being implemented to eliminate this issue and that the students involved would be reprimanded. He felt this was extremely important because we are a “character school” and often receive more criticism than the other local schools from the community if our students are caught misbehaving. He didn't create a large list of options; he simply thought of what he felt would be best for the school and the opinion of the community.
Ultimately the methods we implemented ended up working for the rest of the year. Teachers continued to make changes to tests and procedures and hopefully the security of the information will continue to be successful as years pass. The students involved were reprimanded appropriately and parents were supportive of the decisions our principal made.
Ashleigh Campbell
EDL 660
Lunenburg, F.C., & Ornstein, A.C. (2012). Educational administration: concepts and practices. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.
School leaders are faced with decisions that effect students, faculty, the school, and even the community on a frequent basis. The situation that came to mind when I was thinking of a time where a decision making process was used was the issue of our attendance of our students within our school district. At the end of the school year in 2011-2012 82% of our students had 10 or more absences. We as a staff met to discuss this because we know that attendance is crucial in the success of our students and if students are not at school we are unable to do our jobs and have the students showing growth. We knew this was a major problem and we had to find ways to get our students to school and keep them there and interested. As a staff, we set up an attendance policy where students can get 5 absences before there is any consequences at all. After 5, every day they miss they will be mailed a letter letting them know about truancy and the consequences that will occur if they reach 10 days. After 10 days our principal and our school liaison officer set up a parent meeting and discuss the absences and after 15 the parents get arrested for truancy and they are placed in jail for 2 days. Last year for the 2012-2013 school year our numbers dropped drastically and only about 35% of our students were absent 10 or more school days. Assessment scores increased slightly but we are hoping that after a couple more years of this attendance policy in place, our student achievement will increase. As stated in our text this method of decision making would be categorized at the classical or rational choice model.
ReplyDeleteJulie Jackson
EDL 660
Lunenburg, F.C., & Ornstein, A.C. (2012). Educational administration: concepts and practices. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.
School administrators are faced with the task of making critical decisions. These critical decisions may need to satisfy each of the following criteria: improve student achievement, comply with central office, support faculty and staff, advocate with students and comply with state Department of Education mandates. Herbert Simon developed contextual rationality to help better understand how an administrator can make a critical decision when faced with politics, culture, standing policies and bureaucratic obstacles (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2012, p. 140). An administrator can successfully use Simon’s contextual reality to make a critical change as show through an analysis of contextual reality as related to educational administration, by connecting it to my professional experiences and how I plan to incorporate it as an administrator.
ReplyDeleteAnalysis of Contextual Rationality and Relevance to Educational Administration
Contextual reality, created by Herbert Simon, suggests that a decision maker is stuck within a bureaucratic framework of environmental influences that keeps an administrator from using the rational decision making model (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2012, p. 140). The rational decision making model, also created by Simon, is assumed that the decision maker is able to recognize all alternative solutions to an issue, be aware of the consequences of each of the solutions proposed, be able to evaluate the consequences against the administrators value system, have the ability to rank the alternatives in order in which they would best meet the objective and finally, select the alternative that is going to best achieve the decision makers goal (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2012, p. 139). Simon, also within the rational decision making model, assumes that the decision maker has perfect information and the goal is to create an objective that best maximizes the potential of that goal (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2012, p. 139). However, Simon recognizes that administrators are humans and may take short cuts to make a decision if not bounded by politics, culture, standing policies and bureaucratic obstacles (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2012, p. 139).
Simon recognizes that the rational decision making model is difficult to implement within education and proposes the use of contextual reality (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2012, p. 140). Simon also recognizes that many times administrators are faced with the task of achieving objectives via vague and ambiguous goals (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2012, p. 140). Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2012, point out that ultimately an administrator must pursue multiple and perhaps conflicting goals within a constrained bureaucracy which ultimately do not lead to the best achievement to goal that was meant to be satisfied (p. 192). The use of contextual reality is simply a matter of taking how an individual would best make a critical decision, while making the decision maker aware of all of the constraints that exist when making a decision (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2012, p. 140).
Effectiveness of Contextual Rationality
DeleteAs a teacher for ten years at my former High School, I have been witness to a multitude of critical decisions that have been made by decision makers over the years. The vast majority of those decisions used contextual rationality by administrators when making a critical decision.
Critical decisions that have successfully taken into account contextual rationality leaves the majority involved content with whatever critical decision was made. By an administrator taking into account all of the outside influences and consequences of a decision, less conflict, for the administrator personally, is a possible positive result.
An example of a successful critical decision from my career as a teacher would include the use of planners as the primary use of passes from class. For years, teachers had autonomy to decide how they let students leave their room and in many cases, there was zero documentation as to where or what time the student was leaving and for what purpose. The result was students in the hallways without supervision which can mostly only lead to negative consequences. When the planner method was implemented, the principal had to take into account that he was taking into account a cultural norm that had been in place for years, that the bureaucracy was pushing for the change, that students, parents and staff would be resistant to change and politically, it would be perceived as micromanaging. However, the implementation of the use of planners was handled so successfully, that many of these concerns disappeared relatively quickly, and has only become better over the years. Ultimately, after taking all factors into account, I believe the fact that the principal was strongly encouraged to use planners from the superintendent and school board that all other concerns disappeared. Fortunately, they were correct in their assessment and implementation was successful.
Unfortunately, the use of contextual rationality has caused me to see a limitless amount of examples where due to the complexity of an issue, the issue is never solved. The best example I can provide is the issue that my former High School deals with in terms of students who are dual enrolled in a career pathway dual enrollment such as the Bay Arenac ISD or the Saginaw Career Complex. At least 1/5th of the students who take the Economic and Government Michigan Merit Exam (MME) at my former High School have not taken either course prior to testing. That would be the worst nightmare scenario for a student where one is asked to take an exam on a class that they never knew they were signed up for while still being held accountable. Due to the complexity of the issue, as far as I know, it still stands that 1/5th of the students will still take the MME without exposure to these courses. That is 2/5th’s of the exam social studies MME exam. Based on last year’s data, roughly 75% of these students scored as a 1 or 2 in Government and Economics on these portions of the test. Using contextual rationality, it is still deemed acceptable to continue this course, despite the negative consequences.
Connecting Contextual Rationality to my career as an Administrator
DeleteAs an administrator I will be faced with many critical decisions that will take into account improving student achievement, following directives from the central office, supporting faculty and staff, advocating for students and department of education mandates.
Today I had a situation as an administrator where a paraprofessional witnessed students stealing food from the lunch line, but she did not want me to follow up on it because she thought she might be implicated if punitive consequences occurred for the students. I had to take into account that stealing is wrong and students, according to the student handbook, must be punished, but also making sure the paraprofessionals feel supported and can trust me as an administrator.
I worked with another assistant principal on this issue and by using contextual rationality, we were able to solve the issue while keeping all parties involved content with the decision. We pulled the students individually aside and figured out why they were stealing without implicating that the paraprofessionals were involved with reporting their theft. On top of that, we found out that one student is a free and reduced lunch student and was simply hungry and need more food, but he did not take advantage of free and reduced breakfast. The other student normally took the bus, but because he and his girlfriend broke up, he wanted to avoid drama and was paying someone to drive him to school. Through further research, we discovered that he may be able to receive free and reduced meals as well. Overall, this situation was a very positive outcome to a seemingly negative discipline referral.
I now realize that I will use contextual reality on a daily basis as decisions must be made to best help the school while also taking into account all of the groups affected by that decision.
References
DeleteLunenburg, F., & Ornstein, A. (2012). Development of Administrative Theory. In Educational Administration: Concepts and Practices (6th, pp. 135-153). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.
I feel as though I am reaching the point of droning on about our school’s Student Success Time, but once again I think the process of decision making that has gotten our school into a tough spot is worth noting. SST is our schools version of Plan, Do, Check, Act, which is a system designed to help get organizations headed in a positive direction. For more information follow this link: http://mymassp.com/readysetsuccess/plan_do_check_act . As a lead in for a discussion on where our decision making process is at, I would like to share a quote from one administrator at a staff meeting today. “In this instance with SST we did not take the proper Ready, Aim, Fire approach. We did a Ready, Fire, Aim which was all we could do, but now we have to take a minute to Aim.” The website above is a link which explains how one school has implemented Plan, Do, Check, Act in their school. The article explains that their first year they spent in training and planning. Our district had two professional development days, which has started things off on a rough note. Now we are in the phase of making a decision for change.
ReplyDeleteToday our staff sat down together and our principal began the decision making process using The Rational Model. Our principal did not give us a checklist of steps to follow for making a decision but the flow follows the rational model very closely. In Educational Administration Lunenburg and Ornstein (2012) explain that the rational model can be broken into six steps: identifying the problems, generating alternatives, evaluating alternatives, choosing an alternative, implementing the decision, and evaluating the decision.
Based on feedback from students, parents, and staff the principal started our meeting by citing the identity of our problem. In this case the problem is that planning time is short and teachers have to teach subjects other than their content area during SST. Next, we began generating alternatives to our current practice as a staff. While we offered up suggestions the principal kept a running list of ways we could alter the program. With a set of alternatives in place our staff began dialogue about what could really be better and in essence evaluated the proposals at hand. With several options now available the teaching staff and principal will have a couple nights to think about the proposed options and then on Friday we will vote at our staff meeting (choose an alternative). Having two nights to consider these new options for SST is already more time than we had to implement the original change so I am hopeful for better results in the near future. The final two phases of implementation and evaluation are still a couple weeks away. From our original version of SST, it was the implementation phase that caused the initial turmoil and the evaluation phase is what has lead us back to the drawing board to find a way to make the program work for our school.
I think that the Rational Model for decision making is an effective way to approach a problem or a need for change. I truly think the only fault our school experienced with using this model is that the evaluate and choice steps of the process were eliminated due to being put under a very tight deadline.
Luke Reynolds
ReplyDeleteEDL 660SP
At our school, the principal had to make a decision about the school’s Accelerated Reader (AR) program last year. Our past principal (now retired) had a tendency to make decisions based off of intuition and the most recent educational research article that he had read that could bring positive change to our school. For the last marking period of last year, he had a meeting with teachers in fourth, fifth, and sixth grades to determine if our Accelerated Reader program was being successful for students the way it currently is, or if changes needed to be made to the program.
Before changes were made, students were given nine week goals based off of their independent reading level from their STAR reading test results. It was also based on the assumption that they read for thirty minutes a day. Before students were allowed to take a test, they had to fill out a book report about the plot, characters, conflict, and resolution to the story. Problems occurred when students who were great readers were not taking AR tests because they did not want to write the report. Another problem was students were not putting in the effort on their book reports and the idea of summarizing the text to help with reading comprehension was not working. Students were still not passing their AR tests after writing the reports.
During our meeting, the principal asked the staff to brainstorm ideas on how to modify the AR program or determine if it needs to be eliminated. We created a list of things we could do to make the program better. After the list was created, the principal led a discussion with the group going over the positive and negative aspects of each idea. Before we made a decision on what ideas to implement, the group also had a discussion on whether to keep the program or to eliminate the program. In the end, the group decided to eliminate the use of AR book reports and that students will obtain their nine week goals like normal. Results of the change showed more students taking AR tests since writing was no longer involved with the book reports.
The type of group decision making we made to determine the future of our AR program was brainstorming. Brainstorming was a group decision strategy created by Alex Osborn to generate alternative solution to a problem. When brainstorming, participants are not allowed to talk about the positive or negative aspects of an idea until all ideas, no matter how crazy they sound, are determined. Brainstorming also allows ideas to “piggyback” or combine to create other ideas to make strong solutions to a problem. The positive aspects of brainstorming is that creative or feasible ideas are not eliminated right after being introduced and the number of ideas are increased. The negative aspects of brainstorming is groupthink. Groupthink occurs when members of the group work well together and they make decision to reach consensus instead of taking the time to analyze the problem and determine the best possible solution.
Lunenburg, F. C. & Ornstein, A. C. (2012). Educational Administration: Concepts and Practices, 6th Edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
School administrators are forced to make decisions daily- some small decisions and some on a much larger scale. Some of these issues are re-occurring, but some are entirely new. It is imperative that administrators use what they know and past experiences to help them make the best decision possible for their students, staff, and parents.
ReplyDeleteLast year after taking the NWEA tests in the fall, we noticed that a small percentage of our students were “exceeding expectations,” a large percentage of our students were “at level” and there was another small group of students “below level” in both reading and in math. Our administration called us together (elementary teachers only) and we discussed these findings. We then wanted to discuss and come up with possible ways to continue to challenge those students exceeding and at level, and also how we could encourage and push those that were below where they needed to be according to the state standards.
In this case, I think our school used the classical/rational model in decision making. We sat down together as a group and identified the problem: We had some students that needed a challenge, and some students that needed an extra push.
We analyzed: How would we, as teachers, support both ends of the spectrum in our lesson planning and teaching?
We developed alternative solutions to the problem: We discussed different ways we could teach to benefit these students. (Create groups based on level, small group teaching, special “pull out groups” to help those in need, etc.) We did this whole group, in small groups, and then as a whole group again. I think this helped in forming many different and creative ideas on how to solve this problem. We were able to work cohesively as a small group and then look at the big picture. This helped in avoiding “group think” and reverting back to solutions we may have already tried in the past.
We then made a decision: to teach within our Language Arts groups to all students, and to gear our lessons toward those students at and above level while continuing to support our below level students. We also created small “pull out groups” based on necessity. We had parapros taking groups of 2 or 3 students at a time to work in short increments of time on skills specific to their needs. This kept them with their peers, but also gave them a chance to catch up on skills they were missing.
Our last step was to evaluate our decision. We did this by looking at our students test scores on the NWEA test in the spring. We were able to look at student growth in different areas, and if they made their target growth. Many students had grown, and we saw that their confidence had blossomed as well. We decided to continue with this practice to see how students can benefit in the months to come. We do plan to meet back to discuss this years NWEA test results from the fall.
Our principal recently had to make a decision about what to do with two huge behavior problems in our school. Both boys are in the first grade, and have each been at our school for pre-school and kindergarten. In my grade last year both of the boys were incredibly disruptive, violent, and scary to other kids. One child would eventually calm down, and was incredibly bright. He was actually well liked by the whole grade level. The other child has a rough family life and when he was to lash out, it was frightening. Both boys were not given to the teacher that the kindergarten team suggested. After four weeks in first grade their teachers were at a breaking point. Many different scenarios were discussed such as: assigning a parapro to each child, trying a different teacher, and even moving each to another school. Over the course of a few weeks my principal and superintendent sat down and evaluated all these different options. In the end my principal hired a new teacher that took these two boys and is their new primary teacher. That is what she felt was best for the children. This week the new room started, with a limited amount of space the classroom is forced to be in what we use as a conference room. The first week has been extremely rough, unfortunately, their room is close to my classroom and now I have to hear the kids yelling. I’m hoping at some point people will evaluate this decision and rethink what to do with children like this. I just do not think it’s the most positive thing for these students. I realize what a hard job principals have, you’re never going to please everyone and sometimes you have to make decisions that have an uncertain alternative.
ReplyDeleteLunenburg, F. C. & Ornstein, A. C. (2012). Educational Administration: Concepts and Practices, 6th Edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
One of the largest routines for an administrator (central administration most times) is the negotiation of collective bargaining agreements; assuming the district allows for such things.
ReplyDeleteFirst, we must assume that the basic premise of the Rational Model holds true, “(that) people are aware of everything and they themselves are rational (Lunenburg, F.C &Ornstein A.C., 2012, p. 137).”
Next, the problem needs to be identified. Decisions “may arise when there is a discrepancy between existing and desired conditions (Lunenburg, F.C &Ornstein A.C., 2012, p. 137).” For example, in my district our wages have been frozen for five years and through legislative action, our net income has fallen substantially. This is in part due to funding levels, but also from discrepancies between ideal conditions perceived by the administration as well as our teachers.
Next the rational model states that after identifying the problem, the school administrator should generate a list of alternatives as well as their outcomes, value, and likelihood of certainty and risk (Lunenburg, F.C &Ornstein A.C., 2012, p. 138).” If the case of contract negotiations, the school administrators will likely have their ideas about choices and options to bring to the table; however, the association will also have a list of their demands. A school administrator must anticipate the alternatives that the association brings to the table and be prepared with a host of alternatives to their solutions. The administrator must also assess whether their ideas are possible, positive, negative and what the likelihood of those ideas are to accomplish district goals.
Choosing Alternatives comes next. The text explains five different types of alternatives. Good (mostly good, minimal bad outcome), Bland (low probability of positive and negative), Mixed (high probability of both positive and negative outcomes), Poor (likely negative with little chance of positive outcomes), and Uncertain (unsure of outcomes) (Lunenburg, F.C &Ornstein A.C., 2012, p. 138).” Obviously, in the case of a contract negotiation, the administration is not the only person who makes a decision. Most decisions made in our last two contracts have been either ‘bland’ or ‘poor.’ The administration has been able to table the association’s demands, mostly due to lack of funding increases which lead the two parties to discuss working condition language and policy changes; both of which have a ‘bland’ outcome on most everyone in the association. However, sweeping changes such as switching health care plans, tuition reimbursement and teaching assignments all normally will have perceived ‘poor’ outcome from the perceptive of the association.
Next, the administrator must implement the decisions. In this case, once the contract is agreed upon and signed, it is up to both sides to sell it to their respective members. Normally, in our contract negotiations, the communication of what both sides are asking for and what is ultimately decided is communicated through email over the summer. This leads a large number of association members who don’t regularly check their email confused about all the different decisions and reasoning for change. It becomes the responsibility of the administration to ‘sell’ the changes and convince the association that their perception of a poor or bland decision is actually a good alternative. Open lines of communication and clear and simple information is best. A lot of times, TOO much information in an email or too many emails themselves can convolute the matter to the point of discontent; which naturally leads to the delete button and too much scuttlebutt on the grape vine.
All in all, a decision made with the Rational or Classic Model works well when making decisions that involve input from others as well as a group setting. The scientific model approach offers administrators the opportunity to critically analyze the decisions being made which presumably increases the need for revision.
In our school we have what we call study groups for grades K-4 to help improve Math and Reading skills. We started the study groups for Reading I in the middle of the year for Reading improvement. The study groups are formed and organized by two Math and Reading coaches in our school. These two coaches were taken out of the classroom and put in this position by the Superintendent because of their educational background. Our MEAP scores have been poor and last year this decision was made to have the study groups because of the low scores. The Reading scores were particularly low so this was something that was decided that our district would try. The groups are put together according to ability so the classroom teachers have to divide their classes up by the low achieving students and the higher achieving students. When it is time for the study groups two classes are split in half and go to the study groups. Then the other two halves of each class combine for their lessons in other areas. The students are split for 30 minutes at a time. The problem is that while the regular class is working on lessons in different areas, when the other half of the class returns the lesson that was just taught to the students that stayed in the room needs to be taught again to the students that were in the study group. So there is a feeling that there is ½ hour a day, because of lessons having to be re-taught that teachers feel is taking time away from other lessons that are in need to be taught also.
DeleteThis year our school started doing the study groups for Math and Reading, leaving staff feeling like now there is an hour out of the day re-teaching lessons. A week ago a team consisting of the Reading and Math coaches, the principal, the Asst. principal, and the title director met to make a decision as to if more time needs to be invested in the study group sessions. The decision making model I believe they made was the Rational Model. In discussion of the Rational Model, our text discusses the Rational Model and the decision making model is broken into six steps. The first step is identifying the problem. Is there a need for our school to invest more time in the study groups? The next step is generating alternatives. If we don’t invest more time in the study groups then what are other options that will improve student scores? The next step is to evaluate each of the alternatives. The group needs to make a decision which alternative is the best to be implemented for student achievement. The fourth step is to choose the alternative that best fits the needs of our students. The decision was to invest more time in the study groups. Then the decision needs to be implemented. The next step is to implement the decision. This week students now go to study groups for 45 minutes two times a day. The final step is to evaluate the decision. I think this step will be coming in the weeks to come. The decision cannot be evaluated until the study groups have been happening for a couple weeks. I do know that if it comes down to how the staff feels things are going, there is already problems with not having enough time to be able to teach other subject areas that are also required to be taught. Now teachers are losing 45 minutes a day re-teaching lessons to students that are out of the room for the study groups. We all know how precious 45 minutes is to our instructional time.
Lunenburg, F.C., & Ornstein, A.C. (2012). Educational administration: Concepts and practices (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Two years ago, the local school district's standardized test scores in math were not as high as expected. The superintendent wanted to increase the math scores, and decided to add forty minutes of math instruction per day for every student. The directive was given without consulting classroom teachers about the impact it would have on the rest of the curriculum, and without consulting the district math teachers about whether simply adding forty minutes a day would improve results. The high school was unable to comply—it was not possible to add forty math minutes a day, especially with no new teachers hired, and no opportunity to change the structure of the day.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, the superintendent made the decision in the classic Vroom-Yetton Autocratic-I style: “solve the problem or make the decision yourself, using the information available to you at the present time” (L. & O., p. 143).
The Group-II method would have been appropriate. “The team makes a decision together. Your role is mostly facilitative and you help the team come to a final decision that everyone agrees on (MindTools)”. The school district has several experts in math curriculum/teaching. They should have been consulted as equals on a decision-making team to solve the problem of lower-than-expected math scores. Also, teachers at the elementary level should have been consulted as to how this might affect the rest of the student day and how it would impact the other curricula.
Needless to say, decision acceptance (“the extent to which decisions are accepted by those subordinates who must implement them” [L. & O., p. 143]) was lacking in this case. The directive was impossible to implement at the high school level, and it was not implemented with fidelity at the K-8 levels. It appeared a rash solution to a problem, offered without consulting the experts or those who would implement it. And, those with the math teaching expertise knew it was not a solution that would work. In the end, this was poor, autocratic decision making, instead of productive, collaborative problem-solving.
The current LA school district's iPad “scandal” also comes to mind here—this billion-dollar cutting-edge technology initiative has gotten a lot of attention. The superintendent made the decision to put an iPad in the hands of every student with input from many, but still, there have been problems with acceptance and other unforeseen circumstances. And some have asked the question, “What problem were you trying to solve?” Of course, backlash is to be expected with a brand-new, and thus, risky initiative. But perhaps an in-depth bounded rationality model would have been a sound approach, helping them assess the actual problems and consider the possible consequences. I shudder to imagine this scale of decision being made by one person autocratically!
Lunenburg, F. & Ornstein, A. (2012). Educational Administration: Concepts and Practices, Sixth Edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Mind Tools Ltd. (1996-2013). The vroom-yetton-jago decision model. Retrieved from http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_91.htm
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIn schools today, principals are tasked with many decisions. One of the most important is deciding how the school will improve student achievement. Let’s imagine the following scenario. Student scores in reading have been very low within a certain school building. The principal is tasked with finding an intervention program for students and a decision needs to be made on what program will be implemented. When trying to make the best decision, a principal could use site-based decision making (collaborative decision making). According to Lunenburg and Ornstein, decisions made using this model have many benefits including “increased decision quality, creativity, acceptance, understanding, judgment, and accuracy” (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2008). Therefore, the principal would gather certain people such as a reading coach, resource teachers, or anyone who has expertise in reading. Brainstorming, a technique discussed by Lunenburg and Ornstein, allows members to share programs they feel would be beneficial in their school. During this time, members are giving ideas and a list is being made, but none of them are being evaluated. Eventually, these ideas need to be evaluated. The nominal group technique, discussed in the text Educational Administration: Concepts and Practices, could be used to make this decision (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2008). First members make a list silently for about five to ten minutes, then each idea is shared and written down (similar to brainstorming). The next step is for each idea on the list to be discussed. During this discussion the members of the group should think about how effective the intervention program is, look at research designed around the program, consider the cost of the program, and discuss how the program will benefit (or not benefit) students. After all ideas are expanded upon and evaluated, each member makes a silent preliminary vote. They rank the order of the programs in terms of importance. After voting is complete, the group will evaluate the votes. The process may end here or can lead to further discussion. The group continues this process until a final vote is made. The final vote is done secretly as well. Using this technique when deciding on an intervention program allows the group to share ideas and evaluate those ideas. By voting, they can come to a consensus on which program will be best for their students. Therefore, this technique would be effective in solving the current problem. After the group has made a decision, they will share their results with the principal. It is then the principal’s decision. The principal will need to focus on what was chosen and why. Then their job is to turn the decision down and have the group rethink each option or support the decision and implement the program.
ReplyDeleteIn the school I work for, we are constantly trying to find ways of improving our students’ reading scores. Within our school, we have been using Leveled Literacy Intervention (LLI) for our reading intervention time. However, this school year we adopted a new reading curriculum that has an intervention program included. Now a decision needed to be made. Do we continue to use the current LLI program or use the new program? I do not know how the decision was made, but it was decided that the resource teachers would start to use the new program. However, it was said that as a teacher we need to use what is best for our students. Therefore, I as a teacher need to make a decision on which program will benefit my students the most. Every day, principals, teachers, and other staff need to make decisions. There are many ways in which this can be done. Therefore, a leader needs to make a decision about how a decision will be made. So, decision making is a constant aspect of being a school leader.
Lunenburg, F., & Ornstein, A. (2008). Educational Administration: Concepts and Practices. Belmont: Thomson Wadsworth.
A few years ago, our school joined the RESD in the decision making process for upgrading to a new attendance and student information software package. Administrators, teachers and staff from each school were tasked with researching and reviewing different data systems to decide the best choice for their school. Once completed, each school came back with their choice of software that would best fit their district and the pros and cons for each. Our school is heavily involved in keeping up our technology current and satisfying the needs of the district. I was a member of the committee from our district charged with researching these student data management systems. This type of decision process falls under the collaborative decision making process on two different levels. It starts as Collaborative Decision Making model at the district level which later progressed into a Collaborative Decision Making process as a RESD. The benefits of going through this process, it allowed each district to express their needs and wants in a student management system. Many of the districts brought forth important questions or needs that were or were not addressed by each system. At the end of a 2 month process, each district voted on the system that best satisfied the needs of their school. Unfortunately, the one chosen by the consortium did not match our preference, but it still was a positive step toward streamlining student data information. Despite the social nature of a collaborative group, we were able to avoid negative phenomena like group think. The needs of each district were similar but not the same, which allowed us to be diagnostic in our eval
ReplyDeleteAs I currently sit in the seat of assistant principal, I have first- hand experience as a "School leader" facing the challenge of making decisions- some small and some on a much larger scale that affect students, faculty, the academy, and even the community on a frequent basis. Some of these issues are re-occurring, but some are entirely new. We are presently dealing with a huge behavior problem in our academy with one particular student. There is a young boy in the first grade, and he has been at our academy for pre-school and kindergarten. In pre-school, he was incredibly disruptive, violent, and basically just bullying other children so under the leadership of a previous principal was terminated from the school. A year goes by and the child's grandmother who is the legal guardian , pleads his case and he is allowed back into the k5 program. Throughout the year the child, the child continues to be incredibly disruptive, violent, and bullying other children but now under new discipline rules of corporal punishment there is some control and we make it through the school year. As we move into the current school year, the student is now in first grade, a new school administrator is on board, corporal punishment is still in place and a new teacher has been assigned to the task but the behavior pattern remains the same. After the first nine weeks, the school administrator, teacher, after school care worker and I are at a breaking point. What are we to do? Is this a Rational Model , Bounded Rationality Model or simply a Garbage Can Model? We have tried several scenarios such as: parent /teacher conference with the grandmother, as well placing a teacher's aide in the classroom but no results. Just the other day, the school administrator calls a meeting with the Headmaster and school board to discuss the situation and his recommendation to terminate the student for once and for all. All documents are in place for all new and reoccurring problems and are now presented to each representative for review and exemplifies the Rational Model discussed in the text such as;
ReplyDelete• Identifying the problem
• Generating Alternative
• Evaluating Alternatives
• Choosing an Alternative
• Implementing the Decision
• Evaluating the Decision
The Headmaster would like to schedule a conference with the grandmother in order to cover all grounds and agrees that we have gone above and beyond the call of duty to keep this child in school but realizes that it is imperative that the leadership must use what they know and past experiences to help them make the best decision possible for their students, staff, parents and the overall good of the academy.
Lunenburg, F.C., & Ornstein, A.C. (2012). Educational administration: Concepts and practices (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Administrators in today’s society are faced with many challenges. One in particular being student achievement. I know this is an issue all districts face, the district I work in is facing this as well.
ReplyDeleteMy district is a Charter school and in order to renew your Charter, you must be above the 5th percentile state wide for your standardized assessments. Currently our district is in the 6th percentile.
Since our district is in the 6th percentile, our Management Company and Charter, had our “Leadership Team” come up with a plan and present it to the board. This plan must aid in the academic needs of our students. I am on the leadership team and without the help of this team, I believe our administrator would have struggled to come up with a well like plan by all staff as well as the board members. One of the things our leadership team decided to implement was the involvement of Marzano in the classroom. One thing the curriculum coordinator does now, to implement Marzano, is observe each teacher weekly, record parts of their lessons and interactions with the students and presents parts of the videos to a “video club” every other Friday. This is not to criticize the teacher, however, to offer suggestions to see what they can do better to assist the individual needs of the students. This also ensures teachers are following up with lesson plans as well as assisting all students.
By following directives from our Management Company and Charter, our school implemented Contextual rationality and procedural rationality. This decision making action suggests that decision maker is embedded in a network environment of environmental influences that constrain purely rational decision making. The results were mediated by the leadership team with conflict resolution requirements successfully achieved.
Lunenburg, F., & Ornstein, A. (2008). Educational Administration: Concepts and Practices.
In an administrator role I will have to make a lot of decisions. Some of the decisions may include; when specials will be, to what to talk about at staff meetings, and how to bridge the gaps at our school. When principals make decisions that have to make sure they are identifying the problem, coming up with alternatives, implementing the decision, and evaluating the decision.
ReplyDeleteAt my school a couple of years ago we decided that our scores were not were we wanted them to be. We decided as a staff that we had to push ourselves and the students to make more gains. We needed to make more growth. Instead of making a years growth on our Scantron test we wanted them to make a years and half growth. This way our students would start to close their gap. After we decided this we then came up with alternatives or a plan to make this happen. We decided we would do reading and writing workshop, giving teachers more time to work with student’s individual needs instead of teaching the class as a whole. Another thing we implemented was math groups. The students that did not pass the math test would go into a re-teaching room for half hour a day, while the others would go to the challenge room and be given more challenging math for the. We then implemented the groups for a whole year. At the end of the year we evaluate the groups and how they were working. Most of the students did make the year and half growth. We decided to continue the groups. We do however always reevaluate and add and change things that may be happening in the groups to meet the needs of our new students. As principals or administrators I think this process works well. If you make a change you have to follow through to make sure everyone is doing the change. Then evaluate to see if the change is working. If not then you would need to go back and make other alternatives.
Lunenburg, F., & Ornstein, A. (2008). Educational Administration: Concepts and Practices.
Kristine Lance Decisions, every day for a school leader is full of decisions. Some of the decisions are small and some are large. The impact of the decision can vary just as greatly, and not always proportionally to the decision itself. However, with every decision a leader has the opportunity to bring their staff along with them or isolate them. A wise leader will actively seek input from staff when making decisions. In addition a wise leader will not make all the decisions. I have parented, taught and now lead using the principles of love and logic. Basically, I try to give my staff as much input and control as possible. I intentionally look for ways to do this. I compare these opportunities to deposits in a savings account. I need to be building these accounts up for times that I have to make a withdrawal, which is a decision I make without getting their input. This builds trust, the staff feels that you trust them and in return they start to trust you. My goal is to make as view of withdrawls as possible, but when I have to while the staff doesn’t always like the decision, they do support it because they trust that I always have their best interest in mind.
ReplyDeleteRecently we moved to a personal mastery model that has been a difficult move for all stakeholders. Students are place in kindergarten - 5th grade teams for the duration of their 6 years at the school. Parents have been very upset that their child with have the opportunity to have a new group of kids in their class every year, and feel like they are being socially isolated. We are currently in the process of trying to solve the problem, and are close to reaching a decision. I gathered a group that all stake holders were represented and we have used group brainstorming. As the Luneburg and Ornstein mention in Educational Administration, this group brainstorming has not been anymore affect than individual brainstorming, however, how ever it does allow everyone to see where each of the other stakeholder groups are at. I have been given a directive to make the parents happy on this one, so I know that I am going to have to take out a hefty “withdrawal” from my staff accounts. I am already giving them clues that point to this and while they do not like it they are being supportive. Lunenburg, F.C., & Ornstein, A.C. (2012). Educational administration: Concepts and practices (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
A recent decision that happened in our school was a re-apportioning of our time of the day. Our principal has asked us what we wanted most to help our students and we almost unanimously came back with more time to work together. Our principal came with a clever idea. We would start school five minutes early every day, and once every other week we would get one hour of collaboration time. When planning this time we had to keep account of hours of education, issues of shared staff, and transportation problems.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the decision making stages, Steve (principal) identified a problem, he developed a course of action, with staff input, and central office input, we were able to start to implement this plan.
Steve used the rational choice model when he was working out this decision. He was able to identify the problem of not having enough time for teachers to collaborate. We looked at several ideas for ways to allow teachers to work together. There was only one case where it did not add extra time to the day of the staff and ultimately the students. As an evaluation of these ideas, Steve was fairly certain that staff would not want to add more to their day, especially without extra pay. As we came down to ideas, Steve really felt the most likely success was to re-allocate minutes of the day, so that staff could keep working the same hours and still collaborate and in the end help the kids the succeed to their potential. The next piece of this puzzle is to see hwo the pilot program works. As a staff we are keeping notes, to our progress. We are hoping to show that this program has value, and that the other two high schools in our district will be able to implement this program next year.
School leaders must make many different types of decisions each day that affect a variety of people. Over the course of a school year there are many decisions that are made that affect not only the current students, but also the students who will be part of the school two, three, or more years down the road.
ReplyDeleteOne decision that sticks out in my mind affected the whole school in many ways and has yet to be evaluated for it’s effectiveness. This decision was made by a former school leader who retired at the end of the year. Our math scores were lagging a bit compared with a couple of other schools in our school district. They weren’t extremely behind, but were lower and our principal wanted to do whatever possible to improve the scores. Over the course of a month our math department was sent to numerous conferences and meetings throughout the area and state to get ideas. They were also sent to other schools in the district to see just what they do differently in their math departments or curriculum. The teachers brought back many ideas that they had received and presented them to us at staff meetings so that insight could be given and changes could be made. Our principal then took the ideas to the other administrators and superintendent for discussion and implementation. We as a staff had come up with the idea that study sessions before the standardized tests would take place as well as a 8th hour that was 25 minutes long where the students were given worksheets to work on as an extra understanding to the subject matter. We felt that it would be easy to monitor growth and understanding and didn’t really affect anything else that was going on in the school. However, the decision that was made was for an extra math class to be added to the entire students schedule starting the following year and that a couple of other elective classes are cut. Now every student has two math classes each day instead of one. The decision will not have results or be evaluated until the spring when we get results back from all of the standardized tests that the students are taking. Right now we are left wondering if the choice was correct or a waste of time. So far there has been a lot of complaining about a variety of things such as overload, confusion, and boredom with the two hours of math. As I read through the text book I thought that the decision making process that closely related this was contextual rationality. I thought this because it seems that the decision was strictly made to get our test scores above the other schools in the area and not made to have minimal change in the school in regards to structure and climate. I think that state averages and possible pressure from the community and other administrators brought the choice on, so that we may score above average and the other schools in the area. Because the decision will not be evaluated for a couple of more months, it is hard to say whether or not in will be effective. The question that is left to be unanswered is what are we going to do if the second math class does not work.
References
Lunenburg, F., & Ornstein, A. (2012). Development of Administrative Theory. In Educational Administration: Concepts and Practices (6th). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.
When you are a school leader, you are faced with decisions on a daily basis. A lot of the time your decision is one that affects a large amount of people, such as teachers, students and parents. It is important that you make the right decision and that you are able to live with the decision you made.
ReplyDeleteAt my previous school, the principal was faced with a decision about trying to increase test scores. Being that we are a private school, we must take religion classes and the students have a test on it every year. The decision making model that I saw being used was the Rational Model. The first step the principal did was identifying the problem. We had a faculty meeting where the principal went over the process with us. She told us that we are far behind other catholic private schools in the area and we need to increase our scores immediately. She then started listing a couple of ways that would help us possibly increase our scores. What I did like about the way she worked on alternatives is that she involved the teachers to come up with some as well. Then as a group we evaluated the different alternatives to figure out which one would give us the best solution. The principal had the final decision and when we were evaluating them, she would say things that would make us think even more. She chose an alternative that she felt would work best for the students and the school as a whole. Looking in the book, we felt that the alternative was a good alternative, which says it “has a high probability of positively valued outcomes and a low probability of negatively valued outcomes” (Lunenburg, 138). After the decision was made, the principal implemented the decision within a month. So by the next faculty meeting we knew what was going to happen with the new decision. Lastly, is the evaluation phase, which I am not able to be a part of because I am no longer at the school, but they are probably going to have an evaluation at the end of the school year.
It takes a lot of work to make sure the decisions being made are the best decisions. If we rush though the decision process we can make a decision that makes a negative impact on so many people. By going through a process like we did at my school, can help provide support for the best decision .
Lunenburg, F., & Ornstein, A. (2012). Development of Administrative Theory. In Educational Administration: Concepts and Practices (6th). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.
Last school year our school improvement team created a goal for each school building to increase communication with students parents. They left how this was going to be accomplished up to the building administrators. Our building administrator decided that he was going to survey the staff and parents of students to decide the most effective ways to communicate between the two groups. After surveying both groups he created a group made of administrators, counselors, and teachers to look at the data and make the decision on what changes will be made with communication between the school and parents.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the textbook this would be an example of the Delphi Technique. Our administrator allowed for "...polling of large numbers of experts, clients, administrators, or constituents who are removed from the organization by distance and scheduling problems." (Lunenburg, P. 171). In this case it was a large number of constituents, or parents in our school district. By surveying parents you get a larger group perspective on the problem, instead of just three or four parents who volunteer to be on a committee.
While is approach was much more time consuming and created more work for our administrator, in the long run it did get more information from both groups involved to the committee who would be making the decision on how to improve communication between these groups.
ReplyDeleteReferences
Lunenburg, F., & Ornstein, A. (2008). Educational Administration: Concepts and Practices.
When decisions are made by a principal they are either programmed or non-programmed decisions. The non-programmed decisions are quite simple in nature, ordering supplies, grade scales, school discipline, and any other decision that has an outcome already in place. The non-programmed decisions are the ones where there has is not an already determined solution to follow and the principal must make a decision on their own or with a team. (Sometimes strategic decisions)
ReplyDeleteA strategic model was followed by my administrator when she developed our RTI reading program. She identified a problem in our population; more than 75% of our students were reading below grade level. After that she looked at the possibilities for change and how she could improve those statistics. I found it interesting that when identifying a problem an administrator “must determine a level of performance so that actual performance can be measured against it […] “ (pp. 138) She set the bar high when she set out to find a problem and found a large gap in the process. She began by looking at the testing data that was available. She used the school DRA, Global Scholar testing, and Dibels to determine the level of reading. After looking at the data she was able to accurately identify the problem. From there, she generated a couple alternatives. First, a new reading program aimed at increasing reading for the students at risk, while pushing the students above grade level as well. Second, include after school tutoring for students below grade level. Third, institute a 30 minute reading block every day for every class. (DEAR-drop everything and read) After looking at the alternatives she began to evaluate them individually. The first was very expensive and was going to take a lot of effort to institute. It took many hours of professional development and a lot of new books and materials. The second wasn’t any money but it meant that staff and parents would have to give extra time and agree to stay later after school. This obviously meant a couple things needed to happen. The teachers would have to donate their time and the parents would have to be able to pick up their students after school. A problem that came up was bussing students and how they were going to get home. Many of our students who used busses were not able to be picked up by their parents, so then the kids from the busses were not allowed to be in the after school tutoring. The funny thing about this happening was that the bussing students signified over half of the students below grade level so from the beginning we would not be able to service these students. The final alternative was a reading block during the day. The only problem from this program was the loss of instructional time.
After looking at the alternatives, my principal actually tried all three to see if the collection of alternatives would really help. Even though there was a good alternative, a poor alternative, and an uncertain alternative she felt that the three alternatives were the answer. The decision was made and the teachers were required to stay after school for 30 minutes two nights a week, a new reading program was brought in, and we had to create a 30 minute block of “pure” reading in our classrooms. After implementing the decision many problems came up. The after school tutoring was a hit or miss as far as disgruntled teachers forced to stay. Some taught and tried to teach, while others just put the students on computers for the time. There was no follow up from administration, no lesson plans required, in essence we were trying something new without planning for it. Of course it failed and this is why the tutoring was the poor alternative in the rational decision making model. Next, the DEAR time was a success for some students and a failure for others. Some of the kids enjoyed reading the books during this time, while others wanted to do something else and failed to use the time positively. The uncertain alternative ended up with a couple positives and a couple negatives. The students were reading, but only a select group of students below grade level took part. Finally, the new curriculum came and we went through numerous professional developments to implement it. There were some bumps in the road, but not major problems. We consistently had feedback on how we were progressing and how the students were performing. In the end we improved by the end of the year, but not yet up to the standards set by our principal. She took it as a time constraint and that it would be better with more training and exposure to the curriculum.
DeleteAll in all, after seeing the rational model in action, I can see the value in using it as an administrator. The only situation that I would change from my example is the tutoring example. The principal knew that a majority of the students were not going to be taking place in the program and that the teachers weren’t going to be happy about it, but yet she still went forth. I would personally like to say that I would have left the poor alternative off of the plan and kept with the other two. If an alternative is not going to reach the desired outcome, or it has too many variables that must work for it to work, then it would be a good idea to not choose that alternative.
An example of a difficult decision that was just recently presented to me by our owner and governance was to split away from the current international sport conference we are in and to create a new, smaller conference of schools that are more similar to us in the sports and activities that we participate it.
ReplyDeleteThough I felt that the conference that we are currently in had some serious issues and that we weren't long for leaving, I did not appreciate governance making this decision without really getting the input of myself, the AD, who deals with this part of the school on a daily basis.
The burden on me is to contact 5 other international schools, convince then to leave their respective conferences, establish a handbook of by-laws and rules, and begin on logistics for 13 different events that are to be hosted between the school.
This move will have mixed feeling among the staff and may require some sponsors and coaches to adjust their routines in order to facilitate a new schedule. I know that when you "change," whether is be for better or worse, not everyone is going to be happy. My goal is to use the communicative skills that we discussed earlier in the class and really try to use those personal connections that I have made with the staff to ease them into the transition and convince them that the direction of the school that has been decided on by governance is the best course for our school.
This fits into the decision making model from this module because, after reading through the book, the strategy in which I am going to use in order to try and help facilitate this change is the Bounded Rationality Model. This is the model I would be most likely to go with because the options are very limited in the area where I am from and there is not an abundant amount of international schools willing to jump ship to another conference. With that in mind, I will be completely alright with settling for less than optimal, as long as I have done everything I could to achieve the best scenario.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of each school year our staff meetings center around school improvement. Specifically we discuss what we could have done better, and how will we make that happen in the following school year. The topic of discussion at the end of last year was our school’s homework policy. The homework policy that was in place was such that we did not give homework. The idea was that we can only control what goes on within our classroom and it is unfair to ask students with an unstable home life to be accountable for the same things as a student who lives in an encouraging home.
ReplyDeleteWe began the meeting with a group discussion with asking everyone their thoughts on our homework policy; why does it work or how/why could it be better? This process began our brainstorm where everyone got to give input and all the ideas were taken down. We then went on to evaluate and discuss all of the ideas that were given. It was very clear that we had a majority of individuals who were looking for change and wanted to allow homework. However I did notice some very heavy bias. I noticed through the discussion/evaluation process that some pockets began defending the old policy. I can see that they had fallen into the self-justification theory which states that “people will escalate their commitment to a course of action because they do not want to admit, to themselves or others, that prior resources were not allocated properly.” (Lunenburg & Ornstein, pg. 150)
Although there were a few people who deeply disagreed with the new consensus (we will allow homework to be given) we were given the benefit of a “second-chance meeting.” This helped ease the pain of those who did not get their way. It allowed these individuals to walk away from the meeting feeling like they still had a chance to push their views like they had not lost. The few days between the meetings each teacher was asked to give some homework, and develop feedback. This process allowed us to see how the new policy could work and in a positive way it showed those who were previously opposed to the idea to understand the benefits. When we reconvened the vote was much closer to 100% for homework than it was at the end of the previous meeting. I can see that the second-chance meeting truly helped people ease into the idea of changing our policy.
“The benefits of group decision making are probably not directly related to decision outcomes but instead are more associated with morale and job satisfaction” (Lunenburg & Ornstein, pg. 146) As we learned from Herzberg in our earlier units; morale and satisfaction are great indicators of an individual’s motivation which will lead to our school’s success.
Jon Banker
EDL 660
Lunenburg, F.C., & Ornstein, A.C. (2012). Educational administration: concepts and practices. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.
Scott Hart
ReplyDeleteEDL 660SP
There is no doubt principals are overloaded with constant decisions that can have dramatic effects. “All decisions […] have some influence, whether large or small, on the performance of both faculty and staff” (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2008). Principals need to make decisions on which curriculum to use to ensure students are learning the material. Principals need to make decisions on how to increase student attendance and boost staff morale. Additionally, principals must decide on the best professional development opportunities to prepare teachers to perform at optimum levels, especially new teachers.
Teachers new to the field have undergone four to five years higher education during which they have been taught different strategies to implement in the classroom regarding classroom management and effective teaching styles. However, actually applying those strategies is totally different, especially if one has never seen it done. “Left to themselves, they may develop counterproductive behaviors. With extra support, however, new teachers learn more effective practices to apply to daily challenges. Additional support also helps districts retain new teachers and set them on the path to becoming effective educators” (Mizell, 2010).
At our school we use Kagan Cooperative Learning to continuously have our students interact with each other in various ways. However, the school had many new teachers last year who had never heard of this program, much less knew how to implement it. Hearing our concerns, my principal held a meeting with the staff. She posed the question of “How would we feel it would be best to learn the strategies?” We each wrote down ideas we had for a few minutes, followed by her going around the table and getting one idea from each of us as she recorded our answers. Given the ideas that were recorded, she went down the list one by one and discussed any questions, clarification, and if we felt that option would be a good fit. After our discussions concluded, on a piece of paper we each ranked the options in order of what we believe would be most helpful down to the least helpful. We folded them and gave them to our principal who then compiled the results. Unanimously, having a Kagan representative give a professional development training during which they would actually model strategies and have use do the same was the top choice, followed by, again unanimously, watching experienced teachers use strategies within their classrooms as the second best option. Given the results, the meeting concluded and she provided us with an all-day training.
After reading the literature, I have determined that my principal used the Nominal Group Technique. As described in the text, there are six steps in this technique: silent generation of ideas, round-robin recording of ideas, discussion of ideas, preliminary vote on item importance, additional discussion, and final vote. Silent generation of ideas is when the problem is posed and participants think of solutions. “The group leader circulates around the room eliciting one idea from each group member and recording it on the flip chart” (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2008) until no ideas remain during step two, round-robin recording of ideas. Discussion of ideas is just that, discussing each of the ideas one by one, followed by the preliminary vote on item importance. Participants write down the items in order of importance, according to their preferences, and give the ballot to the leader. Depending on the results, “the nominal group process may end here, or the decision may be further refined through discussion and revoting” (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2008). If refining is needed, additional discussion takes place to create a more accurate list, finally followed by the final vote being executed.
Decision making is a non-negotiable of being a school administrator. Apply certain techniques to help make those decisions can improve the chances of a positive, successful outcome. I have seen, and been a part of, one of those techniques, and witnessed the successful results. School administrators need to have a great handle on proper decision making in order to achieve and maintain a healthy, happy, and fully-functioning school. One bad decision can result in negative consequences of students and/or teachers, and that just cannot happen.
DeleteReferences:
Lunenburg, F. C., & Ornstein, A. C. (2008). Educational Administration: Concepts & Practices (5th ed.). Belmont, CA, USA: Thomson Higher Education.
Mizell, H. (2010). Why Profressional Development Matters. (V. von Frank, Ed.) Oxford, OH, USA: Learning Forward.
One skill that school leaders’ should strive to be proficient at is the decision making process. In understanding when to apply and how to use the different decision making processes, school leaders will develop an educational community that is driven to make the best possible decision. According to Lunenburg and Ornstein in Educational Administration: Concepts and Practices, the rational model of decision making assumes that decision making is a rational process whereby decision makers see to maximize the chances of achieving their desired objectives by considering all possible alternatives, exploring all conceivable consequences from among the alternatives and then making a decision (2012).
ReplyDeleteComponents of the rational choice model were used to change my schools Positive Behavior Intervention and Support System. In not using, all of the parts of the rational choice model have allowed me to reflect on the importance of each step. The past system included attendance, behavior and grades to determine whether students were on PRIDE list, which allowed them to participate in school functions. Teachers were concerned that the system was too ridged and was actually punitive for those students who had a low GPA but were well behaved and respectful. The entire teaching staff agreed that the current system needed to be changed so that it positively motivated students to want to do well in school.
A group of staff members meet to discuss the PBIS system and to make a decision on alternatives using the rational model. We identified the problem that was that the current system was too punitive. Next, we generated a list of alternatives to the program and then we ended the meeting for everyone to think on the list. Then we meet again to evaluate the alternatives and add any additional information. The rational decision making model suggests that the decision maker rank the possible solutions and work through certainty, risk, and uncertainty of all possibilities (Lunenburg and Ornstein 2012). This would have helped the PBIS group fully understand why certain ideas would not work and help us ultimately come up with the best possible solution.
After making the decision, we had to implement the plan. The new system we agreed to implement is called a positive direction system. This system gives more power to the teachers to determine whether a student is on the PRIDE list or not. Students receive a point for criteria like attendance in each class giving them an overall number. If students had an overall score of a six or below, they were not on the pride list. The list was than broken down into three categories and the higher the number the more rewards those students would receive. Regrettable, the implementation of the program has fallen short due to lack funding the tiered rewards, and for someone to setup a reporting system for student’s points. These issues were never considered during the evaluating of alternatives stage of the rational decision making model has brought our positive direction system to a halt and therefore we will not be able to fully evaluate our decision to see if it would have promoted positive behavior within our school.
As a school leader I now see the error in our mistaken and that as a team we should have considered the budget or cost of tiered rewards and if during that stage of the decision making process we realized that we would not have a budget for these incentives then we should have considered other alternatives. In addition, we never considered an alternate person to run the system to track the points. The original person who kept track of a majority of the previous program left at the beginning of this year and everyone assumed this person would still be there to do the job. If we would have followed the structure of the rational decision making model we would have been able to come up with a system that is truly beneficial to our students.
Lunenburg, Fred. C., & Ornstein, Allan. C. (2012). Educational Administration: Concepts and Practices (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
We are currently in the decision process of whether our school district should continue to require students to take chemistry as a graduation requirement. When the State of Michigan decided, years ago, that all students must have biology, physics or chemistry, and a third year of science for the third year of science, my school decided that we will just cut to the point and require students to take biology as freshman, chemistry as sophomores, and physics as juniors to graduate from high school. In my opinion, this was an example of satisficing, a version of bounded rational. Our administration just took the path of least resistance, or the path with the least amount of effort put into the thought process. It seems great at the time of the decision, but in hindsight it was the worst possible decision we could have made at the time. There was absolutely no thought of what the consequences of this decision might be. It was thought that all students would be able to plug through the graduation requirements and perform successfully in the classes, on the MME, and on the ACT and be college ready. When in fact, we had just the opposite result. Students that lacked the math skills failed chemistry and had to retake classes, which put stress on the students to graduate on time. It also placed stress on the counselors for scheduling classes, when they had such a high number of students that failed, into already full classes. This also created a huge challenge for the chemistry teachers that were trying to find teaching techniques to help these struggling students. This just goes to show you that the most obvious decision, or first “gut” decision is not always the best decision and can cause huge academic issues within the school system.
ReplyDeleteNow we are looking at this issue differently. We now understand that this was not a great decision and we have to look at what is the best solution for our student population. Myself and the other teachers within the science department are using what I now know as the “nominal group technique”. Each of us, over the summer, have to think and propose a solution. Did we want to continue with chemistry as a graduation requirement or switch to what the state mandates? On our first professional development day back this year we had to share our ideas (just science department at this time) with each other. The pros…the cons…and what we thought the best solution should be (round-robin and discussion of ideas). We individually reviewed all the ideas and we would meet on another PD day. This is where we are in the process. Next Friday we will meet again and be able to select or “vote” on the ideas for the scheduling/curriculum changes we liked the best. We will have further discussion on the topic and ultimately present our findings and ideas to the superintendent, principal, and school board for the final vote.
I wish that we would’ve gone through this process (nominal group technique) to begin with, instead of the superintendent just making the decision on his own. I understand his intentions where not to cause such disharmony in these students lives, but it did and he and we, learned from this mistake. As our text says, “those closest to the students and ‘where the action is’ will make the best decisions about the students’ education.”
Making decisions as a principal is a very vital and large part of the position. A principal must be confident and secure in knowing how to and when to use different techniques for making decisions. He or she is responsible for staffing, directing, planning, organizing, directing, coordinating, and controlling on every level for the operation of the school.
ReplyDeleteAn example of when our school was faced with making a decision where our principal had to support staff, follow through with expectations from our company and the state, and to increase student achievement, was when we found out we were a focus school again this year. In Michigan, Focus schools are determined based on the data from the state standardized assessment known as the MEAP. From that data, the state takes a look at the achievement gap between the bottom 30% and the top 30% of students in all areas of the assessment. This is our second year of having the Focus School status.
As a Focus School, the state of Michigan requires that we work with an assigned consultant and develop a school improvement plan that includes a plan as to how we plan to use our federal funds to increase student achievement. At the same time, our company’s expectations are that we not only increase student achievement through our school improvement plan, but that we also maximize our staff’s potential by utilizing them according to their strengths and that we develop a plan for how we are going to address the achievement gap by providing them with a plan. Finally, since our parents are our biggest group of stakeholders, when they learned we were a Focus school again, we had to explain how we were going to keep that from happening again in order to retain as many students as possible.
A decision making model from our topic this week that would have worked really good for this situation would have been the collaboration model. The collaboration model is an example of group decision making. Group decision making is considered to be one of the major reforms of decision making of the twenty-first century (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2012).
My principal gathered the leadership team, we designed a plan and communicated that to our State consultant and to our company. We are in the process of implementing it now.
References
Lunenburg, F., & Ornstein, A. (2012). Education administration: Concepts and practices. (6th ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth.
As the Director of Special Education, my district supervisor is responsible for making the final decision on many issues including hiring, staff evaluations, entrance criteria and program location. One such decision involved the decision to place the districts secondary SEI program in the Community Education building that also housed the alternative High School. While some objected to this decision, it was made with much consideration for budgetary constraints, logistical limitations and environmental factors using a contextual rationality approach.
ReplyDeleteBefore moving a portion of the district’s Severely Emotionally Impaired students to the Community Education building, all students with that particular certification attended the main High School. Students that were found to be beyond the scope of what the mainstream environment could accommodate were sent to an out of district day treatment program at their home district’s expense. Over time, the number of students accessing services outside the district grew and began to represent a large financial strain on already limited Special Education funding.
In an attempt to conserve funds, a stop gap was created in the form of a second program for secondary students with an Emotional Impairment. This program would serve as an additional step on the districts continuum of services as well as a means of retaining valuable per-pupil funding.
While the benefits of locating the program in the Community Ed building were obvious, so too were the challenges. It was unknown whether a caseload of students that had done poorly with the responsibilities of the mainstream environment would be more or less successful in the alternative school. Of particular concern was the building’s open campus policy that allowed students to leave the building for 25 minutes during lunch. To some, that factor alone represented a large enough liability to exclude the facility from consideration. The SEI caseload after all, was made up of psychologically fragile students that have historically struggled with poor decision making.
In the end, the Director of Special Education had to make a decision in the face of conflicting and at times ambiguous goals. Those goals include but are not limited to the need to provide a free and appropriate education for students with special education needs, the need ensure that the placement for those students allows them to adequately access the general education curriculum, and the need to conserve district funding by limiting the number of students accessing out of district services. Without having any way of knowing the probability of success or what criteria would indicate success, a decision was made with the information and resources that were available at the time.
Decisions, decisions, decisions…
ReplyDeleteBeing at almost a brand new school there are many decisions that have to be made in order to start the new school year. Our problem: long wait lists and large class sizes in grade 3 and 4. Administration knew that there can be 35 kids in both 3rd and 4th grade. Our problem: how can we accept more into the academy without have to large of class sizes? As an administrator, I do not want to turn students away simple because there are no seats left- how can we solve this problem?
When decisions have to be made I have used the Classical Decision Making Model to make decisions. The model is used to seek out a rational solution to any problem.
First: Identify the problem
Class wait lists in third and fourth grade are growing rapidly, how can we accommodate 20 new students into the academy without having more than 28 students in a class?
Second: Brainstorm to generate alternatives
Looking at the current second grade classes, they continue to out preform our third grade class as a whole, with the expectation of some high achieving 3rd graders.
Do the classrooms have room for 35 students if we give them a full time paraprofessional in the room?
Do we have enough enrollment for two third grades and two fourth grade classrooms?
Should we just tell the parent there is no room?
Can the academy support a third/fourth grade split classroom? And who would teach this split?
Third: Evaluate alternatives
Class size cannot go above 27 without school board approval.
Our school does not have the room for two new classrooms
The academy cannot turn 20 new families away.
The academy could support a third/fourth grade split. The current second grade and third grade teachers can choose what students could be enrolled into this class if we create a high achieving classroom. Thus, the classroom would not have any targeted students and no need for additional help. CURRICULUM- how can we align the curriculum to meet the needs of these students and still have the teacher be successful.
Fourth: Choose an alternative
The academy will have a third/fourth grade split. The teacher will be given paid time to work with a curriculum person to create this new curriculum for this model. All parents will be notified as soon as possible as well as new student into the academy.
Fifth: Implement the decision
As of right now, my ¾ split teacher is working with curriculum specialist 3 times a week and the slipt curriculum is coming along very well.
Sixth: Evaluate the decision
Cannot evaluate the decision yet, but I am hoping for a positive outcome.
I feel we have chosen a good alternative and one that is already being implemented. I do feel that we will still have to ‘sell’ the idea to some, but so far we have only heard positive feedback.
Citation
Lunenburg, F., & Ornstein, A. (2012). Educational administration concepts and practices. (6th ed.). Belmont, Ca: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.