The Development of Professional Expertise through Reflection in the Principalship

Eric McLaren — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:22:02 PST

The study of principals as learners is important because the landscape of public education is changing. Schools are becoming more diverse and the demands on schools more varied and complex. The role of the principal is increasingly ambiguous, complex, and varied. Principals must adapt and develop'their professional practice. Effective principals learn from experience to meet the shifting expectations of the role and the needs of the school.

Multiple learning experiences help principals become more proficient in their jobs. Initial certification, induction into the role, continuing professional education, and learning from experiences are means to the development of expertise. This study provided a rich description of how principals learn from on-the-job experiences through reflective practices and how reflection can develop expertise.

This study was concerned with school principals as learners and how principals can learn from experiences. Principals develop expertise through reflecting on their practice. The study examined how principals learn from experience, how principals monitor their understanding and practice, how principals integrate new understandings into practice, and how principals reframe their understandings based on experience.The conceptual framework for this study included the literature on the development of expertise, reflective practice, and cognition. Literature on principal preparation, induction, and continuing education are included. Reflective practice as a means to learnfromexperience and develop professional expertise are addressed in depth.

The research methods for this study are grounded in phenomenology. Phenomenological research methods focus on the meaning of lived experience of principals. The results provide a rich description of how school principals learn from experiences situated in practice through reflection.

The essences of the experiences of how principals learn from experiences in practice are the ability to learnfromexperiences through reflective meaning construction, the principal's ability to regulate learning and practice, and the ability to exercise professional judgment in practice. The participants described the ability to reflectonpracticeandregulatelearningandperformance. Thephenomenaas experienced by the principals in this study form a model of professional expertise in the principalship.

Discovering and Developing Diverse STEM Talent: Enabling Academically Talented Urban Youth to Flourish

Stephanie Pace Marshall et al. — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:22:00 PST

The Growing Excellence Gap in K-12 Education, Plucker, Burroughs, and Song (2010) provided compelling evidence that "the presence of an excellence gap is demonstrated on both national and state assessments of student performance," with "economically disadvantaged, English Language Learners, and historically underprivileged minorities representing a smaller proportion of students scoring at the highest levels of achievement" (p. 28). Three "case stories" of students from IMSA illuminate some of the (a) challenges and opportunities inherent in igniting STEM talent in urban youth and ensuring their success; (b) principles for designing and creating learning experiences and environments that ignite and nurture the development of "creative, ethical scientific minds" (IMSA, 2009); and (c) institutional lessons that have become clear to us after more than two decades of developing diverse STEM talent.