May 24

Doors opening … mind the gap

ETL504 – Assessment 2 – Part B

All aboard the leadership train! All stops to Leadership Town. Mind the gap.

Like bouncing tennis balls flung at force we intermittently sprung to grab our leadership experiences. Far from being just passengers, we travelled straight into Leadership Town … and we will never be the same again!

My understanding of leadership has flourished over the last semester. The reality of leadership is that it is hard work but can be rewarding. It is about having a shared vision, mission and empowering others. As I teacher librarian, it is beneficial to acquire effective leadership traits such as being respectful, treating everyone as an individual and making people feel valued (Travassaros, 2020, 1 March). Collaboration is a key 21st century skill and readily apparent in a teacher librarian position. From my own experiences with the case studies, if encouraged in a positive manner, the outcomes is likely to be better, the participant views the activity more positively and more likely to want to collaborate again.

Improving leadership, comes from authentic learning experience as well as applying the theories. The case studies were an excellent way to become immersed in teacher librarian experiences. Individually, we began being led (Travassaros, 2020, March 3) through a case study and only contributing my part. This was a valuable part of the learning process as it enabled students to observe how the process of collaboration can work. After Case Study 3, my blog entry (Travassaros, 2020, 4 April) reflects that  my anxiety had dissipated and, after reflective questioning from Bales (2020, April, 9) about leadership styles demonstrated in the activity, I focussed on seizing the opportunity to lead from the middle and adopt more of a leadership role my focussing on my strength – organisation. It was more challenging than I expected. I facilitated volunteers for roles, applied deadlines and made my contributions (Travassaros, May 10). Although I found it beneficial, initially it was time consuming to set up the activity. Endeavouring to keep to the timeframe, I jigsaw puzzled relevant bits transferring information, from discussion forum to wiki to facilitate the process. Each time we participated, the process and our submission became better (Travassaros, May 10). Through demonstrating a combination of leadership styles (instructional, distributive, transformative and servant), by providing organisation, other group members were empowered to excel in their ‘expert’ roles. Our group, (Group 8) established a positive culture in which everyone felt supported and could thrive. This is evidenced in the lecturer’s comments (Bale, 2020, May 9) to Case Study 4’s submission.

In case study 4, we experienced unexpected change. Having already started the first activity, it was fatiguing to have the activity abruptly changed. I learned from this experience that it is imperative to communicate with the leader (and vice versa) so that circumstances can be resolved (Travassaros, May 10). With permission, we continued with our original activity – unaffected by the changes.

Learning better ways to lead from a teacher librarian’s role stems from the synthesis of combining experience leading and researching. Effective leadership is about seizing opportunities, empowering and motivating others, building and sustaining a shared vision, effective communication, positive interactions with others including managing change fatigue and facilitating the process by ‘minding the gap’. Hence, student outcomes staff morale and output improved. A more enjoyable ride had by all.

References:

aitoff. (2016, October 24). Railway platform. Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/photos/railway-platform-mind-gap-1758208/. This image is pursuant to Pixabay Creative Commons Licence.

Bale, J. (2020, May 9). Case Study 4 (original, not co-vid) Group 8. Charles Sturt Discussion Forum. https://interact2.csu.edu.au/webapps/discussionboard/do/message?action=list_messages&course_id=_44236_1&nav=discussion_board_entry&conf_id=_88817_1&forum_id=_180720_1&message_id=_2918458_1

 

Category: Collaboration, leadership, Organisation theory, Uncategorized | LEAVE A COMMENT
May 14

ETL504 – Case Study 5 – Revealing Rainbow

kropekk_pl / Pixabay

Case Study 5 saw a change in the way our group collaborated and also a change to the co-vid task. It revealing rainbow that delived into some deep thinking and soared to collaborative heights. In terms of collaboration, I enjoyed that our brainstorming elicited new and different ideas. Holly Pirie (2020, May 13) shed new light from a Children and Youth Librarian’s perspective with some amazing ideas cloaked in various leadership styles, such as public library poetry slams (via Zoom), writing workshops (transformational leadership) and year 10 research workshops (instructional leadership).

Our task involved a reflection on unrealized opportunities and actions taken during co-vid. I felt that key factors underlying the unrealized opportunities have been: isolation and overwhelming workload of teachers, pre-co-vid presence; timing and making yourself ‘indispensable’; and the combination of change and technology (2020, May 14 [emailed]). My context has also had an impact on eventualities due to the limited time I have been a teacher librarian (TL) (2020, May 12). My launching of bookclub proved to be a missed opportunity. It was ill-timed due to the newly established remote learning when students and teachers were being overwhelmed with workload and technology. My reflection revolved around the fact that the teacher librarian needs to link themselves with an indispensable activity. That is, an activity that is key to the essential workings of the school such as the technology. In this instance, the transformational leadership led to a missed opportunity as it was not the right opportunity for the time (2020, 14 May).

Another issue in case study 5 was that arose was the provision of resources to combat the isolating nature of teaching and change in the learning environment. In collaboration with the other school TL, we devised a resources bank for teaching resources. Therefore, we were able to avoid overwhelming teachers further by emailing. These included provision of innovative resources which links to transformational and servant leadership (2020, May 14 [emailed]).

It was established that this too would have been an in excellent time to promote digital literacy and digital citizenship issues and content. Promotion to teachers occur by: email; meetings, saved to  Canvas and/or professional development. This activity could be used to promote scope of the library functions for the future. In addition, teachers should be made aware that these can be tailored to particular units of work. This could be considered servant, instructional and transformational leadership (2020, May 14 [emailed]).

Professional relationships, the pre-covid presence of the TL and teachers unaware of what it is that the TL does can also be an adversity. TLs must be part of the essential everyday running of the school. Non-essential tasks contribute to the school but are not viewed as imperative or valuable in a time of crises. Additionally, I reflected that communication with the principal and executives is essential. Being proactive assists teachers to combat change fatigue (2020, May 14 [emailed]). Many different types of leadership styles were demonstrated. A TL cannot rely on just one strategy.

This activity was very informative. This reflection drew the curtain on my actions and activities as TL and it will inform my practice and provide future direction. It required deep thinking about issues that have arisen recently. Additionally, it revealed a different way of collaborating as a group. It was still effective in raising many ideas (better than the individual alone) and, as I had some time restraints, proved more suitable for me.

Reference:

Pirie, H. (2020, May 13). Case study 5: Discussion [discussion forum]. Charles Sturt University.

Polski, A. (2020, May 14). Pixabay image used in accordance with Creative Commons – Pixabay Licence.

Category: Collaboration, ETL504, leadership, Technology | LEAVE A COMMENT
May 10

ETL504 – Progress and Appreciation – Case Study 4

johnhain / Pixabay

Much has changed since Case Study 3. At the beginning of this case study, organisation was key to achieve the best product, streamline the process and limit wasted time. I was slightly more comfortable with expectation of the process. Additionally, with the passing of our first assignment and our mid-semester break due, I had the luxury of a bit more time to jump in and organise potential roles and interim deadlines. Time to set up the activity was extremely beneficial for me to feel organised and so the group had some direction. The idea was that it allowed others more time for better input. Another group member and I made our initial brainstorming contributions. This took quite some time.

It is well known that education is riddled with frequent change. Due to co-vid19 our case study changed. I felt unmotivated at the thought that the time was lost and unvalued. My passion and enthusiasm had been squashed – a consequence and penalty of being too organised. This seemed almost like a test out of Clement’s article (2014, p. 48) about the result of mandatory change, lack of ownership and damage to morale. However, this was recognised by the lecturer after a technology problem arose with a group member. We were given the option of which case study we wanted to do. This was extremely beneficial to our group. On reflection communication could by our group to the lecturer of the issue would have solved the problem.

Via the formal allocation of roles, distributed leadership was initiated. Group members chose roles and issues after brainstorming sessions. All benefited from the brainstorming , feedback and reflections. I appreciate that Linda (McHugh, 2020, May 8), a group member, continued the reflective process from Case Study 3. It is a benefit that we all contributed and ideas in the activity proliferated which would not have been possible when functioning as an individual in isolation. More indepth input was achieved.

Our group displayed various types of leadership. McHugh (2020, May 8) conveyed three different types: transformational, distributed and instructional. Transformational leadership occurred as by providing role allocations, initiating conversations and scheduling interim deadlines, collating ideas and information when transferring them from the discussion forum to the wiki, I satisfied the first of Balyer’s (as cited in Smith) three basic functions being serving the needs of the group, inspiring with ideas and motivating others with positivity and proactivity.

Linda inspired me, in a transformational sense, in her reflection after Case Study 4 when she asked whether the leadership style of allocation of the groups were ‘self-distributed’ or instructional (McHugh 2020, May 8). This inspired me to research a bit more thoroughly, leading me to respond that it could be elements of both (Travassaros, 2020, May 10). Distributed leadership focuses on the group leadership (Harris as cited by Bush & Glover, 2014, p. 566)  Each member contributed ideas, some chose a role and voiced preferences for issues, everyone had input into the task. However, our concern with the activity was focussed on the teaching and how to improving student outcomes from a teaching perspective. Robinson (as cited in Smith, 2016, p. 68) confirmed that this is also a characteristic of instructional leadership as attributing outcomes to the budget is student-centered leadership as it focuses on student learning.

I have progressed in my journey to collaboration and I can now appreciate the benefits of it. However, there is still a way to go in terms of having experienced different ways to collaborate. I also feel that collaborating with the same people in the group can be advantageous as the members can learn each other’s strengths, preferences and these can be key to successful collaboration. Additionally, the leader providing opportunities to free individuals up to focus on the task and communication is also key features that contribute to success.

References

Bush, T, & Glover, D. (2014). School leadership models: What do we know? School Leadership and Management, 34(5), 553-571. https://doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2014.928680

Clement, J. (2014). Managing mandated educational change. School Leadership & Management. 34 (1). https://doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2013.813460

McHugh, L. (2020, May 8). Reflection on case study 4 [discussion forum]. Charles Sturt University.

Hain, J. (2020, May 10). Pixabay. This image was acquired under Creative Commons Pixabay Licence.

Smith, B. (2016). The role of leadership style in creating a great school. SELU Research Review Journal, 1(1), 65-78. https://selu.usask.ca/documents/research-and-publications/srrj/SRRJ-1-1-Smith.pdf

 

Category: ETL504, Uncategorized | LEAVE A COMMENT