Leading People: Learning from People : Lessons from Education Professionals

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

* How can educators develop new forms of professionalism required by changing conditions?

* How can useful lessons be drawn from failure, as well as success?

* What can be learned from best management practice in commerce and industry?

*And, crucially, how do educators ensure that education's most precious resource - the people who provide it - learn from experience in order to continue giving their best?

This book examines what actually happens, as well as what ought to happen, in the quest for best practice in education. It investigates the experiences of educators and teachers, in their continuous quest to improve the quality of learning and teaching provision. It provides rich case studies from a range of different educational settings in the UK and Australia which reveal how educational leaders and practitioners are handling new priorities and programmes for change.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of figures (p. viii)
• Acknowledgements (p. ix)
• Preface (p. xi)
• 1 Individuals and institutions: the soloists in the orchestra (p. 1)
• Developing teams that make it happen (p. 1)
• Vicious circles? Or virtuous circles? (p. 4)
• The 1988 Act: a device for collaboration or for division? (p. 6)
• How collaborative teams can work (p. 12)
• Collaborating with learners (p. 15)
• Identifying essential competencies for collaboration (p. 17)
• 2 The case of a department under threat: the convergence of values (p. 19)
• Background to adult education funding in the UK (p. 20)
• Stage 1 Confronting the problem (p. 21)
• Stage 2 The inspection (p. 22)
• Stage 3 The beginning of the arguments (p. 23)
• Stage 4 The bursar's revenge (p. 24)
• Stage 5 The move to improve (p. 24)
• Stage 6 The spring clean (p. 25)
• Stage 7 The end of the line (p. 25)
• Stage 8 The governors' meeting (p. 26)
• Stage 9 The airing of values, beliefs and strengths (p. 26)
• Stage 10 The paradigm shift (p. 28)
• Stage 11 Crisis time (p. 30)
• Stage 12 High noon (p. 31)
• Stage 13 The move to the new-look department (p. 32)
• Postscript (p. 32)
• Commentary (p. 34)
• 3 Are you really hearing this? Communicating for quality learning (p. 38)
• Confronting 'adaptive challenges' (p. 40)
• The schools (p. 44)
• The people who run the schools (p. 49)
• The school bus (p. 50)
• Continuous shared discourse (p. 52)
• Leading by example (p. 53)
• Getting it right with learners (p. 54)
• 4 The deskillers and the empowerers (p. 57)
• The empowerment challenge (p. 61)
• Empowering (and paying) teachers (p. 62)
• Supervisors and student researchers (p. 64)
• So what is empowerment? (p. 66)
• Carol's last word (p. 69)
• Postscript (p. 70)
• 5 Learning to shed old skins: collaborating for change (p. 72)
• Changing ideas of a university (p. 73)
• The move to globalization and multimedia expertise (p. 74)
• The new professionalism and stirring the pot for cultural change (p. 75)
• Change through new educational technologies (p. 78)
• The role of the modern university (p. 79)
• Organizational culture (p. 80)
• The cultural audit of the faculty of education (p. 83)
• Postscript (p. 93)
• 6 Investing in people: investing in systems (p. 95)
• The standard (p. 97)
• DfEE support for Investors (p. 98)
• So does it work? (p. 100)
• The increase in the number of participating schools and colleges (p. 102)
• The college perception (p. 105)
• The answer to all our problems? (p. 108)
• The final word? (p. 109)
• 7 Controlling? Or connecting? Working together to find solutions (p. 110)
• Interacting to get things done: the case of Ben (p. 112)
• Interacting to get things done: the case of Sarah (p. 117)
• Achieving team synergy (p. 121)
• 8 The quiet workers and the trumpet blowers (p. 125)
• Quality assurance audits (p. 126)
• Research assessment exercises (RAEs) (p. 129)
• Teaching quality assessment (p. 135)
• A waste of everyone's time or real value for money? (p. 143)
• Postscript (p. 146)
• 9 Towards a new professionalism: exploiting a resource? Or serving people's real needs? (p. 148)
• But who helps the principal to get it right? (p. 150)
• Towards a new professionalism (p. 154)
• New capabilities for school leaders (p. 156)
• Identifying needs for the new professionalism (p. 161)
• Postscript (p. 164)
• References (p. 165)
• Index (p. 173)