Strategies For...

Managing Resistance

1. Share short articles about developmental theory and learning-oriented leadership to help others understand key ideas, and explain why this is important to you.
2. Explain the direct link between supporting adult learning and increasing student achievement.
3. Meet adults where they are in development by being present to them without pressing them to change immediately.
4. Scaffold adults’ understanding as they strive to grow by offering developmentally appropriate supports and challenges.
5. Help them understand that you are with them — that you know change is hard and that it takes time.
6. Ask questions to learn more about what they are resisting and why.
7. Ask how you can help. What supports might be useful? What, in particular, are they finding challenging?

Making Time

1. Invite adults to meet before or after school. Provide food.
2. Create lunch clubs where educators discuss practice, articles, initiatives, or problems of practice.
3. Ask publishers to offer free or discounted books for book clubs.
4. Host monthly dinner meetings during which teams can share experiences, reflect on practice, discuss challenges, and engage in collegial inquiry.
5. Reframe existing meeting and collaborative times with developmental practices.

Self-development

1. Seek opportunities to collaborate with others.
2. Find or create relationships for collegial inquiry and/or mentoring.
3. Carefully consider and reflect on your own way of knowing and how it influences your work.
4. Reflect privately through journaling.
5. Carve out space for your own learning and growth.

Why Adult Learning Matters

When adults learn and grow in schools through effective professional learning, students do, too (Guskey, 2000). Research shows that supporting authentic learning in adults has been positively linked to improving student achievement (Donaldson, 2008). However, traditional sit-and-get professional learning adds almost nothing to teachers’ long-term development — and has no lasting effect on student performance (Murnane & Willet, 2010).

This discrepancy stems from the fact that conventional professional development often fails to account for the different ways that educators, like all adults, experience the world and their practice. Research over the past 40 years (e.g. Kegan, 1982, 1994, 2000) indicates that adults have different developmental orientations and capacities — or ways of knowing — that influence the ways they think about and experience teaching, learning, and leadership (Drago-Severson, 2004, 2009, 2012; Drago-Severson & Blum-DeStefano, 2013).

While each way of knowing has strengths and limitations, the mounting demands placed on all educators call for increases in their internal capacities — not just technical or pedagogical expertise, though these are also important. Likewise, because educators have different ways of knowing, they will need different supports and challenges in order to grow and improve their instructional practice and leadership, whether it is related to taking in feedback, exercising leadership, or collaborating with team members.

With appropriate supports and challenges, adulthood can be a time of immense growth. Leaders can, for instance, strategically and intentionally differentiate practices that help adults build their internal capacities. Leaders can also use these practices to support their own growth.

References

Donaldson, G.A. (2008). How leaders learn: Cultivating capacities for school improvement. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Drago-Severson, E. (2004). Helping teachers learn: Principal leadership for adult growth and development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Drago-Severson, E. (2009). Leading adult learning: Supporting adult development in our schools. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press & NSDC.

Drago-Severson, E. (2012). Helping educators grow: Strategies and practices for leadership development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Drago-Severson, E. & Blum-DeStefano, J. (2013). A new approach for new demands: The promise of learning-oriented school leadership. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 16(1), 1-33.

Drago-Severson, E., Blum-DeStefano, J., & Asghar, A. (2013). Learning for leadership: Developmental strategies for building capacity in our schools. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Guskey, T.R. (2000). Evaluating professional development (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Kegan, R. (1982). The evolving self: Problem and process in human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Kegan, R. (1994). In over our heads: The mental demands of modern life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Kegan, R. (2000). What “form” transforms? A constructive-developmental approach to transformative learning. In J. Mezirow & Associates, Learning as transformation (pp. 35-70). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Murnane, R.J. & Willet, J.B. (2010). Methods matter: Improving causal inference in educational and social science research. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.