Subject: Communicating with educators

Posted by Peter Robertson on 5/17/2005
In Reply To:Communicating with educators Posted by George Richardson on 5/17/2005

Message:

On the subject of school administrators: I'm not surprised at the lack of response to Brauer's excellent article in the November 2004 School Administrator article - Clauset & Gaynor's excellent piece in Education Leadership in 1983 had a similar fate.

The processes of administrator training, professional development, and staying informed are incredibly fragmented, and there is no pre-existing conceptual framework in (most) school administrators' minds on which to hang the kinds of insights found in such writings - my guess is most readers of Brauer's piece came away with a sense that there are some cool simulation games groups of stakeholders can do to deepen their understanding of the key issues in educational leadership and administration.

I propose articles advancing powerful insights and findings in educational leadership and administration that happen to have come from application of system dynamics thinking and methodology. I agree with George Richardson that the answer is to get the loose outlines of such articles/presentations/etc. worked out and look for venues where someone has a connection and the actual end-product can be hammered out quickly. We also need to work "up" the value chain and get the resulting case studies taught in educational administration and leadership courses where the accompanying conceptual framework can be taught/explored. This is obviously a long haul...

I'm interested in helping and may even have some insights to offer, as I'm writing my doctoral dissertation right now on the potential contribution of system dynamics to the mostly moribund field of school effectiveness research. Anyone want to collaborate in this school administration space?

Peter Robertson
Peter.robertson@post.harvard.edu (on leave from my job as CIO of the Cleveland Municipal School District to complete my doctorate at Teachers College, Columbia in Educational Leadership).

Follow Ups:

Communicating with educators - Dexter Chapin 5/17/2005 
Communicating with educators - Heather Blau 5/17/2005
Communicating with educators - Scott Guthrie 5/18/2005
Communicating with educators - Florence Duarte 5/18/2005
Communicating with educators - Bonnie Tai 5/18/2005
Communicating with educators - Timothy Lucas 5/17/2005
Communicating with educators - Florence Duarte 5/18/2005