Blazing New Trails - Connexions

206 CRITICAL ISSUES IN PROMOTING ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
Continued, sustained learning was a common practice with the education faculty and
lab teachers. Book studies and long-term relationships with experts who presented content,
modeled content in lab classrooms for faculty and lab teachers, and assessed implementation
of content were accepted occurrences in current lab settings. Data showed that continued
learning required delving deeply into content areas and instructional practices. One such area
is math. A charter school teacher explained this deepening or layering understanding of the
teaching of mathematics:
The learning process in mathematics started many years go. It began with Constance
Kamii, the math games. We moved into talking about problem solving. We moved to
Project Construct. We went to the math component of Project Construct dealing with
problem solving and setting up investigations. From there, we honed in on a
consultant, Lisa Meredith. She has been to our school three times. She provided
support for pieces in the math workshop of the mental math and problem solving. She
provided specific examples of curriculum that supports development math stages. That
is an ongoing process. We have had lots of book studies on math. Most of them deal
with using thinking strategies in math as well as problem solving. We provided
support and study of specific curriculum using the arithmetic rack for mental math and
using math strings to develop strategies.
Realizing that learning never ceases and expecting sustained, deep understanding of teaching
pedagogy were critical and powerful instructional distinguishing practices fostered by leaders.
Lead Alongside the Experts
Document and interview data indicated that the leaders of the lab settings were always
highly educated individuals who understood how to implement early childhood programs and
were faculty in the Elementary Education Department. This distinguishing practice nurtured
the collaborative connection among the lab settings and the faculty. From the first lab setting,
experts in the field were hired to lead faculty and lab teachers. Later, when the kindergarten
and nursery school merged to form the Early Childhood Laboratory, an educational leader
titled a campus director was hired to nurture and lead lab teachers alongside a faculty member
who was an expert in the field of early childhood and had the responsibility of coordinating
and guiding the instruction of children and teacher candidates in the lab settings. Additionally,
the campus director was educated in the field of early childhood. Each campus director had
experience as a classroom teacher, had an educational background in early childhood
education, and was expected to serve as a faculty member in the Education Department.
Leadership was a joint, collaborative effort. A former campus leader explained this
relationship, “It was collaborative leadership. The changes that were implemented were
because as a faculty we looked at what was going, and we worked together to figure out what
we needed to change as a unit.” This distinguishing practice of joint leadership nurtured a
family-like atmosphere.
Establish a Family-like Atmosphere
“We are a family. I see us as a partnership,” were sentences in the documents and
interview data that indicated a collaborative, supportive atmosphere within the lab settings