What is Instructional Leadership in Education?

Instructional leadership in education has been described in similar ways over time by various experts in the field. In a nutshell, it’s how an educator, typically in an administrative or specialist role, guides their colleagues to improve and refine their instructional strategies to better impact student learning.

It’s essential to recognize that teachers can certainly provide instructional leadership to their colleagues as well, for example, in a Professional Learning Community (PLC), but for the purposes of this article, the focus will be on the specific efforts that administrators and coaches can enact for effective instructional leadership.

Strategies for Effective Instructional Leadership in Education

Clear Vision

Strong leaders set a purposeful vision, based on evidence from the students and communities they serve. The vision should be central to the mission of the school and should have specific outcomes identified as goals. Simple language is helpful to ensure all constituents can easily understand and refer back to the vision, creating cohesion as the work unfolds over the school year.

Structures for Communication

The next step is ensuring there are leadership access points to your teachers that are expected, predetermined, and intentional. Having a combination of formal and informal opportunities to dig into instructional strategies and student data will support a comprehensive instructional leadership approach.

Creating a school year calendar that identifies specific professional development sessions, collaborative meetings like PLCs, and direct observation and evaluation sessions promote cohesive and consistent opportunities to advance instructional practice.

Targeted Feedback

Your feedback is one of the most high-leverage tools you’ll employ to provide instructional leadership. When observing a class, it’s important to collect objective information. This may include what questions the teacher asks, which students participate, what the task demands of the students, and the timestamps to monitor pacing of the lesson. Once the information is collected, what you do with it is what makes or breaks your instructional leadership.

Identifying celebrations and one to two specific areas of growth with suggestions for refinements will focus the teacher’s efforts. Be sure that the feedback you provide around growth is what you determine will make the most impact on student learning, even if there are additional things you may want to see changed. Keeping this focused lens for the receiver of your feedback will ensure change in practice is feasible because it is limited in scope and ideally tied to your clear vision and student outcomes.

Monitoring Progress Towards Outcomes

Feedback and support is only as good as the impact it has on students! Ensure that you have strategic plans to monitor student learning around the specific goals you have for your instructional leadership. What assessment tools, both formal and informal, will support your analysis of impact on student learning? Once you have identified these checkpoints, collecting and analyzing the data for trends is the next step.

As best you can, finding points of celebration within the data promote continued efforts from your teachers to employ your feedback in their practice. Areas of weakness in the data can also be motivating for teachers to evoke changes in practice. Set ambitious yet attainable goals for student learning at the start of the year, ensure your instructional leadership efforts are cohesive to that goal, and then be transparent with your staff about the data so that they can see the connection between changes in instructional practice and student outcomes.

Building Capacity and Shared Leadership

Do not discount the power of teacher voice! The highest form of instructional leadership is building that leadership capacity within your staff. Whether you explore instructional rounds, collegial coaching, or a core instructional leadership team that has classroom teachers directly included in the leadership planning process, these opportunities can create some of the most powerful motivation for teachers to consider changing instructional practices.

Additionally, ensure you have strong resources to provide staff as models for what you are encouraging them to try instructionally. Videos and texts are helpful, and the opportunity to see a colleague in action is ideal. Creating the context for staff to feel safe trying these new instructional strategies without penalty is a key strategic move in your efforts to build capacity with them.

The key ingredient: Relationships

Great coaching, with thoughtful feedback and structured opportunities for support and reflection, will make a positive impact on teaching and learning in your school, but you will unlock your teachers’ greatest potential if they authentically trust you. Taking the time to visit classrooms without the intention of observing and providing feedback, capitalizing on opportunities to celebrate even the smallest wins for a teacher, and also being empathetic to the human experience when a teacher may be going through something that is not making them as available to the demands of our profession, all help to ensure that your teachers see your feedback as supportive and not punitive. When your teachers believe that you see the good in them, they will be far more likely to make changes in their instructional practices based on your leadership and feedback.

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Yes, some out there have created master schedules for more students, but some of the precepts for this scheduling do not change from campus to campus.

What Is the Overall Goal?

Before you place anything on the large dry-erase board in front of you or place that first magnet on the board you need to ask yourself, what is the overall goal of the schedule you are about to build?

• Perhaps you want your core departments to have shared conference periods.
• Perhaps you have a district who has given you PLC time as one the slots on a teacher’s schedule.
• Perhaps you need to build in time for your academic competitions and your organizations.
• Perhaps you need to make time for more writing, reading, or math based on your data.
• Perhaps you need to match conference time for certain teachers to mentor your younger teachers.

No matter what your overall goal is, this is one of the first questions you should ask yourself and this drives many of the things you will do next.

What Are Your Givens?

Much like in a Sudoku puzzle or a geometry proof, you start with your givens. When are your athletic periods? When are your PLC times during the day? When are your large singletons like your band classes, dance classes, etc.? These go on the board first. It is a class like this that anywhere from 50 to 100 or more students will be in that dictates where some of your teachers need to be. For example, at the school where we had 2,400 students the boys’ athletic class, girls’ athletics class, and our dance/drill team class had to be placed first because of the number of teachers and students involved.

Second, what are the core and career/elective singletons? At the school with 2,400 students and, most importantly, with the school of 750 students and 650 students, our singletons dictate our schedule.

This is perhaps the most essential part of our scheduling. For example, five students in a band class could sign up for that AP Biology class, and you certainly can’t offer that second period.   But if you offer it the fourth period, that AP Calculus class may not have as many students as it could. Then you also have to place your career (Career/Technology) elective classes in such a way that students who need certifications are also not in another singleton that they need.

Yes, this is easier when you have sixteen English teachers versus six English teachers. One year at the school with 750 students, we had one student who had band and four AP classes they requested.

In the end, we had to call the students to find out which AP class he wanted the least. Once we were able to place the singletons on the schedule in such a way that he could make three of the four AP classes, it worked from there.

Once you have the singletons where you think they work the best, start placing your doubletons, etc.

The singleton and doubleton placement will primarily impact your high school seniors and some juniors as they reach the pinnacle of the tracks they have been on since their freshman years. Think about how specialized math and science become at the higher levels and these are more difficult classes to place on the schedule, thus why they go on first.

Setting the Lineup

Once the givens, singletons, and doubletons are in place, the rest of the schedule really starts to fall into place. Then you get into one the best parts of this whole process, completing the lineup as this former baseball coach likes to call it.

You already know some of your key players, for example, who will be teaching your singletons and doubletons, which usually are your advanced placement, dual credit, or remediation classes.

• Now, who do you want to teach the primary load of freshman English or Algebra I?
• Who has the best personality for this?
• Who can grow these students the most?
• Who can have the firmness and nurturing nature for that squirrel-y grade level?
• Which teacher can prepare the Algebra II students the most for the next year of Calculus and Pre-Calculus?
• Who handles the seniors the best who are just there to get credit but will have to be pulled across the graduation finish line?
• Which teacher just cannot work with another teacher and needs to be with a different grade level?
• Who needs an extra “easy” class because they have a heavier morning or afternoon load?
• Which teacher is ready for those EOC classes or does one need to have another year of World Geography?
• Finally, who needs to be pushed this year to show they can really teach?

These are just some of the questions that help to decide who teaches what for the upcoming year. In the end, the master schedule can be used to reward and punish based on the work level, loyalty, needs, and personality of the staff. But more than that, it should support your overall goal of what your campus is trying to accomplish. The master schedule is one of the greatest tools you have to move your campus forward.

A graduate degree in administration prepares you to lead as a principal, superintendent or other school administrator and help shape the future for generations of students. Check out our available leadership and administration graduate degrees and get started today!

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What Does Anxiety in Children Look Like? What Causes Anxiety in Children?

There are physical, emotional, and behavioral signs of anxiety in children.

Physical Signs

The physical signs may include complaints of headaches or stomach aches, or refusal to use the bathroom at school. Other physical signs can mimic ADHD characteristics, such as restlessness, and trouble falling or staying asleep.

Emotional and Behavioral Signs

Emotional signs can involve:

• Tears
• Feeling overly sensitive
• Inability to regulate basic emotions
• Anger and irritability
• Vivid nightmares

When children demonstrate behavioral signs of anxiety, they may:

• Ask “what if” questions
• Avoid joining groups
• Resist going to school
• Have meltdowns or tantrums

Causes of Anxiety

The causes of the generalized anxiety disorder in children can stem from being abused or neglected, or hearing and seeing parents and guardians argue. A variety of issues occurring at school with peers or academic pressures can result in children of all ages to develop anxiety. Any home life issues that create a movement to different homes within or out of a child’s hometown can also cause issues.

How can Anxiety in Children Impact Student Learning?

When children bring anxiety to school, daily learning can be more challenging. The anxiety may impact:

• Paying attention
• Unfinished work
• Lack of preparation for assessments
• Wanting to avoid school
• Trouble engaging in the lessons

Anxiety affects memory and the ability to process information in a child’s brain. When a child’s memory and processing ability are interrupted or blocked, it can inhibit learning and long-term retention of academic material. Academic struggles or social discomfort in school can be upsetting for the student and, as a result, can create a sense of avoidance in children.

Social anxiety in children can make them feel extremely nervous or uncomfortable in social situations. For example, in a school environment around many people, the child may feel fidgety and distracted, which can lead to behavioral issues.

How did the Pandemic Impact Children?

The COVID-19 pandemic altered the daily life of children by taking away a typical school day. The pandemic drove closures of businesses, forcing many parents to work at home or seek other employment.

Children were forced to learn from home when schools were closed. This new way of life for both parents and children may have started smooth, but remote school would not be able to mimic a regular academic schedule as it would eliminate social interactions with peers and create uncertainty for children.

When the classroom went virtual, students lost the ability to create and sustain a relationship with an adult teacher and student peers. The virtual classroom created an environment giving students a choice to decline involvement by simply not turning on the video screen; students hiding behind a video screen fed into a the desire to avoid school altogether.

The virtual classroom made cooperative learning extremely difficult and social interaction among classmates nonexistent. Many older students felt ill-prepared for the next grade level after the initial shutdowns.

When some schools reopened, many children felt anxious about returning to the classroom or entering the classroom for the first time. The stress of the pandemic also created anxiety over getting sick for students and adults. As a result of their stress, the children felt the fear experienced by the adults around them.

Strategies to Utilize in the Classroom

Schools must create an environment that provides emotional support. A school counselor should be available at all school levels, from elementary to high school, for treating anxiety in children. The school counselor can assist students with calming techniques when feeling anxious, seeking further therapy, and more.

Create a Safe Space

Classroom teachers should have the opportunity to arrange the learning space to be comfortable and non-threatening for all students. Try to set up areas in the room that would allow preferential seating for students with anxiety.

Student Support

When organizing cooperative learning groups, consider creating student groups that will support those who suffer from anxiety. Classroom instructors must always be prepared to allow an anxious student to take a break from the classroom setting when the situation becomes overwhelming. Teachers should also be prepared to set a plan for a student to make up classwork that creates a doable process for when they need those breaks.

Instructions and Assignments

It is the responsibility of teachers to deliver clear instructions and assignments for all students, especially students suffering from anxiety. The classroom should eliminate any chance for a child to feel embarrassed and humiliated. Students feeling anxious may not want to read aloud or present a project in front of a classroom for this reason, and the teacher should have an alternate option for a child with anxiety.

Further Accommodations

Students with anxiety may need extra time on assessments or have test anxiety specifically. These students require a separate or small group setting while taking a test. Many additional accommodations can be arranged for students at all levels with anxiety in the classroom.

Some recommendations for further accommodations includes:

• Extra copies of notes for a test
• Limited homework during traumatic times
• Ample notice before a test or quiz
• Providing helpful study tools

The teachers and administrators of all schools should create a school culture that students are proud of and eager to attend every day. When students have something to look forward to, it makes it easier to leave a parent and eliminates any sense of separation anxiety a student may feel.

More than one in three children have anxiety and the percentage of anxiety in children has doubled over the past two years. School closures and abrupt lockdowns of businesses, libraries, parks, and more has caused anxiety in our children that will continue to impact their learning and social skills for the foreseeable future.

Do you have an interest and passion for student mental health? If so, check out our available school counseling or special education graduate programs to advance your career today!

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The COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted education in many ways, and one of the most detrimental effects was losing contact with students. Face-to-face interaction is incomparable when it comes to teaching and learning. However, we live in a world where online learning is common and in every facet of education. Building relationships with students is even more important in online learning because students respond better to teachers they know and want to please. It is vital to include opportunities to see your students on screen and hear their voices. It is an automatic response in our brains that we connect when we see and hear others in-person or on screen.

How can Positive Relationships with Educators Impact Student Success?

Positive relationships with educators impacts student success in every way. The key to success and teaching being a rewarding profession is building and maintaining positive relationships with students. In addition to relationships with students, having a relationship with their parents is also valuable.

How Teachers can Create Appropriate Boundaries with Students

The challenge for a teacher to connect with students and build relationships starts with the grade level and development of the students the teacher is teaching. Teacher-student relationships start at the beginning of the school year when teachers create classroom culture boundaries that rely upon classroom procedures. Relationships within the classroom should not affect the teacher’s classroom management, but should enhance the level of respect the students and teacher have for one another, and strengthen the culture and make following classroom procedures simple.

Elementary teachers (K-5) must first create a safe environment in the classroom for a student-teacher relationship to blossom. In all elementary grades, teachers are developing a solid foundation for learning that flourishes when the students feel valued by the teacher. Elementary students and teachers can create handshakes or other forms of greeting that will enhance a relationship, making the relationship connection unique. The boundaries for relationships with elementary students can also include teachers witnessing and celebrating students’ out of school activities, attending a sports event, dance recital, or art show. The teacher should always check with the student’s parents to receive permission before attending an out of school event. Elementary student-teacher relationships are the first step toward how students develop future relationships with middle school teachers and beyond.

Middle school teachers develop relationships with students as mentors to guide the young adultescence to their potential. The teachers are similar to cheerleaders, encouraging the students to strive to always do the best work and to keep a watchful eye on the mental health of the students. Middle school sports and other various extracurricular activities can become a good vehicle for teachers and students to build relationships. Once again, the boundaries for these relationships is important, and a helpful tip would be for the teacher and student should never be alone together and try to include another adult or additional students in the mix.

Lastly, high school students rely upon teacher relationships for guidance and as role models. High schoolers end the four years as adults, and these students are seeking to witness behavior and actions by the adults they trust. High school students also need teacher relationships for positive encouragement to lead to a successful future. These relationships should be used by teachers for coachable opportunities with students. The boundaries for relationships between teachers and students at this level is crucial. As in all teacher-student relationships, parents should have direct communication with the teacher.

Ways to Build a Relationship with Your Students

Questionnaires/Interviews

Students at any age or grade level love to know they are valuable enough to get to know, and they enjoy someone listening to them. This takes time and effort from the teacher, but it is so worth it. Taking time for students individually is very rewarding. This includes talking to them about their lives, and spending time with them academically. Teacher questionnaires are one of the best ideas for initially getting to know your students. If the students are younger, then a teacher can conduct an interview with them. When students are being interviewed, their responses are sometimes funny and always beneficial.

Parent Essays

In elementary school classrooms, send an essay home for their parents to complete. This was an idea passed along to me, and the parents’ responses were very helpful. It was very interesting to read these, and neat to go back and reread at the end of the school year. Parents know their children better than anyone and can provide helpful insight in the classroom.

Daily Circle Time

One of the best ideas I have encountered in building teacher-student relationships is to have a daily circle time. This idea has been introduced from Restorative Practices trainings nationwide. Many students are impacted by trauma in our classrooms, and circle time creates a safe space for them. This idea can be adopted for any classroom with students in grades Pre-K-12 or even in meetings with adults. Circle time is when the class gathers in a circle at the very beginning of class and has a topic to discuss. This can be any topic and allows the students to get to know each other and the teacher to get to know their students better, creating space for relationship building. The teacher participates in circle time also.

In my classroom, this was one of their favorite things every day. A few examples of topics are:

• What is your favorite __ (insert anything here)?
• Would you rather __ (insert anything here)?
• Give someone a compliment sitting to your left or right.

It is amazing what the students say in these moments. Circle time takes a few minutes of your day and pays large dividends. An example for a middle or high school classroom would be to ask them about a topic they are studying or anything applicable to their age or grade level.

When setting up for this, younger students gather on a rug or other safe space in the classroom and conduct circle time. In a middle or high school classroom, students turn their desks toward each other in a circle formation. This allows for more intimate conversations. The testimonials from classrooms, including mine, are encouraging and exciting.

Building the teacher and student relationship is rewarding for teachers, students, and parents. Getting to know them in the classroom and beyond is why many teachers truly enjoy their professions.

Educators never stop learning; check out our available graduate degree programs  to hone your skills and promote lifelong learning and academic excellence.

*Updated June 2023

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