An Assignment Submitted by
Evaluation of School’s Vision and Learning
The educational establishment has a traditional vision of learning, believing that the school has to comply with the requirements of the national program. Specifically, the school concentrates primary attention on the process of learning, the academic productivity of students, and their behavioral patterns inside the school. Also, it is considered that children’s performance has to match the nationally established requirements for certain subjects and the teachers as well as management do not go beyond these frames. The development of school’s vision is conducted through the provision of the course material, assessment tools that serve as the element of control, and rewarding/punitive measures that aim at motivating the students to perform better. In order to share this vision of learning, the school’s management explained it to the educators with the demand of following this concept. Further on, the vision of learning was communicated to the students through the actions of teachers and requirements provided in the instructions as well as specific exercises that were approved at the national level. Implementation of the vision of learning was made by monitoring the work of the educators, performance of students, and the use of appropriate means to maintain a specific concept.
As the school is culturally diverse, both students and teachers are quite creative, and the modern environment requires future specialists to be flexible, communicable, adaptable, and innovative, the vision of learning has to experience the set of changes. First of all, the changes have to be done in the perception of the students, their needs, and the demands of the contemporary society (Boyd, 2015). While the national curriculum is a mandatory concept to follow, the school has to develop its own vision compatible with the school’s needs. The traditional approach is benefiting for the students and educators, yet it is essential to add creativity, sustainability, and innovations into the curriculum.
Action Plan
Firstly, the new vision of learning has to be based on the individuality of the students, their needs, and skills. Therefore, the school has to establish the safe and culturally competent environment where students of all backgrounds will be not only accepted but also will feel valuable and appreciated. Positive school culture can be maintained by providing lessons on the subjects related to the different cultures, eliminate inappropriate and unethical behavior of the students as well as teachers, and foster the cultural development of all stakeholders. There is a need to make the teachers more autonomous in terms of making decisions and executing power according to their vision and practical experience. Therefore, the current leadership tactics of the school’s management have to be changed to the transformational framework, which will allow the educators to predict conflicts rather than resolving them. New vision and goals have to be centered on the students and the ability of the school to fulfill its aims. For instance, today’s students are required to have well-developed conflict resolution thinking skills, thus, one of the goals of the school has to be the development of these skills through the provision of respective material in the classroom.
Secondly, the school has to develop the student’s self to ensure that the society will be progressing in the future as well. In order to achieve this, the management will have to either train the current personnel or hire new employees, who will be able to develop the students’ competence, improve their intellectual development, and foster their moral and ethical progress. In this case, the administration will have to create the environment where team building skills will be developed among the staff and students. It can be achieved by empowering the environment of collaboration and mutual understanding among the staff members. It is believed that such educators will be able to encourage the similar team building environment among the students as well.
Thirdly, the instructions provided by the management of the school have to be revisited and reformed to match the demands of the modern world. The administration of the school will have to make sure that the teachers are able to provide necessary instructions, incorporate them into the curriculum, and articulate them accordingly to the students. The administration will have to use such methods as training interventions that propose the improvement of teachers’ qualification and proficiency. Also, the administration and teachers have to target appropriate data and optimize processes to build the effective team and execute leadership. It is essential for the administration not only to find highly qualified specialists but also to optimize their work in the team. To achieve it, the management of the school will have to detect what areas have to undergo improvement. By collecting the vital information and analyzing it properly, the educators have the chance to incorporate the method of scientific research and improve such areas as communication between the staff members and administration, problem-solving methods used for resolving the dispute in the team, and leadership tools that have already become obsolete in the modern life.
Overall, the administration of the school has to address three major areas, including communication, leadership, and goal-setting. It was noticed that the educators do not collaborate effectively with each other, which reflects in their teaching practices in the classroom. Teachers who do not know how to compromise and resolve conflicts cannot develop these skills among the students. As the school is guided by the authoritarian leadership, the educators have limited possibilities to build the lessons, create the mutually benefiting atmosphere in the classroom, and make autonomous decisions. The students suffer from this type of leadership, which teaches them only how to obey and follow the instructions, but cease their ability to create, innovate, and think critically. The school has to nourish the initiative, creative vision, and critical thinking to develop intelligent, competent, and open-minded society. Finally, the new framework of goal-setting has to be applied by the administration, as the current one-sided approach does not work in the modern conditions (Benjamin, 2016). The students and their needs have to be put in the center of attention, while the requirements have to serve as the indicator or a standard of the education, rather than a strict instruction for all actions initiated by the educators.
Description of the School
In general, the educational establishment represents an average school established in 1973. The school is not big, it has one building allotted for the lessons, a separate building for the sports activities, and a park created for the leisure of the students. The physical context of the school allows the students to accomplish all academic goals, like finding a book in the library or perform the practical task in the laboratory. It has a relatively long history and it has an impact on the school’s traditional vision of learning. The educational facility holds the students from different socio-economic and cultural households. The teachers utilize the demographic information in various cases, for example, when targeting the disruptive behavior. As it was noticed earlier, the individual approach to students is not used by the teachers very frequently, which affects the quality of education. It is a highly culturally diverse school, which requires the improvement in cultural competence and inclusion among both the staff and the students. As there are a lot of children from the disadvantaged families, the traditional authoritarian approach has to be replaced by the transformational framework to take into account the interests of all stakeholders and improve communication between the groups. It was revealed that the school needs improvement in testing scores and building management, which indicates that the administration does not fulfill all requirements of the education.
In the result, it is essential to develop the individual approach to the students and target not only the test scores but the environment in the classrooms. The teachers’ attitude to the curriculum and students’ learning has to be assessed and revised if it is needed. For instance, the administration of the school can hold several meetings performing the brainstorming technique to find the solution for the current problems and introduce the innovative framework for teaching the students. The educators have to increase the awareness among the students of their future and the role of education in it. The teachers may utilize the methods of allocating the skills of each student and developing them accordingly. Also, the school can create several after school clubs to increase the interest of the students to specific subjects or activities and improving their knowledge in them.
It has to be noted that the choice of teaching methods affect the students’ achievements, where the use of traditional framework only deteriorate the ability of the children to express their initiative, find a new way of resolving an issue, accomplish the tasks differently, and think out of the box. As this approach is encapsulated in the school-based strategic and tactical goals, it will be difficult to eliminate it from the teaching strategies and the way of approaching the problems. At the same time, the school goals can be altered by shifting the focus from the school to the student. The physical and historical context of the educational establishment does not have to affect the students negatively. Despite the fact that the school has a long history, the approach to the education has to comply with the modern requirements of the job market and society in general. Consequently, hierarchical approach and instructional framework will not be helpful.
Overall, the demographic and socio-economic context of the school has to form its goals. As the school contains a lot of students from versatile backgrounds, the administration has to make sure that the needs of every student will be attained. In order to achieve this purpose, the administration, as well as the teachers, will have to create individual approach to all children, allocate the resources for their needs, and monitor their performance and behavior appropriately, avoiding bias, prejudice, and cultural incompetence.
References
Benjamin, R. (2016). Entrusting Teachers with Student-Centered Instruction: A Review of the Reading Strategies Book by Jennifer Serravallo. Reading Improvement, 53(1), 45-58.
Boyd, L. (2015). Common Core in the Classroom: New Standards Help Teachers Create Effective Lesson Plans. Education Next, 15(1), 84-97.
