The existing literature on instructional leadership mainly examines the components, procedures, and mechanisms of instructional leadership and its influence on school performance and student academic results. The application of instructional leadership is insufficiently discussed. Moreover, despite longstanding efforts to campaign for instructional leadership's prioritization, several studies have shown that the time devoted by principals to instructional leadership activities is inadequate. These disappointing statistics make the research on instructional leadership application most necessary. Why do principals find it difficult to put instructional leadership into action? What can help them overcome the challenges involved in applying instructional leadership? What functions of instructional leadership do school leaders tend to sidestep? New Explorations for Instructional Leaders: How Principals Can Promote Teaching and Learning Effectively answers these questions and addresses the need for additional research-informed literature on instructional leadership application. The findings of Haim Shaked's studies, conducted over the past five years among principals working in the Israeli school system, are presented in this book in a way that can be used by researchers, policymakers, school leaders, and educators in different countries.
Prof. Haim Shaked is the president of Hemdat College of Education, Sdot Negev, Israel. As a scholar-practitioner with almost twenty years of experience as a school principal, his research focuses on principalship, and in particular, instructional leadership and system thinking in school leadership.
List of Figures List of Tables Foreword Preface Acknowledgments Series Editor's Introduction Introduction: What is Instructional Leadership? Part I: Enablers of Instructional Leadership Application Chapter 1. Knowledge Enabling Instructional Leadership Application Chapter 2. Relationships Enabling Instructional Leadership Application Chapter 3. Systems Thinking as an Enabler of Instructional Leadership Application Part II: Inhibitors of Instructional Leadership Application Chapter 4. Perceptions Inhibiting Instructional Leadership Application Chapter 5. Clan Culture as an Inhibitor of Instructional Leadership Application Chapter 6. Low Power Distance as an Inhibitor of Instructional Leadership Application Chapter 7. Inhibitors of Instructional Leadership Application in Rural Education Part III: Incomplete Application of Instructional Leadership Chapter 8. Principals' Incomplete Performance of Teacher Evaluation Chapter 9. Principals' Incomplete Assurance of Teachers' Job Suitability Chapter 10. Assistant Principals' Incomplete Application of Instructional Leadership Part IV: Paradoxical Solutions to Instructional Leadership Application Chapter 11. A Paradoxical Approach to Instructional Leadership Application Chapter 12. A Paradoxical Approach in Practice: Instructional Leadership Application and Boundary Management Epilogue: Answering the "So What?" Question About the Author
