Leadership Models – A critical discussion
In Week 4, you will be presented with the details of a case study.
Across Weeks 4-8, you will explore leadership theories as part of Theme 2: Examining Educational Leadership Theories; the theories covered by this assessment are Servant, Authentic, Adaptive, Learning Centred and Distributive Leadership.
The task requires you to analyse how each leadership theory guides leadership behaviours in response to the case study.
Specifically, you will:
Explain how a leader might respond to the case study according to each leadership theory (200 words per theory, i.e., 5 X 200 words = 1000 words)
Critically analyse and justify which leadership theories you think respond best to the context of the case study (600 words)
Discuss how insights from this case study inform or modify your personal leadership theory (400 words).
Part 1: Explain how a leader might respond to the case study according to each leadership theory (200 words per theory, i.e., 5 X 200 words = 1000 words)
Part 2: Critically analyse and justify which leadership theories you think respond best to the context of the case study (600 words)
Part 3: Discuss how insights from this case study inform or modify your personal leadership theory (400 words).
Case Study
NOTE: This case study is set within a school, although no knowledge of specific curriculum is required. There are two leadership roles: the principal (or, in other contexts, senior leader, chief executive, executive manager, etc.) and the curriculum coordinator who leads and manages a group of seven curriculum leaders (or, head teacher, stage leader, section leader, etc.); if you are currently in a non-school organisation, you may wish to define the type of organisation and relevant role titles in an introductory section of your assessment.
Felton Public School was once a well-regarded school, but under the previous principal it began to lose its good reputation. Academic culture and expectations declined, co-curricular activities decreased in number and diversity, and a wide range of community concerns led to the principal leaving the school. Deborah Johnson was appointed principal two years ago, and Felton PS is her first appointment as a principal. She was a very well-respected and valued deputy principal in her previous school, with a reputation for high expectations and standards.
After a period of reviewing the school’s programs, the principal announces the school will adopt a new teaching strategy for blended learning. Teachers will provide a week’s worth of online videos and learning materials at the beginning of each week, and students will be required to watch the videos, engage with learning materials, and complete any related tasks set by the teacher. When students come to class, the teacher will then spend time helping individual students, or small groups working on common topics/issues, to develop more indepth learning based on what they have already learned at home, rather than rely on teachercentred content delivery. Students also have the option to stay at home (with parent/caregiver permission) on one day of the week, if their learning progress is satisfactory., which is determined by the class teacher
Deborah Johnson becomes aware from some parent complaints that a number of teachers are not consistently using this strategy. She decides to address the issue and calls in the Director of Teaching & Learning, Bradley Campbell, to develop a plan as to how to approach the situation. Two of the school’s seven curriculum leaders (Jack and Cait) did not support the decision to move to the online teaching approach, while three others were very enthusiastic (Faisal, Daniel, Heather). One of the negative curriculum leaders is the longest serving staff member (Jock), who is highly regarded by parents and students and has a reputation of students in his classes getting good results in the High School Certificate and has been talking quite openly in the staff room about staff members disagreement with the online learning approach.
In addressing this case study, you must explain how either:
Deborah Johnson might respond to the situation
OR
Bradley Campbell might respond to the situation.
