There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.
This quote from Machiavelli's The Prince perfectly describes a new principal's role in a school. Strong and effective leadership by principals is essential to introducing innovation to schools. And most current principals claim that these leadership skills are gained on the job, not in the classroom.
To develop these necessary leadership skills, many principal training programs now include a residency or internship where principals-in-training spend part of their session at a school, learning 'on the job.' Consider instead the possibility of a simulation exercise that incorporates the lessons learned from many experienced principals. Wouldn't such an experience enable aspiring principals to 'learn by doing' with even more exposure to different scenarios? Principal users would also have the benefit of exploring different approaches in a risk-free environment with the ability to share insights and perspectives from a common experience with other principals.
It is exactly such a project that I undertook to design last year with Albert Angehrn at the Center for Advanced Learning Technologies. Interviews with experienced U.S. teachers and principals helped generate a knowledge base from which to design instructional scenarios that would highlight effective and ineffective ways to lead school transformation. Such a simulation is a great example of how tacit knowledge residing in the heads of experienced principals can be converted and absorbed as tacit knowledge for principals-in-training.
It remains to be seen if principal preparation programs integrate more of these experiential learning activities into their curricula.
Very efficiently written information. It will be helpful to anybody who usess it, as well as me. Keep up the good work.
Posted by: Poker Maniac | January 02, 2011 at 12:25 PM
Oh! thanks Nick for updating the status, I’m seriously wondering from last week where is Nick? and his amazing Upcoming theme’s sneak peeks? and glad to hear Handheld plugin is about to release, I’m dying to activate it on my blogs.
Posted by: Poker is good | September 16, 2011 at 08:31 AM
The forums could use an update too, they are messy, specially the login and search. They don’t look as good as the rest of the site.And I don’t know why but with Firefox, I login and go the forums than I’m logged out and I didn’t do anything. This doesn’t happen on IE.
Posted by: Poker very interesting | September 16, 2011 at 08:32 AM
Totally understand, I still use just 2 themes from year 1 and have never updated them. Only added to them. I just keep renewing my service because you guys deserve it! keep up the good work.
Posted by: Online Poker | September 16, 2011 at 08:33 AM
That's one thing I'm really looking forward. Looking forward to reading more from you. Thanks for info and good day for You. Till next time.
Posted by: Poker Ohne Einzahlung | January 16, 2012 at 09:50 AM