Promises and Pitfalls of Crafting Coherence Around a District-Wide Vision for Equity-Centered Instruction

First-year teachers often experience tensions between their visions of high-quality and equitable mathematics instruction and the realities of school culture and politics. Subsequently, first-year teachers need a professional learning space where they can be supported in enacting their instructional visions while developing their professional voices. In this paper, we share the voices of four first-year teachers and how a community of practice supported them to navigate the individual challenges of their classroom practices. Findings from this study yielded two major themes: 1) the community of practice supported them to reflect, envision, and articulate alternative realities; and 2) instructional visions were filters that empowered them to strengthen their professional voices while developing as equitable mathematics teachers.

Case study research is one of the most widely used research methods in Information Systems (IS). In recent years, an increasing number of publications have used case studies with few sources of evidence, such as single interviews per case. While there is much methodological guidance on rigorously conducting multiple case studies, it remains unclear how researchers can achieve an acceptable level of rigour for this emerging type of multiple case study with few sources of evidence, i.e., multiple mini case studies. In this context, we synthesise methodological guidance for multiple case study research from a cross-disciplinary perspective to develop an analytical framework. Furthermore, we calibrate this analytical framework to multiple mini case studies by reviewing previous IS publications that use multiple mini case studies to provide guidelines to conduct multiple mini case studies rigorously. We also offer a conceptual definition of multiple mini case studies, distinguish them from other research approaches, and position multiple mini case studies as a pragmatic and rigorous approach to research emerging and innovative phenomena in IS.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to determine the cultural competence of district leaders and their potential resulting influence on campus leaders in the face of a rapidly changing educational and community landscape. A secondary purpose was to ascertain district and school leaders' placement on the cultural proficiency continuum to gain a greater understanding of (a) the potential effect, if any, that district leaders' level of cultural competency had on the cultural competency of campus leaders, and (b) how the cultural competency level of both district and campus leaders influenced district policies, practices, and school climate. The analysis and interpretation of findings of this research study were based on a conceptual framework, informed by the six constructs of the cultural proficiency continuum as developed by R. Lindsey, Nuri-Robins, D. Lindsey and Terrell. Four district office leaders and three campus principals, from the same district, were selected as participants. The campus principals represented elementary, middle, and high schools. Data were gathered from semi-structured face-to-face interviews with each participant, three meeting observations, and document analysis. Findings revealed evidence of a strong relationship between district leaders' cultural competence, campus principals' cultural competence, and district policies and procedures. There was also a direct relationship between the district leaders' cultural competence levels and their direct reports' level of cultural competence. This study can afford school districts an opportunity to recognize the value and implications of culturally proficient leaders, as they serve all students.

This qualitative study explores school principals’ perceptions and enactments of shared sense-making processes during a generally-outlined pedagogical reform, i.e. a broad-policy reform allowing educators to exercise their discretion in meeting its pedagogical goals, aiming to inquire what makes such processes critical to schools’ collective efficacy within reform implementation. Interviews with 25 high school principals implementing this reform in state and religious-state schools produced data, whose analysis yielded two major themes and sub-themes: (1) Communicating a shared vision: (a) a shared pedagogical vision; (b) a shared values-based vision; (c) a shared vision of pedagogical bluff; and (2) Strengthening school collective efficacy: (a) facilitating a collaborative instructional culture; (b) adjusting school reality toward instructional focus. A shared sense-making process offers a beneficial framework for principals and teachers collectively navigating complexity and uncertainty, while implementing ambiguous pedagogical policy demands within their unique contexts.

ABSTRACTThis study aims to unveil the complexity of introducing and sustaining instructional improvement at a school site by documenting successes and challenges encountered by a research-practice partnership among university researchers, school and district leaders, and a mathematics coordinator from the county office of education. The study answers two questions: How did a research-practice partnership attend to teachers’ voices and craft coherence around a school’s mathematics teaching improvement goals? What characterised the complexity of sustaining the improvement efforts? Data included meeting fieldnotes, teacher survey responses, and transcripts of interviews with teachers, school and district leaders, and the county coordinator. Qualitative thematic analyses revealed several ways in which the team attended to teacher voices and crafted coherence dynamically through interactions supported by tools and activities aimed at surfacing complexity and creating a shared vision. Points of convergence included a focus on adult learning and collaboration. Analyses also unveiled challenges, including the emotional work entailed in instructional change and the necessity to buffer the school from conflicting external demands. Conclusions highlight the importance of deliberate negotiation of tensions and crafting of coherence so that stakeholders can more easily build a shared vision for high-quality classroom teaching and high-quality teacher learning.

This Center for Assessment and National Academy of Education (NAEd) practical guidebook translates the research on balanced assessment systems into practical support and guidance for district and school leaders. This Guidebook is a companion to the 2024 volume, Reimagining Balanced Assessment Systems. It can help school and district leaders address questions such as: How balanced is our local assessment system and how would we know? What might be out of balance with our local system of assessments, given our instructional vision? How could we begin to improve the balance of our local assessment system?

Mikilvægt er fyrir framtíð lýðræðissamfélaga að hlúa strax í æsku að borgaravitund barna og ungmenna, bæði góðum gildum og þátttöku í samfélaginu. Í þessari tilviksrannsókn var skoðað hvernig borgaravitund tveggja ungmenna endurspeglar uppeldissýn foreldra þeirra og gefa meginniðurstöður hennar til kynna skýra samsvörun þar á milli. Veganesti foreldranna var áhersla á náin samskipti sem einkenndust af umhyggju og stuðningi, djúpar samræður og gildismat þar sem vægi virðingar, skilnings, velferðar samborgara og samfélagsábyrgðar var mikið. Þá nefndu bæði foreldrarnir og ungmennin mikilvægi nokkurra óformlegra borgaralegra viðmiða, eins og að fylgja lögum, vera vinnusamur og koma vel fram við aðra. Gildi rannsóknarinnar liggur í vísbendingum um að foreldrar gegni mikilvægu hlutverki við að efla borgaravitund barna sinna. Til að styðja við borgaravitund ungmenna þurfa foreldrar að setja það í forgang í uppeldinu að rækta góð samskipti, hlúa að gildismati og gefa samræðu þar sem rædd eru ólík sjónarmið og lausnir fundnar aukið vægi.

The literature regarding Lean Production philosophy is vast depicting historical aspects, implementation challenges, benefits of its adoption and other topics applied to various industries and services. However, the agribusiness segment, one of the major segments of the global economy features a large gap in national and international literature. This article aims to conduct a research through multiple case studies concerning the use of techniques and tools of Lean Production System in agribusiness organizations. Multiple type case studies were conducted in eight agribusiness units from different segments through the application of structured interviews, on site visits and document analysis. The research carried has identified that Lean Production techniques and tools are applicable to agribusiness environments, and that the ones which involve improvements in process control, production flow and logistics have higher emphasis on research units. Techniques and tools such as long-term supplier and customer relationship, production smoothing/heijunka and value stream mapping distinguished themselves by the similarity of use when compared to previous studies in agribusiness environment. It was also identified that there are differences concerning the adoption of the techniques and tools in research units that operate in production environments of the type Make to Order or Make to Stock. Such differences are imposed by specificities that affect agribusiness organizations, which is indicative for future studies.

Objective: The purpose of this case study is to develop a model of the process of human resource orchestration in partnership companies in order to create the innovative TV programs and to achieve the business results. Method / Approach: Two kinds of partnership such as mergers & acquisitions, and strategic alliances at the TV media companies provide input for a multiple case study approach. Firstly, the TV media company that conducts Merger and Acquisition (M&A) with the local TV Company. Secondly, the company conducts the strategic partnership with the foreign the news TV Company. Findings – The company owner who is part of the company's leaders is central figures who has the ability to consolidate the actions of company leaders in conducting human orchestration. In the case of collaboration with foreign companies, the best aspects of the integration of the culture of the company and partners affect the success of the process of knowledge transfer and implementation in the creation of innovative TV programs. In addition, the developed model is expected to reduce the company failures in building the partnership. Research limitations / implications - This research is an extension of resource orchestration research by investigating the role of owner and company leaders in conducting human resource orchestration during the transition period. Practical implications – The company leaders can use this model to be applied to the partnership programs through maintaining dynamic relationships with the partners in order to improve the human resource competency through transfer of knowledge for the creation of innovative and quality products and achieving the profitable business performance. Originality / value - There is no research that examines the role of leaders (owners and leaders of companies) in managing human resources in the transition period after establishing a partnership. The proposed model emphasizes their ability to orchestrate human resources in the context of knowledge transfer, the creation of TV programs and the business results. How to Cite this Article Pubmed Style Juliani Dyah Trisnawati, Indrianawati Usman, Dwi Ratmawati. resource orchestration in partnership companies: a multiple case study. SRP. 2020; 11(5): 814-822. doi:10.31838/srp.2020.5.120 Web Style Juliani Dyah Trisnawati, Indrianawati Usman, Dwi Ratmawati. resource orchestration in partnership companies: a multiple case study. http://www.sysrevpharm.org/?mno=132218 [Access: March 30, 2021]. doi:10.31838/srp.2020.5.120 AMA (American Medical Association) Style Juliani Dyah Trisnawati, Indrianawati Usman, Dwi Ratmawati. resource orchestration in partnership companies: a multiple case study. SRP. 2020; 11(5): 814-822. doi:10.31838/srp.2020.5.120 Vancouver/ICMJE Style Juliani Dyah Trisnawati, Indrianawati Usman, Dwi Ratmawati. resource orchestration in partnership companies: a multiple case study. SRP. (2020), [cited March 30, 2021]; 11(5): 814-822. doi:10.31838/srp.2020.5.120 Harvard Style Juliani Dyah Trisnawati, Indrianawati Usman, Dwi Ratmawati (2020) resource orchestration in partnership companies: a multiple case study. SRP, 11 (5), 814-822. doi:10.31838/srp.2020.5.120 Turabian Style Juliani Dyah Trisnawati, Indrianawati Usman, Dwi Ratmawati. 2020. resource orchestration in partnership companies: a multiple case Reviews in Pharmacy, 11 (5), 814-822. doi:10.31838/srp.2020.5.120 Chicago Style Juliani Dyah Trisnawati, Indrianawati Usman, Dwi Ratmawati. Human resource orchestration in partnership companies: a multiple case study. Systematic Reviews in Pharmacy 11 (2020), 814-822. doi:10.31838/srp.2020.5.120 MLA (The Modern Language Association) Style Juliani Dyah Trisnawati, Indrianawati Usman, Dwi Ratmawati. Human resource orchestration in partnership companies: a multiple case study. Systematic Reviews in Pharmacy 11.5 (2020), 814-822. Print. doi:10.31838/srp.2020.5.120 APA (American Psychological Association) Style Juliani Dyah Trisnawati, Indrianawati Usman, Dwi Ratmawati (2020) resource orchestration in partnership companies: a multiple case Reviews in Pharmacy, 11 (5), 814-822. doi:10.31838/srp.2020.5.120

District Leadership that Works: Striking the Right Balance

The field of engineering education research is constantly evolving, providing educators and researchers with a range of methodologies to choose from. Among these methodologies, multiple case studies offer a robust approach for understanding complex real-world phenomena. In this methodological paper, we explore the application of multiple case studies in the field of engineering education. Drawing on perspectives from case study scholars such as Robert K. Yin, Sharan Merriam, and Robert E. Stake, we provide a comprehensive guide for researchers contemplating the use of this methodology. This paper is structured around two main sections, in the Background section the paper answers two questions 1) What is a case study? and 2) What is a multiple case study? Meanwhile, drawing on published examples of case studies in the Journal of Engineering Education the Key procedures of conducting a multiple case study section describes five key procedures for conducting a multiple case study, designing the multiple case study, case study sample selection, data collection, data analysis, and assuring quality. By exploring multi-case study in detail, our aim is to provide engineering education researchers with a better understanding of the multifaceted nature of qualitative multiple case studies.

Teacher burnout in K-12 public education has been a well-researched experience. Burnout is one of the many causes of teacher attrition, which is detrimental to student and school outcomes. Beginning in healthcare research, the expanse of burnout research has identified factors that cause burnout, can predict the extent someone will experience burnout, and how employers can mitigate burnout. Experiences of burnout changed and heightened with the onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic and ensuring years since leading to a massive impact on workplace culture in the United States. Phenomenon such as quiet quitting and the great resignation began to impact workers across various fields. The problem of teacher burnout today should be of much concern for district and school leaders across the country and in society. This study contributed to a gap in understanding about teacher burnout on two levels. The first is lack of qualitative research regarding teacher burnout since 2020. The second more prominent gap is the ways in which teachers discuss burnout on social media, particularly on the platform TikTok. This study was an exploratory qualitative case study that examined the content of TikTok videos in 2022 and in 2023 that were created by current or former teachers and uploaded to TikTok using the hashtag #TeacherQuitTok. In addition to 30 videos, the top 15 comments of each video were analyzed. For both the transcripts of the videos and of the comments, in vivo, versus, and emotion coding were used as first cycle coding methods with a focused second cycle coding applied afterwards. Themes were drawn from the codes and categories. What resulted was a rich description of the landscape and content of the videos and comments on #TeacherQuitTok. The themes helped form the basis of findings and recommendations both for practice and for future research. The recommendations of this study can help to create community among educators experiencing burnout. In addition, school and district leaders were prompted to learn from the challenges leading to burnout and attrition derived from the videos and use TikTok as a tool to learn more about their teachers' lived experiences. The recommendations for future research prompt future studies to use TikTok as a research site or to corroborate findings with other research frameworks. Keywords: teacher burnout, teacher attrition, coronavirus pandemic, TikTok, qualitative exploratory case study, social media

Objectives The purpose of this qualitative action research study was to develop an understanding of how a district leader and a building teacher leader can collaborate to support teachers. The goal was to support a middle school English Language Arts (ELA) teacher team that operated as a community of practice from the ‘bottom-up’ to make space for and engage in activities that promote transformative learner voice. To meet this purpose three research questions were asked: How does a middle school ELA teacher team that operates as a community of practice understand and apply the principles of student-centered practices and transformative student voice in the classroom (learner voice) to their respective pedagogy and instructional practices? In what ways does this teacher team collaborate with a teacher leader and district leader to develop and implement student-centered and learner voice activities and practices in the classroom? What empirically referenced practices can systems-level school leaders apply in their own work to center student voice as part of their transformative leadership practices? Methods This qualitative action research study included a district or systems-level instructional leader and building teacher leader co-researcher that collaborated with an ELA community of practice as insiders working with other insiders (Herr & Anderson, 2015). The study included inquiry cycles in which the collaborative team: 1) learned about student voice in the classroom (learner voice) as an essential component of learner-centered practices and classroom structures that support mastery-goal adoption, 2) planned implementation of classroom practices in response to the learning, 3) evaluated the implementation, and 4) reflected on the outcomes in order to plan again (Mertler, 2017; McNiff, 2018). Researchers’ reflections, classroom observations, and semi-structured interviews served as primary data collection sources that were triangulated with community of practice artifacts and student work. Data were analyzed using a three-level a priori coding process (Fram, 2013; Miles, et al., 2020) with first-level deductive codes drawn from the analytical model that framed this study in theory. Participants This study took place in a midsize middle school and district located in a small Midwestern city with an economic base in manufacturing and agriculture. This middle school was the only one in the district and had slowly declining enrollment but a relatively stable staff with little turnover. The teachers engaged in content-focused communities of practice as part of their professional responsibilities. An ELA teacher team that was focused on writing, and that operated as a community of practice with two grade-level sub-teams, were the teacher participants that formed a collaboration with a building teacher leader and district instructional leader. Key Findings The key findings of this study indicated that the middle school ELA teacher team that participated in this study understood and applied transformative student voice in the classroom as a method for granting students authority through feedback and input opportunities. They were also shown to use student choice to ensure meaningful and interesting learning tasks and increase student buy-in. In order to adhere to the ethics of student voice, the student authority and student choice activities should be implemented slowly and in small steps. The ELA teacher team’s collaboration with the district leader was facilitated by the building leader and improved as teachers’ self and collective efficacy and beliefs increased through mastery experiences of which job-embedded professional learning was essential. These findings served as the foundations for recommendations to other systems-level leaders that want to center student voice as part of their transformative leadership practices. The literature suggests that transformative leadership would require authenticity (Evans, 1996), integrity, openness, self-knowledge, and self-care (Shields, 2018). However, the researcher found that the magnitude of the need was far greater than was imagined prior to engaging with teachers from the bottom-up during this study. A critical implication was that transformative district leaders must seriously consider the amount of praxis needed prior to engaging in bottom-up collaboration with teachers. Significance of the Study The findings of this study contribute to the current body of research that advocates for transformative leaders centering their practice on student voice. This is accomplished by informing how systems-level leaders can support building leaders and teachers to incorporate transformative learner voice from the ‘bottom-up’ in practice. The findings also present a new line of inquiry to the centrality of authentic student voice in relation to the interconnectedness of Learner-Centered Principles (LCP), classroom structures that support the adoption of mastery goal orientation, and the Achievement Goal Theory (AGT) of motivation.

PurposeThis paper aims to conduct case studies in companies of different branches of the agribusiness sector to analyze the degree of adherence to lean production system, considering the use of techniques and tools, and how the specificities of the agribusiness system work.Design/methodology/approachBy contributing to the refinement of the theory, multiple type case studies were conducted in eight agribusiness units from different branches by applying structured interviews, on-site visits and document analysis. The comparative analysis of the cases occurred focusing on the degree of adherence to lean production system; use of techniques and tools; and influence of the specificities of agribusiness systems.FindingsThe adoption of lean production system occurs as an improvement mechanism of organizational performance. However, it is necessary to advance in the formalization of the actions, which need to encourage the creation of new leaders who spread the organizational philosophy. When comparing the degree of adherence to lean production with the use of techniques and tools, it was observed that there is no direct relationship, indicating that each organization should select only the techniques and tools that will improve their own organizational performance. At last, the specific characteristics of seasonality of consumption, quality and health surveillance and sociological aspects of the food have high influence on surveyed agribusiness systems, and its effects can be minimized by the techniques and tools associated with lean production system.Research limitations/implicationsThe analysis is valid for the universe investigated due to the specific characteristic of the case study.Originality/valueThe literature regarding the lean production philosophy is vast; however, the agribusiness segment, one of the major sectors of the global economy, features a large gap in literature. This study is one of the first original papers to report this reality.

BackgroundTraditional, hierarchical government structures have recently been challenged by increased complexity, fragmented services and heavy public demand. When healthcare services become fragmented and decentralised, they require redesign. Inter-municipal cooperation is a strategy to deal with current challenges and future demographic changes. Few studies exist that can help us conceptualize challenges regarding employment in this context and inform managers in the involved municipalities. This study aims to identify critical issues for employees in inter-municipal health care services and to elaborate on how and why these issues are experienced.MethodsA multiple qualitative case study was conducted with data from interviews, observation studies, a participant workshop and inter-municipal healthcare service project documents and reports. The study involved two districts in Norway and six cases including 17 informants. First, a within-case analysis was conducted for all cases; second, a cross-case analysis was conducted in each district to examine replication, contrasts and extension to emergent findings; and, eventually, replicated findings in Districts 1 and 2 were analysed across districts.ResultsThree critical issues were identified: support, differences, and geographical distances. Employees working in teams experienced fewer challenges than did those working as isolated individuals.ConclusionsCritical issues for employees represent an important aspect of inter-municipal cooperation, and additional research should be undertaken to inform future policy and practice.