How can we prepare practicing and aspiring education leaders for the complex, adaptive challenges they face? In "Helping Educators Grow," Eleanor Drago-Severson presents a new approach to leadership development. Too often, she argues, we teach leadership development the same way we teach world history: just the facts. Instead, we need to…

Scholars and practitioners recognize the significance of improving leadership preparation programs. This longitudinal study (surveys and interviews) investigates how course structure and curricula supports graduate students' learning about content as well as how to attend and facilitate adult development. This paper describes: (a) changes in…

This paper describes findings from three different research studies of diverse women learners. We used qualitative methodology to investigate how collaborative relationships among these women supported their learning and leadership development. The first study illuminates how women's leadership can emerge spontaneously. The second study indicates…

Currently, scholars and practitioners seek to improve leadership programs so that educational leaders can more effectively support adult development--especially since it is connected to improved student achievement. Interview findings presented here stem from a larger mixed methods study. This research investigated how a university course on…

Teacher Leadership Teams (TLTs) are cross-functional teams, and thus knowledge integration is central to their teaming. Importantly, the existing literature maintains that cross-functional teams apply the traverse or transcend approach differently to integrate divergent knowledge, but few studies have directly focused on it within the context of…

This article examines the views of graduate students who are aspiring or practicing school leaders and faculty from two university degree granting leadership preparation programs. Drawn from a larger mixed methods study, the authors focus here on survey results that show how these groups rated the effectiveness of 14 potential curricular…

Background/Context: Improved professional development for teachers and principals is central to our national educational agenda. Principals struggle with the challenge of how to build school climates that improve practice in an era of heightened accountability and increasingly complex adaptive challenges. Purpose/Objective/Research Questions/Focus…

Through qualitative interviews and document analysis, this nationwide study investigated how 25 principals from a sample of public, Catholic, and independent schools with varying financial resources understand the practices they use to support teacher learning. This Spencer grant-funded research illuminates how these leaders understand the…

This article extends mixed-methods longitudinal research with school and district leaders (2008-present) about their most pressing leadership challenges. Here--through in-depth, qualitative interviews--we explore how a subsample of 30 principals described and understood their "internal experiences" of addressing pressing challenges. More…

An online survey (using forced-choice and open-ended questions) of faculty at two university-situated degree-granting leadership preparation programs revealed that the faculty describe critical connections for developing leadership capacity: theory-practice nexus, university-based learning and "real-life" experience, and nurturing deeper…

In response to the complexity and mounting adaptive challenges of teaching, learning and leadership today, this article presents an overview of a new "learning-oriented model of school leadership," which is composed of four pillar practices--teaming, mentoring, collegial inquiry, and providing leadership roles--that support internal…

Every teacher knows that exposure to new information is one small part in the teaching and learning process. Before students truly learn a concept, they must actively engage with material--discussing, sharing, seeing, and practicing it--to make it their own. In other words, they need to "connect" with concepts and have opportunities to apply them…

"What is happening in education today?" and "What is most needed for the future of teaching, learning and leading?" This article presents a developmental approach to learning, leadership and advancing professional learning--one that takes into account adults' diverse meaning making processes--that can help educators build the…

In this essay, Eleanor Drago-Severson and Jessica Blum-DeStefano add a new dimension to the literature on social justice in education and constructive-developmental theory by exploring how adult developmental theory can shed new light on the challenges and opportunities of teaching and leading for social justice. Drawing from their decades of…

Background/Context: Given the challenging complexity of the modern principalship--including high-stakes testing, standards-based reform, increased accountability, and severe budget cuts--practitioners and scholars emphasize the urgency of supporting principals' stress-relief and renewal. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This…