Melbourne Graduate School of Education - Theses

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    The impact of the zone based professional development program, "Skill review and professional development", on knowledge, understanding and practice within selected school communities
    Summers, Bernadette ( 1995)
    While engaged in documenting a retrospective account of a zone based professional development program, Skill Review and Professional Development, which aimed to support school communities in the implementation of skill review and professional development according to the Tripartite Agreement on School Development Planning, I reflected on a statement by Harwayne (1992): 'We take courses. We attend workshops. We read books, We get lots of information. But the really important information comes later on. It comes when we take that seed information back to our classrooms, when we experiment and innovate and invent, when we make it our own. The story really is 'to be continued' (p.337 ). This reflection led to the following questions which drove my investigation: # has the 'seed information' collected during the program been taken back to the school level?; # have school communities been able to 'experiment', 'innovate' and 'invent' in order to make skill review and professional development their own?; and, # in what areas has the zone based professional development program, Skill Review and Professional Development, impacted at the school level? The information gathered to discover the answers to these questions was qualitative in nature and comes from those involved directly with the delivery and implementation of the program. The information draws on what happened at the zone level and what is now happening at the school level. The gathered data took the form of words: written and anecdotal; record and document observations; and transcripts of discussions and interviews, as words captured the spirit of the happenings. The writings of Joyce and Showers (1987), Joyce and Weil (1992), Fullan and Stiegelbauer (1991), Hargreaves (1992), Fullan (1993), Johnson (1993), Guskey (1994) and others have helped make sense of the impact of this program at the school level.
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    Leadership frames and principals' learning
    Caldwell, Suzanne J. ( 1995)
    This thesis forms part of the Review of the Schools of the Future "Leading Victoria's Schools of the Future" undertaken by the University of Melbourne - Institute of Education, in conjunction with the Directorate of School Education and Principal Associations. The Schools of the Future program was initiated by the newly elected Victorian Liberal Government in 1993. It involves the devolution of authority and responsibility to the local school level and a decrease in the central role of the DSE. The scope of change has required a staged introduction process and extensive professional development activities. The implementation process has resulted in 500 schools joining the SOTF program every six months with the process being completed by the end of 1995. This thesis was designed to provide a review of the professional development activities associated with the implementation of the SOTF program. It uses the Bolman and Deal (1991) framework of organisational theory, as adapted by Cheng (1993) to analyse the leadership orientations of principals and their past, present and future professional development needs. The framework provides five areas - structural, human resource, symbolic, political and Sergiovanni's (1984) educational frames. Both a quantitative and qualitative methodology was used. A survey was sent to eighty principals randomly selected from Intake Three of SOTF. The results to the survey provided the frame orientations of principals as well as data on the four most significant professional development activities undertaken in the last five years. An analysis of the data provided information which enabled the selection of two principals for interviewing at the Intake and Implementation stage of the SOTF program. The data are reported as survey and interview results. The qualitative work - based on Miles and Huberman (1984) relied on data reduction, data display, data collection, involving counting and noting patterns and themes, and conclusions drawing and verification methods. The findings clearly indicate that principals of SOTF have strong human resource and educational frames. However, there is need to provide professional development activities in the symbolic and political frame areas as these frames are strong indicators of leader effectiveness but are the least preferred frames by principals. The principals found that the collegiate group provided significant support during the charter writing stage and in some instances, beyond. Professional development activities need to be provided during the implementation stage of the SOTF program. The data suggests that there is an urgent need for the DSE to present a strategic plan of the direction of education and to slow down the rate of change so that schools at the local level can address their needs.