Description
Research in Danish ECEC practices points to quality differences resulting in different opportunities in what children gain from and experience when participating in childcare (EVA, 2020; Nordahl, Hansen, Ringsmose, & Drugli, 2020; VIVE & EVA, 2023). With research stressing the importance of leadership as an important lever for educational quality (Douglas, 2019; Robinson, 2011; Fullan & Quinn, 2015) the Municipality of Copenhagen initiated the research- and development project ‘Leadership with Markable Impact for Children’ (2021 – 2023). The project is based on a partnership with Laboratory for Research-informed ECEC and School Improvement (LSP), Aalborg University. It builds on systemwide collaborations and obligations using evidence and thinking evaluatively about the impact (DuFour & Marzano, 2011; Fullan & Quinn, 2015; Rickards, Hattie, & Ried; Urban et al., 2011). It has a specific focus on how to foster quality improvement in ECEC by leading staff professional learning and development (Robinson, 2011; Timperley, 2011).In the project, 2 out of five of the city’s ECEC districts participated, including 2 district leaders, 19 middle-tier leaders (with overall responsibility for 4-7 ECEC centers), 105 ECEC-center leaders and 20 municipal consultants. Together these participants had a shared and distributed leadership of the quality in 100 ECEC centers, including 2000 ECEC staff and 9000 children aged 0-6. The research interest was to investigate the effects on the learning environment of introducing ECEC leaders to knowledge, approaches and tools supporting capacity building for learning environments of high quality in own organization. The participants were i.e., introduced to theory and research about instructional leadership and organizational learning (Robinson, 2011; Timperley, 2011; Timperley, Ell & Le Fevre, 2020), they learned about systematic environmental quality rating scales (ERS), and they were educated in observations gathering data in their own ECEC centers (Ringsmose & Kragh-Müller, 2020). In addition, they were introduced to analyze data and identify improvement goals (Datnow, 2014; Bernhardt, 2013; Nordahl, 2013). This skill was emphasized as an essential tool for making informed decisions and driving improvements in own practice together with staff . Also, they were given a specific task to lead staff professional learning and development (Robinson; 2011; Timperley, 2008; Timperley, Ell, Le Fevre, 2020). Their work in own organization was supported by their district- and middle-tier leaders as well as municipal consultants. With the first data as a baseline, the ECEC-center leaders worked with the data and improvement goals for a year. The work was followed up with a second round of data and analysis.
The learning from the mixed-methods research (Creswell, 2011) using results from observations (n:190), document analysis (n:190) and interviews (n:20) indicates that developing quality ECEC environments building a collaborative approach and evaluative capacity in a whole system effort is important and that educating leaders in ERS, data analysis and leadership raised the awareness of quality in own ECEC center, and an improvement by 10-20 % were identified in many of the ECEC centres. The qualitative data provided insights into what leadership tools and processes were used when the leaders took the lead in improvement.
Period | 8 Jan 2024 |
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Event title | ICSEI Congress, 2024: QUALITY PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION FOR ENHANCED SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS AND IMPROVEMENT: International Perspectives and Approaches |
Event type | Conference |
Location | Dublin, IrelandShow on map |
Degree of Recognition | International |
Keywords
- Learning Leadership
- Educational improvement
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