Organizational Learning In Schools

This volume presents the view that what matters most are learning processes in organizations and ways of enhancing the sophistication and power of these processes. Each contributor, therefore, explicitly addresses the meaning(s) of organizational learning which they have adopted themselves.

This innovative book about organizational learning in K–12 settings reshapes the way teachers and administrators think about people, practices, and policies while providing a compelling roadmap for transformation from within today's school systems.

This innovative book about organizational learning in K–12 settings reshapes the way teachers and administrators think about people, practices, and policies while providing a compelling roadmap for transformation from within today's school systems.

This thematic volume explores the relationship between the arts and learning in various educational contexts and across cultures, but with a focus on higher education and organizational learning. Arts-based interventions are at the heart of this volume, which addresses how they are conceived, designed, carried out, and assessed in different higher educational and cultural contexts. Readers will discover diverse perspectives of the contributing authors from across the world and from a variety of settings: formal education, informal learning for adults and organisational learning. A necessary introductory conceptualisation sets the stage for the discussion of the different cases, with chapters presented according to the art forms the address: performing arts, dance, music, language arts, visual arts, multi-arts and a conclusive chapter on future perspectives for arts-based educational approaches. Arts-based Methods and Organisational Learning: Higher Education Around the World will inspire and inform both scholars and practitioners who are dealing with the arts in education and organisations.

The editors maintain that the current debate over school restructuring is essentially a debate over which strategy of organizing will achieve the best results. Organizational theory suggests that there are two primary mechanisms that may be used in organizing behavior within an organization: the organization as a whole, and the specific roles within the organization. Following this logic, the book is divided into two parts. The authors in part one present various answers to the question, "What must be organized in schools?" These answers include the decision-making process, external political forces around ideologies and policies, the promotion of creativity and innovation, and the best compromise between mechanistic and organic structures, among others. In part two, the authors examine how roles in schools can function as modes of organizing behavior. They present various possibilities for reorganization and improvement - specifically for the roles of teachers and administrators. The ideas include organizing and evaluating the role of teachers based, at least partially, on student outcomes; reorganizing according to the actual work a teacher does, organizing around clear goals and the provision of adequate resources; organizing the role of administrator to provide leadership to the rest of the people in the school; and using research findings to fit a specific individual to the role of administrator.

Grounded in the theory of sociologist Karl Weick, this edited volume explores key concepts of educational leadership and organizational learning. Chapter authors analyze and reflect on the implications of Weick’s thinking on leadership preparation and development. Providing a thorough understanding of the influence of his ideas in education, this volume unpacks the ways in which Weick’s ideas influence and shape organizational learning and educational leadership and policy today.

The change in paradigm in our field is away from the great man or woman theory of leadership and the teacher in his or her own classroom to the development of learning communities which value differences and support critical reflection and encourage members to question, challenge, and debate teaching and learning issues. How to achieve such learning communities is far from clear, but we believe the areas of problem-based learning (PBL) and organizational learning (OL) offer valuable clues. The indications are that the successful educational restructuring agenda depends on teams of leaders, whole staffs and school personnel, working together (i.e., OL) linking evidence and practice in genuine collaboration (i.e., PBL). The book is unique in that it is both about and uses these two concepts.