A Superintendent Pathfinder for Improving District-wide Instructional Practice & Student Learning
This O-DWW Superintendent Pathfinder is designed to support superintendents, deputy superintendents, and other district leadership in preparing for and using the Ohio Improvement Process (OIP) to fully implement agreed on evidence-based practices that improve instructional practice and student learning on a district-wide basis. It is not intended to duplicate existing OIP and Ohio Leadership Advisory Council (OLAC) resources. Rather, it attempts to “lift out” and connect the most essential leadership components for superintendents to use in guiding their district’s improvement efforts on behalf of all adults and students. Of particular importance is the emphasis on the role of the superintendent in setting the stage for and requiring the effective use of data to support data-based instructional decision-making, including the use of major OIP tools such as the Ohio Decision Framework (DF).
Assumptions Underlying the O-DWW
Superintendent Resource
What does it mean to function as a learning organization? More than 20 years ago, Peter Senge (1990) described learning organizations as groups of people working together to collectively enhance their capacities to create results that matter to them. McNulty and Besser (2011) note, “…the reality is that most classrooms, schools, and districts don’t learn well collectively. By and large, teaching is still an isolated profession.” (p. 58) Putting structures in place to replace isolated learning with collective continuous learning is a prerequisite for making and sustaining meaningful improvements across the district (Elmore, 2004; Supovitz, 2006; Fullan, 2008a).
A challenge common to many superintendents involves managing multiple expectations, particularly as demands to participate in federal or state initiatives increase. For many districts, these external initiatives contribute to fragmentation and make it more difficult to stay focused on a limited number of goals and strategies identified by the district as critical in meeting its needs.
