The thirty-first and final of the sessions from the 2023 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association that I identified as relevant to this space that I have the opportunity to blog is:
- Online but Not Alone: Teacher Perceptions of Effective Online School Leadership – Joanne Robertson, University of the Fraser Valley; Awneet Sivia, University of the Fraser Valley
Abstract
As school districts develop online learning programs, the need to examine leadership in these programs is paramount. The literature suggests that while many studies focus on effective leadership in brick-and-mortar schools, research on leadership in online programs is limited. We aimed to explore teachers’ perceptions of what makes for effective leadership in online secondary schools in two districts. Using phenomenology, we interviewed six teachers, and qualitatively analyzed the transcripts to name teachers’ perceptions of effective OSL as sense of community, organizational learning, and empowerment. This research has implications for educational leadership broadly, but specifically for leadership in online and virtual schools.
Authors
- Joanne Robertson, University of the Fraser Valley
Presenting Author- Awneet Sivia, University of the Fraser Valley
Presenting Author
Which was in this session:
Not Alone: Educational Leaders Uniting to Address Pressing and Emerging Challenges
Fri, May 5, 2:30 to 4:00pm CDT (12:30 to 2:00pm PDT), SIG Virtual Rooms, Learning and Teaching in Educational Leadership SIG Virtual Paper RoomSession Type: Virtual Paper Session
Sub Unit
- SIG-Learning and Teaching in Educational Leadership
Chair
- Julie A. Gray, University of West Florida
Due to meetings, I joined this session about 5 minutes into this presentation. When I did join, the presenter was going over the lack of literature related to virtual school leadership – citing Richardson at el. (2015) and Alotebi at el. (2018).
The study occurred in two British Columbia secondary school sites – one of which was a distributed location and one was a physical location. There were six participants in total. The questions that they asked included.
The themes that came out were discussed around this chart.
Many of the ones folks in the field might expect – particularly the contextualized leadership practices (as the foundational ones could apply to any school setting regardless of medium). The presenter than provided a framework to help explain the themes, which was captured in the article below.
Some interesting stuff that if it builds upon the existing literature in the field (which may be broader than the presenters represented in the beginning). Apparently the study was published by the International Journal of E-Learning and Distance Education – see https://www.ijede.ca/index.php/jde/article/view/1230 – and I haven’t had the chance to really read through it yet.