uLead 2019

The purpose of this presentation is to introduce a design-based research study that explored, with school principals, the impact that focused, student-centered principal leadership (Robinson, 2011) would have on working with teachers that would employ specific instructional practices that could more deeply engage students intellectually in their school work. It was my assumption that student intellectual engagement could be strategically improved by leveraging the combined impact of principal leadership and teacher instructional practices. The primary data collection was from two in-depth interviews of the principals and pre and post teacher self-report surveys that spanned a five month instructional period. The study showed that student-centered principal leadership was found to have positive effects on building teacher capacity regarding specific instructional practices and that it was also at the heart of building principal capacity as the principals’ focused on leading teacher development. Thus principals built their own capacity as they worked to support teachers in doing likewise. Recommendations are offered for principal leadership development and teacher capacity building.