Browsing by Author "Parsons, Dennis"

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    6 Chapter Six -- Optimum Learning Literature Synthesis: What is Quality Teaching?
    (2019-06-30) Brandon, Jim; Parsons, Dennis; Brown, Barbara; Friesen, Sharon; Thomas, Christy; Delanoy, Nadia
    This synthesis of the literature is designed to undergird our 4-university longitudinal mixed methods study Optimum Learning for All Students Implementing Alberta’s 2018 Professional Practice Standards. Our ambition is to gain insights into how and how well Alberta’s Teaching Quality Standard, Leadership Quality Standard, and Superintendent Leadership Quality Standard are being put into place, how the standards are impacting practice, and what changes occur over time in teaching and learning. Indeed, our longitudinal design is premised on “uncovering sustained changes and implementation success” (Derrington, 2019, p. 8). Given this, our goals in preparing this manuscript were to (a) synthesize scholarship on policy processes so that we can situate our inquiry into the standards in a process-oriented way; (b) provide a jurisdictional review of standards-based approaches to teaching and leadership and what we know to be effective with respect to this approach so that we can discern how Alberta’s standards and pathways to certification are positioned compared to others who have gone before us; and (c) synthesize scholarship that demonstrates the link between the professional practice standards and quality teaching and leadership so that we are anchored to evidence when interpreting the forthcoming empirical data. Considering the comprehensiveness of the professional practice standards, we covered the waterfront, so to speak. But though we plumbed many strands and sources of knowledge, we do not claim it to be exhaustive or necessarily complete.
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    Building, Supporting & Assuring Quality Professional Practice: A Research Study of Teacher Growth, Supervision, & Evaluation in Alberta
    (2018-03-04) Brandon, Jim; Adams, Pamela; Friesen, Sharon .; Hunter, Darryl M.; Koh, Kim H.; Mombourquette, Carmen P.; Parsons, Dennis; Stelmach, Bonnie L.
    Alberta is considered among the world’s top performing education systems. Over the past two decades, the provincial education system has invested heavily in building teachers’ professional capital to ensure that the quality of teaching in Alberta is among the best in the world. A wealth of the educational reform research literature, at both international and provincial levels, suggests that continuous professional learning is key to building teachers’ professional capital. Within Alberta, the Teacher Growth, Supervision, and Evaluation Policy (TGSE) (Government of Alberta, 1998) guides that learning. In 2017, Alberta Education requested a comprehensive research study to inform an update to the existing policy, and to identify associated requirements for the growth, supervision, and evaluation of principals and superintendents. This research study provides an independent, objective examination of TGSE in Alberta school authorities and related policies at the school authority level. The purposes of the study were to provide education stakeholders and the Ministry with • an independent, objective review of the provincial TGSE Policy in Alberta and of related policies at the school authority level; • recommendations on how best to support implementation of any proposed changes to the TGSE policy; • recommendations on how the TGSE model should inform related policy on growth, supervision, and evaluation of principals; and • recommendations on how the TGSE model should inform related policy on growth, supervision, and evaluation of superintendents and school authority leaders. Research Design: The eight-member research team from the universities of Calgary, Lethbridge, and Alberta adopted a concurrent mixed methods research design to generate insights into educator experiences with and perspectives on teacher growth, supervision, and evaluation within the TGSE policy context. Our comprehensive analysis and merging of the study’s quantitative and qualitative data generated 14 merged findings and 10 recommendations. Quantitative data were generated from online surveys of 710 teachers, 131 principals, and 33 superintendents. Analysis of the survey data provided province-wide insights from a large population of educators in June and July of 2017. Qualitative data were gathered through multiple case study research during March to June of 2017. Members of the research team conducted individual and/or focus group interviews of teachers (n=64), principals (n=53), superintendents, and other system leaders (n=33) in seven randomly-selected school jurisdictions and selected charter and independent schools. Nine individual cases illustrated and illuminated practices through which teachers and leaders at the school and administrative levels engaged in teacher growth, supervision, and evaluation in their unique contexts. Our cross-case analysis identified 13 larger themes. Evidence was gathered in two additional ways: (a) through analysis of 30 randomly-selected school authority policies, and (b) through interviews of education partner organization leaders. The team also gathered evidence from documentary sources, artifacts, and field notes.
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    A Grounded Study of Higher Education Leaders’ Perspectives on ‘Big Data’
    (2022-01) Harvey, David; Winchester, Ian; Kowch, Eugene; Parsons, Dennis; Childs, Ruth; Stortz, PJ
    Higher Education (HE) institutions are facing a series of transformative challenges. From the increasingly pervasive use of Internet Communications Technology (ICT) to relative decreasing public investment and learner demographic changes, HE leaders are seeking new ways to improve learning environments and increase cost-effectiveness. ‘Big Data’ is an ICT technology that records and analyses massive sets of complex data to reveal previously hidden correlations linked to organizational performance. While ‘Big Data’ is widely implemented in sectors such as retail and healthcare, adoption in the HE sector is relatively sluggish. The purpose of the study is to develop a conceptual framework that describes and explains the adoption of ‘Big Data’ technology in the Alberta HE sector. A constructivist approach to grounded theory method is utilized to develop the conceptual framework from seven semi-structured interviews with HE leaders employed in a variety of HE institutions in Alberta. The study concludes that the adoption of ‘Big Data’ at HE institutions is impeded by IT governance that prioritizes risk mitigation through deductive reasoning. ‘Big Data’ proposals are not able to meet IT governance requirements. ‘Big Data’ project proposals are unconvincing because they require data collection and analysis before problems and cost-effective solutions are identified. Despite the challenges, HE leaders in the study demonstrate adaptive organizational learning through small scale ‘Big Data’ workarounds. Despite the slow pace to date, ‘Big Data’ adoption is poised to increase as educational technology venders begin integrating capacities in existing products – surmounting current IT governance and risk mitigation challenges. While acknowledging the potential of ‘Big Data’, the study also encourages a strengthening of HE leaders’ ethical understandings, particularly as more advanced predictive and prescriptive analytics emerge and begin to impact learners and other HE stakeholders.
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    Optimum Learning for All Students Implementing Alberta’s 2018 Professional Practice Standards 2021-2022 Year 3 Survey Report
    (2022-08-03) Friesen, Sharon; Chu, Man-Wai; Hunter, Darryl; Brown, Barbara; Parsons, Dennis; Stelmach, Bonnie; Schmidt, Edgar; Adams, Pamela; Burleigh, Dawn; Mombourquette, Carmen
    Alberta Education commissioned this 4-year longitudinal, mixed methods research study, which is designed to assess, deepen, and extend the implementation process for Alberta’s three professional practice standards: The Teaching Quality Standard (TQS) the Leadership Quality Standard (LQS), and the Superintendent Leadership Quality Standard (SLQS). This report presents the survey findings from the third year of the study. Findings are presented for each of the three standards. Results overall indicate: 1. educators across the province are in the adapting stage of implementation--– where teachers, school leaders, and superintendents are still adapting in their practice to novel problems– they reported much flexibility. The ongoing public health situation continue to require flexibility and continuing adaptivity. The standards and their implementation do not appear to be rigidifying practice since interquartile ranges and standard deviations remain professionally healthy for fostering discussion and multiple perspectives. 2. leaders must continue to engage the wider community. While small gains have been made in year 2 of the study, year 3 results indicate that leaders are negatively experiencing most of the impact from the ongoing pandemic. 3. forms and formats of professional learning and leadership development to build capacity in teachers, leaders, and superintendent leaders continue to shifted markedly. What that means for changing educator behaviour and enacting standards to support “optimal” learning remains unclear, and 4. Organization drivers indicate the need to create more hospitable administrative, funding, policy, and procedures to ensure that the competency drivers are accessible and effective as well as to ensure continuous quality monitoring and improvement with particular attention needed to student outcomes.
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    Optimum Learning for All Students Implementing Alberta’s 2018 Professional Practice Standards A Longitudinal, Mixed Methods Research Study: 2019-2020 Provincial Year 1 Survey Research Report
    (2021-04-15) Friesen, Sharon; Chu, Man-Wai; Hunter, Darryl; Brandon, Jim; Brown, Barb; Louie, Dustin; Stelmach, Bonnie; Schmidt, Edgar; Adams, Pamela; Burleigh, Dawn; Mombourquette, Carmen; Parsons, Dennis
    Alberta Education commissioned this 4-year longitudinal, mixed methods research study, which is designed to assess, deepen, and extend the implementation process for Alberta’s three professional practice standards: The Teaching Quality Standard (TQS) the Leadership Quality Standard (LQS), and the Superintendent Leadership Quality Standard (SLQS). This report presents the survey findings from the first year of the study. Findings are presented for each of the three standards. Results overall indicate: 1. educators across the province are in the adapting stage of implementation. The standards and their implementation do not appear to be rigidifying practice since interquartile ranges and standard deviations remain professionally healthy for fostering discussion and multiple perspectives. 2. leaders must engage the wider community in schools. Those competencies in leading those within the system are stronger than for leading those beyond the system. 3. pedagogy as it relates to First Nations, Métis and Inuit foundational knowledge, alongside traditional Western ideas in mathematics and the sciences, are a challenge.
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    Optimum Learning for All Students: A Research Study of Teaching Quality Standard, Leadership Quality Standard, and Superintendent Leader Quality Standard Implementation and Enactment in Alberta
    (2023-06-30) Friesen, Sharon; Brown, Barbara; Chu, Man-Wai; Parsons, Dennis; Hunter, Darryl; Stelmach, Bonnie; Adams, Pamela; Mombourquette, Carmen; Burleigh, Dawn; Edgar Schmidt
    February 7, 2018, the Ministerial Order in Alberta of three Professional Practice Standards conceptualized the professional practice of Alberta teachers, school and system leaders, and superintendents using a nested design which provided consistency in the way K-12 educators practice in Alberta. The four-year longitudinal convergent mixed methods study began in March 2018, prior to the beginning of the required implementation of the three standards and concluded in June 2023. Four research questions guided this study. Survey and case study were gathered from a total of 5536 teachers, 1832 leaders, and 106 superintendent leaders over the four years. Fifteen findings were identified through a process of merging the quantitative and qualitative data over four years. The study concluded there was a strong interplay between the professional practice standards as policy and the implementation into practice, the implementation of the standards was successful in the face of the 2.5 years of COVID in the midst of their implementation, the participating 35 school authorities cultivated a culture of continuous professional learning and improvement, implementation enhanced educators' understanding of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Knowledge, participants used an evidence-informed approach to guide practice, and all participants acknowledged the role of external supports and collaboration to realize policy in action.
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    Principal Impact on Developing Professional Learning Communities in New Middle Schools
    (2019-04-08) O'Neill, Shawn; Brandon, Jim; Kowch, Eugene G.; Eaton, Sarah Elaine; Parsons, Dennis; Maynes, Nancy
    The positive effects of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) on teaching quality and student success are well-documented (DuFour & Eaker, 1998; DuFour, Eaker, &, DuFour, 2005; Hord, 1997, 2004). The problem is that even with overwhelming research to support this claim, not all schools are organized as PLCs. The purpose of this case study (Merriam, 1998, 2009) was to investigate the understanding, development, and planned sustainability of Professional Learning Communities in three new middle schools in a Large Urban School Board from the perspective of the principal. Qualitative data were collected through two rounds of semi-structured interviews, participant provided documents, field notes, and researcher reflections. The study revealed that while principals had similar understandings of PLCs due to system coherence, activation of this knowledge was more problematic. A major finding was that in order to develop Professional Learning Communities, principals need more practical knowledge about how to develop and sustain them. Lessons learned from of this study on the development of PLCs in new middle schools may be transferable to similar environments and could provide guidance for current or prospective principals.