Learner-Centered System to Create Favourable Learning Environments in Early Year Setting - Essay Example

Critical Examination on the Learner - Cantered System to Create Favourable Learning Environments in Early Year Settings Name: Instructor: Course: Date: Introduction A notion of great interest in the general field of education has been the overlapping nature in the concepts of management and leadership. Leadership can be linked or associated with change while management can be described as a maintenance activity. Leadership means influencing other people’s actions with an aim of achieving a certain desirable end results. Managing aims at maintaining efficiency and effectiveness in the current organizations daily operations. Additionally, we are justified to link leadership to organizations values, goals and purpose while management to the technical or logistics issues. This is why both leadership and management should be give equal importance not only in special education learning centers, but also in all learning institutions. This will achieve efficiency and effectiveness in meeting the institutions goals and objectives. The challenges of running modern organizations require a leader who posses’ values like being object perspective and who has vision and commitment towards running the organization. All this are indicators of wise leadership (Carlson, 1996). Education leadership in general has attracted a lot of interest right from the early periods of the 21st century. This is because of the belief that there is a significant correlation between the quality of leadership and not only the students’ performance, and also the overall performance of the school or the institution of learning. Additional, there has been increasing concern that there is a need for effective leadership and management if the aim of providing the best education background to students or learners is to be achieved (Carlson, 1996). Learning institutions need well trained tutors, especially in the case of early learning of the young children as it provides the background of their learning life. Learners who are dedicated and committed towards achieving the objectives of the organization and also to take care of the of the needs learners in their institutions. To achieve this, the tutors need highly effective leadership from highly trained principals and the various departmental heads in the various departments. A lot should be done, so as to determine the type of leadership models that are most likely to produce a favorable outcome. The outcome that can be measurable in terms of students’ performance. This paper will study the theoretical aspects in the field of educational leadership and management with special focus being placed on a learner-centered form of leadership on management of learning institutions. In addition to this, we will also review literature on the new research in leadership as regards making decisions that aim at achieving learning needs of children. Additionally, we will analyze the different leadership models and discuss how suitable they are related to education of students and also how effective they are in developing great performance in the learning institutions and maintaining a strong background in the education of children (Di Vincenzo, 2008) Conceptualizing educational leadership and management in early year setting In this section of the paper, we will be providing an overview of the main models of educational leadership and the find the correlation to similar models of educational management. This we will do while giving special emphasis and focus on special education. There has been continued implementation of educational acts in many countries. This has led to enhanced emphasis on the practices of educational leadership and management in the field of special education. Politicians and consultants induct the principals on how to manage their institutions effectively. This is a theoretical prescription because there are no explicit values that form its basis. The various theories explaining educational leadership and management provide an in-depth understanding and make interpretations about the various events and behaviors in the learning institutions. The models provide views that are divergent on how the educational institutions should be managed. Bush (1986; 1995; 2003) categorizes the main theories into six different modes namely, cultural, collegial, formal, political, ambiguity and subjective. The types of leadership models include instructional, moral, postmodern, transactional, transformational and managerial models. For the purpose of this study we will be giving most leadership styles that are learner centered and which aim at creating a better learning environment for pupils. Education leadership styles in the United Kingdom A study carried out on the UK found out that transformational leadership style is frequently used in running the academic institutions, including the early year settings. This was followed by the transactional style and lastly the passive or avoidant style. Therefore, we will discuss these two styles of leadership (transaction and transformational type of leadership) styles in the remaining part of the paper and try to determine their effectiveness in determining performance. Burns (1978) coined the transactional and transformational styles of school leadership. The two styles of educational leadership have dominated debates as the main models of school leadership. Both transactional, transformational and passive or avoidant forms of leadership have provided a new paradigm for understanding the lower and higher orders efforts of leadership with special focus being given to the early year settings in education in the United Kingdom. Transformational leadership. A leadership style is said to be transformational if it aims at increasing the interest of the employees’ trough incentives into achieving great performance thus developing a culture of commitment and belief in the organization (Bass, 1985). It revolves around guiding a group of people around a common interest in and vision by not only building trust but also by empowering them (Carlson, 1996). The virtues that make a leader transformational include motivational, influential, and proactive. Additionally, they encourage personal development and innovation amongst the employees that motivate them to strive to achieve higher levels of achievements (Avolio & Bass, 2004). Transformational leaders’ long term aim is to form and strengthen mutual stimulating relationships and elevation that make their employees leaders. The behavior of transformational leaders is well characterized by four factors which include individual consideration, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and idealized influence. Individual consideration refers to giving of personal attention to members who seem abandoned or neglected. Intellectual stimulation aims at changing the mentality of the members thus making them think of old problems in new perspectives. On the other hand, inspiration motivation is exemplified by expectations as regards to the organization while idealized influence bases more emphasis on creating an acceptable behavior, character and exemplary personal achievement (Coleman, 1998). We can conceptualize transformational leadership along different dimensions when it comes to the context of early year education setting. These we can summarize as building or coming up with the school’s vision, providing intellectual stimulation, establishing institutional goals and offering individualized attention. Additionally, the expectations should demonstrate high performance in the organizations’ practices and values should be modeled into creating productive institutional culture of most importance is putting appropriate structures in place to encourage participation in school decision making process (Coleman, 1998). Transformational leadership is quite essential for autonomous because it aims at committing the employees into achieving higher degrees of success making it morally imperative. Thus, we are justified for a successful transition to a system where institutions self-manage themselves, transformational leadership is critical. This model of leadership is normative in its approach. Thus, it is comprehensive because it lays its focus on the process by which the leaders base more weight on the schools’ outcomes as compared to the nature or direction of the outcomes realized. A shortcoming of this approach is that it is perceived as a control mechanism over the teachers and is thus more likely to be accepted by the leaders and be rejected by the employees (Chirichello 1999). Additionally, it has the tendency to turn to despotic the heroic and charismatic features it possess (Allix 2000). This raises major moral concerns about the excessive nature of the leaders’ excessive powers thus giving room for criticism about its approach in relation to democracy. Transactional leadership. Transactional leadership refers to leadership based on the give-and-take exchange of duty and remuneration that are controlled by the head of the institution. Transactional leadership involves setting up and defining agreements or contracts in order to achieve the organizations objectives, getting to know individual employee capabilities and determining the compensation and rewards that come with the completion the given task. Transactional leaders emphasizes on meeting the needs of their employees (Bass, 1985) while they give little or no attention to factors such as commitments, high level of motivation and job satisfaction. Transactional leadership can be grouped into constructive, passive management by exception and active management by exception. Passive management-by-exception is whereby standards are set with anticipation that a major problem would occur hence providing an opportunity for execution of the leadership style. Leaders demonstrating active management-by-exception place emphasis on issues that arise to issues after which they set the standards the carefully monitor the behavior. They are not good risk takers and demonstrate initiative. On the other hand, first sets the organizations goals, sets clear the desired outcomes, reward and recognize accomplishments, suggests and consults. Give feedback and praise the deserving employees. Transformational leaders are in most cases proactive as compared to being reactive in their thinking, and their ideas show creativeness, innovativeness and novelty. Transactional leaders are intelligent and in most cases lay focus on how to keep the system running. They react to problems generated by the deviances in the system. They also look for means and ways of modifying conditions to maximize gains (Bass 1985). Transactional leadership can be directly compared to political model. In political models, there always arises conflict between the various stakeholders, with most solutions being made in favor of the most powerful of the conflicting shareholders. In the transactional type of leadership, the relationship with teachers or the tutors is found upon exchange of academic resources. As of the teacher, the interrelationship between the management and the teachers are usually in the short term and are more common that not limited to the exchange transaction, in which case the teacher offers the teaching services while the administration offers the salary to the teachers (Miller and Miller’s 2001) definition refers to transactional leadership as an exchange process. In this type of leadership, the authority is bestowed on the principle by virtue of their positions as the leaders of their learning institutions. To secure and ensure effective management, cooperation from other stakeholders is quite essential. A major undoing of this method of management is that it does not involve the staff beyond the immediate gains arising from the transaction. How styles of leadership relate to creating a favorable learning environment in early settings From the study, we were able to determine that theoretically, the correlation between a leadership styles and creation of a favorable learning environment is relatively simple and straight forward theoretically while very complex and very unpredictable in practice. However, there are studies that confirm that there actually exists a correlation between how the institution is managed and creation of a favorable environment and consequently on the performance. When a principal provides a climate that ensures productivity of both teachers and pupils, this will definitely impact on the performance positively. The converse to this is true. We can, therefore, conclude that the leadership style exhibited by the principal can either foster or restrict the school’s effectiveness in offering quality education exemplified mainly through creation of a favorable learning environment for pupils in the early education settings. Additionally, leadership with positive and noteworthy effects on having individualized attention on students through creation of an enabling climate will substantially lead to a rise student’s level of achievement. This is because various studies have found that the actions of school leaders have an indirect influence on not only the students’ performance, but also on the development of the institution’s culture. Some studies have on, the other hand; found no relationship between school leadership styles and effectiveness of schools operations and students performance. Di Vincenzo’s (2008) found that there is no significant correlation relationship between the attributes of a leader and the institution’s culture. However, it was concluded that transformational leadership was a contributing factor towards the rise in teacher satisfaction and consequently student’s satisfaction. Additionally, principal’s effectiveness in managing the institution had a corresponding impact on the willingness on the part of teachers to give extra effort. This is in line with earlier studies finding that transformational leadership generally results to greater satisfaction and effectiveness than that offered than the gains from transactional leadership, effective leaders employ a combination of both types of leadership. Transformational leadership remains focused on the interrelationship between leaders and their followers. In addition to this, less focus is given on educational work of the type of school leadership. This makes the quality of the relationships unequivocally predictive with regards to the quality of the students’ outcome. Instructional leadership is not restrictive as it goes beyond maintaining collegial teams, cohesive and loyal employees, and having the administration’s vision shared and understood amongst the employees (Di Vincenzo, 2008). In this context, a study of schools in the United Kingdom found that transformational leadership is very important in the leadership of a learning institution but at the same time also insufficient instructional especially with regards to the role of the principal when it comes to curricular and instructional issues directly affecting the achievement of pupils (Cotton, 2003). The coexistence instructional type of leadership and transformational type form integrated type of leadership. This has an influence on school performance whose quality is measurable by its achievement and its pedology. Additionally, instructional and transformational types of leadership can be compared in terms of students’ achievements by the impacts they have in terms of students’ performance. A challenge with this type of leadership is that, in most cases, the heads of the institutions are not normally experts in teaching. The teachers being supervised at times have more expertise and experience compared to the principal. Moreover, most principals have this perception that their role is administrative and, therefore, distance themselves from the classrooms, thus leaving issues such as the pedagogical issues to teachers’ supervisors and masters’ teachers. This is one of the most critical issues affecting the quality of education provision in the United Kingdom. This problem is further compounded by the fact the authority bestowed on the principal is limited due to the fact their position is a middle management position (Di Vincenzo, 2008). Many school systems including that of the United Kingdom have bestowed the ultimate authority with the senior administrators in the district or the divisional education office. Additionally, many school principals have invested most of their energy in the administrative and managerial tasks of the day today running of their institutions and, therefore, lack the time to lead others in the areas of learning and teaching (Di Vincenzo, 2008).  History of Education England states were traditionally at the forefront of learning during the settlement of Anglo-Saxons, making significant contributions in studies of the arts, physics, medicine and philosophy, with many of the methods initiated by England scholars becoming the benchmark and foundation for teaching in European universities up to the 18th Century. The pursuit of education is something which is required of every citizen. Formal education within the primary sector began in the 19th century, which marked the beginning of the formalization of education within the Kingdom. At this time, education was considered a privilege for children from elite or wealthy families who lived in major cities. By 1944, the school leaving age got raised to sixteen years after establishment of grammar school and secondary schools. The Ministry of Education came into being and the first two universities- oxford and Cambridge- were established in the region. Education within the United Kingdom is administered by four separate stages overseen by the Higher Committee for Education Policy. They are the elementary, tripartite grammar schools, modern secondary and technical secondary schools The Ministry of Education is responsible for providing an education for all male and female students, including facilities which assist in the learning process as well as establishing new schools and providing guidance on the curriculum which should be implemented to the latter. The Ministry also has responsibility for Special Education services which cater for the needs of students who have disabilities or impairments of any kind. A crucial role which is also played by the Ministry of Education is one of monitoring developments within the field of education internationally, in order to incorporate beneficial ideas and pedagogical practice into the education system, while simultaneously promoting cultural exchange (Denmark, 2005). It also provides appropriate training programs for serving teaching practitioners, as well as teacher training and for the monitoring of the provision of all adult education within the Kingdom.  The General Presidency of Girls’ Education was established in 1960 and is charged with the responsibility of providing for the general education of girls, from preschool (kindergarten) to college studies. This body also provides teacher training for women as well as literacy and adult education. The Ministry of Higher Education was formed as a direct result of the increasing numbers of people wishing to embark upon studies at a higher level. This body has overall responsibility for the universities and colleges within the country as well as coordinating parts of the secondary education programs. Currently, the education system within United Kingdom contains a number of schools, numerous colleges, public and private universities, which seek to provide learners with an education system that enhances their development across a wide variety of skills areas. A major goal for educators within the country is to eliminate adult illiteracy. The education system in the United Kingdom is divided into categories which are based on age and the time which studies take to complete. Within the country, general education is made up of Kindergarten, and six years of Elementary or Primary schooling, followed by three years in each of Intermediate and High school. Each year there are end of year matriculation examinations in the Elementary, Intermediate and Secondary levels which must be passed in order for students to move up from one grade to another; failure to pass in any subject area leads to a further examination - the examinations in all subjects must be passed before the new school year or the individual concerned will be held back to repeat the grade. The principles which govern the curriculum provision for United Kingdom are flexibility; freedom; play; skills and knowledge; respect and good relationships, and human interaction (International Labour Conference, 2007). Pre-school Education for Children in United Kingdom This initial phase in the education of children is not one which is required in order to be eligible for enrolment in elementary education, and it does not form part of the formal education system within the Kingdom. The main objectives of provision at this stage of a child's development are according to the following: children's instincts must be nurtured whilst looking after their personal, social, emotional and physical growth through the creation of a family friendly environment which conforms to the requirements of Christians; children are made familiar with a group learning environment that prepares them for school life by moving away from self-centeredness to joint learning experiences with their peers; children are taught basic skills which conform to their needs and their environment; children are encouraged to develop their  management of thinking, allowing their personal skills to come to the fore; children are protected against potential risks and are monitored in order to tackle early signs of behavioral or learning problems (UNESCO, 2007; UNESCO, 2010/11). Pre-schools were first introduced in United Kingdom in 1880. By 1998, there were various government pre-schools, as well as private pre-schools (International Labor Conference, 2007), and this rose further to increase kindergartens catering for the entire population of children (UNESCO, 2007). According to UNESCO (2010/11) this figure then rose to 1521 kindergartens looking after the needs of 106,301 children in 2009/10. Government funded kindergartens adopt an Islamic based approach to the education of children, which ensures that they are able to develop appropriate social and intellectual skills. However, it must be noted that UNESCO and the Arab Gulf Program for the United Nations (AGFUND) have worked in conjunction on projects that focus on the development of pre-school provision which relies on current notions with regards to child development processes. This has led to the influence of foreign systems on children and consequently the way in which they socialize with each other. The mode of curricula development in United Kingdom is designed such that all pupils are capable of acquiring proper skills that will enhance their social, psychomotor and behavioural skills, along with holistic development which is in harmony with their preferred learning styles and creative development. The curriculum which has been developed is referred to as ‘The Newly Developed Curriculum for Early Childhood Education’ (NDC) or ‘The Self-Learning Curriculum’; this curriculum was established by the General Presidency of Girls Education and became the official vehicle for Early Childhood Education in the Kingdom in 1994. This curriculum includes an interactive session with the pupils to give them a self-learning perspective in a manner in which the pupils can acquire relevant skills and attributes. This is the latest study that was conducted on Early Childhood Education. The inclusion of this curriculum is to ensure that the children are capable of identifying their skills and talents, thus enabling them to nurture and develop them successfully. In spite of the fact that this is the official curriculum for the United Kingdom for Pre-school children, it is only properly utilized in government schools; its application in private establishments is varied- some choose not to apply it, some choose to apply it but do so poorly, whilst others apply the NDC adding more academic activities using didactic teaching methods. These are also the latest records which are important to this research. The debate about which educational approach to apply is one which continues within the Kingdom. There are those members of the teaching profession and parents who are reluctant to move away from traditional direct authoritarian teaching methods, as they believe that the active learning approach will not enable their children to reach their goals and expectations, as well as them not being in control of their child's learning. It is quite evident that there is a lack of appreciation for the importance of children's holistic development, particularly in terms of their personal, social and emotional needs; the importance of learning through play, and the risks of reducing their motivation to learn by stifling their natural development through creative interaction with their environment. This point is reinforced in study which concludes that a child initiated approach to Pre-Schooling, as opposed to either academically directed or a combination approach produces children who have a greater grasp of basic skills at the start of their Elementary Education. Katz (1999) also states that there is a tendency to place greater curriculum demands on younger children, which reduces the traditional importance given to play as a means for the development and maturation of young children. Conclusion We can conclude from the study that most UK principals exhibit more of transformational leadership style. However, these results are not directly related to the individual schools performance level as was discovered by the UK school inspection. It has been postulated that for improvement to be realized as a result, students’ achievement, the school heads or principals should not put their minds solely on being considered as transformative leaders (Avolio & Bass, 2004). Instead, they should strive at becoming instructional leaders who work closely with the teachers that serve in their institutions (Burns, 1978). We are thus justified to conclude that the principals’ leadership style directly impacts the teachers’ commitment to work, job satisfaction and the intrapersonal relationship with one another. Consequently, the leadership style exhibited by the principal is strongly related to teachers as compared to the students. Therefore, it should be noted that a transformational type of leadership alone is not efficient in crating the necessary atmosphere that will have a positive impact on students and make them improve performance. Its combination with instructional leadership provides better results (Avolio & Bass, 2004). Despite transactional and transformational leadership being at the extreme opposite ends of the leadership continuum, an ideal leader should be able to manage with a mixture of both the transformational and transactional leadership styles (Avolio & Bass, 2004).This is because the two build on one another. The components associate with the basic needs of the institution will be taken care of by the transactional components of leadership. The issues to do with encouraging commitment and fostering change will be taken care of by the transformational practices. By 1990, most researchers had started advocating for the transformational style of leadership and also the other types of leadership supporting the evolution through trends in educational reforms. These trends included shared leadership, empowerment and organizational learning (Al-Taneiji 2006). This shift from managerial attributes manifested in transactional type of leadership, to the dispersed leadership attributes manifested through transformational leadership. It is all evident in theory that, what remains to be seen is whether these practices can be manifested in administration practices (Avolio & Bass, 2004). Taking the challenges and the realities that phase many school principals today, most school principals are giving their best to ensure success in any given day through administration of the varied needs of the school and the community in general. Therefore, transformational leaders should build interdependence, empowerment, commitment and trust towards the teachers and the other support staff. Additionally, not all leaders have the ability to make their subordinates think with the administration towards the same direction. Such are transactional type of leaders, who do not devote much time to nascent their subordinates. They instead gamble and wait until they either succeed or fail before they act (Al-Taneiji 2006). To sum up, learner cantered system is dependent on transformational and strategic students’ management as the major role of the principal all which fall on both transactional and transformational leadership. Teachers and the administration work towards developing new relationships and roles in the school community based on management of challenging behaviour in early years of a student in school. Leaner cantered systems are extremely useful in a way that they enable the students to exploit different opportunities that can assist them adjust to the uncertainties in the environment. Teachers believe that the face of an institution is a reflection of the administration. References Fullan, M. 1991, the new meaning of educational change. New York: Teacher College Press. Griffith, J 2004), Relation of principal transformational leadership to school staff job satisfaction, staff turnover, and school performance. Journal of Educational Administration. , 42 (3), 333-356 Kid, J.M. & Smewing, C. 2001, "The role of the supervisor in career and organizational commitment", European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 10 No.1, pp. 25-40 Bass, B.M. 1985. Leadership and performance beyond expectation. NY Burns, J.M. 1978. Leadership. New York: Harper & Row. Creswell, J. 2003. Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Katz, L. (1999) ‘Curriculum Disputes in Early Childhood Education’ ERIC Clearing House on Elementary and Early Childhood Education EDO-PS-99-13 December UNESCO IBE (2007) World Data on Education (6th Ed) Retrieved on 2nd February 2013 UNESCO, 2009, EFA Global Monitoring Report: Overcoming inequality: why governance matters, Paris, UNESCO. Bullock, E.; Brownhill, S. (2011) A Quick Guide to Behaviour Management in the Early Years. London: Sage Publications Crawley, J. (2011) In at the Deep End. (2nd Ed) Abingdon: Routledge Cross, M. (2011) Children with Social, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties and Communication Problems: There is Always A Reason. (2nd Ed) London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers Denmark, F. L. (2005) Violence in schools: Cross-national and cross-cultural perspectives. New York: Springer Department for Education and Skills [DfES] (2001) Special Educational Needs Code of Practice London: Department for Education and Skills Al-Taneiji, S (2006). Transformational leadership and teacher learning in model schools. Journal of Faculty of Education UAEU, 23, 21-36. Avolio, B. & Bass, B. (1995). Multifactor leadership questionnaire instrument (leader and rater form and scoring guide) (English and Arabic versions). Mind Garden, Inc. Avolio, B. (1999). Full leadership development: Building the vital forces in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Bass, B. (1998). Transformational leadership: Industry, military, and educational impact. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum Associates. Bass, B., & Avolio, B. (1994) (Eds.). Improving organizational effectiveness through transformational leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Cotton, K. (2003). Principals and student achievement. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Di Vincenzo, R. (2008). School leadership and its relation to school performance. Unpublished Dissertation: University of Phoenix. ProQuest, 3323345. Read More