Volume 3

Robert A. LeGary Jr.

Abstract

In a graduate-level teacher leadership course I teach, students learn to leverage strengths and positive action steps, from a negative event.Three scaffolded, formative stages of an assignment integrate Flanagan’s “critical incident technique,” Bolman and Deal’s “four frames analysis,” and Whitney and Trosten-Bloom’s “appreciative inquiry” model to engage students in a process of appreciating, imagining, and critically reflecting on leadership practices.

     Our MEd graduate students, who work in PK-12 schools, are faced with seemingly insurmountable challenges at their workplaces which, in order to enact transformational change, require a strengths-based, critically reflective, and deeply analytic mindset to integrate the various influencing factors related to leadership.To help my teacher leadership course students effectively interact with difficult on-the-job challenges, I incorporate the “appreciative inquiry” approach (Whitney & Trosten-Bloom, 2010) as a strategy for building my students’ capacity to engage deeply in applied learning, individually and collaboratively. The appreciative inquiry approach engages students in an asset-based mindset to appreciate what is working well and to dream or imagine what could or should be changed to leverage strengths and optimize educational leadership practices, vis-à-vis Bolman and Deal’s (2019) four frames of organizational analysis.

Leadership Critical Event Analysis

     Teacher leaders fulfill many roles—resource provider, curriculum specialist, instructional coach, mentor, and more. Working alongside the school principal and other administrators, teacher leaders often facilitate and provide support for the implementation of evidence-based practices and instructional improvements designed to yield better student learning outcomes. In this teacher leadership course, students examine ways to develop a culture of collective responsibility in the schools, and expand their spheres of influence beyond the walls of the classroom. One of the assignments that addresses these learning competencies of teacher leadership is the Leadership Critical Event Analysis assignment.

When there is a negative, what examples of strength or excellence can we identify from that event?

   Leadership Critical Event Analysis is designed to promote my students’ critical self-reflection and analysis skills, when examining leadership within their schools or educational organizations.The students are required to analyze a critical educational event that has multiple stakeholders.The students analyze the event, both as leaders and followers.

     The purpose of this assignment is to provide students an opportunity to apply the principles of appreciative inquiry and key concepts from all course readings, to examine school leadership practices (i.e., theirs or someone else’s), using critical thinking and appreciation. When our graduate students see the strengths of a critical event in their schools, they shift from a limited, superficial perspective into an action-oriented stance of implementing positive, impactful solutions, informed by deeper and transformative thinking.

The students engage in an appreciative inquiry mindset that reshapes deficit-focused thinking to solution-focused actions.

     Scaffolds. The assignment is scaffolded in two ways. It is divided into stages with each stage having its own instructions. The assignment is further scaffolded by peer support. For each stage of this assignment (and throughout the course), students work in dyadic think-pair-shares to provide peer review feedback, challenging one another to explore more critically the strengths or pockets of excellence associated with the leadership event, areas that can be leveraged for growth of individual and organizational development (e.g., social-emotional competencies and supports), and questions to consider for further growth.

     Stage One: Critical Event Description. To support my graduate students’ teacher leadership, with an asset-based perspective, I use the “critical incident technique” by Flanagan (1954) for the first stage of this assignment. This stage of the assignment sets the factual foundation of what occurred during a critical event. (Stage One is worth 30% of the assignment grade.)

     Stage One: Critical Event Description
Assignment Instructions
Describe in detail a recent and especially notable learning event (e.g. situation, interaction, incident, with which you have first-hand information, as an observer, leader, or follower. Include:
What the leader did (or didn’t do) that was especially effective (or ineffective).
The result of the action.
Why the actions were effective. Or what greater effective action might have been expected.
You may create a video, podcast, Power Point or Prezi presentation, or a curated digital image collage, in lieu of a written narrative, or a combination of modalities.

     Stage Two: Four Frames Analysis. For this stage, I have students use Bolman and Deal’s (2019) four frames analysis of organizations that include the political, structural, human resource, and symbolic.This four-dimensional model includes the following:
(a) Discovery / Appreciating: What gives life? (The best of what is)
(b) Dream / Imagining: What could be? (Opportunities for the future)
(c) Design / Innovating: What should be? (Our ideal organization)
(d) Destiny / Delivering: What will we do? (Ongoing empowerment, performance, and learning)

Stage Two: Four Frames Analysis
Assignment Instructions
Bolman and Deal’s (2019) Four Frames – Political, Human Resource, Structural, and Symbolic provide a lens for examining and responding to events in our organizations.
– You will use each of these Frames to analyze the critical event you described in Stage One and provide an explanation of why the leader’s actions were effective or ineffective. That is, explain how your critical event can be analyzed and examined through each of Bolman and Deal’s four Frames. You should also compare and contrast your analysis of your critical event, among the four Frames.
– Please use each of the four Frames (Political, Human Resource, Structural, and Symbolic) as headings to help organize your assignment.
– You may complete your assignment as a narrative, video, podcast, presentation (e.g. Prezi, Power Point) or a combination of these modalities.

     Stage Three: Appreciative Inquiry. This four-dimensional appreciative inquiry model includes the following:
(a) Discovery / Appreciating: What gives life? (The best of what is)
(b) Dream / Imagining: What could be? (Opportunities for the future)
(c) Design / Innovating: What should be? (Our ideal organization)
(d) Destiny / Delivering: What will we do? (Ongoing empowerment, performance, and learning)
(Whitney & Trosten-Bloom, 2010, p. 6).

     In this final stage, students examine their critical leadership event for evidence of leadership and followership characteristics and competencies, identifying organizational barriers, and embracing opportunities to develop leadership solutions to address organizational barriers from a positive, asset-based perspective.

     Whitney & Trosten-Bloom’s (2010) synthesis of all four frames provides a more robust view of an event’s strengths and areas needed for growth. Some frames may more naturally fit with the students’ critical events, but I encourage them to explore the interplay among the frames, by describing the intersections of the frames’ characteristics within their stated event.

Stage Three: Appreciative Inquiry
Assignment Instructions
In this stage of the assignment you will take an affirmative, appreciative stance (Whitney & Trosten-Bloom, 2010) to re-examine the situation you described in Stage One, and to cull information from your Stage Two: Four Frame Analysis. The goal is for you to discover leadership practices that are the “best of what was,” envision what might be (What’s possible?), and finally describe what should be (What’s probable?). Connect what you discover to your course readings and other related literature. More specifically, you should answer the following appreciative inquiry questions, related to your critical incident:
– What was working well? Identify pockets of excellence, strengths, and effective leadership practices.
– What might have been? Describe the possibilities that could have leveraged the pockets of excellence or strengths.
– What should have been? Narrow down the possibilities and describe viable changes.
– What will be? Describe those changes that can be implemented as recommendations or an action plan.
You may complete this assignment as a narrative, video, podcast, presentation (e.g. Prezi, Powerpoint) or a combination of these modalities.

Critically Reflective Practitioners

     By integrating the critical incident technique (Flanagan, 1954) with the appreciative inquiry approach (Whitney & Trosten-Bloom, 2010), students engage in reflective practice, draw on what they know, associate new ideas with previous beliefs and experiences, and generate new knowledge or ideas to put into action. Schön (1987) suggests practitioners’ reflections typically take two forms—reflection-on-action or reflection-in-action. Individuals engage in reflection-on-action when they think back on a particular teaching and learning situation to gain new understandings and influence future actions when faced with similar events. Intuitive understandings are reviewed, thinking is reframed, and further actions are improvised based on new understandings.

They become motivated to be solution focused and see the
potential in every challenging situation.

Author’s Reflections

     The appreciative inquiry (Whitney & Trosten-Bloom, 2010) approach empowers students to think affirmatively and analytically through a transformative process of imagining how the leadership strengths demonstrated in response to a difficult event can be leveraged for greater impact as actionable steps, for future events. It is a flexible framework that focuses on appreciating and developing existing strengths instead of getting stuck on problems. I find this to be life changing for students. They become motivated to be solution focused and see the potential in every challenging situation.

     As students describe an event, based on what occurred, what was effective and ineffective, and individual and organizational outcomes, they dive deeper into Bolman and Deal’s (2019) four-frame analysis of the political, structural, human resource, and symbolic dimensions of the event and derive a more critical reflection on facilitating and impeding factors that informed the event. Students have shared that when they complete this assignment, they feel they have a mindset shift in viewing the critical event from a deficit focus to a strength-based one where their openness, positivity, and aspirational insights create a space for solutions and possibilities for when similar events occur. 

References

Bolman, L., & Deal, T. (2019). Reframing the path to school leadership: A guide for teachers and
   principals. Corwin.

Flanagan, J. C. (1954). The critical incident technique. Psychological Bulletin, 51(4). 327-358.

Schön, D. A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner: Toward a new design for teaching and learning
    in the professions. Jossey-Bass.

Whitney, D., & Trosten-Bloom, A. (2010).The power of appreciative inquiry: A practical guide to positive
    change. Berrett-Kohler Publishers.

Robert A. LeGary Jr., EdD is Director of the Master of Education in Teacher Leadership Joint Degree Program, Assistant Professor of Education, and Senior Teaching Fellow at the Advanced Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Institute, Goodwin University, East Hartford, Connecticut. Dr. LeGary can be reached at rlegary@goodwin.edu.