Teaching, Learning, Policy & Leadership Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2759

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    HOW SCHOOL PRINCIPALS USE TWITTER TO SUPPORT LEADERSHIP PRACTICES: A MIXED METHODS DESIGN
    (2018) Lynch, Jennifer Mohler; Croninger, Robert G; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    In the past ten years, Internet-based communication mediums have eclipsed print and television media. Digital communications allow for information to be shared rapidly, in real-time, and with little mediation. The pervasive integration of digital platforms has changed the values, norms, and expectations of today’s society. This has profound implications for how school leaders interact with all stakeholders. School leaders are charged with executing three main roles: setting directions, developing organizations, and developing people (Leithwood & Riehl, 2003). Communication serves as a critical element that supports the effective execution of these roles. In a predominantly digital society, leaders may benefit from the integration of digital platforms to create a comprehensive communication profile. Despite a robust body of literature on leadership practices, there is little research on how K-12 school principals are using digital communication platforms to execute leadership roles and responsibilities. This study contributes to the literature by exploring how school leaders are using the popular digital platform Twitter. This research employed a sequential mixed methods design, utilizing both descriptive quantitative data and interview qualitative data to answer the question “who” is tweeting and explore the deeper questions of “why” and “how” school leaders use Twitter. This study moved through six phases with prior phases informing subsequent phases to construct a comprehensive profile of Twitter use and leadership practices. This research demonstrates that school principals primarily use Twitter as a promotional tool to excite and engage an expanded stakeholder base around a common vision. Both informational and promotional tweets served to build relationships, provide information, and satiate the intense informational needs of an expanded stakeholder base, now firmly situated in the digital generation. School leaders used Twitter to project information that serves to support their leadership roles of setting a vision and developing an organization. To a lesser extent, they used Twitter to consume and collect information that supports their leadership role of developing people.
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    INVESTIGATING HOW INDIVIDUAL SCHOOL INTERNAL SOCIAL NETWORKS CONTRIBUTE TO THE COMMUNICATION OF SYSTEMIC INITIATIVES IN A LARGE URBAN SCHOOL DISTRICT
    (2015) Kochanowski, Melissa Lynn; McLaughlin, Margaret J.; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Implementation of initiatives and mandates in schools and districts has increased over the last decade and districts are constantly tasked with disseminating new information to staff in the schools. Recently studies have been conducted in the field of education using Social Network Analysis (SNA) to explore how information and knowledge flow between people in schools and districts in order to identify key disseminators, brokers, and hinders of information, as well as the overall patterns of communication. The purpose of this study was to examine the informal communication networks and key actors used to disseminate information about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in four elementary schools in a large urban school district. The study was based on the premise that obtaining a better understanding of the informal communication pathways in these schools would allow school and district leaders to better understand how information flows throughout schools and to determine whether the positions intended to communicate new information in a school were actually being used. This exploratory study used an online survey and SNA to identify the flow of and key actors for communication around two initiatives, CCSS and Data Wise. The findings suggest that each of the four schools had highly centralized networks where only a few key staff members were integral for sharing information about initiatives. The key people in each school tended to be administrators and individuals who held two positions. One of the key positions in each school was the Professional Development Lead Teacher (PDLT), which is the position the District had created to ensure information about key initiatives was disseminated.