Leadership Content Knowledge and Mathematics Instructional Quality in
the MSPs: A Study of Elementary and Middle School Principals
(Thinking About Mathematics Instruction)
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This project focuses on an aspect of principals’ work that is central to instructional improvement in mathematics: the process of classroom observation and teacher supervision. Through this process principals serve as the arbiters of instructional quality in their schools. In visiting classrooms and talking with teachers, principals come into direct contact with instruction, judge its adequacy, and decide what help a teacher may need. Their periodic review of classrooms and their assessment of instruction constitute the district’s quality control system. If schools are to consistently provide high quality mathematics instruction, it is critical that school administrators recognize and support the development of excellent instructional methods.
Research has shown that principals’ understanding of high quality mathematics instruction and their ideas about how they can support it are significantly influenced by their knowledge of mathematics and their beliefs about the nature of mathematics learning and teaching – their Leadership Content Knowledge (Nelson, 1998; Spillane & Halverson, 1998; Spillane & Thompson, 1997; Stein & D’Amico, 2000; Stein & Nelson, 2002). This large-scale, research and technical assistance project will investigate the nature of elementary and middle school principals’ Leadership Content Knowledge and contribute to participating MSP’s efforts to support elementary and middle school principals in doing classroom observation and teacher supervision.
Working collaboratively with districts in several Mathematics and Science Partnership (MSP) projects, EDC and its collaborator Temple University will study the Leadership Content Knowledge that principals in the MSPs have, how Leadership Content Knowledge can be developed and improved, and how it affects principals’ classroom observations, their judgments about the quality of instruction, and their interactions with teachers regarding mathematics instruction.
This project has three stages:
Stage I
A large-scale national survey of elementary and middle school principals’ Leadership Content Knowledge, to take place in the spring of 2004. A diagnostic report, describing the LCK profiles of each district’s principals (anonymously) will be prepared for each participating district and MSP for use as a needs assessment.
Stage II
The course, Lenses on Learning - Supervision: Focusing on Mathematical Thinking, will be offered in participating MSP’s during the 2004-2005 academic year. In this course principals explore ideas about learning, teaching, and mathematics through the lens of the administrative function of classroom observation and teacher supervision. Principals view and discuss videotapes of mathematics classes using an observation guide especially designed for this course, which supports administrators as they learn to look at students’ mathematical thinking and focus their attention on the mathematical content of the lesson, mathematical ideas that students are working on, pedagogy of the lesson, and nature of the intellectual community emergent in the classroom (for more information about this course, click here).
After taking the course, the Leadership Content Knowledge of these principals will be compared to that of principals who did not take the course.
Stage III
In order to learn about the effect of Leadership Content Knowledge on administrative and instructional practice, in Stage III we will do intensive case studies in 12 schools (some whose principals took the Lenses course and some whose principals did not) as the principals do classroom observation and teacher supervision.
All interested MSPs that focus on elementary or middle school mathematics are eligible to participate and will receive the technical assistance described above in exchange for their participation. Click here to view a list of participating MSPs and other project collaborators.
Principal Investigator: Barbara Scott Nelson
2003 – 2008
Supported by the National Science Foundation