Doing Together: Legitimizing the Instructional Core Through Collaborative Learning in DeKalb County School District

Abstract

This capstone examines my learning journey to strengthen the collective instructional leadership capacity of a cross-functional, seventeen-member Superintendent cabinet within the DeKalb County School District by improving its collaborative learning conditions aligned to the Instructional Core. My strategic project involved co-planning and implementing an adaptation of Instructional Rounds across nine schools within DCSD as a cabinet-based “team learning infrastructure” in order to work with leaders’ “mental models” (Senge, 2006). School districts can be considered institutionalized organizations, which presents a unique challenge (Bridwell-Mitchell, 2019). As institutions, school districts are subject to Regulative, Cultural-Cognitive, and Normative forces that make them relatively resistant to change over time (Scott, 1994). As organizations, school districts are charged with improving performance over time. Improvement implies change. This tension typically manifests counterproductively within national and localized K-12 change initiatives, mandates, and accountability measures intended to improve student outcomes. Institutional Theory and the concept of Learning Organizations offer up two promising levers for initiating sustainable improvement within schools and districts- a focus on collaborative/team learning and shifting mental models/schema. This capstone explores the strategic application of these levers at the highest levels of leadership to initiate change within the context of the DCSD - a district serving approximately 94,000 students. My analysis utilizes themes of team learning (Senge, 2006), legitimacy (Bridwell-Mitchel, 2019; Scott, 1994), and Activity Theory (Grossman et al., 1999) to offer explanations for why my project unfolded as it did. Overall, the conclusions reaffirm the need for intentional and sustained collaborative learning aligned to organizational goals as a means for catalyzing shifts in mindsets and practices of personnel navigating highly institutionalized contexts. Additionally, they suggest leveraging the three aforementioned institutional forces in concert to legitimize the use of the Instructional Core as an anchor in strategy development and continuous improvement for school districts. Lastly, for Central Offices, they highlight the potential importance of strategically elevating personnel/leaders with demonstrable expertise in teaching and learning as leaders of district improvement efforts.