A Case Study Of A Principal's Instructive Leadership

In the field of education, the administration is just a means, while enhancing teaching effectiveness and student learning are the real core elements in school development. Therefore, as the president in a school, the effectiveness of the principal's instructional leadership determines the development of the school's teaching status. As the saying goes, "How the school like is correspondingly depends on how the principal is."In this study, the object is a primary school principal, aiming to explore the principal's understanding of instructional leadership concept, practice and the faced perplexing situation, thus the appropriate recommendations can be put forward to the education management department and other principals. According to the research goal, this study is started from the analysis of literature. A primary school in G City named S School is selected out for this study. In this case study, documents research and qualitative research is combined together, besides document analysis, interviews, and observing participation are used for information collection. This entire research process lasts for six months. Finally, the findings of research are as follows:1. Principal Z agreed the six dimensions of principal instructional leadership study, which are summarized from the literatures:setting the school development goals, promoting the professional growth of teachers, facilitating students to study better, developing school-based curriculum, ensuring teaching quality and providing supportive school environment.2. Principal Z considers that the six principals should not include "setting the school development goals," because she regards this belongs to the field of principal administrative function and should not be in instructional leadership scope. However, the literatures indicate: "Building Development Goals" is the core of leadership concept which's different from "management" concept.3. In this paper, principal Z's instructional leadership reflection has been analyzed, furthermore, this study sums up two aspects of confusion showing up in the principal's own practice, one comes from the administration work itself, the other exists in the process of cooperation with the teachers.Finally, the research findings can work as one of the source for practice and further research, which are the specific recommendations serving for the education administration departments and principals.