An analysis of virtual professional development for school leaders during covid-19

As a major component of leadership development, professional development (PD) support, needs more researchers to focus on possible ways to build school leaders instructional capacity. Despite the increasing use of virtual professional development (VPD) as venues for leadership development, little is known about the essential components of an effective VPD. With the advent of COVID-19, the authors pivoted to VPD focused on improving school principals abilities to help teachers increase their instructional capacity. More specifically, they provided a virtual summer leadership institute (VSLI) on peer coaching via VPD. Since research on effective PD calls for school leaders to translate their learning into leadership practice, they addressed in their sequential explanatory mixed methods study how practicing school leaders in the United States perceived the effectiveness of VPD on school leaders professional knowledge and growth related to the VPD topic of peer coaching. They conclude with seven specific principles to consider when developing and providing such a VPD experience for school leaders. © 2022 IGI Global. All rights reserved.

Virtual professional development on conflict management for school leaders

From 2017 until 2020, we held face-to-face professional development focused on enhancing instructional leadership for underserved schools at the campus level. We quickly determined in March 2020, based on the predicted situation of COVID-19, that we needed to change that venue to virtual professional development (VPD). The study was grounded in the theoretical base of adult learning theory and transformational learning since we were working with school leaders. The researchers used a mixed methods research design with a survey to examine to what extent school leaders perceived their engagement in a synchronous VPD webinar with facilitators increased their knowledge on the topic of conflict management. The findings showed that the participants perceived targeted VPD to have significantly increased their knowledge on conflict management. Additionally, the participating school leaders indicated a shift in their attitudes from negative to positive perceptions regarding conflict. The findings suggest that structured VPD for school leaders has the potential to advance school leaders’ knowledge on conflict management. Copyright © 2022 Irby, Pashmforoosh, Druery, Lara-Alecio, Tong, Etchells and Algert.