ATHENS, Ohio (June 8, 2010)-The May 28 Faculty Research Forum, the final one of the school year, featured two presentations centered around one theme: innovative teaching methods and the teachers' perceptions of administrative support for these methods.

First to present was Ori Eyal from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, discussing his research, “Managing Educational Champions: Entrepreneurship in Schools.” Eyal looked at teacher “champions,” which he defined as teachers who were “committed to innovation and dedicated to fostering it in an organization by going beyond job requirements,” then observed three schools to analyze management style and support for innovation.

Eyal's findings suggested a relationship between managerial styles and the emergences of teacher innovations in the schools. In schools where teacher initiatives were resisted, the champions felt alienated from the management and staff.

“A rift exists between us and the principal, and I almost never go to the teacher's lounge,” Eyal read, quoting a champion he interviewed.

Eyal concluded that management style as well as perceived support for teacher initiatives ultimately determined the level of teacher entrepreneurship at the schools. Given that finding, it logically followed that the teachers' perceptions of the management styles of their schools would go a long way in determining their willingness to innovate. Faculty members Michael Hess and Jerry Johnson discussed this matter in the second half of the forum, presenting their research, “Teacher Perceptions of Administrative Support for Democratic Practice: Implications for Leadership and Planning.”

The research involved analyzing data from interviews Hess had conducted with eleven teachers who were members of a “Friday Roundtable” group that met weekly to discuss one question: “how can we be better teachers?” In considering the interview data, Johnson and Hess sought to determine what the teachers, who came from different schools and had varied levels of experience, perceived about their experiences with practicing democratic education and the support (or lack thereof) by their administrators.

Ultimately, what emerged from the interviews were perceptions of leaders as inhibiting democratic processes or facilitating democratic processes. Hess discussed an interview with one teacher whose district forced her to use direct instruction, a program that literally tells teachers exactly what to say.

“For her to be told 'that is what you have to do...this is how you will teach,' it was an affront to her,” Hess said. “It was an affront to her teacher self.”

 Hess discussed the opposing side of their findings, in which another teacher sat in with the principal while interviewing a teacher candidate. After the interview, the principal said that he did not agree with the candidate's teaching philosophy, but refused to hold it against the candidate, instead saying that he supported the philosophy as long as the candidate believed in it.

“I don't make those kinds of judgments,” Hess said, quoting the principal. “I'm just glad to see the person has a strong idea.”

Though most research forums just involve one presentation, the two juxtaposed presentations supplemented each other well, leading into a discussion of what teachers could do given the opportunity to innovate and why today's administrators might be opposed to the idea.

The two presentations marked the last of the 2009-2010 CEHS Faculty Research Forums, which provided faculty members the opportunity to present their research findings to interested students and faculty as well as answer their questions. To read recaps of all of the year's presentations, please visit http://www.cehs.ohio.edu/news-events/index.htm.

Story by R. Devin Hughes.