Transformative Leadership and Educational Excellence: Learning Organizations in the Information Age

Publisher Marketing: On records, the evolution of human development pays a considerable tribute to the relentless efforts made by generations of teacher educators set out to train academic leaders and teachers committed to the implementation of educational policies parallel to the mental edification of young students. Teacher educators, faced the challenges, overcame the obstacles, and refined the pedagogies of our educational system with many innovative approaches. As the world faces increasing uncertainties and adamant shifts of knowledge economy, it is apparent that education plays an ultimate role in creating adept and geared up citizens, to lead the way to the future. Designing and managing learning school organizations that can sustain a competitive advantage in this fast-changing environment demands transformative leaders primed and ready to the building or our intellectual capital for the future. Many books on teacher education, educational management and leadership have been written in the past, but most of them do not keep up with the fast-changing educational scene and only a few include future scenarios. This book presents the anticipated trends and demands of the new knowledge economy, and it aims to achieve its goals with the use of various tools, generative and collaborative efforts, increasing leadership capability in dynamic and complex contexts, enculturation of cutting edge knowledge for educational advancement and creation of teams that focus learning organizations. This book brings together prominent and leading teacher educators and researchers from around the world to present their scholarship, theories and practice, case studies, state-of-the- art approaches and upshot predictions. This book embodies collective knowledge inquiry and represents professional conversations. The chapters provides information on recent trends and development in teacher education, the important role of educational management and leadership in educational transformations and promising practices for desired outcomes. The book is a critical and specialized resource that describes how transformative leadership can play an important role in achieving excellence in education. The topics covered are: Educational Leadership and Effective Teaching, Research in Transformational Leadership, and Professional Development and Social Capital Building in Schools. Truly, world-class schools are still a relative rarity. The words of introduction to this volume pose a puzzle in search of a solution. If the link is to be found between leadership and learning then it will require some radical rethinking of those two big ideas and what it means for schools in the 21st century. That is what this impressive collection of chapters, and leading edge thinkers, achieves. John MacBeath Professor Emeritus Chair of Educational Leadership Director of Leadership for Learning: the Cambridge Network University of Cambridge, United Kingdom This is a comprehensive gathering of contemporary international research on educational leadership written by an impressive range of educational researchers. It should be a required text on postgraduate education leadership and management courses. Christopher Winch Professor of Educational Philosophy and Policy Head of Department of Education and Professional Studies King's College, London, United Kingdom This book is an outstanding and timely collection of chapters written by respected researchers on leadership and education. It should be a required reading for all teachers, aspiring teachers, and academic leaders concerned about education in schools. Review Citations: Reference and Research Bk News 08/01/2010 pg. 203 (EAN 9789087909031, Paperback)