Abstract:
The primary focus of this exploratory research was to gain insight on teacher empowerment during the implementation of a new administrative walk-through initiative. The rollout and completion of the walk-through process occurred at two high-poverty urban secondary schools that were involved in a turnaround process. Administrative walk-throughs appear to be in direct opposition to teacher empowerment because of the authoritative connotations of administrative observations and the delegation of authority that is associated with teacher empowerment. However, these two concepts share key attributes that could improve teacher empowerment and school turnaround. Administrative walk-throughs can be used to support collaboration, instructional decision-making, and professional reflection on pedagogy. The quantitative data was collected from the responses from the pre- post-Teacher Empowering Leading and Learning (TELL) survey. The TELL survey was organized in seven core constructs to gain valuable documentation and insight of how educators view critical teaching and learning conditions and their sense of empowerment. Qualitative data were gathered from interviews following the completion of the end-of-the-year TELL survey. The results of this study provided evidence that the establishment of a walk-through initiative has a
positive effect on teachers’ sense of empowerment. The immediate, non-evaluative feedback from the walk-through may facilitate professional reflection, collaboration, and allow for teacher input about instructional decisions.
