Use of Immersive Simulations to Enhance Graduate Student Learning: Implications for Educational Leadership Programs
The purpose of this article is to present how one university incorporates immersive simulations through platforms which employ avatars to enhance graduate student understanding and learning in educational leadership programs. While using simulations and immersive virtual environments continues to grow, the literature suggests limited evidence of avatar technology currently used at the university level, especially in educational leadership preparation and other graduate level programs. The authors identify a step by step process to effectively employ the use of immersive simulations as a practitioner tool at the university level. This article provides a process for incorporating immersive simulations into graduate educational leadership programs that can be successfully duplicated to best support professional preparation of current and future educational leaders in developing best practices for stakeholder engagement, human talent management, instructional leadership, and other areas relevant to transformational leadership. The authors argue that immersive simulations do indeed better support graduate students. Introduction The current education reform movement began when A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform was released by the National Commission on Excellence in Education in 1983. Its publication has led to the longest sustained period of reform in American educational history. This report called attention to the need to improve public education and resulted in Americans losing confidence in the public educational system. This outcry prompted legislators to address the issue of America's eroding public school system as presented in the report, which spawned multiple school reform models and sometimes unwieldy change efforts to improve the levels of education provided to America's students. The result has been a series of education reforms leading to a gradual implementation of greater accountability for excellence in teaching and leadership at school sites throughout America. The passage of the federally mandated No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act legislation of 2001 represented one more step in this reform trajectory and was in response to continued failure of American students to achieve on a par with other industrialized nations particularly in light of the gap in achievement of lowincome and Latino and African American students (US Department of Education, 2001) With the inception of NCLB, there was increasing pressure for higher quality teachers and leaders, more scripted curriculum aligned to state adopted standards, and more systematic assessments and interventions for those students who have not met grade level standards at the proficient level. More recently Common Core State Standards have been implemented adding additional pressure to teachers and leaders. As public schools in the United States continue to face these unprecedented state and federal demands to raise student achievement and close racial and ethnic achievement gaps, the role of university preparatory programs becomes increasingly important. The recently passed federal Every Student Succeeds Act (2015) gives state and local authorities more flexibility and discretion on approaches and setting achievement benchmarks. Increasing flexibility with greater accountability for learning outcomes, however, suggests the importance of research on university programs and their methods for preparing current and future school leaders to meet these high demands in their own schools or districts. Collaborative learning technologies, arguably both efficient and cost effective, are among the distance education strategies universities have adopted to meet increasing demands (Gaskell Mills, 2014; Hartley, Ludlow, Duff, 2015) One such collaborative learning practice showing promise is the use of immersive simulations (Bautista Boone, 2015; Beckem Watkins, 2012) which provides leaders with non threatening hands on simulations that can reinforce leadership characteristics necessary to succeed in K 12 settings in the 21st century. While access to, or experiences with, immersive simulations or other collaborative learning technologies do not guarantee participants will become proficient in a particular area, there distance learning strategies do advance essential knowledge, skills, dispositions, and practices for adult learners (Killion Treacy, 2014) Accordingly, school and district leaders responsible for the supervision and administration of distance learning, including collaborative learning technologies, may find participation in immersive simulation experiences at the university level beneficial in building prior knowledge for application in their own schools or districts. LITERATURE REVIEW Principal Leadership Practices School leadership matters for school success. There is ample research demonstrating links between high quality leadership and positive school outcomes. In fact, few researchers would disagree that the principal's leadership is one of the most important factors underlying the success or failure of schools. Leithwood, Louis, Anderson, and Wahlstrom (2004) reviewed research on how leadership influences student learning and found that leadership is second only to classroom instruction among all school related factors that contribute to what students learn at school. They found that the total direct and indirect effects of leadership on student learning account for about 25% of total school effects. This effect is primarily through creating a culture of high expectations and supportive learning environment for both teachers and students. This recognition of the important role of school leadership has led to an increased focus to recruitment and preparation of school leaders. Thus, we identify a step by step process of including immersive simulation technology that supports university graduate level educational leaders. We drew on two dimensions of principal leadership literature that appear most frequently: instructional leadership and transformational leadership. In particular, we identified principal practices that previous research has indicated are associated with successful school leadership and the potential uses of immersive simulations to further enhance current and future educational leaders in employing best leadership practices as identified by the literature. Table 1 summarizes the similarities and differences between instructional and transformational leadership characteristics found in two studies (Leithwood, Leonard Sharratt, 1998; Robinson, Lloyd, Rowe, 2008) Table 1. Similar and Different Characteristics of Transformational and Instructional Leadership 8/7/2018 Use of Immersive Simulations to Enhance Graduate Student Learning: Implications for Educational Leadership Programs https:/www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/summer192/volkel_johnson_gilbert192.html 2/7 Instructional leadership The study of instructional leadership has resurfaced as a form of leadership that is essential to improve student learning (Hattie, 2009; Katz, Dack, 2013) and was driven in large part by the effective schools movement of the 1970s and 1980s (Horng Loeb, 2010) Spillane, Hallett and Diamond (2003) defined instructional leadership as "an influential relationship that motivates, enables, and supports teachers' efforts to learn about and change their instructional practices" (p. 1) Liu (1984) asserted, "Instructional leadership consists of direct or indirect behaviors (by principals) that significantly affect teacher instruction and, as a result, student learning" (as cited in Daresh, 1989, p. 97) These behaviors include communicating high academic standards, professional development enhancing student learning, classroom observations, and a school environment conducive to learning (Robinson et al. 2008) In his metaanalysis of 50,000 studies covering more than 80 million students, Hattie (2009) asserted that instructional leadership, as evidenced by an effect size of .36, has a greater impact on student results than does transformational leadership. Katz and Dack (2013) found that both formal and informal instructional leadership played roles in positively impacting curriculum, teaching and learning. Hargreaves and Fullan (2012) on the other hand, emphasized the necessity of viewing other leadership models beyond instructional leadership. They argued for the power of professional capital development through teacher collaboration and asserted there is not one way to collaborate. They viewed instructional leadership as "micromanaging mania." However, there is growing empirical evidence (i.e. Hattie, 2012; Marks Printy, 2003) of the importance of an integrated leadership approach to include transformational and instructional leadership. The basis for including both stems from their different foci: instructional leadership attending to classroom pedagogy and the individual teacher development, and transformational leadership encompassing a broader schoolwide perspective, including the work of grade and department teams. Transformational leadership. To understand how leaders bring about change in districts and schools, one approach has been to identify the behaviors of leaders who have transformed their organization (Bass, 1985; Burns, 1978) We drew upon the characteristics identified in the pioneering study of educational leadership by Leithwood, Leonard and Sharratt (1998) The behaviors they identified are: (a) establishing a vision, (b) setting group goals, (c) providing intellectual stimulation, (d) setting high performance expectations, (e) providing individualized support, (f) offering appropriate modeling, (g) establishing a productive school culture, and (h) developing appropriate structures. Marks (2013) found that more than 80% of school leaders claim to be primarily transformational leaders. Printy, Marks, and Bowers (2009) conducted a content analysis of a subset of extensive case studies that ex