The central role of educational leadership for developing students´ intrapreneurship attitudes in Higher education settings: a case study from Latvia

Dr. habil. paed. Prof. Irina Maslo, Dr. paed. Manuel J. Fernández González

Scientific Institute of Pedagogy, University of Latviairina.maslo@lu.lv, manuels.fernandezs@lu.lv

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 

ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION-A PRIORITY FOR THE HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS

 8 - 9 OCTOBER 2012 BUCHAREST, ROMANIA

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Contents

1. Introduction2. Theoretical frame

3. Methodology4. Main Findings

5. Conclusions and Discussion

3

Introduction

4

Web- and Moodle tools www.pzi.lu.lv

http://www.eduinf.lu.lv/moodle/

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Virtual transcultural communicationenvironment for e-learning

Chat rooms

E-mail

Phone

E-materials

Teleconferences

Forums

E-phone (Skype)

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Student’s involvement with e-tools

Chat rooms

News forum

E-mail communication

Phone communication

E-materials didactical guidelines

Teleconference

Social forum

Forum about Educational Treatment of Diversity

Forum about problems in use of computers, e-platform and other IT

Chat room about organizational questions

Forums

Forum about study process

Forum about each module

Chat room about each module

E-phone (Skype)

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2.Theoretical frame

In-depth study of educational leadership theoryWitziers, B., R. Bosker and M. Kruger (2003). “Educational Leadership and Student

Achievement: the Elusive Search for an Association”. Educational Administration Quarterly, vol. 39.

Leithwood, K., et al. (2004). How Leadership Influences Student Learning. Minneapolis, Minn.: Centre for Applied Research and Educational Improvement, University of Minnesota.

Ross, J. and P. Gray (2006). “School Leadership and Student Achievement: The Mediating Effects of Teacher Beliefs”. Canadian Journal of Education, vol. 29.

Day, C., et al. (2009). The Impact of School Leadership on Pupil Outcomes, Research Report DCSF-RR108, University of Nottingham.

Bush, T. and D. Glover (2004). Leadership Development: Evidence and Beliefs. Nottingham: National College for School Leadership,.

Schleicher, A. (Ed.) (2012). Preparing Teachers and Developing School Leaders for the 21st Century: Lessons from around the World. OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264xxxxxx-en [Accessed on 25.08.2012]

Rivera, C.A. (2010). Building a Model of Leadership Development for Times of Change. Summary of the Promotion Paper for promotion to the degree of Doctor in Administration (Dr.admin.), University of Latvia. Riga: University of Latvia.

Gento, S. (2000). Instituciones Educativas para la Calidad Total. Madrid: La Muralla.

Antoncic, B. and Hisrich, R.D. (2003). “Clarifying the intrapreneurship concept”, Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 10 (1), pp. 7-24.

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Pedagogical leadership styles

• Visionary

• Strategic

• Catalyser

• Doer

Contextualization of the contentsAbility of motivatingGiving sense to the study process

Ability of creating learning community,Explaining learning processesEncouraging internal communication

processes Foreseeing and formulating problems,

solutions

Creating synergies between studentsFostering students’ reflection

Decision-making abilitiesEvaluation and personal initiativeGiving information to others.

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Methodology

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Methodology

The empirical study

• written participation of 8 university teachers and 36 Master’s students during four years (2008-2012).

• A sequential mix-design (initial explorative quantitative study followed by an in-depth qualitative analysis of selected cases)

• Written data were collected from the Moodle platform of the Master’s program, using the function “reports”

• The 18 modules of the Interuniversity Masters’ program “Educational Treatment of Diversity” were analysed:

• 2752 student interventions

• 1023 teacher interventions

• The level of students’ intrapreneurship has been measured though the analysis of their contribution to the improvement of the quality of the study processes

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Main Findings

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Students’ and teachers’ activity in each module

A

773

344

7

110

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Teachers’ activity

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Pedagogical leadership styles

Teacher F G B Total

Interventions

58 29 122 209

Expressions 85 43 203 331

Catalyser 23 (27%) 11 (26%) 57 (28%) 91 (27%)

Doer 20 (24%) 2 (5%) 32 (16%) 54 (16%)

Strategic 32 (38%) 27 (63%) 92 (45%) 151 (46%)

Visionary 10 (12%) 3 (7%) 22 (11%) 35 (11%)

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Catalyser• “I have read your opinions with interest.

However, I think that the rest of the students could retire a bigger benefit if everyone give the reasons of his/her opinion, for example, quoting some of the scientific research in the field of inclusion in your respective country, or analysing your own experience” (by G - Wednesday, 15 February 2012, 05:39 PM);

• “I suggest you to start by having a look to the forum of the students’ of last year, this should enhance our thinking and help to understand better the things to do” (by F - Wednesday, 21 October 2009, 06:51 PM).

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Strategic• “Congratulation to XX and YY as first in-loger !!! …

Dear XX and YY, please contact the students of you group for supporting them to access to Moodle by experience exchange tomorrow !!!! (by B - Tuesday, 30 August 2011, 07:11 PM).

• “…Why hesitating? Yours is a very nice plan to investigate the situation and to find new ideas. Of course, other ideas are also possible; is there anyone that can propose other ways? Diversity of situations and different approaches to solve the problems enriches our experience!” (by B - Wednesday, 3rd March 2010, 4:10 PM)

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Doer“Dear all, please follow XX’s suggestion - try to

conclude the discussion and make a conclusion! There are some more activities to complete!!!” (Doer style, by F - Monday, 10 October 2011, 12:53 PM).

Visionary“Hello, YY, thanks for this question. Exactly! Tools from

this module in the future can be adapted to your specific situation. The Latvian students need to adapt too, since we began studying together to explore our differences and learn to use those as an enriching factor of the whole study process rather than an obstacle”. (Visionary style, by B, - Wednesday, 24th February 2010, 3:14 PM)

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Summarizing the results

Pedagogical leadership of faculty members, whose students’ have the highest intrapreneurship, is based on their ability of team-working: combing different styles of leadership for

• creating a learning community (strategic leadership style) and

• fostering students’ reflection (catalyser leadership style).

Some recommendationsCreating teams of educational leaders that

complement effectively each other in the work with students

Provoking the release of the energy existing in students (self evaluation activities, questioning, building content and organization on students’ proposals)

Human contact and diversifying the channels of communication to create an online Learning Community.

Non multa sed multum (not too much communication, but with good quality)

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Pedagogical leadership

Critical reflection of organization and evaluation of learning as constructivist processes of new and unknown

knowledge etc.

CapabilityCapacity

Networking and Team working for facilitating of collaboration processes

Critical reflection of organization and evaluation of trans-cultural -communication processes in new and unknown situations using 3-5

languages and ICT

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Thank you!

www.pzi.lu.lv