One can safely say education is a matter not just of a social sphere but of a civilizational one. It is why this aspect of humanities is studied so profoundly by educational specialists. One of the proofs of this statement is such an outcome of their research as “process models of continuous improvement” (School leadership development plan for licensure in the UAE, n.d., slide 16). There are four major conventional continuous improvement models, and each of them has a phase that involves planning (School leadership development plan for licensure in the UAE, n.d.). The planning stage is a safe setting that allows one to objectively measure and predict proposed measures’ feasibility, effectiveness, and success for an educational institution’s development and continuous improvement.
My occupation is an Arabic female school principal, and my area of responsibility is a middle school, namely the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. The theoretical framework that I use to constantly develop and improve the existing school setting in which colleagues, students, and I interact with each other is the Shewhart Cycle. This choice of this continual improvement model is driven by the design versatility of the Shewhart Cycle, as it is applicable to both the whole school and its smaller specific parts and segments (School leadership development plan for licensure in the UAE, n.d.). The alternatives by Lezotte and Mckee and the National Study of School Evaluation are more focused on the entire school structure, which is less in line with my goals, responsibilities, and resources. Macklin & Zbar’s Cycle of Continous Improvement was not selected for the same reason.
Like other models, the Shewhart Cycle describes specific activities to measure progress towards continuous improvement. These are checking or “observing the effects of change” and staging by the end of the cycle (School leadership development plan for licensure in the UAE, n.d., slide 17). I perform them to measure and identify the process and results achieved. I also pay attention to such parameters as key goals achieved, teachers’ job satisfaction, pupils’ performance and well-being, and their mean and median grades.
Reference
School leadership development plan for licensure in the UAE [PowerPoint slides]. (n.d.).