Building self-efficacy within a school requires strategy. That strategy needs to start with a goal, feedback on progress toward the goal needs to given, and support to those who are working toward the goal needs to be provided along the way. Here are a few strategies on how to put this in place at your school.
Set Goals
Goal setting is a key element to building someone’s belief that they can achieve something that has not been achieved before. You have no direction without a goal. The most effective goals are SMART goals that provide a specific target that is achievable within a predetermined time period. It is important to make sure that goals are incrementally set. For example, you would not want to set a goal for June in August and just expect people to get there. People need checkpoints along the way that will provide feedback on their progress and allow for midcourse adjustments throughout the year.
Track progress toward goals
You don’t climb a mountain all at once. It takes a series of checkpoints and milestones to achieve an overarching larger goal. Checkpoints and milestones provide a gradual pathway to success. Every checkpoint or milestone provides critical feedback to the person attempting to achieve the goal and opportunities to celebrate success.
Don’t expect people to hit the target every time. In fact, there should be a shared understanding about setbacks and missed targets between teachers and students or leaders and teachers that includes the establishment of a “Plan-B” for when a target is missed. The plan goes into action when a target is missed. This will help to provide assurance that a missed target is not the end of the world. It also sends the message that missteps are part of the process of learning and achieving a higher goal. Attempting to achieve a higher goal should feel uncomfortable at first. If it does not, then are you are not really pushing yourself to a place where you have not been before? Having a Plan-B for setbacks will actually push people to innovate more. Teachers and students are more willing to take risks and attempt innovation when they know there is a soft landing spot when or if failure occurs. People are not afraid of change, they are afraid of failing.
Support efforts toward goal achievement
Providing support is the biggest role of a leader during the building of self-efficacy. A study on the influence of principals’ leadership behaviors within a school found that leaders who supported risk taking and working cooperatively were more inclined to raise the levels of self-efficacy of others within their schools.[1] School leaders can do this by acknowledging people’s effort for driving innovation within a school and tie that innovation to improved results of some kind. This provides a series of Mastery Experiences that can socially influence others across the campus to try an innovation of their own. Providing a safe space for collaboration provides a place for teachers or students to share their thoughts honestly and find new and more effective ways to achieve higher goals with support from their peers. Small think tanks begin to develop across a school that create a synergistic culture that can overcome past failures through the support of the collective group. The research on teacher efficacy by Goddard, Hoy and Hoy (2000) provides evidence that the collective support of school leaders and teachers working together “provide efficacy-building mastery experiences” within “thoughtfully designed staff development activities and action-research projects.”[2] Remember, the most effective professional development design is job-embedded and ongoing which positively impacts student and teacher performance toward the achievement of an established goal. You can’t get past good performance working in isolation. Greatness comes from a supportive community.
School leaders can’t mandate self-efficacy to happen within their schools. They need to provide the right structures for students and teachers to work in to make it happen.
[1] Hipp, K. A. (1996). Teacher efficacy: Influence of principal leadership behavior. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York.
[2] Goddard, R. D., Hoy, W. K., & Hoy, A. W. (2000). Collective teacher efficacy: Its meaning, measure, and impact on student achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 37(2), 479-507.
Scott is a proven school and district leader with 23 years of experience. He has led the turnaround of five different urban schools in Florida transforming their cultures into high functioning systems that produced record breaking results in student achievement and teacher performance. Scott is available to consult with schools, districts, and organizations to create a focused strategy that will lead to improved results, increased engagement, and overall results. He can be contacted at sneil@schoolleadershipsolutions.com
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