Simultaneously, teaming expands individual limits by providing opportunities for teachers to share ideas, strategies, and students. Whereas providing a supportive environment requires changing organizational characteristics, principals facilitate reflective practice in ways that more proactively stimulate teachers to study their teaching. Here are three strategies that we observed. Asking questions . Principals ask challenging questions that prompt teachers to reflect on their practice.
Principals also ask questions to help resolve issues of school policy and practice.
In one school, for example, several teachers were involved in a scheduling dispute. Rather than imposing a solution on teachers, this approach places the responsibility for developing solutions and resolving conflicts upon those involved. Critiquing by wandering around . If principals are to ask questions that facilitate reflective practice, they need to know what is occurring in teachers' classrooms. The principals in our study also use their time in classrooms and hallways to relearn the local context, which increases both their opportunities to ask questions and their knowledge of what questions to ask.