We found that these principals do three things to help teachers become more reflective practitioners. They use several strategies. Encouraging justification of practice . Many of the teachers we interviewed commented that principals allow them to teach in the manner they feel is most appropriate. Autonomy, however, does not come without responsibility.
Teachers have to justify why they are using specific methodologies.
In one school, a group of teachers went to the principal because some of them wanted to use a phonetic approach while others preferred a whole language approach to reading. You don't all need to be doing the same thing. What was important to him was not which approach they use but that they do their own thinking and that students learn. Other principals had similar philosophies. Teachers must study their own practice and learn from it as much as from formal research.