Mark Stock receives Mary Garland Fellowship

Mark Stock

(Note: for an audio clip of Dr. Stock talking about his research and the importance of support from the Garland Fellowship, click here.)

  Educational leadership faculty member Mark Stock is the sixth recipient of the Mary Ellbogen Garland Early Career Fellowship.
   The fellowship, established by the late philanthropist and education advocate John P. "Jack" Ellbogen, supports promising junior faculty in the University of Wyoming College of Education.
   "I intend to study the relationship that is developing between building principals and the instructional facilitators in Wyoming," Stock says of the research agenda he will pursue with Garland Fellowship support.
   Specific focus of that research will be on "the way in which those relationships impact the success of implementation of the things they are working on in the district," he says. "I want to see if there are certain patterns of behavior or common practices between the principals and their instructional facilitators and if so whether or not they are related to the perceptions of success within the school."
   Instructional facilitators are school district employees who act as peer helpers and coaches. They assist teachers with implementing new practices and applying what they learn in professional development settings.
   The addition of teacher professionals to fill this instructional role represents a departure from the typical hierarchical school structure, where the building principal is the ultimate authority.
   "They're new for education," Stock says of the arrangement. "There's usually been the principal and then everyone else."
   Stock's research will include defining how principals place the instructional facilitator within the structure: whether the building administrator still maintains strong positional authority for curriculum matters or whether he/she assumes a more hands-off approach to delegating those responsibilities to the facilitator.
     "These teachers (the instructional facilitators) are assuming real leadership roles, yet in most schools are doing so without line and staff authority," Stock says. "I want to see how principals are handling that, and to see what the results are."
   Stock's research plan starts with a survey of the state's instructional facilitators and their building principals. Responses will be matched into pairs, to allow comparisons and identification of any patterns that emerge.
   As one might expect, research on a relatively new educational phenomenon is minimal at best.
   "Very little national research exists on how these instructional coaching positions are being used and how effectively," Stock says.
   Findings from Stock's research will be of use to educators and policymakers in Wyoming. Because this is largely uncharted territory, it also has the potential to advance the national discussion about the role of instructional facilitators, and to offer starting points for other research agendas.
    Stock also is pursuing opportunities to collaborate with other College of Education faculty who share his research interests in the role of instructional facilitators, including educational leadership colleagues Heather Duncan and Suzie Young and secondary education faculty member Leslie Rush.
   "I see this fellowship helping me to work together with them, so the (Garland) funds will get double or triple value," Stock says.
   Mark Stock joined the UW College of Education faculty in fall 2007. His career to that point focused on K-12 education, first in the classroom (teaching third and sixth grades), as a curriculum director and a technology director, as an assistant superintendent overseeing curriculum and instruction, and eventually superintendent of the Wawasee Community School Corporation in Indiana. Along the way, he earned a doctor of education from Ball State University.
   Moving to higher education offered both a chance to experience new professional challenges in mid-career and to work with older students, something Stock learned that he enjoyed.
   "During my principal years, I worked with some very talented people who were very involved with school improvement," he recalls. "I began to do workshops and presentations for adults, and I found out that I really enjoyed that."
   He says the career shift has been a good one so far, offering a welcome change of professional perspective.
   "The biggest adjustment in the switch from being a practicing school superintendent to higher education is one of going from about 70 percent reaction to the problems that arise to being proactive," Stock says. "At the university level the emphasis is on long term research and current teaching and does not involve the day-to-day crisis management administrators are accustomed to. It is a refreshing change of pace!"
   

Posted on Friday, December 12, 2008