The Effectiveness of Digital Leadership at K-12 Schools in Mississippi Regarding Communication and Collaboration During CCRS Implementation

Abstract

Successful CCRS implementation requires educators to communicate and collaborate at the local, state, and national level. Technology plays an important role in successful CCRS implementation. This study aims to investigate how digital leadership improves communication and collaboration at K-12 schools in Mississippi regarding implementation of CCRS as well as the effectiveness of different ways of supporting communication and collaboration regarding CCRS implementation. Mixed-method was chosen to investigate the research questions. Ten public school principals from two school districts were interviewed and observed at qualitative stage and two hundred fifty-four public schools teachers participated in the survey at quantitative stage. Interviews were transcribed and coded while survey responses from teachers were analyzed by SPSS. Findings at qualitative stage showed that principals utilized hybrid ways to support teachers’ communication and collaboration regarding CCRS implementation, including formal meetings, group collaboration, trainings, social media, website, online learning, digital teaching, personalized professional development, peers’ modeling, digital management, digital data collection and interpretation, digital citizenship promotion, and website filter. Results of quantitative stage showed that principals were more effective in supporting professional development and digital citizenship regarding CCRS implementation. However, principals were less effective in supporting visionary leadership, digital age learning culture, and systemic improvement regarding CCRS implementation