The Missing Link: Principals’ Ambidexterity and Teacher Creativity

Innovating teaching and instruction in turbulent times: The dynamics of principals’ exploration and exploitation activities

“…Here, it seems particularly important to focus on the role of teachers, as both research on leadership in schools (Leithwood et al, 2020 ) and research on ambidexterity (Mom et al, 2019 ) have shown that it is the individuals in a school who contribute to its success through unique top-down and bottom-up pathways, and furthermore, that the central position of the principal in a school's social network is an important factor in fostering innovation in schools (Moolenaar et al, 2010 ). Given that our study covers only a short, albeit disruptive and highly dynamic, period in which, moreover, the social contacts of school staff, e.g., as a result of home offices, were often of a different nature than in the pre-COVID-19 period, it would be worthwhile to explore the extent to which our findings can be replicated in non-turbulent periods, taking into account the dynamics of principal ambidexterity and educational innovation as presented here as well as the multilevel nature of school leadership (Boyce & Bowers, 2018 ; Da’as, 2021 ; Pietsch et al, 2019 ).…”

“…As they can influence key characteristics of the school—the vision, structures and processes, and working conditions and staff capacity (Hallinger, 2011 ; Leithwood et al, 2020 )—they can act as drivers of educational change (Harris et al, 2013 ). It has been shown that principals’ ambidexterity does affect teaching and learning by promoting a climate that supports teacher creativity and consequentially teachers’ classroom practices (Da’as, 2021 ). Furthermore, the pandemic highlighted the general relevance of school leaders in creating conditions of psychological safety and for innovation in times of crisis (McLeod & Dulsky, 2021 ; Weiner et al, 2021 ).…”

“…In the management and organizational literature, some scholars use the term exploitation–exploration paradox for this kind of tension (Andriopoulos & Lewis, 2008 ), with exploitation referring to incremental improvements in and refinement of school activities and their leaders and exploration relating to experimentation and radical innovation (Bingham & Burch, 2019 ; Pietsch et al, 2020 ). Ambidexterity theory assumes that organizations and their leaders need to shift between these two complementary, mutually affecting knowledge strategies on an ongoing basis to secure the functioning and survival of the organization—and thus to act ambidextrously—particularly in dynamic and turbulent environments (Benoliel & Schechter, 2017 ; Bingham & Burch, 2019 ; Da’as, 2021 , 2022 ; Pietsch et al, 2020 ).…”

Tren Penelitian Kreativitas Guru dalam Pembelajaran Matematika: A Bibliometric Review

“…Untuk mewujudkan pengalaman belajar yang lebih bermakna dalam matematika untuk prestasi belajar siswa, guru harus kreatif dan inovatif dalam mengembangkan kegiatan pembelajaran saat belajar mengajar (Anderson et al, 2021;Da'as, 2023;Terry & Lonto, 2021). Kegiatan pembelajaran dirancang untuk memberikan pembelajaran yang mencakup proses mental dan fisik melalui interaksi antara peserta didik, guru, lingkungan dan sumber belajar lainnya dalam rangka pencapaian tujuan pembelajaran (Park, 2023).…”

A study on the development of creativity of teachers in Shaanxi Universities in China in the context of demographic variables

“…Teacher creativity has long been recognised as an important factor in developing creative and innovative learners (Craft, 2015;Saibon et al, 2017;Doyle, 2019). With the growing recognition of the importance of knowledge creation and exploratory, utilisational learning, creativity in schools and teachers has become an important issue in improving the quality of education (Da'as, 2021). As a result, the need for creative teachers has been a hot topic worldwide (Khodabandeh and Jamali, 2019).…”