Leadership Innovations During COVID-19 Pandemic: Practices of Filipino Principals in Teacher Professional Development

This study was focused on how principals manage the professional development of their teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic. This also explored their practices in providing necessary learning opportunities to teachers during the sudden shift of learning modality. In addition, the practices of principals in managing teachers’ professional development have also been investigated. This study utilized the case study method of research using in‐depth semi‐structured topic‐related interviews with principals each from elementary, junior high school and senior high school in a division in the National Capital Region in the Philippines. Despite the sudden disruption in education, the principal assumes the responsibility in managing the teacher professional development through employing practices that are temporary in nature suited to the current situation and needs of the organization. First, the principal plans the management of teacher professional development through strategic planning that involves conducting needs analysis and self-assessment among teachers to identify their priority needs. In addition, consulting and engaging stakeholders during planning helps the principal to set clear goals and objectives in managing the teacher professional development. Second, the principal organizes the teacher professional development to coordinate the available resources and planned activities. During the sudden shift in education delivery, online platforms emerge where principal assures that the gap between the learning delivery and activities are being addressed using these platforms. Third, the principal leads the teacher professional development in dealing with changes brought by the pandemic. Leading enables the principal to focus on innovative practices in the content, delivery, and design of the teacher professional development. The principal controls the teacher professional development through conducting monitoring and evaluation.


INTRODUCTION
The COVID-19 pandemic has created the largest disruption of education systems in history. According to United Nations, the pandemic has affected approximately 1.6 billion learners in more than 190 countries in all continents. Furthermore, 94 % of the world's student population have been impacted by the closures of schools and other learning spaces with up to 99 % in developing countries. The closure also obstructed the delivery of essential educational services including the necessity for updated training in prevailing modalities of educational provisions, as well as teacher professional development support.
In the Philippines, DepEd adhered to the recommendations of UN to (a) curb the transmission of the virus and plan thoroughly for school re-opening, (b) safeguard education financing and coordinate for impact and (c) develop resilient education systems for equitable and sustainable development. This incorporates support for teachers' needs wherein from the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers were quickly entrusted with executing distance learning modalities, frequently without adequate direction, preparation, or resources.
In support to the department's battle cry that education must continue even in the midst of pandemic, DepEd has crafted the Basic Education Learning Continuity Plan (BE-LCP). The BE-LCP aims to prepare teachers and school leaders for different learning delivery modalities in which they shall be capacitated to execute the learning delivery system coherent with DepEd's professional development framework and professional standards. They are presented to learning delivery modalities that they can promptly utilize depending on community setting and be given with tools and mechanisms to illuminate their decision-making. To guarantee the consistent move of learning activities into formats suitable to platforms and learning delivery modalities they adopt, and capacity building is actualized. In giving teachers and school leaders access to on-demand specialized and administrative advice and direction, setting the support mechanisms are required.
In addition, DepEd ensures readiness of school facilities, learners, teaching and non-teaching personnel, school administrators, and the community in time for the school opening. The need for professional development among teachers always exists. Teachers need knowledge and skills for selfunderstanding and professional abilities wherein it can contribute for school's competitiveness.
However, teacher professional development has been disrupted due to prevailing health emergency. The COVID-19 pandemic is causing serious disturbance to educational opportunities. This has affected school systems and processes prompting organization leaders to establish alternative modalities of education during the period of necessary social distancing. Physical distancing measures have interrupted most likely the opportunity of teachers to attend to genuine professional development opportunities as well as the conduct of principal's instructional supervision.
Even during crisis, teachers have the responsibility to pursue professional growth and development. They must be supported so that they can be effective during the sudden shift in learning modality. Principals on the other hand must ensure that they continue to provide teachers with learning opportunities for them to keep up with the changing learning delivery. The disruption in education has impacted the way principals and teachers collaborate with each other and opened opportunities to adapt to changing conditions. Chen (2018) explained that principals' instructional supervision centers fundamentally on making a difference to teachers to reflect on their activities and advancing school improvement through professional advancement. Therefore, professional development is a continuous learning opportunity for teachers to improve quality of education in school. This also empowered principals to effectively manage these learning opportunities and bring innovation which helped teachers improve their quality of teaching that can contribute to achieving school improvement. This study was focused on how principals manage the professional development of their teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic. This also explored their practices in providing necessary learning opportunities to teachers during the sudden shift of learning modality. In addition, the practices of principals in managing teachers' professional development have also been investigated.
This study sought to describe the practices of principals in managing teacher professional development in a school division office in the National Capital Region. To address the main purpose of this study, the researchers sought for answers to the following problem: i. What are the management practices of principals in teacher professional development in times of the COVID-19 pandemic?

LITERATURE REVIEW
School leaders lead the way in ensuring that schools are performing to realize its mission and goals. This can also be attributed to the upgrading of skills for teachers which in return affects the performance of learners. Practices of principals in managing the school is very crucial in the continuous improvement of different areas in the organization.
The findings of Beloy and Villena (2016) uncovered that there are different practices of principals which belong to the four management functions categorized as planning, organizing, leading and controlling for the execution of the K to 12 programs. For the compelling execution of the present curriculum, significant qualities for school heads have developed in these four management functions. In impact, visionary leadership management creativity, readiness, collaboration, and transparency are illustrated to become an effective and proficient school principals.
The practices of principals specifically impact the school climate. Principals endeavor to set up a positive school climate where teachers perform way better, and learners accomplish excellent learning results. The study of Hansen (2016) distinguished common practices where both principals and teachers concurred that these become habits in advancing positive school climate. School leadership practices require all principals to have a collaborative effort to partners both internal and external in accomplishing organizational success. These practices influence the instructional success of teachers and learning outcomes of students. The study of Morgan (2015)  highlighted that the effectiveness of school leadership practices through the arrangement of supportive instruction, coaching, and peer support can impact the development of children at the essential level.
Throughout the years, teacher professional development has been one of the primary concerns of school leaders. Various activities for teacher professional development have been formulated to help teachers achieve both their professional and instructional competence which affects the organizational goals as well as the learning outcomes.
Darling-Hammond, Hyler, Gardner and Espinoza (2017) believed that welldesigned and implemented professional development should be considered an essential component of a comprehensive system of teaching and learning that supports students to develop the knowledge, skills, and competencies they need to thrive in the 21st century. To ensure a coherent system that supports teachers across the entire professional continuum, professional learning should link to their experiences in preparation and induction, as well as to teaching standards and evaluation.
The review of Kalinowski, Gronostaj and Vock (2019) suggested that the forms of PD likely to affect teachers and students are long-term and intensive forms that include multiple learning opportunities aimed at elaborating and practicing newly learned knowledge and strategies, provide practical assistance, enable, and encourage teachers to work together, and consider teachers' needs as well as students' learning processes and home languages.
The findings in the study of Saunders (2014) indicated that the program was successful in supporting teachers to change their instructional practices and beliefs. The professional development program was structured in accordance with research based principles such as (1) stakeholder support was sought and won; (2) the program was implemented over a prolonged period of time to give teachers time to practice and embed new skills (in this case, four years); (3) the program's design incorporated theory, demonstration, practice and feedback and follow up and participants attended in teams and engaged in peer coaching, and (4) content was contextualized, work related and integrated into teachers' learning areas.
The role of the principal in teacher professional development cannot be argued that it has the wider influence in helping teachers to achieve their professional competence. The role of principals in teacher professional The relevance of teachers' professional development has been widely recognized and contributed successfully to educational processes. Gaikhorst (2019) identified two perspectives when talking with the principals about teachers' professional development. First, most conceptualized TPD as consisting of two interdependent parts: personal development and school development which had to be "additive" or "in balance". Second, principals have different perceptions on the end goal of TPD.
The study of Abu-Shreah and Zidan (2017) concluded that the degree of school principals practicing innovation and its relationship with the teachers' professional improvement within the three domains which include: empowering of innovative thoughts, advancing of school environment, and solving of innovative issues. The findings also showed that the degree of schoolteachers' professional development is extraordinary agreeing to the teachers' point of view. The effectiveness of professional development for teachers is the utmost priority of principals. The results in the study of Bayar (2014) demonstrated that any successful professional development activity should comprise: 1) a coordinate to existing teacher needs, 2) a coordinate to existing school needs, 3) teacher inclusion in the plan or design of professional development activities, 4) dynamic engagement opportunities, 5) long-term engagement, and 6) high-quality instructors.
As highlighted by Reimer (2010), principals and teachers reported effective instructional practice and new instructional strategies gained from participating in a research-based professional development experience were shared during grade-level and cross grade-level meetings. The collaborative efforts listed were professional learning community (PLC) groups, study groups, collab time, and team time in the schools. Teaching peers provide instructional support through coaching, mentoring, observing, and team teaching or coteaching.
Principals are the great influencers in the instructional competence of their teachers. Their skills affect the way teachers develop their professional competence. The results in the study of Evertson (2020) indicated that at the school level, principal instructional leadership significantly influenced teacher collaboration, but that the effect was indirect and was fully mediated by teacher-learning based professional development. Koolsriroj, Diteeyont and Sutthinarakorn (2020) believed that the global COVID-19 pandemic has triggered new ways of conducting the teachinglearning process online. For some, this has been a small move but for others, this is a completely new way of education. With the advent of COVID-19, online learning seems to be one of the safest and easiest ways to impart education for acquiring new skills. Online learning is now applicable not only to teach academic subjects but also to conduct extra-curricular activities for students, informative online sessions, online conferences, and webinars.
Fox, Bryant, Lin and Srinivasan (2020) reported that higher education institutions are engaged in a rapid and unprecedented movement to remote teaching and learning that exposed a new cohort of faculty with no prior experience teaching online to the use of digital learning tools and techniques. This transition occurred in the context of emergency remote teaching online versus the careful design and delivery of a course always intended to be delivered online.
On the other hand, Means and Neisler (2020) highlighted that colleges and universities are using the summer to help faculty deepen their understanding of how to improve online learning and how to teach in multiple modalities to keep students and faculty safe and healthy. A significant portion of the training is likely to focus on how to develop better strategies for dealing with inequities across student populations.

METHODOLOGY
This study utilized the case study method of research using in-depth semi-structured topic-related interviews with two (2) principals each from elementary, junior high school and senior high school in a division in the National Capital Region. By taking a qualitative case study method, the researchers could explore the practices of principals in managing teachers' professional development in detail during disruption in education. Baxter and Jack (2008) described case study research as more than simply conducting research on a single individual or situation. This approach has the potential to deal with simple through complex situations. It enables the researchers to answer "how" and "why" type questions, while taking into consideration how a phenomenon is influenced by the context within which it is situated. In selecting the participants of the study, purposive sampling technique was used. It is a non-random procedure that does not require fundamental hypotheses or a set number of participants. In this strategy, the researchers decided what has to be known and sets out to discover participants who can and are willing to supply the data by virtue of knowledge or experience.
To gather the data and information needed in this study, the researchers crafted an interview guide. The interview guide included 14 questions. There were questions that covered the research problem on the management practices of principals in teacher professional development during disruption in education. In addition, the questions in the interview were open-ended to prevent the participants from simply agreeing or disagreeing and guide them to provide a truthful and honest answer. Moreover, the questions were framed in a manner that allowed the participant to feel accepted no matter what the answer is. This made a difference to the participants to venture their sentiments onto others and give exact, honest, and more representative answers.
All the interviews were translated verbatim to avoid interpretation inclination. Each interview was at that point be summarized and sent to the participants for a check on genuineness. Analysis of data was carried out in an iterative way of reading and re-reading of the data, selecting and coding (reduction of data) and showing the data in within-case and cross-case analysis (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Both "in vivo" and "priori codes" were utilized.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
This section describes the management practices of six principals in teacher professional development in times of COVID-19 pandemic. These management practices involved Fayol's four commonly accepted management functions (planning, organizing, leading, and controlling).

A. Planning
The first management function involves planning. It enables the principal in creating a plan to meet the goals and objectives of school as well as the preparations necessary for teacher professional development. goals. The process also involved ensuring that the plans made fit into the changing internal and external environment. This is relevant to making plans for teacher professional development that suit to the sudden shift in learning delivery modality brought by the pandemic.

Stakeholders' Engagement and Consultation
Principal A highlighted the significance of engaging and consulting the stakeholders in the planning process. Listening to their suggestions made the plan doable with clear defining goals that fit to the needs of teachers for their professional growth and development. Getting their feedback through engaging them in the planning process such as the focus group discussion could entail success in the decision-making. Stakeholders' consultation is a crucial part in planning since it created understanding of how the professional development worked which benefited them as well as the school principal.

Needs Analysis
Needs of the teacher were taken into consideration by Principal B in the planning of teacher professional development. The planning team of the school headed by Principal B had conducted a survey to identify the priority needs of teachers in their professional growth and development during disruption in education. To ensure that the available resources would not go into waste, analyzing the needs of teachers should be conducted. Their needs served as the requirement for upgrading their skills and competencies through conducting a training program. Mahmud, Saira and Arif (2019) stated that emphasis should be given to conducting needs analysis in the organization on a regular basis. Prior to this, it is exceptionally significant to examine the needs of teachers in their training so that fundamental data can be collected from them with a high level of accuracy. Processes should be taken in a way that it cannot make any intemperate pressure to teachers wherein enough time should be given to them to get important answers.

Initiating Self-Assessment
Principal D highlighted the utilization of self-assessment tool during planning activity in the professional development of teachers. Selfassessment provided inputs on effective planning and decision-making for teachers' professional growth and development. The result of the selfassessment of teachers facilitated communication between the principal and the teacher. Therefore, principals were able to set clear and definite goals in managing the professional development of teachers during disruption in education. Ross and Bruce (2007) argued that the arrangements of a self-assessment tool added to teacher development by: (1) impacting the teacher's meaning of greatness in teaching and expanding one's capacity to perceive mastery encounters; (2) helping the teacher select improvement objectives by furnishing with clear standards of teaching, freedom to discover gaps among wanted and real practices, and a menu for action; (3) empowering correspondence with the teacher's peer; and (4) hoisting the impact of outside change agents on teacher practice.

B. Organizing
The second management function is organizing. Activities and resources in managing teacher professional development was streamlined or put into order. This is necessary for the process of providing teacher professional development to become simpler and more efficient.  Organizing the available resources for the planned activities or programs in teacher professional development Activity Linking Connecting the planned activities to the available resources

Technology Support
Utilizing technology to support the planned activities

Platform Modification
Modifying the identified platform to suit the planned activities and available resources

Resource Coordination
All principals believed that the availability and allocation of resources for professional development greatly affect its delivery and outputs. These resources include human, financial, material, technology, and time. Professional development activities and programs required these resources to achieve the learning goals set during the planning activity. Coordinating these resources with stakeholders could increase the quality of outputs enabling better decisions in the conduct of professional learning.

"I usually create professional development team in my school involving the master teachers and grade level chairmen under my supervision to assess teachers on their needs professionally. I also consider the observations I do in crafting the matrix of the professional development training along with its action plan for me to really extend my technical assistance towards my coteachers through series of trainings and meetings." (Principal A)
To support this, the findings in the study of Akiba, Wang and Liang (2015) revealed that the relationship between organizational assets and quantitative such as total amount and time span as well as qualitative highlights that include dynamic and arrangement of high-quality professional development appeared that the changes in organizational assets that school mathematics teachers have gotten were essentially related with the changes in their interest in high-quality professional development over the three-year period.

Activity Linking
Both Principal A and B highlighted that professional development activities should be linked to teacher preparedness during the sudden shift in educational platforms. These activities are necessary in ensuring that principals have effectively planned the professional learning of teachers based on their needs and abilities. In addition, professional development activities should be conducted according to school setting especially that the school is experiencing sudden changes in educational learning delivery.

Technology Support
Principal C gave emphasis on the role of technology as an important resource in managing teacher professional development. Technology is used to enhance professional development of teachers because of its practicality especially with the current situation where learning took place through digital platforms. It could also provide cost-effective ways in conducting activities which include mentoring and coaching where it contributed to the professional growth and development of teachers.
"The professional development of teachers is creatively performed; no financial budget is allotted except for internet accessibility. If teachers cannot access the internet in their house, they can come to school to utilize its internet." (Principal D) McAleavy (2018) believed that professional development, interceded by technology, can directly engage teachers, and circumvents the often-cited weaknesses of off-site workshops and the indirect cascade model. Moreover, face-to-face coaching models are viable yet costly; technology offers the chance of considerably more financially savvy distance models of training.

Platform Modification
As online platforms became useful during the sudden shift in educational landscape, Principal E believed that there should be modification of available platforms to be used in conducting professional development to teachers. This is related to the findings in the study of Milliken (2019) which revealed that the asynchronous nature of many online professional learning platforms adds another layer of adaptability as participants may self-pace their advancement, purposefully moving through content at an individualized speed. Likewise, an online platform may end up being a suitable solution as virtual training takes into consideration a more far reaching, adaptable, and differentiated insight for participants.

C. Leading
The third management function is leading. It is setting the management of teacher professional development to grow through leading and motivating the people in the organization. It is also used to introduce innovations in their school especially that distance learning has been chosen as the learning delivery modality in the new normal. Motivating teachers in accepting the changes in teacher professional development

Content Focus
Teacher professional development is based on essential contents

Learning Delivery
Shifting the delivery of teacher professional development from traditional to digital

Design Development
Designing effective TPD programs suited to the current situation

Managing Change
All principals stressed that the content of professional development should focus on curriculum so that they knew how best to teach it. Engaging teachers to actively involved in focusing curriculum content during the pandemic is necessary to achieve the desired pedagogical skills.
"This new normal, all of us are learners and we need to learn everything to unlearn or reskill ourselves, so I believe in the theory of improvement. Every time we need to improve. There is no such a perfect thing in implementing the management of a certain school even though you are a seasoned school head." (Principal B) Moreover, contents in using digital resources in the professional development of teachers were also introduced to accommodate the learning gaps in curriculum contents and pedagogical skills.

Content Focus
All principals stressed that the content of professional development should focus on curriculum so that they knew how best to teach it. Engaging teachers to actively involved in focusing curriculum content during the pandemic is necessary to achieve the desired pedagogical skills. Moreover, contents in using digital resources in the professional development of teachers were also introduced to accommodate the learning gaps in curriculum contents and pedagogical skills.

Learning Delivery
During the pandemic, principals thought on how teachers should be provided with professional development that would enable them to respond to the changing landscape in education. From the usual face to face professional development to distance learning delivery, both had utilized online platforms in the managing the delivery of professional development activities. The delivery of teacher professional development has been affected by the pandemic.
"During disruption in education, we localize the teacher development program based on the content, delivery, and design. We give technical assistance to teachers. Because of the pandemic now, we go down to the community level". (Principal B) Principals had managed to shift into online learning delivery in catering to the needs of their teachers for their professional growth and development as well as overcoming the challenges in the current situation. With this, Dreesen, et al. (2020) emphasized that education systems require a 'Plan B' for secure and successful learning delivery when schools are suddenly closed longing for flexible frameworks with resources and redundancies that can be leveraged when core delivery models are disturbed.

Design Development
With the unprecedented school closures brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, principals immediately designed professional development programs and activities for teachers not to be deprived in learning and updating themselves. Their design of professional development programs and activities corresponded with the current situation from setting the goals to utilizing virtual platforms.
"Apparently, those who are good at other things but lacking in using online platforms, we grouped them to discuss more on the platforms. Those who seem to be discouraged as if it is very difficult, we have for mental health awareness, of course, psychosocial webinars vary from group to group. We Principals were able to manage the design of teacher professional development by integrating the needs of their teachers during the sudden shift in educational landscape. Designing the professional development during pandemic should integrate available resources such as access to online platforms.

D. Controlling
The fourth management function is controlling. Refining involved the determination of effectiveness of management practices in teacher professional development. Principal A explained that successful simulation of classes, virtual observation of classes and effective delivery of instruction from teachers through learners' output were his bases in determining the effectiveness of his management practices.

Descriptions Monitoring and Evaluation
Implemented TPD programs are monitored and evaluated to identify their effectiveness

Sustaining Effectiveness
Maintaining the effectiveness of TPD programs and activities

Feedback Mechanism
Gathering of feedbacks regarding the implementation of TPD programs Quality Assurance Providing effective learning experience through ensuring the quality of TPD programs

Monitoring and Evaluation
In determining the effectiveness of teacher professional development practices, principals agreed that monitoring and evaluation played a crucial role in finding how teachers perceived the professional development activities during the disruption in education. Considering the extraordinary responsibility and role of school head during pandemic, it is inevitable for them to monitor the implementation of professional development programs and activities to achieve cyclical process of planning, implementing and evaluation. To support this, findings in the study of Tot (2014) examined that professional effectiveness of teachers has only partially evaluated based on teaching quality and students' accomplishments, most of them with more prominent agreement of school management's considered capability for planning and execution of self-evaluation as an imperative constituent of teacher's competence.

Sustaining Effectiveness
In sustaining the effectiveness of teacher professional development, Principal A and B believed that their practices must be sustained since the situation is uncertain. One cannot deny the fact that pandemic brought uncertainty especially to the conduct of professional development of teachers. Because of this, Principal A and B planned, implemented, and monitored activities and programs suited to the current situation. The most important thing is the sustainability of the practices being managed by principals for teachers to continue aiming for their professional growth and development.
"We are all learning; we are all starting to learn so there are ways to change. By means of verification, the core group is validating the sustainability of practices into an effective management of PD". (Principal A)

Feedback Mechanism
Providing feedback to teachers is an important step in determining their development in participating to professional development activities. Principal E explained that updating teachers through feedback mechanism on their performance is necessary during the COVID-19 situation. This is to let teachers know that they are on the right path in the conduct of their professional development. Thurlings, Vermeulen, Kreijns and Stijnen (2014) developed the Teacher Feedback Observation Scheme (TFOS) to recognize input designs, which approaches feedback as a multidimensional interaction. The TFOS gained experiences into the adequacy of feedback and gave data in regard to the circumstances in which potential intercessions can be embraced if input is declining and getting insufficient.

Quality Assurance
The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated the conduct of teacher professional development fully online. Principal F emphasized that there should be quality assurance in professional development activities conducted online. This is to ensure that teachers received quality learning experience through participating in effective professional development.
"We are all learning; we are all starting to learn so there are ways to change. By means of verification, the core group is validating the sustainability of practices into an effective management of PD". (Principal F) Zuhairi, Raymundo and Mir (2020) revealed that it stayed to be perceived how the shape of higher education and online learning keeps on changing for the long term in the post-COVID-19 pandemic, and it is sure that quality assurance (QA) stayed at the frontline to guarantee that the assumptions of students and partners can be surpassed. It rested with individual foundations and the attitudes and uprightness of the online distance learning (ODL) human resource to persistently improve the quality ODL provision and the ability to adjust and adequately react to interruptions, for example, the COVID-19 pandemic and further future difficulties.

CONCLUSION
Despite the sudden disruption in education, the principal assumes the responsibility in managing the teacher professional development through employing practices that are temporary in nature suited to the current situation and needs of the organization. First, the principal plans the management of teacher professional development through strategic planning that involves conducting needs analysis and self-assessment among teachers to identify their priority needs. In addition, consulting and engaging stakeholders during planning helps the principal to set clear goals and objectives in managing the teacher professional development. Second, the principal organizes the teacher professional development to coordinate the available resources and planned activities.
During the sudden shift in education delivery, online platforms emerge where principal assures that the gap between the learning delivery and activities are being addressed using these platforms. Third, the principal leads the teacher professional development in dealing with changes brought by the pandemic. Leading enables the principal to focus on innovative practices in the content, delivery, and design of the teacher professional development. The principal controls the teacher professional development through conducting monitoring and evaluation. The feedbacks from the teachers gathered through quality assurance are important in sustaining the effectiveness of the practices employed by the principal in teacher professional development during disruption in education.