"Every Day"

What you do every day matters more than what you do every 
once in a while. Review your goals and expectations. Add “every day” to the end of the statement and do it. Doing something every day versus every once in a while is the difference between good and great.

If your goal is to get into teacher's classrooms, then do it every day.  If your goal is to provide specific feedback at the time of the teaching, then do it every day.  Choose to be great because it's contagious.   

Something to think about.

Zeros Teach Responsibility

When I was in school many years ago, I remember a few students who frequently were given zeros for incomplete assignments throughout their elementary, middle school, and high school career.  Twenty years later, these same students grew up to become adults who cannot hold a job; who are unorganized; and who are extremely irresponsible.  According to some educators, these people should now be the most responsible people in the world.

Great teachers focus on mastery and a zero just isn't going to cut it.  In many cases, a zero reflects two people who failed in the classroom.

Something to think about.

A Window Into the Classroom

Many times, grading papers and student projects is something a teacher does in isolation.  In other words, no one other than the teacher sees the student’s work.  What if analyzing student work became a collaborative process in your school?  How would looking at student work provide a clear window into the classroom?  As we transition to more rigorous standards in my state, we have been collecting student outcomes to analyze the quality of lessons and units intended to address these new standards and expectations.

After our first semester of collecting and analyzing student outcomes, I have come to the following conclusions:

• Teachers are spending more time planning and preparing each lesson.
• Teachers are hoping to learn about the effectiveness of their own instruction.
• Teachers are gaining a better understanding of how students learn.
• Teachers are developing more effective assessment types that also measure application and conceptual understanding.
• Teachers who assign the highest quality work get it from their students.
• The amount of trust is increasing among teachers and school leaders.

Principals play a critical role in setting the expectation and must monitor the process and most importantly, recognize a successful student outcome when they see it.  The questions you must prepare yourself to address include:

• How often do you expect these teams of teachers to collaboratively plan and examine evidence of student learning?
• What do you want the end product(s) to look like?  How do you communicate this to teachers?
• How can teachers demonstrate that they have used this information to make the kinds of instructional decisions that would result in improved student achievement?

Viewing teacher lesson plans provide teacher intentions, however, analyzing student work will unveil what was actually learned.  This is one of the first steps in shifting the focus from teaching to a focus on learning.

We are using the Tri-State/EQuIP Rubric to evaluate the quality of lessons and units intended to address the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics and ELA/Literacy.

Invoke Behavior

When it comes to change, which happens first…… a change in behavior or a change in belief?  This is an important question if you’re on a quest to see new ideas become reality in every classroom. In my experience, those who believe a change in belief comes first, end up talking about the same ideas year after year. On the contrary, those leaders who work to change behaviors end up opening the minds of their teachers resulting in a culture that sparkles with innovation, creativity, and a passion for learning.

Recently during a twitter chat, the following question came about: If you’ve been a part of an innovative school, what caused it to be innovative?

I responded:

You see, the leader within this particular building created a culture of innovation by answering the relevant question… why?  For instance: Why technology integration is important.  Why failure must be viewed as a success in learning. Why it's important for educators to take responsibility for their own learning. You get the idea.  The leader put specific, timely action plans or SMART goals in place that resulted in all teachers engaging in new behaviors.  After experiencing the effectiveness of such behaviors, we soon changed our belief.  Before long, we were all closing the gap between what we knew and what we actually did.

For some reason, almost intuitively, it seems like belief is a precondition to action.  Instead, let’s invoke a change in behavior.  Learning is useless if it isn't applied. Reading a recipe book is not the same as picking up a utensil and cooking.  Let’s work to get others cooking something new.  Who knows.... they just might like it!  

Are you the two boys talking about it or are you a Mikey and willing to take risks and try something new?  Something to think about.

Learning Is A Consequence of Thinking

How do YOU take responsibility for your own learning?  How do YOU continuously grow the gap between what you know and what you do?  How often do YOU think about your own art of teaching? What do YOU do as a result of those thoughts?  These are questions that I ask when interviewing and searching for the best of the best.  Many candidates respond with a blank stare and struggle with recalling the last educational article, book, or video they’ve read or watched.

Great teachers take responsibility for their own learning and do not wait for their district to tell them when and what to learn.  Most school districts are limited to five professional development days throughout the school year and I believe to be the very best, critical, creative, and reflective thinking must happen daily.  If learning is a consequence of thinking, then think.  Our students are depending on you.

How would YOU respond to such questions?  If you find it difficult, then it’s time to change the wayYOU learn.

“Change how you learn first. Once you change, you won’t be able to go back to teaching the same old way.” ~ Stephen Downes

Please comment and list those connected educators who not only cause you to think daily, but many times differently.  As summer approaches, it’s time we fortify and strengthen our own PLN.

Fostering A Continuous Gap Between What We Know and What We Do

As we already know, a gap exists between what we know and what we do.  Successful educators work to narrow this gap between new ideas and implementation.  However, I believe the size of this gap does not necessarily indicate one’s success.  Some educators are terrific at executing what all they know how.   The problem is, their pedagogy is out-of-date, irrelevant, and this gap has been stagnant for many years.  On the other hand, there are educators who engage in twitter, who subscribe to RSS readers such as Google Reader and Bloglines, who create personalized online magazines through tools such as Zite and Flipboard, and who curate content through platforms such as Scoop.it and Paper.li.  These educators have an enormous amount of growing knowledge. 

As leaders, which educator do you desire for your building?  The answer is easy but fostering such a gap takes intentional purpose on the part of the leader.

Fostering Knowledge

• Recognize what your teacher wants to learn, as well as, what they need to learn.  Then, spark their curiosity.
• Assist teachers in developing a strong PLN by introducing content specific educators who are both like-minded as well as those with differing viewpoints.
• Assist teachers in curating content by creating an RSS reader and/or personalized magazine.
• Assist teachers in subscribing to publications such as Education Week, Edutopia, Teaching Channel, E-School News, etc…

Fostering Doing

• Embed time for teachers to develop new knowledge and on the job learning opportunities.
• Urge teachers to take the time to practice what they learn. Knowledge is power only when we use it.
• Commend good mistakes when risks are taken and lessons are learned.
• Invite regular reflection. Encouraging teachers to establish a personal learning blog that documents what they learn is one of the simplest but most rewarding and valuable approaches.

As leaders, it is important to grow and maintain our own gap between what we know and what we do.  Otherwise, it will be difficult to assist teachers and be the lead learner within your school.

This is a working document.  Please share other strategies to fostering this important gap to remaining relevant in the classroom.  

Cross-posted at Connected Principals

Dear Principals,

What if you were to ask your faculty and staff within your building this one question:

Who do you view as the instructional leader in our building?

Who do you think they would say?
Better question, who do you know they would say?

Something to think about.