I attended a 2 hour conference presentation by Todd Whitaker tonight on Evaluating Teachers to Improve Instruction. I will not blog about everything from the session, but will hit on a few key points that include an exercise for you to complete as a school administrator.
Before you read any more of this blog, I ask that you think about the classrooms in your building and reflect on what instructional practices you want to see more of? What would you like to see less of? Actually stop right now, take out a piece of paper and write a 2 column list.
Did you make a list?
Now, what is on your list? You may have some common practices as I do. My "want to see more of" list includes: differentiation, a focused lesson objective with student mastery, formative assessment, active engagement, use of technology, co-teaching with special education staff, students reading independently (at their reading levels), and higher level questioning/problem solving.
My "want to see less of" list includes: wasted time, round-robin reading, isolating special education students, worksheets and the teacher sitting at the desk.
As you look at your list of "want to see more of," why aren't your teachers already using these instructional practices in their classrooms? Are they insubordinate or ignorant? I don't think I've ever met a teacher that did not want to be a good teacher and make a difference in the lives of children, so I hope your answer is not insubordinate. So that leaves us with ignorant as their reason. Ignorant does not necessarily mean the teacher is stupid, but just that they don't know. For example, a teacher with classroom management issues isn't choosing to have poor classroom management. I doubt that any teacher would really want to have kids misbehaving, interrupting instruction and leaving them to pull their hair out. If they knew how to have good classroom management, they would! Our job as leaders is to teach the teachers. All of those instructional strategies you listed as what you want to see more of in the classrooms...that is your job to teach your teachers.
Do not feel overhwelmed if your list is as long as mine; you need to pick one focus at a time and think through how you're going to teach it and reinforce it with your teachers. Todd Whitaker writes and speaks that anytime you are going to change anything, you must teach it "whole-part-whole". First teach all (whole) about it in your Friday Focus or weekly memo (I can never pull mine together by Friday, so it's a Monday memo in my building!). Always pretend that your memo is talking about the past, but it's really about the future...what you want to see teachers doing. For example, if you want to see teachers greeting students in the morning your memo may include: I want to thank you all for doing such a great job of starting your students day out on a positive note by greeting them at the door. The other day I saw a student come off the bus with a grumpy look on his face, but the teacher greeted him and told him how happy he was in school today...I didn't see that grumpy look on his face for the rest of the day. Some of our students come from difficult homes, but are so lucky to have such caring teachers.
Did I really see that particular incident occur last week? No, not exactly, but I do know from my own experience as a teacher and administrator how important it is to start every student's day on a positive note. But now all of my great teachers that are going to continue greeting their students in the morning and those that are not (or they're actually doing the opposite by hounding students the second they enter the classroom) think that "everyone is doing it." If this is your new strategy you're focusing on, then make "new sound normal."
That was the first "whole" teaching. To follow up with "part" start walking around in the morning to see teachers greeting students. If you see a teacher at their desk as students are coming in, walk in the room--I bet they'll stand up and go to greet students. If you find a teacher hounding on a student right away about something, talk to them later that day about it. Continue making your rounds each morning. A few weeks or months later, send out another positive email and this time the little story you share could be a real example from your building!
Make sure to always include your beliefs and great instructional strategies in your weekly memos. Teachers are in the lounge sharing their beliefs each day (ok, you know that was a nice way to say complaining) and if you don't share your beliefs with them publicly then they will start to believe their own!
I would love to hear comments from others that have implemented practices recommended by Todd Whitaker...please comment!
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
The Power of a Data Room
The previous 2 years my superintendent and I talked about having a data wall or data room, but this year we finally made it happen. Being a data-driven geek, I was thrilled to finally have this come to fruition. If you don't know anything about Data Walls, please check out http://www.curriculum.org/secretariat/criticalpathways/datawalls.shtml for a video clip on the Power of Data Walls.
Our data room is in what was previously our speech therapist's office, so it's only big enough to cram in up to 8 people for a meeting. We are K-12 all in one building, so we have one wall for elementary and one wall for for 6-12. At the elementary, we have the wall divided into 3 rows to display student data on Reading Levels (using the DRA at K-3 and Fountas & Pinnell benchmark at 4/5), Reading Lexiles from the Scholastic Reading Inventory in 3-5th grades and Math Quantiles from the Scholastic Math Inventory in 2-5th grades. We have little bulls-eye targets that provide a visual of the end of year benchmark for each grade level. When student magnets are placed on the board, it is very easy to see how many students are below or above the benchmark. The data just jumps out at you!!
On our 6-12 board, we have a row for the Scholastic Math Inventory and Scholastic Reading Inventory up through 9th grades. We also have a row that will be used for tracking where discipline referrals orginiated (i.e. classroom, lunchroom, bus, etc.) with the implementation of PBIS.
As the elementary principal, we have been having our biweekly grade level meetings in the data room and have found it to be extremely useful. The room is a work in progress, but we started out the year with last year's Spring reading levels on and used the additional blank magnets as we decided where to place students for our intervention block, which we are calling WIN Time (What I Need).
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Documenting Walk-throughs
Blog 12 of Spilling Ink Challenge
More on walk-throughs...
I've explored various ways of keeping track of walk-throughs. This past year I used a spreadsheet for each quarter. On the left collumn were all teacher names (organized by grade level, then alphabetically, because that was easiest for me). Then there were 9 collumns...one for each week of the quarter. As I completed a walk-through for each classroom I would record the date in the box for that teacher's row. I liked being able to visually see how many classrooms I had been in for the week or to see how long it had been since I was last in their room. Since my goal is to get into at least 15 rooms a week, I would try to get into each room every other week. This spreadsheet made a great visual for this. I would also circle the date if I gave feedback (verbally or written).
I recently skimmed a book while sitting in Barnes and Noble and want to try something new that I saw. This year I will have a simple spreadsheet with 2 collumns. The left with all staff names and the 2nd collumn being much larger so that I can record a date and some information about the walk-through (ex: "guided reading groups, all on-task... asked tchr about word work center). I will complete a walk-through for each and every teacher, before I complete a walk-through on another teacher and record on a different spreadsheet. I plan to print off 15 of these spreadsheets with the goal of getting into each classroom 15 times next year. I think this system will hold me accountable for not "shying away" from any classrooms (as I've previously discussed) and give me a tool to record what I'm seeing.
More on walk-throughs...
I've explored various ways of keeping track of walk-throughs. This past year I used a spreadsheet for each quarter. On the left collumn were all teacher names (organized by grade level, then alphabetically, because that was easiest for me). Then there were 9 collumns...one for each week of the quarter. As I completed a walk-through for each classroom I would record the date in the box for that teacher's row. I liked being able to visually see how many classrooms I had been in for the week or to see how long it had been since I was last in their room. Since my goal is to get into at least 15 rooms a week, I would try to get into each room every other week. This spreadsheet made a great visual for this. I would also circle the date if I gave feedback (verbally or written).
I recently skimmed a book while sitting in Barnes and Noble and want to try something new that I saw. This year I will have a simple spreadsheet with 2 collumns. The left with all staff names and the 2nd collumn being much larger so that I can record a date and some information about the walk-through (ex: "guided reading groups, all on-task... asked tchr about word work center). I will complete a walk-through for each and every teacher, before I complete a walk-through on another teacher and record on a different spreadsheet. I plan to print off 15 of these spreadsheets with the goal of getting into each classroom 15 times next year. I think this system will hold me accountable for not "shying away" from any classrooms (as I've previously discussed) and give me a tool to record what I'm seeing.
Reflecting on my classroom walk-throughs
Blog 11 of Spilling Ink
I've previously talked about my professional development plan (for state licensure renewal) being focused on using walk-throughs to improve student learning. My goal this year was to get into at least 15 classrooms each week and provide staff with meaningful feedback. When I wasn't inundated with tasks related to my position as District Assessment Coordinator, I did a great job at getting into classrooms, but finding a good way to give meaningful feedback has been a struggle for me. I think the most effective is when the feedback can be given verbally, because it will lead to dialogue between you and the teacher.
In the book, People First, the authors suggest using a staff roster to reflect on how you personally interact with each (writing a D next to those you have daily communication wiht, W for weekly, R for rarely, a star next to names that you regularly call on for extra duties and a check mark next to those teachers meeting expectations. I did this and was disapointed to see that I spend more time talking with my teachers that are meeting expectations, but far less time with those that are not meeting expectations. Shouldn't this be the other way around? Yes, it sure should, but I don't because they are difficult teachers to deal with and it is a lot of work. I am ashamed that I even just said that. My job is to make sure that every student has the best education, so I never want to say that again. Next year, I want to focus on those teachers, get into their rooms frequently and have the conversations that need to be had to improve student learning.
I've previously talked about my professional development plan (for state licensure renewal) being focused on using walk-throughs to improve student learning. My goal this year was to get into at least 15 classrooms each week and provide staff with meaningful feedback. When I wasn't inundated with tasks related to my position as District Assessment Coordinator, I did a great job at getting into classrooms, but finding a good way to give meaningful feedback has been a struggle for me. I think the most effective is when the feedback can be given verbally, because it will lead to dialogue between you and the teacher.
In the book, People First, the authors suggest using a staff roster to reflect on how you personally interact with each (writing a D next to those you have daily communication wiht, W for weekly, R for rarely, a star next to names that you regularly call on for extra duties and a check mark next to those teachers meeting expectations. I did this and was disapointed to see that I spend more time talking with my teachers that are meeting expectations, but far less time with those that are not meeting expectations. Shouldn't this be the other way around? Yes, it sure should, but I don't because they are difficult teachers to deal with and it is a lot of work. I am ashamed that I even just said that. My job is to make sure that every student has the best education, so I never want to say that again. Next year, I want to focus on those teachers, get into their rooms frequently and have the conversations that need to be had to improve student learning.
Reflecting on how I can improve as a leader
Blog 10 of Spilling Ink challenge (Yes, I know I'm way behind and will likely not catch up to meet the 30 posts in June challenge, but at least I'm blogging more than normal).
There is a lot to celebrate at our school in the changes and progress that has been made since I've started as principal. My staff will be the first to tell you that they had 7 years of no leadership so they all did whatever they wanted. (They were also the first to tell me that they weren't used to being told what to do and it would be a challenge for them!) I really think that the success we've had over the past two years can be attributed to my leadership of identifying their strengths and areas of opportunity to improve and communicating that with staff...for the most part they all agreed with what I saw and jumped right on board.
But for this post, I'd like ot take some time to reflect on what I need to improve on as a leader. This may bore others to read, but I'm actually using this as my time to reflect and journal on this, so that I can come back to read this throughout the next school year to remember what I need to improve on.
The first area I feel I need to improve is continuing to build relationships with staff. In the book, People First, the authors recommend taking time for staff relationships, saying that every minute is precious for communicating information. You should take time to get to know each of your staff members and ask them when you can; asking about children, dogs, a trip taken, etc. I've found that my superintendent does this very well, she seems to know everything about everybody and they all LOVE her. Even though I have always been a very social person, I struggle with this as a leader, because at work I am always very focused and about business. The idea of taking the time for small talk is definitely out of my comfort zone when it comes to business during a school day, but as I read about the importance of relationships, I realize how much I really do need to take time for it.
As a new principal, I've come in and made many decisions (on my own and with staff decisions in the leadership team); but I still need to become stronger in my ability to make decisions and stick with them. I often ask myself, "what hill do I want to die on" and will sometimes let some things go with teachers if I'm just not ready for the "battle." After completing 2 days of a data retreat in our district (unfortunately, with only a handful of my staff), after hearing what they had to say, I realize how I really need to "grow a spine" in some areas. The overall message I heard from staff is "we want accountability," "We want all staff to act professionally," and "we want direction." I will give 2 examples of issues that I have shyed away from addressing (but have bothered me personally):
#1 Homework-this has been a big issue in our school...with LOTS of it. At the start of this year I led some discussion on homework, gave some research and asked staff to rethink homework. I had about 75% of staff rethink and significantly decrease their homework and speak highly of this change. The other 25% of staff have not made changes and I bet never will unless being told to. This came up in our data retreat. I have decided that I WILL "die on this hill" and give teachers a directive on homework.
#2 Field trips-we have a couple of grade levels that left far too many students behind on field trips. I questioned it (their high expectations of behavior and homework...there's that H word again!), listened, but didn't verbalize my thoughts on it. In our data retreat, we discussed how rural we are and how many of our kids are not exposed to anything outside of their small community; making those field trips very important for them. So, do we have grade levels leaving behind 30% of their students because their card was flipped once (our discipline system) or they were missing one assignment? This is also an issue that I WILL address next year.
As I think about why I've shyed away from these issues, it is because the teachers that this would involve speaking with are intimidating. This is why I am reading the book "Difficult Conversations" over the summer.
There is a lot to celebrate at our school in the changes and progress that has been made since I've started as principal. My staff will be the first to tell you that they had 7 years of no leadership so they all did whatever they wanted. (They were also the first to tell me that they weren't used to being told what to do and it would be a challenge for them!) I really think that the success we've had over the past two years can be attributed to my leadership of identifying their strengths and areas of opportunity to improve and communicating that with staff...for the most part they all agreed with what I saw and jumped right on board.
But for this post, I'd like ot take some time to reflect on what I need to improve on as a leader. This may bore others to read, but I'm actually using this as my time to reflect and journal on this, so that I can come back to read this throughout the next school year to remember what I need to improve on.
The first area I feel I need to improve is continuing to build relationships with staff. In the book, People First, the authors recommend taking time for staff relationships, saying that every minute is precious for communicating information. You should take time to get to know each of your staff members and ask them when you can; asking about children, dogs, a trip taken, etc. I've found that my superintendent does this very well, she seems to know everything about everybody and they all LOVE her. Even though I have always been a very social person, I struggle with this as a leader, because at work I am always very focused and about business. The idea of taking the time for small talk is definitely out of my comfort zone when it comes to business during a school day, but as I read about the importance of relationships, I realize how much I really do need to take time for it.
As a new principal, I've come in and made many decisions (on my own and with staff decisions in the leadership team); but I still need to become stronger in my ability to make decisions and stick with them. I often ask myself, "what hill do I want to die on" and will sometimes let some things go with teachers if I'm just not ready for the "battle." After completing 2 days of a data retreat in our district (unfortunately, with only a handful of my staff), after hearing what they had to say, I realize how I really need to "grow a spine" in some areas. The overall message I heard from staff is "we want accountability," "We want all staff to act professionally," and "we want direction." I will give 2 examples of issues that I have shyed away from addressing (but have bothered me personally):
#1 Homework-this has been a big issue in our school...with LOTS of it. At the start of this year I led some discussion on homework, gave some research and asked staff to rethink homework. I had about 75% of staff rethink and significantly decrease their homework and speak highly of this change. The other 25% of staff have not made changes and I bet never will unless being told to. This came up in our data retreat. I have decided that I WILL "die on this hill" and give teachers a directive on homework.
#2 Field trips-we have a couple of grade levels that left far too many students behind on field trips. I questioned it (their high expectations of behavior and homework...there's that H word again!), listened, but didn't verbalize my thoughts on it. In our data retreat, we discussed how rural we are and how many of our kids are not exposed to anything outside of their small community; making those field trips very important for them. So, do we have grade levels leaving behind 30% of their students because their card was flipped once (our discipline system) or they were missing one assignment? This is also an issue that I WILL address next year.
As I think about why I've shyed away from these issues, it is because the teachers that this would involve speaking with are intimidating. This is why I am reading the book "Difficult Conversations" over the summer.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
End of Year Traditions
One very unique part of my school's history is that up until 8 years ago it was 3 separate small/rural schools. At that point the district consolidated its separate, old/run-down buildings and built one large new building for all of K-12. While there were many benefits to this, it was a lot of animosity between the communities and it also made for interesting staff climate. My first year in the building at some point, I realized there still seemed to be 3 separate groups of staff in the elementary and different grade levels (of staff that previously worked together) carried on their own traditions from their previous schools. I realized how important it is for us to start our own traditions as a whole staff to improve our climate/culture. This is along with trying to make our school welcoming and "family friendly" to our parents/guests.
This year, one tradition that we hoped to begin was an all school picnic on the last day of school (although by "all school" I just mean the elementary...the Middle and High Schools are kept separate from us, despite being under one roof). It took a LOT of planning and hard work from the teachers (I was only involved in a couple of the planning meetings due to my maternity leave...they did ALL the work!) Just one example of the hard work they put into this is that several of them came early on the last day of school to cut up 40 watermelons!! (Not to mention the staff member that filled her van with them and brought them to school) That is TEAMWORK!!
I went in to work for the last day of school events to see them all play out. We had staff members directing traffic. Since we do not have a large parking lot, our teachers parked as far away as possible (on the high school side of the bulding, in the grass). We filled up the parking lot with our guests' cars, plus filled our entire grass field!
Then we had 3 tables lined up with food and staff serving the students/families. We served around 700 people within 30 minutes--I could NOT believe it!! We were almost faster than our lunch program (shhh...don't tell them I said that!) Then we had a full hour for families to visit, play together on the playground and enjoy the beautiful weather.
It was a great new tradition to begin together to enjoy our last day of school before we all say good-bye to each other for the summer.
What end of year traditions do you have at your school?
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
My Summer Reading List
Blog 8 of Spilling Ink Challenge
Summer is a time to rejuvenate...this usually means that I finally catch up on professional reading that I've wanted to do all year long, but didn't find the time for.
Here's my summer reading list:
Difficult Conversations : How to Discuss What Matters Most No matter how many difficult conversations I've had, I always feel like I need more learning in this area.
Implementing Response to Intervention: A Principal's Guide We are just in the beginning stages of RTI at my school and I need to be a leader for RTI.
Classroom Walkthroughs to Improve Teaching and Learning My Professional Development Plan (for licensure renewal) is on using walkthroughs to improve classroom instruction/learning, so this looks like a great book for my own personal professional development.
What's on your summer professional reading list?
Summer is a time to rejuvenate...this usually means that I finally catch up on professional reading that I've wanted to do all year long, but didn't find the time for.
Here's my summer reading list:
Difficult Conversations : How to Discuss What Matters Most No matter how many difficult conversations I've had, I always feel like I need more learning in this area.
Implementing Response to Intervention: A Principal's Guide We are just in the beginning stages of RTI at my school and I need to be a leader for RTI.
Classroom Walkthroughs to Improve Teaching and Learning My Professional Development Plan (for licensure renewal) is on using walkthroughs to improve classroom instruction/learning, so this looks like a great book for my own personal professional development.
What's on your summer professional reading list?
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