Transformative Principal

I've got some exciting news to share with you.... But first, a little context. The last few months have been pretty exciting. I've started a student driven learning newsletter in partnership with ASCD. I spoke at the ReWire conference in New Jersey. I've been at FETC this week, and have some amazing interviews coming out on the podcast soon. The podcast is at 600,000 downloads for its six-year anniversary. (click here to get an email each Sunday when it is released!) I am a New Team Habits Champion! My wife and I have started coaching families on how to set goals in a family setting! How cool is that? I'm giving a keynote at a conference in February, more details soon... And here's the big news: At the end of this school year I will be leaving Fairbanks and start supporting principals directly full time through the mastermind, speaking, and consulting. I'm pretty excited about our new adventure, and I hope that I can work with you! If you've got a need for a speaker in the next six months, please reach out.  

This is an amazing story of how Kimberly's district set them up for success so they could find time for the important things in life. What a cool and unique approach.  Kimberly Dixon is principal in Toronto Took a year off to take some coursework. Mother had supported her at the beginning of her career. Lacking balance. Four over 5. Paid 80% over four years then paid 80% for fifth year. Typically accept about a dozen people for that in our district. Became principal and started coursework to become a superintendent at the same time. I realized I had been working really hard so travel was definitely a goal. I had to operate within the parameters of Principal of a summer school program in South Korea, kids met in South Korea and then went to the Philippines. Be present as a mother and take care of myself. The year was very unplanned. School seems very Eurocentric, but our schools are so diverse. Families are always excited The balance needed in life to be your best. Without balance, we run into issues of burno

  Turner is the principal of Tristate State Christian Academy in Elkton Maryland. Rewire conference - really powerful conference in New Jersey It’s easy to get the ideas of a person by reading their blogs or listening to a podcast Most recent fascination is Disney. Disney does this better than anyone else in the world. Creating Disney Magic podcast. Parents are church leaders and they read diverse materials. We are all aiming for the same thing: becoming great leaders The one thing podcast interview referenced. The Way Of The Shepherd book. Building a Storybrand book. businessmadesimple.com Becoming Your Best: The 12 Principles of Highly Successful Leaders How to be a transformative principal? Check in on your teachers because you care Work with Jethro We're so grateful to our sponsor AI Coach by Edthena. AI Coach enables your teachers to go through coaching cycles based on their own needs. The virtual coach guides teachers to reflect on their teaching, set a goal, and create an action plan… all base

Tessa works with teenagers, and has decided to take on parenting from a new perspective.   While patiently waiting for her book’s completion "For the Sake of Our Youth: A Therapist's Perspective on Raising Kids in Today's Culture" (due to hit the shelves Spring 2020) Tessa coaches and presents to parents her research on today’s teen depression, anxiety and suicide rate focusing on parent/child connection. You can connect with her at her website Tessastuckey.com or follow her on instagram @themomtherapist. Why she wanted to work with teens and parents. Kids came to me with suicidal thoughts. It scared me that they were going to grow up in a world where suicide was so common. 6 cultural influences that are happening in today’s world. Social Trend - people see it and so they think it. Not being balanced with appropriate preventative care. Immediate gratification - everything is just a click away. Teaching our kids how to struggle. There is no instant fix for an emotional hardship. You have to think a little u

Rachel Brown is a Curriculum, Instruction, & Professional Growth Strategist for Douglas County School District. Power in the missed opportunities You have the power of leading culture in your building. Even the opportunity of saying hello to a kid is really powerful. Each teacher had to own making a positive interaction with each child. When things were going unsaid, they festered Confronting with Kindness the things you don’t say could have a big impact on the climate and culture. Emotional intelligence - Elena Aguilar work on the art of coaching teams. Have to get rid of your ego, go in in a way that you open yourself up like a book. Buy the Communication Cards We didn’t do our best work. Kids couldn’t tell who was the principal New principal was very communicative and it changed the culture. How to be a transformative principal? This is a rough time for some kids and you can take the time to be an impactful person and not miss the opportunity to make a little adjustment to make your school feel like t

Adam Bellow is a dedicated educational technologist and father of two young boys. Adam is the co-founder of Breakout EDU, the immersive gaming platform that enables teachers and students to turn their classrooms into a place of discovery and inquiry based learning. Today we will be talking about learning with AI. How AI will play into education. Metacognitive piece - technology is serving our needs. Really helpful to a teacher. Empowering kids to get access to their own information before you. Building a voice profile. The use of the tool will have to outweigh the fears we have of it. You likely have an assistant available. My kids are very comfortable with robots. Game Designer Askmyclass Giving them the open-endedness is really powerful. as we look at school as more than just work-produced. How to be a transformative leader? Have a conversation with a small group of students We're so grateful to our sponsor AI Coach by Edthena. AI Coach enables your teachers to go through coaching cycles based on their ow

Dwight Carter is an award-winning school leader from Central Ohio. He believes reflection is at the heart of our practice and encourages principals, teachers, and students to focus on personal skill development to create the optimal conditions for learning to take place. Because of his collaborative and innovative leadership as a principal, he inducted into the Jostens Renaissance Educator Hall of Fame in 2010, he was named a 2013 National Association of Secondary School Principals Digital Principal of the Year, the 2014 Academy of Arts and Science Education High School Principal of the Year, and the 2015 Ohio Alliance of Black School Educators Principal of the Year. Register for the Future of Educational Technology conference here. Teaching in disruptive times. Mark Wright - coauthor of book. reforms are occurring in a shorter amount of time. How to handle disruptions 3–5 years for an initiative to stick but turnover is huge. How to deal with disruptive events? Cope Adjust Transform So many pathways to gr

My Grandma’s Kitchen with Dr. A. Katrise Perera and Dr. Kimberly Miles Transformative Principal 307 Social Media: Learning should be joyful. - @afewthingsworth Dr. A. Katrise Perera peers acknowledge her commitment, her dedication, her courageous leadership and for being an “equity warriorette.” In 2015, the National Association of School Superintendents (NASS) named her the National Superintendent of the Year. Before being recruited and hired by the Gresham-Barlow School District (Oregon) in May of 2017, she served in a variety of school leadership positions in Virginia, Texas, and as an executive leader with McGraw-Hill Publishing Company. Dr. Kimberly Miles is principal of East Gresham elementary, a turnaround principal and voracious reader. In this episode we will discuss equity in leadership and how to have joyful moments. Be determined. Perspectives of many other experiences. Equity in a school system is that it involves more than just a student and a teacher. Giving kids what they need when they need.

Katie Novak, Ed.D. is an internationally renowned education consultant as well as a practicing leader in education as an Assistant Superintendent of Schools in Massachusetts. With 15 years of experience in teaching and administration, an earned doctorate in curriculum and teaching, and 3 books published by CAST Professional Publications, Katie designs and presents workshops both nationally and internationally focusing on implementation of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and universally designed leadership. Today we talk about her book with George Couros, Innovate Inside the Box. UDL what is it? Multiple means of engagement multiple means of representation multiple means of action and expression Universal design stolen from architecture. The traditional model of education is there is “one way to do it.” We’re making content accessible as retrofits for really inaccessible lessons. Dinner party. Engagement is equal parts commitment and attention. Enrollment vs. engagement. When things get touch, I know how

In this Jolt episode, Sarah Johnson shares about the transformative power of practicing gratitude for ourselves as well a those around us. She shares research alignment, stories, and illustrates points from stories features during the month of November on the In AWE Podcast.  Check out the The In AWE Podcast or In AWE Website Engage with Sarah at Sarah’s Website Resources for Gratitude: The Transformative Power of Gratitude Huffington Post Four Gratitude Strategies Berkeley The It’s Worth It Box We're so grateful to our sponsor AI Coach by Edthena. AI Coach enables your teachers to go through coaching cycles based on their own needs. The virtual coach guides teachers to reflect on their teaching, set a goal, and create an action plan… all based on gathering classroom evidence. It gives support between PD days  and other coaching cycles.Get a free trial for your teachers here.

  TJ Vari and Joe Jones are practicing Superintendents and coauthors of the book “Candid and Compassionate Feedback“. Result of fear of offending people is that it becomes offensive anyway. Ask questions to get them to see what they need to improve. The lack of candor can be what people are offended by. The candor is actually what is compassionate! TJ Turning the corner so your empathy is backed with concrete evidence backed with what to do better. Consistency is key. People are given that advice when they go into schools. Direct, sincere, accurate feedback. Identified the problem. Gave evidence. Provided a solution. Being clear does work. Learning walks are like formative assessments. Are the teachers using the “Goal” in their classroom? As teachers are teaching they’re often not aware of what they’re doing. Joe No way will a teacher ever grow through the formal observation process. We really should be getting into the mindset work among the staff. How to be a transformative principal? TJ: spend your time i

Keara Mascareñaz Managing Partner, Organizational Design at Education Elements. She helps schools and districts focuses build and scale a culture of innovation through leadership development, team habits, and human-centered organizational design. Learning, meeting, projects How do you create the environment of psychological safety? the team that is more effective would be making less mistakes. more comfort to talk about mistakes Amy Edmondson TED talk I didn’t say “I don’t know what I’m doing!“ It can feel high stakes, even though it is not. Two types of leaders: one best ideas should strive - leaders are smarter and make fewer mistakes. Interrogating archetypes. Two books: Multipliers with Liz Wiseman As soon as a speaker starts speaking, everyone stops talking. Here’s my interview with Liz Wiseman. Talking about Failure is crucial for Growth Noticing it is the first step to change. It’s hard to make big shifts. What foundation have I laid and signal have I given to my team about this? “I’ve had good idea

A Story about Fish with Danny Bauer and Dr. Kelly Crane Transformative Principal 302 Social media: All of us are better than any of us. Danny Bauer and Kelly Crane are co-conspirators of Better Leaders Better Schools What do principals need to know about being a superintendent. Legal, politics, finance. Network. How to start acting as if. All of us are better than any of us. When you’re so close to the situation, it is really hard to see. Instructional leadership knowledge. Following through. Being authentic. Empathy when visiting Vulnerability. Radical listening. The mastermind is a sacred space. You gotta learn from the mistakes of others. How to be a transformative principal? Danny: Join a PLN! Kelly: be vulnerable when it is necessary. We don’t know it all and we have to reach out to others.   We're so grateful to our sponsor AI Coach by Edthena. AI Coach enables your teachers to go through coaching cycles based on their own needs. The virtual coach guides teachers to reflect on their teaching, set a go

Adam Fachler has a proven process for planning amazing lessons. Take the  EMPOWER Method for planning amazing lessons. We are all searching! Little quality control Making inquiry method a little less messy. Envision - see the end in mind. Map - simplifies a complex process. Prime - prior knowledge, emotional aspect of learning Orient Walkthrough Explore Reflect Teachers’ time to plan is too little. Yes this does take time. Whether you win in your classroom is decided well before you enter the classroom. Do this at the unit level - a time investment. Crystalize your learning outcome in a GEM: goal, evidence, measure of success. You are envisioning a destination for them. Mapping the path to mastery. School in the Square How to be a transformative principal? Start from the beginning, what’s the GEM for your upcoming unit? We're so grateful to our sponsor AI Coach by Edthena. AI Coach enables your teachers to go through coaching cycles based on their own needs. The virtual coach guides teachers to reflect o

Here's some excitement: Episode 300! I give updates on my professional life, the podcast, and more! Tune in! Link to my speaking page We're so grateful to our sponsor AI Coach by Edthena. AI Coach enables your teachers to go through coaching cycles based on their own needs. The virtual coach guides teachers to reflect on their teaching, set a goal, and create an action plan… all based on gathering classroom evidence. It gives support between PD days  and other coaching cycles.Get a free trial for your teachers here.

Dr. Grayson Maas is the Director of Communications for the Art of Problem Solving, a unique solution to teaching math anytime, anywhere. Talking about dissertation - how we create scientific knowledge as a society - who can become a scientist and who cannot. Scientific knowledge and how it gets created. It’s no secret that there’s underrepresentation in science. What is funneling certain groups towards science and what is not? Science for all Tests measure what we value. Tests can be an unreliable indicator. It’s a common experience that the scores you got on classes and tests to tell you if you’re smart. All those tests are telling you, “are you good at that instrument on that day?” Extremely difficult to identify high-ability kids from disadvantaged backgrounds. Ability grouping is not a bad thing for the kids in the high group. Kids know who is in different groups. We need to reconfigure the labels we use. For us to lose sight of kids that don’t get extra opportunities is not working for those kids. It’s

I am super excited whenever I get to talk with Will Parker, and today is no different. Today we are tackling three questions that principal listeners have shared with us from our podcasts, covering these topics:   What to do if or when your teachers give you the cold shoulder about learning something new.  How to manage student dynamics in competency-based instruction.  Ways to measuring student growth in Social Emotional Learning settings.   Listen-in for the complete conversation.   Questions for Jethro and Will:   1. My teachers give me the cold shoulder when I try to introduce them to new ways of teaching. What should I do?   Jethro and I discuss the following: Modeling for teachers Observation of other teachers What is he/she doing well already? Praise first, then instruct. Lead with the question, “Where do you want to grow?” Creating an enviornment where teachers ask for help Celebrating innovative teaching Learning to say yes before saying no   2. How do you make sure that stu

Akhil is the business development manager at ChargePoint, a fast-growing start-up in the San Francisco Bay Area that provides electric vehicle charging solutions to businesses. Prior to ChargePoint, he spent 5 years in the clean tech and consumer mobile app spaces. Akhil is an alumnus from the 2010 Conrad Challenge, where his finalist team from the North Carolina School of Science and Math designed a latticed pod system that generated electricity from wave energy using internally-housed piezoelectric ceramics. Register for the Conrad challenge here * North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics * Didn’t know what I wanted to do. * Always wanted to be a doctor and ended up doing a ton of work in environmental areas. * Starting out with very little information. * Students start from two different places. * 1. Technology they are really excited about. * 2. We have a group of students really passionate about a specific problem and start to ideate about how to solve that problem. * We knew we wanted to build a

  Jayme Hull helps schools and churches make millennial friendly environments. She also mentors millennials so that they can be successful. Check out her free resource for principals at her web site. They want to be connected and work somewhere they can make an impact. They have heard their parents talk about how bored or angry they are at work. Very few parents and grandparents were actually happy. The fear of change is strong! Millennials don’t even have the choices like they had in the past. More than 50% cannot stay where they grew up to find work. Completely consumed with staying up on the digital happenings are. They have to be learning or they’ll lose their jobs. You give and you receive. Build a relationship first. Mentorships are really beneficial for millennials. Care about the person first, not what you can get from them. We’ve forgotten how to encourage our new teachers. Make sure they have downtime Their deepest heart’s desire is to have a desire. The millennial are a gift to us. They are demand

  Michael Horn is the co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute and author of Blended and Disrupting Class, and the new book coming out this week called “Choosing College!”, which is the book we are talking about today! The book is about more than just choosing college, right? Tell me about that. There are a few stats about college that are just appalling, so many people not finishing, so much debt. Why do we still support it? boost in wages, employers require it. military or college! Personally fulfilling A lot of people don’t know. What language do people use to describe what they did. A lot more students should be taking a gap year. Working on the newspaper in high school. Let’s talk about quality assurance. I hear people give advice that it doesn’t matter at all where you go or what you major in. What’s the value I’m getting from this experience? We don’t have enough data while we do have too much data! I am not a historian, even though my major was history. We don’t know what we don’t know. We hav