Transformative Principal

  Mike Fisher author of Hacking Instructional Design. Shoutout to @elizabethfisher All this stuff that is eating up teachers’ time to plan. Easier to just purchase a program or a plan. Shift focus to contemporary instructional design. Why is it so hard to move away from Decision paralysis. So many decisions to make that we don’t know what to do. How well we need to design assessments. Standards, resources, external assessments. The What - standards The How - activities The How Well? - assessments. Tripticks from AAA Trying things out - gives you some freedom. Being a lead learner is pushed aside to get things done. Right-sizing the work. Allow students to be cocreators in instructional design. Breaking the standard into manageable bits for teachers and for students. Learning targets “standard statement“ with I can in front of it. Help students have high level of mastery. Kids do not care about your grades! Let them be accountable to each other and accountable to the world. How to be a transformative Principa

This is a keynote that I presented for the Alaska Society for Technology in Education Conference in February. Here is the link to the video of it.  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.

  Byron Darnall is the principal of Potter Gray Elementary School in Bowling Green Kentucky Long term sustainable change is slow. How do you improve something that is already successful? Examine the student experience. Who’s school is it? As educators we tend to operate from the center. Busyness is the disease of our time. How are you? Busy! <-bothersome “I would love to, but I’m too busy.“ Am I too busy to get better? How to be less busy? Every day shouldn’t lead to absolute exhaustion. There is nothing easy about it, but we have to be open to finding someone we trust to give us good feedback about our time management Systems thinking - not exposed to it as a teacher or Centralize school-wide communication through a blog. If it matters, it is on the blog. If it can’t be said in 1-2 sentences, it’s a conversation. How to be a transformative principal? Talk to your students and ask them questions. Schedule a call with Jethro Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need a

RTI process for Lyn Marsilio's elementary school. Set a couple goals: know their letters, ICU. 4 rotations, 6 minute rotations Letter writing, letter sorts, tracing, sound sorts. After the first 20 days, graduated kids went back into the classroom. Did a round 2 to add rhyming and took out tactile piece. Taking attendance for kids to see how many times they went to this intervention. Out of the 20 days, some kids only made 14, and so called him to make sure kids Our third round, the teachers are finally seeing why we take data. Kids making the goals early are taking off in other areas because they had those foundational skills. 80% on grade level vs. 40% that were on grade level last year. Narrows down who needs special skills. In the past, title I data has felt like a collection with no meaning. Up until this year, that has been data that we collect, not that we use. Teachers plan it, teacher assistants implement it. 1st grade - 46 kids, three title I teachers are working with these kids. We have seen 84% o

Larry Villiard is the principal of a K-12 school in Bruce Wisconsin. Leadership team, started with 12 people, now we have up to 20 people come to the leadership team meeting each month. Follow up leadership team meeting after PD. Anybody who wants to be part of leadership team can join us. Leadership Meeting norms. Six Step Process Weekly article share at 7:30 Book studies. Tight and loose. Need more time if we are going to teach the curriculum with fidelity. Seniors leave a week earlier than the rest of the student body, so they are going to do a test run with the new schedule. How to be a transformative principal? Have an open mind. Tap into your talented staff. call bruce high school. Schedule a call with Jethro Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need about 2 more hours each day to accomplish everything? Here’s how I help principals work manageable hours: Create your ideal week, so that you can leave work at work and enjoy your life! Please take a moment to rate

  Larry Villiard is the principal of a K-12 school in Bruce Wisconsin. Larry has been there since 1995 Moved from a junior high school to a middle school. About 500 students 2 classes per grade Middle school has a separate schedule from everyone else. Extended core classes 80 minutes long. The staff is the key to making kids successful. How has the PLC approach helped you. Took ideas from the staff to make it successful. Transitions getting kids moving around more. Give kids 20 minutes of homework time during the class period. Lengthened class periods decreased ODRs. A small little man can't make all the decisions. People couldn't believe that people just went about their business when they visited the school. In one school year, we lost superintendent and elementary principal. I was going to be moved out of my comfort zone. They came back like new staff, like new people. A PLC cannot be a set of meetings! A PLC has to become your culture. Take what is working best and eliminate what is not working. Data Day

  Dr. Barbara is Executive Director of The Institute for Childhood Education, a professional development and consulting firm for those who live and work with children. Barbara started rocking abandoned babies when she was in high school in Washington, D.C. First year teaching was in the inner city. The role of spirituality and faith in children. Faith community is a resilience factor. Faith enables us to have connection. Children have innate understanding of God. When you have that child standing in front of you that can sometimes get on your last nerve, ask not what is wrong with you, but what has happened to you? Impacts us at the cellular level. I look at you with compassion for your story. The kids’ history has told them that the world is not a safe place. “Children act out“ in behavior what they do not have the words to say. How much do we need to know about student’s trauma? The trauma determines the impact. The behavior speaks for itself. Need to look at trauma with a broader lens. What happens inside

    Jason Glass is the superintendent of Jeffco Public Schools 85,000 students on the west side of Denver, Colorado. Lots of great people in the district. Community is politically divided 1/3 democrats, 1/3 independent, 1/3 republican When it comes to our kids, it should be an area where everyone can work together. PBS Documentary about the Jeffco recall Things that disturb the balance here get noticed How do we prepare the students for the right future. Green Mountain Youtube Video Changing the student experience through changing the student task Information is really easy to acquire. Problem and project-based learning across the entire organization Three categories of practitioners: those who have always taught in authentic: Allow those teachers to be influencers. Second group is those who see the changes and are willing to engage but don’t know how: provide lots of opportunities for them to see what it looks like. Third group: waiting to see if this is a fad. How do you inspire your leadership to do these

Greg Goins is a former superintendent, principal, teacher and coach who is now the host of the Reimagine Schools Podcast In our Simulcast we talk about the K12 Magnet. Here is the 1 Pager and here is the infographic and here is the video. Sign up for updates about the K12 Magnet school here Reimagine Schools Twitter opened my eyes greatly. Find some life skills. Someone has dealt with a similar problem. School Leadership can be a very isolating profession. Have the courage to have some really difficult conversations. Ask why we are doing the things we are doing. Nothing wrong with starting slow When I was in school. Stop looking at kids as part of groups. Change is the most feared word in education, but we need to embrace it. Being highly innovative is a scary proposition for many people. How to implement change: We’re going to try something new and see how it goes. Henry Ford, “Those who have never made a mistake work for those who have.“ Create a culture of Yes. How to be a transformative principal? Be a

  Jeremy Williams is the principal of Manor Hall International School in United Arab Emirates 600 students from 46 countries Bitcoin and blockchain Bitcoin made it speculation. At its core, it is a ledger. A record of transactions and accounts. Eliminate Higher ed from being the sole guarantor of credentials. Blockchain seeks to destroy intermediaries. Blockchain verifies information and can’t be hacked. Blockchain authenticated vs university degree. What it would look like in the K-12 system. If we had the ability for authentic assessments that were performance oriented and we attached blockchain credential instead of a grade. It’s not just about getting the A. How to know it is good enough. You can store as much as you want on the transaction. Tasks have to be structured in a way that are binary. Publicly declare purpose and passion. Tie to the credential where people could see the work. Assess where the viability would be for you. For the teacher who wants kids to be motivated intrinsically. You have to h

  Claude Charron is a Teacher in Miami Florida and director of STEM program in Gulliver Florida. Claude@conradawards.org Empowering students to make change Sports has it right in being able to expose kids at a young age to become an athlete. Things that will not work. Keeping kids safe doesn’t inspire. Kids have to choose something they are interested in. Empathy is vital. When students are inspired by seeing someone challenged by something, they have a purpose for working hard. Designing something that matters is what inspires kids. How designing something that matters inspires kids. Getting kids to agree on something is an art. How do you get kids to engage and go down the path where they want to design something that matters. You do learn things through projects. Design process since 1997! What is the art? We don’t have to reinvent the wheel. How do you go from an idea to a working prototype? Google Sprint method. Book Modules that would help teachers. How to select a challenge. Visualize everything on a

  Jennifer Hogan is an assistant principal in Hoover, Alabama. Her web site is The Compelled Educator Rising Tide Radio Focused on women in ed leadership. Guide on the side for PD with her teachers School goals take the learning outside the classroom walls. First session wasn’t about the technology, but about gathering courage and thinking differently about how they thought of their classroom in the past. Jump-start ideas. Connect with an expert in their content areas. Walked around and listened is all Jennifer did. Decide on something, then figure out technology. Timeline Skype and blog with experts Connections with other classrooms. What is holding principals back from doing things this way. How do we want to go about doing that? Think of as many ideas as possible. Not many challenges. School has three goals for learning How to be a transformative principal? Get into classrooms. Schedule a call with Jethro Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need about 2 more hours

  Kelly Young is the Executive Director at Education Reimagined, where they seek to help educators create a learner-centered learning environment. What happens when kids don’t learn the same thing!? It is a myth that just because things are being taught that all students are all learning the same thing. Kids are not learning the same things now even though we may be teaching the same thing now. What are the competencies that kids need to have? Once kids get over the fear, they realize they have a lot to say. All of your learning is not going to be in K12 Inspire life-long learning Equity issues Examining what bias we might be bringing. This process of education is incredibly liberating for educators. How to be a transformative principal? 2 things: 1. Listening and being a team with the educators 2. Actually asking 5 young people and five teachers what it is like for them in the school. * Schedule a call with Jethro Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need about 2 more

  Kelly Young is the Executive Director at Education Reimagined, where they seek to help educators create a learner-centered learning environment. Non profit in Washington, D.C. that figures out how we can accelerate the transition from school-centered to student-centered All kids and outcomes that are actually relevant. A whole new way of seeing education. Learning is a natural phenomenon. Unfurl students’ unique potential. Shifting from the transfer of knowledge to the investigation of unknown knowledge Einstein National Geographic. Asking teachers about passionate learning experiences that they had. Had people that cared about them and what they learned. Great learning experiences rarely happen in a classroom setting. Relevant to what kids need to learn. Why is it so hard for educators to let this go? It’s what we experienced and what we know. Maybe there is something wrong with me. When you’re really struggling with a student, ask what might I do differently and what role can the kids take in fixing the

  Jeff Kubiak is a principal in Davis, California. Didn’t really like school growing up. Pushed to be an administrator by his now-superintendent. One of the most diverse counties in the United States. MAP assessment closely related to state test. Much more small group instruction and intervention. MAP skills tied in with Khan Academy. Reclaiming our child by Brad Gustafson. Technology makes it possible It might be a little bit loud, but I can still have my kids in the back, and we can be rocking! Have a hard time having videos to show my teachers. Encourage teachers to go check out other teachers’ classrooms. Students set goals with teachers. Start with why. Then add the what. How to help teachers change Lots of PD - how to have a MAP goal setting conference with students. Approach each teacher with how it will work for them. We ask 800 kids to change every day! Why can’t we as adults make one little adjustment? We don’t gossip. How to be a transformative principal? Get into all the classrooms. Gotta get out

  Bridget Belcastro is the principal of Johnnsburg Elementary School. Principal of every grade level in K-12 Why Bridget joined the mastermind. I’m always just starting out, even in my 12th year. Makes me reflect on things that I have experienced. I can give recommendations or experiences that helped me. I do have some very specific goals for my career, and I get those through the mastermind. Intimacy of it, we all have time each week to share what we are doing. GRIT Program - Greatness Requires Internal Toughness. A team of 10 teachers developed the lessons. There is a new series of lessons for each grade level. We talk about Goal Setting, Perseverance, Overcoming Obstacles, Reflection, Growth Mindset, Etc. Talk about brain research and famous failures. Teachers buy into it more when we create it. Year 1 was very easy, all the lessons look the same. Year 2 was a little more challenging with fresh approach and different topics. Year 3 is really challenging. Teachers have t-shirts Got GRIT? If I fail, I’ll be

Social Media 259: Students choose a topic they want to study, and ask the teacher to help them understand that culture’s values. Joel Lavin is the principal of River Road / El Camino Del Rio Teachers that put up welcome signs that were edgy. Opinion piece following the vandalism. Discussing racism head-on. Being inclusive not exclusive Equity committee that meets to discuss culture, morale, language barriers, etc. Support students that are not documented immigrants, but make sure that their rights are preserved. Students choose a topic they want to study, and ask the teacher to help them understand that culture’s values. How the mastermind benefits Joel. How to be a transformative principal? Get in a lot of steps to be out in your school! Dual Language Principal Katherine Schedule a call with Jethro Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need about 2 more hours each day to accomplish everything? Here’s how I help principals work manageable hours: Create your ideal week

  Joel Lavin is the principal of River Road / El Camino Del Rio Dual Language is much different. Studied science and Spanish in college. We as a nation are just starting to realize how important it is to speak another language. Broca’s area Families wanted to have their own language spoken in the school. Family resource center 2009 started as a dual language program There were reluctant dual language program. Change is hard. Some staff members left. Teachers are a major factor in school culture. Talking and being out in the community is really important to help with a big cultural change. Funds of knowledge community. Parents’ values reflect what they want their kids to learn. 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 coach

  Change school became a powerful space for people to have powerful conversations about school. Change school brings a level of transparency and honesty that is really powerful. Have an ongoing conversation with people who have similar ideas and understandings and have had experiences to make it possible. People feel trusted inside this community. It can be a difficult conversation about what modern learning should look like. Constant learning is fascinating. Tried to create some space for people to connect who don’t have room for that in their physical spaces. It is very dependent on whether people are school leaders or something else. The dark ages of change - leadership from the middle. People who can be influencers - parents, students, suddenly it’s not just about one teacher or one principal. How to get parent and student feedback. You often see yourself very isolated in a school. People are looking for direct prompts and cues So much of the educational conversation is led by journalists and politicians

0 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.