After 15 years of experience in public high schools, I had my first opportunity to serve in an elementary setting as an assistant principal. I had an uphill battle convincing the teachers that I had credibility, especially coming with no experience in their world. I was in classrooms often in the first semester, trying to learn as much as I could as quickly as I could about K-5 curriculum and instruction. Using the Right Tools I attended a fantastic workshop on summative and formative teacher evaluation that gave me many great ideas about how to conduct short classroom visits. These visits Continue Reading
Instructional Leadership
School Administrators: Not Sure What To Focus On Once You Get Into Classrooms? Try This!
If you have been following along at home, this is the third in a series of four articles about teacher supervision and evaluation practices. We looked at how the teacher contract impacts teacher evaluation (Is Your District’s Teacher Evaluation System Stopping You From Being An Effective Instructional Leader) and how you as the site administrator implement the system (Teacher Supervision and Evaluation: How I Got Better). If you have not already done so, there are two research-based surveys you can take to get a feeling for where both the district and your own personal practice are on the continuum that Continue Reading
Part One of Building a Learning-Focused Culture in Four Parts: Defining It
Sometimes the best way to define something is to include descriptions of what it is NOT. I believe this is true in the case of defining a learning-focused culture. It is complex and multidimensional, which makes it difficult to fully describe. Must it include a fully-functioning PLC framework? Does it mean that reading and math scores are improving? Must the term “learning-focused” be part of the school’s vision, mission and/or goals? While these are important considerations, in this series of articles I want to pinpoint what YOU do to build relationships as the site instructional leader with your individual teachers. Continue Reading
School Administrators: Increase the Impact of Your Virtual Classroom Visits
I am going to admit something that you need to know…I have not supervised teachers in a virtual environment. I recognize and honor the incredibly difficult work you are engaged in right now. I do not take for granted that you are truly doing the best you can to support EVERYTHING AND EVERYBODY at your school. Experience I Do Have I do support administrators who are currently supervising teachers in a virtual environment and have noticed that while there are marked differences in how you get into classrooms, what you do before, during and after has not changed. In fact, Continue Reading
Is Your District’s Teacher Evaluation System Stopping You From Being An Effective Instructional Leader?
In my experience, both teachers and administrators believe that the teacher evaluation system in their district is not ideal. As a teacher, the evaluation process varied from being told what my goals and objectives would be for the year to writing my own annual goals and objectives that are never revisited throughout the school year, except me when I am asked to reflect on what I did to achieve my goals. I taught at a school where classroom observations were typically very few and far between and usually did not follow-up with ANY meaningful feedback. I have also taught at Continue Reading
Teacher Supervision and Evaluation: How I Got Better
In my last post, Is Your District’s Teacher Evaluation System Stopping You From Being An Effective Educational Leader?, I wrote about my teacher evaluation experiences as a teacher, school administrator, and central office administrator. If you have not taken the Health of Your District’s Teacher Evaluation System Quiz from this article, I encourage you to do so now (HERE IT IS). It will lead you to valuable information and allow you access to the second part of the evaluation system equation, namely, your own practice. Regardless of the language of the contract around teacher evaluation, there are nuances of implementation Continue Reading
TRULY Inspirational Instructional Leadership At This Time
The changes to how instruction is being delivered across the nation are difficult to comprehend. I have been focused on classroom instruction in the traditional sense for decades and it has taken me some time to find how I can contribute to this current reality in K-12 education. Over the past weeks, I have had the opportunity to deeply engage across a wide variety of platforms to learn about how instructional leaders are responding to the Coronavirus pandemic to keep all stakeholders informed in an ever-changing landscape. I feel compelled to share what I have found in hopes that it Continue Reading
Top 5 Themes About Remote Learning…So Far
I’ve been reading a plethora of articles and participating in just as many, if not more webinars/live streams from a variety of educational leaders. I typically find these resources on my social media feeds. In fact, I created a “best of” list in my last post and highly recommend that you check it out and follow these educators as they are truly inspirational instructional leaders. I have found that taking notes about what resonates with me for each event on a single Google doc has helped me to synthesize what is emerging as common themes about remote learning and here Continue Reading