Leadership – Lessons Learned

Tag: Leadership (page 1 of 2)

Your Library Web Site and Promotion of Your Subscriptions

Is your library Web site your “go-to” place for student researchers? We constantly remind our students via our ICL lessons that there are better ways to find valid and helpful information than Google searches. Especially in elementary school, we want to provide our students with various online databases and resources that give them a safe place to learn how to find information. With schools spending so much on online subscriptions, finding ways to guide our students to use the databases makes total sense.

Thankfully we have an incredible librarian at the primary campus of Washington International School who manages a terrific library Web site and promotes the tools within the site. Sue Anderson, our librarian, keeps very busy with her staff managing a collection in four languages while teaching our Information and Communication Literacies (ICL) curriculum. Sue annually promotes the library site and the databases during one of our Wednesday faculty PD meetings.

This year Sue included the following in her learning session:

A few Web sites need Flash, so Sue had all the laptops on one of our carts updated with Flash telling teachers not to bring their laptops. The last thing anyone needed would be the disruption of teachers being unable to access Web site sections due to a lack of a plug-in.
A brief review of all the databases and some of their features. Sue provided a copy of her presentation in a handout that had space for teachers to take notes beside each presentation slide.
Sue provided plenty of time for teachers to explore the databases. She had them sit together by language to share ideas as they reviewed the tools.
The handout packet also listed the user names and passwords for all the online tools. Teachers also took time to fill out the exit survey to turn in at the end of the session. They were asked to put check marks for each of the tools they currently use and for the ones they plan to use more fully with their students.

Look to review the Primary School Library Web site. Do note that the language pages are under development. I am working with our language teachers to populate those pages with educational sites for our students.

Ed Tech Co-Op Podcast Season 2 in Review

June 24, 2013 / David Carpenter / 0 Comments

We just wrapped up season 2 of the Ed Tech Co-Op podcast. It was a terrific year of learning and sharing with our resourceful and thoughtful guests. If you have yet to listen to any shows, look at the list of topics and themes we covered below. The season ended with three shows featuring leaders in the field of educational technology as we followed up on our mid-season shows with Peter Papas, Jeff Nugent, and Sara Dexter. So, if you also follow Jeff Utecht, Vinnie Vrotny, or Patty Carver, go to the Ed Tech blog or subscribe via iTunes.

Mark and I are excited to start season 3 in the fall. We will have an exciting announcement to share as we also will introduce a new theme to be covered during the upcoming year.

Here are topics that were covered, whether in individual or series of shows, during this past season:

Pre-service Teacher Preparation
Piloting a 1:1 Tablet Program and Writing Your Own Textbook
Using Evernote for Class Notetaking & Reflections from the Flipped Classroom Conference
Multimedia Essays in Language Arts
Universal Design for Learning
The ISTE Standards for Coaching
STEM
TPACK, Learning Activity Types & Curriculum Review
The International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme
Team-based Instructional Leadership for Concept-focused Math and Science Education
Blended to Virtual Learning in Secondary Schools and in Higher Education
Teaching for Constructivist Learning
Technology Literacy & Hardware Choices

Summer Reading, Writing and Sharing

May 16, 2013 / David Carpenter / 0 Comments

With summer soon upon us, the students and staff of ACDS will continue their learning by participating in the annual summer reading and writing program. Several students will be sharing their reflections this year via personal blogs. Elizabeth Lockwood, our incredible teacher librarian, put the program together. She is building further community through a blog dedicated to sharing book recommendations.

Whether you already have a summer reading and writing program, go through the Reading and Response Journals site to get some new ideas from Elizabeth.

Both Ends of the Spectrum for Teacher Competency

August 2, 2012 / David Carpenter / 0 Comments

I enjoy living in the DC area for many reasons. One big one is having a copy of the Washington Post on our doorstep each morning. The Post covers several well-respected public school districts in VA and Maryland and the DC education scene.

Two articles in today’s paper covered both ends of the spectrum for how well teachers do their jobs. Jay Mathews shared the findings of a report from the New Teacher Project entitled “The Irreplaceables:

Understanding the Real Retention Crisis in America’s Urban Schools.” The second article dealt with 98 DC teachers being fired for poor performance as measured by the DC public school IMPACT appraisal system.

I concur with the findings of the study as I noticed in many of my schools that the innovative teachers who looked to collaborate, build a learning community, and push for change were often not celebrated and held up as role models. As an instructional technologist and counselor often working closely with administrators, there was a fine line between a strong and effective teacher being seen in a positive light or a negative one by the administrators.

In conversations with administrators, I would ask why the admin team was not doing more to highlight excellent teachers who provided the model of risk-taking and passion that many of us think should be the norm for all teachers. The response was the same at various schools as administrators would not respond, avoiding the question or implying that sometimes the strong teachers could be an irritant with their questions and desire to bring about change.

While the study focused on urban American schools and my experience is with international schools, the pattern of not supporting the strongest teachers covers the full range of school types. Without going into too much detail, it is well-noted that schools from K-12 through universities are institutions that struggle with change and how to measure good teaching. The need for more collaboration and accountability are two huge topics well-noted in the mainstream press and the blogosphere. Those teachers willing to take risks and provide leadership often run up against the nature of institutional culture and overworked administrators who need to take steps to help those teachers feel valued.

In reading the second article about the firing of teachers in DC, I am intrigued to learn more about the IMPACT system, which pops up in the news from time to time. A lot of time and thought has gone into developing the IMPACT system. Making the connection to the first article, does IMPACT offer criteria that highlight great teachers and guide administrators to recognize and reward them? The article mentions that teachers who perform at the high end of the evaluation system get paid up to $25,000 in bonus pay. While this monetary reward is one way to highlight excellent teachers, most studies report it as job satisfaction and the feeling of being valued and part of a team that drives most of us in our work.

The Instructional Technologist and Teacher Librarian: PD to the Classroom

January 16, 2012 / David Carpenter / 1 Comment

With the Blogosphere and Twitterverse filled with discussions about how to shift schools, focus on 21st-century skills, create and promote learning communities, provide PD, etc., it seems like an opportune time to revisit the roles of the instructional technologist and teacher librarian as leaders and change agents in our schools. We planned on making this a topic in an upcoming EdTech Co-op podcast, but a blog post leads me to share some ideas now.

Tim Holt’s recent post about the role of professional trainers and speakers hit a nerve for many folks and has led to many discussions about how to bring about change in our schools. My response is to put forth the instructional technologist and librarian as key leaders in schools who should follow up on professional development (PD) activities to facilitate the action steps to connect the learning from the PD to the learning in our classrooms.

As for the considerable topic of shifting our schools, Jeff Utecht and I produced a podcast all about Shifting Our Schools. Please look at the show notes, as our guests brought many helpful ideas. Only the latest podcasts are still accessible via iTunes.

While Tim argues that the educational gurus should offer us the how-to’s on how to shift our schools, the pushback is that each school is different, and the road maps must be individualized. I agree with this and see that there are many ways to offer professional development for our learning communities. Still, the key is the follow-up after the PD, which is not the responsibility of PD providers. Whether one brings in educational trainers, sends staff off to conferences, runs book discussions, or has teachers take courses, the bottom line is that there are many choices and that each educator should be empowered to design and build their professional learning network as so many in the blogosphere promote.

It is then up to the school’s leadership to create the mechanism involving the use of time and support to empower the staff to develop the “how to” to take PD learning into the classrooms. Administrators provide this essential leadership, but the instructional technologist and teacher-librarian often are the doers, either working via the curriculum review process or collaborating individually or with groups of teachers who turn the PD into action.

Whether you call your school instructional technologist a technology integration specialist, educational technologist, learning coach, or whatever, it is crucial to realize what this well-skilled leader can do for your school. One can review the posts and articles by library leaders to paint the picture of the modern teacher librarian, or you could review the skill set and 21st-century vision of my wife, the library media specialist at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.

To paint the picture of an instructional technologist, here is a MindMeister mind map I created several years ago for a conference in China where the participants helped build out the IT/ET job description, including experience and skill set for a 21st-century instructional technologist. Hopefully, it provides a discussion point on whether you have an instructional technologist or want to hire one but need a job description.

We will soon be discussing this topic further in the Edtech Co-op podcast.

“We prepare children to learn how to learn, not how to take a test.”

November 26, 2011 / David Carpenter / 0 Comments

These words describe the goal of the Finnish educational system, as stated by Pasi Stahlberg, who is in the Finnish Ministry of Education. Read more about how the Finnish educational system is so successful in a Smithsonian magazine article that details their techniques.

Another interesting read is Tom Friedman’s revelation that parents are indeed crucial in the education of our children. 🙂 He points to recent “studies” demonstrating that we need better parenting in partnership with the efforts taking place in our schools. I enjoyed the hundreds of comments offering further insights from the article.

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Parenting in Our Digital Age

April 17, 2011 / David Carpenter / 0 Comments

I am a real believer in communicating to our school community about how our instructional technologists and librarians are providing the tools and various literacies (i.e., information, media, design, etc.) to help students attain the learning outcomes of the curriculum. Whether it be through blogs, weekly emails, media sites sharing student work or parent coffees, the members of one’s Information and Communication Literacies (ICL) team do need to provide the leadership to share with students, teachers, and parents how the ICL skills make a difference in student learning while also supporting parents as they decide how their children use technology in the home.

I bring up this point as our ICL team, the school counselor, and the middle school principal recently offered a parent coffee on parenting in our digital age. We gave a presentation back in the Fall, but it needed to be more of a shared discussion for our Spring presentation, especially parent-to-parent on Internet use, cell phones, texting, etc. While a part of the discussion should be about technology, parenting and the importance of good family communication should be at the center.

We are fortunate to have an excellent counselor in Carla Belsher, who, from the start of the year, has provided the insights and resources to empower our parents to communicate better and partner with their children in making decisions about technology and social networking tools.

The coffee was well-attended, and as we hoped for, the parents provided excellent insights from their experiences. The discussion offered parents of younger students valuable real parenting experiences while giving our parents of older children several ideas on how they might work with technology use in their families.

In the Fall, we created a Web site listing multiple resources for parents to gather information. We shared our belief that creating a family technology use plan is one way to provide the structure and guidance for families to educate better and manage how everyone uses technology. The parent resources site also links to an online version of our Fall presentation. While cyberbullying is a topic of concern for our community that is also often in the press, our online presentation connects to the importance of teaching children about privacy and how it is a very different world today, with so many children having an online presence.

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How Can We Help Teachers Take More Risks in their Teaching?

April 9, 2009 / David Carpenter / 3 Comments

John Mikton will join Jeff and me to talk about this question on the Shifting Our Schools podcast taking place tonight. To answer this question, the starting point is to work with teachers individually to ask them what needs to happen to help them try new ideas in their teaching and learning. Large workshops or sending folks to conferences are not the starting point to help build a culture of risk-taking. Large-scale PD efforts can provide models of shifted practices and get folks excited to try new things, but it still comes back to each teacher in their classroom trying new ideas in their teaching. It is helpful to talk to teachers a few weeks after returning from a conference to see how things are going in trying some of the practices they saw at the conference. They often need to act on their excitement of learning new approaches due to barriers in their schools.

We know the list of barriers often affecting teachers in many ways, not just in not taking risks (i.e., not enough time, too much to cover in the curriculum, assigned tasks that don’t support student learning, parent expectations, etc.). Experience tells me that by talking with individual teachers, finding practices they are confident in using in their classrooms, and then asking what they see as engaging in other classrooms or their professional reading, we, as learning specialists/coaches (instructional technologists, librarians, learning support, GATE facilitators, curriculum coordinators, etc.) can then help them take small first steps to try new things starting within their area of comfort.

One theme that runs through many of our podcasts about shifting practices and schools is leadership. While learning specialists can make a huge difference in supporting teachers and learning in the classroom, our administrators can help push the shift by modeling risk-taking by setting a tone for the school that trying new ideas is expected. By communicating to the larger community through various communication avenues (e.g., blogs, email, Twitter, various presentation tools in parent meetings, etc.), the administrator takes risks with new technology while inviting parents to understand and expect risk-taking as part of the school culture. Celebration of teachers and students taking risks should be central to the shift in culture. While much of the focus will be on successful risk-taking, we must highlight when the results didn’t quite work out and learning took place. 🙂

Let’s work with individuals while having the community assess the nature of our current school culture. In that case, we can gather the information needed to create an action plan to build a climate that supports risk-taking. While this process might take some time, if we start immediately by having our learning specialists/coaches work with teachers to share their opinions about barriers and needed actions for support while having our administrators lead by example, we can start helping educators take more risks in their teaching.

How to Infuse Information Literacy Skills Across the Curriculum? SOS Episode 16

October 28, 2008 / David Carpenter / 0 Comments

We have three essential questions for this show:

How to infuse information literacy skills across the curriculum?
Where does the use of technology fit into the information literacy picture?
How does a modern library media specialist fit into the shifting process?

The possible answers to these questions start with the library media specialist trained in using digital information tools and generative technologies for student sharing of their research. This individual is a leader in their school, working with the instructional technologist as designers and collaborators in the curriculum review process to embed the various information & communication literacy (ICL) skills throughout the curriculum.

The Big Picture: How to Create a Collaborative and Systematic Process for Curriculum Development and Review

September 24, 2008 / David Carpenter / 0 Comments

What a mouthful for a post title.

I have spent my years as an instructional technologist working through the curriculum development and review process to help shift my schools toward becoming what we call School 2.0. We constructed a workable system at my last school that made a difference in how and what we taught in our classrooms.

We are now developing a curriculum development system at my current school that will involve working with our school culture and unique needs. Hsinchu International School is very different than the huge school I worked at before. We will use questions around specific categories to help us through this creation process. The questions come from a workshop I developed to help guide school communities to either refine their current curriculum review system or start a new one. I will be sharing these categories and questions in a series of posts.

This is the first one, covering the big picture when school-wide leaders come together to start the conversation.

1) What would be an effective way to manage school-wide subject area meetings to review the standards/benchmarks for scope/sequencing (i.e., facilitation, time of year, one or several meetings by division, etc.)?

2) How do discussions take place about the big picture and developing ownership of the curriculum?

3) Who oversees this process of creating this process?

4) Who will be the leaders in each division to support and gain support for this effort?

5) Who would be involved in curriculum development in each division? What would be their roles? Is there a place for students and parents at some point in the curriculum review process?

6) How would you ensure follow-through on action items (to-do’s) as you create your curriculum development system?

7) What big-picture topics (i.e., each school year’s goals, student learning results, differentiation, etc.) would you want to integrate into your curriculum besides aligning standards and benchmarks?

8) What are your priorities in refining your current curriculum review system (or starting one from scratch)? In other words, how much can you take on and still be effective in this process?

9) What ultimately do you want your curriculum to do?

10) How will you provide your participants the time and coaching to learn the skills needed to develop the curriculum?

11) How will you get “buy in” from your participants to be curriculum designers?

12) How will you get buy-in from all of your educators to actively use the curriculum?

13) How do you share the curriculum? To whom?

14) What other questions (and answers) come to mind?

Lessons Learned

Instructional Technology - International Education - Wellness