Learning the Tools for Success Through Group Work

This course gave you an opportunity to practice a range of leadership strategies when making decisions. It required you to think politically, orchestrate collaboration among all stakeholders, and remain steadfast in your original vision. 


What do you envision to be the pitfalls you might face as a first year principal, and how will you implement the strategies learned to overcome the pitfalls? How has this course prepared you to use twenty-first century leadership skills as you model a new culture for collaborating, analyzing student performance, and continually reflecting on instructional practices, school climate, and quality decision-making?

As I walk toward a path for leadership, I envision that the first year will be challenging because I know that I will want to aim high and accomplish much, probably too much. Throughout the course of this program, I’ve accumulated a variety of excellent strategies and important concepts that I see missing in the school where I’m working. I need to remember that change doesn’t happen overnight and having a plan to correct the mistakes I see takes time and collaboration with others so that the ideals I envision are shared amongst all stakeholders.

Since I worked for many years in a high intensity career through work at the Academy of Achievement (www.achievement.org) that demanded me to think politically and work productively in a large team while accomplishing the task at hand, I know that personally I am capable of handling leadership tasks. I also know that I have developed distinct ideas about where I want to go professionally. For one, I have no interest in being a principal. What I want is to be a leader in technology. Knowing that is important. Throughout this program, observing teachers and students while doing my work, and through a significant effort in looking at the research I’ve begun to develop my own ideas about how to use technology effectively and plan for successful integration. I think it’s very important to identify that for me, my goal is to be the best at leadership in technology because that allows me to concentrate my talents in this area.

In this course, I relished the intense concentration on finding excellent academic research relating to the topics of vision, management, student learning, technology and ethics. The time allowed to pursue knowledge and ground my ideas in research was thrilling and important. I especially enjoyed discovering three books that I referred to often on my paper including: Richard Elmore's Instructional Rounds in Education, John Hattie's Visible Learning, and Linda Darling-Hammond's The Flat World and Education. I believe I will use the data and ideas contained in these books over and over again.

 Recently I did a project with my 5th/6th grade students on the topic of recycling. While they learned about the subject, the most important lesson that every single student took away was their experience working in groups. Some groups performed at a very high level and some were quite dysfunctional, yet everyone noted that this experience is what they remembered and would use again. While I felt that teaching them built on group work I’d done professionally before entering education, the emphasis on group work in this program has had a huge impact on me as a leader and something I will remember and use in the future.

My group in this course functioned at a very high level. Each of us – Brooke, Barb, Shannon, and myself – brought different angles to the conversation, and used that to build on ideas, support one another, and create a working environment that was extremely productive and satisfying. Since group work is such an important component of being a leader in education, the experience I’ve shared with my treasured colleagues will be most memorable and important as I work to emulate the experience as an education technology leader.

Co-Teaching Success

Entry #1: Co-Teaching- Share your thoughts about the co-teaching model? What impact does the upgrade of curriculum for the 21st century have on co-teaching? As a curriculum supervisor or leader, what challenges would you have supervising and evaluating a co-teaching team, and how might supervisors address these challenges?

The co-teaching model to help students with disabilities in the classroom is a potentially positive step in allowing students to learn. I don’t have a lot of experience with co-teaching, but I’ve seen it used successfully both in the school I work at and in a 5th grade classroom when my son shared a classroom with an autistic student. In both cases, the co-teacher was involved with the curriculum planning, but then worked on specific plans to adapt the lessons for the student. In the case of the autistic boy, occasionally that meant taking the student out of the class for physical movement or to do specialized activities. When the boy was in 3rd and 4th grade, the co-teacher spent most of her time with the student, but in 5th grade, there was a planned movement to teach the child to become more independent in preparation for entry into middle school. This strategy worked well and the student has done well in middle school. Another strategy that worked well with this student included identifying a few students in the class to serve as mentors. These mentors looked out for the boy and they all formed a close bond.

As a leader, I would look at how the teachers separated the duties in the class and then also how they collaborated together on where the class curriculum would be the same for all students and where it would be different. This is a case where watching them work in the classroom after they’ve shown me a lesson that they collaborated on would provide adequate knowledge that the model was working for the teachers, and more importantly, for the students.

Individualizing the Curriculum with Electives

Entry #2: Individualizing the Curriculum- Select one model or individualized program from Chapter 15 of the Glatthorn text that you think would work best. Explain your choice and reasons supporting it. What, if anything, would need to change in your school or district to adapt it, and how as a curricular leader would you make those changes?

This is actually a really hard blog post to write because in my town, many of the ideas identified as individualizing the curriculum are already embedded somewhere or were tried (such as open classrooms) and failed.

Encouraging students to explore their particular passions is a challenge in most schools with a large diverse population and shrinking school budgets. While large swaths of the country have eliminated elective courses, Greenwich has a rich tradition of offering amazing opportunities that engage a wide variety of students. The Greenwich High School catalog resembles a small college and includes eclectic (and popular) offerings across the subjects, especially in the arts. Being the only high school with a population of 2700 students provides a broad base of support for the extensive offerings. The courses are not a mish-mash of items, but a guided discovery for advancement by students that include four levels of electronic music (including honors), 19 different musical performing groups, three levels of cooking including a honors in Culinary Skills, transportation and energy technology in Engineering and more.

I believe that part of the support comes from the international nature of the residents who want their children to have exposure to a wide range of subjects and encourage this. I went to Greenwich High Schools and my favorite class, was on East Asian history. I guess the course China Today that my son took last semester would be its replacement. While I know that large areas of the country don’t have the type of elective offerings that Greenwich does, my experience with it is absolutely lacking. But I support elective offerings in schools as long as its supported by the community and there should be some sort of procedure in place to allow the expansion of courses, but the process should vet ideas and test their appropriateness. As a curricular leader, I’d support a rich load of elective courses, especially at the middle school where students want to begin to explore new options. But adding new courses takes collaboration and consideration as to the unintended consequences (what gets cut out if a student take the elective etc.). Before adding a course, would the topic be best served as an after-school club? These and other questions about staffing, space, and budget need to be discussed.

Appreciation for the Montessori Classroom

As a Montessori school, the room arrangements for all of the classrooms are designed in a manner that encourages self-discovery and are designed to appeal to different ages since the classrooms include students of different grades. At our school, the primary students encompass 3 grades levels (pre-school year 1 and 2 and kindergarten) then there are LE (1st and 2nd grade, ME (3rd and 4th grade), UE (5th and 6th grade) and MS (7th and 8th grade). Also in keeping with Montessori, our classrooms are large, warm and bright with a variety of activities for individual exploration even at the MS level. The arrangements for all grades are designed so that teachers circulate through the rooms regularly rather than teach from the front. Teaching from the front of the room for longer than 10 or 15 minutes even in the Upper School is highly discouraged and most teachers are actively moving about the classroom.

There are no individual desks anywhere in our school either in the lower or upper school so that students are always collaborating and sharing desk space. I work in the Upper School, which encompasses the UE and MS classes. The English classroom is spacious and includes a book center where students love to sit to work or find a book and where class discussions are often held. The Science room is unique because the desks are designed for lab experiments for 2 students, but often these desks are pulled together to form larger tables and the addition of a small zoo is in keeping with the Montessori environment. Students and teachers use a large conference table at the back often for conferences or group work.

Teacher’s desks are found in each upper classroom though we share space so my desk is in the Science room along with the 2 science teachers even though I don’t teach that nor do my classes meet in the Science room. In the Lower School, there are no teacher’s desks, which is traditional in a Montessori classroom. Teachers use the same tables that the children use to do any work needed. In the Upper School, this was the practice at the beginning, but then it was just too hard for teachers to be organized since we all taught in different rooms so now we all have desks.

There has been a significant investment in technology over the past few years and every ME, UE and MS classroom has a SmartBoard and then each student in ME, UE and MS has their own laptop, as do all teachers. As such, there is little need for classroom desktop computers and this year, I don’t think there is any set-up. New this year is an iPad cart, which can be used by the whole school, but is primarily designed to add technology to the Primary and LE students who have no computer access (computers have not been encouraged for the very young in Montessori).

While the classrooms are ready and could be easily adapted for anyone with special needs (there is an elevator in the building), we do not have any students with special needs at the school.

Overall, the classrooms are a joy to teach in and not the norm. As such, I thought I would reflect on a very different classroom set-up at the public high school in town where I did my Action Research project for my Master’s a few years ago.

At the time, I was heavily influenced by the ideas of Michael Wesch and his video entitled “A Portal to Media Literacy,” and wanted students to collaborate despite the very traditional room seating arrangement (typical of all the classrooms at the high school). So the students took the individual desks, which started out all aligned to the front of the room for the teacher to lecture, and had them create small groupings (see photo). It made the room all messy – I loved it! More importantly, the students worked together in groups and they loved it.

If I were observing a classroom, I’d want to see a set-up like the school I’m at now that encourages cooperative learning whether it was in a Montessori environment or not. I’d like to see a classroom that is not focused on the teacher at the front of the room and has flexibility to allow students to find what works for them such as put on headphones or sit on a rug or comfortable chair. If they are not productive, it is the teacher’s job to help them find ways to focus but the goal is that the students discover how they learn best.

References
University of Kansas, (2002). The Montessori method: The path.Retrieved from: http://circleofinclusion.org/english/approaches/montessori.html

Wesch, Michael. (2008). A Portal to media literacy. Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4yApagnr0s

A Personal Reflection: Finding My Voice

What you learned about effective leadership and how your ideas have evolved.
How these particular issues and/or ideas affect your ability to become a more effective leader. What personal and professional values you bring to your school's administration that will help you be an effective leader.
How issues in educational technology will impact your ability as an educational leader in your school and community.
Any additional information you need to continue your growth as an effective leader.

When I first learned about this course through my membership with ISTE, I immediately knew I wanted to be here and dedicated the time and energy to preparing a reflective application. I don’t think I could describe why I wanted this – the words that would accurately back up the feeling remained hidden. When we met in Philadelphia at the ISTE conference, I felt excited but extremely nervous as the definite newcomer to education surrounded by a cohort of experienced professionals. I didn’t doubt my ability, but I did wonder if my tendency to jump first and then ask if I should’ve done so was at play again. And jumping into another intensive year – was I mad? I had lost a year of my life getting my first master’s (36 credits in one year) and then worked myself to the bone trying to prove myself over the past year.

If there is one aspect I learned from this course is that my gut was right, yet again. I do belong here in this program at JHU, I belong in education, and, I belong in leadership. Over the past 8 weeks, I have spent time with the professionals I was in awe of at ISTE, and learned that while I don’t have their experience, I bring fresh ideas and creative energy plus a deep passion for learning and commitment to the task. In the area of effective leadership, I have real practical knowledge in the field from my 20 years working at the Academy of Achievement that helped me form original thoughts and add perspective to the discussion. I didn’t have all the answers, but I held my own in the conversation and enjoyed learning from the experience and perspectives of my classmates. Knowing that I belong, as a future leader in education is the most important impact from the course. I learned that I have a voice and that I can be an effective agent for change. I’ve been praised before for my leadership when I was a PTA President, but I don’t think I ever believed it. Now, I can define the type of leader I admire and would envision myself becoming using descriptive words that eluded me 8 weeks ago.

The variety of tasks used to develop this emerging voice allowed enough individual exploration with team and group interaction though I wish we had projects that encouraged using more creative applications. While I was able to adapt one aspect of a team project to a comic, there were few opportunities to do anything other than formal APA writing or group presentations using Google Docs or Presentations except for the introduction in the first week. Of course, this is where my strengths reside and I missed this. I remember the hard work applying Herzberg and McGregor’s theories in the comic strips and the result is that I really learned these concepts. This work, at the highest level in Bloom’s Taxonomy, is what we want our students doing and as such, I feel we need to be doing this as well in this course.

That said, I enjoyed every assignment including the ELA project, where I felt the confidence emerge most dramatically as I used the ideas from our course and paired them with a thoughts discovered independently, ideas used in schools I have experience in, and several completely unique ideas that I believe are sound (and which I might pursue as part of my internship). I loved engaging in the discussions with everyone, but I am especially fond of the strong bonds, both professional and personal, that I’ve developed with my fabulous Team Starblazers. I spent time with each team member in Philadelphia, which helped initiate our positive collaboration and this continued into a lasting bond. The support and respect we provided each other separate from the assignments created a model for an ideal PLC.

The other assignment that was deeply satisfying and important for developing my confidence was the interview reaction paper. When I was conducting the interview with Dr. Freund, I kept saying to myself “yes, I learned that,” as he described situations that reminded me of transformational leadership, importance of the vision and other major concepts. Writing this paper, the first big project, helped me “connect the dots” between actual practice and theory for the first time and it was very satisfying to feel the ideas become real. From that moment, I found it easier to use the words and ideas from the course when talking to other professionals and friends. This is an important component and critical to moving forward as a leader.

While I am new to working in education, I have a long history of very active leadership in the PTA and I know that many ask my opinions on issues or request me to speak at meetings based on this experience. I believe this unique aspect of my experience will be a great asset when I am in a leadership position. Our readings taught us to use our strengths – the experience I’ve had in the PTA helps me to see issues from multiple perspectives and this can be a useful trait to have moving forward.

My main experience in education is in technology so capable of becoming a leader in this area and with the vocabulary for describing what makes an effective leader, I feel capable of excelling in this area.

With years of experience studying and listening to words from Desmond Tutu, Colin Powell, Ellie Wiesel, Julie Andrews and many other great achievers, I could recognize what good leaders do but I didn’t have the words to define it. In my class this year, I plan to start by helping the students define the key words for my class (Media Literacy) and I feel like the past 8 weeks have been a deep exploration into learning the key words that define "effective leadership." As part of this reflection, I went through all of my notes and made a list of the words, repeating as it was written, and created a Wordle using them. Looking at the graphic created, I feel that the large words highlight the most important concepts I assimilated into my practice and plan to use moving forward. This course and the interactions and resources I’ve had in them, have helped shape an idea of myself as an emerging leader able to understand diverse viewpoints, provide creative ideas and new directions, and have confidence that I have a voice that is capable of helping to facilitate change in the world of education.

Wordle by Leslie using important words I used based on my notes from the reading assignments.

New Beginnings... What to Expect from the JHU-ISTE program

1. What are your expectations for this program? What do you hope to accomplish?
2. Now that you have a good sense of the types of online activities and the rhythms of an active participant, what steps will you take to be successful in this program?
3. Where do you still need additional support to be successful?

It wasn’t that long ago that I was a new student at Full Sail University ready to embark on a yearlong program that would change my life. I believe that all along, through my life as a designer and event producer, what I have excelled at is educating others and often seeing things in ways others did not, in part because I brought a unique combination of life experiences to the table.

As an educator, I have spent significant amounts of time keeping abreast of leadership and technology issues while bringing innovative ideas to the classroom. From this and from a personal sense of what I want, I would expect that I leave this program with the capacity to enter a leadership position in a school district in the area of technology. To accomplish this, I need to spend time learning about the formal management of school systems, go in-depth on the issues, and discover my position on these issues. I also need to push my knowledge base further and use all of the creativity I have to find ways to share this to improve the technology education for all teachers in a district.

Since I was enrolled in a very rigorous online academic program at Full Sail Online (FSO) until last July, I feel that I well prepared to enter the JHU program and be successful. FSO had a fantastic user interface with a dashboard of “what to do” that is similar to JHU. For me, this “checklist” is the key piece to managing my time well as this gives me an overview of what I need to do. Beginning each week reviewing this and noting what projects need to get done in which order is one step to being successful for me. Of course, trying to get it done early is always the goal, but it isn’t always possible. Just expect that so it doesn’t cause stress.

Another important component for me will be to start the reading assignments early. I have trouble remembering what is in a book unless I take copious notes while reading. But this takes a lot more time so I will need to pay attention to the way reading assignments are structured, especially with texts that harder for me to read (small type). I can only do this in small chunks.

My additional support for being successful will come from my children, just as it did the last time. They got used to mom staying up late and leaving me alone when I had to get a project done. They got frustrated at times and just wanted me around, but I think they see how happy I am. They are just older now and I think they will be my support and of course, my inspiration.

Welcome to my blog

This week begins another journey of learning. Just 2 years ago, I embarked on a journey in education and my life has been forever altered - for the better. As a designer and event producer, I felt there was something else missing, something that mattered that I wasn't doing. And the answer is that I needed to be in the world of education. So here I am, beginning a new learning mission at Johns Hopkins University. Let's go!