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.

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.

A Personal Leadership Assessment

One note before the reader continues… fulfilling a leadership assessment when I’m not actually a principal is very difficult for me to do because for the most part, I’m unwilling to accept any meaning from something I haven’t actually done. As such, I go into this thinking that I can’t believe any of the results because I’m being asked to pretend and that goes against everything But I also love to learn more about me so onwards.

In the first part of the assignment, I examined each of the 21 Responsibilities of the School Leader (Marzano, 2005). In framing this self-evaluation, I thought of how I acted in various leadership capacities (school or otherwise). This self-assessment was easier to answer because the scale registered our answers as weak (1) to strong (5) – qualities I could easily relate to. I easily answered the questions by listing a 1 or 2 for the areas that I did not connect with personally. My weakest areas were in curriculum and monitoring – evidence of my lack of experience in education. On the other hand, I’m always willing to buck the tide and change things so these areas were easy to register as a 4 or 5. In general, those without a strong connection received a 3 indicating that I viewed it as important but couldn’t authentically recall any personal experience that would lead me to judge it otherwise, I left it in the middle. This process for evaluation was the same with my completion of the balanced leadership profile.

Turning to the second part of the assignment, I completed the balanced leadership profile “pretending” to be a principal at my school but I submitted an accurate school improvement initiative that I plan to pursue in the upcoming year, “Implement a comprehensive technology integration and assessment plan using the NETS for students and develop technology integration skills in staff using the NETS for teachers.” The tug-of-war between pretending and experience constantly got in the way as I completed the survey. I connected to many of the questions in the context of myself as a leader instigating change according to my initiative, but struggled and failed to be able to connect to what I thought on many of the points. Since I have a very poor view of our current school leadership, I couldn’t differentiate between what was actually happening at the school and me “pretending” to be the head of the school so while some of the results show accurate trends, others are not fully formed.

Looking now at the data, there is a strong correlation between most of the numbers in my self-assessment versus the balanced leadership assessment. Where there are changes of 1.0 or more, the change reflects confusion of how I perceive myself as a leader. The largest differentiation in the numbers was in Involvement in Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment (rated 2.0 on the weakness scale and 3.67 on balanced leadership assessment). While I believe to be weak in this area, I have been actively involved in subject curriculum to help from a technology point of view and I did a lot of research on helping to develop units last year. In this case, the balanced leadership score is more accurate than my self-assessment.

Here is the list of my top 7 strengths:
1. Optimize (4.75)
2. 2. Visibility (4.33)
3. Change Agent (4.0)
4. Communication (4.0)
5. Flexibility (4.0)
6. Involvement in Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment (3.67)
7. Ideals/beliefs (3.5)
In looking again at the description of what these responsibilities entail, I believe these accurately represent what I am best at now as well as historically in different life or career roles. I was quite surprised by the accuracy. In looking at these top strengths to Marzano’s (2005) correlation with student achievement, most of them fall towards the lower end with the exception of Flexibility and Change Agent.

Here is my list of top 7 weaknesses (well really top 11 because 5 – 11 is a tie):
1. Knowledge of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment (1.25
2. Monitor/evaluate (2.25)
3. Discipline (2.25)
4. Situational Awareness (2.80)
5. Contingent Rewards (3.0)
6. Focus (3.0)
7. Intellectual Stimulation (3.0)
8. Order (3.0)
9. Outreach (3.0)
10. Relationships (3.0)
11. Resources (3.0)
This list is more difficult to interpret because some of the responsibilities account for a lack of experience so I can’t reflect on its importance in an authentic manner (#1-3 in particular). Several others (#5, 6, 7, 9, 11) are quite important to me, but I must have doubted my responses because I couldn’t connect to a personal experience. Many of these responsibilities on this list correlate highly on Marzano’s scale especially Situational Awareness, Discipline and Outreach with a .27 to .33 correlation.

This exercise highlights my weaknesses in terms of experience in the field of education and shows my overall strengths at being a force for change. While many responsibilities I have strengths in are towards the lower end of correlation for student achievement (Marzano, 2005), I believe I have the capacity and interest in developing these areas while continuing to develop my ability to think forward.

I know who I am and how I work because I have spent a significant amount of time over the past 20 years analyzing almost everything in my life. What I know if that I’m a deep thinker and need to consider theories and ideas for a long time before internalizing them and finding true meaning. What is important about this exercise for me is that it has started this process.

Click on the image below to see the chart larger.

Marzano, R., Waters, T., & Eaker, R. (2005). School leadership that works: From research to results. San Francisco:ASCD.

Transformational Leadership in Practice

Learning about the history of leadership studies and how recent history has affected school systems today brought a new perspective to my understanding of educational leadership and specifically the potential impact of transformational leadership. Especially interesting were studies in the 1970s by Burns and Bass that showed success in a variety of organizations from private corporations to the military, colleges and families where leadership considered the personal goals of colleagues, employees or other family members (Leithwood, 2007). For me, this type of historical importance grounds the study of leadership and connects it in a way that I haven’t experienced so far.

The description I preferred from the readings was Leithwood’s (2007) three categories of practice, which include:
1.Setting Directions (vision, goals, high expectations)
2.Developing People (intellectual challenge, modeling, individual support)
3.Redesigning the Organization (collaborative culture, fostering participation, community involvement)

Besides the use of an active verb that energizes the action happening to the noun, I appreciate the simple and direct language. This list encompasses the ideas in Bass’s version of transformational leadership (Leithwood, 2007), but in language that removes the theoretical language. To me, it makes it feel more real and accessible. I could easily imagine a leader speaking to employees or community members about “Setting Directions” far more than announcing “Inspirational Leadership.”

The one trait of Bass’s list not included in this list is “charisma.” (Leithwood, 2007) I was glad to see this show up on a list for leadership, as I do believe that the personality of those in charge has an effect especially in combination with transformational leadership. While I believe those without a charismatic personality can make changes with the right leadership, the addition of this element helps greatly and can urge others to change. I’ve watched this happen with leaders in our school, town and nationally.

Once trust is developed using the model of transformational leadership, the key for encouraging a flourishing learning environment is enabling others to be challenged and use their unique qualities for the purpose of solving problems while also staying focused on the vision for the organization. Because I like to get out of theory and into real examples, look at the history of how the Flipped Classroom came into being. Bergmann (2011) shared this story recently in his blog. While he doesn’t speak of what type of leadership he had at his school, I imagine that a school that supported this type of initiative would be transformational in nature. Bergman describes how the idea came around to solve a problem that he was having with students missing classes and then needing to use his time to make up the missed learning. While looking at a technology magazine, the ideas co-founder, Aaron Sams read about software that allowed him to record PowerPoint presentations. This was in 2007, near the emergence of YouTube, and the two used the tools to record and upload their lessons. They didn’t expect that so many students, not only in their own classroom, but other teachers and students around the world would also use their lessons.

This, for me, is a perfect example of enabling teachers to have the space to solve problems for themselves and then using this to share with others (a key piece for me). Now, the Flipped Classroom is well known and popular (it certainly was at ISTE) and a legitimate model for education. This type of innovation couldn’t happen without a positive school culture that encouraged innovation, problem-solving and allowed teachers to take up the role of being leaders.

Transformational leadership can have a lasting impact on how principals create a culture of innovation and lead to integrate technology in the instruction. Certainly, the idea of the Flipped Classroom exhibits how integrating technology was used creatively to solve a real problem. But there is little in this story about how actively the principal or administrator encouraged this. However, a story by Chris Wejr (2011) shows beautifully how a transformational leader can impacts the way a school is led. This example also shows this leadership as it applies to technology integration.

Wejr is an elementary school principal in Agassiz, British Columbia, Canada who blogged recently about a project at his school called“FedEx Prep” based on ideas from Daniel Pink’s book Drive. The idea was to increase innovation by offering something that all teachers need – time. He told his staff at the beginning of the year that he would provide extra prep time per week for 6 weeks to do anything they wanted as long as they would deliver their ideas in the end. Out of 16 teachers, 3 applied for the opportunity of which 2 decided to use their time to explore technology and one wanted to spend time discovering how to embed their garden in the curriculum. One teacher wanted to get her student’s blogging – at the time none of the students in the school had ever blogged. She spent the time researching what to do, taking the time to find out good topics to write on, how best to integrate it, and then helped her kids set up their blogs. The students were so excited about blogging that they spoke to other teachers about how they loved it, so by the end of the year, 4 of the 5 classes were blogging. The other teacher who spent time learning about technology researched and implemented tools like Glogster, ComicLife, VoiceThread and Flickr then showcased her students’ work to the Board of Education. She was promoted and will be in charge next year of transforming their library and modernizing the role of teacher-librarian.

This wonderful example of transformational leadership started with an idea from the leader who cared deeply about his staff and understood what they needed to thrive. He gave the teachers an opportunity to expand their learning and enabling them to innovate and problem solve.

If I were a leader in a school, I would like to use this FedEx Prep idea as it seems like a way to scale up independent learning in technology by giving the teacher time to explore and integrate effectively. For me, the problem of scaling up learning in technology is real. I am one person doing technology integration. Imagine the effect if we enabled many others to become technology integrators as well.


References
Bergmann, J. (2011, May 5). The history of the flipped class: How the flipped class was born. Retrieved July 25, 2011 from http://blendedclassroom.blogspot.com/2011/05/history-of-flipped-class.html

Leithwood, K.A. (2007). Transformation school leadership in a transactional world. In Jossey-Bass reader on educational leadership (pp. 183-196). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

The Transformational Leadership Project. (2007). The transformational leadership report. Retrieved July 25, 2011 from transformationalleadership.net/products/products.php

Wejr, Chris. (2011, July 13). FedEx prep: A reflection. In Connected Principals. Retrieved July 25, 2011 from http://www.connectedprincipals.com/archives/4034