Change and School Culture

*Consider your own school's culture. How does your school promote a positive school culture for teaching and learning that is inclusive of all students?
*Based on your understanding of the Marzano reading, how could you apply Marzano's research on first and second order change to improve your present school culture?

This week has been a family lesson in how change is challenging, even at the smallest levels. My oldest son has played football for 3 years and was about to begin his senior year on the team this week. Only one problem, he hates football. Yet leaving the team, changing the pattern, was a far more difficult process than imagined (and its not clear yet what the answer is). He knew he wanted to quit and had very good reason, but how to inform the captains (who he also wrestles with), the coach, and most importantly, his father who wants him to play. These were all parameters that were important to consider and respect; and required him to communicate his feelings. My daughter went through a similar process, except she is leaving her dance company for good reasons, doing less dance elsewhere and adding in other activities. Yet, both kids, despite knowing that their decisions were right, felt unsure and scared of the unknown or if they would regret it later. This drama over the past few days, which I needed to spend considerable time on talking to both kids about as they weighed their options, highlighted just how difficult and challenging change can be. Magnify the idea to encompass a school or district and it’s easy to see how difficult it is to support all the stakeholders in the change process.

As I get ready to return to work, I’ve reflected on the challenging year my school had last year managing change. The school was struggling financially just a few years ago and in response, added the IB program and committed to changing the culture from a laid back nurturing Montessori school popular with elementary age parents to an academically rigorous program using IB PYP and MYP (still including Montessori). This qualifies as second order change using numerous factors from Marzano’s (2005) responsibilities of a leader. Specifically, the change to IB affects all 7 of the factors most related to 2nd order change (Marzano, 2005). The curriculum has completely changed as well as the instruction of the material and assessment, how the work is monitored, and how well the teachers are knowledgeable about IB, research and theory behind it.

While this new innovation using IB can provide spectacular results, change of this magnitude impacts several factors negatively including school culture (Marzano, 2005), which for my school has been significant. Last year, there were several directives to incorporate IB requirements without the staff having time to talk about how to do this leading many to be frustrated, which led students to be unsure of what to do. Most of what was asked to implement too many new ideas from the new Approaches to Learning reflection to how to grade using the IB number system, to developing rubrics according to the IB subject guides were overwhelming and implementation suffered, a common occurrence according to Fullan (2007). Part of the problem is that the school decided to change to the IB program and then, within 2 intense years, finished the work to receive their accreditation. Several teachers who were key in creating these documents were burned out and left, resulting in a slew of new hires, like me, without the historical reference for what had happened (SEDL, 2011). The school was eager to change and do it quickly, not understanding fully that change is a process filled with uncertainty (Fullan, nd). Last year was the first year putting the new units in place and the process was challenging resulting in staff frustration because they didn’t feel supported or appreciated and the units being implemented were so rushed in the initial design that they didn’t always succeed when implemented (SEDL, 2011; Fullan, 2007).

While the changes in place are a positive step for the school overall; as a result, the school is on solid financial ground and has already become a more competitive school to be accepted at, I feel that the school needs to slow down the pace of the change process to help staff and students internalize the new ideas from the IB program creating a common language for learning that has meaning for the school (SEDL, 2011). While this large second order changes occur, an improvement in the culture would be affected if the leaders considered improving other factors with first degree changes such as contingent rewards to help staff feel appreciated, focus to keep new ideas to a minimal while the schools adapts to the implementation of IB, and optimizer to keep the tone positive and help teachers strive to learn and implement the new ideas (Marzano, 2005).

Being a Montessori school, what is most impressive about the school culture is the level of acceptance of a wide range of diverse students and staff. This aspect of the school creates a wonderful and supportive environment. Because the school is private, students’ needs are attended to on a very individual basis and additional support for struggling learners is available. However, as the school becomes more competitive, the students accepted to the school are high achieving students driven to succeed and students with learning disabilities will not be accepted as often. This is the case with other exclusive private schools in the community. This change, which is just beginning, will have an impact on the school culture as the population of students change.

I discovered the complicated nature of change with my family this week so I can appreciate the complexity of what is being attempted at my school and as such, challenges and teacher frustration are to be expected, but more can be done to effectively manage the process and allowing for it happen in a way that builds a common vision for the school.


Fullan, M. (Ed.). (2007). The Jossey-Bass reader on educational leadership Second edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Fullan, M. (nd). Eight basic lessons of the new paradigm for change [Slides]. United States: Johns Hopkins University.

Marzano, R., Waters, T., McNulty, B. (2005). School leadership that works: from research to results. San Francisco: Alexandria, ASCD.

Southwest Educational Development Library (SEDL). (2001). School context: Bridge or barrier to change: School culture. Retrieved on August 22, 2011 from: http://www.sedl.org/change/school/culture.html

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

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!