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Schoology allows instructors, students and administrators to create a meaningful virtual classroom and extend learning beyond the boundaries of the physical classroom

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Posted on by Heather Neves

You might have the best technical skills in your company, but it's the soft skills - the people skills and vision - that mark the difference between a successful leader and merely a skilled employee.

These soft skills dictate:

How you interact with others

How you handle conflict and strategic planning

Whether people like working with you

How productive you and your team are

And more

That's why I'm going to help you. I want to show you how to develop and improve 15 soft skills that are essential for every successful leader to produce the results they want.

What does it take to be a successful leader?

1. Develop and coach your peers.

Coaching is working alongside someone to help them improve, and it's a major task for every leader. Unfortunately, it's often replaced with either neglect or micromanaging.

Good coaches do what it takes to build better people, and good coaching involves regular feedback and education. As you watch employees work, or see what they produce, ask them how things are going.

What are they struggling with?

Where do you think they can improve?

How can you help them grasp a deeper understanding of their role and how it fits into the rest of the company?

More importantly, as you work closely with each person, continually ask How will this person best improve? It could be through practice, training, reading a book, or one-on-one conversations.

2. Motivate and inspire your team.

Motivating is a tall order! Especially since each person is likely motivated by something different. But it isn't necessarily about getting people psyched up to come to work each day.

Motivating and inspiring your team is about giving people what they need to do their best work and give their best effort.

You can motivate by:

Providing bonuses when people reach certain KPI (key performance indicator) goals

Listening to understand whenever someone talks to you

Offering flexible working hours and time off

Sharing inspirational videos or quotes

Smiling when you see people

Building on an employee's intrinsic motivation

And myriad other ways

This is a difficult soft skill for many leaders. You've gotten really good at doing your job - and at focusing on your own motivators to do it. But you haven't spent as much time learning how to help others do their jobs well and staying motivated.

That's okay. What's important is that you start weaving it into your routine.

3. Communicate clearly and openly.

You need to communicate with lots of people in various places through a variety of channels. This makes it difficult to keep everyone on the same page, so how can you communicate efficiently without being curt?

For starters, you need to actually communicate.

If you'd like to see [XYZ] happen, you need to voice it. Too many managers try to let things "work themselves out." Sometimes they do, but often things remain the same or get worse.

So step in. And when you step in, be considerate. Emails, texts, and instant messages are great communication tools, but you have to make sure your message doesn't get lost in the medium.
Related: 6 Quick Ways to Improve Your Communication Skills at Work
People still look for mannerisms, tone, and other characteristics of speech in written communications. If you think something you say might come off poorly in an email or text, don't send it. Call the person or speak to them face-to-face and make it clear that you aren't trying to attack them.

4. Recognize and reward good work.

It's miserable to give all you have and receive nothing in return. There are no participation trophies in business, but successful leaders acknowledge good, hard work when when they see it - and here's why.

Recognition is a huge motivator, morale booster, and (if backed financially) can change an employee's life for the better. Recognition is what everyone desires when they put their heart and soul into their work. It's validation at its finest.

Whenever that heart and soul produces good things for your company, you need to let your employee(s) know that you're paying attention - that you're thankful and appreciate the value they're bringing. The most successful leaders are effectively cheerleaders for those they lead.

5. Take the lead on projects.

Anyone in a management position is going to be responsible for organizing and managing projects. (They will at least be held responsible for the results of any projects.) But successful leaders initiate.

They say Team, here's what we need to do, and they jump start the process to make it happen, whether that means delegating work to others or doing the work themselves. Successful leaders are the organizers, planners, and task schedulers that drive progress in an organization.

Another way to phrase this is execution. If you or someone on your team has a good idea, it's your job to make sure it comes to fruition. For more on project management leadership, view this guide: The Five Team Leadership Principles for Project Success.

6. Learn continuously (and look for opportunities to do so).

It's crucial for you to continually develop your team, but it's just as important that you continuously develop yourself.

This can be challenging. You have so many things to do that learning can seem unimportant (or unproductive). But remember - everything's easy when you know how to do it.

Try working time into your schedule for self-development, whether that's time for reading, talks with others you respect, or informative conferences. Over time, this will become a staple of your schedule, and you will find yourself improving in leaps and bounds.

7. Champion having fun at work.

Work hours take up most of our daily schedules, so why not make them enjoyable? In fact, happy employees are more productive. The most successful leaders help their team start and end the day with smiles on their faces, despite what happens in between.

There are plenty of ways to have more fun at work while also staying professional and getting everything done. A few good options are:

Organized events like team night out or catered lunch

Sharing jokes or words of encouragement throughout the day

And relaxing strict dress codes or formal work hours

Related: 10 Ways to Make Life at Work Substantially Easier
8. Hire the right people.

Surrounding yourself with the right people will make everything you do easier and better, but it's perhaps the most difficult skill for anyone to get right.

Who are the right people, how can you tell, and how to you bring them in?

One mistake many leaders make is hiring people who can do a task well. It's tempting - and logical - but there are other attributes to look for.

Does this person genuinely care about your values and/or mission?

Are they kind? Do they play well with others?

Could this person help you and your company with more than what's in the job description?

Why do they want to do this job specifically for your company?

Do they bring anything new or different that other employees don't?

Successful leaders recruit candidates who bring potential and value to more than just a specific job function. They're also patient while they search for these top notch team members.
Related: 7 Social Media Recruitment Tips to Find Top Talent
9. Resolve conflict with poise.

There's always potential for conflict. Different people have different thoughts and opinions, and those will occasionally collide. The issue, however, is not the conflict, but how you respond.

The best leaders address conflict head on while remaining respectful to others involved. In some cases that means you need to "disagree and commit." If you're the only one disagreeing, you may need to say "I disagree with this idea, but I'm willing to move forward with you."

You might not be in HR, but you'll still have to handle conflict between employees. Sometimes it will be petty and sometimes and it will be large and legitimate. In all cases, you need to have the courage to address this conflict early (before it has time to fester), and you need to show empathy to everyone involved.

10. Grow and implement emotional intelligence.

The most successful leaders are very good at managing their emotions, whether it's stress, anger, excitement, or some other reaction.

There are lots of ways to improve this soft skill, including:

Learning to recognize physiological signs, like an increased heart rate

Meditating, or taking quiet time to reflect on the choices you make in a given situation

Asking your co-workers for feedback on how you handle yourself

When you better control your emotions, you also better control your words and your actions. That gives you immense power to handle situations better and lead your team to accomplishing common goals.

11. Stay organized.

Strong leaders keep their tasks, their projects, their teams, and their belongings organized. You're juggling a lot of things, and you have to keep them all organized to continue moving in the right direction.

There are lots of ways to remain organized (such as by keeping your desk and email inbox tidy), and there are plenty of online tools to help you organize your tasks (such as Trello). Find what works for you and stick to it.

12. Empower your employees (and others you interact with).

The best leaders encourage colleagues and help them to produce their best work. You can do this by:

Acknowledging the good work someone has already done, which encourages them to do more

Asking "How can we make this better?" instead of saying "Here's what you did wrong"

Taking a "closed door, open calendar" approach to mentoring

You'll know you're succeeding in empowering your employees when they feel free and confident to make their own decisions, even when they don't have all the information they might need (which is a common situation in business).
Related: 7 Ways Text Messaging for Business Can Empower Employees
13. Round out your business skills.

The best leaders are really good at seeing how staff, budgets, KPIs, vision, ideas, values, and more work in conjunction with each other - both in their department and across the company. This is why they're such good decision makers.

To round out your business acumen, you need experience in all aspects of business. That's one selling point of an MBA, but you can get similar benefits by either taking online courses ( Udemy has plenty, and many universities offer free online classes), or by spending time with people in different departments of your business.

For instance, if you work in marketing, it will be good for you to take a couple hours a week speaking to employees in IT, or Sales, or HR, and so on.

Once you have a full grasp of how everything works and moves together, you'll be able to best judge how an idea or strategy fits into your short-, med-, and long-term goals.

14. Set high expectations - and meet them.

Setting low targets might help you "exceed expectations," but successful leaders set high expectations, and then lead themselves and their teams to hitting those goals. How do they do it?

They take big goals and chop them down into small (sometimes menial) tasks they can accomplish - like in the video below.

One thing to be leery of is keeping your high expectations realistic. "We're going to double revenue in nine months" sounds great, but it's going to end in disappointment unless you have a defined strategy you know you can stick to to reach your goal.

15. Learn from your data.

Data - everything from your web traffic to sales ratios and beyond - is always speaking to you. Do you know how to interpret it correctly?

A paramount soft skill for successful leaders is the ability to gain insights from your analytics. By finding the holes, learning more about your customers, and determining where you can improve, you'll increase customer engagement, sales, employee retention. You'll be able to cut costs and make better all-around decisions.

The trouble is, every company has different data, so here's a guide to asking the right questions and getting value out of your analytics: The Top 10 Strategies to Turn Data into Actionable Analytics.

Final Tips

There's no one skill that you can develop to become a successful leader. It takes more than just being kind or knowing how to "do your job."

The essential soft skills listed in this article represent most of what it takes to become a successful leader. The only caveat is time.

It takes time to develop any skill, and you often have to work through a tough learning curve. By following the advice in this article over months and years, you'll develop all the skills necessary to lead an amazing company that's built to last. Does that sound good to you?
Related: 5 Successful Strategies to Lead Your Small Business Effectively

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15 Essential Soft Skills for Every Successful Leader

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Posted on by Heather Neves You might have the best technical skills in your company, but it's the soft skills - the people skills and vision - that mark the difference between a successful leader and merely a skilled employee.

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The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups 

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The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups 

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From the New York Times bestselling author of The Talent Code comes a book that unlocks the secrets of highly successful groups and provides tomorrow's leaders with the tools to build a cohesive, motivated culture.
Where does great culture come from? How do you build and sustain it in your group, or strengthen a culture that needs fixing?

In The Culture Code, Daniel Coyle goes inside some of the world's most successful organizations-including Pixar, the San Antonio Spurs, and U.S. Navy's SEAL Team Six-and reveals what makes them tick. He demystifies the culture-building process by identifying three key skills that generate cohesion and cooperation, and explains how diverse groups learn to function with a single mind. Drawing on examples that range from Internet retailer Zappos to the comedy troupe Upright Citizens Brigade to a daring gang of jewel thieves, Coyle offers specific strategies that trigger learning, spark collaboration, build trust, and drive positive change. Coyle unearths helpful stories of failure that illustrate what not to do, troubleshoots common pitfalls, and shares advice about reforming a toxic culture. Combining leading-edge science, on-the-ground insights from world-class leaders, and practical ideas for action, The Culture Code offers a roadmap for creating an environment where innovation flourishes, problems get solved, and expectations are exceeded.

Culture is not something you are-it's something you do. The Culture Code puts the power in your hands. No matter the size of the group or the goal, this book can teach you the principles of cultural chemistry that transform individuals into teams that can accomplish amazing things together.

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"I've been waiting years for someone to write this book-I've built it up in my mind into something extraordinary. But it is even better than I imagined. Daniel Coyle has produced a truly brilliant, mesmerizing read that demystifies the magic of great groups. It blows all other books on culture right out of the water. Read it immediately."
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Great group chemistry isn't luck; it's about sending super-clear, continuous signals: we share a future, you have a voice.
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It's not about nice-sounding value statements - it's about flooding the zone with vivid narratives that work like GPS signals, guiding your group toward its goal.
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The Culture Code | Unlock The Secrets to the Most Successful Teams

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From the author of The Talent Code comes The Culture Code, a book that unlocks the secrets of highly successful groups & the tools they use to build their cultures.

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But like many organizational leaders, principals may get stymied when they actually try to describe the elements that create a positive culture. It's tricky to define, and parsing its components can be challenging. Amid the push for tangible outcomes like higher test scores and graduation rates, it can be tempting to think that school culture is just too vague or "soft" to prioritize.

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School Culture Rewired: How to Define, Assess, and Transform It

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Leadership, School Community, Well at Work, Well-being
Four pillars and four core values that underpin a healthy school culture

A positive school culture makes work and school fun, supportive, and purposeful. But how do you get there? This principal shares his learning about building school culture that is strengths-based, collaborative, innovative and focused, and grounded on the values of trust, happiness, curiosity and care.

During my 20 years as an educator, I have been part of school staffs who could not talk, would not talk, and even should not talk to each other. I have also worked and learned alongside school staffs who have embraced a positive school culture - one that makes work and school fun, supportive, and purposeful. So how have some staffs created this positive culture while others struggle to get there? This is a question that I have focused on for the past five years as a school principal.

Culture is hard to see but we can always feel it; it is the vibe of a school - the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours that exist within a school staff. In any organization, we continually strive to make positive change; however, as Peter Drucker says, "Culture eats strategy for breakfast," so before we can tackle real change, we need to work as a staff to create a positive school culture. How do we do this?

At the previous school where I worked as principal, our staff focused on building a positive staff culture for four years. Our goal was to achieve this, not through isolated team-building activities, but in the way we actually did our work together as a staff of educators.

In one of our first staff meetings, I introduced a collaborative activity and it flopped miserably. When I attempted to encourage more focused conversation, one of our respected veteran teachers stated, "We don't know how to do this." I tried rephrasing the instructions for the activity but he interrupted and said, "No, we don't really know how to talk like this."

This was such a turning point in our staff meeting culture, as it was clear we needed to start from there and first build trust, safety, and support. We could not dive into the real work until we established a place where this deeper dialogue could occur.

We started with creating some norms or commitments for our staff meetings and collaborative time (Hat tip to Cale Birk for the idea). The staff came up with the list below:

1. The topics will be relevant to what we do (and what we want to do) at our school.

2. We will be flexible and willing to try new things and ideas.

3. We will share the successes happening at our school.

4. We will create strategies to provide equitable opportunities for each of us to share our voice (and not be dominated by a few).

5. We will acknowledge that a sense of humour is important and will embrace opportunities for light-hearted dialogue.

6. We will stay on topic and stick to the agenda.

7. We will have a clear timeline for implementation of ideas.

8. There will be a clear purpose to the discussion and agenda items.

9. We will encourage others for their ideas and ask others for clarification, comments, ideas and suggestions.

10. We will provide time for grade-level collaboration.

11. We will always make time for getting together and having small group discussions.

12. We will respect that some may prefer to listen and reflect.

This set of commitments guided our behaviours and helped create staff meetings that felt safe enough to have the "real" conversations that often only take place in the parking lots and staff rooms. Prior to a discussion that might have some opposing views, we always reviewed and reminded ourselves of these commitments.

We also discussed the attributes of an effective staff culture. Staff shared their experiences with positive and negative cultures. They then captured words to describe a positive culture and we put them into a Wordle (See Figure 1; thanks to Suzanne Hoffman for the idea).

Figure 1: Staff description of a positive culture

Through our work as a staff, as well as my learning at previous schools, I came up with what I believe are the Four Pillars of a Positive School Staff Culture . They are:

* Strengths-based
Figure 2: A Positive Organizational Culture
* Collaborative

* Innovative

* Focused

I am sure there are other attributes that could be used but these four have been most effective for the schools where I have worked. As you can see in Figure 2, these four pillars are also based on the core values of trust, happiness, curiosity, and care. These values weave their way through the pillars and without them, the pillars can crumble.

The four pillars

A STRENGTHS-BASED culture is one that believes that every staff member has strengths that can benefit the school as a whole. Feedback with staff always starts with strengths (character and skills), staff members are given the opportunity to determine their strengths (reflections and/or the VIA Strengths Survey), and each staff member is encouraged to use these strengths in their important work with students. Research from the Corporate Leadership Council (CLC) in 2002 shared that one of the most effective ways to bring out the best in your employees is to start with strengths. Performance and engagement is significantly increased when feedback and evaluation focuses on strengths rather than weaknesses. On staff surveys, many staff reported that with the focus on strengths, they felt more motivated, safer to be themselves, happier and healthier overall at school. A healthier, happier staff who feel safe and motivated can accomplish so much more with their students and for the school community.

"As leaders, we often make the mistake of listening to a problem and then jumping to solve it by ourselves."

A COLLABORATIVE culture believes "the smartest person in the room is the room itself" (David Weinberger). Staff tap into each others' strengths and engage in respectful, reflective dialogue to drive professional learning and create positive change. Trust is a huge part of a collaborative culture, and truly listening to others is essential to building trust. Polarizing statements and unwillingness to meet people where they are at will create a challenge to collaboration. By avoiding binary thinking, embracing the "grey areas" and listening to others' perspectives, we grow as individuals and as a collaborative staff.

As leaders, we often make the mistake of listening to a problem and then jumping to solve it by ourselves. As a new principal, I had a teacher share a concern with me. Within minutes, I was busy shifting support schedules and trying to solve the problem. I bounced into her classroom to share what I had done, and she grew quite frustrated. She said, "I came to you so you could understand where I was at and so we could come up with solutions together. These solutions don't really work for me and they will definitely negatively affect other teachers." I was caught off guard by this feedback but so thankful, as I learned that my job is not to solve problems, but to work with staff to develop effective solutions together.

An INNOVATIVE culture is one in which educators feel safe to take risks, think critically and creatively, and implement new ideas with support. It moves from the question, "Can we...." to the question, "How can we..." The CLC's research found that encouraging autonomy and risk-taking is another way to bring out the best in employees. An innovative culture is not necessarily always doing new things; it is one that understands the research around what is effective and is willing to try new ideas to help meet school goals. As Chip and Dan Heath tell us in their book Switch, we need to shrink the change. We need not always aspire for huge risks and changes, rather, we should encourage incremental changes that can be tried for a period of time to see if there is a positive impact. An important role for principals is to find the resources (time, materials, etc.) to support the innovative work of staff, so that good educators can become great educators.

A few years ago, inspired by Daniel Pink's book Drive, I offered staff a "FedEx Prep," which meant that I would provide an extra prep period for six weeks so a staff member could take an idea and put it into practice. The only caveat was that they had to "deliver" - sharing with staff the idea they had implemented and observing the results over the school year. We had teachers work individually and collaboratively to implement ideas in areas such as outdoor education (a school garden), technology (blogging with primaries to help with writing skills), and self-regulation (a teacher and a special education assistant redesigned their classroom and introduced tools to help students be in a more effective learning state). By providing a small amount of time and a few resources, we were able to encourage innovation at our school.

A FOCUSED culture is one that knows the key areas of growth that the school is working on, as well as the strategies that can have the largest impact. With so many ideas, policies, and procedures being sent our way, principals and school leaders need to be good filters and keep the staff focused on their vision and mission. There are many "shiny new" ideas out there that look and sound great but they may not help your school on its journey. One question we have used to focus is, "What problem are we trying to solve?" If the new idea is not helping us with the problems (or areas of growth) we are working on, we can set them aside until a later date. By having a laser-like focus on clear goals and clearly defined problems the staff is working on, you can filter and prioritize what's most important for your school.

The four core values

Four important values guide our behaviours and our journey toward a positive school culture. To embody any of these well, we must slow down. In a fast-paced world, this is even more important!

TRUST: At the heart of trust is communication. It is so important for us all to talk less and listen more. In author Mark Goulston's words, we need to spend more time being interested and less time trying to be interesting. As formal school leaders, we must also be as transparent as possible to make sure that people understand why decisions are made and/or have all the information they need to make decisions. Another important way to build trust is to walk the talk; if we say we will do something ... do it.

Building trust takes time. When I first arrived at my previous school, I posted a sign-up schedule to meet with every staff member to learn more about them and how I could best support them. After a week, not a single staff member had signed up. When I followed up privately with a few people, it was shared that everyone assumed it was an interview and they were nervous to meet with me. This was far from the goal! But the staff didn't trust me yet. I met with a few individuals informally and then shared that this was the type of conversation I hoped to have in the scheduled times. After that, others started to sign up and they soon realized it was a positive opportunity. Within a few months, I had met with the entire staff.

"We can still work incredibly hard to support students while also encouraging happiness with staff."

I always knew happiness was important but until I moved to my current school at Shortreed Community Elementary, I had no idea the impact that a staff can have on each others' happiness. By having a sense of humour, taking the time to slow down and be there for each other (in good times and bad), and by showing gratitude, we can create a much more positive school staff culture. Going to work each day where people are happy fuels others and makes the difficult work we do much more enjoyable.

Within my first week at Shortreed, I knew it was a place with a sense of humour. I had worked many hours planning my first assembly to welcome everyone back in September. I wanted to share a bit about me and a slideshow from the first week. Little did I know that the staff had their own plans. Our Youth Care Worker had asked each class to prank me by coming to the assembly and literally sitting wherever they wanted - anywhere and everywhere. As the students entered the gym, my face started to go red at the chaos. Then the whistle blew and all students, with huge grins, quietly moved to their appropriate spots. It was a reminder to not take ourselves so seriously, to have fun and create some happiness in the school. We can still work incredibly hard to support students while also encouraging happiness with staff.

We cannot grow as a school unless we are curious. By seeing challenges as opportunities that we can be curious about, we can then collaborate and work together to meet them. By being curious and ensuring we are asking the right questions, we continually grow as educators, learners, leaders, and people.

People need to feel like they belong and they matter. Small acts of caring can go a long way to building a positive culture and community of care. At my current school, our mantra is, "You BELONG here." This drive to create a sense of belonging is not only for students but also for our families and staff. We need to lead with an ethic of care and model to our staff that we support and look out for one another.

As an educator, I have come to realize that building (and maintaining) a positive staff culture takes time. By slowing down, focusing on the four values of trust, happiness, curiosity, and care while also keeping the four pillars of strengths-based, collaborative, innovative and focused cultures at the heart of what we do, we can help create a positive school staff culture.

I am thankful to have observed the incredible power of a positive culture. When we all work together to build and maintain this, we feel healthier at school and at home, more motivated and inspired in the important work we do, and because of this, we also see improved results in the achievement and success in our students.

Illustration: Diana Pham

First published in Education Canada, December 2019

Meet the Expert(s)

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Building a Positive Staff Culture | Education Canada Magazine by EdCan

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Leadership, School Community, Well at Work, Well-being Four pillars and four core values that underpin a healthy school culture A positive school culture makes work and school fun, supportive, and purposeful. But how do you get there?

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During 30+ years of wandering the continent, visiting schools and listening to school people share their joys and frustrations, Phil Boyte has learned a lot about building great school culture. In this podcast you will hear examples Phil has seen work to enhance school culture, stories from some of his heroes in education and simple ideas to start implementing on your campus today!

We invite you along on this listening journey. You will hear simple and transformative stories about building community, vulnerability, and trust on your campus. No matter what role you play, we believe everyone has a hand in creating a school no one will want to leave.

During 30+ years of wandering the continent, visiting schools and listening to school people share their joys and frustrations, Phil Boyte has learned a lot about building great school culture. In this podcast you will hear examples Phil has seen work to enhance school culture, stories from some of his heroes in education and simple ideas to start implementing on your campus today!

We invite you along on this listening journey. You will hear simple and transformative stories about building community, vulnerability, and trust on your campus. No matter what role you play, we believe everyone has a hand in creating a school no one will want to leave.

A must-listen for every educator

Phil interviews top educators across the country and gives practical advice on improving school culture. Fun, inspiring and helpful. One of the best education podcasts out there!

Love this

When it comes to creating a school that no one wants to leave, Phil is your guy. He has a wealth of knowledge on school culture and I truly believe in what he shares.

A welcome addition

This podcast is a welcome reminder that school culture comes from a series of small steps, and it's a challenge to initiate those steps instead of wishing someone else would. I really appreciate the work Phil's doing, and I look forward to more episodes.

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‎School Culture By Design on Apple Podcasts

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‎During 30+ years of wandering the continent, visiting schools and listening to school people share their joys and frustrations, Phil Boyte has learned a lot about building great school culture. In this podcast you will hear examples Phil has seen work to enhance school culture, stories from some of...

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Simon Sinek - How To Change Your Future - One Of The Best Speeches Ever for Millennial

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Culture Before Curriculum | Andrew Hammond | TEDxRoyalTunbridgeWells

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How Teachers Change the Culture and Climate- Simon Sinek

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How Teachers Change the Culture and Climate- Simon Sinek

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How Teachers Change the Culture & Climate of Schools | Simon Sinek

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Positive Leadership: Strategies for Extraordinary Performance | Kim Cameron | Talks at Google

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ASB is well known for its personal approach that fosters a "family atmosphere", making visitors and stakeholders feel warmly welcome. Since its beginnings in 1962, parents, students and staff have felt a strong sense of commitment to the school and community.

Our local and international families, with their different cultures, traditions, and backgrounds create a culturally enriched and diverse community.

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international american school of barcelona

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Community - American School of Barcelona

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ASB is well known for its personal approach that fosters a "family atmosphere", making visitors and stakeholders feel warmly welcome. Since its beginnings in 1962, parents, students and staff have felt a strong sense of commitment to the school and community.

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The International School of Kuala Lumpur (ISKL)

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The International School of Kuala Lumpur (ISKL)

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Established in 1965, The International School of Kuala Lumpur (ISKL) has become known as a center of excellence in the world of international education.

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The Ridley College 2020-21 Year in Review

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Tips from the Trenches:  Scott Jackson  

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Tips from the Trenches:  Scott Jackson  

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My educational vision: To empower ALL students to own their learning, shape their dreams, and create a better world. Take the first step: Own it My educational philosophy is anchored in this short statement, and this vision for learning has guided my heart and acted as a North Star since before I became an educator. However, it was not until I engaged in my first action-research project, as...

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You searched for teacher leadership - Center for Teaching Quality #CTQCollab

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My educational vision: To empower ALL students to own their learning, shape their dreams, and create a better world. Take the first step: Own it My educational philosophy is anchored in this short statement, and this vision for learning has guided my heart and acted as a North Star since before I became an educator.

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No matter their roles, teacher leaders shape their school's culture, improve student learning, and influence practice among their peers. Teachers can adopt various leadership strategies that best fit their talents and interests. Learn how to evaluate your leadership style and start improving your practice and school today with this selection of resources just released on ASCD myTeachSource®.
For more resources on being a teacher leader, go to ASCD myTeachSource and sign up for a free two-week trial.

Free Resources

The Many Faces of Leadership by Charlotte Danielson from Educational Leadership

Teachers can find a wealth of opportunities to extend their influence beyond their own classrooms to their teaching teams, schools, and districts.

Establishing the Need for Peer Coaching (Chapter 1) by Pam Robbins

Author Pam Robbins describes how peer coaching is a great tool for colleagues to use to help sharpen each other's skills. In this chapter from her book Peer Coaching to Enrich Professional Practice, School Culture, and Student Learning, Robbins reviews the need for peer coaching, detailing how the process helps the teacher being observed but also gives the peer coach a chance to learn a new style of teaching or reinforce current practices.

Overcoming the Obstacles to Leadership from Educational Leadership

Teacher leaders need support to overcome stubborn barriers created by the norms of school culture-autonomy, egalitarianism, and deference to seniority.

Teacher Leadership in Urban Schools from ASCD Express

Learn about a different teacher leadership structure at an urban Chicago high school, where teacher leaders strive to share decision making, work in teams, and build a professional school community focused on better achievement for all members.

Teacher Leadership: The What, Why, and How of Teachers as Leaders (A Report on the Fall 2014 ASCD Whole Child Symposium)

Share this report with your administrator on the benefits of teacher leadership and new ways of approaching teacher leadership in your school.

What Mentors Learn About Teaching from Educational Leadership

When an experienced teacher mentors a new one, how does the veteran's teaching life change?

How Teachers Lead Teachers from Educational Leadership

When teachers lead instructional change, these seven strategies help them engage their colleagues and get everyone on board.
ASCD Emerging Leaders Program
ASCD is seeking a select, powerful, and active group of education professionals to become the next generation of ASCD leaders. Are you up for the challenge? Read more about the program and requirements.

ASCD Member-Only Access

Peer Coaching to Enrich Professional Practice, School Culture, and Student Learning (Premium Members Access All Chapters)

Premium members can log in to read all chapters of Pam Robbins's book on peer coaching as a job-embedded learning strategy. Learn how peer coaching can effectively support the growth of every teacher and enrich learning processes in any school.

Teaming Up to Lead Instruction from Education Update

Good instructional leaders don't hide in a corner office or behind a desk. Effective instructional leadership requires communication, visibility, and accessibility on the part of administrators and teachers and a commitment to collaboration.

When Teachers Support and Evaluate Their Peers from Educational Leadership

In peer assistance and review (PAR) programs, teacher leadership plays an essential role in growing teachers' practice.

Teaching Is Leading from Educational Leadership

Teacher leadership happens every day, both inside and outside the classroom.

ASCD Resources

Teacher Leadership That Strengthens Professional Practice by Charlotte Danielson

The principal characteristic of teacher leadership, as described here, is that it is completely informal. Teacher leaders don't gain their authority through an assigned role or position; rather, they earn it through their work with both their students and their colleagues. Author Charlotte Danielson illustrates three stories of teachers who embody these characteristics. Subsequent chapters describe teacher leadership in some detail and enumerate what it is that teacher leaders actually do.

How to Thrive as a Teacher Leader by John G. Gabriel

This book is primarily geared toward teacher leaders or those aspiring to leadership roles, and includes beneficial tips and techniques that all school employees should have in their educational toolboxes. Learn about effective teacher leadership, particularly how to be a skillful communicator who can neutralize resistance and find ways to create a positive climate and a sense of community.

Other Duties as Assigned: Tips, Tools, and Techniques for Expert Teacher Leadership by Jan Burgess with Donna Bates

In this book, you'll find varied and engaging guidance for mastering both the concrete and intangible aspects of the essential teacher leader role. Authors and veteran educators Jan Burgess and Donna Bates highlight key research findings, provide prompts for reflection, address the common dilemmas of teacher leaders, and give real-world answers to the most-pressing leadership challenges.

Peer Coaching to Enrich Professional Practice, School Culture, and Student Learning by Pam Robbins

Pam Robbins explains how to develop a collaborative, learning-focused culture and build trust among colleagues; offers strategies for participating in difficult conversations that yield useful feedback; clarifies how to develop, sustain, and evaluate peer coaching efforts; and showcases exemplary peer coaching practices used in real schools.
Anne Campbell is the Content and Product Manager at ASCD.

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16 Resources on Being a Teacher Leader - ASCD Inservice

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No matter their roles, teacher leaders shape their school's culture, improve student learning, and influence practice among their peers. Teachers can adopt various leadership strategies that best fit their talents and interests. Learn how to evaluate your leadership style and start improving your practice and school today with this selection of resources just released on [...]

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Learning progressions: Pathways for 21st century teaching and learning | Brookings

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Learning progressions are a tool for teachers to understand how transferable skills develop and progress over time.

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Providing students access to a high-quality education begins first and foremost with an effective teacher in every classroom. To move closer toward ensuring all classrooms have a quality educator, state and federal governments have invested in professional development (PD) programs, typically including workshops and presentations given to teachers to further their skills and content knowledge. Yet, the "typical" PD program is often too generic to meet teachers' needs, leaving room for improvement and rarely showing impacts on student outcomes.

In the U.S., schools spend between 74 and 181 million dollars per year on professional development programs to improve teacher quality. Despite the widespread use of these programs, many doubt if they are truly effective. Researchers have found no significant improvements in teacher instruction from year to year, and teachers continuously complain that these programs fail to fit their needs.

To personalize professional development, many school districts have started to hire instructional coaches for their teachers. Instructional coaches help educators and administrators develop expertise in academic content standards by, for example, "helping districts coordinate textbook adoption, developing curricula, and providing professional development and mentoring to teachers." Accelerated by federal education policy like No Child Left Behind, the staffing rate of these coaches doubled from 2000 to 2015. In this post, I explore the current evidence on the effects of instructional coaches on teacher instruction, student achievement, and other student outcomes.

Instructional coaching versus traditional professional development

The most common form of professional development is the "workshop." Teachers attend these sessions at scheduled times-often after school, on the weekend, or during the summer-that are led by leaders with special expertise. Institutes, courses, and conferences are other forms of professional development that share many features of workshops. Michael Garet and co-authors suggest that the traditional workshop form of professional development struggles to produce meaningful change in teacher practice because workshops are often too general in content or do not offer active learning opportunities-the preferred method for adults and teachers to practice before going back to the daily grind.

In contrast, instructional coaching occurs during the process of classroom instruction or regularly scheduled planning time. Instead of presenting a general workshop, instructional coaches observe teachers in their classroom, provide feedback, and engage in meaningful discussion with teachers about their lessons. Sarah Galey, a researcher at Michigan State University focusing on instructional coaching, states that coaches also provide support when teachers plan lessons and can facilitate teachers' learning by organizing peer groups where teachers can share and discuss lesson plans and classroom management strategies with other teachers. According to Garet et al, professional development programs like instructional coaching are more effective than the traditional PD workshop model because they are integrated in a teachers' day-to-day activities at the school and respond better to the active way teachers learn best.

There is currently no standard model or definition of an instructional coach's role or licensure requirements across programs or states. Looking across studies by Kowal & Steiner and Sailors & Price, instructional coaching models vary in purpose and practice because many were designed to meet local needs using available resources. Coaching models differ in who they prefer to hire (excellent teachers within the school who serve as mentors versus outside consultants brought in to institute reform); the strategy of the coaching (whether the coach relies on joint inquiry or assumes the role of an "expert" directing teachers); and in the focus of the program (whether the program focuses on approach and content or improving professional culture among the faculty).

Across instructional coaching studies by Jim Knight and Galey, there is consensus that instructional coaches need to combine teaching and content expertise with strong interpersonal and organizational abilities as coaches attempt to improve teachers' practice while navigating complex relationships between policy mandates, school administrators, and wary teachers.

Promising evaluations of instructional coaching

While schools hire more and more instructional coaches, critics have pointed out that the dramatic growth of non-teaching personnel has not resulted in improved graduation rates or test scores. They argue that this massive amount of money could be more effectively used elsewhere.

Despite the criticism of "top-heavy" schools, however, evaluations of instructional coaching programs show that coaching can create meaningful change in teachers' instruction in reading, science, and math. In fact, Kraft, Blazar, and Hogan's recent meta-analysis of 60 instructional coaching evaluations found large, positive effects of coaching on instructional practice (0.49 standard deviations).

The paper found, however, that coaching has a more limited effect when it comes to student achievement (0.18 standard deviations). They interpret the evidence to suggest a much weaker relationship between instructional inputs and achievement outputs. Some prior studies suggest that coaching improves areas of instruction, such as the richness of concepts taught and eliciting student thinking and participation that ultimately appear unrelated to student achievement.

Instructional coaching's positive effects appear to extend beyond student achievement. Qualitative evaluations of instructional coaching conclude that coaches can play an important role in the implementation of instructional reform by helping teachers connect faraway, standards-based policy with their day-to-day teaching strategies. In addition, research shows that instructional coaching may help close the racial discipline gap and ensure equitable treatment for students. Anne Gregory's recent study found that instructional coaching successfully closed the racial discipline gap by helping teachers incorporate higher-level thinking and hypothesis generation into their lesson plans. As a result, all students were more engaged and the coached teachers no longer referred black students for disciplinary action at a higher rate than their non-black peers.

Instructional coaching moving forward

Although evidence on instructional coaching suggests it is more effective than the traditional "workshop" PD model in improving instructional practice, there are several factors to consider moving forward. First of all, these programs need to be cost effective. Many of the current instructional coaching programs are small scale and very expensive to implement.

While it is unclear whether these programs could continue to make an impact when brought to scale, creative tools like the use of technology could help deliver this coaching in a low-cost, flexible manner to a larger group of teachers. A recent intervention used video recording, playback, and video conferencing to deliver coaching sessions to science teachers in rural middle and high schools. The use of technology provided maximum flexibility to teachers, while also allowing instructional coaches to help multiple teachers at once in a cost-effective manner.

When determining the feasibility of technology-based interventions, however, policymakers must keep in mind that there are significant differences in how well disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged schools provide the resources and support for teachers to incorporate digital tools in the classroom. Policymakers must overcome this "digital divide" in schools to ensure that technology-based instructional coaching programs meet their full potential.

Since school districts are already making huge investments in professional development (as noted above), perhaps policymakers and district leaders can repurpose and redistribute funding toward innovative and cost-effective programs like technology-driven instructional coaching to maximize their investment's impact on instructional quality.

Secondly, according to Galey and Knight, instructional coaches, school administrators, and policymakers across the country need to work together to standardize and develop a clear and comprehensive definition for the role of an instructional coach. Their research found that coaches report operating best when their role is well defined, and the current lack of a clear and shared definition creates tension for coaches and causes co-workers to underappreciate an instructional coach's work. In order for instructional coaches to meet their full potential, they ultimately need a clear and standardized definition of their role in schools.

Conclusion

A number of studies have documented both the importance of having an experienced teacher leading a classroom and the extent of unequal access to quality teachers. Promoting higher quality instruction could potentially impact the least-advantaged students the most.

Helping teachers become more effective in the classroom has been a federal and state priority for the last 10 years, and instructional coaching can play an important role in this effort. By providing more personalized support to teachers, coaching can improve the classroom instruction students receive and can ultimately ensure that more students are taught by effective teachers and benefit from a high-quality education.
Hana Dai contributed to this post.

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Instructional coaching holds promise as a method to improve teachers' impact

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Providing students access to a high-quality education begins first and foremost with an effective teacher in every classroom. To move closer toward ensuring all classrooms have a quality educator, state and federal governments have invested in professional development (PD) programs, typically including workshops and presentations given to teachers to further their skills and content knowledge.

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3 Question Rules for Hiring:  Jeff Bezos

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3 Question Rules for Hiring:  Jeff Bezos

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Today, given his busy schedule and Amazon's rapid growth, it's unlikely that Bezos - who has a current net worth of $192 billion, according to Forbes - has the time to meet with every candidate.

But, to ensure that the company would retain its high standards, Bezos outlined three key questions for leaders to consider before hiring new employees in his 1998 letter to shareholders.

Although written 22 years ago, these are timeless questions that both hiring managers and candidates should think about before any job interview:
1. "Will you admire this person?"
"If you think about the people you've admired in your life, they are probably people you've been able to learn from or take an example from," Bezos wrote in the letter, adding that he's always tried to work only with people he admires.

Interview tip for candidates: I've interviewed hundreds of people throughout my career, and two admirable traits that I consistently look for are integrity and leadership.

I do this by asking them to describe a time they've had to handle a difficult situation. I essentially want to know: Did they use diplomacy? What were their intentions? Can they be trusted? What does their thought process say about them as a person?
2. "Will this person raise the average level of effectiveness of the group they're entering?"
"The bar has to continuously go up," Bezos wrote in his letter.

The problem is, it can be difficult for hiring managers to tell if a candidate, once hired, will remain engaged and eager to grow with the company for years to come.

"Long-term thinking is a core value cemented in Amazon's history since our inception," according to Amazon's Day One blog. (And it's true: Some of Amazon's most successful business areas, like Amazon Prime and Amazon Web Services, launched many years ago.)

Interview tip for candidates: To fight entropy, Bezos always asked candidates how they visualize the company five years from now. "At that point," he wrote, "each of us should look around and say, 'The standards are so high now - boy, I'm glad I got in when I did!'"

Before your interview, research the company's values and be prepared to talk about how you plan to exceed expectations and goals as the company grows.
3. "Along what dimension might this person be a superstar?"
In addition to their skills and experience, Bezos said it's important to consider a candidate's individual talents.

"One person here is a National Spelling Bee champion," he wrote. "I suspect it doesn't help her in her everyday work, but it does make working here more fun if you can occasionally snag her in the hall with a quick challenge: 'Onomatopoeia!'"

Superstar employees can be mavericks, radical and a little rebellious, too - and although these types may be "a little bit annoying" and "not always the easiest to get along with," Bezos said in a 2018 interview, "you want them at your organization" because they encourage innovative thinking.

Interview tip for candidates: Having extracurricular activities, odd hobbies and unique skills that are unrelated to your job gives you edge and shows you can offer different perspectives. Put these on your resume and find ways to bring them up during the interview.
is a leadership expert and vice president of innovation at Massive Alliance. His work has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, Inc., and The Washington Post. In 2014, Tom was named one of the "40 Under 40" by the Baltimore Business Journal. Follow him on .
I also love hearing stories about how a candidate successfully implemented a creative solution to a problem, or about how they contributed to the company culture in a way that helped make the workplace more fun and interesting.

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Jeff Bezos' 3-question rule for hiring new Amazon employees-and how to answer them right

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Don't depend on a shiny resume if you want to land a job at Amazon. Even in its early years, when the online retailer had just 2,100 employees, founder and CEO Jeff Bezos was fastidious about hiring the strongest employees possible. Here's what he asked hiring managers to look for.

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Case Interview Examples: The 9 Best in 2021 (McKinsey, Bain, BCG, etc.)

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Just the VERY BEST 9 Case Interview Example videos available all around the web, personally and carefully curated, reviewed and commented by me.

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Deciding to leave any job can be hard, but for teachers, exiting the classroom can be downright heartbreaking.

Teaching is, in its essence, about relationships-understanding students' needs, fostering their passions, figuring out what makes them tick. To give up that work, for many, would be a deep loss.

"It's the students' faces, it's their excitement to learn," said Akilah Williams, a 5th grade teacher in Georgia's Clayton County school district, outside Atlanta. "The students are what keep me here."

And yet about 8 percent of teachers leave the profession every year, federal data have long shown. Younger teachers, and those early in their careers, are among the most likely to leave teaching. And while trends in turnover do vary regionally, special education teachers and science and math teachers tend to be at high risk for turnover.

All of that was true before the coronavirus pandemic began last year. How the fallout from COVID-19-the unparalleled physical, financial, and emotional stressors, and the upending of what work looks like-ultimately affects those statistics on a national scale won't be clear for some time.

"This year has been very difficult for me," said Williams, who recently participated in a filmed series for Roadtrip Nation in which classroom teachers interviewed inspiring educators who've persisted in this field. "I'm the teacher that when students get here, you can give me a high-five, hip bump, a handshake, or a hug. ... It stifled me so to know my students were just sitting at computers."

(Education Week has a joint grant with Roadtrip Nation to pursue reporting on teacher retention.)

To understand more about why teachers consider leaving-or actually do make the jump-and the impact of the pandemic on their decisionmaking, the EdWeek Research Center surveyed about 700 teachers and 300 school leaders online in March 2021. The nationally representative results provide a backbone for this series of stories, which are meant both to illuminate the barriers to keeping great teachers and offer some solutions.

Here's some of what the data tell us:

More teachers are thinking about leaving now than before the pandemic

When asked about the likelihood that they'll leave teaching in the next two years, 54 percent of teachers said they are "somewhat" or "very likely" to do so. That's compared to just 34 percent of teachers who said they would have answered that question with "somewhat" or "very likely" if they'd been asked in the fall of 2019 (before the pandemic began).

That's not too surprising, given that 84 percent of teachers also said teaching is more stressful than it was before coronavirus closures.

It's important to remember, though, that many teachers who say they're considering leaving won't actually do so. Many teachers simply can't afford to lose their pay and benefits; some older teachers will decide they're close enough to a pension to hang on.

"There are so many forces and so much stress and pressure on teachers, many of them do really want to leave," said Tuan Nguyen, an assistant professor in the college of education at Kansas State University, who's studied teacher attrition. But "intentions aren't the same thing as behaviors."

Teachers stay because they love their students

When asked which factors play the biggest role in keeping them in the teaching profession, teachers were most likely to point to "love for students."

Caring for young people is, of course, what draws many to the profession, and more than 2 in 5 teachers said it's a top reason they stay. Retirement benefits and love for subjects taught were the next two most frequently chosen answers.

As one Indiana middle school teacher surveyed wrote: "We are pulled in [so] many ways by outside forces. There are committee meetings, PLC meetings, teacher meetings, IEP meetings, grade level meetings, team meetings, subject area meetings, and the list goes on and on, plus every meeting requires more emails. Teaching students is wonderful. It is all the OTHER that is exhausting."

Pay makes a big impact

The survey asked teachers what their school or district could do that would make a major difference in reducing the likelihood they would leave the K-12 teaching profession in the next two years. The most frequently chosen answer? Increase salaries.

School leaders agreed there, with nearly 7 in 10 saying pay raises would make a major difference in keeping teachers.

And yet some states had to scrap planned salary increases when the pandemic hit.

Those pay hikes could return as economies recover. And some states, like Utah and Georgia, are already giving teachers small hardship bonuses of $1,000 or more.

"In general, we do have evidence that teachers who receive higher salaries are more likely to stay in teaching than teachers with lower salaries," said Nguyen of Kansas State. And while a couple thousand dollars won't usually move the needle on retention, he said, this year things may look different.

"It's not just about the money, but also the recognition that they've had to work so hard this year," he said. "I think that makes a big difference."

Teachers and administrators see things differently

Asking the two groups what keeps teachers in the profession reveals some disparate thinking. Nearly 1 in 3 teachers said retirement benefits are one of the biggest factors in getting them to stay, while just 6 percent of school leaders said the same about teachers. And 35 percent of school leaders said supportive administrators are one of the biggest factors in getting teachers to stay, but just 11 percent of teachers felt the same.

Administrators also seem to underemphasize the impact of reducing administrative burdens such as paperwork, meetings, and hall duty-27 percent of administrators said this is something schools could do to keep teachers, and 43 percent of teachers said the same.

There are countless other variables that affect whether teachers stay or go. Child-care and other family responsibilities can compel teachers, 80 percent of whom are women, to take time off or ultimately leave their careers.

For Black male teachers, who make up just 2 percent of the workforce, isolation and being pigeonholed as disciplinarians can lead them to consider opting out.

Schools and districts want to keep good teachers, and in this special report we'll also explore some of the creative ways they're trying to do just that. Some districts are giving teachers more flexibility in how and where they do their jobs, including offering continued options for virtual teaching and meetings. Others are looking to improve their mentorship programs for new teachers. And some schools are making teachers' mental health a priority by creating support groups and reducing barriers to getting insurance-covered counseling services.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the report is that even while many teachers feel underappreciated and worn out, there are some concrete steps administrators can take to increase the odds they'll stay-but it all starts with listening.

"I think sometimes administrators might think teachers are just being dramatic," said Jennifer Atkins, a 7th grade English/language arts teacher in Victoria, Texas, who has been teaching remote and in-person students concurrently since last summer. "They need to take what we say and not assume we're overexaggerating. It really is difficult this year."

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Why Teachers Leave-or Don't: A Look at the Numbers

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New EdWeek survey results reveal why teachers consider leaving the profession, and how the pandemic has changed their decisionmaking.

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A Teacher’s Lesson on Leadership | Beth Wolfe | TEDxMarshallUniversity

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"Learning Forward's focus in this new law is its improved definition of professional learning," said Learning Forward's Stephanie Hirsh. "We've long advocated for a definition of professional development in federal policy that aligns with our Standards for Professional Learning. We concentrated our advocacy energy on this element of the legislation because that definition applies to the references to professional development that appear throughout the law."

Professional Development

The term "professional development" means activities that-

"(A) are an integral part of school and local educational agency strategies for providing educators (including teachers, principals, other school leaders, specialized instructional support personnel, paraprofessionals, and, as applicable, early childhood educators) with the knowledge and skills necessary to enable students to succeed in a well-rounded education and to meet the challenging State academic standards; and

"(B) are sustained (not stand-alone, 1-day, or short term workshops), intensive, collaborative, job-embedded, data-driven, and classroom-focused, and may include activities that-

"(i) improve and increase teachers'-

"(I) knowledge of the academic subjects the teachers teach;

"(II) understanding of how students learn; and

"(III) ability to analyze student work and achievement from multiple sources, including how to adjust instructional strategies, assessments, and materials based on such analysis;

"(ii) are an integral part of broad school-wide and district-wide educational improvement plans;

"(iii) allow personalized plans for each educator to address the educator's specific needs identified in observation or other feedback;

"(iv) improve classroom management skills;

"(v) support the recruitment, hiring, and training of effective teachers, including teachers who became certified through State and local alternative routes to certification;

"(vi) advance teacher understanding of-

"(I) effective instructional strategies that are evidence-based; and

"(II) strategies for improving student academic achievement or substantially increasing the knowledge and teaching skills of teachers;

"(vii) are aligned with, and directly related to, academic goals of the school or local educational agency;

"(viii) are developed with extensive participation of teachers, principals, other school leaders, parents, representatives of Indian tribes (as applicable), and administrators of schools to be served under this Act;

"(ix) are designed to give teachers of English learners, and other teachers and instructional staff, the knowledge and skills to provide instruction and appropriate language and academic support services to those children, including the appropriate use of curricula and assessments;

"(x) to the extent appropriate, provide training for teachers, principals, and other school leaders in the use of technology (including education about the harms of copyright piracy), so that technology and technology applications are effectively used in the classroom to improve teaching and learning in the curricula and academic subjects in which the teachers teach;

"(xi) as a whole, are regularly evaluated for their impact on increased teacher effectiveness and improved student academic achievement, with the findings of the evaluations used to improve the quality of professional development;

"(xii) are designed to give teachers of children with disabilities or children with developmental delays, and other teachers and instructional staff, the knowledge and skills to provide instruction and academic support services, to those children, including positive behavioral interventions and supports, multi-tier system of supports, and use of accommodations;

"(xiii) include instruction in the use of data and assessments to inform and instruct classroom practice;

"(xiv) include instruction in ways that teachers, principals, other school leaders, specialized instructional support personnel, and school administrators may work more effectively with parents and families;

"(xv) involve the forming of partnerships with institutions of higher education, including, as applicable, Tribal Colleges and Universities as defined in section 316(b) of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1059c(b)), to establish school-based teacher, principal, and other prospective teachers, novice teachers, principals, and other school leaders with an opportunity to work under the guidance of experienced teachers, principals, other school leaders, and faculty of such institutions;

"(xvi) create programs to enable paraprofessionals (assisting teachers employed by a local educational agency receiving assistance under part A of title I) to obtain the education necessary for those paraprofessionals to become certified and licensed teachers;

"(xvii) provide follow-up training to teachers who have participated in activities described in this paragraph that are designed to ensure that the knowledge and skills learned by the teachers are implemented in the classroom; and

"(xviii) where practicable, provide jointly for school staff and other early childhood education program providers, to address the transition to elementary school, including issues related to school readiness."

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Professional Learning Definition | Learning Forward

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President Obama signed into law the Every Student Succeeds Act, the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, on December 10, 2015.

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Tips from the Trenches:  James Dalziel:  Strategic Planning

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Tips from the Trenches:  James Dalziel:  Strategic Planning

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TFTT JDL Strategic Planning and Projects

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Tips from the Trenches:  James Dalziel:  Teacher Retention

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Tips from the Trenches:  James Dalziel:  Teacher Retention

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Tips from the Trenches:  James Dalziel:  Creating and Supporting Teacher Leader Roles

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Tips from the Trenches:  James Dalziel:  Creating and Supporting Teacher Leader Roles

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PTC Tips From The Trenches: Creating and Supporting Teacher Leadership Roles within the school

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Tips from the Trenches:  James Dalziel:  Creating School Schedules 

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Tips from the Trenches:  James Dalziel:  Creating School Schedules 

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PTC Tips From The Trenches: Creating a School Schedule that Maximizes Student Learning

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Tips from the Trenches:  Recruiting by Lauren Mehrbach

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Tips from the Trenches:  Recruiting by Lauren Mehrbach

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To Get People to Embrace Change, Emphasize will stay the same

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To Get People to Embrace Change, Emphasize will stay the same

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Executive Summary

Common wisdom has it that to build support for a change project, visionary leadership is needed to outline what is wrong with the current situation and how the envisioned change will result in a better and more appealing future. New research suggests that doing so might create resistance to change, especially in environments of uncertainty. After all, employees identify with and care for their organizations. They may fear that, after the change, the organization will no longer be the one they value and identify with. Counterintuitively, then, effective change leadership has to emphasize continuity - how what is central to "who we are" as an organization will be preserved, despite the uncertainty and changes on the horizon.

Eric Raptosh/Getty Images

Common wisdom in management science and practice has it that to build support for a change project, visionary leadership is needed to outline what is wrong with the current situation. By explaining how the envisioned change will result in a better and more appealing future, leaders can overcome resistance to change. But our research, recently published in the Academy of Management Journal, leads us to add a very important caveat to this.

A root cause of resistance to change is that employees identify with and care for their organizations. People fear that after the change, the organization will no longer be the organization they value and identify with - and the higher the uncertainty surrounding the change, the more they anticipate such threats to the organizational identity they hold dear. Change leadership that emphasizes what is good about the envisioned change and bad about the current state of affairs typically fuels these fears because it signals that changes will be fundamental and far-reaching.

Counterintuitively, then, effective change leadership has to emphasize continuity - how what is central to "who we are" as an organization will be preserved, despite the uncertainty and changes on the horizon.

This is a straightforward and actionable notion that we put to the test in two studies. The first study was a survey of 209 employees and their supervisors from a number of organizations that announced organizational change plans (including relocations and business expansions, reorganizations, structural or technical changes, product changes, changes in leadership, and mergers). The focus was on how effective the leadership was in stimulating employee support for the change, measured through supervisor ratings of employee behavior. As predicted, results showed that leadership was more effective in building support for change the more that leaders also communicated a vision of continuity, because a vision of continuity instilled a sense of continuity of organizational identity in employees. These effects were larger when employees experienced more uncertainty at work (as measured by employee self-ratings).

In the second study, we tested the same idea using a laboratory experiment so that we could draw conclusions about causality. 208 business school students participated in the study, and the context was potential changes in the school's curriculum. They received one of two messages allegedly from the dean of the business school. One conveyed a vision of change for the curriculum, and the other conveyed the same vision of change but also conveyed a vision of continuity of identity. Independent of which message they were exposed to, students received one of two versions of background information that suggested either low uncertainty or high uncertainty about change outcomes. We then assessed their sense of continuity of identity and their support for the change as expressed in actual behavior: help in drafting a letter to persuade other students to support the change. The results of this second study were similar to those of the first: Support for change was higher when the vision of change was accompanied by a vision of continuity, because in this case people's sense of continuity of identity was higher. Again, the effects were stronger when uncertainty about the change was higher.

The implications of this research are straightforward. In overcoming resistance to change and building support for change, leaders need to communicate an appealing vision of change in combination with a vision of continuity. Unless they are able to ensure people that what defines the organization's identity - "what makes us who we are" - will be preserved despite the changes, leaders may have to brace themselves for a wave of resistance.

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Research: To Get People to Embrace Change, Emphasize What Will Stay the Same

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Executive Summary Common wisdom has it that to build support for a change project, visionary leadership is needed to outline what is wrong with the current situation and how the envisioned change will result in a better and more appealing future. New research suggests that doing so might create resistance to change, especially in environments of uncertainty.

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March 2019 | Volume 76 | Number 6
The Power of Instructional Leadership Pages 24-29

Mike Schmoker

For most schools, far-fetched as it may seem, this scenario is well within reach. But only if leaders, starting with district leadership, (1) ensure that schools pursue a severely reduced number of initiatives and (2) select and focus on only the most urgently needed, evidence-based instructional initiatives (those which, sadly, the preponderance of our schools have yet to adopt).

Meeting these conditions will all but guarantee success. Honoring them is the most probable path to wide-scale effective leadership.

An Example with Focus

Consider an elementary school in the Amphitheater Public Schools district in Tucson, Arizona, where I worked as a central office administrator. In 1995, after years of laboring under each year's complex, multigoal "strategic plan," the principal was convinced (by me and an instructional coach) to focus on just one goal: increasing the proportion of students who could write effectively about both fiction and nonfiction texts. Higher-level administrators gave him permission to focus on this goal. This initiative was chosen on the basis of evidence showing that such a focus was desperately needed in almost all schools and would have an enormous impact; the ability to read critically and then write effectively ranks at or near the top of what equips students for everything from state assessments to college and career success (Conley, 2007; Schmoker, 2018).

By focusing on this single goal, the principal, teacher leaders, and grade-level teams were able to devote their time, energy, and data collection to this priority at every faculty meeting-thus fostering all-important continuity, enthusiasm, and momentum. And they had time to address the resistance, confusion, and small setbacks that inevitably beset any new initiative.

The results were almost immediate. All students began to improve their reading, thinking, and writing abilities as measured by common writing assessments and criteria. At monthly team meetings (I was at most of them), teacher teams often celebrated double-digit growth in the percentage of students whose scores had risen. It was a pleasure for all involved-including the principal, who at year's end expressed his gratitude for being coaxed into focusing on this single, high-impact initiative.

The Case for Less

The case for this limited-focus approach is very strong. Countless leadership studies point to the power of devoting our precious time and energy to only one or a "tiny set" of priorities (Hansen, 2018). The titles of some recent articles highlighting such results are indicative: "How to Do More by Doing Less" by Scott Anderson in Entrepreneur, "How Doing Less Allows You to Accomplish More" by Logan Chierotti in Inc., and "Do Less to Achieve More" by Ron Ashkenar in Forbes. In his 2011 Huffington Post article, "Accomplishing More by Doing Less," Marc Lesser writes that a leader's "greatest accomplishment is having the courage to do less."

Several book-length studies confirm these observations. In So Much Reform, So Little Change, Charles Payne (2011) found that the primary reason for the general failure of three-plus decades of reform is our addiction to excess. Because schools typically launch too many initiatives, none of them are implemented with adequate "depth and intensity." This is death to successful execution. Similarly, in Essentialism, Greg McKeown (2013) urges leaders to focus, whenever possible, on only one major initiative at a time-until that initiative is fully and successfully executed and produces results. Success, McKeown writes, is a function of "the disciplined pursuit of less."

A more recent example is Morton Hansen's Great at Work (2018), based on a five-year study of 5,000 leaders. Of the seven top factors that Hansen found influence leaders' performance, "focus"-a commitment to a severely reduced number of initiatives-was number one, the single most pivotal factor. Hansen's operative expression is, "Do less, then obsess." That is, apply the (always-limited!) time and energy that now get diffused across several initiatives intensely and obsessively to one or two major initiatives at a time.

That's the power of less. But in our age of educator overload and burnout, we'd also be smart to consider the pleasures of less. For McKeown, this "disciplined pursuit of less" transforms work. Obstacles are reduced, and instead of being "hard and full of friction," the execution of our tasks and projects becomes "almost effortless" (2014, p. 174). Both leaders and staff find "joy in the journey."

Hansen likewise writes that those who obsess over a "tiny set" of goals will be "less stressed out, more balanced, and more satisfied with their job." For such people, life improves dramatically both inside and outside of work (2018, p. 193). They experience better work-life balance, higher job satisfaction, and less burnout. Hansen even found that top performers who learned to do less, then obsess didn't work longer hours.

But, alas, focus isn't enough. McKeown notes that we must also apply the most "extreme criteria" in selecting what we focus on. For educators, that means we must follow the evidence to what will have the absolute maximum benefit for students.

The (Likely) Three Most Powerful Initiatives

If we want effective instructional leadership in every school, building-level leaders must be allowed to zero in on initiatives that are guaranteed to have a large and immediate impact on legitimate measures of student performance. We have a moral obligation to restructure schools in this way.

For the majority of schools, choosing such initiatives will be easier than it appears. If we honestly apply the most extreme criteria to select the most powerful, urgently needed focus for a school, the evidence will likely point to one or more of the following priorities: creating a clear, coherent curriculum; promoting authentic literacy; or ensuring that instruction includes certain key elements (clarity on what will be learned and how the learning will be assessed, and frequent checks for understanding throughout the lesson). Many studies confirm the primacy of these three aspects of schooling (and, sadly, their absence, even in schools with respectable test scores). So focusing on any one of these will have an outsize impact on all students, from high-achieving to struggling.

1. Creating a Coherent Curriculum

There is a "mountain of evidence" (Sahm, 2017) that implementing a coherent, content-rich curriculum may be the most foundational element of effective schooling and has the greatest impact on students' learning, reading ability, and life chances. Yet such a curriculum is rarely created, implemented, or even monitored in the majority of our schools (Darling-Hammond, 2010-2011; Hirsch, 2016; Sahm, 2017). Typically, when I review a school or district's so-called "curriculum" with leaders, I find it's a barely modified catalog of state standards or a thick, jargon-laced document; neither of these provides adequate clarity or guidance on what to teach, and when (Darling Hammond, 2010, p. 295). And only the rare school meaningfully monitors what is actually taught. As a result, omissions and inconsistencies abound; what students learn depends largely on which teacher they happen to get (DuFour & Marzano, 2011).

When a coherent curriculum is created and implemented, results can come with amazing speed (Marshall, 2003). After years of seeing low achievement at his Boston elementary school, principal Kim Marshall persuaded his faculty to build and implement a coherent curriculum at each grade level. As a result, the school made the largest gains of any Boston public school in 1999, rising from the bottom to the top third of Boston schools (in terms of achievement)-in a single school year.

Any team of teachers can build a coherent, provisional curriculum (subject to administrative review) in about two hours. The process begins with a review of state standards, followed by thoughtful selection of the most essential content and skills. Then the team should decide which content and skills to teach each grading period, and in what order. And we must never forget that any curriculum worthy of the name must include generous amounts of substantive reading, discussion, and writing.

2. Promoting Authentic Literacy

The ability to read, write, and speak effectively may be more critical to academic and career success than any other factor (Hirsch, 2016; Hurley, 2015). Yet authentic analytic reading, writing, and discussion activities rarely occur during a typical school day-even in language arts classes. They are routinely supplanted by a host of inauthentic literacy skills- or worksheet-based activities-even in this Common Core era (Schmoker, 2018).

What happens when a leader rallies the troops to change this reality? Brockton High School, the largest school in Massachusetts, was near the bottom in achievement. Under the leadership of associate principal Susan Szachowicz, the faculty shored up their curriculum and built reading, writing, thinking, and speaking into every course. They established that on certain days every week, in every course, students would complete content-based reading and writing assignments. In Szachowicz's words, school leaders "monitored like crazy" to make sure the plan was faithfully implemented.

A year later, the Massachusetts commissioner of education called to tell Brockton's principal that the school had made the largest achievement gains in the state. They made similar gains for the next six years-at which point Brockton had risen to the top 10 percent of Massachusetts schools.

3. Delivering Soundly Structured Instruction

The presence of certain elements of instruction ensures that much higher proportions of students will succeed on daily lessons, projects, and standardized assessments. Such lessons start with a clear statement of what will be learned, why it's worth learning, and how it will be assessed. Then, for each small, manageable chunk of the lesson, the teacher quickly and efficiently checks to ensure that every student can successfully do the work (for instance, by circulating while students work, checking their progress). If some students are struggling, the teacher must adjust her instruction-by reteaching key concepts or addressing common patterns of error-to ensure the highest possible success rate. Top researchers and practitioners now attest to the game-changing impact such instruction will have on student achievement-on virtually any kind of lesson or task (see Schmoker, 2018, pp. 63-71).

I was once invited to observe a teacher use these methods at a high school in my community. The principal later told me that, almost solely because of the increased scores of students in this teacher's class, the entire school had made the largest percent gains on the statewide writing exam-within one year.

Leaders can ensure that all teachers within their school include these crucial elements in their instruction by thoroughly training and retraining teachers in these methods and by making these techniques the primary focus of both teacher evaluation and classroom observations.

Go Forth and Obsess

If you, as a leader, find something more effective or more urgently needed than these three priorities, adopt it. Then obsess: Give that priority the time, energy, and attention that most initiatives are now starved for.

If our school and district leaders truly embraced McKeown's "disciplined pursuit of less," leaders and practitioners in ordinary schools, in every community, could achieve the "stunningly powerful consequences" Fullan mentions-with less stress and more satisfaction than ever.

References

Conley, D. (2007). The challenge of college readiness. Educational Leadership, 64(7), 23-29.

Darling-Hammond, L. (2010). The flat world of education. New York & London: Teachers College Press.

Darling-Hammond, L. (2010-2011). Soaring systems. American Educator, 34(4), 20-23.

DuFour, R., & Marzano, R. (2011). Leaders and learning. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

Fullan, M. (2009). Motion leadership: The skinny on becoming change savvy. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Hansen, M. (2018). Great at work: How top performers do less, work better and achieve more. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Hirsch, E. D. (2016). Why knowledge matters. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Hurley, P. (2015, Feb 9). Communication named most sought after skill set in corporate recruiter survey. The Hurley Write Blog. Retrieved from: www.hurleywrite.com/Blog/92444/Communication-Named-Most-Sought-After-Skill-Set-in-Corporate-Recruiter-Survey

Lesser, M. (2011, November 17). Accomplishing more by doing less. Huffington Post. Retrieved from: www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-lesser/accomplishing-more-by-doi_b_376989.html

Marshall, K. (2003). A principal looks back: Standards matter. Phi Delta Kappan, 85(2), 105-113.

McKeown, G. (2014) Essentialism: The disciplined pursuit of less. New York: Currency.

Payne, C. M. (2011). So much reform, so little change. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Sahm, C. (2017, January 10). Why curriculum counts. Flypaper. Retrieved from: https://edexcellence.net/articles/why-curriculum-counts

Schmoker, M. (2018). Demystifying writing, transforming education. Educational Leadership, 75(7), 22-27.

Endnotes

A more thorough case for these three priorities can be found in chapters 2 and 3 of my book Focus (2018, ASCD). Detailed procedures for their implementation can be found there and in Leading with Focus (ASCD, 2016).

A step-by-step process for building high-quality curriculum can be found in Focus, pp. 48-51.

Mike Schmoker is a speaker and consultant and the author of Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning, 2nd Edition (ASCD 2018) and Leading with Focus (ASCD 2016).

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March 2019 | Volume 76 | Number 6 The Power of Instructional Leadership Pages 24-29 Mike Schmoker For most schools, far-fetched as it may seem, this scenario is well within reach.

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Managing Change in Education | JT Rehill | TEDxYouth@KIS

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Change Leadership - Pip Curtis (PTC Pearls of Wisdom)

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Data Wise:  Guide to Using Assessment Results to Improve Teaching and Learning

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Data Wise:  Guide to Using Assessment Results to Improve Teaching and Learning

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5 Pieces of Data your Leadership Team Should be Analysing 

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5 Pieces of Data your Leadership Team Should be Analysing 

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Leadership teams spend hours and hours each school year looking at assessment data. Data will help teachers and administrators target individual students and standards for intervention. However, assessment data is only part of the picture. There is a wide variety of data out there that needs to be analyzed in order to truly transform schools and to change student outcomes. Unfortunately, most leadership teams never move beyond assessment data.

Here are five pieces of data your leadership teams should be analyzing:

It doesn't matter how great the teachers are, or how engaging the content is. You can spend thousands of dollars on hands-on activities, field trip, and educational technology. None of these things will make a difference if students are not at school. Students with poor attendance need an intervention. Parents meetings must be set up and attendance plans created. Home visits can be very powerful for students who are truant. I was once told that the most important job of a school principal is to put butts in seats. Field of Dreams taught us that if you build it, they will come. Principals should live by the phrase: if you get them there, they will learn.

Most school data systems have a place for discipline tracking. It is important that infractions are tracked in order to provide students with behavioral interventions. However, I have always found it interesting to see where the infractions were coming from. By analyzing this data by teacher, or by grade level, you might be able to see an area of opportunity with classroom management training. Behavioral issues at your school might not be solely a student issue.

By instructional minutes, I don't mean how many minutes of the day students are at school. By instructional minutes, I do mean tracking how many minutes students are actually engaged in learning. When I first became a principal, I conducted classroom observations and kept track of how long students were engaged in active learning. The average engagement time was 11 minutes per 52-minute period. We defined active learning as anytime students were speaking with each other, working on a hands-on project, participating in a discussion, or group work. It was eye opening to see how much time students were sitting in class, passively listening to the teacher, reading silently, or completing an independent worksheet.

We need to look at Special Education as an intervention, not forever program. Some students, depending on their disability, might require Special Education services for their entire academic lives. However, most students should be able to move in-between programs and eventually be exited. This should be the goal of every IEP. This is especially true for students receiving OT, Speech, and PT services. Keep track of the number of students who are entering and exiting these programs.

English Language Learner Reclassification

The goal of all English Language Development Programs is to ensure that students are proficient in English. Students can be reclassified and designated as fluent beginning in second grade. It is this data point that will enable a leadership team to gauge the impact of ELD programs. We should not deem a program successful at a school site if students are not being reclassified. Long-term ELD students should also be a data point to consider. It is troublesome to note that some schools have students on their rosters that have been receiving ELD support for over six years without being reclassified.
Dr. David Franklin, CEO of The Principal's Desk, is an experienced school administrator, education professor, curriculum designer, and presenter. Dr. Franklin has presented at national and international education conferences as is available for school and district professional development sessions. He can be reached at david@theprincipalsdesk.org or at www.principalsdesk.org.

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5 Pieces of Data Your Leadership Team Should Be Analyzing

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Leadership teams spend hours and hours each school year looking at assessment data. Data will help teachers and administrators target individual students and standards for intervention. However, assessment data is only part of the picture. There is a wide variety of data out there that needs to be analyzed in order to truly transform schools...

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By: Selena Fisk

Learn a streamlined 10-step process that will help you kickstart, implement, and sustain data-informed schoolwide transformation.

Due to licensing restrictions, only customers within the United States and Canada may purchase Leading Data-Informed Change in Schools from this website. Customers in any other country may purchase this product from Hawker Brownlow Education.

Due to licensing restrictions, only customers within the United States and Canada may purchase Leading Data-Informed Change in Schools from this website. Customers in any other country may purchase this title from Hawker Brownlow Education.

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eBooks are available on desktop, Android, and iOS via Adobe Digital Editions. eBook purchases are limited to one eBook per title, per account. Please visit the eBook FAQ for more information.

Leading Data-Informed Change in Schools

Data--done right--has the power to put schools on the path to true change. Rely on this research-backed resource to help you kickstart, implement, and sustain data-informed schoolwide transformation. There are many ways to use student data, and the author's 10 steps offer practical, clear methods for establishing a data team, collecting relevant data, identifying trends, and taking evidence-based action.

Learn what student data is and how it can be used to help schools.

Understand different methods of data collection and how to use those methods to gather relevant data.

Use gathered data and observed trends to determine what needs changing.

Implement effective data-informed change in your school.

Reflect and assess the results of the change, and make more changes as necessary.

Related Topics
Instruction Leadership

" Leading Data-Informed Change in Schools is a resource for school leaders looking for a step-by-step blueprint to transform their school sites. The process allows schools to transition from using data traditionally (for accountability and tracking) to using it for storytelling, visualization, and reflection. In short, Fisk teaches us that data is just a part of a ten-step process of school change. As a PLC school, this process allows for educators to see data as being an interdependent piece of our work, rather than defining our work."

Eddie Velez, educational consultant and principal, John F. Kennedy High School, Fremont, California

" Leading Data-Informed Change in Schools provides a fresh global perspective on the responsibility we as educators have to use data as the basis of our change processes. Selena Fisk expertly weaves in her theory of action based on the foundation of the PLC and demonstrates how the use of data 'primes the environment' to implement and sustain change. Each chapter is embedded with case studies that illustrate the power of each step in action and with practical strategies to aid in pushing change forward. As the leader of a model PLC, Leading Data-Informed Change in Schools provided me with the tools to examine my own practices and help my team use multiple data sources to pinpoint our next steps."

Kathryn Madigan, acting principal, Glasgow Middle School, Lincolnia, Virginia

"It is encouraging to see a new author present the steps of data use in the context of three other models of change. Fisk recognizes the importance of cultural change as well as technical practices, and crosswalks the data work with 'priming the environment.' As students and teachers return from the pandemic-forced reality of gaps in access and learning, a focus on data to identify needs and support students is critical."

Edie Holcomb, district administrator, author, and data use consultant

" Leading Data-Informed Change in Schools is an authentically spoken, down-to-earth book that will resonate with practitioners. Fisk's ten-step change process provides practical, doable action items, clearly expressed with a mix of anecdote, concept, and consequence. 'Here's what I know,' says Fisk, a practical, lively, thoughtful educational leader. 'Here's why I think it matters. Let's get started on the activities and discussions that will bring you up to speed. It isn't easy. But if we can get this working, you, your staff, and your students will arrive in a more aware, more productive, and, yes, even happier place.' Improvement rarely happens without a plan, and the better the plan, the more likely the reform. In her book, Fisk gives us an informed, workable plan."

Robert Traver, teaching professor, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts

"In Leading Data-Informed Change in Schools, Selena Fisk has taken the elements of using data and broken them into ten steps-starting with setting up a data team and moving through collecting data, reporting data, analyzing data, creating an action plan, and analyzing the impact. The examples and appendix are especially helpful. This book serves as an important guide for any school using data to engage in improvement."
Victoria L. Bernhardt, author, Data Analysis for Continuous School Improvement and Measuring What We Do in Schools: How to Know If What We Are Doing Is Making a Difference

"In clear and concise prose, Selena Fisk makes a compelling case for the important place of data in school improvement initiatives. She puts the need for educators to focus on and become skillful with collaborative inquiry into data squarely within the current context of teaching and learning. Drawing from her rich experience working with schools, she offers practical methods for establishing a climate for change, and then introduces and makes accessible the complex set of skills necessary to do so.

Selena describes ten steps toward effective and systematic data-informed leadership that lay out a clear pathway to success. Each step is illuminated in its own chapter, along with ample examples and strategies. Key summaries and reflection questions at the end of each chapter give busy practitioners a straightforward approach to the journey. This book will be a go-to resource for leaders who value continuous learning and seek to shape and sustain a learning culture in their organizations."

Laura Lipton, Co-Director of MiraVia and author, Got Data? Now What? Creating and Leading Cultures of Inquiry

Share your thoughts, write a review

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Data--done right--has the power to put schools on the path to true change. Rely on this research-backed resource to help you kickstart, implement, and sustain data-informed schoolwide transformation. There are many ways to use student data, and the author's 10 steps offer practical, clear methods for establishing a data team, collecting relevant data, identifying trends, and taking evidence-based action.

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How School Leaders Can Build Effective Data Teams

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How School Leaders Can Build Effective Data Teams

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Abstract

Data-informed decision making is considered important for school improvement. Working in data teams is a promising strategy for implementing data use in schools. Data teams consist of teachers and school leaders, who collaboratively analyze data to solve educational problems at their school. Studies show that school leaders can enable and hinder data use in such teams. This study aims at exploring what types of leadership behaviors are applied to support data use in data teams. The results of this study point to five key building blocks for school leaders wanting to build effective data teams in their school: (1) establishing a vision, norms, and goals (e.g., discussing vision, norms, and goals with teachers); (2) providing individualized support (e.g., providing emotional support); (3) intellectual stimulation (e.g., sharing knowledge and providing autonomy); (4) creating a climate for data use (e.g., creating a safe climate focused on improvement rather than accountability, and engaging in data discussions with teachers); and (5) networking to connect different parts of the school organization (e.g., brokering knowledge and creating a network that is committed to data use). Not only formal school leaders, but also teachers, can display these types of behavior. Finally, it is important to stress here that all these building blocks are needed to create sustainable data use practices. These building blocks can be used in a new wave of data-informed decision making in schools, in which teachers and school leaders collaboratively use a multitude of different data sources to improve education.

Introduction

Data use leads to educators concentrating more on students' deficits than their assets. Data use focuses only on standardized assessment and achievement on a narrow set of topics (e.g., literacy and numeracy). Data use leads to too much pressure on teachers. An emphasis on data use leads to cheating on tests and teaching to the test (Booher-Jennings 2005; Hargreaves et al. 2018). These statements against the use of data have been made a lot in the past decade, and reflect what we would like to call the old wave of data use or data-based decision making (also referred to as data-driven decision making).

However, we are seeing a new wave of data use arising, which we would like to call data- informed decision making, in which data can never completely drive decisions. Instead data can inform decisions, which, combined with the professional knowledge of educators, can contribute to achievement and learning in schools. This type of data use does not focus solely on achievement on a narrow set of topics, but can be used to work on different sets of goals (e.g., literacy and numeracy, but also well-being, arts, critical thinking, and creativity, see Hargreaves et al. 2018). Moreover, data use does not include only standardized assessment data, but includes any type of data that can provide information on the functioning of schools, such as classroom assessment data, classroom observations, student focus groups, and so forth. Data can then be defined as any information that is systematically "collected and organized to represent some aspect of schools" (Lai and Schildkamp 2013, p. 10). This new wave of data use is studied in many countries around the world, such as Belgium (e.g., Van Gasse et al. 2016; Vanhoof et al. 2012; Vanlommel et al. 2016), Canada (e.g., Earl and Katz 2006; Katz and Dack 2014), New Zealand (e.g., McNaughton et al. 2012; Lai et al. 2014), Norway (e.g., Mausethagen et al. 2018; Prøitz et al. 2017), Germany (e.g., Demski and Racherbäumer 2017), Sweden (e.g., Blossing et al. 2018), England (e.g., Downey and Kelly 2013; Schildkamp et al. 2014), South Africa (e.g., Archer et al. 2013), Trinidad and Tobago (e.g., De Lisle 2015; De Lisle et al. 2013), the US (e.g., Datnow and Park 2018; Mandinach and Gummer 2013), and the Netherlands (e.g., Schildkamp and Poortman 2015; Van der Scheer and Visscher 2016; Van Geel et al. 2016).

Research supports the importance of using meaningful and accurate data in schools in order to make informed decisions (e.g., Lachat and Smith 2005; Schildkamp and Kuiper 2010; Wayman and Stringfield 2006; Wohlstetter et al. 2008). Based on data, school leaders and teachers can assess to what extent changes are needed in the school and classrooms, and they can implement these educational changes accordingly. Emerging evidence from the US (Carlson et al. 2011), New Zealand (Lai et al. 2014) and the Netherlands (Poortman and Schildkamp 2016; Van Geel et al. 2016), suggests that under the right conditions, data use can lead to school improvement in terms of higher student achievement.

However, researchers frequently report that schools struggle with implementing data use effectively (Mandinach and Gummer 2013; Marsh 2012), principally because educators lack the required knowledge and skills (e.g., Marsh 2012). A promising strategy for supporting the implementation of data use in schools is professional development for teachers and school leaders related to data use in teams (Earl and Katz 2006; Wayman and Stringfield 2006). It is also important to take into account the role of the school leader. Studies show that school leaders can both enable and hinder the use of data in teams (e.g., Park and Datnow 2009; Schildkamp and Poortman 2015; Wayman et al. 2012). School leaders occupy key positions in schools as far as, for example, implementing a culture of data use (Sutherland 2004; Vanhoof et al. 2012). However, school leaders can also hinder data use, for example by not facilitating teachers in time to meet, and by using data to "blame and shame" teachers instead of focusing on how to collaboratively use data to improve education (Datnow and Hubbard 2015). Moreover, although we know from previous research that the role of the school leader is crucial in implementing interventions, it is not known how to apply these leadership behaviors in professional development interventions focused on data use. Therefore, this paper focuses on the role of school leaders in a data team intervention.

Theoretical framework

Data use professional development interventions

Large-scale teacher professional development interventions for data use have been implemented in diverse contexts over the last few years (e.g., Carlson et al. 2011; Lai et al. 2014; Poortman and Schildkamp 2016). In this study we focus on a data team professional development intervention. These data teams (Lai and Schildkamp 2013) follow an iterative and structured approach (see Fig. 1). It involves following eight steps in order to collaboratively solve educational problems in schools. These eight steps form the basis of the data team intervention. The goal of the data team intervention is to scaffold data teams in the effective use of data for making informed decisions and solving educational problems. In this way, data teams can be an avenue for professional development, with the ultimate goal of school improvement. Results of studies in Dutch secondary education indicated that the data team intervention supports schools in implementing data use and in solving educational problems (Poortman and Schildkamp 2016).

The eight steps of the data team intervention (Lai and Schildkamp 2013, pp. 56-57)

In this study, data teams consisted of three to six teachers, and one or two school leaders (and an internal data expert, if available). Data teams met every 3-4 weeks for 90 min in order to solve an urgent problem within their own school (e.g., low mathematics achievement, problems concerning transitions between grades). The data teams received support from an external data coach over a 2-year period (for more information see the method section).

Transformational leadership

In this paper, we argue that transformational leadership is important for building effective data teams. Transformational leadership in educational settings can be operationalized as a construct comprised of three building blocks: (1) initiating and identifying a vision, (2) providing individualized support, and (3) providing intellectual stimulation (Geijsel et al. 2009, 2003; Leithwood and Jantzi 2006).

The data team intervention aims at challenging the status quo in schools and wants to encourage greater data use for making informed decisions in schools. One characteristic of the data team intervention in this study is that school leaders participate during the meetings. Literature is scarce about the role of school leaders when participating with teachers in teams, such as data teams. However, in the past decades, studies have pointed to the importance of transformational leadership when implementing educational innovations in schools in a variety of international settings (e.g., Geijsel et al. 2003, 2009; Hallinger 2003; Leithwood et al. 2008; Leithwood and Jantzi 2006; Silins 1994). Research shows that transformational leadership behaviors can support organizations in effectively implementing educational innovations (Geijsel et al. 2003; Leithwood and Jantzi 2006). According to Leithwood and Sun ( 2012) "Transformational leadership theory claims that a relatively small number of leadership behaviors or practices are capable of increasing the commitment and effort of organizational members toward the achievement of organizational goals. The values and aspirations of both leader and follower are enhanced by these practices" (p. 388).

Moreover, transformational leadership can lead to changes in teacher practice (Geijsel et al. 2009; Leithwood and Jantzi 2006). Transformational leadership can lead to commitment by teachers to the reform, and can increase the effort they are willing to devote to such reform. Furthermore, the more school leaders engage in transformational leadership behaviors, the more likely teachers are to take risks in developing and implementing new knowledge (Geijsel et al. 2003; Nguni et al. 2006; Yu et al. 2002).

Therefore, transformational leadership behaviors and strategies could also be important for successfully implementing and sustaining data use in schools. The data team intervention can be described as an educational innovation that is being implemented in the school, for which the commitment and effort of teachers and school leaders are required. The data team is working together towards two organizational goals: implementing data use practices in the school, and solving a specific educational problem. Transformational leadership behaviors can support a team in achieving these goals. Therefore, the transformational leadership model was identified as a suitable framework to serve as the starting point for studying the role of school leaders in data teams. In the next sections, we will describe the transformational leadership behaviors and strategies (components) in depth.

Transformational leadership component 1: Initiating and identifying a vision

Initiating and identifying a vision refers to a leader's role in contributing to building a shared vision, norms, goals, and priorities in schools (Moolenaar et al. 2012), as well as a more specific shared vision and norms for learning and improvement through data use (Park and Datnow 2009; Schildkamp and Kuiper 2010; Wayman et al. 2012). Thus, contributing to building a shared vision means that school leaders express and communicate goals and the approach for achieving these goals. In this way, transformational leaders may build teachers' emotional attachment to the school. This can increase teachers' commitment to the organization, their identification with their school's vision, and their internalization of school goals as personal goals, which may results in greater efforts of teachers towards realizing these organizational goals (Geijsel et al. 2009; Thoonen et al. 2011).

Related to the data team intervention, we expect school leaders to, for example, communicate school management's beliefs about data use, related goals and the approach for achieving these goals. In the data team intervention, learning and improvement through data use is an explicit goal, in addition to solving the school's problem based on data. By committing to these goals, school leaders provide direction for teachers for participation in data use. Moreover, together with the other data team members, norms and structures for safe data discussions should be developed, as well as a vision for (sustained) data use in the school.

Transformational leadership component 2: Providing individualized support

Providing individualized support represents a leader's attempt to understand, recognize, and satisfy teachers' concerns and needs while treating each teacher as a unique individual (Thoonen et al. 2011). Mentoring and coaching of teachers plays an important role in this, for example by delegating challenging tasks to teachers, by providing feedback, and by recognizing and talking to teachers about their needs and concerns (Thoonen et al. 2011). Furthermore, by coaching, delegating challenging tasks, and providing feedback, school leaders may help to link teachers' current needs to the school's goals and mission and enhance teachers' sense of self-efficacy (Thoonen et al. 2011, p. 508). Individual concerns, emotions and questions might impede collective learning. School leaders should recognize this and provide individual support to team members to overcome such concerns or negative emotions when they are present. Moreover, it is important that school leaders establish structures for collaboration (Thoonen et al. 2011), such as a systematic data team approach.

With regard to the data team intervention, we expect school leaders to pay attention to this aspect of transformational leadership by, for example, facilitating data use through scheduling time (including accessing, analyzing, and reflecting on data) and providing training related to data use (Roehrig et al. 2008; Schildkamp and Kuiper 2010). Leaders can also show that they recognize and are trying to satisfy teachers' needs related to implementation of data use by establishing structures that promote regular, consistent, and collaborative data use in schools (Schildkamp and Kuiper 2010; Wayman et al. 2012).

Transformational leadership component 3: Providing intellectual stimulation

Transformational leaders who provide intellectual stimulation encourage teachers to challenge their beliefs and assumptions about daily practice; they collaborate with teachers, (Geijsel et al. 2009; Thoonen et al. 2011) and increase teachers' ability to solve school-level problems (Thoonen et al. 2011). Transformational leaders stimulate creativity and professional development by encouraging teachers to question their own beliefs and values, and by enhancing their problem solving abilities (Geijsel et al. 1999; Thoonen et al. 2011).

With regard to the data team intervention, leaders can challenge teachers' beliefs and assumptions about their daily practice, for example, by modeling data use practices (Wayman et al. 2012; Young 2006). A skilled school leader who acts as a role model for data use can stimulate teachers in using data, lead discussions about data and data use, and engage teachers in those discussions. For example, in the context of data use, a school leader could ask questions when teachers make assumptions, such as 'What (data) is your statement based on'? This helps teachers reflect on how their daily work is influenced by assumptions that might not hold up if investigated. Moreover, school leaders actively participate in the data team, and share and develop knowledge with the team.

Transformational leadership in this study

We assume that initiating and identifying a vision, norms, and goals, providing individualized support, and providing intellectual stimulation promote the process of data teams (see Fig. 2). In this exploratory study, we focused on the following research question: How do formal school leaders apply leadership behaviors and strategies to support the work of the data team in the data team intervention?

Method

Having defined leadership as a process engaged in over time, taking place within a complex system, we conducted a longitudinal exploratory multiple case study investigating formal leadership behaviors in data teams (Yin 2003).

Context

The data team intervention was developed to support educators in gaining knowledge and skills regarding effective data use. In the data team intervention, one or two school leaders are part of the data team. In Dutch secondary schools, school leaders function at different levels. First, there is a principal who leads the school. Next, some schools have assistant principals who directly support the principal. If schools have different tracks (e.g., a track for pre-university education, a track leading to polytechnics, and a track for intermediate vocational education), each track also often has a team leader who reports to the principal. All of these different school leaders collaborate in school management teams. When talking about school leaders who participate in data teams in this article, we mean a person who fulfills one of these formal functions described above.

Each of the four data teams participating in this study consisted of school leaders, teachers and internal data experts. Most of the members participated voluntarily, because they wanted to learn how to use data and/or solve a specific educational problem. Each team was supported by the same external data team coach from the university (not one of the researchers). The external data coach participated in every meeting, but was not present at the school outside those data team meetings. The data coach did not work with school leaders specifically, but supported the entire data team. Meetings were held every 3-4 weeks and typically lasted 90 min. The data coach's task was to monitor the data team's process and give just-in-time support while the team was going through the eight steps of the data team cycle. The coach supported the team in each of the eight steps, such as developing a clear and concrete problem definition, formulating measurable hypotheses, and providing support in analyzing the data. Furthermore, the intervention included a comprehensive set of guidelines and activities to support the team, which the coach used as a basis for guiding the team. Finally, the coach steered the process, for example, by preventing the team from jumping to conclusions (e.g., when team members wanted to develop improvement measures when they had not analyzed the data yet).

Cases

Overall, a total of 14 data teams from 14 different schools participated in the data team project; all their schools participated voluntarily. We selected four case study schools from the larger project to study leadership behaviors in-depth and over time. We conducted a cluster analysis among all the data team schools. Respondents in each of the schools had completed a survey on their data use practices (i.e., data use for instruction and school development, including questions such as 'student achievement results are used to identify gaps in our curriculum', and 'to what extent do you set learning goals/targets for individual students?') for a previous study (see Ebbeler et al. 2016 for more details on the survey). The survey was completed by teachers and school leaders (data team members and non-data team members in the school; N = 277). The survey gave us an overview of the extent of data use practices of each of the 14 schools. A hierarchical cluster analysis using Ward's method (Burns and Burns 2008) was conducted to identify different data use school clusters. The individual survey responses were aggregated to school level. All the schools were clustered into groups based on (their perception of) their amount of data use at the start of the project. Schools could score between 1 and 4 (1 = low data use, 4 = high data use). This resulted in three different clusters: (1) low data use (m = 2.57, sd = 0.15), (2) average data use (m = 3.02, sd = 0.09) and (4) high(er) data use (m = 3.44, sd = 0.09). We wanted to select schools from each of these clusters, to highlight variation in the use of data at the start of the project. Moreover, we expected that the role of the school leader might be different in schools that are using data frequently compared to the role of the school leader in schools where there is less data use. Next, to be able to compare the cases, we wanted to include four schools, one high data use school, two average data use schools (since most of the schools belonged to this cluster), and one low data use school. from all three clusters we selected a total of four cases based on the following criteria: the presence of at least one school leader, one internal data expert, and at least three teachers during the data team meetings.

The four data teams (Fairhope, Newpoint, Monarch, and Village) were followed during the period that they had support from an external data coach (1.5-2 years). Information on the four schools can be found in Table 1. At the start of this study, the score for Fairhope's school put it in a cluster that can be characterized as high(er) data use (cluster 3), while Village's school was part of the cluster of schools that scored the lowest on the survey on data use (cluster 1). Newpoint (cluster 2) and Monarch (cluster 2) scored in the average category.

Instruments

A total of 90 interviews were conducted to collect perception data about respondents' view of the role of the school leaders in the data team. All data team members and external data coaches were individually interviewed three times during the support period. A semi-structured interview protocol was used in conducting the 1-h individual interviews with each team member. The interview protocol included questions about the roles, responsibilities and tasks of the school leaders in the team. Respondents were also asked to describe interactions with the school leaders participating in the data team.

The interview protocol was validated for the context of this study by an expert group: two researchers with teaching backgrounds and a researcher with experience conducting interviews in Dutch secondary schools. Based on the results of their validation, small adjustments were made to the interview protocol, including adjustment of the wording of the questions, addition of some prompts, and slight adjustment in the order of the questions and prompts. The interviews were audio-recorded and subsequently summarized. These summaries of the interviews were sent to the individual respondents for a member check. All respondents agreed with the content and confirmed their description of the roles.

Along with the interviews, data used for this study included a selection of audio observations of the team meetings (i.e., all the meetings were audio-recorded), in order to triangulate the team members' perceptions. During the support period, five audio observations of data team meetings were collected for each data team: when the data team began working together (November 2011/January 2012), 6 months later (June 2012), after the summer holiday (September 2012), 4 months later (January 2013), and before the summer holiday (May/June 2013).

Analysis

The interviews and the audio observations were transcribed verbatim. The transcripts were coded by applying an 'a priori' coding scheme (Weber 1990) (see Table 2), that was developed based on the theoretical framework. The same coding scheme was used for the observations and interviews, as we were interested in leadership behaviors as they became visible from the observations as well as from the interviews. After a first round of deductive coding, we were left with several quotations that did not match our pre-defined coding list. We conducted a second round of inductive coding. Two codes, originally not included in our coding scheme, arose from the data: creating a climate for data use, and networking. The coding was conducted by author 2. To determine the inter-rater reliability, two researchers (authors 2 and 3) coded five pages of the same fragments independently (Miles and Huberman 1994). Inter-rater reliability was calculated and determined to be an almost perfect Cohen's kappa of 0.83. After coding, the results were translated into English. Next, a within-case analysis was conducted, followed by a cross-case analysis with comparisons between the four cases on each sub-code emerging from the theoretical framework and the data.

Results: Within-case analysis

In this section, in line with Table 2, we will describe the leadership behaviors displayed by the school leaders in the data teams by narrating their stories.

Team Fairhope

Fairhope data team process synopsis

Fairhope (see Table 3) focused on geography students' disappointing final examination results. They first investigated two hypotheses that the data showed had to be rejected: a hypothesis concerning students coming from different school locations that were the cause of low average performance, and a hypothesis concerning students who score low on subjects such as physics and chemistry, also score low on geography. They further investigated their data and noticed that students mainly had problems with specific exam questions, namely productive questions. The results of their data analysis also showed that the correlation between the grades in the first 3 years of the curriculum and the final years also needed improvement. Based on these conclusions, the team formulated and implemented several improvement measures. For example, they decided to use a formative assessment approach in the first 3 years of the curriculum, including questions that would (better) prepare students for the final exams. Moreover, they started practicing more with productive questions, starting the year before the final exam. The year after implementation of these measures, the final examination results improved significantly (see Poortman and Schildkamp 2016 for further details).

At the beginning, three school leaders participated in the team (William, Jacob, and Frank). Frank left the team shortly after it started due to competing work demands, but also because data team members had the feeling that they could not speak up during the meetings, which led to a lack of trust within the team. William was the chair of the team in the first 6 months, and then passed this task to one of the participating teachers. All teacher members were geography teachers, who were told by the school leaders that they were expected to participate in the data team as the educational problem the data team was going to focus on was their area of expertise. In the second year, a teacher from another subject area participated voluntarily in the data team. At the end of the support period the team had implemented and evaluated improvement measures to solve their problem. Furthermore, a new data team was established to solve another problem.

Fairhope: Initiating vision and norms

At the start of the support period, the school did not appear to have a vision for data use. In the first round of interviews, several teachers expressed the idea that the vision was rather vague:

It [the vision] is very vague, not specific enough. There are no guidelines that give direction to me as a teacher...In first instance, the school leaders or maybe the board of our school has to formulate a specific vision with norms. Up to now, I have hardly seen a vision. (Liam 1 I1)

However, the vision of the school leaders became clearer during the process, and seemed to be collectively developed in the team. In the interviews the teachers talked about the importance of using data or evidence when making decisions. During the entire support period, school leader William started actively communicating a vision for the implementation of data use by means of the data team, specifically during the first, fourth, and fifth observations.

Furthermore, the data team created norms for the use of data. For example, the interviews and observations showed that new norms for the use of data management systems were formulated. Until Fairhope started its research, teachers at this school entered only the examination marks for the first five students (in alphabetical order) in their class. These results were used for making national comparisons. However, when the data team needed access to these data, they found that the results of these five students were not sufficient for conducting further research. They also discovered that they could not track the results of the remaining students in other data management systems. Therefore, the school leaders who participated in the data team decided that each teacher must enter the examination results for all students in the data management system. The team agreed that it was important to establish this new norm, to make the work of future data teams easier.

In the end, school leader William succeeded in setting up a new data team with teacher Liam, to further implement data use within the school after the support period had ended.

Fairhope: Individualized support

The teachers in the team were all being paid extra for the hours they spent working with the data team. Most respondents appreciated the monetary support, but also indicated that they would have rather been supported with time (e.g., fewer hours of teaching to free up time for data team participation). Not everyone was positive about the monetary support:

You have bad achievement results. And you get rewarded to work on it... It is ridiculous really.... Of course, I will invest hours in this. It is about those achievement results, and not about enriching yourselves with a couple of euros extra per month. (teacher Simon I3)

The school leaders also tried to provide other forms of support. For example, school leader Jacob facilitated data use by proactively communicating with other school leaders about buying a new data management system that worked better than the existing one. School leader Jacob was also the one who made sure that every team member was supported so as to be able to contribute to the team:

Of course, in my duty as school management team member, this also means if you have got a question about how to do something, something costs money, or you need more time, or whatever it is you need, then I hope that you pose that question, so that we can support you. That is really important and that needed to be said. (WilliamO4)

School leader William also reported that he had individual meetings with teacher members of the data team before the team started. In these individual meetings he tried to convince the teachers of the importance of the data team work. During these meetings he tried to communicate the vision and goal of the data team to the individual teachers. When the team started, school leader William and school leader Jacob were available for teachers who needed to talk about the data team, for example, about emotions or new ideas. School leader Jacob (I3) stated that he noticed during the data meetings that teacher Lily seemed to be frustrated about something. Whereas in the beginning she gave the team a lot of input, she did not do this anymore. Therefore, he organized an individual meeting with teacher Lily, and in this meeting he tried to encourage her to speak her mind more often in the team. This teacher stated that she was very annoyed with the unwillingness to change of one of the data team members, and she discussed this with school leader Jacob:

He is a bit 'old school', no change, that is better.... But I think that we need to change, otherwise we will get stuck. I got irritated. I discussed this with the school leader... he understood where I was coming from. He had also noticed it. (teacher Lily I3)

Fairhope: Intellectual stimulation

The observations and interviews showed that the school leaders in the team stimulated discussions, structured discussions, and engaged members in discussions, such as by asking questions, and by making statements that would lead to discussions. School leader William (I3) stated, for example, that he started asking the team to "prove it, or provide proof that supports the contrary".

In the first two observations school leader William was evidently leading and structuring discussions. However, he was also the appointed chair of the data team. In that respect he had the role of structuring the meetings and discussions. However, school leader William also distributed leadership. School leader William's task during the first 6 months was to lead the meetings and to set up agendas. After that time, he delegated this chair task to teacher Liam. The observations also show that school leader William delegated tasks, and in the final interview round school leader William stated, for example:

My strong aspects are this, your strong aspects or that, so it may be wise if you do this and I do that, and we can complement each other. (...) let's divide our roles in a way that makes the entire team stronger. (school leader Jacob I3)

Furthermore, the school leaders listened to team members' arguments and opinions in sharing decisions, for example, when choosing a hypothesis that the team was going to test. School leader William was also a role model for data use and collaboration in the data team. For example, school leader William completed tasks just like the other data team members and collaborated with the data expert, in order to analyze the data. The data expert Amy noted that the school leaders collaborated intensively with the teachers, and were really perceived as part of the team:

The school leaders are closely connected to the workplace, so to the teachers, they also participate in joking around. (......).The border between school leaders and teachers is small. (data expert Amy I3)

Although the school leaders were part of the team, they were also expected to steer the process as needed, which according to themselves they did. In the interview the school leaders were asked if and how they steered the data team process. According to school leader William, for example, he steered the process when necessary, and also explained why he steered and put pressure on the team to make changes:

Euhm, okay guys, this has been said a hundred times before, and everybody agrees, and yet there is another BUT. Just do it this time, go work on it........ I have said, this is what we are going to do, and it will take more time, but it is important for yourselves, and especially for the student, and this is what it is all about. (school leader William I3)

Although not included in the definition of intellectual stimulation, teachers considered knowledge input by school leaders and their access to data as an important aspect of intellectual stimulation. During the three interview rounds, they reported that the school leaders complemented each other's knowledge and in that way contributed knowledge to the data team. While school leader William had knowledge about statistics due to his background in mathematics, knowledge about using Excel to analyze data, and knowledge about where to get access to certain data, school leader Jacob had pedagogical content knowledge about the subject, because he taught geography before being a school leader. Due to his pedagogical content knowledge, school leader Jacob was able to discuss content matters with the teacher members. However, his knowledge about the subject and the related pedagogy was not appreciated nearly as much as school leader William's knowledge about data and statistics. In the observations it was apparent that these school leaders also had additional knowledge about school policy, school statistics, and some knowledge about the data management system which they shared during team meetings. Teacher Liam, for example:

School leader William conducted his magic with the numbers, which I initially found hard to grasp, that nobody really understood. But he opened the doors to the data we needed, to analyze, to calculate. (...). He gave us access to the data we needed to investigate our hypotheses. (teacher Liam I3)

Fairhope: Climate for data use

Although it was not included in our theoretical framework, we found that school leaders were also important for shaping a climate for data use within the data teams. Due to disappointing geography results on the final examination, Fairhope's school management team thought that a data team would be a good way for geography teachers to work collaboratively on a solution for this problem. Furthermore, the school management team hoped that the data team would stimulate collaboration among geography teachers. Although the teachers recognized that there was a problem with the final exam results, they felt that they were being punished for their students' disappointing examination results, especially at the start of the data team. However, the teachers' commitment to the data team grew quickly.

In contrast to other data teams who reported an open atmosphere during their first round of interviews, Fairhope struggled with a lack of trust between teacher members and the school leader who had left. All interviewees reported a lack of trust between some members and this school leader. According to the internal data expert, team members did not dare to share their own opinions, due to this lack of trust. As a result, the school leaders decided that it would be better for the team if school leader Frank left. Trust remained an issue for a while, even after school leader Frank had left the team. For this reason, the team agreed upon some rules: School leader Frank would only be informed about the progress of the team if the data team wanted to implement measures that would influence the curriculum, and therefore needed his permission as a school leader. This discussion helped in creating an open climate for data use. In the second and third round of interviews, respondents were more positive about the atmosphere in the team and described it as open. For example, teacher Liam described how school leader William was open to critique. Several teachers talked about the trust and openness in the team, for example:

Nobody has a hidden agenda....Everything is discussed openly, what we think, what we thought, which is very different sometimes. (teacher Lily I3)

Fairhope: Networking

Although use of the school leaders' network was not included in the theoretical framework, team members frequently mentioned its importance. School leaders in Fairhope mentioned using their network with other school leaders and teachers. They reported in the observations and interviews that they discussed data team related matters during school management meetings.

[During school management team meetings, the school leaders ask me:] Is there any news from the data team? What is the state of the art? What did you guys do? Give us an update ...And that also resulted in the fact that there will be new data teams at our school. (school leader Jacob I3)

They also used their school leader's network for contacting potential teacher members from other school buildings. And they used their network with teachers within the school for contacting new teacher members within their own school building.

Team Newpoint

Team Newpoint data team process synopsis

Newpoint focused on the retention rate in the 4th grade of senior secondary education (students 15-16 years old). The team first investigated the hypothesis about whether the amount of homework influenced these retention rates, which turned out not to be the case. Thereafter, the team interviewed students about the retention rates. The interview results indicated that possible causes included a lack of parental support, a lack of student motivation, unrealistic expectations with regard to student planning and self-regulatory skills, a lack of curriculum coherence across the grades, low expectations of mentors which led to self-fulfilling prophecies, and low instructional quality (e.g., instruction was not adapted to the needs of students). At the time that the support ended, the team had not yet succeeded in implementing improvement measures based on these results.

All teacher team members participated voluntarily in the data team. They were either asked by their direct leaders whether they wanted to participate, or they applied to be a data team member. Newpoint had a high turnover rate of school leaders participating in the data team (see Table 4).

At the beginning of the data team project in November, Charles and Truman participated as school leaders in the data team. After a few months, Charles left the school. Hank, who was also the school principal, replaced him in the data team. After the summer holiday, Truman also left the school. Robert and Stacy were supposed to be the new school leaders in the data team, together with Hank. However, after a few months Stacy left the data team due to competing work demands, and was not involved with the work of the data team anymore.

Newport: Initiating vision and norms

At the start, school leaders communicated visions, goals and norms for data use in the data team. In one of the first meetings, for example, school leaders Charles and Truman expressed that they expected team members to be present at all team meetings, to show interest during team meetings, and to work toward solving an urgent problem at their school. Expectations were also expressed with regard to working with the data team intervention. In the data team's first meeting, it was evident that the school leaders expected the data team to help with implementing data use within the whole school in the next 2 years.

Within the first year of the support period, both Truman and Charles left the school. Although the team was expected to help with implementing data use and communicating the data team's results within the school, the external data coach reported in the second interview that Hank, the principal of the school who joined the data team, failed to communicate a vision for data use in the data team. A lack of vision by school leaders participating in the data team also emerged in the discussions at the last observed meeting. A quite lengthy discussion showed that Robert, a school leader who had replaced Truman, had no idea how the principal, Hank, wanted to facilitate data use and the activities of data team members within the school after the support from the external data coach ended.

When the support period ended, data team members were supposed to help their departments with the implementation of data use. They were supposed to be the experts and every now and then would meet with the other data team members to exchange experiences and seek feedback from other former members of the data team. Soon, some team members reported having difficulties, because their departments asked for too much and because a vision and goal for data use were still lacking within the school.

Team Newport: Individualized support

Principal Hank supported the data team members. For example, he made sure that team members took time for a brief evaluation and reflection at the end of each meeting, where members could articulate what they thought about the meeting. Principal Hank also talked to individual members of the team in order to discuss the emotions that were aroused during meetings.

...I talked to Hank. I was dissatisfied with my participation in the data team...frequently, I was disappointed about the progress of the data team...we talked about this issue... (teacher Mason I2)

Also, one of the school leaders facilitated the data team meetings by serving as chair. For example, many members appreciated that school leader Truman made agendas for team meetings, monitored the time schedule during team meetings, summarized the different opinions and the conclusions from the discussions, delegated tasks, and reformulated the team members' arguments to make them clearer. This behavior was also evident in the observations.

Newpoint: Intellectual stimulation

The observation and interview results show that school leader Truman acted as a role model for data use in the data team in terms of leading discussion as well as actively collaborating with the teachers. For example, he collaborated with other team members in completing 'homework' related to data team activities. After Truman left the school, it was reported in the second and third round of interviews that Robert took over some of these behaviors, such as collaborating with other team members between meetings, leading and structuring discussions. School leader Stacy reported in the second round of interviews that she tried to stimulate discussions by probing comments made by other members, summarizing conclusions and keeping track of decisions. However, this was not confirmed by other members, nor by the observations.

Furthermore, the school leaders wanted to empower the other data team members by engaging members in distributed decision making. For example, principal Hank stated in the interviews that he intentionally chose to let another member of the data team act as chair and intentionally gave other team members the opportunity to speak first.

Several data team members stated in the interviews that the school leader replacing school leader Robert contributed a lot to the meetings due to his knowledge about doing research and statistics. He also shared his knowledge with regard to policy, trends, and processes in the school. Finally, the team was able to use his knowledge with regard to accessing data. In the observations of data team meetings, it appeared helpful for the team that the school leaders had direct access to all data, knew about trends in the school and school statistics (e.g., number of students obtaining their diploma without delay, or results of research that had been conducted in school), and had additional knowledge about processes within the school (e.g., meetings that took place about certain topics, or where to ask for additional tools needed for accessing data) and school policy.

Newpoint: Climate for data use

The interview and observation results for this team showed that the climate for data use was characterized by a flat hierarchy (i.e., there was no hierarchical difference between school leaders and other team members during discussions) and an open atmosphere in which members shared their opinions with each other. On the whole, a dip in the climate for data use was observed throughout the second year. Data team members indicated that the data team process took longer than anticipated, and that they had expected results sooner. According to the external data coach, one data team member even stated that he only participated in the data team meetings because the principal asked them to do so. He also told the external data coach that if they had the choice, he would immediately stop participating in the data team. Moreover, school leader Stacy did not give priority to team meetings, and finally left the team due to competing work demands. Hank was also absent more often.

Newpoint: Networking

Team members frequently mentioned the importance of the school leaders' network. Hank expressed in the third interview round that it is important to have school leaders in data teams and regretted that he and Robert apparently did not communicate enough about the data team during school management meetings in order to create commitment for data use in the school. Principal Hank stated (I3):

Recently, we have asked a number of departments to hand in plans in order to improve their results. These plans contain good intentions to improve the results, but the quality of the plans and the way they want to reach their goals...and some of them have tried to analyze the possible causes for their disappointing results, but most of them are only based on intuition. Now I think that we as school managers should have started highlighting the importance of implementing [data use] much earlier.

Team Monarch

Team Monarch data team process synopsis

Team Monarch (see Table 5) focused on the declining number of students passing their final year of pre-university education. Benjamin and Abigail were the two participating school leaders in the team. They selected the teacher members based on applications. First, the team investigated whether more boys than girls failed, which was not the case. Secondly, the team investigated if students with a gamma profile (e.g., languages, social sciences) were more likely to fail than students with a beta profile (e.g., physics, mathematics, chemistry), which was not the case either. Next, they conducted interviews with students on what according to the students the causes of this problem were. The students indicated that a lack of motivation was a likely cause. The team was looking into motivation, when the support period ended. At the end of the support period, Monarch had not reached the point of being able to formulate improvement measures. The team members tried to meet after the support period had ended, but did not succeed in doing so on a regular basis.

Monarch: Initiating vision and norms

The results from the observations show that school leader Benjamin created norms for data use, for example, by highlighting that falsifying hypotheses is also an important result. This led to the norm within a data team that statements should be corroborated by data, which was deemed to be important by all data team members. Both school leaders also expressed a vision for data use after the end of the support period and communicated expectations regarding communication with colleagues about the data team's results. Although the data team members still wanted to finish the research and implementation of the steps they had begun to take, the frequency of data team meetings also decreased when the support from the external data coach ended. Despite their enthusiasm and enjoyment during the meetings, the data team was not very active, because team members did not give priority to the meetings. However, the data team members still wanted finish the research and implementation of the steps they had begun to take.

Monarch: Individualized support

School leader Abigail facilitated the team's work, for example, by planning team meetings, communicating the location of the meetings, and delegating tasks. School leader Benjamin also facilitated the team's work in terms of time. For example, he allowed teachers to stop their lessons earlier so that the meeting could be on time. Furthermore, the team was facilitated by being allowed time for activities such as going to conferences about data use and presenting data team results in the school.

Monarch: Intellectual Stimulation

In the first two rounds of interviews, the school leaders were described as acting as role models for collaboration, for example, by meeting between officially planned data team meetings in order to brainstorm about the data team's next steps. Abigail also collaborated with the internal data expert when data were collected and analyzed. In addition, the school leaders also stimulated discussions and sometimes structured discussions during meetings, although they tried not to take over the role of chair.

Benjamin and Abigail also tried to stimulate team members to participate in training related to statistics and data use, and tried to stimulate decision-making. The observations showed that the school leaders distributed decision-making by letting all members vote about the problem and hypothesis to be studied. School leader Benjamin was a role model for data use in the school, for example, by expressing that he liked doing research. Both school leaders were mathematicians and their knowledge input about statistics and research was appreciated. For example, during one of the observations they explained the meaning of a p value being significant. Though they were mathematicians, they thought it would be useful for them, too, to participate in training related to statistics and data use. It was also observed and mentioned during the interviews that these school leaders had additional knowledge about their school's data management system, about school policy, about ongoing school processes, and about school statistics.

Monarch: Climate for data use

The climate of the data team was characterized by a flat hierarchy and a trustful and open atmosphere, in which every data team member was able to share his or her thoughts. In the last interview, school leader Benjamin illustrated the atmosphere between teachers and school leaders in an interview, "The fact that I am a school leader has had no influence at all on our discussions". This open climate was observed in all interview rounds and all observations, which included vivid discussions where anything could be articulated. Abigail also frequently expressed her enjoyment and enthusiasm about the data team meetings:

In the evaluation, Abigail expressed her satisfaction that now there is time to talk about education. This can also be seen in the data team. They really enjoy sharing their thoughts. (teacher Mia I2)

Furthermore, the school leaders' presence during the data team meetings was important for the team in order to check whether the actions the data team wanted to take would match the school's vision.

From the start on, I appreciated that members of the school management team were present during the meetings, because sometimes the school's vision is not that clear. That, of course, gives you a lot of freedom. But if you put a lot of energy into something and in the end you hear that it does not fit the school, that would be awful. So, their presence is also important for creating support among the school leaders. (teacher Nathalie I3)

Therefore, their absence during one or two data team meetings also caused some irritation for one of the data team members.

Monarch: Networking

School leader Benjamin reported that the two school leaders kept the school management team up-to-date about the data team during school management meetings. The two school leaders also used their network for sending out questionnaires and enhancing response rates for these questionnaires.

Team Village

Team Village data team process synopsis

Village (see Table 6) focused on the declining number of students passing the fifth grade of senior secondary education (providing access to polytechnics). School leader Michael participated as a school leader in the data team up until the first summer holiday. After the summer holiday, School leader Chrissy took over his position. They first investigated if the number of students having to repeat a grade in the fourth grade influenced this problem, which was not the case. Next, they investigated whether the results of the end of primary school national assessment could already predict this problem in the fifth grade, which was not the case either. The team was investigating a hypothesis with regard to homework, when the support period ended. At the end of the support period, the data team had not implemented improvement measures. The team struggled with carrying on their work. Some team members reported that they sometimes met in order to continue working, but these meetings were not planned on a regular basis.

Village: Initiating vision and norms

The first observation indicated that School leader Michael did not thoroughly explain his vision, nor did he talk about developing a joint vision. He did express the expectation that the results of the data team would be shared with the rest of the school. According to school management, the high number of failing students in the 4th grade was the cause of the declining number of students at the school passing senior secondary education (5th grade). Although the data team found that this was not the case, school leader Michael tried to hold on to this idea. School leader Chrissy became a member of the data team and replaced school leader Michael. The team let go of the vision concerning the school management team's problem statement about the problem being in the 4th grade. However, school leader Chrissy never communicated a clear vision for data use either. Furthermore, at the end of the support period, there was no vision regarding how to proceed with the data team. After the support from the external data coach had ended, some of the teacher members tried to meet on their own to finish the data team's work.

Village: Individualized support

In the observations and interviews for Village, we only found a few pieces of evidence regarding school leaders offering individualized support. In the observations, Michael delegated tasks with regard to data collection, tasks that had to be finished before the next meeting started. As observed in the third meeting, Chrissy also offered assistance for the data team members if needed, in the form of extra members:

Imagining that we would really need somebody, I can always ask someone. However, I don't want to force it upon someone. (school leader Chrissy O3)

A possible explanation for the lack of evidence regarding individualized support from school leaders is the fact that this data team was set up by teacher Lars who asked people to help him with his plans, which, in the first year, seemed to be more focused on him becoming a teacher leader than on the data team learning how to use data. This teacher completed most of the tasks in the data team and the other members only participated to give feedback. However, Lars realized in year two that working in a data team should be a joint effort:

That was the case in the last year. This year not any longer. The team had the idea that I was the one who wanted to become teacher leader, and that they would just give some feedback. We changed that, because the data team is a project that has to be done jointly... (teacher Lars I2)

Village: Intellectual stimulation

Though not always present, both school leaders who participated in the team stimulated discussion during team meetings and tried to engage the members in the discussion, as noted by the external data coach in the second interview, "She [school leader Chrissy] asks questions like: I don't get it, is it really like that? Why? "

School leader Chrissy was a role model for collaboration. She worked together with a teacher (teacher Tempe) to make a presentation for teachers about the data team and to find instruments for collecting data in school. This was confirmed by the interview results for several teacher members.

In the first interview, teacher Lars highly appreciated that school leader Michael contributed knowledge about the school that teachers did not have. It also became clear from the observations that School leader Michael knew about school statistics. When Chrissy wanted to present the data team findings to her department, she asked teacher Tina to present the findings collaboratively.

Village: Climate for data use

School leader Michael told the team that the school management team considered the data team important, and tried to create an open atmosphere by telling them that he wanted the teacher members to share their opinions regardless of his being a member of the school management team. However, team members criticized his behavior in the data team. Individual data team members thought that Michael was too protective of students coming from his track who were now in senior secondary education. Furthermore, team members thought that he tried to direct the data team's research in the direction of his vocational educational track. There seemed to be a lack of trust between the school leader and teachers. When school leader Chrissy took over, she did not give priority to the team meetings. Many team members were not able to describe her role in the data team, because of her frequent absence.

Village: Networking

School leader Michael was the link between the data team and the school management team. According to teacher Tempe, school leader Michael could use his network to communicate questions from the data team during school management meetings. However, the data team did not want to use school leader Michael's network. They were under the impression, especially in the first year, that one important goal of the data team was to support teacher Lars in obtaining a leadership position, and therefore, the team thought that it was teacher Lars's task to build up his own network with the school management team, as the leader and chair of the data team.

In the third round of interviews, school leader Chrissy stated that she was the potential link to the school management team, but that she unfortunately had not used her network enough to create commitment to the data team among other school leaders:

To me, it [the data team] is meant to do research, but I clearly see that I have to fulfill the role of communicating between the data team and the management team. I should have communicated more frequently. (School leader Chrissy I3)

Teacher Tempe, teacher Lars, and teacher Bill all explained that Chrissy was the link with the teachers in her own department. The data team used Chrissy's network to communicate with teachers in her department about the data team and its results. Chrissy herself said that she would be willing to use her network in order to renegotiate facilities for the data team and for contacting new data team members. She wanted to use her network to create commitment for the data team in the school.

Results: Cross-case analysis

In the cross-case analysis, we were interested in comparing and contrasting the type of leadership behaviors found in the teams. The results are summarized in Tables 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11.

Initiating vision and norms

Fairhope was the only team in which school leaders developed a clear vision, norms and goals for data use, together with the team. They had a vision of how to sustain data use (i.e., a new data team would start in which the former data team members could train their colleagues in the use of data), and were able to translate this vision into concrete actions (see Table 7). Not only did this data team solve their problem, also a new data team started in this school after the support period.

The school leaders in teams Newpoint and Monarch also expressed a clear vision, norms and goals on data use, and the school leaders of team Monarch also had ideas on how to sustain data use. However, the school leaders of Newpoint left the school, and the principal who took over was unable to express or develop a clear vision with the team with regard to sustaining data use at the school. Team Monarch had difficulties in actually translating their vision into concrete actions after the support period. The vision was not really concrete at the school of team Village, nor was it directed toward how to sustain data use at the school after the support period.

Finally, an important norm for data use is active participation during all data team meetings. In team Newpoint the school leaders were not present at all the meetings, due to competing work demands, and one of the school leaders eventually quit the data team because of this. They did not make attending data team meetings a priority, which also gave teachers the signal that their data team work was less important to the school leaders.

Individualized support

In general, school leaders in the data teams provided some type of support (see Table 8). This ranged from providing time or monetary compensation (i.e., a bonus) to making agendas and scheduling meetings. In teams Newpoint and Fairhope, school leaders were available for individual appointments with team members, for example, to talk about frustrations. This emotional support was perceived as being very important to the teachers. This type of emotional support was not reported in teams Monarch and Village. Some teachers preferred support with time (e.g., less teaching hours) over monetary support. Moreover, the teachers in Village were not satisfied with the support in terms of time.

Intellectual stimulation

For all four teams, school leadership team members acted as role models for collaborating with team members between meetings in order to finish tasks (see Table 9). Most school leaders also stimulated and led discussions with teacher team members. In Newpoint, Fairhope and Monarch, the school leaders also distributed their leadership by making themselves an equal part of the team, by appointing a teacher as chair, by voting on certain issues, and by collaborating as an equal partner with teachers.

All teams commented about the knowledge of the school leadership team members (see Table 9). The main difference was the number of interview segments related to knowledge. In teams Fairhope and Monarch, most members extensively described the leaders' knowledge input. In those teams, leaders had a background in mathematics or in the subject that was the team's focus. Especially in Fairhope, teachers reported that the school leader had a lot of knowledge the team could learn from and use, ranging from knowledge on statistics to pedagogical content knowledge, to policy knowledge. In teams Newpoint and Village, comments related to knowledge were rather scarce.

Climate for data use

All school leaders in the data teams tried to create an open atmosphere (see Table 10). All of them wanted the teacher members to be open, but not all of the leaders succeeded in creating an atmosphere in which all data team members actively participated and discussed their opinions focused on how to improve education. However, certain actions by school leadership team members in teams Fairhope and Village created a temporary dip in the climate for data use, either because the leader was too dominant, or because the leader wanted to establish a vision and goal that was not supported by the team members. In Fairhope an open atmosphere and trust were realized after one of the school leaders left the data team, and the team had an open discussion on how to proceed. Teachers felt that they were able to speak their minds freely, as they felt supported by the school leaders. The data team members then reported about the open climate, where everyone could express their opinion and ask questions.

Networking

Though not part of the framework, it seems important school leaders are the data team's link to other people in the school, predominantly to other members of the school's management team. The school leaders of team Fairhope and the school leaders of Monarch really formed this link to other school leaders during school management meetings (see Table 11). They used their network to create commitment for data use and the data team in their school.

Conclusions and discussion

Limitations

In this study we used exploratory qualitative analysis to generate a deeper understanding of leadership behaviors in a data team that may benefit the progress of a team in terms of completing the eight steps of the data team intervention and sustaining the data team intervention. Our aim was to gain more in-depth insights into leadership behaviors and strategies of school leaders who were participating in and supporting data use. We want to stress here that this study was exploratory, only four schools participated in this study, which means that the results can only be generalized analytically (Yin 2003). It was not the aim of the study to identify causal relations between the success of the data team and the leadership behavior and strategies. We aimed to provide an in-depth description based on more extensive case description and comparisons among all four cases. We want to point out here that the results do seem to indicate that the team with the best outcomes, in terms of solving their educational problem and continuing with the data team intervention (team Fairhope), was also the team in which we found the most enabling leadership behaviors.

The five leadership building blocks for data-informed decision making

The results of this exploratory study indicate that all school leaders participating in the data teams, but especially in team Fairhope, enacted several important leadership behaviors and strategies when participating in the teams. We have identified five building blocks for school leaders who want to build effective data teams. In the next section, we will explain these building blocks based on the results of our study. Each building block ends with a figure summarizing the main questions school leaders need to ask when building effective data teams in their school.

Building block 1: Initiating and identifying vision, norms, and goals

Similar to other studies (Farley-Ripple and Buttram 2014; Levin and Datnow 2012; Young 2006) the results of this study show that the first building block is having and communicating a clear vision, norms, and goals with regard to the intervention in which a school participates, including norms and structures that enable safe and confidential discussions about data (Marsh 2012). School leaders need to develop and discuss vision, norms, and goals together with the teachers in the team.

However, the results of this study also show that this is not enough. School leaders may also need to think about how to sustain the work after the support for the intervention has been withdrawn. Moreover, this vision has to be translated into concrete actions. Only in team Fairhope was the school leader able to translate the vision into practice. Therefore, it is important to link this type of transformational leadership to what is called an organizational routine, where an organizational routine refers to re-occurring interdependent actions that involve multiple actors, which structure everyday practice in schools by supporting and focusing interactions among school staff (Feldman and Pentland 2003; Spillane 2012). Data use in Fairhope seemed to be on its way to become an organizational routine, which the school leaders had helped creating. The data team had solved the problem it was working on and a new data team was created.

The results also point to the importance of active participation (i.e., prioritizing data team meetings) and continuity of school leaders in a data team during the intervention. Change in school leadership can lead to a disruption of progress and process; that is, sometimes the vision for data use and the goal of the data team can become unclear after the change, trust must be rebuilt, and tasks must be redistributed. Both school leader and teacher turnover can threaten the sustainability of interventions in schools.

Figure 3 summarizes the key question school leaders need to ask when they want to initiate and identify a vision, norms and goals for data use in their school. School leaders can ask themselves these questions, but it is also important to discuss these questions with teachers (in a data team).

Building block 2: Providing individualized support

A second transformational leadership building block is individualized support. Teachers in data teams need to know that they can turn to their school leaders to talk about their emotions related to the data team's activities. Furthermore, the results of this study show that emotional support is also crucial. Teachers need to feel that they are able to discuss their emotions, concerns and frustrations with the school leader. Moreover, the work of the data team members needs to be facilitated (e.g., see also Marsh 2012), for example in terms of time, but also by establishing structures for collaboration. Figure 4 summarizes the key questions school leaders need to ask when they want to provide individualized support for data use in their schools

Building block 3: Providing intellectual stimulation

The results also show how the third transformational leadership building block intellectual stimulation can be applied, in terms of school leaders collaborating with teachers, being a role model when it comes to data use, providing access to data, and distributing leadership (e.g., appointing a teacher as data team chair). Teachers need to feel that the data team has enough autonomy to actually make decisions that will be implemented. Other studies also point to the importance of distributed leadership in the use of data (Kerr et al. 2006; Sutherland 2004; Wayman and Stringfield 2006; Wohlstetter et al. 2008; Young 2006).

Another important leadership behavior within this building block is knowledge sharing. School leaders can contribute different types of knowledge to the team: organizational knowledge, knowledge about data, statistics, and research, and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). School leaders often have a different perspective on the problem the data team is studying and can contribute different types of knowledge a team can use. Figure 5 summarizes the key questions school leaders need to ask when they want to provide intellectual stimulation.

Building block 4: Creating a climate for data use

Although this aspect was not originally included in the transformational leadership framework developed by Leithwood (e.g., Leithwood and Jantzi 2006) and in our coding framework, the results of this study indicate that creating a climate for data use is a necessary building block for implementing and sustaining data use. Trust and respect are crucial components of this climate. Moreover, it seems that intellectual stimulation and individualized support can contribute to this open climate. The results show that the teams that felt supported by their school leaders also reported an open climate, which seemed to arise as a result of feeling supported. Obliging teachers to participate does not contribute to an open climate. As stated by Datnow and Park ( 2018) then power issues may arise, where school leaders use data use as a form of managerial control. This can cause resistance, a lack of ownership, and a lack of willingness to work in a data team to improve education. As stated by others (Copland 2003; Datnow et al. 2013; Horn and Little 2010; Park and Datnow 2009), collaboration, trust, and the willingness and capability to address conflict are necessary ingredients for the use of data.

Moreover, to create this climate of data use, school leaders can focus on what Hargreaves et al. ( 2018) call collaborative professionalism. Educators need to build trusting relationships, use precise strategies and protocols together, for example, such as specified in the data team intervention, and need to provide each other with feedback and engage in reflective in-depth dialogue together. School leaders can help set the tone for this by stressing that the focus is on data use for improvement instead of accountability and that data teams are a place for genuine inquiry around student learning and school improvement (Datnow and Park 2018). Figure 6 summarizes the key questions school leaders need to ask when they want to create a climate for data use.

Building block 5: Networking

The results of this study point also to one last building block not included in the transformational leadership framework developed by Leithwood (e.g., Leithwood and Jantzi 2006) and in our coding schema: Networking. Although networking is not a behavior that is typically described as a transformational leadership behavior, the results of our study show that the school leader can form the link between the data team and other (management) colleagues in the school, thereby spreading the data team's knowledge and creating commitment for data use at the school (i.e. a form of 'boundary crossing'). To create effective schoolwide and sustainable data use practice, school leaders, but also teacher team members need to act as 'boundary crossers' (Akkerman and Bruining 2016) to share their knowledge with others in the school, the wider school community, and reflect on the consequences of what they have learnt together with their colleagues. Figure 7 summarizes the key question school leaders need to ask when they want to engage in networking.

Conclusions

The importance of some of these building blocks has been stressed in other studies. For example, several systematic literature reviews have been conducted in the field of data use the last couple of years (e.g., Datnow and Hubbard 2015, 2016; Hoogland et al. 2016). These three reviews mention the importance of the following three building blocks: Establishing a vision, norms, and goals, intellectual stimulation, and creating a climate for data use. In these reviews, summarizing the state-of-the-art literature on data use and leadership, the importance of networking and providing individualized support, for example in the form of emotional support, are not included. From the literature on social network analysis we know that social capital, networks, and the role of the school leader in these networks, are crucial for school improvement initiatives (e.g., Moolenaar et al. 2010), and this study gives us more insight into the role of the school leader in this regard. School leaders need to provide individual data team members with individualized support, for example in the form of emotional support, but they also need to make sure that they link the (individual) data team (members) to the wider school community.

This study does not only simply list the building blocks, but also provides clear steps for practice to work on these building blocks in the form of questions for school leaders, and provides insights into the interaction of these building blocks. All the building block interact with each other, we will give an example here of the interaction of three of the building blocks derived from team Fairhope. For example, for this team the building blocks emotional support, creating a climate for data use, and networking seemed to interact with each other. School leaders who were easy to approach for individualized support (e.g., were available for teachers to talk in individual meetings), were better connected to the teachers in the data teams, as well as connected to the wider school community, for example to find new teacher members for the data team. This also seemed to lead to a climate in which the data team was willing to invest in using data to improve education.

Moreover, the results of this study show that it is important to look at the interplay between leadership and the organization. As noted by Harris and Jones ( 2010), different actors within an organization can have formal and informal leadership roles. It is important that these different actors take on different leadership behaviors. Transformational leadership is often considered to be a form of shared or distributed leadership (Hallinger 2003), insofar as transformational leaders try to stimulate change through bottom-up participation (Day et al. 2001; Hallinger 2003). In particular, distributed decision-making authority is considered important for implementing and maintaining data use in schools, for example, by providing staff the autonomy to develop effective instructional practices (Park and Datnow 2009). By using a distributed leadership lens, we acknowledge that leadership and data use take place in a complex system, in which the relationships and components are not fixed (Davis et al. 2012). Rather, the components are influenced by the role of school leaders, among other things. As stated by Davis et al. ( 2012, p. 376) "components of the complex system are themselves dynamic and adaptive". Moreover, different actors can work (collaboratively) on the different building blocks. This is, albeit partly, depicted in Fig. 8, where the different circles represent the interactions between the different actors and leadership behaviors.

Finally, it is important to stress here that all the different components, the building blocks, are dynamic building blocks, which are all needed to create sustainable data use and data team practices. Three of the data teams in this study were struggling with using data for school improvement. Only the Fairhope data team was able to create an actual transformation in the school. This may be due to the fact that their leaders combined all the building blocks from our framework. The transformational leadership building blocks are essential to create transformations in schools, but to create effective data teams that work on continuous school improvement, creating a climate for data use and networking are essential to add to the framework. These building blocks together can be used in what we would like to call a new wave of data-informed decision making in schools, in which teachers and school leaders collaboratively use a multitude of different data sources to improve education.

Notes

1. 1.

Two teachers from two teams did not really want to participate, but every teacher has a number of hours to spend on these kind of activities, and therefore the school leaders of these two teachers could oblige them to participate as part of their jobs.

2. 2.

The support period varied between schools due to circumstances (i.e., setting up contracts with schools, finding adequate external data coaches, allocating teachers to the data teams) between 1.5 and 2 years.

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Department of Teacher Development ELAN, Faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE, Enschede, The Netherlands

Kim Schildkamp, Cindy L. Poortman, Johanna Ebbeler & Jules M. Pieters

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Correspondence to Kim Schildkamp.

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How school leaders can build effective data teams: Five building blocks for a new wave of data-informed decision making

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Data-informed decision making is considered important for school improvement. Working in data teams is a promising strategy for implementing data use in schools. Data teams consist of teachers and school leaders, who collaboratively analyze data to solve educational problems at their school.

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Start with Why?  How Great Leaders Inspire Action

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1. How does the leadership team support teachers' use of data walls?

2. What do you think about using data walls as a strategy for improving instruction?

3. According to the principal, why do data walls work?

School Details

Shaw Middle School
4106 North Cook Street
Spokane WA 99207

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The faculty at Shaw Middle School realized that its analysis of formative and summative assessments failed to surface the learning needs of individual students. In response, the school's leadership team designed data walls. Teachers and coaches use data walls to discuss each student's strengths and areas in need of improvement and to plan instructional responses.

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A middle school in Nevada uses a simple strategy to build deeper connections between teachers and students. Enrollment 717 | Public, Rural Per Pupil Expenditures $9,796 District Per Pupil Expenditure * $11,281 State Per Pupil Expenditure Free / Reduced Lunch 41% Data is from the 2015-16 academic year.

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School Mission Statements:  2021 Guide & Writing Tips

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What drives growth in your school community? It could be yourIf your school is a car and your mission statement is the engine, the John C. Gabriel and Paul C. Farmer, authors of Achieving a vision is a big task, and it should seem a little challenging. Vision and mission statements push growth and learning in an aspirational direction. Writing an effective mission statement requires self-reflection as a community, and a lot of consultation with different stakeholders. According to a Here at Prodigy, our mission is simple: school's culture, a focus on teacher professional development, or even prioritizing useful teaching strategies. However, none may be as important as school mission statements, which are essential for student development and effective learning. School mission statements indicate the priorities and goals of a school community, and can have an incredible impact on student achievement. Wondering how to make your own? In this post, we'll cover:

What are school mission statements?
If your school is a car, then the mission statement is the engine. School mission statements are documents that define where your school is going and drive decisions accordingly. They lay out educational goals, community priorities and the purpose of your school. Lots of different organizations have mission statements - non-profit organizations, government departments, small businesses, big corporations.
School vision and mission statements
Mission statements guide growth and learning in many different contexts. Vision statements aren't the same as mission statements, but they are closely related. To create a mission statement, you should first have a vision for where you want to see your school in the future. school vision statement is the GPS system.
"A vision is your school's goal - where you hope to see it in the future. The mission provides an overview of the steps planned to achieve that future. A vision is concise and easy to recall, whereas a mission is lengthier and more explanatory in nature."
How to Help Your School Thrive Without Breaking the Bank, write: Everyone - students, faculty and staff - in your school should be able to recite your school vision statement.
How to write a school mission statement
The vision statement provides a glimpse at your school's ideal future.
1. Gather stakeholders
To start, consult students, parents, teachers, staff and any other members of the school community with insights to offer.

District 100 teacher leaders met yesterday after school to help craft the new district belief statements. The vision, mission and belief statements will be presented to the BOE at their January regular meeting. Thanks to all stakeholder groups for their input. pic.twitter.com/V9B7eWOrQb
- Berwyn District 100 (@BerwynSouth100) December 20, 2017
Put together a small group that reflects all your stakeholders, and get them brainstorming. Where do they think the school is now? Where do they see it in the future? What part of the school's identity should be emphasized? Working with different members from your school community has several benefits:

It reduces the fear of change - It's natural to be apprehensive when school culture starts changing. Opening a dialogue now will help smooth out any tension.

It improves buy-in - When teachers are consulted on changes to the school's mission statement, they're more likely to support it in the classroom and throughout the day-to-day operations of your building.

It makes your mission better - Teachers, parents, staff and students all have unique perspectives. Use their feedback to build a comprehensive school mission statement that recognizes the diversity of opinions found in the school community.

Make sure the group is representative of all your stakeholders, but still small enough to be able to complete meaningful work in a reasonable timeframe. Values can differ widely within a community, so be sure to take enough time to make informed decisions about all your different options.
2. Look at your school
Every school has unique opportunities, challenges, weaknesses and strengths. Luckily, your school is full of data that can help you identify these areas. To gather data, look at:

Socio-economic status of students

Urban versus rural schools

Diversity in the classroom

ESL or multilingual students

Graduation rates

Common discipline problems

Attendance rates

Staff turnover

Staff assessment results

Special needs students

Student extracurriculars

Standardized test results

Student achievement

Special communities (military families, immigrant populations, international students)

Every piece of information is an important part of your school's unique identity. Use the data you have to identify the top issues, strengths and opportunities for growth in your school community.
3. Look at the future
With your stakeholders, take all the data you've collected and ask: Based on what we know now about our school, what will it look like in five or ten years if we're completely successful? There's your vision. To develop your school mission statement, ask what steps the school community needs to take to achieve the vision. Questions to ask include:

What's already in place to help us move forward?

How do we envision our school growing?

What needs to be changed?

What characteristics should we emphasize?

What changes do we see happening in the future?

School mission statements shouldn't need to be changed every year, but they're not static. They're going to grow and adapt with your school community.
4. Write your first draft
You've answered the questions and gathered the data. Now it's time for the hard part - putting it all down into words. A vision is what you hope the future will be, and a school mission statement is what's going to get you there. It's extremely important you write your mission statement with the future in mind. It might seem like a daunting task to create an articulate, comprehensive and inspiring plan for your school's future. Just start with a draft -- it doesn't have to be perfect. You'll have plenty of opportunities to revise it over the next few steps. If you'd like, ask stakeholders with a talent for writing to give you a hand, but keep the group limited to two or three people. Some best practices for writing include:

Avoid cliches - Global citizenship, 21st century skills and a nurturing environment are all important aspects of an effective school, but they've been overused to the point of meaninglessness.

Get specific - Take those cliches and make them fit your school, not the other way around. In your school, global citizenship could be a focus on second language literacy, or learning about other cultures through the lens of different subjects.

Be authentic - Keep your school and community in mind at all times as you're writing, and speak to the real needs they're seeing.

Consider including the ages and characteristics of your students, teaching strategies or curriculum philosophies used in your school, and one or two other features you feel are important for communicating your school's mission. When you have a draft you're satisfied with, bring it back to the larger group of stakeholders you brainstormed with in the first place. Make sure:

They're happy with the priorities you've laid out

They have no major concerns about any of the school characteristics you've highlighted

The school mission statement is a true representation of how they want the school to grow

This could be difficult and may require some compromise, because all groups will have members with conflicting beliefs and priorities. There's no sure way to solve it, but try to reach a consensus on big issues and focus less on smaller concerns, like specific wording. At the end of this, you should have a mission statement that reflects the values and priorities of as many stakeholders as possible. You might be surprised at what your school can achieve.
5. Give the school mission statement to the community
Present your school mission statement to the whole community. This could be through a meeting with district leaders, a parent evening, or through the school newsletter. Invite community members to raise any serious objections with you. If you've missed a key issue, this is their opportunity to contribute ideas. Gather feedback from the community and make sure:

The concerns of the majority of stakeholders have been met

The mission statement compliments the vision of the school, as well as any other messaging materials

Stakeholders agree the school mission statement is an accurate representation of current and future school growth

Use this opportunity to explain why your school mission and vision statement will be important for future growth, and how you see the needs of the community reflected in it.
6. Put your school mission statement into action
Congratulations! You've written your school mission statement. Now for the hardest part - using it! All the hard work you put into your school mission statement is useless if you put it up on your website and forget about it. Put the vision and mission statement everywhere: on the wall, in your office, in your weekly newsletter, on your website. Make sure it's visible to the entire community. This is also a great opportunity to run a professional development session on how to effectively use school mission statements in the classroom. Go over why it's important, how it reflects the school's priorities and how it should be used to guide classroom decisions.

Schools are not defined by the mission statement on the wall; they are defined by what actually goes on in classrooms.
- Danny Steele (@SteeleThoughts) November 12, 2017
Make sure parents and students know what the mission statement means, and tell potential students why it's so important to you school. It's also a good idea to revisit the mission statement at the beginning and end of every year. Is it still relevant? Has anything major changed? Are you still actively working to achieve your vision? If there are changes, it's time to re-align your goals and priorities.
Common problems with school mission statements
It can be difficult to write school mission statements well. Common problems include:

Too vague

Too broad

Too narrow

Insincere, generic language

No staff or community buy-in

Why school mission statements are important

Guides community growth
Your community should be able to access the mission statement easily. If they don't already know it, it should make sense to them when they hear it. Use the school vision and mission statements to guide staff development and build a school improvement plan. Focus on areas of growth not just in the classroom, but for your staff. When school mission statements guide teacher learning, teachers are better equipped to serve students in a way that aligns with the school's vision and mission.
Guides decision-making and priorities

"Once written, the mission statement must become a living document that informs all day-to-day practices of the administration, teachers and students. Too often mission statements exist only on paper rather than being a lived philosophy and commitment to the ongoing development of an effective education institution."
This means school mission statements have serious implications for the priorities and goals of your school, including how money, time, and other resources are allocated. Use your vision and mission to effectively use all available resources.
Gives weight to the learning process
School mission statements are a tool for guiding and shaping the learning process. In some places, school mission statements are even a precursor to accreditation because they have such a large impact on how student learning is prioritized. When vision and mission statements align with what's happening in the classroom, student learning will improve. After all, isn't that the ultimate goal?
How Prodigy can help implement school mission statements
It's almost inevitable your school mission statement will prioritize academic excellence. Math competency is a key component of academic excellence, but it's also a subject many students struggle with. Prodigy encourages math fluency through a daily math practice that keeps students engaged and motivated. Our unique game-based design challenges students to complete quests, explore new worlds and collect points while answering curriculum-aligned math questions. Unique reporting and alignment features give teachers the tools to deliver a personalized learning experience for each student in an engaging and adaptive environment. A powerful algorithm ensures students receive questions that build on their existing skills to keep them moving forward in the curriculum. Learn more about how Prodigy can deliver customized learning in your school, and sign up for your free teacher account today:
Sign up now!

Next steps for developing school mission statements
Use your school mission statement to drive learning and empower your teachers, students, and community! Your school community will benefit from a clear plan for growth, and students will thrive. As Gabriel and Farmer write, "the collective force and talent of the faculty is more likely to be realized when there is a common understanding of a shared vision." Imagine what an entire community can do when it's united through a shared vision. Get started today on a school mission statement to harness your school community's potential. It's a process that shouldn't be rushed. School mission statements are a tool used to drive growth within the school community and guide it towards a desired outcome (the achievement of the school vision statement). study by educators that analyzed the mission statements of K-12 schools in Texas, Ultimately, school mission statements are classroom tools. If your mission statement places an emphasis on digital skills, it might lead teachers to use a blended learning approach. If curiosity and exploration are a priority, then project-based learning or inquiry- based learning might be useful classroom strategies. to help every child in the world love learning. Create or log in to your free teacher account on Prodigy - a game-based learning platform for math that's easy to use for educators and students alike. Aligned with math curricula across the English-speaking world, more than a million teachers use Prodigy to help make learning engaging.
Sign up now!

What drives growth in your school community? It could be yourIf your school is a car and your mission statement is the engine, the John C. Gabriel and Paul C. Farmer, authors of Achieving a vision is a big task, and it should seem a little challenging. Vision and mission statements push growth and learning in an aspirational direction. Writing an effective mission statement requires self-reflection as a community, and a lot of consultation with different stakeholders. According to a Here at Prodigy, our mission is simple: school's culture, a focus on teacher professional development, or even prioritizing useful teaching strategies. However, none may be as important as school mission statements, which are essential for student development and effective learning. School mission statements indicate the priorities and goals of a school community, and can have an incredible impact on student achievement. Wondering how to make your own? In this post, we'll cover:
What are school mission statements?
If your school is a car, then the mission statement is the engine. School mission statements are documents that define where your school is going and drive decisions accordingly. They lay out educational goals, community priorities and the purpose of your school. Lots of different organizations have mission statements - non-profit organizations, government departments, small businesses, big corporations.
School vision and mission statements
Mission statements guide growth and learning in many different contexts. Vision statements aren't the same as mission statements, but they are closely related. To create a mission statement, you should first have a vision for where you want to see your school in the future. school vision statement is the GPS system.
"A vision is your school's goal - where you hope to see it in the future. The mission provides an overview of the steps planned to achieve that future. A vision is concise and easy to recall, whereas a mission is lengthier and more explanatory in nature."
How to Help Your School Thrive Without Breaking the Bank, write: Everyone - students, faculty and staff - in your school should be able to recite your school vision statement.
How to write a school mission statement
The vision statement provides a glimpse at your school's ideal future.
1. Gather stakeholders
To start, consult students, parents, teachers, staff and any other members of the school community with insights to offer.

District 100 teacher leaders met yesterday after school to help craft the new district belief statements. The vision, mission and belief statements will be presented to the BOE at their January regular meeting. Thanks to all stakeholder groups for their input. pic.twitter.com/V9B7eWOrQb
- Berwyn District 100 (@BerwynSouth100) December 20, 2017
Put together a small group that reflects all your stakeholders, and get them brainstorming. Where do they think the school is now? Where do they see it in the future? What part of the school's identity should be emphasized? Working with different members from your school community has several benefits:

It reduces the fear of change - It's natural to be apprehensive when school culture starts changing. Opening a dialogue now will help smooth out any tension.

It improves buy-in - When teachers are consulted on changes to the school's mission statement, they're more likely to support it in the classroom and throughout the day-to-day operations of your building.

It makes your mission better - Teachers, parents, staff and students all have unique perspectives. Use their feedback to build a comprehensive school mission statement that recognizes the diversity of opinions found in the school community.

Make sure the group is representative of all your stakeholders, but still small enough to be able to complete meaningful work in a reasonable timeframe. Values can differ widely within a community, so be sure to take enough time to make informed decisions about all your different options.
2. Look at your school
Every school has unique opportunities, challenges, weaknesses and strengths. Luckily, your school is full of data that can help you identify these areas. To gather data, look at:

Socio-economic status of students

Urban versus rural schools

Diversity in the classroom

ESL or multilingual students

Graduation rates

Common discipline problems

Attendance rates

Staff turnover

Staff assessment results

Special needs students

Student extracurriculars

Standardized test results

Student achievement

Special communities (military families, immigrant populations, international students)

Every piece of information is an important part of your school's unique identity. Use the data you have to identify the top issues, strengths and opportunities for growth in your school community.
3. Look at the future
With your stakeholders, take all the data you've collected and ask: Based on what we know now about our school, what will it look like in five or ten years if we're completely successful? There's your vision. To develop your school mission statement, ask what steps the school community needs to take to achieve the vision. Questions to ask include:

What's already in place to help us move forward?

How do we envision our school growing?

What needs to be changed?

What characteristics should we emphasize?

What changes do we see happening in the future?

School mission statements shouldn't need to be changed every year, but they're not static. They're going to grow and adapt with your school community.
4. Write your first draft
You've answered the questions and gathered the data. Now it's time for the hard part - putting it all down into words. A vision is what you hope the future will be, and a school mission statement is what's going to get you there. It's extremely important you write your mission statement with the future in mind. It might seem like a daunting task to create an articulate, comprehensive and inspiring plan for your school's future. Just start with a draft -- it doesn't have to be perfect. You'll have plenty of opportunities to revise it over the next few steps. If you'd like, ask stakeholders with a talent for writing to give you a hand, but keep the group limited to two or three people. Some best practices for writing include:

Avoid cliches - Global citizenship, 21st century skills and a nurturing environment are all important aspects of an effective school, but they've been overused to the point of meaninglessness.

Get specific - Take those cliches and make them fit your school, not the other way around. In your school, global citizenship could be a focus on second language literacy, or learning about other cultures through the lens of different subjects.

Be authentic - Keep your school and community in mind at all times as you're writing, and speak to the real needs they're seeing.

Consider including the ages and characteristics of your students, teaching strategies or curriculum philosophies used in your school, and one or two other features you feel are important for communicating your school's mission. When you have a draft you're satisfied with, bring it back to the larger group of stakeholders you brainstormed with in the first place. Make sure:

They're happy with the priorities you've laid out

They have no major concerns about any of the school characteristics you've highlighted

The school mission statement is a true representation of how they want the school to grow

This could be difficult and may require some compromise, because all groups will have members with conflicting beliefs and priorities. There's no sure way to solve it, but try to reach a consensus on big issues and focus less on smaller concerns, like specific wording. At the end of this, you should have a mission statement that reflects the values and priorities of as many stakeholders as possible. You might be surprised at what your school can achieve.
5. Give the school mission statement to the community
Present your school mission statement to the whole community. This could be through a meeting with district leaders, a parent evening, or through the school newsletter. Invite community members to raise any serious objections with you. If you've missed a key issue, this is their opportunity to contribute ideas. Gather feedback from the community and make sure:

The concerns of the majority of stakeholders have been met

The mission statement compliments the vision of the school, as well as any other messaging materials

Stakeholders agree the school mission statement is an accurate representation of current and future school growth

Use this opportunity to explain why your school mission and vision statement will be important for future growth, and how you see the needs of the community reflected in it.
6. Put your school mission statement into action
Congratulations! You've written your school mission statement. Now for the hardest part - using it! All the hard work you put into your school mission statement is useless if you put it up on your website and forget about it. Put the vision and mission statement everywhere: on the wall, in your office, in your weekly newsletter, on your website. Make sure it's visible to the entire community. This is also a great opportunity to run a professional development session on how to effectively use school mission statements in the classroom. Go over why it's important, how it reflects the school's priorities and how it should be used to guide classroom decisions.

Schools are not defined by the mission statement on the wall; they are defined by what actually goes on in classrooms.
- Danny Steele (@SteeleThoughts) November 12, 2017
Make sure parents and students know what the mission statement means, and tell potential students why it's so important to you school. It's also a good idea to revisit the mission statement at the beginning and end of every year. Is it still relevant? Has anything major changed? Are you still actively working to achieve your vision? If there are changes, it's time to re-align your goals and priorities.
Common problems with school mission statements
It can be difficult to write school mission statements well. Common problems include:

Too vague

Too broad

Too narrow

Insincere, generic language

No staff or community buy-in

Why school mission statements are important

Guides community growth
Your community should be able to access the mission statement easily. If they don't already know it, it should make sense to them when they hear it. Use the school vision and mission statements to guide staff development and build a school improvement plan. Focus on areas of growth not just in the classroom, but for your staff. When school mission statements guide teacher learning, teachers are better equipped to serve students in a way that aligns with the school's vision and mission.
Guides decision-making and priorities

"Once written, the mission statement must become a living document that informs all day-to-day practices of the administration, teachers and students. Too often mission statements exist only on paper rather than being a lived philosophy and commitment to the ongoing development of an effective education institution."
This means school mission statements have serious implications for the priorities and goals of your school, including how money, time, and other resources are allocated. Use your vision and mission to effectively use all available resources.
Gives weight to the learning process
School mission statements are a tool for guiding and shaping the learning process. In some places, school mission statements are even a precursor to accreditation because they have such a large impact on how student learning is prioritized. When vision and mission statements align with what's happening in the classroom, student learning will improve. After all, isn't that the ultimate goal?
How Prodigy can help implement school mission statements
It's almost inevitable your school mission statement will prioritize academic excellence. Math competency is a key component of academic excellence, but it's also a subject many students struggle with. Prodigy encourages math fluency through a daily math practice that keeps students engaged and motivated. Our unique game-based design challenges students to complete quests, explore new worlds and collect points while answering curriculum-aligned math questions. Unique reporting and alignment features give teachers the tools to deliver a personalized learning experience for each student in an engaging and adaptive environment. A powerful algorithm ensures students receive questions that build on their existing skills to keep them moving forward in the curriculum. Learn more about how Prodigy can deliver customized learning in your school, and sign up for your free teacher account today:
Sign up now!

Next steps for developing school mission statements
Use your school mission statement to drive learning and empower your teachers, students, and community! Your school community will benefit from a clear plan for growth, and students will thrive. As Gabriel and Farmer write, "the collective force and talent of the faculty is more likely to be realized when there is a common understanding of a shared vision." Imagine what an entire community can do when it's united through a shared vision. Get started today on a school mission statement to harness your school community's potential. It's a process that shouldn't be rushed. School mission statements are a tool used to drive growth within the school community and guide it towards a desired outcome (the achievement of the school vision statement). study by educators that analyzed the mission statements of K-12 schools in Texas, Ultimately, school mission statements are classroom tools. If your mission statement places an emphasis on digital skills, it might lead teachers to use a blended learning approach. If curiosity and exploration are a priority, then project-based learning or inquiry- based learning might be useful classroom strategies. to help every child in the world love learning. Create or log in to your free teacher account on Prodigy - a game-based learning platform for math that's easy to use for educators and students alike. Aligned with math curricula across the English-speaking world, more than a million teachers use Prodigy to help make learning engaging.
Sign up now!

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School Mission Statements: The 2021 Guide [+ 6 Writing Tips]

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All Posts What drives growth in your school community? It could be yourIf your school is a car and your mission statement is the engine, the John C. Gabriel and Paul C. Farmer, authors of Achieving a vision is a big task, and it should seem a little challenging.

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March 2019 | Volume 76 | Number 6
The Power of Instructional Leadership Pages 82-83

Bryan Goodwin

In light of the many feats we ask principals to perform as instructional leaders-like guiding teachers to improve student outcomes and arranging for teachers' continued learning, all while overseeing budgets, placating parents, and addressing student behavior and mental health needs-principals might wonder if their job description should also include leap tall buildings in a single bound. Is the widespread notion of principals as instructional leaders tantamount to asking them to be superhuman? Where did this idea of principal as hero come from, anyway?

Origins of Instructional Leadership

By most accounts, the concept of instructional leadership emerged in the 1970s, when researchers began to study so-called effective schools-high-poverty schools that were performing better than expected-and noted a common feature: Leaders focused on instruction. That is, principals were instructional leaders. In the ensuring years, scholars proposed dueling lists of key traits for instructional leadership.

As the lists grew, so did questions, including whether it was humanly possible to be an instructional leader. How could anyone, short of a bite from a radioactive spider, do everything scholars, superintendents, and policymakers expected of principals? Some scholars, like Leithwood (1992), questioned the roots of the concept, noting that it emerged from studies of a particular type of school (turnaround schools) whose leaders focused on boosting standardized test scores in a top-down way. What about the rest of schools, including those that were good but could be better? Might they need a different kind of leadership, one that could, say, inspire people to change by rallying around a shared moral purpose? Thus, a new concept, transformational leadership, was born-along with lists and surveys to define and measure it (Bass & Avolio, 1994).

Which Leadership Behaviors Matter Most?

By the early 2000s, researchers hoped to cut through the proliferation of lists by using scientific (or at least quantitative) methods to pin down more precisely which leadership behaviors had the most impact on student achievement. One meta-analysis of 37 published studies (Witziers, Bosker, & Kruger, 2003), found no significant link between principals' scores on a measure of leader effectiveness and the performance of those principals' schools. Yet a McREL meta-analysis drawing upon a sample of 70 studies identified 21 leadership responsibilities with links to student achievement that reflected elements of both instructional and transformational leadership (Waters, Marzano, & McNulty, 2003).

A few years later, in a meta-analysis of 27 studies, Australian researchers (Robinson, Lloyd, & Rowe, 2008) found that instructional leadership behaviors, such as actively engaging in teacher learning and guiding curriculum planning and enactment, had three to four times the effect size of transformational leadership behaviors. This finding prompted the researchers to conclude that "the closer leaders are to the core business of teaching and learning, the more likely they are to make a difference to students" (p. 636). Nonetheless, they noted that while transformational leadership behaviors like building school culture and fostering shared purpose weren't as strongly tied to student achievement, they still had significant effects, and thus might be "necessary but not sufficient" (p. 666) for improving school performance.

This phrase might apply to most, if not all, leadership behaviors. In fact, the one thing we might glean from studies of school leadership is that the best leaders demonstrate a wide array of behaviors, playing not one but many roles, which I've identified as:

Visionary: Seeing new possibilities and inspiring others to pursue stretch goals.

Learner: Modeling intellectual inquiry by reflecting on data and learning with teachers.

Commander: Turning vision to action by aligning resources and accountability to goals.

Connector: Creating a positive culture that empowers teachers to learn from each other.

Send in the Architects

In practice, these four roles likely reflect both natural traits and learned behaviors, so some leaders may slide more easily into certain roles and need to "lean in" to others. Yet, as a recent study suggests, the most effective leaders balance all four. British researchers Alex Hill and colleagues (2016) analyzed the behaviors of hundreds of school principals in the United Kingdom. They identified five leadership "personalities" that produce markedly different results:

Philosophers seem most comfortable in the visionary and connector roles. They talk a good game about new ways of teaching and empowering teachers, yet often fail to translate vision into action.

Surgeons are comfortable in commander mode. They quickly size up problems, remove ineffective teachers, and bring in new programs and routines to boost test results. School performance initially improves, but levels off after a couple years due a lack of investment in teacher learning.

Soldiers are no-nonsense commanders of a different sort; they focus on trimming fat from school budgets, automating processes, and tightening the screws to get teachers to work harder. (As one such leader put it, "If you cut resources, people have to change!") School finances improve, but little else. Morale tanks.

Accountants serve as commanders and connectors. They busy themselves with bringing new resources to the school and avoid ruffling feathers by giving teachers latitude in using resources. The financial picture improves, but little else changes.

Only one leadership personality, the architect, delivers sustained improvement-by balancing all four roles. In the words of the researchers, "they're insightful, humble, visionary leaders who believe schools fail because they're poorly designed," so they work with teachers to develop a collaborative school vision and engage directly in professional learning, coaching, mentoring, and peer collaboration. "In many ways," noted the researchers, "they combine the best parts of the other leaders."

With an architect at the helm, gains come slowly at first, but about three years in, performance begins to improve-and keeps improving. Notably, architects are unassuming leaders who seek few accolades, preferring to recede into the background. As one put it, "No one should notice when I leave the room." Thus, these balanced leaders seem to debunk the myth of principals as superheroes by demonstrating that the best leaders are those who create conditions for everyone else to be everyday heroes.

References

Bass, B. M., & Avolio, B. J. (1994). Improving organizational effectiveness through transformational leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Hill, A., Mellon, L., Laker, B., & Goddard, J. (2016, Oct. 20). The one type of leader who can turn around a failing school. Harvard Business Review.

Leithwood, K. (1992). The move toward transformational leadership. Educational Leadership, 49(5), 8-12.

Robinson, V. M. J., Lloyd, C. A., & Rowe, K. J. (2008). The impact of leadership on student outcomes: An analysis of the differential effects of leadership types. Educational Administration Quarterly, (44) 5, 635-674.

Waters, T., Marzano, R. J., & McNulty, B. (2003). Balanced leadership. What 30 years of research tells us about the effect on student achievement. Aurora, CO: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning.

Witziers, B., Bosker, R., & Kruger, M. (2003). Educational leadership and pupil achievement: The elusive search for an association. Educational Administration Quarterly, 34(3), 398-425.

Bryan Goodwin is the president and CEO of McREL International and the author, most recently, of Out of Curiosity: Restoring the Power of Hungry Minds for Better Schools, Workplaces, and Lives (McREL, 2018).

KEYWORDS

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The Myth of the Superhero Leader - Educational Leadership

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March 2019 | Volume 76 | Number 6 The Power of Instructional Leadership Pages 82-83 Bryan Goodwin In light of the many feats we ask principals to perform as instructional leaders-like guiding teachers to improve student outcomes and arranging for teachers' continued learning, all while overseeing budgets, placating parents, and addressing student behavior and mental health needs-principals might wonder if their job description should also include leap tall buildings in a single bound.

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School leaders can resist the urge to micromanage by focusing on the most important goal: helping students and teachers succeed.

I was restless the night before the information was released, imagining scenarios from the most glorious to the most grave.

When I arrived at my office the following day, I closed the door and dove into an hours-long data analysis session, coming up for air only intermittently.

Getting my school's standardized test scores after my rookie year as a principal was a nerve-racking experience I won't soon forget. While I never overemphasized test data as a metric for my own performance-or the performance of my colleagues, teachers, and students-I was well aware of the importance placed on these reports by others, including my superintendent and members of our community at large.

The results were neither dire nor amazing; in fact, they were just what I thought they would be. They were, after all, just small pieces of a bigger picture. And yet I found myself worrying about the scores for weeks on end. I wanted the data to look better. I was worried about how it would reflect on my school.

In the end, the conversations about scores came and went, but my responsibilities as a leader-to help students and teachers succeed-remained consistent. In hindsight, I realized that I should have kept this-and not the test results-at the forefront of my mind all along.

Letting Go Is Essential for Success

The need to let go of outcomes is one of the most difficult-and necessary-lessons I have learned as a leader. The act of surrendering control over both large and small aspects of my school's work has been frightening and exhilarating. While letting go is challenging, I've found that it's necessary for both professional growth and the success of the school as a whole.

School leaders must design and oversee numerous programs, committees, assessment structures, and schedules: The list of essential tasks is endless. Each professional responsibility has the potential to mire a leader in overanalysis and micromanagement. However, over-attachment to outcome, while normal, is counterproductive as it can stifle a leader's growth and impede a school's progress. Schools are organic environments in which a host of factors interplay with and build on one another. If a leader wishes to create a school that is harmonious, energized, and productive, they must embrace this.

The Power of Surrender

Learning to manage internal and external expectations so you can stay focused on the overall mission is key to letting go of the urge to fret and micromanage. School leaders should keep in mind that the heart of our job as educators is to help students fully realize their potential-and schools' culture and instruction are what we use to get them there.

Some things we try will exceed expectations, while others will leave us disappointed. It is imperative that we keep the big picture in mind and adopt an attitude that supports thoughtful exploration and celebrates continuous progression rather than one preconceived outcome.

Trust is a key ingredient in this process. As a leader, you must have faith in those around you. If you trust that everyone is working hard and is invested in a shared mission, you will be much more prepared to let go.

We must always bear in mind the things we shouldn't let go of: professional pride, collaborative engagement, and integrity. Additionally, we should never mistake letting go for apathy or carelessness, since letting go allows us to engage in critical tasks and conversations.

It is also important to note that there are innumerable areas that require a dogged relentlessness if we wish to have a great school. If, for example, students are not meeting targets for growth in language arts, it's essential to address this through data analysis, collaboration, instructional planning, and curricular initiatives. The same can be said if technology integration is missing the mark or the school culture does not foster a love of learning.

Keep the End Goal in Mind

In the novel Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace wrote, "Everything I ever let go of has claw marks on it." I can certainly relate to this sentiment. Letting go is never easy, but trying to holding on is even more difficult-and, in the end, is impossible anyway.

The naysayers will always be there. The internal voice of self-doubt will certainly scream out for attention. Let them go too.

In the end, one true question will remain for all educators: Did you give your best effort for the students you serve? If the answer is a resounding yes, you have hit the bull's-eye dead on. Relax and let the rest of it go.

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School leaders can resist the urge to micromanage by focusing on the most important goal: helping students and teachers succeed. I was restless the night before the information was released, imagining scenarios from the most glorious to the most grave.

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Ten Things Schools Get Wrong and How We Can Get them Right

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Ten Things Schools Get Wrong and How We Can Get them Right

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Jared Cooney Horvath & David Bott-10 Things Schools Get Wrong and How We Can Get Them Right - The Principal Center

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Get the book, 10 Things Schools Get Wrong and How We Can Get Them Right Visit the LME Global Website, LMEGlobal.net Visit the Vidaly website, Vidaly.com Follow Jared on Twitter @JCHorvath Follow David on Twitter @DavidBott About the Authors Jared Cooney Horvath is a cognitive neuroscientist based out of the University of Melbourne specializing in [...]

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XQ Expert Series:  School Mission & Culture 

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XQ Expert Series:  School Mission & Culture 

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XQ Expert Series: School Mission & Culture

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John Medina:  Implementing Brain Rules in the Schools and Workplaces of the Future 

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John Medina:  Implementing Brain Rules in the Schools and Workplaces of the Future 

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Dr. John Medina on "Implementing Brain Rules in the Schools and Workplaces of the Future"

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Brain Based Learning | Brain Based Experts

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Building Common Ground Between Neuroscientists and Educators

ABSTRACT

Many scientific researchers have shown connections between brain functioning and student learning. But a large number of educators have been frustrated with understanding and interpreting the language, limits and scope of recent neuroscientific findings. As a result, many forward-thinking neuroscientists and educators have been forging ahead with their own parallel sets of understandings and conclusions about brain-education interactions and implications. Here, collaboration is suggested to develop a common language and platform for understanding and implementing the research in schools. Specifically, we need of a common body of governing "brain-based principles" that support our collective understanding of learning in an educational context. Seven initial principles are proposed for discussion and it is hoped that more will be added over time. Brain-based learning means understanding these principles.

BACKGROUND

The conundrum is straightforward. By nature, educators tend to be fairly practical. Ask the staff at most schools what they want to hear on their next professional development day and the resounding chorus would say, "Practical strategies!"

While the request seems innocent enough, the difficulties with this approach are many. For starters, much of scientific research was done under very narrow constraints and cannot be widely generalized. Schools, by contrast, are far from a fixed environment. They are a run "on the fly" with a varied curriculum, constant staff turnover, unpredictable social and emotional interactions, a wide spectrum of physical buildings, and highly varied inventory (students). The research that educators typically want to draw from is also varied. We might roughly classify the neuroscientific scientific research into three categories: basic, clinical and applied.

1. Basic research is conducted at the micro level. Studies are often done at on molecules, cells, genes, structures and bodily processes which can seem distant to educators. But much of basic research does have relevance to educators. For example, basic neuroscience studies revealed neurogenesis (the production of new neurons) is conserved in humans and that neurogenesis is highly correlated with learning, memory and mood.

2. Clinical research is typically done with animals or humans, often in a university setting. The experiments are likely to be well-controlled and the results more credible. Clinical research studies on neural plasticity in animals led to human studies which eventually led to commercial programs such as FastForward® facial software "Let's Face It" by Jim Tanaka's team at Princeton.

3. Applied research is typically done in schools (medical, dental and academic) where the results seem more clear, but there are still issues with demographics, sample size, subject variability, compliance, protocol and generalizability. In many cases, longitudinal studies with large sample sizes may be the only appropriate way to study the effects of a particular strategy or model, but there's little funding for large-scale, long-term academic studies. Brain-based learning means using this in your contexts.

CORE ISSUES

It is clear to both of the stake holders that each of the three research domains listed above has its own limitations. But unless educators understand the theoretical and research basis for any classroom strategy, are they really any better off? Unless they can 1) articulate the research basis of their strategies being used, 2) understand the context, scope and limitations of the research being applied and 3) keep track of what is done and the results in the form of actions taken, are educators any better off than using random strategies? For example, many teachers use a classroom "energizer" assuming that it'll increase oxygenation and heart rate (including circulation to the brain). But they may be unaware of the varied contexts for the simultaneous release of chemicals such as cortisol, dopamine or norepinephrine that have a wide (and unexpected) range of effects on student cognition or behavior.

On the other hand, neuroscientists are grounded in research. Research studies are often fraught with confounding variables that suggest limits on the scope, demographics and certainly on the capacity to generalize the experimental results to widespread application. To a degree, their peers play a part in maintaining an industry-wide standard of quality. Scientists understand experimental design and want to be cautious about making any classroom "translation" of assertions of the data into a teaching strategy. Their profession has taught them well to avoid making any leaps from theory to practice that cannot be justified without further research. And while the NIH and other funding agencies have increased their requests for applied studies, not everything worth studying can or should fall into the "applied" area of study.

COMMON GROUND

Each of the two groups (educator and neuroscientist) have different perceptions, different work strategies and different professional needs. What is being proposed is a common ground. Towards this goal, many noted researchers have been fostering interdisciplinary programs (e.g. Kurt Fischer's degree programs at Harvard, Marc Swartz's program at UT Dallas). Many forward thinking educators have also developed opportunities for educators and neuroscientists to interact through mind-brain conferences. These events encourage dialog and increased common knowledge. But what's needed is a philosophical and theoretical bridge. This common ground could consist of a common set of neuroscientific principles that can be understood by the layperson.

While one could generate dozens or even hundreds of guiding principles, only ten will be introduced as a starting point. If we generate too few principles, the principles become so generalized, they become functionally useless. Yet, too many principles may become too cumbersome for one to learn and apply them all. Several educational consultants (e.g. Caine and Caine, Kovalik and myself) have already developed lists (from 7-12) of brain-mind principles for our own audiences. No claim is being made that this list is either inclusive, or superiour to any other list of principles. The two claims that are being made here are: 1) there may be some value in the application of these in an educational context versus, and 2) the list may be a useful starting point for discussion to help "bridge" the two professions. While countless principles could have been offered, only principles which appeared to have a significant relevance to educators were chosen. As a starting point, the following seven are being presented for discussion. Brain-based learning starts with principles.

Principle: Contrary to the fixed brain theory a few short years ago, brains are not fixed. In fact, they are susceptible to change throughout our lifetime.

The changes are driven by myriad of factors. Those factors include experience- dependent changes (nutrition, stressors, exercise, socialization, learning) and experience-independent changes (pruning, maturation, aging). Many changes are the result of gene and environment interactions known as gene expression. In short, our DNA is not 100% of our destiny.

When we change, what specifically changes in our own brain? The changes occur at the system levels, organ levels, chemical, cellular and and genetic levels. As an example, our brain activates variations in the production, survival and death of neurons. It will enhance or diminish cell connectivity, cell size, and alter the location of brain activity. Our brain will have fluctuations in specific areas of tissue size, proportions of gray and white matter as well as baseline chemical levels. In short, our brain is a busy cauldron of activity. While some change is a function of everyday living, a significant amount is actually regulated by our lifestyle. This invites enormous opportunity for influence through education or self-regulation.

Collorary: While it's true that random activities can change the brain (e.g. trauma) educators should know that certain purposeful, school-wide or classroom experiences can strategically change the student's brain. The ability of the brain to rewire and remap itself via neuroplasticity is profound. Schools can influence this process through skill building in areas such as reading, meditation, arts, career preparation, physical activity and thinking skills that can build student success. The evidence is compelling that when the correct skill-building protocol is used educators can make positive and significant changes in the brain in a short period of time.

Connections for Educators: All educators should know the brain can and does change every day. In fact, every student's brain is changing as they attend school. But many policy-makers squander this opportunity for growth by mandating large bodies of inert content, especially in the early formative years. Students are still sorted like beads, buttons or fruit. Teachers a mandate of 30-90 minutes a day and

3-5x per week to upgrade student skill sets. Teach attentional skills, memory skills and processing skills. Progress requires focus, "buy-in" and at least a half hour a day. Brain-based learning means you are purposeful about teaching in a brain- friendly way.

Cautions: We now know that underperforming students can usually do much better if the school experiences are positive, targeted and sustained.

But without understanding the specific "rules" for how our brain changes, educators can waste enormous amounts of time and taxpayer money, and students will still fall through the cracks. Evidence suggests the applied, contrasting skill- building needs applications for 20-90 minutes a day at least three or more times a week to students who "buy-into" the process to show sustained results.

Principle: A combination of genetics and life experiences make every human brain as unique as a fingerprint. Of those who responded to the UCLA "healthy brain" student advertisement and considered themselves to be normal, only 32% passed the initial telephone screening process. Of those who qualified for the in-person health history and physical examinations, only 52% passed these screening procedures.

Now we can do the math: only 11% of those individuals who believed they were healthy/normal even qualified for brain imaging. Of the original 2000 students, just over 200 ended up meeting the criteria. The actual study concludes by saying,

"The majority of individuals who consider themselves normal by self-report are found not to be so." Let me repeat: almost 90% of human brains are atypical, damaged or in some way not healthy. That does NOT mean that many students have not compensated; they have.

Collorary:

Connections for Educators: This principle says much more than "One size does not fit all" or that "differentiation is a good idea. This is a profound understanding that tells us the entire educational model is outdated. For decades, educators were told that there is a large body (80-95%) of "mainstream" kids who were normal or typical. The remaining students were identified as "outliers" and typically classified as gifted, behavior disordered or requiring special education. This model does not match up with the scientific data on brain variations. What is more accurate to say is, "We have significant variation in the large majority of our students (80-95%) and the remaining "outliers" have what we call a typical or "healthy" brain. Brain-based learning means respecting uniqueness by using variety and choice in the teaching process.

Cautions: While the political and educational implications of this are enormous, it is unknown to what degree this should shape policy. Certain schools expend a significant amount of resources (time, money and policymaking) to socialize students into "sameness" such as private prep schools, military schools, parochial schools and selected public schools. To the degree that these schools succeed, students many become more alike in their behaviors. Yet, on the whole, we are unique beings with a unique set of beliefs, experience, knowledge and actions. Schools that can engage students via their differences can meet needs better.

Connections:

Principle: We could categorize student learning (information, values or skills, etc.) in many ways. One way to group it would be to answer the question: "Was the knowledge "actively constructed" or "transferred" to you? The human brain is designed for interactive learning. The human being is more helpless at birth than most other mammals. We are born more than "open" to environmental input; we require it to develop our brain properly. Without interactive visual, auditory and tactile input, our systems misfire and underperform. But our brains are designed to actively manage our experiences, not passively "download" them.

Useful, practical, functional knowledge is based in activity not passivity (Singer, 1995). While it has the capacity for a "sit and git" experience in a classroom memorizing numbers, poems, facts and geography lessons, this declarative capacity may be the weakest of all the brain's learning systems. In fact, we cannot talk about the interface between the brain and learning or the brain and the environment as if these are isolated variables. For our brain, interactive learning experiences in a relevant environment are processed in far differently and more potent ways than sitting in a classroom and reading or memorizing a text.

Collorary:

At school, beginning in the middle and upper elementary grades (ages 8 and above) there is an increasing percentage of students being asked to sit "still and learn." Brain-based learning means you orchestrate learning in ways that allow students to piece together the learning.

Connect ions for Educators
Cautions
Cognitive and Neuroscience. When animals and people do things in their worlds, they shape their behavior. Based on brain research, we know that likewise they literally shape the anatomy and physiology of their brains (and bod- ies). When we are simply exposed to events and information learning and teaching require active construction of knowledge, as research has demonstrated consistently in cognitive science for over a century (Baldwin, 1894; Bartlett, 1932; Piaget, 1952) and in neuroscience for 50 years (Singer, 1995). The conduit metaphor works to some degree for learning bits of information, but for using knowl- edge instead of reciting facts, cognitive and neuroscientists are replacing the conduit metaphor with a model of knowl- edge as actively constructed. People build knowledge by using it actively to do things in the world. For example, Piaget's (1952) fundamental metaphor for knowledge is grasping ideas and facts with the mind and manipulating them physically and mentally.
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CONCLUSION

The first premise is that the emerging field of brain-based education needs a broader platform on which further work can be built. Many neuroscientists are unfamiliar with the demands faced by everyday classroom teachers, working with students age 6-17. Correspondingly, most educators lack the technical background to understand journal articles and create well-designed experiments what would yield useful data. Yet we must learn to understand each other and have a common vehicle with which we can move forward.

This article has suggested the potential value of a set of brain-based principles. It is the author's view that these principles could be reviewed and refined in open forum ways similar to a Wikipedia posting process. Ultimately, these principles can be shared on websites and journals as a common platform for both educators and neuroscientists. Further discussion, insights and commentary will refine and update the proposed principles as both collegial insights and new research warrants.

Social conditions influence our brain in multiple ways we never knew before. Today, sociology is now influenced by the journal of Social Neuroscience. The student experience at school is a highly social experiences, which become encoded through our perceptual awareness which may encode our sense of reward, acceptance, pain, reciprocity, affinity and cooperation.

Neuroscience Connections. Isolation and poor social conditions, isolation or social "defeat" are correlated with fewer brain cells! Nobody knew this occurred five or ten years ago.

Educational connections: Do NOT allow random social groupings for more than 10-20% of the school day. Use targeted, planned, diverse social groupings with mentoring, teams and buddy systems. Work to strengthen pro-social conditions.

Teacher-to-student relationships matter, as do student-to-student relationships.

Citations:
Champagne FA, Curley JP. (2005) How social experiences influence the brain. Curr Opin Neurobiology. Dec;15(6):704-9.
R. M. Sapolsky (2005) The Influence of Social Hierarchy on Primate Health Science, April 29; 308(5722): 648 - 652.
Yap, J. (2006) Behavioral Brain Research, Sept 25; 172(2):344-50

Our brains, bodies and minds are intricately connected. Physical activity, recess and movement are critical to education. Why? We now know that we can grow new neurons through our lifetime and that they are highly correlated with memory, mood and learning. This process can be regulated by our everyday behaviors, which include exercise. The optimal activity is voluntary gross motor, such as power walks, games, running, dance, aerobics, team sports and swimming.

Neuroscience Connections. We also now know that early childhood movement wires up the brain to make more efficient connections. That supports the later academic learning. Schools can and should influence these variables.

Educational connections: Educators ought to be encouraged to support more, not less physical activity. It raises the good chemicals for thinking, focus, learning and memory (noradrenaline, dopamine and cortisol). Students need 30-60 minutes per day to lower stress response, boost neurogenesis and boost learning.

Citation s:
Bruel-Jungerman E, Laroche S, Rampon C.(2005) Eur J Neurosci.
New neurons in the dentate gyrus are involved in the expression of enhanced long- term memory following environmental enrichment. Jan;21(2):513-21.
Kirk I. Erickson, Ruchika S. Prakash, Michelle W. Voss, Laura Chaddock, Liang Hu, Katherine S. Morris, Siobhan M. White, Thomas R. Wójcicki, Edward McAuley, Arthur F. Kramer. Aerobic fitness is associated with hippocampal volume. Hippocampus, 2009.
Pereira AC, Huddleston DE, Brickman AM, Sosunov AA, Hen R, McKhann GM, Sloan R, Gage FH, Brown TR, Small SA. (2007) An in vivo correlate of exercise- induced neurogenesis in the adult dentate gyrus. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. Mar 27;104(13):5638-43.
Ratey, J. (2008) Spark: The revolutionary new science of exercise.
Ball K, Edwards JD, Ross LA. (2007) The impact of speed of processing training on cognitive and everyday functions. J Gerontology B Psychology Science Soc Sci.Jun;62 Spec No 1:19-31.
Draganski B, Gaser C, Busch V, Schuierer G, Bogdahn U, May A (2004) Neuroplasticity: changes in grey matter induced by training. Nature 427:311-312.
Jonides, J. (2008) "Musical Skill and Cognition" Pgs. 11-16. In "How Arts Training Influences Cognition" in "Learning, Arts, and the Brain: The Dana Consortium Report on Arts and Cognition" Organized by: Gazzaniga, M., Edited by Asbury, C. and Rich, B. Published by Dana Press. New York/Washington, D.C. web access: www.dana.org.
Polley DB, Steinberg EE, Merzenich MM. (2006) Perceptual learning directs auditory cortical map reorganization through top-down influences.J Neurosci. 2006 May 3;26(18):4970-82.

Schools are pushing "Differentiation" as a strategy to deal with the differences in learners. That's close, but not quite the truth. In fact, instead of there being mostly "typical" students with some with "differences" the brain research tells us the opposite. Let's find out how common it is to have a "healthy brain."

Neuroscience Connections.

Practical school application: Make differences the rule, not the exception at your school. Validate differences. Never expect all students (4th graders, for instance) to be on the same page in the same book on the same day. That runs counter to an extraordinary research databases that shows variations in maturation rates and other brain differences. Allow kids to celebrate diversity, unique abilities, talents and interests. Give them the skill sets, relationships and hope to succeed.

Citations:
Mazziotta JC, Woods R, Iacoboni M, Sicotte N, Yaden K, Tran M, Bean C, Kaplan J, Toga AW; (2009) The myth of the normal, average human brain-the ICBM experience: (1) subject screening and eligibility. Neuroimage. Feb 1;44(3):914-22.

New evidence suggests the value of teaching content in even smaller chunk sizes. Why?

Neuroscience Connections. The old thinking was that students could hold seven plus or minus chunks in the head as capacity for working memory. But that science is outdated. The new research says two to four chunks are more realistic. In addition to this shorter capacity for working memory, our mid-term "holding tank" for content, the hippocampus, has a limitation on how much it can hold. It is overloaded quickly, based partly on learner background and subject complexity. There are other reasons our students get overloaded quickly with content. Learning and memory consume physical resources such as glucose and our brain uses this quickly with more intense learning.

Practical school application: Teachers should teach in small chunks, process the learning, and then rest the brain. Too much content taught in too small of a time span means the brain cannot process it, so we simply don't learn it. Breaks, recess and downtime make more sense than content, content and more content. Here's the guideline: the more background the learner has and the greater the complexity of the content, the shorter the time chunk (use 4-8 minutes). The greater the background knowledge, the less the complexity, the longer the "input" stage (8-15 min.) is acceptable. Under no condition, should there be more than 15 consecutive minutes of content input. Share this with your teachers. But share it in a small chunk, and then allow time for processing it.

Citation s:
Gobet F, Clarkson G. (2004) Chunks in expert memory: evidence for the magical number four ... or is it two? Memory. 2004 Nov;12(6):732-47.
Cowan, N. (2001, Feb). The magical number 4 in short-term memory: A reconsideration of mental storage capacity. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24(1):87-114.

The role of the arts in schools continues to be under great scrutiny. But five neuroscience departments at five universities (University of Oregon, Harvard, Univ. of Michigan, Dartmouth, and Stanford) have recently completed projects studying the impact of arts on the brain. Arts and Neuroscience is a new journal that tracks the connections being made by researchers. The recent results suggest that arts are far better than earlier believed. They show that certain arts boost attention, working memory, and visual spatial skills. Other arts such as dance, theater and drama boost social skills, empathy, timing, patience, verbal memory and other transferable life skills.

Practical school application: Make arts mandatory and give students the choice of several, support with expert teachers and the time to excel at it. Right now, evidence suggests that you get the most value from 30 to 60 minutes a day three to five days a week. Arts support the development of the brain's academic operating systems in ways that provide many transferable life skills.

Citations:
Posner, M., Rothbart, MK, Sheese, BK, and Kieras, J. (2008) "How Arts Training Influences Cognition" Pgs. 1-10. in "Learning, Arts, and the Brain: The Dana Consortium Report on Arts and Cognition" Organized by: Gazzaniga, M., Edited by Asbury, C. and Rich, B. Published by Dana Press. New York/Washington, D.C. web access: www.dana.org.
Jonides, J. (2008) "Musical Skill and Cognition" Pgs. 11-16. In "How Arts Training Influences Cognition" in "Learning, Arts, and the Brain: The Dana Consortium Report on Arts and Cognition" Organized by: Gazzaniga, M., Edited by Asbury, C. and Rich, B. Published by Dana Press. New York/Washington, D.C. web access: www.dana.org.
Spelke, E. (2008) Effects of Music Instruction on Developing Cognitive Systems. at the Foundations of Mathematics and Science. " Pgs. 17-50 In "How Arts Training Influences Cognition" in "Learning, Arts, and the Brain: The Dana Consortium Report on Arts and Cognition" Organized by: Gazzaniga, M., Edited by Asbury, C. and Rich, B. Published by Dana Press. New York/Washington, D.C. web access: www.dana.org.

Humans have the remarkable capacity to display many emotions, but only six of them are "hard wired" or built in at birth. This is profound because it tells us that unless children get these emotional states taught to them early (ages 0-3), when they enter school, they'll be emotionally narrow. Kids rarely ever get the emotional skills built in to ready for school. This leads to more discipline problems and weakened cognitive skills in school. This means we'll have kids at school who do not understand appropriate emotional responses (e.g. cooperation, trust, shame and humility) unless we teach them at school. Most kids are not getting these taught at home. You class should offer quick, daily skill-building with blended-in-daily practice.

Otherwise students will misbehave, not understand directions, fail to be respectful to teachers and show no empathy when others are in pain. There are more early childhood kids in day care (60-80%) today compared with 10-12% in two generations ago. This is also profound because out of the possible hundreds of emotional states, only a few are good for learning (e.g. anticipation, curiosity, suspicion, confusion). Most states are, in fact, bad for learning.

Practical school application: This suggests two things. One, we must teach appropriate emotional states as life skills (e.g. honor, patience, forgiveness and empathy) and, secondly, it's important to read and manage the other emotional states in the classroom. In good states, students learn well and behave better. Insist that teachers build social skills into every lesson. Ask that they use the social structures that are advocated in cooperative learning programs every day. The better the social skills, the better the academics. Many good programs are in books, workshops and online. Why put effort into this area? Kids who learn patience, attention, empathy and cooperation will be better students.

Citation s:
Duckworth, Angela L.1; Seligman, Martin E.P.1(2005) Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance of Adolescents Psychological Science, Volume 16, Number 12, December, pp. 939-944(6).
Ekman, P. (2003). Emotions Revealed. New York: Henry Holt and Co. Ostberg V. (2003) Children in classrooms: peer status, status distribution and mental well-being. Soc Sci Med. 2003 Jan;56(1):17-29.
Marjoribanks K. (2003) Family and ability correlates of academic achievement: social status group differences. Psychol Rep. 2003 Oct;93(2):419-22.
Summers CH, Forster GL, Korzan WJ, Watt MJ, Larson ET, OVerli O, Hoglund E, Ronan PJ, Summers TR, Renner KJ, Greenberg N. (2004) Dynamics and mechanics of social rank reversal. J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol. Sep 11.

There have been stunning strides in rehabilitation of brain-based disorders, including Asperger's, learning delays, dyslexia, and autism. The discovery that aggressive behavioral therapies, new drugs and revolutionary stem cell implantation can be used to influence, regulate and repair brain-based disorders has been amazing. Now we have the Journal of Rehabilitation and The International Journal of Rehabilitation Research. Psychiatry is now guided by the journal Biological Psychiatry. These journals showcase innovations suggesting special education students may be able to improve far more than we earlier thought.

Practical school application: Make sure all teachers (not just special ed) learn the latest in dealing with special education learning delay recovery. Most kids can be brought back into regular ed classes, but not with inclusion-only strategies. It takes consistent hour-a-day skill building or the student won't change. Learn the right skills and go to it 3-5 days a week.

Citation s:
Ball K, Edwards JD, Ross LA. (2007) The impact of speed of processing training on cognitive and everyday functions. J Gerontology B Psychol Sci Soc Sci.Jun;62 Spec No 1:19-31.
Draganski B, Gaser C, Kempermann G, Kuhn HG, Winkler J, Büchel C, May A (2006) Temporal and spatial dynamics of brain structure changes during extensive learning. J Neurosci 26:6314-6317.
Gaab, N. (2007) Correlates of rapid auditory processing are disrupted in children with developmental dyslexia and ameliorated with training: an fMRI study. Neurological Neuroscience. 25(3-4), 295-310.

The recent brain/mind discovery that even memories are not fixed but, instead, are quite malleable is powerful. Every time you retrieve a memory, it goes into a volatile, flex state in which it is temporarily easily re-organized. This is highly relevant for teachers and administrators who are responsible for student learning and classroom testing. Every time students review, they might change their memory (and often do). Yet, without review, they are less likely to recall their learning. It suggests that teachers use several strategies to continually strengthen memory over time instead of assuming that once learned, the memory is preserved.

Neuroscience Connections.

Practical school application: First, teachers should review the content half way between the original learning and the test. If content is taught Monday and tested on Friday, then review should be on Wednesday. Second, teachers should mediate the review process with students through structured reviews such as written quizzes or group work that ensures quality control. Otherwise the material is more likely to get confused and test scores drop.

Citations:
Pashler H, Rohrer D, Cepeda NJ, Carpenter SK. (2007) Enhancing learning and retarding forgetting: choices and consequences. Psychon Bull Rev. Apr;14(2):187-93.
Pashler H, et al. (2005) When does feedback facilitate learning of words? J Exp Psychol Lear n Mem Cogn. Jan;31(1):3-8.

Bra in-Based Education Insider

A field has emerged known as "brain-based" education and it has now been well over twenty years since this "connect the dots" approach began. In a nutshell, brain based education says, "Everything we do in education uses our brain; let's learn more about it and apply that knowledge." However, this author suggests a new collaborative process which does more than establish connections between brain function and educational practice. We need a common ground on which both educators and neuroscientists can agree.

But it is not the job of classroom teachers to understand and formulate.

If your question was, "Are the approaches and strategies based on solid research from brain-related disciplines or are they based on myths, a well-meaning mentor teacher or from "junk science?" Now you know the answer. We would expect an educator to be able to support the use of a particular classroom strategy with a scientific reasoning or studies.

Each educator ought to be professional enough to say, "Here's why I do what I do." I would ask: Is the person actually engaged in using what they know, or simply having knowledge about it, but not actually using it? Are they using strategies based on the science of how our brain works? Brain-based education is about the professionalism of knowing why one strategy is used over another. The science is based on what we know about how our brain works. It's the professionalism to be research-based in one's practices. Keep in mind that if you don't know why you do what you do, it's less purposeful and less professional.

Chronic stress is a very real issue at schools for both staff and students. Recent studies suggest 30-50% of all students fell moderately or greatly stressed every day. Acute and chronic stress is explored in the Journal Stress, the International Journal of Stress Management, the Journal of Anxiety, Stress and The Journal of Traumatic Stress. In some schools, the numbers are double that! For those from poverty, the numbers can be higher. These pathogenic allostatic stress loads are becoming increasingly common and have serious health, learning and behavior risks. This issue affects attendance, memory, social skills and cognition. Some stress is good, chronic or acute stress is very bad for behavior and learning.

Practical school application: Teach students better coping skills, increase student perception of choice, build coping skills, strengthen arts, physical activity and mentoring. These activities increase sense of control over one's life, which lowers stress. All of these can reduce the impact of stressors.

Citations:
Johnston-Brooks, C. H., Lewis, M. A., Evans, G. W., & Whalen, C. K. (1998, Sep-Oct). Chronic stress and illness in children: The role of allostatic load. Psychosomatic Medicine, 60(5):597-603.
Koomen, H. M. & Hoeksma, J. B. (2003, Dec). Regulation of emotional security by children after entry to special and regular kindergarten classes. Psychological Reports, 93(3Pt 2):1319-34.

In fact, neuroscience is exploding with discoveries about the brain as being highly malleable. We used to think about the paradigm as either genes or experience. We now know it can be a hybrid of both! New journals called Gene Expression, Gene Expression Patterns and Nature Genetics explore the mechanisms for epigenetic (outside of genes) changes. We now know that environments can trigger genes to express themselves in ways we never would have predicted-IF you know what to do. You can upgrade a student's capacity for memory, processing, sequencing, attention and impulsivity regulation. Why not teach these skills to give students the tools to succeed?

The brain changes! Plasticity is a lifelong quality that varies only in degree. The big message here is simple: Brain-based learning means understanding how the brain works and applying it to your work in a positive way.

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Guiding Principles - Brain Based Learning | Brain Based Experts

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ABSTRACT Many scientific researchers have shown connections between brain functioning and student learning. But a large number of educators have been frustrated with understanding and interpreting the language, limits and scope of recent neuroscientific findings. As a result, many forward-thinking neuroscientists and educators have been forging ahead with their own parallel sets of understandings and conclusions about brain-education interactions and implications.

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Tips from the Trenches: Foundational Statements.mp4

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Tips from the Trenches:  Simon Gillespie 

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Tips from the Trenches:  Simon Gillespie 

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PTC Tips from the Trenches - Simon Gillespie ISU

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Creating Effective Schools that Nourish- Revolutionising Education. | Angela Browne | TEDxNorwichED

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Dr. Marzano's vision for K-12 education is simple: the vast majority of schools can be highly effective in promoting student learning. To show how, he created the Marzano High Reliability Schools™ framework. This framework, based on 40 years of educational research, defines five progressive levels of performance that a school must master to become a high reliability school-where all students learn the content and skills they need for success in college, careers, and beyond.

The Marzano High Reliability Schools™ framework does not add a new initiative to school efforts. Many schools are already implementing a wide range of effective initiatives, and many educators are already practicing research-based strategies. The HRS framework does not replace professional learning communities, the Art and Science of Teaching framework, teacher evaluation and development, sound curriculum (including those aligned with the Common Core State Standards), vocabulary instruction, instruction in critical thinking and reasoning skills, formative assessment, standards-based grading and reporting systems, or student mastery systems.

Instead, this framework shows how best practices work together and provides indicators to empower districts and schools to measure their progress on attaining five increasing levels of reliability:

Using the framework and indicators, districts and schools can drive permanent, positive, and significant impacts on student achievement by synthesizing multiple complex initiatives into one harmonious system.

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Dr. Marzano's vision for K-12 education is simple: the vast majority of schools can be highly effective in promoting student learning. To show how, he created the Marzano High Reliability Schools™ framework.

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Top 20 Educational Leadership Podcasts of 2021

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Top 20 Educational Leadership Podcasts of 2021

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About Podcast The Better Leaders Better Schools podcast is a show created for Ruckus Makers in education for those leaders who challenge the status quo, never give up, and make change happen. Each week host Daniel Bauer has a conversation with a leadership expert and invites you to listen in. Turn your commute, chores, or workout into professional development and then go make a Ruckus! Frequency 1 episode / week , Average Episode Length 36 min Since Sep 2015 Podcast better.libsyn.com
Twitter followers 9.4K ⋅ Domain Authority 17ⓘ ⋅

Heber Springs, Arkansas, United States About Podcast Principal Center Radio brings you the best in professional practice for school leaders, in an audio format that you can access in the car, on the treadmill, or anywhere you'd like to listen. Frequency 1 episode / day , Average Episode Length 28 min Since Aug 2014 Podcast principalcenter.com/radio
Facebook fans 14.3K ⋅ Twitter followers 24.3K ⋅ Domain Authority 36ⓘ ⋅ Alexa Rank 3.2Mⓘ

Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States About Podcast William D. Parker is an author and speaker who uses his expertise in school leadership, culture, and communication to equip education leaders with solutions and strategies for motivating students, inspiring teachers, and reaching communities. Join him as he hosts a weekly 'Principal Matters' podcast for school leaders. Frequency 1 episode / week , Average Episode Length 30 min Since Dec 2015 Podcast williamdparker.com
Facebook fans 231 ⋅ Twitter followers 3.9K ⋅ Social Engagement 1ⓘ ⋅ Domain Authority 32ⓘ ⋅

Frisco, Texas, United States About Podcast The Aspire podcast provides, those who are looking to build their leadership capacity, an opportunity to learn from some of the most experienced and accomplished educational leaders. Join us as we discuss the visions, inspirations, and experiences from top educational leaders to enhance our knowledge of leadership development. Frequency 1 episode / week , Average Episode Length 30 min Since May 2018 Podcast joshstamper.com/aspire-episodes
Facebook fans 164 ⋅ Twitter followers 9.3K ⋅ Domain Authority 24ⓘ ⋅

Washington, District of Columbia, United States About Podcast If you're a principal, assistant principal, or instructional coach who is ready to have a transformative impact on the teachers you serve then School Leadership Reimagined is for you. Each week, Robyn Jackson will share counterintuitive strategies to help you dramatically improve instruction. You'll discover how to motivate your teachers, help them be accountable, overcome toxic cultures, and transform your school. Frequency 1 episode / week , Average Episode Length 30 min Since Mar 2018 Podcast schoolleadershipreimagined.c..
Facebook fans 1.3K ⋅ Twitter followers 6.9K ⋅ Domain Authority 25ⓘ ⋅

Rochester, New York, United States About Podcast This is the School Leadership Show to learn everything you need to know to thrive in school administration. The School leadership show is where ordinary school administrators become extraordinary leaders. The only podcast dedicated to helping practicing & aspiring school leaders realize their potential, advance their careers, and achieve work-life balance, This Show brings together the greatest minds from inside and outside of education to deliver you the insights and tools you need to succeed in school leadership. Frequency 1 episode / month , Average Episode Length 32 min Since May 2015 Podcast theschoolleadershipshow.libs..
Twitter followers 654 ⋅ Domain Authority 18ⓘ ⋅ Alexa Rank 4.5Kⓘ

Connecticut, United States About Podcast The Leader of Learning podcast explores transformational leadership in education. It is where educators can come to find inspiration to transform education through effective leadership. It is a community where educators can realize their leadership potential regardless of their position or title. Frequency 1 episode / week , Average Episode Length 35 min Since Sep 2017 Podcast leaderoflearning.com
Facebook fans 244 ⋅ Twitter followers 3.8K ⋅ Domain Authority 28 ⋅

Port Jervis, New York, United States About Podcast Andrew Marotta is an energetic and enthusiastic school leader who has put his positive imprint on his beloved school, Port Jervis HS, in Port Jervis, NY. In this podcast, he shares with you the practical tips, tricks, procedures, and methods that will immediately impact school leaders and their schools. Frequency 3 episodes / month , Average Episode Length 63 min Since Jan 2018 Podcast andrewmarotta.com/podcast
Twitter followers 1.5K ⋅ Domain Authority 15 ⋅

About Podcast The School Leadership Series is a daily podcast for school leaders. Always 5-minutes or less, the goal of the show is to offer quick inspiration and encouragement to heroic educators around the world every Monday through Friday. Created by Daniel Bauer in 2018, this show is hosted by a team of exceptional leaders who represent innovative & diverse voices in education. Frequency 1 episode / day , Average Episode Length 5 min Since Mar 2018 Podcast schoolleadershipseries.libsy..
Twitter followers 9.4K ⋅ Domain Authority 3 ⋅ Alexa Rank 4.5K

Raleigh, North Carolina, United States About Podcast Hi! I'm Dr. Tom Miller. I am a recovering gambling addict, former teacher, principal, and state consultant who gambled on himself to create the most trusted and innovative school leadership community in the world. Frequency 5 episodes / month , Average Episode Length 50 min Since Feb 2016 Podcast soundcloud.com/leaders-build..
Facebook fans 257 ⋅ Twitter followers 303 ⋅ Domain Authority 93 ⋅ Alexa Rank 142

About Podcast Educational Leadership is an ever-evolving opportunity to make a real and lasting difference in the lives of students, parents, and the community. Join Dr. Rob Jackson for conversations and reflections on improving Educational Leadership from the Classroom to the Boardroom and beyond. Frequency 1 episode / week , Average Episode Length 27 min Since Jan 2020 Podcast drrobjackson.blogspot.com/p/..
Facebook fans 128 ⋅ Twitter followers 739 ⋅ Social Engagement 23 ⋅ Domain Authority 9 ⋅

United States About Podcast Dr. Adam Drummond & Mark McIlmoyle deliver educational leadership through the interviewing of current school and district leaders. Each episode is uniquely designed to offer a practical way to enhance the listener's work as an instructional change agent. Frequency 1 episode / quarter , Average Episode Length 20 min Since Sep 2019 Podcast soundcloud.com/user-488308548
Domain Authority 93 ⋅ Alexa Rank 105

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia About Podcast The Australian Council for Educational Leaders (ACEL) is a not-for-profit company that actively supports the development of educational leadership capabilities across Australia through conferences and workshops, leadership programs, in-house publications, online resources, and a bookshop. This podcast has ACEL conducting special interviews with national and international speakers. Frequency 1 episode / week , Average Episode Length 33 min Since Feb 2019 Podcast buzzsprout.com/256402
Facebook fans 4.8K ⋅ Twitter followers 14.3K ⋅ Domain Authority 77 ⋅ Alexa Rank 4K

Haywards Heath, England, United Kingdom About Podcast Director of Policy at NAHT and NAHT Edge Director, James Bowen interviews the leading voices in education covering the topics at the heart of leadership and learning. Frequency 1 episode / month , Average Episode Length 32 min Since Feb 2017 Podcast anchor.fm/the-school-leaders..
Facebook fans 2.5K ⋅ Twitter followers 35.4K ⋅ Social Engagement 4 ⋅ Domain Authority 81 ⋅

About Podcast Dr. Dustin Bain, Dr. Ryan Luhning, and Dr. Jaime Welborn bring their experience and love of education in the hope to inspire and lead others in the world of leadership and education. The hosts represent leadership from the elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education realms. The creation of the podcast is to spread educational leadership knowledge along with interacting with the listener to create a better educational system for tomorrow. Frequency 1 episode / quarter , Average Episode Length 46 min Since Jan 2019 Podcast buzzsprout.com/242636
Twitter followers 599 ⋅ Domain Authority 77 ⋅ Alexa Rank 4K

About Podcast Welcome to Rising Tide Radio, the podcast for women in education leadership with your hosts Jennifer Hogan and Allyson Apsey. Join us each month for a discussion about leadership and life lessons that will leave you inspired and motivated. Frequency 3 episodes / year , Average Episode Length 20 min Since Nov 2018 Podcast anchor.fm/risingtide
Social Engagement 5 ⋅ Domain Authority 81 ⋅ Alexa Rank 3K

Perth, Western Australia, Australia About Podcast Hosted by Mat Irving and Luke Callier, this is the podcast for Aspiring, Middle, and Senior Leaders in Education. Each week we dive into a topic to talk about leadership, strategy, culture, and the business of K-12 education to define what success looks like in an educational setting in the 2020s and beyond. Frequency 2 episodes / week , Average Episode Length 50 min Since Feb 2019 Podcast edleaders.com.au
Twitter followers 75 ⋅ Social Engagement 1 ⋅ Domain Authority 4 ⋅

North Carolina, United States About Podcast The Guiding Principals Podcast focuses on the work of visionary educational leaders, in an effort to leave all listeners inspired and imparting upon them fresh new ideas and strategies, as they continue to expand their own leadership toolbox. This show allows you to connect and grow the educational leadership community. Frequency 1 episode / month , Average Episode Length 44 min Since Jun 2019 Podcast anchor.fm/tgpp
Twitter followers 3.5K ⋅ Social Engagement 1 ⋅ Domain Authority 81 ⋅ Alexa Rank 2.8K

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Top 20 Educational Leadership Podcasts You Must Follow in 2021

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Best Educational Leadership Podcasts. Episodes feature professional practice for school leaders, education through effective leadership, strategies for motivating students, inspiring teachers, & reaching communities, experiences from top educational leaders, tools you need to succeed in school leadership, and tips that will impact school leaders and their schools

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Jennifer Gonzalez on the Aerodynamics of Exceptional Schools | SXSW EDU

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Three Counterintuitive Truths about Great Schools

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Three Counterintuitive Truths about Great Schools

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3 Counterintuitive Truths About Great Schools

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Pat Ryan, tech entrepreneur and founder of Alain Locke Charter School in Chicago, on the characteristics shared by schools that close the achievement gap.

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Students across the globe need effective schools. While the American school system as a whole may be falling behind international standards, there are still some schools that stand out.

Sure, the context of schooling will impact attributes that contribute to effectiveness in specific schools. But at the same time, there are attributes that contribute to effectiveness across schooling contexts. If we understand the attributes of effectiveness, we can observe which attributes exist at successful schools.

There are five common attributes that make up an effective school.

1. Leadership

The first attribute is quality leadership. Students perform better when the principal and school board members provide strong leadership. Effective leaders are visible, can successfully convey the school's goals and visions, collaborate with teachers to enhance their skills, and are involved in the discovery of and solutions to problems.

2. High Expectations

The second attribute is having high expectations of students as well as teachers. High expectations of students have repeatedly been shown to have a positive impact on student performance. Students are somewhat dependent on the expectations placed on them during this period of their lives, as they are still shaping their personal sense of ability and esteem. Teachers who are expected to teach at high levels of effectiveness can reach the level of expectations, particularly when teacher evaluations and professional development are geared toward improving instructional quality.

3. Ongoing Evaluation

The third attribute of a successful school is the ongoing screening of student performance and development. Schools should use assessment data to compare their students with others from across the country. Effective use of assessment data allows schools to identify problematic areas of learning at the classroom and school levels, so that teachers can generate solutions to address the problems.

4. Goals and Direction

The fourth attribute of a successful school is the existence of goals and direction, According to research, the successful school principal actively constructs goals and then effectively communicates them to appropriate individuals (e.g., students, teachers, and the community at large). School principals must also be open and willing to incorporate innovation into goals for school processes and practices. So it's important to invite input from all stakeholders in the process of developing school goals. Student performance has been shown to improve in schools where the entire school community works toward goals that are communicated and shared among all in the learning environment.

5. Secure and Organized

The fifth and final attribute of a successful school is the extent to which the school is secure and organized. For maximum learning to occur, students need to feel secure. Respect is a quality that is promoted and is a fundamental aspect of an effective and safe school. Successful schools also have a number of trained staff and programs, such as social workers, who work with difficult or troubled students before situations get out of hand.

Apart from the five attributes of a successful school already mentioned, the size of the school seems to be an attribute in the school's effectiveness. Research has found that the smaller the school, the better students perform, especially in the case of older students. This is the rationale behind the concept of schools-within-schools. Students in smaller learning environments feel more connected to their peers and teachers, pass classes more often, and are more likely to go to college. Schools-within-schools involve creative use of the same teaching workforce to provide additional opportunities for learning for smaller groups of students or specialized teaching to students who require extra attention.

This environment could be created in the form of divided streams for mathematics education. Students who want to pursue studies in the humanities would need a mathematical education grounded in statistics and graphical representation, because this focus will be more relevant and prevalent during their postsecondary education career.

Students who intend to pursue a career in engineering or applied physics, for example, would have completely different needs, such as a greater focus on calculus and highly theoretical mathematical concepts like number theory. Creating schools-within-schools for these students would have lasting and measurable benefits for them, as well as benefits for the teacher, who could teach smaller groups of students and offer greater individual attention to student queries and difficulties.

A number of school districts view preschool education as an attribute that will influence overall effectiveness across all schools located within the district. Evidence suggests that children with preschool experiences fare better academically and socially as they enter kindergarten and beyond. Experiences in literacy and numeracy among early learners not only prepare preschoolers for a kindergarten curriculum that has heightened expectations of prior knowledge, but also help identify early learners who need additional support to ensure they have positive learning experiences later.

Additional attributes that influence effective schools include time to learn, teacher quality, and parental trust. Research supports the view that the more time a student spends learning, and the more efficiently that time is used, the higher their achievement. Schools that find creative ways to extend learning time will likely be more effective. Furthermore, schools with high-quality teachers also tend to be more effective.

Schools able to hire teachers from high-quality teacher education programs are more likely to be effective. But school effectiveness can also be influenced by the frequency, relevancy, and quality of the teacher professional development offered by the school or school district. Teachers who haven't had the opportunity to attend prestigious teacher education colleges still have several opportunities to develop after embarking on their professional career. Support for these initiatives at a school or school district level tends to improve overall teacher quality, regardless of their college of origin.

Trust and parental participation are also features of a successful school. Trust between all parties of the school community is vital for enhancing the school's effectiveness because it supports the prospect that parents and teachers believe in each other's motives and actions. Parental participation is also important because it sends the message to students that the adults in their lives--both teachers and parents--believe in the importance of education and are willing to make time to support students' educational experiences and efforts.

How well does your school embody the five attributes of a successful school?

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The Five Attributes of Successful Schools (Opinion)

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Students across the globe need effective schools. While the American school system as a whole may be falling behind international standards, there are still some schools that stand out. Sure, the context of schooling will impact attributes that contribute to effectiveness in specific schools.

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What are the essential elements of successful schools? It seems like a relatively simple question, but we know that K-12 education is a complex endeavor. And too often the dialogue about public education is being controlled by people who aren't necessarily education experts or even part of the education community.

With that in mind, the Learning First Alliance (LFA), a coalition of 12 major education organizations including NSBA, spent more than a year compiling research and best practices. The result is a compendium, "The Elements of Success: 10 Million Speak on Schools That Work."

The ongoing project is designed to help policymakers, school leaders, and the public understand why and how some schools succeed. This is the first time these organizations - representing parents, educators, and school board members - came together and found consensus on the topic.

The compendium identifies six critical elements that impact several important aspects of schooling. Most importantly, it determines that where schools are working, it is because educators, parents, and local communities have developed programs specific to meet their goals and challenges, rather than relying on a prescriptive state and federal role.

"We know what works; we know what makes effective schools," said NSBA Executive Director and CEO Thomas J. Gentzel at a panel discussion in January to release the compendium. "What's important about this compendium is that it is a way forward, and it includes best practices that can be applied to any school." According to the compendium, the six elements of success are:

Focus on the Total Child

Successful schools support all students' needs, inside and outside the classroom, to help them become effective, empowered learners. They design and carry out programs that offer all students a rich educational experience, supporting their academic and social/emotional learning so they develop the skills needed to succeed in an ever-changing environment. These schools customize learning to individual students, taking advantage of advances in technology as they do so. They also provide opportunities for students to explore careers and nurture their talents and interests, including through partnerships with their communities.

Commitment to Equity and Access

Successful schools ensure all students have access to high-quality services and supports enabling them to set and reach high goals for learning. In these schools, equity does not mean equality; they recognize some students need additional resources to have the same opportunity for success as others. They ensure the needs of all student populations are met, including English language learners, students with disabilities, children of color, religious minorities, LGBTQ students, and others. Successful schools recognize such students are assets and diversity is a strength.

Family and Community Engagement

Successful schools effectively engage families and communities in support of students. In doing so, they identify barriers to such engagement and work to overcome them. Their efforts to build authentic connections to families are focused on a belief that every parent wants the best for their child and, when provided the right invitations and opportunities, they can help their child, and all children, be successful.

Distributed Leadership

Successful schools define leadership broadly. Leadership is distributed - to principals, teachers, school counselors, community members, and others in the building - and decision-making is a shared endeavor. In these schools, leaders (regardless of job title) meet high standards of practice and are supported in their development. They understand that effective communication is a critical component of school success, and they build solid, trusting relationships with both school and community stakeholders.

Strong, Supported Teaching Force and Staff

Successful schools are staffed with educators - including teachers, principals, school counselors, technology specialists and others - who are well-educated, well-prepared and well-supported. These educators meet high standards of practice. They benefit from continuous learning and support along the professional continuum, including through high-quality preservice education, ongoing high-quality professional learning, meaningful evaluation tied to professional growth, and opportunities to take on leadership roles regardless of official title.

Relationship-Oriented School Climate

Successful schools create a culture of collaboration and shared responsibility among staff and students and with families and communities. These schools are safe, welcoming, and respectful to all. They establish teaching and learning as core values. They support positive behavior and build healthy, supportive relationships and a sense of community both between and among students and staff. In them, students have frequent opportunities for participation, collaboration, service, and self-direction, all strengthening their connection to the school.

Atoms of a Molecule

The most critical factor is the interaction between the elements - they are not interchangeable.

"These elements are like the atoms that make up a molecule - it is the bonds between these elements that allow the successful school to form," LFA Executive Director Richard M. Long says. A school cannot be successful if it has strong teachers and leadership but lacks family and community involvement or commitment to ensuring the needs of all students are met, for instance.

The compendium emphasizes that the solution for improvement isn't the same for every school, because each school has a wide range of existing strengths and a unique set of needs. And each child in each school is different. Therefore, schools combine the elements necessary for success in very different ways.

"What's contributed to the success of public education in America today is local leadership - leadership by teachers, administrators, school boards, and everyone who has an interest in the system," Gentzel says, adding that the top-down, one-size-fits-all mandates from the state and federal governments have not worked.

NSBA's Key Works of School Boards, which was featured in the compendium, outlines a framework for effective governance based on five key areas of best practice: vision, accountability, policy, community leadership, and board/superintendent relationships. The more effective the board, the better students perform.

Leadership evolves, Gentzel says. School boards, for one, had typically managed the four Bs: buildings, buses, budgets, and ballgames. "Over time, what we came to realize was that school boards must own responsibility for student achievement," he says. And other groups that contributed to the compendium also have discussed ways to be effective and support one another in leadership roles, he adds.

Marla Ucelli-Kashyap, assistant to the president for educational issues at the American Federation of Teachers, notes the need for more venues and opportunities to nurture distributed leadership.

"Sometimes people see leadership as a zero-sum game," she says. "The point is obviously not to take leadership away from the principal or the school board, but it is to have a collaborative culture that allows us to make a complex enterprise doable."

Take Back the Conversation

The compendium emphasizes that school improvement is a collaborative effort, and it advises those who are reading the document with intent to improve a local school to consider their circumstances. Rather than looking for specific programs to implement, school boards and school leaders can use the standards and indicators included to help gauge where a school is in relation to the elements, as well as find ideas that can strengthen a board's work in each arena. It also discusses the importance of engagement and cooperation among school boards, administrators, teachers, specialists, parents, and other community members.

Some say the document will be useful in helping parents and others find entry points to getting involved and helping improve their local schools, with each interaction spurring new conversations about other elements. Gentzel suggests it be a topic of community conversations, but also a pathway to strengthen the LFA member associations and public education overall.

Further, the compendium shows a clear effort by the education community to share successes and knowledge to help improve public schools, and ultimately, student learning.

In looking to the future, Gentzel also calls on school boards and educators to note the successes that have been realized in public schools.

"Public education in America is doing a better job than ever before," Gentzel says. "When you consider the changing face of America and all the challenges we have, poverty and other issues, yet we are educating more students to a higher level than ever. We have a lot to celebrate."
Joetta Sack-Min (sackminj@learningfirst.org), communications consultant of the Learning First Alliance in Alexandria, Virginia, is a former associate editor of American School Board Journal.

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What are the essential elements of successful schools? It seems like a relatively simple question, but we know that K-12 education is a complex endeavor. And too often the dialogue about public education is being controlled by people who aren't necessarily education experts or even part of the education community.

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Seven Tips for Effective School Leadership 

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Seven Tips for Effective School Leadership 

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For administrators to move beyond operational management to true leadership, they need to understand the capacity of their staff, promote open communication, and provide useful feedback, writes Matthew X. Joseph in District Administration. Joseph, director of curriculum, instruction, and assessment at Leicester Public Schools in Massachusetts, offers advice for administrators who seek to shift "from a building manager to an instructional leader." His recommendations include:

Focus on respect rather than popularity. While it can be tempting to make a decision your staff might want, Joseph says to center your decision-making process around student needs. "I've found that if you keep students at the core of your decision-making and are consistent, most staffers will accept unpopular decisions, especially if you communicate your reasoning."

Establish clear goals. In setting objectives, make sure to communicate with your staff so that they understand their roles in accomplishing those shared goals.

Listen to input from your staff. Avoid assuming your solution is the only solution, and intentionally set aside time for interacting with staff and responding to their concerns. Creating a people-first culture shows staff that you value their input and take their concerns seriously. Be strategic about your open-door policy, though: "Block out the times in your daily and weekly calendar to focus on students and your goals as well as being visible through classroom visits," Joseph advises.

Lead by example. "Model the traits that you would like to see your staff members display," Joseph writes. Even small actions-like where to eat lunch-can be an opportunity to model behavior you would like to see in your staff.

Provide regular, constructive feedback. Make sure to give your assessments as soon after an encounter as possible, and provide examples. Feedback doesn't have to be negative. Use the opportunity to evaluate staff as a platform for offering praise and boosting confidence, Joseph says.

Delegate. Establish a relationship of trust with your staff such that you can delegate some responsibilities to them and free up your time for other priorities.

Make meetings matter. "Meeting for the sake of having regular meetings-particularly if there is nothing on the agenda-frustrates people," Joseph writes. Eliminate meetings that aren't serving your team by identifying specific outcomes for each meeting and distributing information in other, more time-efficient ways, such as email.

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For administrators to move beyond operational management to true leadership, they need to understand the capacity of their staff, promote open communication, and provide useful feedback, writes Matthew X. Joseph in District Administration. Joseph, director of curriculum, instruction, and assessment at Leicester Public Schools in Massachusetts, offers advice for administrators who seek to shift "from a building manager to an instructional leader."

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Every month we talk with authors featured in Educational Leadership to take you inside their stories and gain new insights and ideas on crucial issues in education today. The Educational Leadership podcast is part of the ASCD Learn Teach Lead Radio series, a partnership with BAM! Radio Network, the world's largest all-education talk radio network. Stream individual episodes below, or subscribe to ASCD Learn Teach Lead Radio on iTunes or Google Play.

February 11, 2019

Anthony Rebora with Benjamin Riley

December 16, 2019

Anthony Rebora with Jessica Lander

November 6, 2019

Anthony Rebora with Nina Morel

October 1, 2019

Anthony Rebora with Jessica Minahan

September 10, 2019

Anthony Rebora with Chase Mielke

June 24, 2019

Anthony Rebora with Cathy Vatterott

April 7, 2019

Anthony Rebora with Matthew Kay

February 11, 2019

Anthony Rebora and Catlin Tucker

November 19, 2018

Anthony Rebora and Jim Knight

October 28, 2018

Anthony Rebora and Michele Borba

September 23, 2018

Anthony Rebora and Lee Ann Jung

The use of behavior charts can be effective for short-term compliance. However, there is substantial evidence that shaming students is counterproductive in the big scheme of educating our students.

Read " Tear Down Your Behavior Chart!" in the September 2018 issue of EL Magazine.

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Every month we talk with authors featured in Educational Leadership to take you inside their stories and gain new insights and ideas on crucial issues in education today. The Educational Leadership podcast is part of the ASCD Learn Teach Lead Radio series, a partnership with BAM!