Forever Moment Impact! by

Forever Impact

2024-01-02 18:29:41 UTC

Something that was a catalyst for my leadership experience was meeting Peter Dewitt in a cohort through the Oklahoma State Department of Education. Peter spoke to my leadership heart with all of his words and experiences. It helped me focus my leadership and evaluate who I wanted to be as a leader. Whenever I make decisions, I ask myself "What would Peter say?" His books push me to grow and his feedback is invaluable. I have not experienced anything more impactful on my development than my time with him or than when I read his books. I don't know who I would be as a leader without the experience. Because of his coaching, I found my entry point to what my school needed in order to be successful.

Forever Impact

2024-01-04 14:44:10 UTC

I’ve had a lot of these moments over the years but one that stands out is when I planned a professional development for our district that was entirely driven by our teachers. (Of course, this was done collaboratively with a host of people but I managed and led the process from start to finish.) The teachers were the presenters AND the participants. Not only did the participants learn a lot about their colleagues and best practices, but the presenters/facilitators gained confidence in themselves and received great feedback from their colleagues. It did such great things for the culture of our district and is something that is still talked about many years later as a great success. I will forever be looking for ways to include stakeholder voices in planning development trainings, as well as looking for ways to leverage the leadership and expertise of our own people rather than looking outward for consultants and experts (although there is a place for them too).

Forever Impact

2024-01-09 22:33:13 UTC

A moment of forever impact in my career happened when I was working as our district's director of teaching & learning, partnering with our Assistant Superintendent, Mike Nelson. We had thoughtfully planned and prepared for our opening professional learning day with staff at the start of a new school year and had researched and invited a keynote speaker from the east coast to join us as our kickoff to the day. Just hours before he was set to arrive, we learned that his plane had been canceled and that he was unable to join us. Since those were days before we had tools available for virtual learning or zooming in, we knew that we were now on our own. What were we to do to stir the hearts and minds of our 300 staff members to launch the new year in just a few hours the following morning? After a bit of panic, we quickly began to reflect on our current district culture, the hopes we had for the year ahead, and what we knew about those colleagues in our midst. A late night of planning, a powerful series of video clips about the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team coming together to overcome the odds by working as "ONE", genuine connections to our district's work, and trusting ourselves to tap into the heart for the work and for the staff doing it, resulted in an experience the following morning that not only resulted in a standing ovation and spontaneous audience participation, but reminded me from that day forward of the power of leading genuinely, of trusting both your mind and your heart as a leader, and in stepping back to pause and to know what is needed and when in your school or district. Sometimes, we're given gifts in unexpected packages!

Forever Impact

2024-08-28 02:24:15 UTC

Delivering a STEM-focussed workshop to teachers and students from a range of schools in the North-Eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria. Seeing the transfer of opinions, knowledge and skills from students to teachers, with a collective "a-ha" moment for teachers who realised that the students in the room where upskilling more quickly, and became the "experts" in the room. It took a lot of self-awareness and values-aligning for some of the teachers in the room to reconcile this realisation with their own perception of teachers as the leaders in the classroom, and as the drivers of knowledge. It also highlighted the value of a collaborative culture in the classroom, with students being equal collaborators in the learning space. This then made me sit with the locus of control and circles of power in schools and educational settings, and the insights and knowledge we can perhaps miss out on due to misalignment of these loci. - Anam (Academy)

Forever impact

2024-08-28 08:11:02 UTC

As a learning specialist in differentiation, I've worked closely with teachers who were facing challenges in engaging some of their students. By employing Jim Knight’s coaching model, I guided them through a process of setting goals based on observational notes. Together, we explored trauma-informed practices, differentiation strategies, and positive behavior approaches.

Teachers have reported significant improvements in their students' attitudes towards learning. Many of them have reached out to share how my support has reshaped their understanding of student behaviors, emphasising that behaviors often mean students have unmet needs and that they require empathy and responsive strategies.

This has also led to a ripple effect throughout their schools. Teachers are now transferring their learning to their peers. They have shared anecdotal evidence of positive change and impact.

Lorena (Academy)