Reflection Week 15

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Core Values

• Clarify who we are
• Govern personal relationships
• Guide us on how to teach
• Inform us on how to reward
• Honesty
• Transparency with statistics of student/community population
• Look up Singleton & Linton, 2006, pp 60-61
• Acceptance
• Embracing cultural differences
• Cultural barriers – break them down
• Break the vicious circle/cycle
• “Money is never going to make education more equitable if we do not properly desegregates our schools so that the minority population of students have as much to gain from public schools as middle and upper class students.” Jonathan Kozon, 1991.
• Modeling
• Model expectations of what I want my students to produce or learn
• Learn by example
• Intrinsic motivation
• I value my own education, never a choice for me
• Payback, sense of helping others
• Caring, making a difference
• Respect and trust
• Friendly
• Maintain healthy relationships
• Focus on building confidence
• Organization
• Key to keeping up with the changes in education
• Ownership and pride
• http://www.Nps.gov/training/uc/whcv.htm

Decision Making

• You get paid for your judgments.
• With good judgment, you can find the knowledge (or those that do)
• Why is it so difficult to make a decision?
• Our value in the eyes of others are sometimes more important than the best decision
• Why is decision making such an important activity for principals?
• You’re paid for them
• Decisions made in education are people decisions
• It’s important, affects the students for the rest of their lives.
• How do you make decisions? How does you r principal make decisions?
• Gut instinct? Not in hiring…
• Think it through
• How will it affect most involved
• Involve stake holders
• Do not ASSUME
• Are there techniques that would help a principal make a decision?
• Stay aligned with your core values and school culture
• Compare and contrast the various models of the decision making process.
• When should a principal not involve others in the decision making process?
• Confidentiality
• Personnel issues
• Make some minor alone decisions to begin with, to prove to staff that you can.
• Are there techniques that would help a group make a decision?
• Are there advantages to having a group make decisions?

Reflection
This class helped me to think more about my own core values and beliefs as they pertain to my future administrator role. I think that, because my values and beliefs have already been heavily rooted in my current teaching roles, that they will translate well to a principalship. Now obviously this might not be the case, but I believe that my current core values are enough to propel me into the role where I can refine and re-evaluate them. This class also brought forth the need for me to always stick to these core values, especially during the decision making process. The notes above are important to my future success in this arena.

Reflection Week 14

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SAGE: Student Achievement Gap Elimination

• The culture behind Nevada’s school improvement process embraces high expectations for every student and is built upon the foundation of the following beliefs:
  
  1. The work of schools is student learning;
  2. All children benefit from challenging and relevant curriculum;
  3. Curriculum, instruction, and assessments must be closely aligned to State Standards;
  4. Every teacher can be an expert when provided collaborative and sustained professional development focused on improved instruction;
  5. School culture and the learning environment can promote continuous improvement.
  6. Parental support and involvement are critical to improved student performance;
  7. Effective use of data is vital to continuous improvement of teaching and learning.
     
• Comprehensive improvement plans take several years to implement and demonstrate improvement in the targeted areas. A continuous improvement cycle provides the opportunity for ongoing identification of effective practices and/or actions that should be continued and ineffective practices and/or actions that should be revised or eliminated. There have been many successful school improvement efforts. The education research literature includes hundreds of examples of school improvement that have resulted in increased student learning, improved parent involvement, decreased dropout rates, and an increased percentage of students who enroll in college. The SAGE (Student Achievement Gap Elimination) school improvement process provides schools with a framework for problem solving to target the school improvement efforts best suited for them.
  

5-Step Plan for Dealing With Stress

1. Identify the stress risk factors
2. Decide who might be harmed and how
3. Evaluate the risks
4. Record your findings
5. Monitor and review
   

Reflection Week 13

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End of the Year

• Checklist passed out

The most intriguing items on this checklist include:

1. Student Portfolios
2. Classroom Inventory
3. Lunch charges paid

I included these as the most intriguing because I think they are really site-specific items to include on the end of the year checklist for teachers. What I am saying is that these are items that principals choose to implement at their site.

The June Checklist for Principals is much more insightful. Things on the list that peaked my interest included:

1. Schedule BTS Nights
2. Yearbook distribution
3. Review Testing scores
4. Meeting minutes
   

Reflection Week 12

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Is Your School Fun to Work For?

• This short quiz helped me to understand that it is quite important to work in an environment, especially in education, that is fun.
• The quiz had some great, yet simple, questions that forced me to really think about the level of fun at my site.
  

My First Staff Meeting

• This handout did not do justice to the presentation, but it is useful in its own right.
• The handout had simple, yet effective, tips that included dressing appropriately, bring a stainstick (probably the most useful!), using humor, keeping it short, staying true to your personality.
• These were some good tips, and I will most definitely have to revisit these after attaining my first assignment.
  

Reflection Week 11

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Goals
The presentation on "goals" helped me to understand the biggest benefits of goal setting and the mistakes that can rob you of your goals. The most useful of these were:

Benefits
- Greater peace of mind
- Greater personal growth
- Contribution to others

Mistakes
- Not having a mentor or coach
- Not taking time to celebrate when reaching a goal
- Not working on yourself

Reflection Week 10

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9 Characteristics of Effective Schools

Link Here
• Strong and professional principal
• Strong and professional teachers
• Clear positive philosophy
• Environment conducive to learning
• Effective student welfare system
• Strong organisational framework
• Broad, balanced curriculum
• Meaningful assessment and reporting on student progress
• Support for parent and community participation

Reflection Week 9

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Listening Skills

Roadblocks
- Interrogating
- Ordering
- Ridiculing
- Probing
- Scolding
- Criticizing

Reasons to Improve
-To avoid saying the wrong thing, being tactless
- To generate a feeling of caring
- To check that you are both are on target with one another
- To help people start listening to you

Questions to Ask Yourself
- What impulses do I have?
- How genuine do I feel now?
- How attentive am I to him right now?
- How comfortable do I feel right now?

This handout will most definitely be coming with me to my future administrative office. I feel that listening is one of the most challenging administrator skill, and this is something that I will most definitely need to work on in the future.

Reflection Week 7

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Top 5 Characteristics of 90/90/90 Schools:

• A focus on academic achievement
• Clear curriculum choices
• Frequent assessment of student progress and multiple opportunities for improvement
• An emphasis on writing
• External Scoring
  

Reflection Week 6

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Cooperation vs. Control

"If one has cooperation, control is unnecessary"

Respect & Trust

• "Shared decision-making: you will spend more time deciding and less time cleaning up messes from hasty decisions."
• I don't see a day in the future in which we'll be asked to do less

What would you do the first day as a school administrator?

• Do something the first week that shows thanks and appreciation to staff
• Little things pay huge dividends (pre-start of school BBQ!)

The Stages of Leadership

Better care for and love them because it will matter (students won't learn from teachers that don't care, even if the perfect lesson is taught - and vice versa).



Site-Based Management

Reflection Week4

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The first and last minute of anything we do are the most important! Everything else is window treatment.

My communication handout and self-assessment tool.

Asking questions, at the end of conversations, without judgment:

• I wonder...
• What would happen if...
• I had this thought...(non judgmental)
• I heard that they tried this over...

The last word is not the last word, it is just a summary. If you give the last word, it is a decision

With an employee that has bad attitude:

• Give them the opportunity to explain it first
• “Yesterday with both observed something inappropriate at this school. How should I handle that?”

If you’re in a fair fight, you haven’t prepared yourself enough!

Core Values:

• Equity and Access, Innovation, Excellence, Coherence, Co-Accountability.
• Climate and environment
• Engaged learners
• Enhancing employee capacity
• Outcomes for students
• Challenge
• Creativity
• Commitment
• Ethics
• Excellence
• Integrity
• Personal development
• Responsibility
• Teamwork
• Recognition

Everything you do as a principal is dependent upon your norms that you have created, in close alignment with the school’s mission and vision.

Reflection Week 3

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Thursday, January 28th

A colleague gave a great presentation on decision-making. This helped me to think and reflect on how I make everyday decisions, something I have really never given much thought to. Her presentation included the idea of not making knee-jerk decisions. Instead, letting teachers mull the problem over will help them develop their own solutions and ideas. Often times, not providing a decision right away helps others to think for themselves (obviously, there are times where a decision is needed right away).

We moved on to the Changing Role of Principal, where I presented this Prezi presentation:

The presentation was designed to look back on previous thinking of leadership in education, in order to move towards a new theory. This new theory looks at educational leadership as a craft-like science that requires administrators to have a multitude of answers for one problem, migrating away from the "one size fits all" mentality. You can download the presentation notes here.

I learned a lot from doing this presentation and associated research. As it turns out, I think this new theory of educational leadership is deeply rooted in common sense. Does it make sense to include stakeholders in the decision-making process? Does it make sense to discuss why it is important for teachers to meet their expectations, and to include them in making those expectations?

Reflection Week 2

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Thurday, January 21st

A colleague shared information about becoming a future administrator and sharing how to go about balancing personal and professional life.

• “Survivor skills for the principalship”
• Take care of #1 - have some "me" time.
• Enroll in playtime 101 - get out and do fun stuff! Get new hobbies.
• Have the family visit the school, so faculty know you’re a person
• Schedule “fun time” with friends and family
• Leave campus once in a while - take a break, talk a walk, get coffee.
• Have a discussion with your spouse about your new position/role

We watched this great video on TED that discussed creativity in schools. Apparently, our traditional school environments tell kids they need to fail in order to learn. But we punish them with grades when they do fail, so this is inhibiting their creativity! “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, then you’ll never be creative.” Listen to Ken Robinson's presentation:

Some other profound items worth discussing from this class:

• 50% rule – spend half the time in your office and half out in the school doing things. Do not be a hermit! Make sure you are visible!
  
• Supervisory time should be spent on helping each teacher become just a bit better. Be sure to meet them where they are comfortable, give up some of your power!
• Spend 10% of supervisory time dealing with incompetence and unsatisfactory items. Do not relinquish power here, have these meetings in your office!
  

Reflection Week 1

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I have recently started my last semester as a Graduate student at UNLV in the Master of Education, Educational Leadership program. My professor for my capstone course, Dr. Robison, is trying something new this semester and has asked us to begin thinking like an educational leader in everything we do. In continuing that theme, Dr. Robison has given us the task to put these reflective thoughts down on paper, in what he calls the "Role of Principal" journal. Being the tech savvy teacher that I am, I thought it would be a good idea to just integrate this into my professional blog so I can share my thoughts with others. In addition, I want to connect to other educational leaders and would love their comments, so please feel free to give your opinion.

All future reflective journal entries will be tagged with "UNLV." The first of many is below, I hope you enjoy!

Thursday, January 14th

• Try not to command: don't be a leader that tells people what to do. This is from the old military way of thinking, that was largely involved in creating the "old" way of thinking in education. Dr. Robison discussed numerous classical educational leadership models that all incorporated this command style of leading. It is rather obvious that this way of leading now does more bad than it does good.
  
• “I now know what I don’t know:” it is truly a good thing to realize how much you really do not know about any particular subject or content area. For me, I still have a long way to go until I even begin grasping a small percentage of what a retired school administrator knows. Even though this scares me quite a bit, I look forward to my first real challenge as a school administrator, where I have to put what I have learned into immediate practice.
  
• You get to practice the craft and polish it throughout your career: this statement tags along with the previous one. Now that I know how much learning I still have to do, it is quite comfortable to know that I'll have the time and hopefully the opportunity to polish the craft of being an administrator. I'm hoping that my endeavors as an assistant principal will pay off greatly in the long run, and hope to be a sponge in this learning process.
  
• The bigger picture: This course is going to help me grasp a view of the bigger educational picture. I am being challenged to not just think about leadership in my current school, but to think about it in broader terms; county wide, state wide, country wide, and globally. Dr. Robison says I'll be better for it, and I completely agree with him.
  
• Leader is not a manager: to be a great leader, managing a team is not the way to go. Distributing your leadership to the team helps them to find their own leadership, and allows you to truly model the desired leadership behavior. This is highly tied to the culture you create in a school, without it you'll sink!
  
• Respond as administrator: in all we do throughout this semester, we need to begin thinking about everything as if we are a current administrator, and the situation involves us directly. Questions to ask yourself should include; what would I do, how would I respond, what research can help me make this decision, who should I ask to gain teacher opinion and insight, etc.
  
• Teachers are picked on, listen to them: teachers are the ones in the classroom, most directly affecting student achievement. Dr. Robison said that teachers are often picked on, so lending an ear and listening to them gives them a voice. It's not that you have to act on whatever they say, but just listening goes a long way.
  
• Leaders adapt to staff: this makes a whole lot of sense, but without hearing this it may go to the wayside. Leaders should adapt to their staff, not vice versa. I definitely plan to use this thought in my first administrative position. I will be the new kid on the block so to speak, and it will be much easier for me to adapt.
  
• You cannot treat all teachers the same: you need to judge their needs and act accordingly (adapting), then they will make changes (situational leadership – wrong leadership causes hostility).
• Use charisma to your ability: “you don’t have power because you have the job.” Talk about an eye opener with this statement. Just because you get an administrative job does not mean you automatically have power to do what you want. If you lead this way, you'll make a lot of staff members angry right away, and will probably find yourself on the short end of the stick when it comes to contracts for the following year. Use your natural leadership skill of charisma to help staff see your point of view and vision.
  
• Eye to eye and knee to knee for best communication: showing up and working with teachers in the trenches is a great way to establish respect and a bit of trust when it comes to communication. Be next to them and with them as you lead them, be visible!
  
• Don’t have all of the answers: this is a tough point to get through your brain, but it is extremely important to know that you don't have all of the answers. I like this point because the same holds true for teachers in the classroom. A teacher that thinks they have all of the answers will lose students along the way (some just out of spite) and the same holds true for leaders.