As per course,
Effective Collaboration is a critical component of leadership. Principals must demonstrate a willingness to explore critical, innovative leading-edge thinking and they are instrumental in collaborating with others in championing risk-taking and innovation.
Watch the video below on Effective Collaboration. Read the monograph Principal as Co-Learner.
VIDEO: Effective Collaboration - Joe Vagt (Big Bang Theory)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Amu3UBj-qw&noredirect=1
Read Monographs:
CBS Principal as a Co-Learner
CBS Dynamic Learning
Discussion:
Reflect on your own learning experiences in different settings and discuss what was successful/engaging and why. Consider your post in Module 1.6 and how your identity shapes both your interactions with staff and position you as a leader. How do you design and engage in meaningful learning with staff? In what ways does this reflect the expectations for how teachers design learning for students? What role, if any, do shared leadership and co-construction of learning play in professional learning? Post your thinking in the discussion.
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As per discussion,
Reflecting on my post from Module 1.6, I discussed what didn't work as a learner. I thought it was important to include as it focuses on the ability to identify where professional learning is needed and in what ways it needs to be addressed. I recognize though at times that it was not just the school system, but the impacts of the school system on our families that sometimes had created challenges on student development. A personal example is the way of my Mathematics. I am far from great at Math, but I have been able to teach myself enough. Growing up, I was always a bit of a disappointment in the way of my studies because I "never applied" myself, my parents had expected me to be great at math because I was a boy, and I was my father's son (he was excellent at Math), but I mean-I became an English, Social Science and PE teacher. When I studied math with my parents as well as my teachers, the idea that because I could understand the instruction of process mean't I should autmatically understand it. I could read the chapter about alegbra and linear equations, but I still didn't understand it, why I needed it, what it mean't. Taking this experience I reflect and apply this to my own experiences as a leader, a teacher who is completing their reports, and has many students who "English level is too low to understand the material", but have knowledge and thinking skills to apply to the course and be successful ask how the teacher moves intructional tasks forward, or what they do to build literacy into their content (making it more accessible). Immediately I feel, "You have been a teacher for this long and you can't differentiate?", I understand though that there are more parts to the situation than just simply saying "give more attention to the student", in some cases, its that standard of their own that they apply, they look back on their own learning and say, well I got --% when I was in this class, or they look to other students in that class and base partial judgment off that. As a leader I need to recognize that this all has been in part of learned expereinces that have reinforced these habits or beliefs. When we as people in general say our identity has never held us back, it certainly has at one point or another, may not in a way that we notice, but certainly-some of us can accept what has happened and move forward, others can reflect and apply it to practice.
Professional learning is something that should be meaningful, invested and applicable to teh learning community. The idea of professional learning has been applied in various ways, from staff social experience sharing to guest speakers and workshop/seminars as a part of board mandate. The most empowering learning experience I have shared with a staff in which I was the host was a technology seminar (well before COVID), this would have been in 2016 or 2017. I was introducing a website learning resource for students called "classcraft", at the team it was the most revoluntionary thing for me. Now, obviously there are similar technologies more accessible to everyone. At that time in 2017, my colleague and I wanted to try and drive use of it enough to convince the school to purchase a license for it, make it apart of student homeroom attendnace. The idea was that it was so powerful and engaging to student learning and teacher instruction (at that time), that it would eliminate many of the issues teachers faced with technology in the classroom (being that it was in the classroom), what resonates with me in regards to that experience is that the conversation went away from talking about classcraft and more or less turned into the ways that teachers could manage technology in the classroom. What was most engaging about it was that teachers were in a safe place to voice their upsets with technology in the first place, and being able to sound board their usept as well as the hosts of the professional learning seminar allowed us to redirect that upset into positive change, people left the seminar feeling, although I don't care for classcraft, I do feel that there is a larger support system for our staff having discussed how to manage the use of technology in the classrooms better.
Some of my prior learning surrounding leardership resonates with me a lot in regards to professional learning and developing an understanding of how principals who involve the staff in the production of professional learning create a unified vision for the school but effective collaboration as well.
Keith Leithwood (2014) describes how Principals are not to necessarily be critical of their learners, but be an observer and a learner. Leithwood's idea of recognizing that they do not know what happens in every single classroom in regards to content, but is important as someone who can recruit other teachers and find examples that can be brought to a PLC where it is used to help build a model of what achievement will look like. The analogy of learning through inquiry as a leader is important because of the fact that each principal is coming from an area of their own background, for the principal to walk into a classroom and provide feedback or context to feedback is difficult if their understanding of the content hinders what the understanding of the teacher's in class effectiveness.
Fullan (2015) echoes a lot of Leithwood's ideas where the leader as a learner is effective in organizing a staff/team that trying to achieve student achievement/success. Fullan offers insights into theoretical management practices and although it is helpful it is certainly presented more on the management side of the discussion with more of a focus on why it is effective rather than the "how" to make sure it is effective. In order for what Fullan says to work, there needs to be a pool of individuals who want/can move into the school community to participate in a way that allows for the production of this growth. Fullan's ideas take time for a Principal or leader to develop and foster, first within their school and then within their board.
After watching Through the Eyes of the Learner: From Student Work to Teacher Practice (2014), two schools have developed a PLC in which the teachers are setting goals to develop and strengthen their roles as teachers in this subject specific area which will foster success as students transition to each coming grade thereafter their own. This video is the most important because it explains the "how" of making a PLC effective not only as a leader in a department or school but as an individual teacher building rapport, development and grit in their own teaching/teacher as a learner challenges.
As an in class observer from within the PLC, or maybe even department in particular, the co-learner is one who is developing their own abilities through observation and discussion based on learned material. As a leader of the PLC or school itself, a co-learner is one that does as previously mentioned but facilitates the manner of which this learning is used thereafter as well. This is a good point for leaders to incorporate success stories among the staff to share something positive about their team and faculty members. After consideration of comfort levels and rapport, it is important to understand that leaders (whether they are department heads, or principals), do need to practice sensitivity in regards to their feedback. Sensitivity to the reception and dealing of feedback can strengthen as well as hinder a team or teacher's confidence if not developed in a healthy manner in the beginning stages
Thinking about how professional learning is something that is most effective when it is engrained into the school culture, I spent some time observing the ideas of Kelly Rizzo. A school culture reflects the overall attitude that is taken to the community and its members, in the video "Establishing a School Culture" by "Professional Learning Supports", our speaker Kelly Rizzo speaks to the idea of building a sustainable circle of experts to systematically help develop a strong sense of existence and development within the school community itself. To extend on the idea of a rich school culture, Rizzo also focuses on the inclusion of parents as a form of educational input/output for students after school. These ideas are echoed in Chapter 2 of Culturally Responsive Leadership (Khalifa, 2018) in which the principal undergoing the ability to demonstrate how epistemologies can be included into the school and its framework as a part of what makes it an effective school, teachers can develop from the model, confidence and direction.
References:
[Professional Learning Supports]. (2017, January 11). Ken Leithwood: Principal as Co-Learner and Enabler [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/88174131
[Professional Learning Supports]. (2017, January 11). Michael Fullan - Leader as Learner [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/118495104
[Professional Learning Supports]. (2017, January 11). Through the Eye of the Learner [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/91624205
Ontario (2014). Principals as Co-learners: Supporting the Promise of Collaborative Inquiry. Capacity Buillding Series K-12, (38). https://doi.org/1913 8490
Ontario (2013). Dynamic Learning. Capacity Buillding Series K-12, (33). https://doi.org/1913 8490
Michael Fullan: Leader as Learner
http://thelearningexchange.ca/videos/michael-fullan-leader-as-learner/
Ken Leithwood on PLCs and Expectations
http://www.curriculum.org/k-12/en/videos/ken-leithwood-on-plcs-and-expectations
Ken Leithwood: Principal as Co-Learner and Enabler
http://thelearningexchange.ca/videos/ken-leithwood-principal-as-co-learner-and-enabler/
A Healthy School Culture
http://thelearningexchange.ca/videos/a-healthy-school-culture/
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