Edcamp for Cherry Street ~ Differentiation for Staff -- SAVMP #22

After reading the assignment for SAVMP #22, I feel this is a great opportunity for me to do some planning ahead for Year THREE at our school.

Year ONE was about establishing the vision, assembling the right crew, and setting up the infrastructure and the processes and procedures that would facilitate the vision becoming real. Year TWO has been about improving the curriculum and cultivating the human capital on campus. Year THREE is going to be about leveraging the power of data to precisely alter instruction, polishing our craft, and improving, improving, improving. Over the course of this time, we are periodically picking up new riders on the bus. As new riders join us, they have missed the visioning process that occurred during year one. If the new rider has been in education for a while, they bring a certain knowledge base with them. However, if the new rider is an entirely new teacher, they are arriving with a novice level knowledge base, far different than all other educators on campus. This layering of experiences causes a staff with three different levels of knowledge about the vision, expectations, and general foundation for progress at our site. With that said, I was overjoyed when I read Amber's post about differentiating for staff. I love the ideas she proposed for staff development and making it relevant for the faculty! It is clearly my new goal to press forward toward this type of staff development during different times of the school year.

Amber's suggestions in her words:

1. Grouping teachers is one way of differentiating.
2. Give options in what your teachers are discussing, #edcamp style. I’ve even “prepped” teachers with a couple of topics that I knew that I wanted to see covered, but left most of the board blank, for their input.
3. Allow conversations, not just “sit & get” sessions.
4. Flip your meetings, to make the discussions more valid & transparent. Allow teacher voice!
5. Let your groups of ability leveled learners be led by members of your own staff. Call on the experience in your building!
6. Create a bucket list of activities you’d like to see in classrooms.

I especially like #1, #2, and #5. My mentor in Canada, Paul McGuire, flips his faculty meetings by sending out videos of the concepts prior to the meeting and then has faculty do the "work" of exploring the concepts at the faculty meeting.

Whatever the case, this is what I would like to begin doing for staff development during year THREE. Half way through Year TWO I can tell who the campus experts and teacher leaders are for our school. I will tap into their expertise to begin growing the new teachers and the rising leaders for our school.

I think it is exciting to think we may be able to start this in about 6 months. I would LOVE to get really brave and try an #edcamp style faculty meeting at some point next year. That is SUPER EXCITING. I met another principal at FETC this year who raved about edcamp. I hope to attend one prior to trying it out with our faculty. What is an #edcamp, you may ask?

From Wikipedia:

An edcamp is a user-generated conference - commonly referred to as an "unconference". Edcamps are designed to provide participant-driven professional development for K-12 educators.^[1]Edcamps are modeled after BarCamps, free participant-driven conferences with a primary focus on technology and computers. Educational technology is a common topic area for edcamps, as are pedagogy, practical examples in instructional use of modern tools, and solving the problems technology can introduce into the classroom environment.

Edcamps are generally free or very low-cost, built around ad hoc community participation. Sessions are not planned until the day of the event, when participants can volunteer to facilitate a conversation on a topic of their choice.^[2] Edcamps operate "without keynote speakers or vendor booths, encourage participants to find or lead a conversation that meet their needs and interests."^[3]

The first edcamp was held in May 2010 in Philadelphia.^[4] Since that time, there have been over 200 edcamp events held throughout the world. The Edcamp Foundation was formed in December 2011 to help teachers and other stakeholders who organize edcamps. The vision of the Edcamp Foundation is to "promote organic, participant-driven professional development for K-12 educators worldwide."

I look forward to growing myself and my staff when it comes to Differentiated Staff Development. Edcamp Cherry Street, here we come!

Instructional Leadership -- Establishing Credibility #SAVMP

In my work as a leader, I am often sympathetic to how much responsibility our teachers are carrying. I try and always take things off their plates before adding another initiative or project if it is within my control. Many times, the new responsibilities we all take on are those required due to state or federal obligations. 

I also try and do my very best to learn everything I can about what I am asking our teachers and students to do. When possible I try to provide support or resources or training to assist in aiding smooth implementations.

One recent major implementation our full campus is undergoing is our Writing Action Plan. I happen to be a past district trainer for the Creating Writers (6 Traits) program for our district. I was able to be trained by Vicki Spandel and then was a co-trainer with a great teacher in our district, Beverly Dunaway. It is important for me to share this prior knowledge. To demonstrate Instructional Leadership, I want to not only show my knowledge and understanding of today’s classroom, but I also want to get deep into the work with my staff and students. To walk side-by-side with them as we all travel the long journey to increased writing achievement, I have set out creating writing mini-lessons for each month to match our school-wide Writing Trait of the Month.

I love sharing my enthusiasm for writing, and I also enjoy providing one more resource for our faculty to assist in our Writing Action Plan. The use of videos allows teachers to view the video on their own time and to "pause and play" as they like. They don't have to stay late for a meeting or attend a face-to-face training session. Video is so user-friendly. 

I have added these videos to my collection of videos on my YouTube Channel, and most recently, the teachers have joined in allowing me to film them and send out mini-lessons about many aspects of the school's teaching and learning goals. 

Here are two of the videos I have created thus far. They are so easy to make, and as a recent mentor of mine said, "If you help just one person.......you have been effective." 

I encourage others to not only engage in video mini-lessons but also in developing STREET CRED with your teachers and students by getting busy with the work of teaching and learning at every opportunity.

Viral Learning is Contagious!

Week 13 – Individual Learning and Mass Sharing #SAVMP

The week 13 SAVMP posted asked these questions of the BLOGers:

How do you share the work that you do during individual staff PD to ensure that great learning goes viral? I would love to see some other examples of how people are sharing.

I don’t know why, but I have ALWAYS been a sharing person (sharer).  Often times, it does not benefit me whatsoever, as folks will take my ideas and implement them, and then THEY get the credit. But, hey, wasn’t it Reagan who said, “There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.”

There are two ways I am “sharing” the professional development we have at Cherry Street Elementary. One way is my Twitter feed. During our two days of pre-service training this year, I ran a live feed during the two days of training and posted all the videos we used as well as images of our teachers as they provided the professional development for our campus. I know that the Principals in my PLN often share videos and training topics, and they give me brilliant ideas. I hope that my sharing does the same! Here are some examples from back in August.

And, even more fun, I have started sharing videos of EVERYTHING! I created a YouTube Channel about a year ago, and I have been having the most fun populating it with faculty videos and videos I have made for school-based professional development goals. Here are just a couple:

The sky is the limit when it comes to sharing. I don’t know who the approximately 4,000 people are who have viewed my BLOG, but I hope in some way that they have had at least one “take away” from the experience. This is connected learning at its best. Viral learning is contagious! LOL. 

Week 8 -- Meaningful Professional Development #SAVMP

This week's assignment asks the question...What are some of the ways to create meaningful staff professional development?

To begin with, I believe that meaningful professional development leads to better learning in the classroom. The professional development on our campus has gone through a metamorphosis-- by design, and the change is remarkable.

When I first arrived on campus as the new instructional leader for our school, there were immediate pressing needs. One was the need for infrastructure and systems to fill the void. Unfortunately, that meant that our monthly faculty meetings were committed to rolling out these initiatives and to training faculty and staff on the necessary requirements needed to comply with district initiatives. The second critical need was for our faculty to get to know their new leader and to "roll out" my style and credibility for them. So...over the course of a year I set out to meet those two goals.

Well...leap forward in time to a full year later. My style is one of teacher leadership and distributed leadership among the staff. Our very first faculty meeting of the year, I was committed to making that shift to the teacher-led faculty meeting where WE ALL own the growth made by the school experts--the teachers! A year's worth of work had resulted in a great professional development experience vs. the old style "meeting."

Our first faculty meeting was a success! If I was to use the measure--would I enjoy sitting in one of my faculty meetings? The answer, after this first meeting, was a resounding yes! I began the meeting with a new tradition I had started. The idea had been shared with me by my wise friend. At pre-service training, I brought in a large stuffed Cheetah that I had bought at Toys R Us--the Cheetah is Cherry Street's mascot. At each meeting thereafter, whoever received the Cheetah would have to "pass the torch" to the next Cheetah Champion AND they would have to personalize the Cheetah in some way. I gave the "torch" to one of our teacher leaders who is known for going above and beyond especially with her ability to network with families. I also personalized the Cheetah by adding a BluRay box to his collar. I am a huge science fiction geek, and I added the box for the movie Oblivion.

At this first faculty meeting, it was the teacher leader's opportunity to "pass the torch" and recognize a Champion on our campus. She put on her glasses to read an index card that she had written with notes because she said, "I wanted to make sure I got this right." She then set out to describe a teacher who knows the name of every student in the school, a teacher who takes weekend time to have his family help him clean up the campus, and a teacher who makes a difference with our students. As she shared this information and ultimately the teacher's name, I got chill bumps and a few tears welled up in my eyes. There are so many champions at our school, and now the teachers are stepping up to recognize the champion in each other. The room broke into applause, and as our COACH received the Cheetah that was now covered in chocolate wrappers (the teacher leader's new personal touch), I could swear I saw a tear in his eyes too. That was waaaayyy cool!

Relying on that same teacher leadership model, we moved on to the next part of the meeting which was for one of our campus experts in Kagan to model for the group and then have the group work through some activities as well. Our teacher leader worked with the group to have us create a Kagan team cheer and to spend time in a Kagan team-building activity which allowed us to get to know each other a little better. Some of our cheers were very goofy, but the whole experience was wonderful. In just a few short minutes, we had invested a little time in getting to know each member of our group and hear their story. And, we got to do a little risk-taking by moving outside of our comfort zones and creating something silly and goofy that unified our groups. The room was filled with laughter. Ultimately, the goal is for the groups to take these demonstrated activities and begin to implement them successfully in their classrooms.

Next, we watched ANOTHER teacher leader demonstrate the behavior management program called Classroom Dojo. This program is so accessible that parents can log on during the school day in real time to see how their students are behaving during the school day. Additionally, teachers can use the App for the program to carry hand-held devices with them such as their SmartPhone or their iPad or tablet, and they can track behavior data from any location on campus. One of our kindergarten teachers provided a testimonial about how successful the program had been in her kindergarten classroom. Her feedback was definitely a strong selling point for many folks.

We covered several more items, and the new precedent has been set for our faculty meetings.

And here is where the impact on instruction can be felt from all this DISTRIBUTED LEADERSHIP. 

1. Climate and morale are encouraged and positively promoted when the teachers praise each other.
2. Positive climate is increased ACROSS CAMPUS when the faculty and the students participate in team-building and class-building activities. Discipline referrals typically decrease when Kagan structures are implemented at a school.
3. The effective best practices of one teacher are shared with other faculty members, and WE ALL GET STRONGER.

In my weekly Classroom Walk-Thrus, I have seen the Kagan Structures being used, and I have seen the Class Dojo spread like wild-fire. This type of faculty meeting is less about meeting and more about professional development to impact instruction. AND....I am so glad we are in Year Two. I just can't wait to get to Year Three--the sky is the limit!