Building Leadership Capacity

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Building Leadership Capacity Workshop Tom
Hoerr July 29th Jill Clapham, Paul Cracknall,
Meredith Fettling, Linda Lyons, Wendy OConnor
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Tom Hoerr

• Principal of New City School in St Louis
• School is a multiple intelligence school

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• Purpose of presentation
• Raising questions for discussion rather than
  providing answers.

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BLUE PRINT FOR GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS
Tom Hoerr Theme Building leadership Capacity
Ideas and philosophies addressed many of the
flagship strategies contained in the governments
Blueprint.
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BLUE PRINT FOR GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS
In particular Flagship Strategy 3 Building
Leadership Capacity Flagship Strategy 4
Performance Development Culture Flagship
Strategy 5 Teacher Professional Development And
therefore. Flagship Strategy 1 Student
Learning

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• 3 key themes that connect and interrelate to
  these flagship strategies
• Collegiality is the key to a schools quality
• Understanding the importance of Goal Setting and
  power helps everyone grow (Staff development)
• Distributed intelligence is a tool for continued
  improvement.

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1. Collegiality is THE key factor in
determining the quality of a school
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Collegiality is the key

• If students are to grow and learn, teachers must
  also grow and learn.
• Roland Barths notion of collegiality from
  Improving Schools from Within

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Barths 4 aspects of collegiality

• Tom Hoerr believes these 4 aspects should
  happen routinely within schools
• Teachers talking together about student learning
• 2. Teachers talking about curriculum together
• 3. Teachers observing one another teach
• 4. Teachers teaching one another

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Teachers talking together about student
learning

• Discussing students strengths and needs
• Comparing and contrasting how students perform in
  different settings
• Discussing how students have changed over time
• Discussing how to work with families (or
  colleagues) to help students grow.

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Teachers talking together about curriculum

• Developing, reviewing, revising curriculum
• Discussing how to integrate PoLT into VCE studies
• Discussing pedagogy
• Discussing how to integrate thinking skills and
  ICT into classroom practice

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Teachers observing one another teach

• Gaining an appreciation for others
• Asking questions which cause reflection
• Giving positive feedback
• Identifying areas for improvement
• Sharing ideas through watching one another teach
• All of the above contribute to teacher growth

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Teachers teaching one another

• Sharing expertise. Teaching peers about pedagogy
  and classroom skills
• Sharing different ways deal with student
  disengagement and management issues
• Sharing effective ways to communicate with
  parents and administrators
• Sharing awareness and knowledge from readings and
  presentations. Team reading groups with leaders
  involved. Voluntary.

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Barths 4 aspects of collegiality

• Tom Hoerr believes these 4 aspects should happen
  routinely within schools
• He adds a 5th aspect to Barths 4
• Administrators and teachers learning together
• HOW DO WE DO THAT IN PRACTICE?

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ADMINISTRATORS AND TEACHERS WORKING TOGETHER

• 2 ways we can learn together/transfer knowledge
• Listening informally
• Davenport Prusak
• Bendigo Weekly
• Formally soliciting feedback
• 360 feedback Performance Plus
• Stop, start, continue
• Personal feedback
• Team feedback

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Formal input feedback

• Understanding the process
• What should we STOP?
• What should we START?
• What should we CONTINUE?

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If students are to learn and
grow..Collegiality a culture of collaboration
and learningmust permeate the school
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2. Goal Setting
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Introduction

• Teachers are the Key factor in determining the
  quality of a school
• A School is only as good as its teachers

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• Principals job is not to make
• teachers happy
• The Principals job is to facilitate and support
  everyones growth, beginning with the teachers.
• When that happens every one will be happy.

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Goals Justification

• Without goals,
• we lack focus
• we lack accountability.
• Without goals we can not monitor our own
  progress.

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Goals

• If we dont know where we are going any road will
  get you there, says the Cheshire Cat to Alice as
  she wanders through Wonderland.

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Goals Should

• Be student-oriented( contribute to increased
  student achievement)
• Be developmental (based on the teachers skills
  and needs)
• Benefit teachers (teachers should gain from
  realizing goals)
• Goals need to reflect the instructional context

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Considerations for the goal setting process

• Teaching Context
• What are the needs of the students?
• Does the school have a particular focus or
  direction?
• Is there a particular curriculum or pedagogical
  issue that is being addressed?
• Does the teacher work alone or as part of a team?
• What is the administrations philosophy on goals?

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• Teaching Talent
• What is the teachers experience and attitude?
• What is the teachers knowledge base?
• What are the teachers skills?
• What are the teachers interests and passions?
• Is the teacher opened to new ideas and strategies?

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Six Goal Characteristics

• 1 Goals Should be meaningful
• Should benefit students and teachers.
• Unless teachers set goals for themselves- unless
  teachers also grow their students gains will be
  short term and minimal.
• Students growth results from an interaction
  between student and teacher. In a meaningful
  goal-setting process

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2 Goals should be measurable but not necessarily
quantifiable

• How goals are measured becomes a critical issue
• Not all goals need to measured by test results
• Some important goals (e.g. students attitudes and
  values) are best measured by valid but not
  readily quantifiable data.
• We need to find new ways to monitor this progress
• Good outcomes stem from determining how progress
  towards goals can be measured and recorded

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3. Goals Should be achievable

• Teachers should feel that their goals can be
  realized, that with hard work and concentrated
  effort they can be achieved.
• Goals should be neither too easy nor too hard.
• Using multiple goals (but not too many goals) is
  beneficial.

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4. Goals Should be individualized.

• No two teachers or school contexts are
• the same.
• Goals should reflect the interplay between a
  teachers context and a teachers talents.
• Goals should reflect a teachers professional and
  personal context.

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5. Goal setting should be a collaborative activity

• Sharing goals and the progress toward them
  increases accountability
• Who the collaborators are will vary by
  individual, goal, and context.
• Goals that are not shared with others are just
  hopes.

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6 Goal-setting is only the first step

• Monitoring of goals needs focused attention
• Periodic times should be scheduled when
  individuals will touch base and share progress
• Most sharing will be done privately some can
  happen publicly.

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Kinds of goals

• Stretch goals
• Team goals
• School focus goals
• Multi year goals
• Publicly-shared or private-held goals
• Teacher generated or administrator-assigned goals
• Personal professional goals
• Administrators goals

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Focus on 3 kinds of goals

• Personal/ Profession Goals
• Stretch Goals
• Team Goals

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Personal Professional

• Focus on personal, non-school issues that can
  have an impact on a teachers performance.

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Examples of Personal Professional

• To reduce stress by cutting back on the hours
  spent at work
• To deal with a health concern
• To balance home and school in adjusting to a new
  spouse or child
• To be a better team-mate

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Stretch Goals

• A Stretch Gaol is voluntary, so challenging that
  teacher will not achieve them.
• So ideal that the teacher can not be expected to
  achieve them.
• Striving for these goals is the goal.
• Stretch goals are always optional.

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Team Goals

• Are a goal developed and held by all members in
  the team.
• e.g improving parent communication
• Working better as a team

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Goal- setting is just the start

• After goals are set, administrators must monitor
  goals
• Help modify goals
• Assess goals, and assist in setting revised goals

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Administrators Goals

• All of the same considerations and
  characteristics apply to goals set by school
  leaders
• In particular, it is important for an
  administrator to share some of his/her goals and
  progress towards them with the faculty.

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3. Distributed Intelligence

• How is success in school different to success in
  life?
• What do todays students need in order to succeed
  in tomorrows world?
• Distributed intelligence is a pragmatic approach
  to education.

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Distributed Intelligence

• Information and the pace of change
• During the Renaissance there were people who
  could legitimately claim to have read every
  important book ever written.
• In 2003, 175,000 books were published in the US
• The amount of information in the world doubles
  roughly every 72 days.

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Distributed Intelligence

• Predicting the future is never certain but Tom
  Hoerrs assumptions about the future lie around 3
  key areas
• Technology the impact will continue to increase
• Diversity in relationships and people. The
  ability to work with others who are different
  than you will become essential
• Environment will become less stable

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Distributed Intelligence

• Implications for educators
• Goals must change. There needs to be
• Less reliance on memory, rote problem-solving,
  and the acquisition of facts
• More focus on complex problem solving
• More focus on collaboration, working with other
  who are similar and different
• More focus on giving students multiple ways to
  learn

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Schools are behind the times

• Throughout the 20th century, we have asked
  students to be academic because we intended to
  sort them out on the basis of their responses
• (Redesigning schools)
• Schools have focused on lower level skills
• Data and facts
• Information
• Knowledge

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What is intelligence?

• the ability to solve a problem or
• create a product that is valued in a culture
• (Howard Gardiner)
• Intelligence is problem solving
• Distributed intelligence is the ability to use
  external resources to solve problems
• Our intelligence is not limited to what is inside
  our skin.

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What is intelligence?

• Intelligence, problem-solving ability,
• is distributed across other minds, signs,
• and artifacts
• Tools
• Symbols
• Portfolios
• Forms
• Calculators
• Computers
• Individuals

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What is intelligence?

• Intelligence should not be defined as what you
  know, but what you do when you dont know what to
  do (Jerome Bruner)
• What are the implications of the new VELS and the
  skill sets that students will carry into a VCE
  curriculum which continues to assess knowledge
  and facts?

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Leaders also need to use distributed
intelligence.

• Distributed intelligence occurs when everyone
  in an organisation, regardless of role or level,
  proactively solves problems, makes decisions,
  and takes creative action as the need arises
• We need to use one another as resources.
• Do we know the strengths of individuals in our
  staff?

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• Some Interesting aspects..
• Hiring of staff
• creative application form, and interview
  process
• New teacher support
• 2X month meetings (scholastic and personal
  without an administrator present)
• Mentor for 2 years
• Teacher evaluation
• Evaluated on professionalism and collegiality
• Staff cant just be good teachers, must be a
  resource to others

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Interesting aspects .Hiring

• Application process (a creative approach)
• Is the applicant pedagogically sound?
• Will the applicant fit with the school culture
• Current teachers help select new teachers
• By screening applications
• By being a part of the interviewing process
• Interview Questions
• Tell us about yourself (assuming we lost your
  resume)
• What would the Principal/s of your school say you
  need to work on?

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Application Form

• Front of the application form includes
• Personal details and
• A box to fill as
• you wish!
• How will you use
• this space?

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Application Form

• Back of the application form to be completed in
  the applicants own hand writing
• Are there differences between success in school
  and life?
• Describe (as developmentally appropriate for the
  age you wish to teach) what issues of human
  diversity are important and how they should be
  addressed
• What book or work of art has had the greatest
  impact on you?

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And .Other ideas to ponder

• We must make NEW mistakes
• rather than no mistakes or old mistakes!
• The importance of excellence versus perfection
• TEAM Together Everyone Achieves More
• Who you are is more important than what you know
• The problems and challenges in the workplaces of
  the 21st century are impossible to solve alone.
  Thats one of the reasons why teamwork is now the
  dominant mode of work nearly everywhere except
  in education Tony Wagnar in Phi Delta Kappan

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• Remember
• COLLEGIALITY.. Is the key
• If students are to grow and learn, the adults
  must grow and learn too!