B.Y.O.T Bring Your Own Thoughts
The latest on all student-centered models, leadership development, strategic planning, teacher retention, and all things innovation in K-12 education. We answer questions before you think to ask them.
District Leadership | School Leadership
The Polarization of Education: As consultants at Education Elements, my teammates and I have the incredible opportunity to support districts around the country as they solve some of their toughest challenges. These challenges range from “How do we change our practices to increase students’ agency over their own learning?” to “How do we use quantitative and qualitative data to determine our priority areas over the next five years?” Within each of those challenges, we encourage districts to use their resources strategically to advance educational equity, providing each child with what they need to develop to their fullest potential, regardless of their identity. Equity is a choice–a choice that individuals and collective communities make to put students’ individual and unique needs first.
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District Leadership | Strategic Planning
As students and districts around the country begin the new school year, we are excited to share an inspiring story of how the School District of Newberry County, South Carolina, in partnership with Education Elements, is launching this school year with a powerful new Strategic Plan. There are two key lessons worth sharing which helped drive purposeful change and set a course for a clear and coherent journey ahead.
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District Leadership | School Leadership
Picture this...You are a Principal conducting a classroom observation, witnessing a teacher skillfully utilize data to drive instruction, and form small groups tailored to individual student needs. Suddenly, a crackling voice interrupts through the walkie-talkie, demanding your attention.You are needed in room 203 for a discipline matter, then in the girls' 5th grade bathroom for a busted pipe, and finally, to join an IEP meeting. Maybe this scenario also sounds familiar: You are a district leader, and you are in a strategy meeting to discuss the implementation of a new curriculum, yet you don’t have all of the key players in the room or a clear timeline to make decisions yet you continue to meet and get nothing accomplished.
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Imagine a school district as a ship navigating the vast and ever-changing ocean of education. Just as sailors rely on the North Star to navigate across uncharted waters, school districts can best stay on course with their own guiding light, an instructional framework.
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District Leadership | Teacher Retention
The constantly evolving education landscape makes nurturing educators' development a crucial priority. The success of schools and districts depends on designing successful, meaningful, and innovative professional development experiences that ignite teachers' passion for continuous improvement.
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District Leadership | Teacher Retention
As students across the county prepare for the start of a new school year, conversations about how to address our national teacher shortage are becoming more frequent and urgent. Many educators are calling for this conversation to be rebranded as a “teacher walkout” to highlight that teachers are leaving the field as a way to protest a system not built to empower them as decision-makers and innovators. This shift in language – from “teacher shortage” to “teacher walkout” – illuminates a key design element that districts can leverage proactively to respond to retention challenges: teacher agency.
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Education Elements | Personalized Learning | Strategic Planning
As school districts actively pursue the goals of their strategic vision, they tend to look outward for a spark of innovation. Unfortunately, there is a limit to the amount of “new” a system can take. It is common, within a single district, there can be multiple initiatives happening at once. Over-indexing new initiatives can lead to information overload, miscommunication, and burnt-out educators. That is why the most impactful approach is often to look inward to seek alignment on existing innovations.
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District Leadership | Education Elements | School Leadership | Strategic Planning
Schools across the country work tirelessly to provide positive educational experiences for their students, staff, and the larger community. Yet, there are times when they fall short of this goal. They may experience high teacher turnover, a poor school climate, and low student achievement, just to name a few challenges. In our work, we see that with the right support systems in place, we can collectively improve school performance and meet the needs of students and educators. Here are three valuable strategies you can leverage to achieve transformative improvements:
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Education Elements | Strategic Planning
I support school teams nationwide through the process of unpacking survey and focus group data from their communities. One consistent trend across school districts is that most adults overestimate their ability to understand and empathize with their students’ experiences at school. Even teachers who regularly work directly with students and have the best intentions tend to misrepresent students’ feelings and beliefs about their academic and social experiences at school. This trend is particularly problematic when a district’s strategic plan, the framework that guides decisions impacting students most, is written solely by adults. Nearly every school district strives to write a student-centered strategic plan, but how student-centered can your plan be without actively including student voice throughout the planning process?
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Education Elements | Enrollment Marketing | Strategic Planning
The COVID-19 pandemic drastically shifted the culture of learning in America and the issue of school enrollment is a current topic of repeated conversation. Remote learning created the option for students to learn outside of the school building and the shifts from remote, to hybrid resulted in a noticeable decline in school enrollment. Many students simply struggled to return to school. In fact, the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to a drop in K-12 public school enrollment of 1.2.million students. This indicated that no school district was immune to the enrollment challenges happening across the nation.
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Education Elements | New School Design | School Leadership
I have always aspired to open a new school that cultivates a school atmosphere centered on learning and student achievement. One that recruits and retains the best teachers and staff, meaningfully engages with students, families, and the community, and utilizes research-based and culturally responsive curriculum. I have not yet fulfilled that dream, but I had the opportunity to work alongside James Hopkins, a school principal in Durham, North Carolina, who has done just that. James opened Lyons Farms Elementary School during the 2022- 2023 academic school year.
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District Leadership | Education Elements | School Leadership | Strategic Planning
Last year, I relocated to my home state of Tennessee from New York City, and I had to secure a car for the first time in many years. As luck would have it, my first winter back in Tennessee was one of the state's coldest on record. Just enough snow fell in late December to make driving, especially up my steep driveway, a daunting experience. As I slowly crept up the hill toward my house, my tires spun in place. Decisions needed to be made. Would it make sense to keep spinning my tires in place hoping to gain enough traction to move forward, or would it be better to stop, reflect, and rethink my approach? It was clear that what I was doing wasn't working. I took my foot off of the accelerator, stopped the car, reversed slightly, and attempted a different path on the grass adjacent to the driveway. In a few moments, I was safely parked in my house’s garage. Sometimes we need to pause and create new strategies when the ones we have in place are not working. This applies to school districts today who are facing very challenging circumstances with a record number of educators leaving the profession, math and reading levels at a twenty-year low, and public trust in education eroding.
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District Leadership | Education Elements | School Leadership | Social and Emotional Learning
As we reflect on the past school year and prepare for next year, it is helpful to evaluate the Social Emotional Learning (SEL) practices and how they served to shape the culture of learning and development in your schools. According to the CASEL’s (the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning ) framework, “SEL is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions." SEL “advances educational equity [and] can help address various forms of inequity and empower young people and adults to co-create thriving schools and contribute to safe, healthy, and just communities.”
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District Leadership | Education Elements | School Leadership | Strategic Planning
One of my family’s favorite pastimes is playing the board game The Settlers of Catan. The winner is the first player to earn ten victory points. There are a variety of ways to earn victory points, which means that winning the game is a matter of both luck and strategy. The last time I played Catan, I started the game “lucky” by rolling the highest number and getting to place my settlements first. However, my husband’s strategy of waiting until the end of the game to build the “longest road” turned out to be more fruitful than my strategy of obtaining a two-for-one lumber port to gain the resources that I needed. (If none of this makes any sense to you, go play the game after you finish reading this blog post.)
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Blended Learning | Education Elements | Personalized Learning
When students take ownership of their learning, it can transform the school experience for both students and teachers. Cultivating academic agency among students is not a quick process, but by implementing a few small practices consistently over time, educators can foster a culture of student-led learning. Here are some simple yet effective ways to build your students' investment in their own education, one step at a time.
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Blended Learning | Education Elements | Personalized Learning | School Leadership
As school leaders, we know how difficult it can be to change the culture and reputation of a school. It takes dedication, hard work, and a team of educators who are committed to making a difference. These ingredients were in place to achieve transformational success at Hall Success Academy (HSA) in Aldine ISD. We can all learn important lessons about how to implement successful shifts by learning about the story of the HSA campus redesign team, including teachers, school principal, assistant principal, working alongside our Education Elements team.
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District Leadership | Education Elements | Organizational Leadership & Change Management | Strategic Planning
The concept of Strategic Planning can be intimidating at first glance. If you haven’t gone through the process yourself, you may be familiar with the concept but have questions like “What does strategic planning mean? What does it entail? Isn’t that normally done by the CEO or the leadership team?”
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District Leadership | Education Elements | Organizational Leadership & Change Management | Strategic Planning
Over the past few years, State Education Agencies (SEA) and Local Education Agencies (LEA) have been tasked with creating Covid 19 recovery plans. These plans were a way to recognize interruptions with academic progress and mental health for our students and think through how to best support them. During this time, Education Elements partnered with the South Carolina Department of Education (SCDE) to ensure districts across the state have the essential information and resources to holistically assist students. This involved not only creating cohesive Academic Recovery Plans, but also initiating action and progress monitoring support to ensure plans become actions and actions become progress.
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Blended Learning | Education Elements | Personalized Learning | Teachers
Prior to becoming a consultant for Education Elements, I served as a Middle School Math Teacher. It was a tough but rewarding job, and I absolutely loved it. Math is a passion of mine, and I adore the raw, sarcastic, hilarious moments that often come from interacting with middle school students.
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Blended Learning | Education Elements | Personalized Learning | School Leadership | Teachers
More than three years after the onset of the global COVID-19 health pandemic, researchers are only beginning to scratch the surface of understanding how acute the long-term effects of the shuttering of schools and a shift to virtual and hybrid learning environments are having on students. Recent data suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic halted more than two decades of momentum in math and reading achievements. Another nationwide survey indicates that K-12 reading skills across the country have dropped to a thirty-year low on average. Educational inequalities were also exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly among students with limited access to financial, social, health, and technology resources, many of whom were already struggling academically before the pandemic. One effective method for combating learning loss created by the COVID-19 pandemic is for teachers to implement Personalized Learning in their schools and classrooms.
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Education Elements | School Leadership | Teacher Retention | Teachers | Teams & Culture
Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! This time of year is truly special to me. For 7 years, I worked as a classroom teacher. It was the hardest job I ever loved. Supporting my students academically, contributing to a positive school culture and communicating with families and community members, all made teaching such a wonderful professional experience. In my role as a Design Principal at Education Elements, I no longer work in the classroom, but I use the skills to support school leaders and districts.
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Education Elements | School Leadership | Teacher Retention
Teachers have a tremendous impact on the learning and lives of their students and communities, and planning a unique and powerful teacher appreciation week is one way to celebrate their incredible contributions. School and district leaders can use the strategies below as a starting point to plan meaningful ways to recognize all that they do, every day.
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Education Elements | School Leadership | Strategic Planning
I’ve gotten into strength training recently. I never thought this would be the path for me, a cardio lover, but after a recent foot injury, I needed to step away from running and try something new. I explored apps and training plans, trying to find the right fit for my schedule and preferences. As a consultant who has helped dozens of districts design and implement strategic plans, I also knew I could apply some of the principles we use when supporting districts to my weightlifting journey. In our work, we’ve found that the successful implementation of a strategic plan comes down to three key areas:
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Blog Post | Enrollment Marketing
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Blended Learning | Classrooms | Education Elements | New School Design | Personalized Learning | School Leadership | Strategic Planning
The bright morning sun floods in through the yawning glass windows and casts long shadows in the front of the classroom. My colleague and I and about ten-odd teachers sit huddled at the desks near the back; some of them are poring over resources on their screens, others using markers, pens, and paper cutouts on small chart paper. INDEPENDENT PRACTICE, the text underneath one of these cutouts proclaims. The teacher draws an arrow to the right, as though to sequence the steps, and then draws a sort of three-step cycle that takes up most of the space. THREE STATION ROTATION, the teacher then proclaims in green marker and proceeds to describe in small writing what students are expected to do in each station during her 9th grade English class.
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7Cs Practices | 7Cs Teaching Resources
School districts face an increasingly competitive market as districts grapple over teacher talent. In Texas, the state implemented a grant system called the Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA), where districts create criteria for designating “Master” teachers to reward their top performers.
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Education Elements | School Leadership | Teacher Retention | Teams & Culture
It’s the time of year when hiring managers and principals are gearing up to recruit and onboard their staff for the upcoming school year. As we prepare for this hiring season, most of us have team members who were promoted, or have pre-existing vacancies, and newly retired staff which creates additional open roles to fill. Undoubtedly, there are some big shoes to fill, but where are the people? As education evolves, we have the opportunity to redesign how we view hiring. Whether by leveraging technology to maximize time and optimizing the interview experience or by rethinking how the interview experience looks, here are 4 key moves to upgrading your organization’s hiring process.
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Education Elements | Organizational Leadership & Change Management | School Leadership | Strategic Planning
It’s hard to believe, but we’re approaching the three-year anniversary of the COVID-19 shutdown in our schools. We’ve all been through a great deal of disturbance over these past three years. One of my coworkers recently shared this article on the hidden toll of “microstress” and it resonated with me. In my work with community members across the country (teachers, staff, families, school and district leaders), I’m finding that people are tired. I have a 2 year old y’all -- I’m really tired. On any given day, change is hard. Right now, it’s really hard.
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Education Elements | Organizational Leadership & Change Management | Teacher Retention | Teachers
As we start the calendar year, many of us have the desire to set ambitious goals to change how we work to make it more fulfilling and sustainable. As an Instructional Leader, I remember sitting at my desk before the start of each semester, turning my wheels about how to make each day longer so I could prioritize the competing needs of my dozens of teachers and maybe have time for lunch. I supported five new teachers, all in different content areas with different curricula (or none) which added to this stress. I began to shift my mindset to discover that these natural breaks in the year created an opportunity for a mini-reset to reimagine and prioritize our work. Here are six tips for leaders looking to reset their instruction:
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Education Elements | Organizational Leadership & Change Management | Teacher Retention | Teachers
Raise your hand if you are still trying to fill teacher vacancies, even though it’s the end of the first semester. How about if you’ve had teachers start the year, but they’ve since exited? Maybe you’ve heard this: “I’m considering not staying another year because even though I love my students, I no longer feel connected to the work.” These experiences represent an aspect of our current educational landscape. Teachers are conflicted about leaving the classroom and pursuing roles outside of education. School leaders are struggling to retain strong talent and hire new members. These are pressing challenges.
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Curriculum Strategy & Adoption | Education Elements
Recently I attended an event called, “Synergy in the Sciences to Support Literacy Instruction” hosted by Lexia Learning. It was a small round table discussion, including higher education leaders, researchers, politicians, policymakers, and district administrators. As the Chief Learning Officer of Scholarus Learning, I was there to provide inputs on how change might be implemented since Scholarus works with thousands of schools providing consulting, surveys, and custom curricula. Scholarus is currently assisting a state implement a certification program for over ten thousand teachers each month on the Science of Reading, so we are seeing impactful approaches at a state level and at the individual teacher level.
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Education Elements | Organizational Leadership & Change Management
I don’t know about you, but I definitely feel a shift in how we live in this world. Day-to-day life feels a bit slower. Receiving Amazon deliveries the next day seems the norm, and whether or not your favorite restaurant will be closed due to staffing or delivery limitations is increasingly common. It’s not rare for apps on your phone to be buggy with the latest release, or for the remodeling of your home to take twice as long or cost twice as much as it did pre-pandemic. As I write this, there’s daily news about the fallout from the failures of FTX in the crypto markets, and the war in Ukraine has continued for almost a year.
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Communication | Decision-Making | District Leadership | School Leadership | Strategic Planning
“I want to be in the room where it happens...” There are so many powerful scenes in the award-winning musical, Hamilton. The moment Aaron Burr laments being left out of the decision-making process is not only a turning point in the story but a great depiction of how many feel when it comes to the all-important “rooms” where decisions that affect their lives are made.
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District Leadership | Organizational Leadership & Change Management | School Leadership | Teachers
More than ever, teachers need connections and opportunities to talk about student learning, celebrate progress and discuss overcoming challenges. The welcome and standard structure of PLCs in schools is an obvious route for these professional conversations. It is easy for meetings to be eaten up with personal stories, professional questions, and school concerns. It distracts from the intention of this time, which is designed to ensure students are at the center of teaching and learning.
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District Leadership | Personalized Learning | School Leadership | Teachers
At Education Elements, we define personalized learning as an instructional approach that empowers students to build ownership of their learning. And, as students transitioned back into schools in the wake of remote and hybrid learning, our district partners across the country emphasize that this student-centered approach to teaching has never been more needed. With buzzwords floating around like “learning loss,” we are at risk of losing the full story of how educators have always endeavored to meet students where they are. At this moment, personalized learning is emerging as a critical process that equips educators with the practices to support students in getting the instruction they need, when they need it.
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District Leadership | School Leadership | Surveys
Your organization has just been officially placed on the school improvement or district accountability list. As a leader, this likely comes as no surprise to you. In fact, you may have already taken steps over the last several months to make significant improvements around climate, instruction, curriculum, and leadership. However, for your staff, and likely the rest of the community, this announcement can be jarring and bring a range of emotions - embarrassment, discouragement, and even anger. That said, it is critically important that you actively take steps now to set the foundation for future success – for your students, staff, and community. Moreover, you should be mindful about how you engage with your community, how they perceive your ability to manage your organization through the improvement process, and how they might take ownership of an improvement process that will build critical momentum. To that end, here are five concrete actions you should take within the first 45 days.
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District Leadership | School Leadership | Teacher Retention
The stories, run in newspapers across the country each week, paint a desperate picture: a Pre-K teacher in Texas juggling two classrooms alone; classes across the country led by a recurring series of long-term substitutes with no formal training; a school district in Pennsylvania forced to shorten school days due to lack of staff; districts in North Carolina reporting hundreds of vacant teaching positions even as the school year begins. In the words of National Education Association (NEA) union leader Becky Pringle: “The educator shortage is a five alarm crisis.”
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Curriculum Strategy & Adoption | District Leadership | School Leadership | Strategic Planning
The creation of a shared instructional vision brings many benefits to a school or district. An instructional vision can provide a shared understanding of what instructional excellence looks, feels, and sounds like. It aligns classroom practices to a clear set of principles and expectations. It can also bring instructional unity to any district plagued with uncertainty about instructional practices. There is a common misconception that a superintendent should create an instructional vision in isolation and only rely on the most current research and best practices. And that once an instructional vision is in place and shared, then it will be easily understood, accepted, and adopted by district leaders, school leaders, teachers, staff, and students.
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And just like that, summer has ended, and pumpkin spice lattes are back. It’s that time of year: the Winter Holidays are among us! Like other times during the year, this is a great moment to pause and be intentional about centering educational equity in your school and district. Consider these 5 tips as we head into the holiday season.
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Curriculum Strategy & Adoption | District Leadership | School Leadership
The most successful school leaders we work with understand that high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) improve student engagement and are a key resource in addressing schooling loss. They also know that materials, while a critical lever, are only one piece of the necessary elements for shifting teacher practice and improving student outcomes. In this blog post, we provide a brief list of things principals should know about high-quality instructional materials as they get started with adopting or implementing new materials.
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Surveys should be a part of every school’s planning. As a former school district administrator responsible for surveys, I learned a lot about what to do and what not to do. Above all else, creating a listening culture in your school or district can transform your next initiative and your overall results in supporting student success.
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Gaps. Learning loss. Interventions. All of those words represent important topics that existed pre-pandemic yet were magnified when students returned to in-person instruction. But in true educator fashion, resilience prevailed. Many districts and campuses found innovative ways to meet students where they were. We saw organizations revisiting their missions and visions to determine if what students now needed matched their organization’s statements. We saw tweets and posts of teachers sharing or seeking help in creating voice and choice in instruction. One key trend - an increase in the commitment to personalize learning. We saw districts investing more time and resources into developing their teams and aligning them on how to personalize learning for their students.
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School Leadership | Teacher Retention
The teacher attrition crisis in US education has been in the headlines a lot in recent months. Many districts and schools started the 22-23 school year woefully understaffed, leading districts to implement drastic stop gap measures just to open their doors. Some districts opened this fall with armies of substitute teachers, shortened school days, and were forced to implement confusing and sub-optimal alternative schedules.
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Feedback has the ability to strengthen your new initiative or culture. But give a lousy survey, and you can set your school or district back in terms of trust, and you may lose the ability to gather important input in the future. Don’t turn a positive opportunity into a negative.
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Equity | Innovative Leadership | Strategic Planning
Graduate profiles are becoming increasingly popular in districts and can function in a multitude of ways. From formulating the basis for an instructional vision to getting started with performance based grading, graduate profiles clearly articulate outcomes for learners and provide critical guidance for staff and leaders. What is a Profile of a Graduate? A graduate profile may also be referred to as Portrait of a Graduate, Profile of a Graduate, Journey of a Graduate, or Journey of a Learner. The precise term is not as important as the way in which it was created, and how it functions within your district or school community. At Education Elements we believe in the importance of building and creating a profile collaboratively; that the process of creation is, in fact, just as important as the end product. We also believe that when designing a graduate profile, it is important to do so with a student-centered approach. Read the following five tips for planning that will lead to an impactful and relevant graduate profile that your community is excited about.
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Curriculum Strategy & Adoption | District Leadership
As more and more high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) become available, we have noticed a tension with districts across the country between being excited about the opportunities for new, rigorous materials, and the concern about when and how to get started. While some district-level decisions are guided by state policy and timelines, there are five components that we have found that will help to shape any district’s academic strategy, regardless of where it is during an adoption window. These components include:
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Instructional Coaching | School Leadership
Educators are often described as superheros; this includes instructional leaders. Here's our superhero-inspired, 3 simple actions that instructional leaders can take in the next month to ensure that teachers and students marvel at their own growth this year. (See what we did there!)
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School Leadership | Teacher Retention
Teacher turnover is an issue that has impacted school districts all across the country. Teachers are leaving the profession in record numbers while not enough are entering it. Therefore school districts are scrambling to fill vacancies with qualified educators. Teacher retention is a complicated issue. It is a challenge that has many facets, none of which seem to have simple solutions. It is in times like these that we turn to our leaders for guidance. Fortunately great leadership has proven to be a key lever in retaining our nation’s teachers.
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Communication | Crisis Management
School leaders, teachers and parents have had to navigate difficult conversations in the last few years. During the panedemic, they explained to students that the learning will be shifting again to virtual, that collaboration will look and feel different, that although “sharing is caring,” let’s pause on the sharing of supplies for now. The skill it takes to navigate these discussions with students and children is already complex; but add the sensitivity needed to when students are grappling with schooling and social loss, and we can appreciate that our leaders, teachers, and parents have had a crash course in communicating through disruption.
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Data | District Leadership | Surveys | Teams & Culture
When working on surveys for a large school district, I heard it all. We don’t trust you with our survey data. What did you do with last year’s survey? This survey takes too long. What am I supposed to do with this survey data? Often when these responses arise, it’s due to poor survey design, poor follow through, and a less-than-authentic approach – all of which can erode trust and lead to unsupported claims.
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District Leadership | Strategic Planning
You have just spent months engaging your community, identifying your priorities and getting your wording just right. It feels like you are inches from the finish line as you think about rolling out your final plan to the community. This is certainly a huge feat and worth a celebration but you are not quite done yet!
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Teacher Retention | Teams & Culture
During the next few weeks, districts and schools will begin the process of welcoming and onboarding their new teachers for the 22-23 school year. When done effectively, new teacher onboarding can allow new staff to gain clarity on their specific roles and feel welcomed into their school community.
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District Leadership | Organizational Leadership & Change Management | School Leadership
March 2nd is a day that will never be forgotten in Putnam County, TN. Our small community woke up to the sirens of an EF4 tornado that rocked our community and two weeks later our school system closed when the COVID pandemic hit home all across the state of Tennessee.
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District Leadership | Organizational Leadership & Change Management | School Leadership
Across the country, educators and educational leaders have celebrated their graduations, held their end-of-year promotion ceremonies, and cleaned out their classrooms. After another unpredictable year, many are eager to get some well-deserved time away this summer. As a leader, you likely want for your team to be able to really unwind and enjoy the summer. Consider setting aside some time for your team to officially close out SY 2021-2022, and to prepare for a strong start when they return to start SY 2022-2023.
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Organizational Leadership & Change Management | Surveys | Teacher Retention
Addressing the staffing shortage in public schools may seem like running a marathon barefoot, uphill, and in the sweltering sun. When faced with an ever-expanding school and district improvement checklist, it’s human nature to pick the seemingly more manageable task first. Why not run the morning mile on the padded track instead of the impossible race?
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Personalized Learning | Professional Development
To meet the needs of an ever-changing tomorrow, school districts must continue to grow and evolve. At its most desired state, a classroom is a laboratory of innovation and its teacher, a "mad" scientist - working everyday to make connections between students and the content. Unfortunately, the chaotic uncertainty of the last two years have left educators fighting to survive, leaving little time for experimentation. This reality leads us to an important question: how can we measure growth and innovation during these challenging times?
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Personalized Learning | Teachers
If you lead a district, school, or department, or if you are a teacher yourself, then you may have seen that civil discourse that relies on evidence is increasingly under attack. We might experience this, at times locally in our Board meetings, and nationally in the broader conversation.
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Innovative Leadership | School Districts
Let’s just be clear: there is a very short honeymoon period for a new superintendent. From day one, people have expectations of you as the new superintendent. They want you to be exactly the same or completely different than your predecessor. They have their hopes pinned on you bringing new ideas or have their fingers crossed that you won’t. They are wondering how long you will stay and what you will do during your tenure. They both expect you to know everything about the district right away, and yet know that you don’t and are frustrated by it. They have so many things they want to say to you, and yet voice few of them, as if you can read minds.
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When teachers don’t have access to strong materials, they search for them often online, leading to inconsistent quality and weak alignment to the standards. In fact, some have found that teachers spend 7-12 hours per week searching for and creating instructional resources.
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This spring, Merrimack College and EdWeek Research Center released a whitepaper publishing their findings for their Teacher Survey. One of the takeaways? Forty-three percent of respondents said they were somewhat dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with their jobs. “The last two years have been fraught for teachers as their profession has consistently attracted public attention—much of it hostile—due to political and cultural battles over pandemic-related policies on masking and vaccines and new laws curtailing instruction related to race, racism, and gender,” the report says.
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It's been a year since the school district surrounding Columbus, Indiana started their strategic planning process. The district team partnered with Education Elements, and during a time of increased uncertainty, chose to set a clear direction. Now, as the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation prepares to roll out their new plan this coming fall, we talk with superintendent Dr. Jim Roberts about how he is positioning the work with the community, so that together they can do the challenging work of reaching their goals.
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District Leadership | School Leadership | Teachers
"Feedback is a gift." Most of us have heard this common phrase as educators, coaches, and professionals. But if feedback is a gift, why does receiving it sometimes trigger uneasiness, anxiety, and stress?
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District Leadership | School Districts | Teacher Retention | Teachers
We all know that teachers should feel appreciated every day. As a former high school science teacher, I was filled up by the positive notes from students, small gifts, and verbal affirmations received during teacher appreciation week. Recognition is an important way for teachers to feel appreciated; we believe that in our four essential elements of teacher belonging (Agency, Development, Equity, and Wellness), appreciation is relevant to all categories, especially Development and Wellness.
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Curriculum Strategy & Adoption | Organizational Leadership & Change Management | Strategic Planning
In our work with districts across the country, we frequently hear questions about instructional materials–from how to select high quality programs that match their needs, to building processes that are inclusive of key stakeholders, to developing sustainable processes for regularly reviewing and refining curriculum, just to name a few. Oftentimes, we see teams wanting to jump directly into reviewing materials or selecting a new program. But where we have seen the most success is in beginning with a clear instructional vision and using that to drive future work with curriculum or academics.
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School Leadership | Teacher Retention | Teachers | Teams & Culture
If you’ve ever watched a superhero movie, you’ve probably wondered which superpower you would like to embody. Super strength or super flexibility? Invisibility or the power to fly? It may surprise you to learn that superheroes live among us and go about their lives, often unnoticed. If you look closely, however, you may spot them shopping at the grocery store, taking their pets for a stroll in the park, or, most commonly, shopping for treasures in the $1 bins at Target.
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School Leadership | Teacher Retention | Teachers
Next week is Teacher Appreciation Week. Although we at Education Elements believe that teachers should be celebrated on any day that ends in a “y”, we also are excited to join in the Nationwide celebrations next week. As a former teacher, a little “thank you” went a long way, a gifted morning coffee fueled me to empower my students through testing season, and a card highlighting my impact reminded me of my “why.”
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Instructional Coaching | Personalized Learning | Teachers
I am a recovering perfectionist. As a kid, I always colored within the lines of my coloring book; not because I wanted to follow the rules, but because I enjoyed precision. As a teacher, I bought a laser level tool so that my posters would all be hung at the exact same height. Perfectionism can bring a sense of pride, especially when applied to a tangible outcome. I admired my coloring book pages in the same way I did my classroom walls.
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Classrooms | Personalized Learning | School Districts
Each year we receive hundreds of questions along the lines of, “Okay…so what does personalized learning actually look like?” We have a few answers to this question. One is that personalized learning always involves these core four elements - targeted instruction, data-driven decisions, flexible content, and student reflection and ownership. Check out our Core Four white paper for a more detailed description of these elements, as well as classroom examples.
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Blended Learning | Organizational Leadership & Change Management | Teachers
“When you drive up to John F Kennedy High School in Cleveland, OH, you are immediately taken by the sheer scale of the building. Set against a backdrop of single-family historic homes, JFK is an imposing and beautiful modern structure. The vision of the school was simple: to combine the staff from 3 previous high schools, including the “old” JFK, to create the New JFK. Inside, the hallways are wide and bright, natural light streaming in from every which way. It is a dynamic and inviting space, with collaborative spaces carved out of the hallways outside classrooms and across balcony walkways from the second floor.The classrooms themselves are spacious, with state-of-the-art tech, and an opportunity at every corner to support new and innovative instructional strategies, like blended learning.
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Equity | New School Design | Strategic Planning
This school year, Portland Public Schools (PPS) launched a multi-year strategic plan for educational equity, inclusion, and excellence with the core belief that the student experience needs to be reimagined. PPS’ district-wide focus spotlighted the middle school experience, where data revealed – regardless of metric – that students are not being adequately prepared for high school and beyond. Meisha Plotzke, Senior Director, Middle Grade Academics and Middle School Innovation and Redesign, partnered with Education Elements asking, “How do we redesign the middle-school experience so that every student, and in particular our Black and Native students, deeply engages in strong instruction, with grade appropriate assignments, grounded in high teacher expectations, and personalized, integrated supports?”
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Blended Learning | Instructional Coaching | Personalized Learning
I can’t remember how many times I have been asked “Am I doing it right?” I’ve heard this question so many times in my support of over 150 schools as they implement personalized learning that I no longer count. Teachers and leaders want to know, am I “doing” personalized learning right.
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District Leadership | Organizational Leadership & Change Management | School Leadership
Every teacher has a purpose. Every teacher has a reason that they entered the classroom. For some, that purpose originated when they were a student in school. For others, it was an unbridled passion for their content area. Each teacher’s own “why” is what makes them unique and valuable members of their school. However when adversity strikes, purpose is often the first thing that a teacher puts down. In fact, what may seem noble in spirit, the selflessness of forgoing one’s purpose to serve others is often misguided.
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District Partners in the News | Organizational Leadership & Change Management
Kate Sanders, Teacher: How do I empower more student leaders? This question had been circling my brain for months. As the adviser for the Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) chapter at Sequatchie County High School, I have had the opportunity to facilitate unique opportunities for student leaders. However, much of the workload is placed on the shoulders of the FCCLA officer team. They plan and coordinate the monthly student service projects while participating in the organization's competitive event side. It was a heavy load. Not to mention, many officers are committed to various other organizations and after-school work. And, because most of my officers are preparing to graduate this year, I quickly recognized that I must find a way to empower our underclassmen to assume these leadership roles.
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As a product of the 90s I spent my late elementary school years like many of my contemporaries: playing Super Nintendo. I grew up with a large group of cousins and whenever we got together we approached video games as a group project. We took turns helping one another with the tough spots in the game; those of us who were older played a “leadership” role, determining who got to play, and – if we had enough lives left – when we would give a little kid a chance. In retrospect, we had a clear strategy: take turns in order to share a limited resource while achieving our goal - to get the highest score possible.
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The staffing crisis in K-12 education continues to zap time, energy, and resources for districts that are already stretched thin, exhausted, and steadfast in their commitment to ensuring students receive high-quality learning experiences. And while we know that it is important to find innovative solutions to address the complexities of teacher recruitment and retention, we also know that some of the potential answers already exist and are closer than we think.
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District Leadership | Innovative Leadership | Organizational Leadership & Change Management | School Leadership
As we write this, we are thinking back to the last “normal” month in 2020 before COVID-19 arrived in full force. A sampling of headlines from Education Weekly in February 2020 highlight social and emotional learning, the role of technology in education, and the importance of effective school leadership. With the benefit of hindsight, we can reflections of what we faced then, pre-COVID, in the complex challenges facing school leaders now. Now, with added urgency to prioritize and act on these problems quickly.
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In late May of 2020, as our country battled the coronavirus, the murder of George Floyd sent shockwaves through many communities, across the United States. In fact, his murder galvanized millions of Americans to examine structural and institutional inequities particularly for Black Americans, but also across race, gender, sexuality, and socioeconomic status – a renewed focus not seen since the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
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Decision-Making | Organizational Leadership & Change Management | School Districts | Strategic Planning
These past three years have been very difficult for students, teachers, and school leaders. It seems that as life is getting “back to normal” there is something that comes in and disrupts the progress being made. What this time has shown us, though, is that this is the perfect opportunity to start fresh.
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Coaches | Instructional Coaching | Teacher Retention
A recent Forbes article said, “If the big challenge of 2021 was to get children back into the classroom, the challenge for 2022 is to keep teachers there.” With statistics showing a 66% rise in school-based departures and schools across the country scrambling to fill teacher and substitute shortages each week — all while working to bounce back from the pandemic — the need to support our teaching staff has never been greater.
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Curriculum Strategy & Adoption | Personalized Learning
Over the last 10 years, we have seen a significant shift in how educators access and leverage instructional materials to guide instruction. As many states adopted new, more rigorous standards, curriculum providers rushed to create materials that would prepare students for college and career and state assessments. Though it took time, the current market for high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) is strong and presents states, districts, and educators with a different set of challenges. With so many options, how do you select the best materials to meet your needs and context, and how do you leverage these materials to foster student-centered learning? Join us as we explore key issues and potential solutions through a series of blogs, webinars, and videos.
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District Leadership | Strategic Planning
This upcoming Sunday, many Americans will extend the yearly tradition of watching the last two NFL teams compete for the coveted Vince Lombardi Trophy. As a loyal Philadelphia Eagles fan myself, I am not too interested in the game this year, since it features the LA Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals. What I am excited about most is the halftime show - this year featuring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, and Kendrick Lamar.
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Instructional Coaching | Virtual Learning
School district leaders face the enormous challenge of understanding and responding to how professional learning has been impacted by the global pandemic. This at a time when professional learning is so critical for educators who are navigating uncertainties around in-person consistency, increasing responsibilities, and shifting instructional modalities.
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Curriculum Strategy & Adoption | Personalized Learning
Erin Conklin’s eyes light up when she talks about the primary and secondary source student book she created for Duval County Public School’s African American Studies elective.
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Curriculum Strategy & Adoption | Personalized Learning
When I was a teacher in Washington, D.C. I taught a class on local history. Students got to learn about places they had visited and people they had heard about. I’ve never taught a class where students were more deeply engaged in the actual content of the class.
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District Leadership | Teacher Retention | Teachers
This past December, I found myself at home watching Dick Clark’s New Years Rockin’ Eve on ABC. Across the variety of hosts, musical performances, and crowd interviews - one theme emerged through the night: everyone is hoping that 2022 will be better than 2021. 2021 will no doubt be remembered as a challenging year, not uniquely, but especially in the field of education. Year two of the pandemic caused countless school closings, brought social and political unrest to school board meetings, and further stressed an already fragile educator workforce. Adding to an educator labor shortage that started with the Great Recession in 2007, we witnessed a net loss of more than half a million education jobs this past year.
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Organizational Leadership & Change Management
I live in the Midwest, and if you could see my garden now, well…let’s just say, there is nothing but brown stalks, and wet muddy leaves beneath the snow. If I told you that in a few months, my yard would be resplendent with daffodils, hyacinth, bleeding heart and bee balm, you couldn’t tell from what you see now. But I know it’s coming.
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We’ve all been there. The room, half empty. Little to no conversation happening between the seated rows. Most eyes fixed on laptop screens, phone screens, projector screen, likely checking email or “checking email.” Everyone waiting for the session to begin in hopes of getting a nugget of information that makes the workshop registration worth the investment. Sadly, this is the reality of many educational workshops and conferences from leadership to technology to a focus on instruction. I’ve experienced it and I’m guessing you have too. If only there was an experience that provided meaningful takeaways that could be implemented at your own pace in order to make much needed changes to your organization and culture. This was my experience with the New School Rules Leadership Institute.
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Education Elements | Organizational Leadership & Change Management
In 2021 we navigated a lot of change and ambiguity. Life felt at times, hectic and unpredictable, but there was also a slowing down. There were shortages; so we waited longer for everything from household supplies to PCR tests. We saw inflation creep up, and so we waited to buy things; and, we changed our purchasing habits. Stores and restaurants reduced hours due to staffing issues and lowered demand. So while there was great uncertainty, this slowing down also made many families question everything from where they wanted to live, to the types of jobs they wanted to have, to their values and how they want their children educated.
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Organizational Leadership & Change Management | Strategic Planning | Teachers
While I was teaching 9th grade English Language Arts, one of my mentor teachers shared the concept of the “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” (BHAG) with me. Beyond a SMART goal, it’s a goal that you might collaboratively set – that is big, important, and maybe even a little bit of a stretch. That terminology clearly stuck with me (I think it was the hairy part – sorry, it’s now stuck with you as well).
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In the fall of 2005, I sat down at my desk in Mr. Powers’ 11th-grade history class and was asked to complete a survey. This was an interesting and surprising development, as no one in my 12 years of schooling had thought to ask my opinion about anything. The survey instructions asked me to consider my experience in Mr. Powers’ class. A notoriously methodical test taker from kindergarten through graduate school, I thought long and hard about each item. I did think Mr. Powers cared about me. I did find his class interesting. He did not ask me to explain my thinking behind my answers.
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To see students and community members in action - that is the stuff we, as educators, dream about. Most recently in a suburban school district outside of Cincinnati, Ohio. My teammates, Megan Campion and Briana Cash, and I got to host community gatherings over the course of two-days with two in-person and two virtual sessions. These experiences confirmed the belief that districts should bring groups of people together to discuss and define the next strategic plan whether it’s a combination of virtual or in-person experiences.
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District Leadership | Innovative Leadership | Organizational Leadership & Change Management | School Leadership
This past September, Education Elements conducted a Leadership Pulse Check Survey of school leaders throughout the country. The results indicated a collective and hopeful outlook, despite the fact that we are living in such challenging and unprecedented times, where our needs and constraints shift on a regular basis.
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Instructional Coaching | Personalized Learning | Professional Development
To many in the gardening and plant world, bonsais are among the most impressive trees. Bonsai is seen as a blend of gardening and art – a way to create living sculptures. A gardener might spend decades pruning the tree, little by little, year over year, so that it grows to the gardener’s exact vision. For instance, a Coast Redwood tree that, in the wild might grow to 100’-200’, may only grow to 1’ under the curated, decades-long care of the gardener. Recently I was listening to a podcast, where Julie Lythcott-Haims – author of best selling books on helping young people become healthy and happy adults, and former Dean of Freshmen and Undergraduate Advising at Stanford University – applied the concept of growing bonsai trees to the way parents raise their children. She shared:
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Instructional Coaching | School Leadership | Teachers | Teams & Culture
I became an instructional coach because I wanted to share my expertise with my colleagues, so that more of our students were reaching higher, and achieving greater. I spent six years in the classroom, perfecting my craft as an early elementary educator. So, I thought my experience plus my graduate degree was all I needed to be an effective coach. Oh, how little I knew.
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Hiring is often perceived as a heavy lift; and retaining and engaging great educators is proving to be a challenge. And, while administrators are focused on how to handle the needs and matters for all students, there is a tendency to forget and even overlook the needs of the staff. But truly supporting staff - and understanding their unique needs is critical to increase engagement, retention, and to effectively model how we can best support our students.
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School Districts | Strategic Planning
“The twisties”. Growing up in the competitive cheerleading circuit, I was familiar with the term (and even had a former coach experience them once and never attempt certain gymnastics passes again), but I had never heard the term outside of that space...until this year’s Summer Olympics.
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Personalized Learning | School Leadership | Teachers
In 2014 Education Elements first introduced the Core Four, later publishing the “Core Four of Personalized Learning: The Elements You Need to Succeed” in 2016. Since its publication, this white paper has been downloaded over 3,000 times by educators across the world. The Core Four is our team’s most widely-recognized collateral. It is often the first resource we share with educators, it has been cited in research and position papers, and it has been adopted and customized by school districts.
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Strategic planning is the process of setting short and long-term goals, deciding on actions to achieve those goals and assembling the teams and resources needed to take those actions. Districts of all sizes benefit from developing a long range plan that formalizes the district’s mission, vision, values, goals, and objectives, while engaging the community, with the ultimate goal of both improving operational efficiency and providing an exceptional educational experience for all stakeholders.
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Think back to when you had a deep sense of ownership in your learning; a time when you went above and beyond the expectations because of your own curiosity or passion. For me, this was in seventh grade during a career exploration project. I wanted to be an architect, and I not only wrote a report about the profession, but I created an entire imagined autobiography of myself as an accomplished architect, complete with sketches of a model home. The flexibility of the project made it meaningful in a way worksheets and textbooks never could. I was able to explore a passion and, in the process, better understand myself.
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District Leadership | Equity | School Leadership
I believe that ALL students, especially Black and Brown students, deserve an academically rigorous education that affords them opportunities and experiences that will prepare them to lead a successful life. That said, inequity and disparity exist within our educational system that prevents that from occurring, which is why, among other reasons, it is critical to lead with equity.
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Personalized Learning | School Districts | School Leadership
In our earlier versions of our Core Four of Personalized Learning, targeted instruction was primarily a teacher action separated from another Core Four element, data driven decision making. We recognize that this limited the potential impact that targeted instruction could have to personalize learning for students. As an exclusively teacher action, it missed the opportunity to empower students to advocate for themselves. And separated from data driven decisions, there was a disconnect between two components that go hand-in-hand to help teachers and students design learning experiences tailored for individuals and groups of students.
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As a 25 year veteran in education leadership, I can't remember when hiring has never not been a thing. Every year brings sometimes significant turnover in teaching staff, and leaders come and go as superintendencies shift. But as is true in so many other domains, this year is markedly different. In January 2021, school leaders across the country were hopeful that the pandemic would have been entirely behind us. And by July 2021 with the rates of people contracting COVID-19, the new Delta and Lambda variants, the reality is that COVID is most certainly not behind us. With the increased responsibilities for educators brought on by the pandemic and health concerns, there has been a rise in retirements, resignations and vacancy postings. And as is also so often the case in education, the classrooms and schools that are impacted the most are those that are historically highest in need, serving our most vulnerable student populations.
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Two common misconceptions about personalized learning are that it requires technology and that it must involve significantly more independent work. We know instinctively that a room full of students working silently on computers is not necessarily personalized, even though there are powerful digital tools and programs that can make personalized learning simpler. And yet, an adaptive program still requires a teacher to facilitate learning that empowers students and builds their ownership of learning.
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District Leadership | Social and Emotional Learning
Every first day of school is a new opportunity for a fresh start. As the first day of the 2021-2022 school year approached, teachers across the country were grappling with the question: How do I start fresh when faced with so much uncertainty?
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In 2014, Education Elements promoted the notion of "Integrated Digital Content" as a core component of blended learning. In 2017 we changed this term to “Flexible Content and Tools,” recognizing that both online and offline content have an important role to play when personalizing learning. This change also represented a shift from blended learning, which focuses on the integration of technology into the classroom, to personalized learning, which is an instructional approach that empowers students to build ownership of their learning, making sure they get the instruction they need, when they need it. This year, we are taking things one step further by introducing “Flexible Path and Pace.”
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Classrooms | Personalized Learning | Teachers
Reflection and goal-setting is the simplest way to begin personalizing learning because it mirrors a practice we engage in every day of our lives. Sometimes this shows up in small ways, like aiming to show gratitude more often, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, or reading more. Technology is playing a larger role in this practice, especially as it applies to our health. This can be as simple as checking your steps on a smartwatch to signing-up for an exercise and diet app. We reflect and set-goals at church, in a therapy session, at the gym, when we go shopping, or around the dinner table. It is one primary format in which we aim to improve ourselves. And it’s one reason why reflection and goal-setting is often the first step educators take to personalize learning.
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Instructional Coaching | Professional Development
With an influx of ESSER funds, many districts are choosing to invest in instructional coach positions. That’s not just a recent trend. From 2000 to 2015, the number of coaches in school districts doubled. It makes sense - multiple research studies point to strong evidence for increased quality of instruction and improvements in student achievement as a result of instructional coaching. In fact, a meta-analysis of 60 randomized controlled trials that looked at students’ standardized tests scores and teacher instructional practices found that coaching had a greater impact than most school-based interventions (e.g., pre-service training, student incentives, merit-based pay, generic professional development, data-driven instruction, and extended learning time).
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District Leadership | Teacher Retention
Across the country teachers are welcoming students into their classrooms, as schools are welcoming new teachers to their teams. These teachers - new to the profession, early career and veterans - are starting at schools while conditions remain unprecedented and unpredictable. Despite this reality, school and district leaders are tasked with onboarding their staff such that school, and learning can continue for as many students as possible.
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District Leadership | Strategic Planning
Your favorite apps that seem to make managing life easier, social media sites that connect you to stories that resonate, shopping at your favorite store, your go-to streaming service when you need to de-stress - sometimes it feels like these things were built in a way that just ‘gets you.’ This didn’t happen by accident; this happened by design.
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Data | Decision-Making | District Leadership | School Districts | School Leadership
It’s that time of year again - we’re shopping for school supplies, teachers are returning to their classrooms, and students (as well as their parents) are eagerly awaiting the news as to who their teachers will be. As a parent of two school-aged boys, it’s also the time of year our family starts making predictions about the year ahead. “I think Miles will do so much better in reading this year.” “Taylor is probably going to get in trouble a lot, but maybe he’ll also test into the gifted program.” It’s an innocent practice in anticipating the successes and struggles we’ll experience in the year ahead, but without knowing it, we’re also shaping how we will perceive these experiences as the year unfolds.
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Organizational Leadership & Change Management | Teams & Culture
Early in my career, when I was a middle school science teacher in Charlotte, North Carolina, I didn’t think that the ritual of shaking my students’ hands, fist bumping, or hugging my students as they entered our classroom meant anything. But now, I realize it’s the opposite. The repetitive habit of checking in with your team means everything. It’s a signal that your team is paying attention to the whole being of others, focusing on the little things, caring about the unity of the team, and so much more.
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Education Elements | Professional Development
There’s a line from You’ve Got Mail (yes, I’ve seen it hundreds of times) where Tom Hanks says, “Don’t you just love New York in the Fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.” If you’re an educator, September makes you think of new backpacks, colorful pens, clean lunch boxes. If you’re an instructional coach, principal, or most central office staff members, July and August probably make you think of Back to School Professional Development and New Teacher Training. A little less sparkly than Lisa Frank, but alas, here we are.
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District Leadership | Teacher Retention | Teams & Culture
A recent survey of more than 1,000 districts found that nearly two-thirds of districts are reporting teacher shortages heading into the 2021-2022 school year. To plug or refill leaks in this draining teacher pool, districts are increasingly leveraging stimulus funding to enact short-term solutions such as incentives and signing bonuses. But the foundational cracks in the teacher pool and pipeline are deep, widespread and found at every phase of the teacher lifecycle. We need to reassess and reimagine the way we engage and support teachers at every stage of this journey, and we can start by looking at the candidate profiles that drive our recruitment, hiring and onboarding.
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Education Elements | Equity | Teams & Culture
In my 22 years in the K-12 education profession, I have worked for, and led organizations that run the gamut - from those that are very process and compliance driven, to those that multiply and engage creativity. And yet, after experiencing, what some consider the ultimate freedom of being my own boss, I am excitedly joining the Education Elements team.
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Coaches | School Leadership | Teams & Culture
Everyone's first year at a new school comes with growing pains -- no matter if it’s their first role as a new Principal, or their 25th year opening a new, or newly redesigned school. One approach is particularly useful at helping to alleviate the growing pains - a “secret sauce” of sorts.
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With summer break already in progress for most school districts, leaders can finally plan a week or two to step away from the daily grind and have a chance just to be. But if you are like me, this is not as easy as it sounds. When most of our time is dictated by a calendar of events, meetings, to-do’s, and small pockets of time to focus on family and friends, genuinely unplugging can be challenging.
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Coaches | Personalized Learning | School Leadership
There isn’t a lot of convincing you need to do to get these two former English teachers talking about the power of stories. Whether it was unpacking The Danger of a Single Story, weaving together narratives into a photo essay about the Children’s Crusade, or crafting original 6 word memoirs, our classrooms were built around stories. Stories are a powerful tool to connect, teach, and inspire. Organizations are full of complexities and oftentimes making sense of that complexity is daunting. Our classrooms are full of stories, but often we don’t have opportunities beyond quick anecdotes in passing to share them with our colleagues.
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Education Elements | Equity | Organizational Leadership & Change Management
I was recently struck by a piece by Elena Aguilar, the “coach’s coach,” about acting in one’s sphere of influence to create change. She writes that when looking at making change in the world, the best place to start is within one’s sphere of influence. In other words, systemic change is not just a collective responsibility, it’s also an individual responsibility.
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District Leadership | School Districts
Across school systems and around the globe, the pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on students. Some have thrived in online learning environments, while others have suffered from low-quality or interrupted learning — often with disastrous results. As the economy begins to rebound and educators work toward creating a new post-pandemic normal, these disparities in learning are likely to become amplified, resulting in a K-shaped recovery with a widening gap between those who are succeeding and those who are struggling, according to a new report “K-Shaped Education Recovery” by ISTE and Education Elements.
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Decision-Making | District Leadership | Strategic Planning
There’s a bridge in Choluteca, Honduras. It spans nearly 500 meters long, but it isn’t well known for its size or even because it is one of the only replicas of the Golden Gate bridge still in existence. Nor is it known for its importance in connecting traffic in Central America. Rather, the new Choluteca Bridge became famous as the “Bridge to Nowhere.”
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District Leadership | Innovative Leadership | Teams & Culture
One of the best things about living your professional life in education is the assumption implicit in the field that everyone has something valuable to contribute, and there is always an opportunity to level up. Over the past year, we have seen this belief confirmed in classrooms, virtual classrooms, schools, and districts all over the country as teachers, counselors, campus administrators, and district leaders have taken on challenges and shifted the way school happens with no notice, little training, and endlessly changing demands and limitations.
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Innovative Leadership | Return Planning | Strategic Planning
More than a year ago, I - like many others - was hunkering down for what I thought would be a two-week quarantine. Thirteen months later, I have found myself adapting to my circumstances. I have created a comfortable work-from-home space, embraced many home DIY projects. I’ve started a herb garden, purchased a inflatable baby pool (I don’t have a baby) and I have had enough time to get in and out of shape...multiple times. I have learned a whole lot about things I never questioned before “the great pause.” For instance, my perception of time is completely arbitrary: some days seem never-ending while in others, 24 hours do not feel like enough. I’ve also rediscovered the magic of a full-night’s sleep and what a blessing and privilege it is to have my health. There are some things I plan to forever eliminate from my life (I’m looking at you, non-stretchy jeans) and some things I hope to incorporate in the next phase of life (hello, neighborhood walks). I am also seeing many district partners grapple with the tensions of identifying what we want to take with us and leave behind in our next phase.
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About a year ago, we dealt with one of the largest supply shortages we've faced as a modern country. While toilet paper was certainly in high demand, it was actually active dry yeast that had people scrambling. New and aspiring bakers that found themselves with additional time at home were inspired to learn a new skill: how to make homemade bread amidst the backdrop of a global pandemic.
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Crisis Management | District Leadership | Organizational Leadership & Change Management | School Leadership | Teams & Culture
We have been reading, discussing, and reflecting quite a bit on the topic of leadership recently, and one of the products of this deep dive is a video series all about what leaders have learned this year. In his interview, Dr. Patrick Ward from Mayfield City Schools in Ohio mused on the fact that school leaders are trained to manage acute crises, but for the past year they have been managing a chronic crisis, with several acute crises emerging as the chronic crisis continued. We’ve been thinking about the phrase “chronic crisis” and drawing from some inspiring resources to consider the best way to rally your community through it. With the end of the school year in sight, now is the time to re-energize your teams so you can finish strong. To do that, you need to address three interrelated dimensions: Emotions, Mindsets, and Behaviors.
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Personalized Learning | School Districts | Schooling Loss | Virtual Learning
This school year made clear the need to redesign our existing systems to ensure that meaningful learning can continue even when our brick and mortar school buildings close. Most schools and districts had only days to prepare to close school buildings and move learning to students’ homes. Fast forward 12 months and remote learning has had time to grow from an emergency measure to a format of learning that invites growth and innovation in new ways. So how can you ensure that meaningful learning can happen anywhere?
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District Leadership | School Leadership | Virtual Learning
Our team has spent months discussing the best term to use to describe the challenge education currently faces. We brought it up in team meetings, shared it with district partners, and sought out recent publications on the subject. We came together around five beliefs that helped us choose the term “schooling loss”:
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Remote Work | School Leadership | Teacher Retention
There are 88 million opportunities in the human genome for trait variations to make us unique, but when it comes to what we seek in the workplace, neuroscience suggests most humans crave the same three things – safety, belonging, and a sense of mattering. This is hardly news; Abraham Maslow wrote about these same needs in his 1943 paper on human motivation, and a quick scan of nearly any company’s Glassdoor reviews will highlight these variables. The past year challenged the way nearly every organization approached these needs. Lack of personal connection, the inability to ‘disconnect’ from work, and whose health and safety are prioritized rank among a laundry list of complaints with today’s employee experience. And when it comes to the field of education, the pandemic doubled down on pre-existing conditions within the teacher experience.
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Like many this past year, I suffered the effects of deprivation from proximity – that is to say, I miss humans. It was this dearth of face-to-face interaction that led me, quite fortuitously, to reach out to Brittany Barnett, founder and president of the nonprofit organization Girls Embracing Mothers [GEM] to seek out volunteering opportunities. Renowned criminal justice advocate, decorated corporate lawyer, and best-selling author, Brittany is a force of nature. After experiencing the incarceration of her mother, Brittany says, “I found this heightened sense of compassion and empathy in me that I never knew toward a group of people we were often taught to stereotype and ignore – people in prison. Her incarceration impacted me deeply.” She was inspired to start the GEM program as a means of connecting girls with their incarcerated mothers through facilitated monthly visits and ongoing systems of support like character cultivation workshops and events. With the COVID shutdown and cessation of prison visits, Brittany and her team have responded by pivoting to a monthly virtual curriculum where the girls are able to connect with one another, process their experience around maternal incarceration, and gain the tools necessary to lead successful and empowered lives. Much like we at Education Elements help decision-makers in the K-12 sphere reimagine systems of education, Brittany seeks to reimagine systems of justice and, through a multi-pronged approach, to specifically address the following question: “How do we work to really empower girls, especially girls from multi-marginalized communities to embrace their voice, amplify their voice and empower them to soar?”
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Data | District Leadership | School Leadership | Strategic Planning
I’m writing this blog during a 17-hour road trip that was supposed to be a 2-hour flight. My husband and I wanted to take our two boys skiing for spring break and have spent the last several months meticulously planning the perfect trip. I booked all of the fun activities, and he dusted off our equipment and bargain shopped for winter clothing. We found the perfect, non-stop flight that would minimize the frustrations of traveling with two young kids. And then mother nature brought the 4th largest snowstorm on record to Denver, Colorado. Thousands of flights were canceled, including ours. Lucky for us, my husband’s superpower is that he can quickly pivot to accommodate change. Without hesitation, he loaded our already packed suitcases into the car, strapped the skis to the roof, and here we are, well on our way to the vacation we hoped for.
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