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.
Knowledge is Power! Measure what Matters! If our cliches are an indicator, we all know that data collection, review, analysis, and understanding is important. We all hear of data-driven decisions, and the importance of data in education and educational systems, but we are often challenged to incorporate data review and the next steps into our everyday lives. As we’ve been exploring the Essential Elements of a Data Culture, we’ve been considering how an organizational culture can shift from a culture in which data is in the periphery, pulled to the center for high stakes discussions and decisions, to one in which data is an integral part of every day, informing the small moves that reinforce the vision, clarify decisions, and advance progress. This is where our love of habits comes in…
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Remote Work | School Leadership | Teachers
It’s December. We made it to the end of 2020 – a spectacularly stressful year, no matter who you are, what you do, or where you live. As the months ticked by, though, it became clear that the chaos of the year placed almost unbearable levels of stress on some professions, educators among them. As schools wind down for winter break in the midst of a national spike in COVID-19 numbers, it may be a good time to deconstruct and consider burnout, what it looks like, what causes it, and what we can do about it.
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“It’s all happening!” –Penny Lane, Almost Famous This month, those of us who love the movie Almost Famous got to feel really old as we were reminded that this lovely coming-of-age story came out 20 years ago. For the uninitiated, this movie is about an atypical learning experience, in which a high-school student joins a rock-band for a road trip as he attempts to learn how to be a journalist. His muse, Penny Lane, has a signature line, “It’s all happening!” to celebrate the wonder of the moment, and it has a whole new resonance as we embark on a school year like none we’ve seen before. After enduring Spring 2020, an end-to-the-school-year like none we’ve seen before, many students, parents, and teachers spent the summer in anxious anticipation of what the fall would bring. And now, it’s all happening!
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One of the beautiful things about having a career in education is that you have something in common with everyone. No matter where you go, you will find someone who went to school or has a relative in school, and in many parts of the country, the school district is one of the largest employers in the region. Recently, I sat next to a friendly salesperson from Western New York on a flight that was thrice-delayed. We joked about not turning our phones to airplane mode until we were wheels-up, lest we tempt fate and delay the flight again, then we started chatting about our reasons for traveling.
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Innovative Leadership | School Districts | Strategic Planning
At Education Elements, we pride ourselves on being a responsive organization. Like many organizations, we can fall short of true responsiveness, but we are proud of how nimble, engaged, and positive our team is as a result of responsive practices. Our true north lies in seeking feedback to best understand the experiences of our community members. Feedback, in every way it is offered, allows us to make improvements suggested by those who have a stake in the work. Obvious, right? This may be an easy concept to grasp, but the gathering and processing of feedback from all relevant stakeholders can be a complicated, time-consuming, and confusing process – and that’s in a small company with a team aligned around the idea. For schools and districts looking to implement change, whether it be by the introduction of new or additional technology, shifting pedagogical approaches, curriculum adoption, team reorganizations, or strategic planning, stakeholder engagement can be a paralyzingly large task.
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Innovative Leadership | Teacher Retention
Teachers love their jobs. That statement may strike you as untrue, simplistic, or ill-informed, given the current state of the teaching profession, in which many teachers will leave the classroom in the first five years, and teacher retention is a crisis on the horizon for schools, districts, and state boards of education. I stand by it, though. In my fifteen years in education, working in and with schools and teachers, I have had many conversations with teachers about their job satisfaction. On balance, teachers I’ve encountered love their students. They talk about “their” kids with pride, concern, and (sometimes) exasperation. They seek professional development to improve their abilities to reach students, and they sacrifice their personal time (and often money) to ensure their students get what they need to succeed in school.
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