Amplified Administrator Digital Portfolio

                                                                      Amplified Administrator

Digital Portfolio

Through my participation in the first semester of the AWSA / WASDA Amplified Administrator program, I have gained new understandings and skills in several relevant and enriching areas.  In many ways, I have learned of a whole new virtual world out there and, through Brad Sarron's wonderful insight, guidance and encouragement, I have gained greater confidence to "step into the stream."

Image Courtesy of itsawriterthing.tumbir.com

Here is some of the more visible evidence of my learning in this course:

Blogging

I established a professional blog entitled School Leadership Matters.  I like the double meaning of the title.  I also appreciate how it allows me space for my own views on education while also linking to my role as an AWSA Leader, where our mantra has long been "Because Leadership Matters."  This post will mark my ninth one via this blog.  I share my posts via Twitter.  Many are versions of articles I submit to members through our AWSA newsletter.  On several occasions these have been retweeted.  I also have received a few comments to posts on my site.   My blog url is http://joeschroeder23.blogspot.com.

Diigo

I also have established a virtual library via Diigo.  This has helped me see how powerfully information can be gathered via the web.  I need to make sure to build new habits to go to this account more often, though, so that I can better leverage the potential.  My diigo url is https://www.diigo.com/user/joes2326.

Twitter

I first established a Twitter account over a year ago, but then it remained silent.  I took the leap forward with activating this account during our second class meeting in March.  Since then, I have made 24 tweets, am following 101 people and have 100 people following me.  Like so many tools we learned, this one has enormous potential, especially for someone in my role.  As is the case with Diigo, I need to build and deepen emerging habits to go to my Twitter account and use it more often.  

Reflections

Through this course, I certainly have a better understanding of how a PLN can be cultivated, the benefits for one both personally and professionally, and where leverage points exist.  While I have learned a lot, I know that I am still just scratching the surface.  Fortunately, there are many wonderful exemplars among educators across the globe, including some mighty examples here in Wisconsin that I can draw upon for continued growth.  These are individuals I particularly want to focus upon through Twitter and other tools in order to help grow my PLN into a powerful part of my professional and personal world.

Overall, this course has helped me see a whole other world of ideas, conversations, reflections, and inspiration.  By diving in, I am able to better find my own voice and the means to share it.  I also am beginning to see a host of different tools through which I can differentiate my message and connect with folks with myriad interests and foci more effectively.  

If a lot of what and who you become is who you hang around with, the quality of thinkers and doers in my emerging PLN are going to make me a whole lot more of an enlightened educator and leader.  Thank you, Brad!  The journey continues!

The Rest Makes the Rhythm

Image courtesy of arts.brighton.ac.uk

I came upon a recent blog by Steven Soderberg that spoke to the breakneck speed of living these days.  Among several good analogies, his most resonant to me was where he likens life during earlier chapters of his journey to a drumbeat, with its own rhythms, fast or slow -- depending on the day and season.  At least that's how it used to be, he claims.  In contrast, now the pace of life seems to race by so quickly (with little to no relief) that we often struggle to any longer distinguish the beat -- for lack of a pause.  Rather, given the rapid beating of life's drum, he asserts, all we can generally discern now is some sort of hum.  Hmmmmm....

Reflecting on this led Soderberg to a book by Douglas Rushkoff called Present Shock, which named the ailment from which Steven (and our nation?) is suffering.  Rushkoff described the conditions for present shock as follows:  "When there's no linear time, how is a person supposed to figure out what's going?  There's no story, no narrative to explain why things are the way things are.  Previously, distinct causes and effects collapsed into one another.  There's no time between doing something and seeing the result.  Instead the results begin accumulating and influencing us before we've even completed an action.  And there's so much information coming in at once from so many different sources that there's simply no way to trace the plot over time."

Now, I know that having the world available at my fingertips 24/7/365 is a wonderful gift.  But like any gift, too much of it can be a bad thing.  For example, as a musician, I know that the rest or pause in a measure is often as important to the rhythm (and the music) as are the notes.  In fact, if we force more notes into the measures we play (to the point where no rests occur), rather than creating better music, at some point we cross a threshold where our devoted efforts result instead into some sort of cacophony. 

And we are designed to be reflective creatures.  So all this stimulus and connectivity is a wonderful gift. But at regular intervals, we need to intentionally disconnect, provide some pause to the world around us -- and take some time to connect the parts of our selves that can grow through all this interaction with the world around us.  In other words, we need to slow down at intervals to allow the rest and rhythm of life to provide its sweet music to our souls.  

Overall, I don't argue for or against the "on-demand/always on" world in which we live.  Rather, I advocate for all us creatures interacting with it to take intentional effort to build in margins for pause, reflection and integration.  Then we are better positioned to not miss a beat!

A Framework for Principal Leadership

In mid-April, DPI launched its second round of Educator Effectiveness training in Appleton.  Among other refinements of the emerging system, DPI unveiled its revised Wisconsin Framework for Principal Leadership.   This framework and the aligned four-point rubric articulate the work of principals to a degree never seen before in our state.  And with a common understanding of principal work in hand,  professional discussions around continued learning and growth can occur like never before, in order to deliver on the goal of significantly improving student and school achievement.  

Wisconsin Framework for Principal Leadership

Domain 1:  Effective Educators	Domain 2:  Leadership Actions
1.1          Human Resource Leadership              1.1.1   Recruiting and Selecting              1.1.2   Assignment of Teachers and Instructional Staff 1.1.3   Observation and Evaluation of Teaching 1.1.4    Educator Development and Learning 1.1.5    Distributed Leadership	2.1  Personal Behavior 2.1.1  Professionalism 2.1.2  Time Management and Priority Setting 2.1.3  Use of Feedback for Improvement 2.1.4  Initiative and Persistence
1.2       Instructional Leadership 1.2.3   Mission and Vision 1.2.2   Student Achievement Focus 1.2.3   Staff Collaboration 1.2.4   School-wide Use of Data 1.2.5   Student Learning Objectives (SLOs)	2.2  Intentional & Collaborative School Culture 2.2.1. School Climate 2.2.2  Communication 2.2.3  Conflict Management and Resolution 2.2.4  Consensus Building
	2.3  School Management 2.3.1  Learning Environment Management 2.3.2  Financial Management 2.3.3  Policy Management

            Many of our members are familiar with Charlotte Danielson’s Framework for Teaching (FFT), and thus with its underlying architecture.   The FFT describes teacher work in 4 broad domains of planning, instruction, the classroom environment, and professional responsibilities.  These domains are then broken down into 22 components of teaching work, each of which are then articulated even more granularly into several elements of practice.  This same domain – component – element architecture is the organizational structure of Wisconsin’s emerging Framework for Principal Leadership as well.  Applying this lens to the Wisconsin Framework for principals, we can perceive that principal leadership is expressed in 2 broad domains, which are then delineated into 5 components, each of which is further expressed into 3-5 elements of principal work.  Overall, a total of 21 elements of principal practice comprise the Wisconsin framework.  These are the levels at which feedback is provided in the state’s emerging Educational Effectiveness system. 

            As is the case with the Danielson Framework for Teaching, much of the power for growing professional practice lies in the 4-point rubric tied to the framework.  The framework and rubric allow evidence of the various elements of principal practice to be placed along a developmental continuum that provides a means for principals to identify both where they currently are in their development and where next steps for growth lie.  The rubric length precludes inclusion into this article.  But you can access this rubric as Appendix 2 of the following DPI link:  http://ee.dpi.wi.gov/files/ee/FPtraining/EE%20Principal%20Evaluation%20Process%20Manual-version%201.pdf

            Educator Effectiveness is a promising – and daunting – initiative.  Promising because teacher and principal work impacts student learning like nothing else.  Promising because the emerging framework articulates the challenge, nuance, and sophistication of the principalship better than ever so that principals are better equipped to significantly increase their impact on students.  Promising because, as the most recent state achievement data shows, student achievement in Wisconsin needs to grow tremendously in order to realize the goal of college and career readiness for all.  And yet, that said, Educator Effectiveness is daunting because this initiative will require the establishment of a trusting environment as job one, and that is currently a major challenge in many districts post- Act 10.  Daunting because education leaders will need to quickly build skill and structures to effectively and efficiently collect various pieces of objective evidence (a new approach in most places) as a means to deliver on the fair, valid and reliable system DPI aims to build.  And perhaps most daunting in regard to finding the time and appropriate scope to ensure that the many efforts required of the initiative will fruitfully deliver the desired gains in student achievement. 

            All in all, those involved in the pilots to date speak to the potential upside and promise of this initiative if we can get the scope of evaluation focus and practical means for the work figured out.   It's also important that pilot participants continue providing feedback to DPI about implementation efforts at the local level.  It is clear that this input from the field has already positively impacted the design of Educator Effectiveness and something we expect to further enhance the roll out of this major initiative over time.  Stay tuned.

            

Moving the Common Core Forward with Text Complexity 

In March, I introduced several efforts AWSA (Association of Wisconsin School Administrators) would be taking to assist members in advancing “The Big Three” (i.e., the Common Core, SMARTER Balanced Assessment, and Educator Effectiveness).  This article follows through on that previous introduction. First, I share a list of “vital few” steps forward on the related topic of text complexity. Given the profound role that literacy plays in raising student performance, this is a high-leverage focus. For some, the articulated steps that follow may serve as helpful guides for initial movement forward with text complexity; for others, they may provide a simple check-in for reflection in comparison to progress steps already taken.  Second, I share several resources that can equip you and others to develop capacity and lead this important work with confidence and competence across your school.  Thanks to our partners in DPI’s Common Core Team for the bulk of the ideas and resources shared herein.

Setting the Stage

Let’s start by addressing a few grounding questions:

1)   Why is text complexity important?

While reading demands in college, workforce training programs, and life in general have held steady or increased over the last half century, K–12 texts have actually declined in sophistication, and relatively little attention has been paid to students’ ability to read complex texts independently.  These conditions have left a serious gap between many high school seniors’ reading ability and the reading requirements they will face after graduation – gaps which often serve as a barrier to success in adulthood, regardless of the pathway pursued.

2)   How does text complexity reveal the integration of “the Big Three”?

Educators who understand Common Core text complexity and combine complex texts with nuanced and thoughtful instruction are addressing key components of teacher practice via Educator Effectiveness and are preparing students for successfully encountering such texts in Smarter Balanced assessment. 

Resources Supporting Your “Big Three” Leadership

DPI’s Common Core Team has been building a powerful set of electronic resources available 24/7 through www.livebinder.com. Each topic (such as text complexity) is packaged into slides and presenter notes through four separate yet aligned modules designed to support the various professional development time practitioners might have available: 

·      30-60 minute module

·      1-2 hour module

·      Half/full day module

·      Self-guided module

The longer modules also include aligned activities and contextual applications. This is a helpful set of emerging resources of which you should be aware to assist your Big Three leadership efforts!

Five Action Steps for Moving Your School Forward with Text Complexity

Below are five sequential action strategies designed to build school-wide knowledge of text complexity in order to align educator practice for maximum impact on student learning.  To download the materials and activities referenced in the action steps below, visit www.livebinder.com and search “Wisconsin Text Complexity.”  You can then locate The Wisconsin Learning on Demand Text Complexity binder that contains these activities and many more to support you on your journey to school-wide text complexity.

1. Create or adopt an all-school, expanded definition of text
   1. Your definition should honor the Common Core standard (CCSS) calling for “multiple print and digital texts in diverse media, formats, and lengths” (CCSSELA, W.8)
   2. Activity:  Use slides 15-22 and the corresponding activity from the Text Complexity Half/Full Day PowerPoint and the handout entitled “Texts,” which includes a proposed definition.

2. Establish an all-school understanding of the wide range of texts (diverse media, formats, and lengths) and text types (literary, informational) teachers currently use every day
   1. Why does every teacher need to know and understand text types?
      1. Certain text types have structures and features that convey information in ways that are meaningful to the discipline. 
      2. SMARTER Balanced assessment will measure students’ ability to read and understand diverse texts across all content areas.
   2. Schools need a balance of complex literary and informational text throughout a student’s day at the appropriate ratio (50/50 literary to informational text ratio in elementary, 45/55 by grade 8, 30/70 by grade 12)
   3. The goal is to develop collections of texts that honor the school-wide definition of text.
   4. Activity: Use slides 23-26 and the corresponding activity from the Text Complexity Half/Full Day PowerPoint and the handout entitled “Text Types” to surface the types of texts already in use, modifying the activity for all educators by limiting categories to just literary or informational text types.

3. Establish a school-wide and/or department-wide process for identifying complex texts
   1. Activity:  Use slides 17-28 of the 15-30 minute module PowerPoint and rubric handouts for literary and informational texts to provide an overview of the three-prong approach from CCSS, the rationale for using a consistent approach, and the rationale for why one measure alone (qualitative, quantitative, reader/task considerations) is not enough.
   2. When considering a text where the rubrics do not apply (i.e., works of art, pieces of sheet music, graphs, etc.), an alternative strategy would be to ask, “How do you know when a text is complex in your content area”?
      1. What are the qualities of a text that make it more complex?
      2. How do you measure the qualitative complexity of a text?

4. Conduct a Text Complexity “Gap Analysis”
   1. Activity:  In grade level or department level teams, create a chart of the complex texts currently in use and categorize (literary, informational) them.
   2. Use the chart to conduct a “gap analysis” of identified holes to ensure the balance of text across a student’s day. Questions to ask:
      1. Across a student’s day, is there an appropriate balance of informational and literary texts, in diverse media, formats, and lengths?
      2. Are the texts we use appropriately complex, given our established process from Activity 3?

5. Fill in identified gaps with additional complex texts to ensure students are accessing multiple print and digital texts in diverse media, formats, and lengths throughout the day.
   1. Activity:  Access resource sites such as BadgerLink, TeachingBooks.net, and Wisconsin Media Lab to find high quality, complex texts, and work with your library media specialist when you need help
   2. Apply the “process for identifying a complex text” to each new selection
   3. See slide 28 of the15-30 min PowerPoint to understand how to build collections of texts for student learning.

Articles like this over time (in combination with some relevant, differentiated resources) are a couple ways we are supporting Wisconsin’s school leaders for advancing “the Big Three” forward, regardless of the current state of affairs in a given school. This article also gives a taste of one type of content we will build into our 2013-14 Regional Cohort program for school administrators entitled “Leading the Big Three.” Information about this program is available in the “Sneak Peek” document we distributed previously. (http://www.awsa.org/associations/10159/files/Sneak%20Peak%202013-2.pdf). Registration for “Leading the Big Three” will open in late April. Best wishes, everyone, and bring on the spring!

Voucher Expansion Proposal in WI is Poor Public Policy

Photo courtesy of asadworkonline

Voucher school expansion is misguided public policy for many reasons:

    1)    Vouchers do not improve student achievement.  These are the findings of numerous studies over the years, including the most recent five-year longitudinal study conducted by the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau.

2)    Vouchers eliminate public accountability.  And this stands in stark contrast to the strong controls placed on public schools in many areas, including teacher certification, instruction/assessment requirements, graduation requirements, student admissions and due process protections, and financial oversight.

3)    Vouchers take resources away from public school students.  Two recent memos from the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau highlight the following summary in their analysis:  voucher school expansion means property tax increases and student service reductions at the local level.

It is for reasons like these that even prominent Republican lawmakers raised major concerns immediately about the governor’s proposal.  For example, Sen. Michael Ellis (R-Neenah) shared that this voucher proposal was phase one of an effort to expand this misguided policy statewide.  In addition, Sen. Dale Schultz (R – Richland Center) stated that the voucher system creates two educational systems in the state, and we struggle to fund one adequately.  I couldn’t agree more.

Therefore, for the reasons above and many more, I encourage you to contact your legislators and ask them to oppose any further expansion of voucher schools.  At the very least, ask that they have this major change in public policy pulled out of the budget bill, where this highly important issue to Wisconsin’s future can be debated in the light of day and stand, or fall, on its own merits.

I Get By with a Little Help from My Friends

There have been over fifty covers of the Beatles classic song “Little Help from My Friends” recorded over the years.  So the question is probably more about which voice you hear ringing in your ears when you think of this tune (Ringo Starr, Joe Cocker, Jim Sturgess, Mumford and Sons?) rather than whether or not you know it.  To be sure, so much attention paid to one tune over and over again --  through five decades -- underscores the timeless relevance of its lyric.  And due to the song’s broad appeal, I believe it can also serve as an effective organizer for this update about Educator Effectiveness, Common Core, and my own PLN.

Findings of some recent University of Virginia research demonstrates that the Beatles’ message is as true today as it was back in the ‘60s.  In this UVA study, each subject was asked to put on a heavy backpack, filled with weights, while staring up a hill and directed to estimate the hill’s steepness.  In some cases, the subject went through this exercise alone.  In others, the subject went through it with a friend nearby.  The results of this study were unequivocal.   Subjects carrying the burden who were accompanied by a nearby friend viewed the hill as less steep (i.e., more manageable).  And of course the reverse was also found true:  subjects carrying the burden and facing the hill alone viewed it as steeper (i.e., more difficult to ascend).

The findings and symbolism of this UVA study have many connections for education leaders and the challenges we must conquer and ascend in our daily work.  And as the Beatles song and the UVA study attest, our likelihood for success will improve significantly by helping and supporting and leaning on each other.  To that end, I hope the following updates about some of the big work in front of us promotes your discovery of an array of helpful people, information and supports around you to assist in your leadership journey:

Educator Effectiveness (EE) Update

Earlier this month, DPI posted its first edition of the Educator Effectiveness Newsletter.  Some highlights from it:

·      160 new school districts are planning on sending teams to the second round of training that DPI will hold at various regional sites across the state from April – June.  This will bring to a total nearly 230 districts that will have participated in state training.

·      The 2013-14 training will include some of the following new components:

o   Online implementation with videos of effective teaching practices, including a Teachscape © license for each educator in the pilot

o   An observer certification process

o   A system balanced between evaluation and student outcomes

o   Integration of SLOs with the teacher and principal practice cycles

·      DPI has stated that it is acceptable for a district to wait until 2014-15 to implement the EE system, but districts should still be preparing for it now by at least working through the District Readiness Tool, which will set the stage for implementation.

·      DPI plans on publishing future editions of the EE News.  You can access this and much more information about the initiative at http://ee.dp.wi.gov

As you also likely know, state EE law allows for an approved, equivalent option to the DPI model for the evaluation of teacher and principal practice.  The process for pursuing approved equivalency will be underway this spring and managed by DPI.  Many of our members are already participating  in the EE system via the CESA 6 model, which plans to apply for equivalency as soon as it can.   There may be other models seeking equivalency status within the state EE systems as well.  Time will tell. 

In checking with CESA 6 before this publication deadline, I was told that CESA 6 is currently finalizing spring and summer training dates in collaboration with their regional CESA partners.  Specifics should be available later this month.  You can check for future updates at www.cesa6.k12.wi.us.

Common Core

Later today, a focus group of AWSA members and I will meet with representatives of DPI’s Common Core Team.  Our major task, in terms relevant to this article, is to find means to most readily help our AWSA peers and friends scale the Common Core hill in front of us, given that our members are at different spots on that hill.  You can look for some results of this focus group and effort in the next edition of our AWSA Update Bulletin in early April.

My PLN
I have benefitted and grown from a personal learning network(PLN) for decades through all sorts of conventional ways, but only recently have I begun to scale the hill of setting up my own PLN through electronic means.  Over the weekend, I finally set up a Twitter handle (@joeschroeder23), began to tweet and contribute to my emerging PLN, and even set up a blog (joeschroeder23.blogspot.com) and published my first post.  One of the unexpected first benefits of this effort was that I got to “attend” the weekend’s ASCD national conference in Chicago virtually by following the various tweets (#ascd2013) even though my course registration on Friday and Saturday in Madison prevented me from being there in person.

To get some momentum going, this old dog truly has needed the help of a lot of friends along the way such as the AWSA Amplified Administrators program led by Brad Sarron, a host of tech-savvy AWSA members, and countless others.   And I can immediately see how my PLN will accelerate the means by which I can learn from others and in turn contribute to the learning network.   The line that “I get by with a little help from my friends” could never have resonated so true.  So thank you!  My hope is that, like any good friend, such kindness, encouragement and support that I have received can be reciprocated time and time again.