Small Shifts, Meaningful Improvement

2023-09-15
Small Shifts, Meaningful Improvement

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  • Author: P. Ann Byrd
  • Publisher: ASCD
  • ISBN: 1416632379
  • Category : Education
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 161

Meaningful improvement in schools and districts is just small shifts away. How can administrators and teachers work together in ways that lead to significant—and sustained—improvement over time? How can schools accomplish this goal without adding to the work of overstretched educators? This practical guide answers these questions with recommendations for small, practical, powerful shifts that educators can make to their daily practice. In Small Shifts, Meaningful Improvement, P. Ann Byrd, Alesha Daughtrey, Jonathan Eckert, and Lori Nazareno define collective leadership, a set of practices through which teachers and administrators work together to improve teaching, learning, and innovation. They explore the seven conditions of collective leadership and their corresponding shifts that, when effectively implemented, make a difference: * Adapting, not adopting, a shared vision and strategy * Building co-ownership, not buy-in, through supportive administration, * Mindfully aligning resources and capacity, * Developing supportive social norms and working relationships to build culture and continuity, * Growing shared influence authentically and organically, * Creating an orientation toward improvement, and * Structuring an intentional work design to support sustainability. The authors share stories of real schools and districts that have implemented the shifts and provide useful tools that educators can use as they begin their own efforts. Both informative and inspiring, Small Shifts, Meaningful Improvement supports leadership work that will advance how administrators and teachers collaborate, learn together, generate solutions to longstanding challenges, and make those solutions stick over time.

Shifting the Balance, 3-5

2023-09-14
Shifting the Balance, 3-5

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  • Author: Katie Cunningham
  • Publisher:
  • ISBN: 9781625315977
  • Category :
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 0

In this much anticipated follow-up to their groundbreaking book, Shifting the Balance: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom, authors Jan Burkins and Kari Yates, together with co-author Katie Cunningham, extend the conversation in Shifting the Balance 3-5: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Upper Elementary Classroom. This new text is built in mind specifically for grades 3-5 teachers around best practices for the intermediate classroom. Shifting the Balance 3-5 introduces six more shifts across individual chapters that: Zoom in on a common (but not-as helpful-as-we-had-hoped) practice to reconsider Untangle a number of "misunderstandings" that have likely contributed to the use of the common practice Propose a more science-aligned shift to the current practice Provide solid scientific research to support the revised practice Offer a collection of high-leverage, easy-to-implement instructional routines to support the shift to more brain-friendly instruction The authors offer a refreshing approach that is respectful, accessible, and practical - grounded in an earnest commitment to building a bridge between research and classroom practice. As with the first Shifting the Balance, they aim to keep students at the forefront of reading instruction.

Creating a Culture of Reflective Practice

2017-08-29
Creating a Culture of Reflective Practice

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  • Author: Pete Hall
  • Publisher: ASCD
  • ISBN: 1416624473
  • Category : Education
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 326

As a school administrator, instructional coach, or teacher leader, you know that reflective teachers are effective teachers. But how can you help teachers become self-reflective practitioners whose thoughtful approach translates into real gains for student achievement? In Creating a Culture of Reflective Practice—a companion volume to their teacher-oriented book Teach, Reflect, Learn—authors Pete Hall and Alisa Simeral draw on lessons learned from educators across grade levels, content areas, and district demographics to present a definitive guide to developing a culture of reflective practice in your school. Hall and Simeral expand on ideas originally presented in Building Teachers’ Capacity for Success to help you gain a clear understanding of your role and responsibilities—and those of your teachers—within each stage of the Continuum of Self-Reflection. Armed with the book’s real-life examples and research-based tools, you’ll learn how to determine the current location of all stakeholders on the continuum and how teacher-leadership activities, transformational feedback, and strategic coaching can move them forward. The end result? A schoolwide culture that both values reflection and uses it to ensure that teachers—and their students—reach their fullest potential.

Guiding School Improvement with Action Research

2000-05-15
Guiding School Improvement with Action Research

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  • Author: Richard Sagor
  • Publisher: ASCD
  • ISBN: 1416615903
  • Category : Education
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 231

Action research, explored in this book, is a seven-step process for improving teaching and learning in classrooms at all levels. Through practical examples, research tools, and easy-to-follow "implementation strategies," Richard Sagor guides readers through the process from start to finish. Learn how to uncover and use the data that already exist in your classrooms and schools to answer significant questions about your individual or collective concerns and interests. Sagor covers each step in the action research process in detail: selecting a focus, clarifying theories, identifying research questions, collecting data, analyzing data, reporting results, and taking informed action. Drawing from the experience of individual teachers, faculties, and school districts, Sagor describes how action research can enhance teachers' professional standing and efficacy while helping them succeed in settings characterized by increasingly diverse student populations and an emphasis on standards-based reform. The book also demonstrates how administrators and policymakers can use action research to bolster efforts related to accreditation, teacher supervision, and job-embedded staff development. Part how-to guide, part inspirational treatise, Guiding School Improvement with Action Research provides advice, information, and encouragement to anyone interested in reinventing schools as learning communities and restructuring teaching as the true profession it was meant to be.

Small but Mighty

2024-09-30
Small but Mighty

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  • Author: Miriam Plotinsky
  • Publisher: ASCD
  • ISBN: 1416633170
  • Category : Education
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 158

In teaching, the details matter. When educators make small changes to their practice, they can reap big rewards … and produce big results. Teaching can be a daunting profession. There's so much material to cover and so many demands to meet, issues to resolve, new programs to implement, and relationships to deal with. And there's never enough time! Teachers have always found ways to cope, but what they really need is a new and sustainable way to approach everyday challenges—one that will lead to better outcomes and a healthier environment for their students and themselves. In Small but Mighty: How Everyday Habits Add Up to More Manageable and Confident Teaching, Miriam Plotinsky explores the benefits of "habit stacking"—making a series of small, gradual shifts in practice before, during, and after instruction, and in the broader context of teacher and student wellness. Noting that motivation is an unreliable factor in success, and that large-scale change is often more disruptive than meaningful, Plotinsky offers practical, classroom-based tools and strategies teachers can use to make incremental adjustments to planning, collaboration, classroom management, assessment, feedback, and other elements of practice. Each chapter includes scenarios that readers will recognize as the kinds of anxiety-inducing situations they regularly face along with examples of the transformative changes they can kick off by adopting a few new habits. Like a knowledgeable and trusted mentor, Plotinsky offers advice, support, and reassurance to educators who may be questioning their ability to withstand the pressures of today's school environment and clarifies how a "small but mighty" approach to change leads to a more satisfying and fulfilling experience in the classroom and beyond.

Embracing MESSY Leadership

2024-05-24
Embracing MESSY Leadership

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  • Author: Alyssa Gallagher
  • Publisher: ASCD
  • ISBN: 1416633146
  • Category : Education
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 212

School leadership is messy, but coaching conversations offer an opportunity to step back from the demands of everyday work and focus on developing leadership capabilities. Although every coaching conversation is personalized and every context is unique, many school leaders face similar issues. In Embracing MESSY Leadership, Alyssa Gallagher and Rosie Connor—directors of global educational leadership nonprofit BTS Spark—synthesize the experience gained from coaching more than 20,000 school leaders around the world and highlight the universal challenges. Here, the authors unpack the key traits and mindsets of the MESSY leadership model, which embraces the human side of school leadership and provides practical strategies and tools that strengthen leadership capabilities. Coaching conversations that encourage leaders to adopt these specific mindsets will make it easier for them to lead in a complex world: • Meaning Making: Create a shared vision and engage others by collaborating more effectively. • Emotional Connection: Build deeper, more trusting relationships to give feedback and hold difficult conversations. • Sensing the Future: Think creatively and tackle entrenched school improvement problems through experimentation and innovation. • Seizing Momentum: Be proactive, gain control of how you prioritize your time, and embrace new ways of working. • Your Presence: Build confidence by identifying the barriers that hold you back and learning how to overcome them. Intentional coaching conversations tap into the potential power of school leaders and develop them to their fullest. Let Embracing MESSY Leadership structure those conversations and create school leaders that matter.

One Degree Revolution

2020-01-07
One Degree Revolution

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  • Author: Coby Kozlowski
  • Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
  • ISBN: 1250201764
  • Category : Self-Help
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 153

Innovative, accessible, and easily implemented, One Degree Revolution is acclaimed yoga educator and leadership coach Coby Kozlowski's holistic program for self-inquiry and personal transformation. Her philosophy is deeply connected to living yoga—not just doing yoga. In fact, readers don’t need to have ever attended a yoga class to dive into this book: her thoughtful teachings are for anybody interested in learning to navigate the waves of life more skillfully and gracefully. Imagine sailing a boat with a course set for a lifetime. If that route changes by just one navigational degree, what would happen to the journey? How far from the original trajectory would we be in one year? Five years? Ten years? Twenty years? Well, we would end up in a totally different place. In much the same way, we can change the course of our life by making a one degree shift. In other words, we don’t have to change everything about ourselves or our world to make a difference. Coby inspires readers to dig deep, to ask powerful questions and to dive into the insights, experiments, and inquiries of living yoga: how can I best be with life? How can the teachings of yoga direct us to see the most aligned choices, let go of past hurts, and discover deep and meaningful connections? And what are the most skillful ways we can learn to savor all that life presents? These yoga philosophies are infused with practical strategies for creating the life you truly want and having a positive impact on the world. One Degree Revolution will guide readers to: -access infinite personal possibilities -celebrate their authentic selves and start listening to their calling -find meaning and purpose -learn to let go and trust the unfolding of life -value taking a pause and making a fresh start when needed -challenge long-held beliefs and foster transformational change -get comfortable with being uncomfortable, and -develop their community One degree at a time.

Meeting Standards Through Integrated Curriculum

2004
Meeting Standards Through Integrated Curriculum

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  • Author: Susan M. Drake
  • Publisher: ASCD
  • ISBN: 0871208407
  • Category : Education
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 191

If you've ever thought that standards-based teaching and required content prevent you from integrating subject areas, then here's a book that will change the way you think and alert you to exciting new possibilities in your approach to teaching. Learn how to identify the connections in your standards that provide the basis for interdisciplinary units. Explore all types of integrated curriculum and how they bridge content standards to authentic, relevant learning experiences. And understand how to create interdisciplinary units that provide data-based evidence of student learning. A planning template and detailed examples of successful integrated curriculums are included to help you implement integrated curriculum in practice. Discover how you can make learning more exciting for students--and rewarding for you.

The Principal’s Guide to Conflict Management

2024-02-22
The Principal’s Guide to Conflict Management

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  • Author: Jen Schwanke
  • Publisher: ASCD
  • ISBN: 1416632751
  • Category : Education
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 260

Conflict is certain to show up in any school, so how do you as the leader know how to respond or when to intervene? Disagreements, friction, and even outright hostility are a common and unavoidable result of people working together, and not all conflict is necessarily bad; it can also provide an opportunity to learn and grow. Whether the situation involves students, parents, or staff, school leadership expert Jen Schwanke has specific advice to help you navigate conflict within a three-step cycle of decision making: * Anticipate and recognize different patterns of conflict. * Analyze the underlying causes and effects of any given conflict. * Act—or choose not to act—in a way that best helps the school. Managing conflict is a critical leadership skill that you can learn to accept, embrace, and make a healthy and productive part of your role. The Principal’s Guide to Conflict Management describes the mindset skills you need and provides scenarios, strategies, and reflection activities to help you manage all kinds of conflict with clarity and confidence.

Questioning for Formative Feedback

2022-05-20
Questioning for Formative Feedback

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  • Author: Jackie A. Walsh
  • Publisher: ASCD
  • ISBN: 1416631178
  • Category : Education
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 221

When used effectively, quality questions and student dialogue result in self-regulated learners and formative feedback that reveals progress toward learning goals. Learning knows no boundaries. The potential for learning exists whenever and wherever we interact with our environment. So how can we infuse school learning with the authenticity and excitement associated with real-life experiences? In Questioning for Formative Feedback, Jackie Acree Walsh explores the relationship between questioning and feedback in K–12 classrooms and how dialogue serves as the bridge connecting the two. Quality questioning, productive dialogue, and authentic use of feedback are a powerful trifecta for addressing the needs of a new generation of learners. In fact, the skillful use of these three processes can fuel and accelerate the academic, social, and emotional learning of all students. In this book, Walsh provides a manual of practice for educators who want to engage students as partners in these processes. To that end, she offers the following features to help create a classroom in which everyone learns through intentional practice: * Blueprints for coherent models of key processes and products. * Tools and strategies to help you achieve identified outcomes. * Protocols with step-by-step directions to complete an activity. * Classroom artifacts of authentic classroom use, including links to 21 original videos produced exclusively for this book! Working together, questioning, dialogue, and feedback can transform learning for all. This book supports you in embracing and bringing that vision to fruition.