Good leadership = Listening = Formative Assessment

So there I was yesterday morning, standing at the kitchen island with my daughter baking Grandma a birthday cake. Background noise was coming from a cartoon on the television. My ears perked up when I heard the word "leader." In the cartoon, a group of friends were working together to reach a common goal, and the leader was forging ahead like a dictator. One of the leader's friends offered some advice and said, "Being a good leader involves listening to other people so you can make things better for everyone."

Wow, isn't that the truth? Being a leader means you've made a commitment to listening. If you're not listening to others and making things better for them as you work toward your common goal, then you're not really a leader. Instead, you're either a dictator and people are doing what you've directed out of fear, or you're a manager just working on the nuts & bolts of the organization and people aren't learning and moving forward. In other words, if you're a leader, people are following. If nobody's following you, well.....you're not leading. You haven't earned the title of LEADER. And yes, it's something you EARN. You earn it by caring for others and working side by side WITH them. You don't see yourself as "above" them in power. Nor do you see yourself as having such little worth that you just play the role of manager. A leader is a LEARNING LEADER. Not only do you learn by staying current in educational research, reading, and engaging in PLC work, but you also learn by LISTENING.

It's all about formative assessment as a leader! For student learning to take place in the classroom, the teacher must formatively assess on an ongoing basis AND respond to the formative data. He uses the formative data to guide instruction. All the while, the he has the end in mind. He knows what the students need to learn....required curriculum, 21st century skills, Positive Behavior Support (responsibility, respect, fairness, trustworthiness, and caring), Iowa Core...

As a leader, I know where we need to go as we move forward. We have our agreed-upon mission and vision. Now, recognizing that our staff is made up of differentiated learners, I must formatively assess by listening. This "listening" involves my ears, my eyes, my head, and my heart. Gosh....I'm just sitting here thinking about how differentiated my approach and relationship is with each teacher with whom I work. And, wow, how I have such respect for each and every one of them! I am committed to honoring where each of them are and yet am equally committed to supporting their growth as individuals. By celebrating their individual strengths, they recognize their worth in contributing to our team, our PLC. I'm wondering how incredibly different our school culture would be if I treated everyone the same....Yes, I have the same expectations for everyone, but I wouldn't be a leader if I didn't honor individuality. Isn't this what we want for our students, too?

So...formative assessment as a leader. If someone asked me, "Jill, what do you enjoy most about being a leader?" I'd have to say, "It's the journey of getting from here to there." That equates to formative assessment. I signed up to be a leader because of the process. Sure, it's invigorating to get to a finish line and to reach a goal. What really pumps my adrenaline, though, is the work we do together to get there. It's listening and celebrating and revising and learning along the way. If someone is considering becoming an administrator, I would say, "If you don't enjoy the sweat and tears and conversations and "massaging" of people along to way to reach a goal, then leadership is not for you."

Are you a leader? Do you listen? Do you formatively assess? Do you allow yourself to recognize that you can't get where you're going without those around you???

Do we really want to CLOSE the achievement gap???

My colleagues challenge my thinking everyday....With No Child Left Behind, we're faced with the constant charge to close the achievement gap. During a recent book study discussion (Dufours' Learning by Doing) with the CSIP Leadership Team, one of the teachers posed the question, "If we are truly moving ALL learners forward, then we should never close the gap. If we closed the gap, wouldn't we be holding some learners back while waiting for others to catch up?" Oh boy!! Pregnant pause! Take time to reflect on this one.

If we truly honor differentiation, aren't ALL students learning? I don't think anyone would agree with me that it's okay to tell a student, "I know you already know this, but I want you to do it anyway." Really? Would you want that for your child? I can't say that I'd want it for mine. She deserves better. And so does your child.

Let's not close the gap. Let's take each child from where he/she is and MOVE them. EXTEND them. CHALLENGE them. INSPIRE them. EMPOWER them.

Learning: It's infectious!

What a day! Today, we wrapped up our project/inquiry-based learning unit with all of the 7th grade students. Entitled, "Outbreak 2010," students spent the past 2 weeks intersecting language arts, math, science, social studies, and 21st century skills with infectious diseases. Embracing the Iowa Core, Waukee Middle School partnered with the U.S. Center for Diplomacy and fostered our students' learning as they expanded their roles as global citizens. Once they chose their topics of interest around infectious diseases, they researched. They collaborated. They created. They inquired. They asked and answered, "What does this topic mean to me?" They asked and answered, "What does this mean for my world?" They asked and answered, "What am I going to do with this information to impact the world?" As I walked around the classrooms to witness students presenting their "representations of learning," goose bumps filled my entire body! No two representations were alike, and the students were so very proud of their work. And the teachers and I were, and are, proud of them. As we adults stepped to the side to guide learning, instead of being center stage with direct teaching in the front of the classroom, students were empowered to tap into their passions as they owned their learning. One student created a rap song and video about Yellow Fever while another student utilized google map to label locations and statistics about various infectious diseases all over the world. Three students worked together to create a video that compared and contrasted Hepatitis A, B, and C. And the list goes on and on.

So, my mind is racing. As I envision the future of our school, I see project-based learning happening more and more. Watching the teachers catch the infectious fever of this approach to learning has been completely invigorating! 6th and 7th grade teachers are already talking and asking, "What's next?" They're ready to keep moving! (Have I mentioned yet in this blog entry how much I love my job and people I work with???)

So what have I discovered the past couple weeks? Diseases are infectious. Learning is infectious. Our students' enthusiasm is infectious! We all remember that famous quote from the movie, Field of Dreams: "If you build it, they will come." If we (notice how I said WE, not YOU, because we are a team), build a learning opportunity that embraces students' interests, personal connections, and passions, they will come! And here's the trick. As we build it, we can't be too obsessive with the details. This can be a challenge for someone who is extremely organized and breathes better when every minute is accounted for over the next 2 weeks. Project-based learning just doesn't happen successfully that way. We have to be willing to be "tight but loose." We're tight on the curriculum standards for the unit, and we're tight that students will represent their learning, and we're tight on guiding norms for research and collaboration. We're loose on how they're going to get from here to there, and we're loose on how they're going to show what they've learned. As we formatively assess from day to day, we figure out the next step. It happens naturally if we allow ourselves to respond to students' needs and wants.

Hmmm...I'm reminded of Dufour's phrase, "tight but loose" as it pertains to PLC work. We're tight on collaboration, we're tight on learning, we're tight on data analysis, we're tight on guiding norms......and we're loose on how we respond to the data since each PLC's instructional response will be different according to their data and analysis of it. So, we adults make up a variety of PLCs within our overall faculty PLC. With project-based learning, I'm reminded that each classroom is a PLC....each small group of students is a PLC.....everyone is tight on learning and loose on representing it. What a powerful way to value our students as individuals!!! And as we think of Maslows Heirarchy of Needs, we know that when an individual feels valued, they reach that state of self-actualization. Isn't that what we want for EVERY student??? EVERY adult? My hope would be that each teacher feels valued so that he/she can "pay it forward." Professional Learning Communities...hmmm...tight on valuing one another. It's infectious. We're paying it forward like an infectious disease, a disease that effects your heart. Beware of the side effects of a PLC infectious disease: Your heart will be fulfilled, and you'll look forward to coming to work everyday to learn and to impact learning of others. You'll develop an addiction to data analysis. You'll discover a deep feeling of intrinsic satisfaction because of your involvement on a team. And, because it's contagious, you do NOT want to segregate yourself! You must be with others!!! Quarantine not allowed!