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Tracy Watanabe

Education Week: What Does It Mean to Be a Good School Leader? - 0 views

www.edweek.org/...30chenoweth.h31.html

leader leadership educationalleadership principal

shared by Tracy Watanabe on 14 May 12 - No Cached
  • Successful principals help teachers improve their individual practice, whether they are new or veteran.
  • hese principals gauge what their teachers need and arrange for the appropriate support. They assign mentor teachers; they send in instructional coaches or more-accomplished teachers to teach model lessons; they or their delegates observe instruction frequently and offer suggestions; and they meet with teachers regularly to look at student data, discuss relevant research, and explore options for their classrooms.
  • Successful principals work with groups of teachers to find patterns of instruction within grade levels and departments.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Successful principals identify schoolwide needs and plan professional learning to develop collective expertise.
  • This sounds simple, but it means that educators must see that student failure requires a change in their practice. It takes leadership to help teachers take on the burden of student failure, look it squarely in the eye, and ask, “What can we do differently?” rather than declare, “These students are helpless” or think quietly to themselves, “I am a bad teacher.” For teachers to be able to do this, they need clear expectations from their principal and the opportunity to develop a professional practice through collaboration with colleagues.
  • Good principals understand that no individual teacher can possibly have all the necessary content knowledge, pedagogical skill, and familiarity with his or her students to be successful 100 percent of the time with all of those students. Good principals know that it is only by pooling the knowledge and skills of their teachers, encouraging collaboration, and focusing on continual improvement that students and their teachers will have the opportunity to be successful.
  • For that reason, successful principals take very concrete steps to support teachers: • They build schoolwide master schedules carefully to make sure that instructional time is not interrupted and that teachers have time to work and plan together during the school day. • They ensure that such collaboration time is spent in ways that will have the biggest instructional payoff:
  • They establish schoolwide routines and discipline processes so that time is not squandered on behavioral problems
  • They model what they want to see.
  • They monitor the work of everyone in the school to ensure that no teacher or staff member shirks responsibility while others are working their hearts out.
  • Above all, they help teachers step back from the “daily-ness of teaching” by providing the evaluative eye that allows teachers to think deeply about whether they are getting the most effect for their efforts.
  • This kind of leadership is a long way from the traditional model of the principal as a building manager, and few principals have been trained this way. But if we want schools that prepare all children for productive citizenship, this is the leadership we need.
  • Tracy Watanabe on 14 May 12
     
    While this article focuses on principal leadership, it is exactly the type of leadership we want for our transitioning into the Common Core.
Tracy Watanabe

Common Core State Standards: Math Instructional Shifts - Coach G's Teaching Tips - Educ... - 0 views

blogs.edweek.org/...ards_instructional_shifts.html

math commoncore shifts

shared by Tracy Watanabe on 19 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • School leaders and math teachers must therefore understand the instructional implications of CCSS in addition to the content implications. This is why I begin Math CCSS training with a discussion of six shifts in instruction associated with CCSS: Focus: fewer topics covered in greater depth Coherence: connect learning within and across grades Fluency: perform mathematics with speed and accuracy Understanding: use mathematics in complex situations Application: know when and how applying math can solve a problem Dual Intensity: achieve fluency and conceptual understanding/application
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