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The teachers’ goal was to devise recommendations based on teachers’ own experience for what measures districts should consider when evaluating teachers, and how heavily each of those measures should be weighted.

focused on breaking down “the culture of ‘closed doors’”

Under the state’s teacher evaluation deal passed last May, teachers will be given a score on a new 100-point scale, with 40 of those points determined by student achievement data.

1. Remember to use both sides of your brain: instruction and management.

4. Always be professionals in conversations, emails, social media, and personal appearance.

6. Be a goal-setter personally, professionally and collaboratively.

Effective leadership is akin to a tango. Everyone knows who is the formal leader before the dance begins. But once the action starts effective leadership reflects a flexible dynamic moving partnership, quality of a relationship. Knowing your ABCs—“awareness” of your “behavior” and its “consequences”—is a key leadership building block.

The behaviors reflect a simple relationship model comprising eight styles and two energy modes. "Describe," "prescribe," "appreciate" and "inspire" reflect push energy—being understood by you and getting my points across to you. "Attend," "ask," "understand" and "empathize" reflect pull energy—striving to understand the points you are trying to get across to me.

Leaders must be aware of their follower’s style, needs and preferences.

Here are some ways that we can build strong connections with the parents in our school communities:

1.  Use what the kids use

If we can connect using mediums (blogs, YouTube, Twitter, etc.) that our students use, not only are we building an understanding and instructional leadership within our schools, but we are familiarizing our parents with many of the tools that their children will be using. 

"You don’t lead by hitting people over the head—that’s assault, not leadership.” – Dwight Eisenhower

But to get that success, you are beating up your team. You make them feel like they are never good enough.

Talking with my boss and my team members about the situation was the first step in a long journey to turn my negative, overly-critical style into a leadership approach that would continue to pursue the highest standards of performance – without beating up my team. 

Nine Warning Signs an Employee Needs to be Let Go

1. Things don’t improve with a change of scenery - Maybe it’s the relationship with their boss, certain peers, or the nature of the work has changed and the employee is struggling to perform at his best. Whatever the reason, moving the employee to another role or department can get him back on track.

2. You feel like you have to walk on eggshells around the employee

Blended learning is any time a student learns at least in part at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home and at least in part through online delivery with some element of student control over time, path, and/or pace.

The definition implies simple remote correspondence—like online videoconferencing or web chatting in a real-time environment only—does not qualify as blended learning, and perhaps points to a theoretical division between the labels of "online" and "distance" learning.

The report then labels six types of blended learning approaches:• face-to-face driver programs where teachers deliver most instruction in a live classroom and use online activities to supplement or remediate what goes on in the brick-and-mortar school;• rotation models where students follow a schedule that alternates between face-to-face class sessions and in-person instruction;• flex formats where most of the curriculum originates online, but an on-site instructor provides instruction as needed in individual and small group sessions;• online lab sessions where students do work online, but in a computer lab at a brick-and-mortar school with aides who offer supervision but little subject guidance;• self-blend schools where students may take online courses a la carte to supplement their brick-and-mortar school's curriculum; and• online driver constructs where students receive most of the course online and independently, but participate in required or optional face-to-face meetings.

a hybrid teacher role as Data Strategist. I was charged with the task of organizing the various data points that, taken collectively, offer useful clues about student achievement, progress, and deficiency. The data lens could zoom out to a schoolwide perspective that might inform staff development planning, narrow to a classroom or grade-level view offering insight on skills requiring remediation, or focus on a single student being considered for referral to the school psychologist for a learning disability.

There is growing evidence that teacher empowerment as school leaders is linked strongly with teachers' tendency to engage in behaviors that accelerate student growth: soliciting parent involvement, communicating positive expectations, and being willing and able to innovate in the classroom.

In addition to measurable student impact, teachers that lead schools are better equipped to guide their own professional development, share their expertise, and develop explicit and implicit systems of accountability, while experiencing more respectful, trusting, and professional cultures.

Your to-do list is filled with low-impact tactical items – I’m not one to make a big difference between leadership and management, but one of the clear differentiators in my mind is that leaders initiate change and managers react to it. If you find your to-do list is filled with low-impact, tactical items that contribute more to the daily operations of the business, then you may be running on autopilot. Your to-do list should be focused on big picture, strategic items that could make significant improvements in your operations.

The autopilot leader easily becomes oblivious to changes occurring around him until the nature of the situation reaches a crises point, forcing the leader to snap back to reality. This happens because the leader was content to react to change rather than initiate it.

You find yourself in reactive mode all the time