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.
As citizens of the world, students in today's classrooms seek global contexts for learning. Opportunities for networked and international collaborations are bringing both the world to classrooms and classrooms to the world. With a focus on international standards of instruction, globally-minded programs inspire students to be curious through investigation and reflective in analysis of thought.
"For those who share this common commitment (and really, who among us does not?),there is, I am arguing, a moral responsibility, a strong one, to share our educational initiatives and innovations: to summarize them, share their key elements, show examples of them in practice, and, at best, reflect upon their successes and lack thereof."
"This is also an essential element of educational leadership. Leadership is showing the way to others and making it easier for them to follow, it is empowering others to benefit from your example, take inspiration, and improve upon your advances- to stand on your shoulders."
an area with cushy couches and tables called the Fishbowl, where students gather
to chat between classes or to work on group projects.
put on headphones or twist iPod ear buds into their ears, because the online
programs are interactive and multimodal—comprised of audio, video vignettes,
Flash animation, quizzes, and games. Paraprofessionals called “assistant
coaches” walk through the center to make sure kids are doing their work, fix
computer glitches, help with academic questions
The online curriculum for each course is adaptive, meaning it can gauge from the
students’ answers when they have mastered something and are ready to move ahead
and when they may need extra practice before moving on. A bar on the upper right
corner of the screen tracks students’ progress in every course and becomes part
of a report automatically e-mailed to parents at the end of every week.
Using this “daily achievement data” from the students’ online work, teachers at
Carpe Diem meet with students individually or in small groups, called workshops,
either to give extra remedial help or to facilitate enrichment projects. Grouped
roughly by age, students rotate in and out of the Learning Center, workshops,
gym, or science labs every 55 minutes until the end of the day.
combine the best of traditional, face-to-face instruction with the best of the
cutting-edge online curriculum available to virtual schools. The result is
something education experts are calling a hybrid school.
Although we may not be emulating this type of school in all ways, what types of learning opportunities are you providing students with that can reflect the ideas found in this hybrid school?