1. Change Leadership A Practical Guide to Transforming Our Schools
Presented by:
Suzette Cook
Title I School Improvement Coordinator
West Virginia Department of Education
Title I Directors’ Meeting
October 4, 2010

2. Gingerbread Man What drives you crazy? What do you want to take away?
let go of?
What gives you indigestion?

3. Block Party
Read and reflect upon what your quote means to you and your work
Share your quote and your insights about its implication for your work with your tablemates
Share ideas and questions

5. Caught between the imperative of preparing students for the next half-century and the political mandate for short-term performance improvement on standardized tests, many educators are dropping by the wayside but a few are stepping forward with new leadership skills and vision. Working with such leaders, Tony Wagner, Bob Kegan and their colleagues have created an invaluable guidebook for those with the courage to have conviction without answers and the openness to learn together. Peter Senge, author The Fifth Discipline

6. There is no school for leaders. that will teach them exactly how
There is no school for leaders that will teach them exactly how to make their district into one that will leave no child behind.

7. Seven Disciplines for Strengthening Instruction
Urgency for instructional improvement using real data
Shared vision of good teaching
Meetings about the work
A shared vision of student results
Effective supervision
Professional development
Diagnostic data with accountable collaboration

8. Seven Disciplines for Strengthening Instruction
These seven disciplines are not a buffet, where a district can choose one or two for implementation without regard to the others.

9. Your system – any system – is. perfectly designed to produce the
Your system – any system – is perfectly designed to produce the results you’re getting.

10. If every system is designed to produce exactly the results that it does, then perhaps before we try to improve our system, we need to better grasp its current design.

11. Seven Disciplines for Strengthening Instruction Rate Your District
1.The district creates understanding and urgency around improving all students’ learning for teachers and community, and it regularly reports on progress.
Data are disaggregated and transparent to everyone
Qualitative (focus groups and interviews) as well as quantitative data are used to understand students’ and recent graduates’ experience of school.

12. Seven Disciplines for Strengthening Instruction Rate Your District
2. A widely shared vision of what is good teaching is focused on rigorous expectations, relevant curricula, and respectful relationships in the classroom. 3. All adult meetings are about instruction and are models of good teaching.

13. Seven Disciplines for Strengthening Instruction Rate Your District
4. There are well-defined standards and performance assessments for student work at all grade levels. Teachers and students understand what quality work looks like, and there is consistency in standards of assessment. 5. Supervision is frequent, rigorous, and entirely focused on the improvement of instruction. It is done by people who know what good teaching looks like.

14. Seven Disciplines for Strengthening Instruction Rate Your District
6. Professional development is primarily on-site, intensive, collaborative, and job-embedded and is designed and led by educators who model best teaching and learning practices. 7. Data are diagnostically at frequent intervals by teams of teachers to assess each student’s learning and to identify the most effective teaching practices. Teams have time built into their schedules for this shared work.

15. The realities of today’s economy demand not only a new set of skills but also that they be acquired by all students.

16. Framework for Effective Instruction 3 Rs
Rigor: Mastering Core Competencies
Relevance: Connecting the Curriculum Through Real-World Applications
Respectful Relationships: Finding the Key to Motivation

17. One of the hardest aspects of charting the course… is identifying the ways that we might also create obstacles that get in the way of our own plans.

18. Obstacles to Improvement v. Momentum for Improvement
Reaction
Purpose
Focus
Compliance
Engagement
Isolation
Collaboration

19. The Final Word
Reaction Transforms to Purpose and Focus – pg. 65 to top of pg. 68
Compliance Transforms to Engagement – pg. 68 to middle of pg. 71
Isolation Transforms to Collaboration – middle of pg. 71 to top of pg. 74

20. The Final Word Identify a timekeeper Read your assigned passage
Identify one ‘most’ significant idea/quote from the text to share – have a ‘back-up’
First person – share selected idea/quote and why – 3 minutes
Second person – respond – 1 minute
Third person – respond – 1 minute
Fourth person – respond - 1 minute
First person – The final word – 1 minute
Begin new rotation

21. Fortune Cookie ‘Break’
Open your fortune cookie – but don’t share your fortune with anyone
Think of how this ‘fortune’ may relate to you and your work – jot some notes if you wish/for sharing

22. The forms of our personal challenges. are not infinitely different
The forms of our personal challenges are not infinitely different. There is more than one crater on the dark side of the moon, but not an endless number.

23. If we, as leaders, deny ourselves the
If we, as leaders, deny ourselves the opportunity to ‘grow on the job’, how likely is it that those around us, those who work for us, are going to feel genuinely entitled to this same right themselves?

24. Arenas of Change Competencies – of adults
Conditions – of learning and teaching for students and adults
Culture – of classrooms, schools, districts
Context – understanding global, state, and community realities and re-visioning what all students need to know

25. 4 Cs Diagnostic Tool
Conditions
Competencies
Culture
Context

26. Back to the Future
Conditions
Competencies
Culture
Context

27. The prime function of a leader is to keep the hope alive.
John W. Gardner