When School Leaders Empower Teachers, Better Ideas Emerge

Teachers are increasingly being pushed into new roles as their ability to connect online opens up new opportunities. Educators are finding their own professional development, sharing lesson plans and teaching tips with colleagues around the world, and have often become ambassadors to the public on new approaches to teaching and learning. Easy access to information has empowered many educators to think and teach differently, but often those innovations remain isolated inside classrooms. Without a school leader who trusts his or her teachers, it is difficult to convert pockets of innovation into a school culture of empowered teachers.

One way of building that kind of unified school culture is through distributed leadership, the idea that no one person at the top of the hierarchy makes all the decisions that will affect the work lives of the adults in the building. Instead, the school principal or district superintendent empowers teachers and staff to run crucial aspects of a school, such as admissions, professional development and new teacher mentoring.

“Distributed leadership is not ‘I empower you to do exactly what I say,’ ” said Chris Lehmann, principal of Science Leadership Academy in an EduCon session about how to effectively distribute power. Often leaders believe they are distributing power, but they are actually just delegating. For teachers to buy into a system like this, which asks more of their time outside class, they must feel they are professionals trusted by leadership.

“Teachers have to really own what they are in charge of,” said Aaron Gerwer, intern principal at SLA. “They have to be invested in what they’re doing.” To get that investment, teachers have to know that support from leadership won’t be pulled away at the first bump or disagreement. There has to be space for different perspectives.

“It is a shared belief in the big ideas,” Lehmann said. “However, within the manifestation of the big ideas there’s a lot of room.” It’s the leader’s job to listen and include different viewpoints in a school’s vision statement, and once that structure is set it should guide every decision. If school staff are constantly re-examining core beliefs, there is no time to get good at anything. Through flexibility and distributed leadership, staff can work together to improve the teaching practices that help them reach those big goals.

“Just because you are empowered to take responsibility, there’s still that need for support,” said educator Lisa Williams. “That has to come from on top, on bottom and from left and right.” Other educators acknowledged that when power is distributed and then ripped away, it often results in disenchanted teachers disinclined to participate again.

When teachers are part of the decision-making process, it also makes it harder to complain. And while not everyone in a school is going to agree on how to approach every problem, if the process is consistent, individuals can trust that even when they don’t get their way it will be OK. However, it is just as important for a strong leader to recognize when certain difficult decisions must be made solo — like layoffs, for example. In a community like SLA, Lehmann has to take responsibility for that decision to preserve the working relationships of the rest of his staff.

HABITS OF MIND OF A DISTRIBUTED LEADER

Educators at EduCon had a lot of ideas about how leaders can gain the trust of their staff and genuinely hand over some decision-making power. Good leaders are out in the hallways and classrooms, staying connected to the real work in schools. Leaders model vulnerability, making it OK for their staff to admit a unit didn’t work as well as they’d planned or to ask for help supporting a difficult student. And, while many leaders want to be visible and timely, sometimes taking in information and reflecting before making a decision is the best course of action. Strong leaders try not to say “no” to ideas from teachers, but rather push them to refine their ideas until they are actionable.

“You have to be a planner and you have to be strategic,” Lehmann said. As with teaching, if a leader is constantly in crisis mode there won’t be the time and space to make the most strategic decisions or the strongest lessons. “Planning doesn’t mean having the answers,” Lehmann said. “It often means having the questions.” It also means anticipating the challenges and sticking with the hard work it takes to lead in this unconventional way.

IF IT’S SO HARD, WHY DO IT?

When done well, distributing leadership creates a community of people on the same page, working hard toward defined goals. And when teachers feel valued and trusted, they are more likely to trust and empower their students. “The way that SLA is led by Chris is the way that teachers teach,” said SLA teacher Tim Best. And when students are empowered to lead, they not only learn to trust their own capabilities — they also produce their best work.

Shifting school culture is not easy or quick. Often it is impossible to keep all the original staff and still make a culture change. “The people make the culture, so people are either going to come on board with you or you’ll have to coach them out,” Lehmann said. It takes careful and strategic scaffolding over a number of years (as many as seven) to shift and sustain a new school culture, he said.

Setting up the systems is the easy part. “The years it takes to get buy-in to make sure the change stays is the hard part,” Lehmann said. And ultimately, as with so many things in education, the success of a leader comes down to the strength of relationships.

“You can seek to control or you can seek to support, but very rarely can you do both,” Lehmann said. One underrated quality he says leaders need is the ability to say, “I’m sorry,” and mean it.

Steps for Cultivating a Love of Reading in Young Children

By Cory Turner, NPR

In his new book, Raising Kids Who Read, Daniel Willingham wants to be clear: There’s a big difference between teaching kids to read and teaching them to love reading.

And Willingham, a parent himself, doesn’t champion reading for the obvious reasons — not because research suggests that kids who read for pleasure do better in school and in life.

“The standard things you’ll hear about why kids should read I actually don’t think are very strong arguments,” he says. “Because if the goal is to become a good citizen or the goal is to make a lot of money, I can think of more direct ways to reach those goals than to read during your leisure time.”

Willingham wants his kids to love reading because, he says, “for me it’s a family value. It’s something that I love, something that I find important. I think I gain experiences I wouldn’t gain any other way by virtue of being a reader. And so naturally I want my children to experience that.”

The professor of psychology at the University of Virginia uses his new book to map out strategies for parents and teachers hoping to kindle that same passion for reading.

What are a few things we can do when kids are young to set them on a path to being passionate readers?

Before preschool, probably the most important thing you can do is to play games that help your child hear speech sounds: rhyming games, reading aloud books that have a lot of rhyme in them and other types of wordplay, like alliteration. That’s helpful.

Once they get that basic idea, you can get a little fancier. And these are the games that kids really love — where you play around with speech sounds.

If you had a child named Billy. You could say, ‘Daddy’s name is Cory. What if we took the first sound in Billy’s name, and my name is now Bory.’ That kind of stuff is comic gold for kids. I talk with a lot of kindergarten teachers who say it’s hard to get kids to stop doing stuff like that.

Banana-fana-fo-fana…

Exactly. You know, Dr. Seuss is full of that. Nursery rhymes are full of that. And it’s been known for a while that kids who grow up in homes where they are exposed to nursery rhymes learn to read more readily than other kids.

But how do you foster a love of reading in young children?

The most obvious is to be a model of someone who loves reading. One of the things I hit hard in this book is the idea of creating a sense in the child that this is what we value in our family. I think a lot of parents don’t appreciate what a powerful message that can be for kids — like the things that are on your wall, the rules you set in your household, who parents talk about as the people they respect.

You should model reading, make reading pleasurable, read aloud to your kid in situations that are warm and create positive associations. But also setting a tone where our family is one where we like to learn new things. We like to learn about the world, and a big part of that is reading. Developing a sense in the child that I am in a family of readers before the child can even read.

The second big piece I would recommend is you have to make reading the most appealing thing a child can do. It’s not enough that the child like reading. If they like reading but there’s something else available that they like more, they’re going to choose that. The easy way to start is to put books in places that your child would otherwise be bored. The most obvious one is in the car. Part of that is also making sure you’re not providing other types of ready entertainment at every moment.

My wife put a basket in our bathroom, full of kids magazines. My 6-year-old reads them voraciously, and now his 3-year-old brother copies him.

My 9-year-old is a very passionate reader, and I think her younger sister is too. But I think it’s in no small part that she grew up watching her older sister do this.

Do you think digital devices are a) keeping us from reading and b) keeping us from being able to focus?

There’s no evidence they’re keeping us from being able to focus. If you look at the way psychologists typically measure span of attention, there’s no evidence that it’s really declined in the last 50 years or so. The brain is plastic, but I think attention is so central to so much of what we do that it seems pretty improbable to me that attention span could shrink significantly. If it did, either we would all get really stupid or lots of other cognitive processes would have to adjust in some way.

I think there is something to what parents and teachers think they’re seeing. They feel like kids are more distractible than they were 10 years ago, and they blame digital devices. What all these digital devices have in common is they provide instant entertainment. And the entertainment they provide requires very little effort from me. It’s always available. There’s pretty much endless variety. So the consequence may be that span of attention hasn’t shrunk but rather what’s changed is our attitudes and beliefs. And our attitudes and beliefs are, ‘Bored is not a normal state of affairs. I really should never be bored.’

What’s your point of view when it comes to rewarding kids for reading?

Rewards have the real potential to backfire. You communicate to your child, ‘This is not something I expect you to do on your own.’ You pay people to do things that you think are unpleasant and that they wouldn’t do if you weren’t paying them. So, by paying your child for reading, you’re very clearly communicating to your child, ‘This is not something that I expect to be pleasurable for you.’

There is good empirical evidence that, when you pay people to do something, if you find the right reward they will do more of it. But once the reward stops, they will quite possibly do less of it. The reason being, they have a different attribution for why they were doing it in the first place. So the child who wasn’t paid looks back and says, ‘I’ve been reading this book because I’m the kind of kid who likes books.’ But if, instead, the attribution is, ‘I was reading this book because Dad paid me,’ now, if Dad is no longer paying him, he has no reason to read this book. That said, my recommendation is that a reward not be the first thing you try. But, if it is the only way to get a kid to read, then I would certainly consider it.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

What Motivates A Student’s Interest in Reading and Writing

The excerpt below is from the book “Building a Community of Self-Motivated Learners: Strategies to Help Students Thrive in School and Beyond,” by Larry Ferlazzo. This excerpt is from the chapter entitled “I Still Want to Know: How Can You Get Students More Interested in Reading and Writing?”

Let’s begin with a review of those essential qualities (needed to develop intrinsic motivation) in the context of reading and writing:

♦ Autonomy. A major Pew Research Center report (Lenhart et al., 2008) found that choice has an equally important role in teens feeling a desire to write (the story in Chapter 1 of my student who was energized by writing about football illustrates this point). Likewise, in reading, extensive research documents that teachers encouraging students to read books of their choice for pleasure is a major contribution towards students developing a positive attitude towards reading and a life-long interest in it (Leisure Reading Task Force, 20014, p. 2).

♦ Competence. A scene from the HBO series The Leftovers (http:// www.hbo.com/the-leftovers) succinctly explains why this quality is so important for intrinsic motivation. In it, two FBI agents were sitting in an office, and one told the other that his child wanted to quit soccer and wanted to know if he should let him do it. The other agent asked him, “Is he any good at it?” The first agent responded, “Nobody quits what they’re good at,” and much research backs him up (Tsioulcas, 2013; Yuhas, 2012). Providing scaffolding like writing frames and strategies/tools such as graphic organizers (student- or teacher-created) for responding to prompts (Ferlazzo, 2013, p. 144) can assist students’ developing confidence as writers. The Progress Principle, which highlights that intrinsic motivation can be driven by people seeing meaningful progress in their work, was mentioned in the first chapter and in previous titles in this series (Ferlazzo, 2013, p. 10). Creating structured opportunities for students to see their progress in reading and writing by comparing work (preferably emphasizing tools like “improvement rubrics” that focus more on what they have successfully done and less on their deficits [Ferlazzo, 2011, p. 79]) done at the beginning of the school year with accomplishments later in the year can also support student feelings of competence. In fact, at our school English folders are passed up through the grades and students can see and reflect on their progress over the years!

♦ Relatedness. The Pew Research Center found that teens say the most important factor for them to feel motivated to write is using it as a way to connect with, and receive feedback from, teachers, family members, and friends (Lenhart et al., 2008). Opportunities for students to discuss what they are reading with their teachers and with their peers in low-or-no-stakes environments has been found to promote a greater interest in reading (Leisure Reading Task Force, 2014, p. 4).

♦ The work is seen as interesting, and valuable for future goals. In other words, as mentioned in Chapter 1, students should see it as relevant to their present lives and/or hopes and dreams for the future.

Choice Equals Power: How to Motivate Students to Learn

Case Studies: How Teachers Use Tech to Support Learning

Can Character Be Taught?

Teachers Embrace Digital Learning Strategies

A slight “qualifier” should be attached to the second part of this last element— the one about it being seen as helpful to hopes and dreams for the future. As mentioned in Chapter 1, some researchers suggest that teachers explicitly pointing out how skills being taught in the classroom can be used in the future by students can be damaging to intrinsic motivation, particularly if they do not feel confident in their abilities or have little interest in the subject (Hulleman et al., 2010, p. 881). This issue is particularly relevant to a discussion on reading and writing since a significant percentage of students, particularly boys, often say that English is not a favorite subject (Wiggins, 2014) and multiple surveys have found that decreasing percentages of young people say they enjoy reading (Leisure Reading Task Force, 2014, p. 3). As a result of these negative attitudes, many of us teachers may tend to use a motivational strategy of emphasizing to students how important literacy will be to any of their future goals (Ferlazzo, 2013, p. 147).

Is this a bad strategy? The slightly “qualified” answer is yes, no, and possibly maybe . . . Other researchers also suggest that we need to be particularly careful when we focus on relevance towards a student’s goals, though they also see potential benefits. Motivation researchers Edward Deci and Richard Ryan call slightly different versions of it “regulation through identification” and “integrated regulation.” They believe the motive of wanting to do something less for the joy it brings and more for its instrumental value towards achieving a goal is a less harmful form of extrinsic motivation that—on a continuum—is as close as you can get to intrinsic motivation without being there (Ryan & Deci, 2000, p. 61). They also point out, however, that its promotion can still bring many benefits, including greater engagement and learning as well as increasing the potential that those tasks can be moved to the final step of intrinsically motivated, as long as the other three elements—autonomy, competence, and relatedness—are present (Ryan & Deci, 2000, pp. 63, 65). Indeed, organizers of the 2012 international PISA test in 2012 found that, over the previous ten years, countries where students reported an increase in intrinsic motivation also reported an increase in students reporting this kind of instrumental motivation (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD], 2012, p. 74).

So, what does this “qualifier” mean practically for our classroom practice? Is it a group of academicians arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin (What’s the historical origin, n.d.)? Or is it a meaningful nuance we should seriously consider?

I would suggest that teachers explicitly connecting what is being taught in school to student goals—by pointing it out themselves or by drawing it out of students (which, as Chapter 1 pointed out, appears to have less damaging potential)—can have a place in class, but also has to be kept in its place. In my experience, we will get fewer “Why are we learning this?” questions in learning environments that promote autonomy, competence, relatedness, or are connected to student interest. But when we do, I don’t see anything wrong in helping students make those connections to their personal and professional goals or periodically having teacher- initiated lessons with that focus, such as several in this book and in previous ones (Ferlazzo, 2013, p. 147). On the other hand, constantly getting “Why are we learning this?” or “How are we going to use this?” questions might be an important indicator that we are not doing as good a job as we could be on implementing those other important conditions necessary for the development of intrinsic motivation.

Larry Ferlazzo is an award-winning teacher at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, California. He writes a popular education blog and a teacher advice column for Education Week Teacher. You can follow him on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo.

Q: What makes Finnish teachers so special? Answer: It’s not brains

When my niece was finishing school in Finland, more than anything else she wanted to become a primary teacher. Despite her genuine interest in teaching she failed to get into a teacher education programme at the University of Helsinki. She was smart and bright, yet she was not deemed qualified.

This is not unusual. Finnish universities regularly turn away applicants such as my niece to try again or to study something else. In fact, Finnish primary school teacher education programmes that lead to an advanced, research-based degree are so popular among young Finns that only one in 10 applicants is accepted each year. Those lucky students then have to study for five to six years before they are allowed to teach a class of their own.

There are those who think that the tough race to become a teacher in Finland is the key to good teaching and thereby to improving student achievement. Because only 10% of applicants pass the rigorous admission system, the story goes, the secret is to recruit new teachers from the top decile of available candidates. This has led many governments and organisations to find new ways to get the best and the brightest young talents into the teaching profession. Various fast-track teacher preparation initiatives that lure smart young university graduates to teach for a few years have mushroomed. Smarter people make better teachers … or do they?

Who exactly are those who were chosen to become primary teachers in Finland ahead of my niece? Let’s take closer look at the academic profile of the first-year cohort selected at the University of Helsinki. The entrance test has two phases. All students must first take a national written test. The best performers in this are invited on to the second phase, to take the university’s specific aptitude test. At the University of Helsinki, 60% of the accepted 120 students were selected on a combination of their score on the entrance test and their points on the subject exams they took to complete their upper-secondary education; 40% of students were awarded a study place based on their score on the entrance test alone.

Last spring, 1,650 students took the national written test to compete for those 120 places at the University of Helsinki. Applicants received between one and 100 points for the subject exams taken to earn upper-secondary school leaving diplomas. A quarter of the accepted students came from the top 20% in academic ability and another quarter came from the bottom half. This means that half of the first-year students came from the 51- to 80-point range of measured academic ability. You could call them academically average. The idea that Finland recruits the academically “best and brightest” to become teachers is a myth. In fact, the student cohort represents a diverse range of academic success, and deliberately so.

If Finnish teacher educators thought that teacher quality correlates with academic ability, they would have admitted my niece and many of her peers with superior school performance. Indeed, the University of Helsinki could easily pick the best and the brightest of the huge pool of applicants each year, and have all of their new trainee teachers with admirable grades.

But they don’t do this because they know that teaching potential is hidden more evenly across the range of different people. Young athletes, musicians and youth leaders, for example, often have the emerging characteristics of great teachers without having the best academic record. What Finland shows is that rather than get “best and the brightest” into teaching, it is better to design initial teacher education in a way that will get the best from young people who have natural passion to teach for life.

The teaching profession has become a fashionable topic among education reformers around the world. In England, policy-makers from David Cameron down have argued that the way to improve education is to attract smarter people to be teachers. International organisations such as the OECD and McKinsey & Company, Sir Michael Barber for Pearson, and in the US, Joel Klein, former New York education chancellor now working for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, have all claimed that the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers. These are myths and should be kept away from evidence-informed education policies and reforms.

A good step forward would be to admit that the academically best students are not necessarily the best teachers. Successful education systems are more concerned about finding the right people to become career-long teachers. Oh, and what happened to my niece? She applied again and succeeded. She graduated recently and will be a teacher for life, like most of her university classmates.

• Pasi Sahlberg is visiting professor at Harvard graduate school of education and author of Finnish Lessons 2.0: What can the world learn from educational change in Finland?

Teach For Finland? Why it won’t happen.

You’ve certainly heard of Teach For America but you may not know that its founder, Wendy Kopp, now runs a related organization called Teach For All which is a network of TFA-like school reform organizations in a few dozen countries around the world. One place there isn’t such an affiliate is in Finland. Why that is so is explained in the following post by Finnish educator and scholar Pasi Sahlberg, who is one of the world’s leading experts on school reform and educational practices. Sahlberg is the author of the best-selling “Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn About Educational Change in Finland?” — originally published in 2011 and just republished in an updated edition – which details how Finland created its world-class school system. The former director general of Finland’s Center for International Mobility and Cooperation, Sahlberg is now a visiting professor of practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He has written a number of important posts for this blog, including “What if Finland’s great teachers taught in U.S. schools,” and “What the U.S. can’t learn from Finland about ed reform.” Here is a new piece that debunks some myths about teachers and teacher preparation. You can find more about him here on his website.

By Pasi Sahlberg

If you ask anyone why kids do better in school in Finland than other countries, you will probably hear one answer more often anything else: They have great teachers. It is true that Finnish teachers are well prepared, widely respected and commonly trusted professionals. But are education systems successful just because of great teachers? Many would emphatically say “yes.” I would say, however, “not so fast!”

Many of us are delighted that teachers are now recognized as key players in efforts to improve the quality of education systems. The International Summit on Teaching Profession, an annually organized gathering of education ministers and union leaders around the world, is just one of the new forums where teachers are at the center of attention. We now know more and understand better teachers’ lives and their work as a result of increased academic research and global surveys done by international organizations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and Education International (EI). However, the extent that teachers can make a difference in student learning in school remains a question with different answers.

In Finland, entry into teacher education is one of the most competitive among any field in higher education. Since all teachers must hold advanced academic degrees and they are therefore relatively well-paid and protected professionals, teaching is an attractive career choice among young Finns. And yes, teachers in Finland also have good working conditions in schools and a moderate teaching load by international standards. According to the recent Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) by the OECD, middle school teachers in Finland teach, on average, 21 hours and work 32 hours a week.

A frequently cited claim is that the best-performing education systems recruit their teachers from the pool of brightest graduates. Whatever that means, it’s a myth not supported by evidence. The logic is that the smarter the person entering the teaching profession, the better teacher she or he will become. Getting the best and the brightest into teaching has therefore become a policy mantra repeated in education policies and reforms around the world.

There are those who argue that fast-track teacher preparation models, like Teach For America and its sister organizations in many countries, are justified by referring to more successful education systems like Finland. They say that just as Finland selects its teacher candidates from the best available young people, these alternative teacher preparation programs recruit only the best to become teachers in demanding schools with a notable proportion of disadvantaged children.

Then there are those who go even further, claiming that there are many similarities between the Finnish and TFA conception of teaching. I would argue that these two could not be further apart from one another. Here are three reasons why.

Teacher education vs. short-course preparation. All teachers in Finland must hold a master’s degree either in education (primary school teachers) or in subjects that they teach (lower- and upper-secondary school teachers). Primary school teachers in Finland go through rigorous academic education that normally lasts five to six years and can only be done in one of the research universities that offer teacher education degrees. This advanced academic program includes modules on pedagogy, psychology, neuroscience, curriculum theories, assessment methods, research methods and clinical practical training in teacher training school attached to the university. Subject teachers complete advanced academic studies in their field and combine that with an additional year of an educational program. This approach differs dramatically from the one employed by TFA, requiring only five or six weeks of summer training for college graduates, with limited clinical training in the practice of teaching.

Life-time career vs. short-term experience. Teaching is a competitive career choice in Finland and therefore very popular among upper-secondary school graduates. According to a recent study on the teaching profession in Finland, four out of five teachers are satisfied with their work and just about 9 percent of teachers have left the teaching profession for some other job. In 2012, a Finnish teacher’s career lasted approximately 40 years, while a typical teacher has about 16 years of teaching experience. During their work in school, most teachers – in fact, over 95 percent – are members of the Trade Union of Education in Finland (OAJ), an association of all educators, which belongs to the Confederation of Unions for Academic Professionals in Finland (AKAVA). This is strikingly different from TFA corps members who only commit to teach for two years and normally have loose connections to professional communities of teachers. In 2012, a study on teachers in America shows, the typical teacher in the United States was someone in his or her fifth year. By contrast, 20 years ago, the typical teacher in the United States was in his or her sixteenth year.

Social capital vs. human capital in the teaching profession. In Finland, teaching is regarded as a team sport built on teacher collaboration. Teachers are members of professional teams that share the same goals and purposes. Most schools in Finland have both physical space and time for teachers to work together within every school day. School improvement and professional development focus on enhancing personal work and organizational performance and they normally have strong emphasis on teamwork, collaboration with teachers and schools, and shared leadership. Enhancing social capital is as important as improving human capital in Finnish schools. This differs from the logic of the fast-track teacher preparation programs that build on human capital and often undermine the role of social capital, such as professional learning communities and teacher networks, as the critical element of high-quality teaching and learning in school.

It is true that only about 10 percent of those who send an application to primary school teacher education programs in Finnish research universities will be accepted each year. But that doesn’t mean that Finland recruits teacher candidates from the top 10 percent of upper-secondary school graduates. The admission system is designed in a way that it gives all students interested in becoming a teacher an equal starting point. The students that are recruited to academic teacher education programs each year at the University of Helsinki, for example, have surprisingly diverse academic profiles. The typical freshman teacher education student is one who had slightly above average grades as an upper-secondary student and slightly above average scores on the matriculation exam.

Finnish teacher educators don’t think that superior academic performance would necessarily correspond with being a great teacher. Selection to teacher education in Finland focuses on finding those individuals who have the right personality, advanced interpersonal skills, and the right moral purpose to become lifelong educators. TFA is for many a stepping-stone to prestigious careers in law, banking, business, and public policy while in Finland teaching is a lifetime commitment.

And because Finns think of teaching as a high-status profession akin to medicine, law, or engineering, there is no room for Teach For Finland, just as there’s no room for Cure for Finland or any other short cut to trusted professions.

District Administration Magazine Webinar on Blended Learning…..check it out

Blended learning – the powerful combination of real-time and online interaction— is being adopted across the country to improve math teaching and student learning. By implementing an online supplemental math program that utilizes intelligent adaptive learning™ technology, your school or district can easily and effectively provide personalized instruction in the classroom and at home for all students, regardless of level or ability. Attend this web seminar to learn how to get started with blended learning and the keys to successfully adopting this latest technology to improve achievement of your elementary math students.

Topics will include:

• The importance and efficacy of blended learning
• Evaluating curriculum and blended learning model options
• The latest and most effective technology used in elementary-level mathematics

http://www.districtadministration.com/webseminar/principal%E2%80%99s-guide-blended-learning-elementary-mathematics

20 Tips for Creating a Professional Learning Network

“20 Tips for Creating a Professional Learning Network” by Miriam Clifford first appeared on the InfomED blog.

Networking is a prime form of 21^st century learning.  The world is much smaller thanks to technology.  Learning is transforming into a globally collaborative enterprise.  Take for example scientists; professional networks allow the scientific community to share discoveries much faster.

Just this month, a tech news article showcased how Harvard scientists are considering that “sharing discoveries is more efficient and honorable than patenting them.”  This idea embodies the true spirit of a successful professional learning network: collaboration for its own sake.

As educators, we aim to be connected to advance our craft.  On another level, we hope to teach students to use networks to prepare for them for a changing job market.  But what is the best way to approach PLNs?

Learning networks are based on the theory of connectivism, or learning from diverse social webs.  Connectivism implies that learning relies on communicating ideas with others.  PLNs facilitate learning through meaningful interactions.  The advantages of PLNs today are two-fold.  In one way, they can improve classroom teaching and help develop new projects. On the other hand, they act as a form of communal intelligence that changes societal perceptions.

What are some ways to grow your PLN and improve the quality of your interactions?  As you will see, there are diverse ways to build your network and many new management tools.   Here are some simple tips:

10 Tips For Using PLN’s

1. Keep the spirit of collaboration as your driving force.  PLNs are all about working together.  Be reciprocal and resourceful.  Don’t think about what you have to gain, first think about what you have to give. Why?  Because it’s the right thing to do.  By buying into the process and sharing useful information, your PLN grows naturally.  Collaboration creates a common ground and allows others to see your interests.  Genuine interest builds a solid, authentic network.  Try to see the big picture of how your ideas can change the world.  Social responsibility is the best kind of motivation for establishing a PLN.

1. Join an online community.  Nings are online rings of people with similar interests. Sharing ideas and contacting people for direct feedback is more effective in a community setting.   Communities such as, Classroom 2.0  and The Educator’s PLN provide a meaningful circle of experts.  They provide professional development resources, such as online events, and are a great place to start networking.  Plus, using Mightybell, Edmodo, or Ning you can create your own virtual space to share pictures, documents, calendars, or projects.

1. Join a Meetup group.  Meetups are common thread interest groups that meet in the real world.  The groups can also extend in social networks.  For instance, social studies teachers in your district or city might create a group to share teaching ideas.  Meetups take online networks and bring them into the real world.  And if you can’t meet online try using a cyberspace, like Google+ HangOut, SecondLife, or Skype. Some university academics even have virtual labs on SecondLife.

1. Become a beacon of light.  PLNs rely on open sharing of information.  So if you know something, share it!  It’s best to start with a specific interest and then grow into other topics as time goes on. Become an expert in your niche by researching current trends.  This will draw a larger following on your network, because you can provide a novel source of information.  You might write a blog, start a Scoopit page to repost interesting articles, share a free tool, or create a Youtube video.  Cater to your strengths and use what’s comfortable for you.

1. Don’t be afraid to ask questions.  After all, PLNs are all about learning.  But don’t ask questions that you can easily research yourself.  Try simple searches on TED talks, Wikis, blogs, or news articles before posting a question. Try to be specific and think of how a question might generate interest from others.  For example, you may want to refer to an article or research study when asking a question.  Be specific!  This will generate the best answers.

1. Be an active participant.  Brain power is the main asset of a PLN.  Spend some time to identify a specific cause and communicate it on your profile.  Let your knowledge of a specific cause help grow your PLN.  Keep up to date with your niche.  Stay relevant.  Try to post at least once a week.

1. Remember to be polite and acknowledge contributions to the rightful owner. Show common respect for the people in your network.  This may seem like common sense, but can be a pitfall.  It took me some time to learn “web etiquette” over the years, but it has helped me tremendously.   Send thank you notes, acknowledgements, and use your true voice.  Not only does it make the other person’s day, but it will help you gain more meaningful connections.

1. Designate a professional and personal account.  I keep my social life on Facebook and my professional life on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+.  There can be some crossover, but it’s best to keep it minimal so things are easy to find.  Certain groups will appreciate different types of content.  Your Facebook friends might find your baby’s stories adorable, but your Twitter followers might not appreciate extra messages cluttering their inbox.  Do this in ways that are comfortable to you.  You might designate accounts for each sphere of your life.

1. Create a landing page.  It may be a good idea to consolidate all of your accounts on a landing page.  A webpage or personal blog will make it easier for people to find you.  It will also create a space where you can showcase the different projects you are working on.

1. Engage newbies.  It is best to include a mix of newbies, peers, and experts.  Having this type of diversity in knowledge allows you to increase your mentoring skills.  It keeps with the essence of collaboration.  One blogger in Australia provided a great visual and commentary on how varying levels of expertise are vital to developing a meaningful PLN.  He describes how he learned in a PLN learning MOOC that the 3’Rs have been replaced by the 3 C’s Collaborate, Communicate, and Create.  PLNS create new projects through the power of active collaboration.

10 Tools & Strategies for Establishing a Productive PLN

1. Use Diigo, Evernote, Pocket, or Delicious to bookmark links.  You can access them anywhere and on any device.  For example, Diigo is like creating your own personal library.  Diigo is the preferred tool for educators.
2. It allows you to highlight paragraphs and clip pictures while you are reading.
3. You can bookmark a page in a “virtual” library or online archive, even PDFs or videos.  You can add your own tags to search for information later.
4. Your entire school and class can add Diigo as a group, so that you can share resources.  For example, a chemistry class might share a digital periodic table, online lessons, or practice assignments.  Here is a great video about how to set up Diigo specifically for education.  They have specific accounts for educators to create a shared school library.

1. Use a reader to subscribe to blogs.  Google reader allows you to manage multiple subscriptions to blogs. This allows easier access to new research.  You can also use an application like Scribd or Yahoo News Social to publically share what you read with others.

1. Establish your own platform. Consider establishing a blog site on WordPress or blogger.com.  A blog provides a worldwide stage to share your views of education. You can spread your passion and find kindred spirits.  From there, you can develop lasting connections and plan new projects.  Fellow bloggers will appreciate the time you put into creating meaningful materials. Your ideas can be then be re-shared as a link. Many teachers keep class webpage or use applications such as PB works to share ideas.

1. Share on Twitter first. Twitter reigns king, for now.  Anything can change with technology, but Twitter is the most commonly used tool among academics for expanding PLNs.  LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google+ also provide access to different types of networks. Later, you can use other tools to further expand and manage your network, such as Skype and Google tools. Many new platforms are emerging so stay current by reading tech or social media news on a site such as, Mashable.

1. Consider your role. The article “Individual Learning” sheds some light on learning roles. Consider your learning style when designing a specific approach to your PLN:
2. Activist-Learning by doing, such as writing a blog.
3. Reflector- Learn by reviewing situations, such as posting opinions to articles.
4. Theorist-Prefer to learn by researching information and data, such as by creating a model.
5. Pragmatist-Apply learning to real situations, such as by creating a project that uses PLNs in the classroom.

According to Wikipedia, PLN roles can include, “searcher, assemblator, designer of data, innovator of subject matter, and researcher”.

1. Aggregate resources together. Applications like FlipToast and HootSuite allow you to merge all of your social media accounts into one interface. You may want to play around with different types of portals until you find the one that is right for you. Map out an organized plan for using your PLN. There is a great chart of resources for mapping out your PLN plan on this blog.

1. Take a free course to learn about PLNs. MOOCs are Massive Online Open Courses that are free to the public.  For instance, this course complete with handouts shows you how to establish a PLN.  You learn actively by taking small steps to create your PLN, such as creating a blog, twitter account, and content.

1. Stay current with new tools. For example, try Pearltrees. This is one of my favorite new tools for PLNs.  Pearltrees is basically a visual organizer for your links.  Pearls are collaborative and public.  You can add pearls as you browse and share them with others on Twitter and Facebook.  Customize your experience.   There are many specific tools on different applications that allow you to customize and organize your PLN to fit your own needs.  Chrome and Windows 8 have several free applications that are worth trying.

1. Simplify logins. You can speed up the log in process by installing a Password management application.  To further simply your PLN, use Google to keep a shared document drive, email, chat, and Google+ networking in one place.

1. Establish a classroom learning network. Share your own expertise with other educators on a website or blog.  Create a class website or teach students how to create their own PLN. You might want to design a classroom project that relies on using one aspect of PLNs.  Doing so allows you to learn new ways to use PLNs. A YouTube video, The Networked Student, does an excellent job of explaining how a student might engage in a PLN. Teach students how to establish a PLN in small steps.  For instance, they might use Google scholar to research a paper or share ideas on Google Hangouts.

PLNs are a powerful change agent. And in today’s world an online professional learning network is indispensable.  Technology allows easy access to an unparalleled network of professional resources. Growing your network can lead to opportunities for professional growth and help change the future of education.

Feel free to add the InformED team on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

Read more: http://newsroom.opencolleges.edu.au/features/20-tips-for-creating-a-professional-learning-network/#ixzz2HaWJm6DB

Managing your digital footprint…

“Everything you say and do online can have an impact on your reputation. The Internet is a vast collection of details, and you might be surprised at just how much information on you can impact how you look and how you are perceived as a person and a professional.”

The infographic is split into 4 sections:

1. What is an e-reputation?
2. Why online reputations matter
3. What potential employers are watching for
4. What can you do about it?

I’ve included the final section below, but please please look at the previous ones too (click the image for the full infographic) as the information is well presented and well worth a couple of minutes of your time – if for nothing else so you can be sure you’re doing it right.

“Protect your e-reputation and boost your digital presence by staying on top of what’s being said about you online and developing a real digital strategy. Do it for yourself, for your professional life, for your friends and family – and your sanity.”

US Drops in Global Innovation Rankings

The United States may be home to Facebook, Google, Apple, and taco shells made of Doritos, but according to a recent international study, our nation is becoming less innovative, at least compared to last year. After ranking 7th in 2011, the U.S. is ranked 10th in this year’s Global Innovation Index, a massive report published by Insead, an international business school, and the World Intellectual Property Organization, an agency of the United Nations.

The daily scoop is out!!!