Powerful Teaching and Learning

Blog

The Power of 360

June 25th, 2008

Let’s face it, we are all nervous about soliciting feedback from others. If you ask the question, what if you don’t like the answer? You still have to deal with it.

Being reflective about our practice as educators or administrators is about taking some risks, but remaining committed to constant improvement is essential to our end goal: providing the best possible education for tomorrow’s leaders.

Someone just shared this article about the 360 process with me, and I think it is an amazing example of how powerful it can be. This quote, in particular, really drove it home:

Gill, who also did a 360-degree review last year, said it’s helpful both to him and to school board members, who may have little or no contact with most district employees.

“It’s good to know how people feel, to get that raw, anonymous feedback,” he said. “It helps shape the decisions you make.”

If you are curious about how a 360 process works, and how you might get the ball rolling, check out our Extraordinary Leaders Institute page or visit our partner, The Leadership Innovations Team, who provide the Extraordinary Leader Training, for more information.

Posted in News | Comments (0)

Podcast #3: Joy Landsdowne, Elementary School Principal

May 29th, 2008

We’ve been having some great conversations with people lately about our podcast series. Here’s what people are telling us: We Want More!

In the same way that we consistently hear teachers tell us how much they value having time to collaborate with their colleagues, it seems that most of you out there are eager to hear other schools tell their stories.

We’ll continue the series as long as we keep getting the kind of feedback that we’ve received so far, so if you enjoy hearing how other people have implemented PTL, please leave a comment or shoot us an email to let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

In Podcast #3, I talk to Joy Landsdowne of Glenwood Elementary School. We had a great discussion about how Glenwood got started with PTL, what they did to ensure universal buy-in, how they moved forward, and what kind of results that they’ve seen. This is a longer podcast at around 32 minutes long, but it’s one of our best yet, so we’ll hope you’ll find a corner of your day to listen along. If you’d rather have time to comb through the content slowly, you can download a transcript of the interview from our Resources Page.

(Don’t forget: Due to the size of the audio file, it may take a few moments to load.)

Posted in Strategies, Tips, Success Stories, Podcast | Comments (0)

Meet Our New Partner: PTL and CEE Align to Raise Student Achievement

April 24th, 2008

We’re thrilled to announce our new partnership with the Center for Educational Effectiveness to provide dynamic, well-rounded, results-oriented professional development solutions for educators.

With years of experience working with hundreds of schools, both organizations bring a strong commitment to empowering educators to raise student achievement through a combination of analysis, reflection, action-planning, leadership development, and rigorous attention to improving instructional practice.

What’s the Scoop
The partnership will leverage the strength of each organization: Using the Instructional Team Profile (ITP), CEE creates a comprehensive, visual data portfolio based on 7 highly effective practices for instruction:

1. Effective, Standard-based Instruction
2. High Quality, Student-centered Instruction
3. High Levels of Student Engagement
4. Use of Assessment For Student Learning
5. Positive Behavior Management Strategy
6. Clear Evidence of Student Learning
7. Collaboration and Teamwork for Effective Instruction

This data portfolio is friendly, useful, and meaningful to your school population and pinpoints student needs to indicate intervention steps. CEE provides organizations with data that informs appropriate changes in curriculum, instructional practice, assessment and the systems that are in place to increase student learning and achieve second order changes.

The ITP will enable Powerful Teaching and Learning Into Practice to help schools and districts interpret and dig deeper into this data and, more importantly, put it to work. It provides a powerful formative tool to establish a common vocabulary and will enable teachers and teams of teachers to view their instructional skills, as perceived by themselves and their team members.

About the Survey
THE ITP— Instructional Team Profile
The ITP—”Instructional Team Profile” is a formative feedback tool designed to promote collaboration, common language and consistent practice in support of effective classroom instruction.

• Research-based
• A formative profile
• Provides results that support and focus professional development
• Provides a framework of common language around effective instruction
• Unlike many observation protocols, this tool looks beyond student behavior

For more information on the ITP, you can visit our resources page to check out a sample survey or download the brochure from CEE. If you have questions or feedback about the new partnership with CEE, we’d love to hear from you.

Feel free to contact us directly, or leave a comment.

Cheers,
Heather

Posted in News | Comments (0)

Podcast #2: Russ Waterman from Eastmont High School

April 4th, 2008

The feedback from our first podcast was overwhelming and since it was so clear that listening to other educators talk about implementation was so powerful, we put together another one for you.

This time I spoke to Russ Waterman, Assistant Principal at Eastmont High School. Russ and I had a chance to discuss how Eastmont High School has been able to start a teacher-driven, grass roots movement around Powerful Teaching and Learning.

The interview is about 15 minutes long and we’ll have a transcript available in the next day or two in case you’d prefer to read along. Use the tools at the bottom of this post to listen directly from this page or in a separate pop-up, however you’d prefer. I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback if you have a moment to leave a comment or send an email!

Posted in Motivation, Tips, Success Stories | Comments (0)

PTL in Wapato Middle School: Q&A with Linda Heade

February 26th, 2008

We recently began work with Wapato Middle School, and I had a chance to catch up with Linda Heade, the SIF at WMS, so she could give me some feedback about how the early stages of their implementation have been progressing. I thought I’d share our exchange - I was particularly interested in her feedback around why the program has been successful.

Continue reading…

Posted in News, Success Stories | Comments (0)

More From OSPI: Principal Support - Leadership Training and Executive Coaching Presentation

February 3rd, 2008

If there’s one thing that you can count on it’s this: I love talking about leadership.

Seriously. Get me started and you’re going to have a hard time shutting me up. So I was elated to find that my presentation at OSPI’s conference last week was full. A whole room full of people to share my passion with!

I was presenting on behalf of my company, the Leadership Innovations Team (PTL’s partner organization) and covered Leadership Training and Executive Coaching and I did my best to really dig into these two areas of professional development with the limited time that I had. We discussed the research, the payoff, and the basics about how coaching works and why its one of the most effective professional development tools available today.

I had a great group (by the way, thank you to everyone who attended!) and I feel great about the presentation.

I wanted to take a moment to share my slides with everyone who wasn’t able to attend. Please leave a comment or contact us if you have any questions or would like additional information on coaching, leadership, or professional development in general.

You can also download a PDF of this presentation from our Resources page.

Enjoy! I’d love hear your feedback!

Cheers,
Heather

Posted in News, Reading_and_Resources | Comments (0)

Check Out Alison’s Presentation from the OSPI Conference: Bridging the Implementation Gap

January 31st, 2008

Alison and Heather just got back from the 2008 OSPI Conference in Spokane, Washington and were thrilled to be able to present to packed houses for both of their sessions.

We’re working on getting all of the supporting handouts and slides up and available on the resources page but, for now, feel free to take a peek at the deck from Alison’s presentation:

They’ll be available as a PDF soon!

Heather Knight’s ” Leadership Training and Executive Coaching: Ensuring New Principal Support is Effective, Consistent, and Research-Based” presentation (from the Leadership Innovations Team) will be available shortly as well.

Posted in News | Comments (0)

Our First Podcast: Jean Lane Talks about PTL Implementation at Richland School District

January 11th, 2008

I got a chance to catch up with Jean via phone a few weeks ago to catch up with her about Richland’s implementation progress. We’ve created a 20 minute podcast of the interview so that you can listen to some of the great tips she gave me, and learn a little bit about how one district is using powerful teaching and learning to transform their culture and make huge improvements.

Check it out here or just hit the play button at the end of this post.  (It may take a few moments to download for you - I promise it’s worth the wait!)
Cheers,
Alison

Posted in Strategies, Tips, Noteworthy | Comments (2)

OSPI and UW Release New Report, Provide Insight Into Improving Mathematics Instruction

August 28th, 2007

The University of Washington and the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction recently released a new report called, “Teaching Math in Washington’s High Schools:Insights from a Survey of Teachers in High Performing or Improving Schools”.

I haven’t had time to dig into the entire report yet, but I was immediately struck by some of the insights highlighted in the executive summary. Among them:

A strong sense of professional community is reported by teachers as a key factor contributing to their school’s success in working with mathematics students. Most teachers indicate they work together to select content, topics and skills to be taught, as well as to share ideas about how to help underperforming students… The math teachers report finding the most guidance and support for improving their own math instruction from other teachers in their building or from their math department chair or lead teacher.

Continue reading…

Posted in News, Noteworthy, Reading_and_Resources | Comments (0)

Today in the NY Times: Retention Issues Plague Schools

August 27th, 2007

As I was waiting for my double americano this morning I glanced down at the New York Times. There on the front page was an article entitled, “With Turnover High, Schools Fight For Teachers”. (you may have to register to read that after today, but registration is free and easy, I promise.)

One of the things that I found particularly interesting in this article was this:

Superintendents and recruiters across the nation say the challenge of putting a qualified teacher in every classroom is heightened in subjects like math and science and is a particular struggle in high-poverty schools, where the turnover is highest.

We’ve been thinking a lot of about the specific needs of math and science teachers lately,  Continue reading…

Posted in News | Comments (0)