A Menu Worth Reading

Every professional knows the importance of professional development.  Too often in educational settings it can feel like you are sitting in a room hearing information that may not apply to your teaching assignment or content area.  At Linn-Mar the High School Teaching and Learning Director Jeff Frost and four high school teacher leaders recently collaborated on a professional development day.  Their partnership resulted in a menu of options for teachers to peruse before selecting their learning for the day.

To help understand the needs of teachers at the high school, Sheri Crandall, high school instructional strategist, kept a log of wants and needs staff members had in regard to training and professional development.  She also gathered information from other schools with successful PD programs, like Waukee. After discussing those ideas with other teacher leaders:  Sue Atwater (mentor coach), Tina Oberbroeckling (instructional strategist), and Dana Lampe (technology integration coach) they all met with Jeff Frost to discuss their ideas and come up with a plan.  They took the needs/ideas from the staff and developed 14 professional learning sessions that would interest the high school staff.  Jeff Frost and the teacher leaders were able to find teachers, Grantwood AEA staff, and community resources, such as Officer Daubs to facilitate and teach the sessions.

The day started with a whole staff session on SOS(Signs of Suicide) presentation by Pete Martin, counselor and Lisa Mooney, social worker. Each teacher was assigned to three, morning sessions based on his/her interests.  The afternoon was comprised of department time.  The goal as was to provide staff with the most effective and individualized professional development day possible. The high school coaches and strategists assumed the role of the “resource provider” and “learning facilitator” to create this day for staff.   Teachers requested more “TIME,” so Crandall and the others gave them a block of 3 hours of department/PLC time in the afternoon to work on proficiency scales, priority standards, RTI, enrichment, updating curriculum maps, or whatever their department needed.

This day was packed full of what staff needed to meet their personal needs as well as continue meaningful progress on district initiatives. This menu of learning provided staff with an opportunity to advocate for professional development pertinent to each teacher’s content area.  Because this day was so successful, the high school teacher leaders are in the process of planning a new menu of nearly 30 workshop choices for the next PD day in February.

Well-done Linn-Mar High School!

Coaching Leaders

What do you do when you want to get better at something? 

Practice?

Study?

Train?

Ask for help from the experts?

That’s right.  As Linn-Mar rolled out our plan for leadership, we knew what we needed as a strong foundation:    coaching and training future coaches to help build capacity and promote change within our schools.  To help us head down the right path, we did a little research and found Chrysann McBride from Thinking Collaborative, an organization known for great training and coaching. 

The mission of Cognitive Coaching^SM is to produce self-directed persons with the cognitive capacity for excellence both independently and as members of a community. Research indicates that teaching is a complex intellectual activity and that teachers who think at higher levels produce students who are higher achieving, more cooperative, and better problem solvers. It is the invisible skills of teaching, the thinking processes that underlie instructional decisions, which produce superior instruction. Cognitive Coaching^SM is a research-based model that capitalizes upon and enhances teachers’ cognitive processes. 

Forty-one staff members, comprised of administrators, district leaders, teacher leaders, and classroom teachers participated in the eight days of training. 

In the eight-day seminar, participants learned how to build trust and rapport, developed tools and conversation structures for planning, reflecting and problem resolving.  Participants worked on developing higher levels of efficacy, consciousness, craftsmanship, flexibility and interdependence.  There was also heavy emphasis coaching, evaluating, consulting, and collaborating.  Participants worked extensively on utilizing the coaching tools of pausing, paraphrasing, and posing questions.

These skills will be invaluable to building capacity and changing the climate and culture of our schools.  We are fired up about our experiences and look forward to continued practice in coaching to help our staff continue to:

 Inspire Learning.  Unlock Potential.  Empower Achievement.

New Year. Fresh Outlook. Same Goals.

It's a new year!  Some people greet the new year with disdain when contemplating goals, or thinking of a resolution, or they embrace it with enthusiasm, and a renewed sense of purpose.  A New Year is an exciting time to plan ahead, dream big, and reach for the stars.  Amid all the fireworks, and corks popping, one thing remains the same at Linn-Mar:  Our Teacher Leaders are committed to the Goals of the plan that we have been fervently implementing.  

At Linn-Mar our Teacher Leadership Goals remain the same:  

• Capitalize on excellent teacher resources in the District
• Cultivate and train teachers in the leadership program
• Infuse best practices and cutting edge learning into the schools via Instructional Coaches and other classroom leaders
• Institute an adult learning model
• Improve day-to-day delivery of instruction
• Make adequate yearly growth in all buildings as outlined in the CSIP Plan in the areas of reading, mathematics, science, technology, and safe schools
• Improve student performance and achievement​

Make no mistake, winter break was a gift. Starting fresh is a good thing, and we are ready.
We are rested.  We are refreshed.  We are inspired.  We are well-read, and have reflected on the first six months of our program.  We are back in the trenches and sharing best practices with our teachers and staff.  So, while you are making your New Year's goals, you can rest easy knowing that Linn-Mar Teachers and Staff are working just as hard as ever in our schools.

Happy New Year and Happy Learning!

~If you are new to our blog and want more information on the Teacher Leadership Program at Linn-Mar, follow this link:  http://www.linnmar.k12.ia.us/tlp/default.asp