You may have seen the “Brace Yourselves…More Meetings are Coming” meme inspired by Game of Thrones.  I’ve seen that one circulate the hallways.  A couple of years ago I also saw a copy of Lencioni’s book “DEATH by Meeting” prominently displayed in a few conspicuous spots around the office.  It was a not-so-subtle hint from staff.  While the entertainment industry provides us with a wide selection of office-inspired comedy choices, I’m surprised there isn’t even more.  Meetings at work are such an easy target for a good laugh.  And yet, in the world of organizational health and governance of human systems, meetings are unavoidable, if not sometimes essential.  In fact, a recent piece I read in the New Yorker entitled “Was E-mail a Mistake” tells the history of e-mail and how some companies are going back to meetings as the communication method of choice.  While the relative merits of asynchronous versus synchronous communication will continue to be debated (I, for one, am exhausted by the nonstop email tsunami), there is still room for improvement on the quality of our meetings.

In the education space, perhaps the most common meeting is a school’s Instructional Leadership Team (ILT) meeting.  The ILT is typically comprised of administrators and key staff members who come together periodically to, as the name suggests, provide instructional leadership at the school site.  In fact, in some states an ILT is required by law.  While the ILT meeting might be ubiquitous in schools, those meetings vary tremendously in the degree to which they actually address instruction.  In many cases, the ILT functions much more like a faculty senate, where conversations more closely resemble negotiations or event planning, rarely pushing into the much more contentious terrain of addressing instructional practice in classrooms.  Members on the ILT are usually happy to provide input and opinions about how to run the school.  Addressing the quality of instruction in other classrooms can be much trickier business.

On one level, the typical ILT focus on school logistics is absolutely fair.  There is a lot going on in schools, with a lot of stakeholder needs and perspectives to consider.  School events, procedures, and decisions about investment of scarce resources are matters that absolutely require input and consideration from a more distributed decision-making body than the principal or admin team alone.  Often, the ILT becomes the de facto governing body of the school, where concerns are raised and ideas about improvements are deliberated and discussed.  There needs to be a designated space for this type of work to happen.

The unfortunate thing, however, is that decisions about logistics and management of the school often crowd out any focus on what should matter most, which is the quality of the learning experience for students.  City et. al (2009) famously outline the concept of the instructional core, that posits, among other things, that student learning can only improve as a consequence of “improvements in the level of content, teachers’ knowledge and skill, and student engagement.”  In other words, everything else happening in schools is secondary to what happens in classrooms.  Ironically, what is happening in classrooms does not always make the ILT agenda.

As a high school principal, I found much the same challenge at times with our “Lead Team.”  My Lead Team was a talented group whom I really did see as valuable instructional leaders.  Yet I too found that the majority of our planning time together was dedicated to matters of school administration and logistics.  Even though I wanted to change this, it proved surprisingly difficult to focus the majority of our time on matters of instruction.  My frustration with this finally led me to make a structural change, which was to add a second leadership team that would focus exclusively on instruction.  Yes, we even called it our “Instructional Leadership Team.”

In theory, this was a step in the right direction to ensure that more of our leadership resources were focused on improving instructional practices in classrooms across the school.  As is usually the case, reality proved to be a bit more complex.  The primary challenge was that now we had two leadership teams, and that led to some confusion about priorities and who really had the authority to make decisions.  In schools, being designated as a member of a leadership team by an administrator does not necessarily give you authority to make decisions on behalf of your colleagues.  My Lead Team still held tremendous authority amongst their peers, and so the work of the ILT by default still needed the consideration and approval of the Lead Team if it wanted to go anywhere in practice.

Whatever the structure, it takes consistent dedication and courage to keep your eyes on instructional quality.  It requires a vision for what quality teaching and learning looks like.  It requires continual analysis of student work, peer observations, and courageous conversations about what is working well and what constitutes the next level of work.  It requires a healthy professional culture that welcomes scrutiny and analysis.  The pursuit of that type of professional culture starts with the ILT.  It’s a meeting that says a lot about what is most important to the decision-makers at the school.

Learning objectives have been around for a long time.  With roots in behaviorism and the response of subjects to external stimuli, learning objectives were introduced into public school classrooms to define the impact that teaching had on what students learn.  Beginning in 1962 with the publication of Robert Mager’s Preparing Instructional Objectives, learning objectives have been a popular topic for both education researchers and reformers.  From “SWBATs” to “Aims” to “Learning Targets,” learning objectives are often seen as an entry point for improving classroom instruction.    

While there are arguably multiple ways to write strong objectives, I think there is power in choosing one method and using it across the school as a united adult community.  My personal preference is the Learning Target approach as I find it the most student-friendly.  Below, I share some of the key components of strong objectives, drawing on the work of Moss et. al (2011).

The objective should specify what a student can do as a result of a lesson/project task

Ex. “I can define evolutionary theory and identify examples from nature that support the theory.”

Ex. “I can introduce myself to another student in Spanish.”

Note the student friendly “I can” language used to introduce the objective.  Moss et. al (2011) argue that students “can’t see, recognize, and understand what they need to learn until we translate the learning intention into developmentally appropriate, student-friendly, and culturally respectful language.”  When we write our objectives we should repeat it back to  ourselves and ask whether it makes sense from a student’s perspective. 

The objective is also not too broadly defined.  Instead of outlining what a student can do as the result of an entire unit of study, these objectives are narrow enough to inform students about what they will be able to do as the result of a lesson or project task.  Leahy, et. al (2005) refer to the ideal objective as a lesson-sized amount of learning.

It is important to note that in a PBL setting, student learning will be informed by broad essential questions that guide the entire unit or project, as well as the more focused objective (written using the Learning Target approach) associated with each project task.  When writing an objective, make sure that it is written narrowly enough to be completed within a typical lesson period. Let’s look at an example:

Ex. “I can create my own cartoon character”

This objective might be appropriate for a single lesson or project task.  However, if the teacher envisions this as a project that occurs over several days, then the teacher would need to craft a series of objectives or project tasks that could be assessed in smaller chunks.  Using more narrowly written objectives helps inform the teacher’s instructional design and provides students with more opportunities for feedback and reflection through each lesson or task associated with the project.   

Ex. “I can outline an original cartoon character in pencil”

Ex. “I can add color to an original cartoon character outline”

Ex. “I can add shading and contour to an original cartoon character”

The objective should be used/referred to with students during class

Moss et. al (2011) openly admit that objectives “have no inherent power,” but are only effective to the degree that “educators commit to consistently and intentionally (share) them with students.”  We all know that having an objective written on the board does not ensure that students will understand the purpose behind the lesson.  Two powerful ways to refer to the objective are to frame the lesson using the objective during the introduction, and to refer back to the objective following the outcome of the lesson. 

Ex. “I can define evolutionary theory and identify examples from nature that support the theory.”

Teacher (during introduction): “Okay everyone, I’m going to quickly define evolutionary theory for you to jot into your notebooks, and then we will watch a short 10 minute clip that contains multiple examples from nature that support the theory.  While it is important to know what evolutionary theory is, you also have to prove that you can find real life examples that support the theory.  Remember, at the end of the period I’ll show another clip and you’ll have to spot the examples of evolutionary theory on your own.”

Teacher (following outcome assessment): “All right, you’ve all had the opportunity to choose an example from the clip and defend your selection on your exit slip.  Joey, can you remind us what our goal was for class today? student reads the objective.  That’s right, you were supposed to be able to define evolutionary theory and find examples of it in nature.  With a thumbs up or thumbs down, how many of you think you reached our goal for today?”

The objective should be assessed

I often refer to the formative assessment at the end of each lesson or project task as the “outcome” of the lesson.  Since the objective should be backwards-mapped to the desired outcome of instruction, a well-written objective gives students clear information about how the learning of the day will be assessed.

Ex. “I can introduce myself to another student in Spanish.”

Using this objective, students can clearly see that at the end of the lesson they will be asked to introduce themselves to another student entirely in Spanish.  Teachers should not only take care to write objectives that can actually be assessed, but they should also plan time in their lesson to carry out the assessment. 

Teacher (introducing formative assessment at end of lesson): “While the rest of you get started on the homework assignment I’ve listed on the board, I will be coming around and listening to you introduce yourselves in Spanish with no notes.  I’ll be assessing how well you perform based on the oral expression rubric that we use regularly.” 

Some teachers ask if it is truly necessary to include an assessment at the end of every lesson or project task.  The short answer is yes.  However, an accomplished teacher can use a wide variety of formative assessment techniques, both formal and informal, to assess the learning of the day.  There is no need to always rely on a lengthy or time-consuming assessment strategy. 

While we desire that students be able to consistently articulate both what they are learning and how they will be assessed for that learning, we also want students to understand why it is important in the broader context of the class.  Our ultimate goal is to get students to go even one step further as they learn to recognize and explain the importance that the learning has to the development of their academic identity and future success. 

 

Around the turn of the century, most Santa Ana Unified high schools had graduation rates in the mid 70s.  As with most large urban school districts, Santa Ana struggled tremendously to meet the needs of students on the brink of dropping out.  Fast forward to today and you see most schools with 4-year cohort graduation rates in the mid 90s, with a district-wide average over 90% that is on par with other Orange County districts.  Of course we celebrate this dramatic shift.  A major component of that shift has been the investment in our EdOptions schools.  These programs, commonly referred to elsewhere as continuation or alternative schools, provide students with access to non-traditional pathways to a high school diploma.  At one point, one in every six graduates in the district had been serviced by an EdOptions program, whether via a formal transfer of schools or through picking up credits through an Independent Studies or Credit Recovery course.

But our past success is not enough, and our Board of Education has challenged us to develop and implement a graduation support plan that will ensure 100% of our students make it to graduation.  90% is not acceptable.  We don’t want to lose a single student along the way.

  

With that planning in mind, members of our leadership team recently visited Columbus High School in Downey Unified, a school that has been dubbed a model continuation school by the state of California.  While we believe we have already developed some tremendous EdOptions programs and pathways, we are always eager to learn from colleagues across schools and districts who are doing great work in this area.  While there were many features at Columbus that caught my attention, there were a few that struck me as particularly essential:

Assessment Periods

For a student struggling to find meaning and purpose at school, a semester can be an eternity.  Often, poor performance during the first few weeks of the semester can lock students into the nearly impossible statistical task of raising a grade to passing.  With a dim hope of passing the class, students may sit for weeks, if not months, with little incentive to participate and engage.   

The hallmark innovation at Columbus, in my opinion, is their practice of shortening the semester into much more manageable month assessment periods.  Instead of 2 semesters during the academic year, or even four quarter-length assessment blocks like we use in Santa Ana, students at Columbus are assessed for credit every month.  The impact of this structural change cannot be overstated.  Students can set shorter term goals, as well as bounce back more quickly from a tough couple of weeks at school.  At Columbus, each month students have the opportunity to earn credit and see their progress.  The school has gone to great lengths to build culture and tradition around these month-long blocks, with monthly excellence assemblies and transfer opportunities.  The school uses a practice of granting partial credit for students transferring into the school, allowing them to maintain credit in classes they were passing at the time of transfer while reducing unnecessary waiting at home schools for students to finish out a semester so they can secure credit in those classes that they are passing.

Getting Progress Data into Student Hands

One critical element of student-centered learning is trusting that students can and will make decisions that are in their best educational interest.  While we all know that human beings are not always rational actors – especially in adolescence – good decision-making at any stage is dependent on having good information.  Columbus goes to great lengths to provide students with clarity about their academic standing and what is required to either transfer back to their home school and/or graduate.  This democratization of progress data is essential, helping students take control of their trajectory, as opposed to relying completely on the adults in the school to continually report and interpret students’ progress and current standing.  The school has developed a customized monthly report card and credit report that students are taught to interpret.  In addition, the school has a tiered “step” system that clearly communicates to each student whether they are on track and eligible to transfer back to their home school and/or graduate from Columbus.  This system integrates each student’s attendance patterns into their current status.  Students are always aware of where they stand, with updates on a monthly basis.

Flexibility and Instructional Skill

Master schedules are a beast.  Trying to match together the needs and interests of students with graduation requirements, teacher credentials and staff preferences is a major endeavor where it often seems nobody wins, including the administrators tasked with building the schedule.  In many schools, master schedule decisions are driven by a subtle hierarchy of power, where requests for courses and prep periods flow to those with more influence.  The goal for many teachers is to reduce variability – both in the number of different subjects being taught as well as the variation in student skill within those classes.  This is an understandable request given the challenge of planning to teach multiple subjects while addressing diverse learning needs.

At Columbus, the master schedule is clearly designed with flexibility for students in mind.  Teachers may have students in different courses during the same period.  For example, a social studies teacher may be teaching some students Economics, while other class members are taking a Government class.   Many EdOptions schools are small, and this type of flexibility allows students more opportunities to get the classes they need the most.  With students constantly switching classes as they gain credits due to the monthly assessment periods, it is essential that the master schedule maintain tremendous flexibility to facilitate student course needs.  While I might argue that hosting multiple subjects and courses in the same classroom is not always the ideal scenario, for a continuation school trying to help students get back on track with credits, it is essential.

Language and Stigma

The way we talk about alternative pathways to a diploma is critical.  In many districts, the way students, teachers, and counselors have historically talked about EdOptions schools is highly critical.  Sometimes, the threat of a transfer is used as a strategy to motivate or scare a student into turning things around at the home school.  Not only do we know that threats of this nature are typically not effective, it has the negative side effect of reinforcing a negative stigma around some of our most innovative and student-centered schools and programs in the district.

As students see our EdOptions programs as a legitimate and even desirable pathway to a diploma, more students and parents will be willing to give it a try.  Our staff spend a tremendous amount of time and energy working with the student and parents who are hesitant to make a switch, only to later realize that the smaller, more personalized learning space was exactly what the student needed.  While many of our students do want to transfer back to their home school, just as many decide they want to stay and finish out high school at the EdOptions site.

The structural differences at Columbus are augmented by ongoing efforts to celebrate students at the school.  Students soon realize that any hesitancy to come to the school was unfounded, and they quickly learn to appreciate the additional supports, enhanced communication, and often more personalized relationships at the school.   

Usually when we think about educational innovation we think about transformation of instructional and pedagogical practices in the classroom.  We rightfully ask ourselves how we can create more student centered classrooms, how we can increase academic discourse amongst students, and how we can genuinely engage all students in meaningful learning.  Indeed, in education, any innovation that doesn’t ultimately lead to the transformation of instructional practices and student engagement in the classroom will fall short.

But innovation in education must extend beyond the classroom if it has any hope of being sustained.  Frankly, our work to launch and sustain a superschool has required us to dig deep into innovations across multiple support divisions.  Providing next-level facilities, ensuring safety (and liability coverage) for students constantly on the move, or managing labor relations when schedules and work hours might shift on a monthly if not daily basis, all require vision, genuine collaboration, and creativity.   

For example, a driving force behind our school design is the belief that in order for students to break out of the cycle of inter-generational poverty, they need access to social capital beyond what the school can offer.  Students need to build relationships with community partners, business leaders, and other potential advocates who can help our kids map future possibilities and navigate the post-secondary worlds of college and career.  They need a support network.  They need people who can open doors and write letters of recommendation and share meaningful advice and insight.  That is why one of core innovations of Círculos is place-based learning.  The idea is to provide a school experience that is not confined to a physical school space.   Our Circulos students are pursuing projects in partnership with community organizations and businesses, which takes them off campus with regularity.

That all sounds great in theory, but imagine the logistical demands of planning what equates to multiple field trips every week. At some point, you have to develop new systems to accommodate the logistical needs of such an endeavor.  Just this week, we brought together our Circulos team with Risk Management & Transportation to talk through the limitations of the current system and continue planning how our small program might pilot improvements that can benefit all of our students and schools.  Together, the team is designing new processes for securing permissions and ensuring better safety.

The same can be said of flexible learning environments.  One of the historical hallmarks of the high school experience over the past century has been the primacy of the traditional bell schedule.  Students rotate from class to class in predictable time increments, usually a different class each hour.  The idea of more flexible schedules, where students can spend more time in areas of greater interest or greater need, is often at the top of the school reformers agenda.  But the logistical task of designing systems that are robust and responsive enough to identify those needs, match them to teachers and classrooms, and communicate promptly to all stakeholders has been daunting.  Technology is definitely helping.  But technology alone cannot account for the tremendous testing and learning that must happen at the student, staff, and school levels to ensure that all of the moving parts come together seamlessly.  Just imagine the planning demands on teachers who work in such flexible environments – where different time blocks for learning, shifting student cohorts, and multiple physical spaces might all be in flux simultaneously.

Another area of logistical innovation has to do with personnel. We’re talking about how we recruit teachers, how we interview and onboard teachers, and how we define our ongoing working conditions and labor relationships with staff members who work in non-traditional educational spaces.  Our team has thought deeply about our process for recruiting, interviewing, and hiring our staff for the school. We wanted the hiring experience and practices to reflect the values and practices that we hope to see at the school and in our classrooms.  With a school name like Circulos, we want to ensure that our students are regularly engaged in academic discourse and reflection with each other.  We therefore designed an interview process that would integrate and model this type of practice with our candidates. In essence, we want to socialize potential employees from the very beginning in the organizational values and practices that we hope to see and expect to see. We perhaps did not realize how much of an innovation this would be in comparison to current practices.

In all of this, one of the most essential ingredients is not innovation or technology at all.  It has been the essential need for humility and perseverance.  Each week our team uncovers new challenges and obstacles.  Each week the depth of the messiness of student-centered learning and the logistical systems around it, reveals itself.  It has been deeply rewarding to witness our team of students and staff who persist in their pursuit of a high school worthy of the title “superschool.”

Earlier this week, I was walking from the parking lot of one of our high schools towards the main academic building when I came across a woman who seemed to be headed in the same direction as me.  I said hello and asked her what had brought her to campus.  Turns out she was a student teacher finishing up her first full semester in the classroom.  She also taught Spanish, which happened to be what I taught before I left the classroom for administration.  I asked a few questions as we walked, the kind you might anticipate in such a  situation.  How has your experience been?  What have you enjoyed about the classroom?  She mentioned the intense days in the classroom and the extended planning at night.  She was genuinely upbeat and optimistic., but also ready for the upcoming holiday break.  She had certainly earned it.  After a short interaction, we split off to our different destinations.

This short interaction put me in a reflective mood about my own student teaching experience.  I look back fondly on those first weeks and months in the classroom.  I still think of the students who went out of their way to encourage me, as well as those who embraced their opportunity to challenge the newbie.  I remember Melvin, a student I simply failed to reach, whose resistance drove my problem solving engines on a daily basis.  I think about my mentor teacher, Ms. Thomas, whose grace and humility working with an over-confident twenty-something upstart I am only now beginning to fully appreciate.

That semester of student teaching was certainly a crash course in all things education.  You have to do everything for the first time.  The amount of thinking, planning, prepping, designing, and revising comes at a pace faster than you can process.  When a lesson falls flat, you just have to move on.  There isn’t time or space to pick up the pieces as the next class of 35 students is filing in.  The resilience and stamina required is incredible, as is the vertical incline of the learning curve.  The physical demands mount, as do the emotional challenges as you wade through disappointments and triumphs.  You get exposed to the inevitable colds and flus of working at a school.   I even lost my voice.

But the learning is remarkable.  Student teaching is about developing your technical core as a teacher – translating curriculum and standards into lesson plans, practicing basic instructional strategies and classroom management techniques.  Every day you are improving and tweaking, failing and moving forward.  And that iterative insight goes far beyond think pair shares and guided note-taking.  Student teaching is an introduction into the deeply human endeavor of motivating, engaging, and developing our children and young people.

I’m not sure I would want to go back and start all over again.  The skills of an experienced teacher or administrator are too hard fought for that.  But I certainly celebrate and encourage those who are embarking on their own professional journey.  As I watched this aspiring teaching make her way to the classroom again, I felt nothing but respect.

I imagine that most schools have rituals for saying goodbye to staff members who will not be returning the next year, whether to retirement, job changes, or life changes.  I clearly remember the English department chair at the large high school where I taught, who always made a point to include those who were leaving or had already left who were not physically present in the room.   She emphasized that while these people might not be in the room, it was essential that we pause as a staff in gratitude for the work that they had done for our school community.  I hope to never forget that gesture of consideration and thanks.

We unexpectedly lost some district team members this fall, and it has been inspiring to see the outpouring of support and gratitude amongst members of our SAUSD family.  It seems particularly appropriate during Thanksgiving season to reflect on the things in my professional life for which I am grateful, a few of which I thought I would share.

Santa Ana Unified

SAUSD.  There is a common joke amongst staff that each year in SAUSD has an equivalent measure in dog years.  Our interim superintendents are just here for 6 months, but we think that qualifies for about 3.5 years of experience.  The volume and pace of the work is relentless, but for those of us who work here, we have come to thrive on the urgency around the work we do for our students.  If there is anything that defines our school district, it is passion.  We share a passion for the work and a passion for improvement.  We have passion for anything and everything that will create pathways and possibilities and opportunities for our students, both now and when they leave us as graduates.  That sense of passion and urgency starts with our board members and moves all the way down and through the organization.  Our collective sense of purpose is present in every conversation.  Not everyone has the opportunity to be in an organization that has such a strong sense about its core purpose.  Of course there are as many opinions about how to move the work and where to focus as there are employees, but what unites us is a shared commitment to the young people of Santa Ana, and that is always something worth being grateful for.

Mentors

I’ve written in the past about the men and women who have, for whatever reason, taken the time and interest in my development as a professional educator.  Sometimes those mentors had a formal supervisory responsibility for me and the work that I was doing.  In other cases, the mentor had less formal ties to my day to day work but still seemed interested in me and my future.  Sometimes, even the title of mentor seems a bit formal for those people who demonstrated care for my professional welfare and were willing to share resources and insights without any explicit expectation to do so.  Just like a child may not recognize the sacrifices and gifts of a parent until becoming a parent himself, I am coming to recognize the commitment and courage that was necessary in those who provided me with time and opportunities to grow and develop as a leader.  I now find myself in a leadership position of signficant responsibility, wondering if I am making the same type of investments in others that mentors of my past made in me.

Public Service & the Rising Generation

Education is a field of public service that focuses specifically on the development and needs of the rising generation.  The opportunity to work with and for young people is truly a gift.  Whether I was working as a classroom teacher, as a site principal, or even now as a district administrator, I regularly have the opportunity to interact with, learn from, and be inspired by young people.  Perhaps that is part of the reason why I try to start every day walking classrooms at one of our schools.  I often tell people that working in education keeps you young.  Even on days when you wake up and may not be feeling the work vibe, as soon as you are around the kids, it’s hard not to have a smile on your face.  I am especially inspired by students who themselves are struggling to be there and overcome the myriad challenges of the day.  How can I not embrace my walk through life when so many around me are rising above their own challenging and circumstances?  To work in a place where that type of inspiration is a daily occurence is a tremendous blessing.

Over the past 10 years, research in educational leadership has clearly identified the principal as a key driver in improving learning outcomes for students.  In fact, the influence of a principal on school improvement and success is second only to the impact of classroom teachers.  Strong principals not only develop and retain stronger teachers, but they create professional environments where less successful teachers tend to leave in higher numbers.  In other words, talented principals have a multiplier effect on the good things happening in classrooms.

As the research world increasingly recognizes the outsize impact of effective school leaders, it has codified a number of critical roles the principal plays.  Most prominent of these is the role of the principal as the instructional leader and organizational manager.  The job of the principal has always been complex and multifaceted, and yet it only seems to increase in its demands.  I came into the principal role with my eyes wide open, knowing that the work would be demanding.  I knew that while I would need to focus on instructional leadership, I would also need to develop my capacity at building strong community partnerships, empowering my parent community, strategically aligning resources to our highest priorities and goals, and ensuring that we maintain a safe and welcoming campus.

Yet even with what I considered a broad awareness of skill demands, there were still job roles that I had not entirely anticipated that required both learning and personal improvement.  To a large degree, these roles were not discussed at any length as part of my formal training and preparation for school leadership, yet remain essential skill sets for aspiring principals nonetheless.   

Marketing & Recruitment Specialist

As a charter high school principal in San Francisco, it became quickly apparent that recruitment and enrollment was going to be a very big deal.  At first, I resisted the role.  I hadn’t gone to school and prepared in the classroom to be an instructional leader to turn around and spend my time as a salesman.  I remember the day before my first big school choice convention, my Assistant Principal went into panic mode when she saw me grab a stack of flyers and a tablecloth and declare that I was ready for the biggest recruiting event of the year.

While being the head of marketing and recruitment was somewhat foreign to me that first semester of principal, I forced myself to learn quickly.  At both private and public school choice events, I watched my colleagues carefully.  I looked closely at their marketing materials and information pamphlets.  I walked the convention hall floor, taking pictures of displays and set-up.  During that first year I taught myself Photoshop, and became a self-taught graphic designer.  I set aside every Tuesday morning during the fall months to personally visit potential feeder schools, and build relationships with counselors and administrators who might influence school choice decisions of students as they transitioned to high schools around the city.

By the end of my tenure as principal, not only did I feel like a seasoned veteran on the school recruitment circuit, I had learned that the biggest impact of my marketing efforts was actually internally within the school itself.  My efforts to build a strong image and reputation externally had solidified the perspectives of my staff and students.  As each recruiting class of students entered the school, I realized that my efforts to strengthen our school culture had started in dozens of weeknight presentations, school open houses, and school choice fairs during the previous year.  Internal marketing is a principle of organizational management and improvement that is largely lost on educators, who may not see the positive socialization and culture building aspects of school marketing.  I learned on the job just how essential a skill set effective marketing and branding was for my school.

Chief Curator

Building a strong school culture includes having a physical plant and space that reinforces messages about student voice, excellence, and creativity.  I came to see the walls of the school as a learning space in need of curation, much like the walls of a museum.  We added a video screen in the waiting area of the office, with a slideshow of pictures of our students engaged in meaningful learning and extracurricular activities.  I lined the hallways with student portraits, accompanied by their statements of academic identity – an integral component of our school’s unique defense portfolio that required each individual student to present their philosophy of education and provide evidence of how their learning reinforced their academic identity.  We put up artistic installations, with artist statements explaining the purpose and providing insight into what was happening in classrooms.

When the 9^th grade completed a “students caught reading” Instagram campaign, we celebrated its completion with an art installation depicting a fishing net with book covers caught inside.  After our seniors completed a critical analysis of mass protest movements in the United States, we recreated a picket line with wire fencing and student generated protest posters highlighting their work.  We even chained a few final papers to our makeshift chainlink fence.  Our highly talented muralist was constantly working with students to design and install new murals throughout the school building.  Over time, a truly student centered and arts-focused physical environment took shape, reinforcing our aspirations and vision for a student centered school.

Head Investigator

This was admittedly not one of my favorite realizations, but as a high school administrator, I had to perfect the art of the investigation.  Of course that doesn’t sound terribly student friendly, but keeping students safe and counseling them on making good choices are both inherent outcomes of good investigation practices, not to mention the sometimes necessary practice of conducting investigations into staff behavior as well.

While searching student backpacks and taking witness statements was a regular part of my work, I am happy to say that in 4 years I never had a student arrested.  Of course there were incidents and situations that required the support of an SRO, and we did have a handful of student expulsions over the course of my tenure, but we did most of our work internally, recognizing that substance abuse and threatening behaviors were largely educational matters that required intense student support.

The ability to systematically and thoroughly gather and document evidence is essential for school leaders who advocate for transparent and fair decision-making processes.  While human behavior can be predictably messy, a strong school leader must defend the integrity of the institution through the use of both legally and logically sound protocols and processes for conducting investigations.

As I’ve stating previously, building a classroom culture that encourages academic discourse and regularly encourages students to talk to each other is the hallmark of.a student-centered classroom where kids are learning.  In the best classrooms around the country, the bulk of instructional time is dedicated to discussion, collaboration, and student-driven inquiry.  To realize such a learning environment, the teacher has to employ a variety of strategies and protocols to get kids talking.

One of the most classic strategies for encouraging authentic student discussion is the Socratic Seminar.  It’s a strategy that is designed to help students go deep on a topic, and to do so without the prompting or direct intervention of the teacher.  It’s true that sometimes the protocols and rules around Socratic Seminar can feel a little inauthentic or bulky.  That is certainly the case when you are just getting started.  But I have found that when employed regularly over time, it’s a strategy that increasingly builds the capacity of the classroom to sustain an academic discussion on their own.

Socratic Seminar is a bread and butter strategy for the AVID program, and so it is a well-known instructional practice.  Yet I’m surprised at how little I see it in practice.  It often seems reserved for the most special occasions, as opposed to something that happens on a weekly basis as a regular part of class.

Preparation – Socratic Seminar takes practice and good planning.  In addition to taking time to explicitly teach students how to engage in academic discourse using evidence, you will need to select texts and prepare guiding questions

Step 1 – The first few times you use Socratic Seminar, provide students with an overview of the purpose and process of the strategy.  You might include academic sentence starters students can use (i.e. “I really like what Billy said about…”, “If you look at…in the text…”, “the author states in paragraph…”, “could you say more about…”).  Explain to students that the conversation is open and facilitated by them (and not the teacher), and that arguments and counter-arguments must be grounded in textual evidence.  Socratic Seminar is not a debate.  Outline assessment criteria for student participation.

Step 2 – Announce to students that they will be engaging in a Socratic Seminar based on questions to a shared text.  Students should annotate the text with ideas, thoughts, and questions that will help them participate in the discussion.  You can ask students to number the paragraphs of the text to provide an easy reference during discussion.

“The text we are reading comes from the Economist and discusses the role of SuperPACs in this year’s presidential election.  We’ll be having a Socratic Seminar after we read on this topic, so don’t forget that you’ll be citing evidence from the text to support your opinions.  The guiding question for the reading is “is a SuperPAC a democratic institution?”  I want to see at least 5 related questions or comments written on each of your papers prior to beginning the discussion.  You have 15 minutes to read and talk to your text.”

Step 3 – Call the circle together.  If you have a large class, you will need to either run two circles simultaneously or assign specific observation roles to members of the class outside the discussion circle.

Step 4 – Review expectations and assessment criteria

“All right, once we being, the seminar will go for at least 15 minutes.  Remember, I’ll be monitoring participation individually, and you have to contribute at least 3 different times during the discussion.  If the conversation gets stuck, you can ask a new question to try to get it rolling again.  So, here is the starting question again, “is a SuperPAC a democratic institution?”  Go for it.”

Remember, there are lots of variations that you can employ to tailor the strategy to your unique classroom context and needs, but the core of the strategy always focuses on promoting sustained academic discourse amongst students.

I’ve found that staying focused on instruction, as opposed to curriculum and programs, can be difficult in the work of an administrator.  Parents tend to focus much more on programs and curriculum than on matters of instructional practice.  That makes sense.  Program implementation and participation rates come with relatively concrete statistics and costs.   Curriculum adoptions usually have well-defined materials and per classroom costs and inventories.  A principal might often tell parents about a terrific new club or sport being offered at the school.  A district administrator might proudly announce the adoption of a new standards-aligned curriculum.

Instruction, however, is a different matter entirely.  While I’ve put up signs advertising an award-winning arts or IB program, I’ve never put up a sign that says “we deliver a killer think/pair/share.”  How many clubs do you have?  How good is the football team?  Those are matters that get attention.  How well do teachers pull off a socratic seminar in class?  Unless you are a teacher, you probably don’t even know what that means.

In other words, while all the research is clear about the importance and impact of skilled instructional practice, it’s the thing that most stakeholders outside of teachers know and care the least about when it comes to our schools.  Effective instructional practice can be hard to describe – even for teachers.  It’s notoriously hard to measure.  It can be incredibly expensive to coach and develop.  It’s the bedrock and foundation of what we do in schools, yet it is a black box.

One of my areas of focus this year is to consistently champion and elevate instructional practice in my current leadership role.  I want to have more conversations focused on instruction.  I want to see more great instruction in practice.  I want to celebrate quality instruction where it is happening.  To that end, I’m hoping to use some of my blog posts to highlight high leverage instructional practices.  Almost like a food blog where I share some of my favorite recipes, I’m hoping to dedicate a least some of my space to my favorite instructional strategies, as well as some new ones that I am learning about for the first time.  The goal is to reinforce a commitment to elevate instructional practice in our day to day discussions of what it means to provide high quality, rigorous learning environments for all of our students.

Think – Write – Pair – Share

Think Write Pair Share is a classic, foundational collaboration and student discourse strategy in the classroom.  It provides students with the opportunity to improve comprehension by processing verbally, in their own words, what they are learning.  I believe that it should be a part of every teachers’ toolkit.

Step 1: Think – announce to students that they’ll be doing a quick Think Write Pair Share.  Explain that the first step is to think about the question or prompt introduced by the teacher, another student, or a text.  “All right everyone, we’re going to do a quick think write pair share, so I want you to take a moment to think about which step of factoring an equation you think is the hardest, and why.”

Step 2: Write – closely linked to the first step, students are prompted to capture some of the thoughts from the thinking prompt in writing.  “Go ahead and write down your thoughts in your journal entry page for today.”  The key to the write portion is a background system where there is clarity about where students should be writing.  In my classroom, that was usually on a specified page in their interactive journal.  With adults, I tend to use post-its.

Step 3: Pair – Using a designated partner, ask students to pair up and discuss their thinking from their written notes regarding the prompt.  “You have 2 minutes to turn to your table buddy and explain the step you found most challenging and why.  Remember that I’ll be calling on some of your groups to share with the rest of the class when the two minutes are up, so I expect that your conversations are focused on math.”

Step 4: Share – I like to cold call on groups to share the highlights of the discussion they just had with partners.  While this provides some accountability for the content of each partner conversation, it more importantly surfaces student thinking on the topic.  You can capture common ideas or follow-up questions as a class on a board or – even better – in a shared doc for later reference.  “Great, I heard a lot of good thinking going on and a lot of you were being honest about what is difficult about factoring.  Devontae, can you share with the class what you and Jorge decided were the hardest parts about factoring?”

I’ve long said that the foundation of personalized learning is strong relationships between teachers and students.  Yes, we want to tailor curriculum and tasks to the unique developmental range of each student.  Yes, we aspire to provide differentiated and small group instruction based on what our formative assessment is telling us about our students’ individual learning needs.  But going deep on the technical aspects of our instructional practices is not enough.  Even more essential than those personalizing pedagogies is the longstanding and simple need for students to know that the teacher is genuinely invested in his or her success and growth.

Strong relationships in the classroom are not an accident.  Sometimes major structural shifts are required.  Many schools organize the master schedule around advisory periods as a strategy to expose students to a curriculum whose stated purpose is to help students explore interests, deepen relationships, and reflect on challenges and strategies for overcoming adversity.  In other schools, students are organized into “houses” or small learning communities where they progress through courses as a cohort, often over several years.  This allows students to feel a sense of belonging and identity within the broader context of our often large school campuses.

Many schools are deliberate about ensuring every student has meaningful, supportive relationships with adults on campus.  Many teachers would be familiar with the practice of relationship mapping, where adult staff systematically review the list of all students to discover which students may be experiencing school without a strong adult relationship or mentor amongst the adults on campus.  Other schools are more deliberate and systematic in ensuring all students have access to a mentor on staff, whether it be the principal or a member of the custodial team or front office team.    

Even in a school setting where relationship building is not a core priority of administration or even amongst colleagues, there are many strategies teachers can use within their own classroom to promote a sense of belonging amongst students.  Most teachers invest some amount of time at the beginning of the school year to get to know their students.  Some of the more common practices are questionnaires and student scavenger hunts designed to reveal details about the lives of fellow students.  This is a good start, but too often these efforts are not sustained and tend to remain superficial.  A stronger approach is to create a classroom where academic discourse and meaningful reflection and sharing is a regular practice.  Dialectic journals, socratic seminars, and student-driven inquiry projects all provide opportunities for students to reveal themselves and explore there unique histories and perspectives.  Of course it can take time and a lot of practice to create a classroom culture where authentic sharing is possible – but it is always worth the effort.

Of course not all SEL needs can be met in the classroom.  Our schools will increasingly have to invest in the professional personnel and services required to meet the mental health and trauma-induced needs of our students.  Yet we already know that such specialized services will not likely be enough.  We need personalizing pedagogies in the classroom to equip our students with the tools and skills necessary to stay strong emotionally, intellectually, and physically.