Vision — Page 4

Weekly Update: Teacher Leaders…are you cultivating? #SAVMP

March 15, 2014 by Amber 1 Comment

One of the opportunities I’ve been able to take on this year with George Couros is the #SAVMP collaboration project. Each week we post weekly updates to work with administrators and their team of mentees to help develop leadership and embrace the challenges that comes with the responsibility of leading. This week we discussed teacher leaders and I’m cross posting it here.

When thinking about ways to bring about change or attempting to cultivate something new for your campus, where do you begin? Do you start with a formal staff meeting? Where you stand in front of the group and tell them what you want to see happen?

How effective has the been?

Conversation at dinner last night talk centered around those rockstar teachers on your campus. The ones who are willing to go above and beyond because its what should be done for kids, not because they are getting paid to be there. When I think about some of the crazy ideas that I wanted to see happening in classrooms, I think about the teachers I went to talk with to make that happen. When I wanted to see a bulletin board focused on the digital tools happening in the classroom, I knew exactly where to go to make that happen. This teacher knew my expectations, knew my vision, and what my end goal was with the something as simple as a bulletin board. (Vision! It all come back to vision!) I also had to balance what was asked of this particular rockstar in order to not detract from her teaching, or her relationships amongst the staff. Todd Nesloney wrote an inspiring post about how he embraced that role on his campus.

Who are your teacher leaders? How are you lifting them up and empowering them to be an example without ostracizing them from the rest of your staff? Share your strategies with your mentees this week so they can start keeping an eye out for ways to embrace and lift up those around them.

Have a great week!

Amber

Fabulous Fridays

March 12, 2014 by Amber 1 Comment

Sometimes it’s the little things that can make the biggest difference.

February is a long month. It’s a solid month of instruction, leads up to Spring, and typically, both students and staff get a touch of the spring fever.

We decided to have “Fab Fridays in February” and have a fun activity each week to help offset that feeling. These were cheap (or free!) and really helped alleviate some the doldrums many were feeling.

The first Friday I recruited some of our amazing moms to bring in crockpots of soup to show our teachers they were “soup”-er. It was a warm treat on a cold day and everyone enjoyed some down home cooking.

The second Friday coincided with Valentine’s Day and we played “Love Connection”. I found a bunch of “famous” couples…from Thelma and Louise to our principal and her husband and I cut them in half. I then placed half a couple in each person’s room. The goal was to find your loooooooove connection. It was SO much fun to see teacher’s racing down the halls, trying to figure it all out. There were current couples as well as some golden oldies, 🙂

Our principal and her hubs…a famous couple, indeed!

Have you seen Legally Blonde 2? (yes, yes, I know. ) The next Friday we did our own version of the Snap Cup.

I placed a staff list and slips of paper in a cup and let the love flow! Teachers wrote their “warm fuzzies” on a slip, and passed it on. Next year, I think I’m going to start the love cup on Monday and then post them on the Friday, but either way, it was SO rewarding to see all the happy thoughts that were shared. From old team members to new hires…everyone felt the love!

The last Fab Friday we deemed as sweets for the sweet…we served cookies and milk! Once again, I had amazing moms who baked (or bought!) cookies and brought them to school. I supplied the milk and viola! A sweet way to celebrate all the hard work that our teachers do, each and every day.

Our campuses are more than just a job. They are like a second home! The culture we build and cultivate is a beacon that can either lure or repel the best and brightest. Your culture is evident in everything, from how you communicate to your teachers (or students!) to how the halls are decorated. It ALL plays a role in defining your brand, in showing who you are. The better your culture is on the inside, the more attractive you will look to the outside…and in public education these days? We always want them to see our BEST!

Whether you have a campus or a classroom, you can make Fab Fridays work for you! (Or Marvelous Monday’s, or, Terrific Tuesday’s….)

(Thanks to Melinda Miller for sharing all of her Fab Friday ideas! We’re all better together, :))

Fab FridayN,

Amber

Have a book study via Twitter? Yes we did!

March 5, 2014 by Amber 1 Comment

Time is a hot commodity for anyone, but especially for teachers at the beginning of the year. Knowing this when it came time for our staff development plans, the idea of book study made us yawn. How can you spice up a book study, engage your staff in a digital environment, and promote a digital presence?

You have a book study chat on Twitter!

We started by choosing a book we knew would have an immediate impact on classrooms, “Teach Like a Pirate”. It set the tone for the whole inservice, and we were able to go with a “pirate” theme. (I love a good theme!) Teachers were given their books with an intro the first day we came back. We divided the book into 4 parts, gave the dates that each part was to be completed by. So as not to overwhelm, because this was a lot of teachers first foray into Twitter, we decided there would be just three questions for each part. I gave a very basic session on the in’s and out’s of Twitter. We created our accounts and wrote our bios, making sure they represented our educationally interest. We talked about hashtags, chats, and the purpose of this “global” learning space.

The book study questions were to be answered via twitter, using the hashtag #WTLAP. (Watson Teach Like a Pirate)

We used a Q1, A1 format to answer on the date given for each set of questions. The official #WTLAP chat was from 8-8:30pm, but they had 24 hours to respond to the questions before I “storified” the results.
This allowed everyone to scroll back through the tweets.

http://storify.com/amberteamann/wtlap-book-study-chat-9-9-2013.html

What did this accomplish?

It created a presence on Twitter for our staff, which helped lead to the next step of creating our #WMST hashtag, to start to document our #eduwins for all of our stakeholders.
The awareness of others to follow, based on the conversations happening, built a base for many teachers to create their own PLN.
It allowed other educational connections to be formed. We had several educators from around the world join in our chat which removed the “walls” from around our building.
Teachers were able to think and creatively share their responses for an audience of more than just our staff, including author, Dave Burgess who joined us our first night.
We were able to spend time in our campus based learning meetings focused on other instructional matters, since this was all done on their own time.
Teachers who needed support were able to ask and recieve help privately, on their own ability level. This was an incredible opportunity to offer my help and really get to know our teachers.

Here’s our handout, #WTLAP.

Special thanks to Chris Kesler, who lent me his official TLAP chat questions that we were able to modify for our staff.

chattingly,

Amber

A unified vision marches on…

January 4, 2014 by Amber 1 Comment

A lot is written and shared about how important it is for a campus to have a shared, unified vision. What you are doing when creating a vision statement is articulating your dreams and hopes for your campus as well as establishing a strong foundation for your strategic planning guideline. It reminds you of what you are trying to build, and keeps everyone moving in the same direction.

During this break, I’ve read 3 (yes, 3) biographies of John F. Kennedy. Maybe the boldest vision ever articulated by any leader was John F. Kennedy’s dream of putting a man on the moon. On May 25, 1961, in a special address to Congress, he said, “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” Although, at the time, very few people believed it could be done, the vision was achieved on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong stepped on to the moon.

There’s local high school has done an amazing job for creating and aligning a unified vision, thanks to the administrative leadership of their lead learner, Virdie Montgomery. (disclaimer: Virdie is the father of one of my best friends and will be the high school of my girs.) He lives, eats, and breathes his campus mantra, AHMO. From Letterman shout outs, to class point competitions that invite global participation, to hundreds of ipad photos taken daily, he has created an environment that supports students in a way that supports them as a family. Even when times are tough, they rally together in a way that defies their high school maturity. You can’t go anywhere without seeing a student, a bumper sticker, or a yard sign, that proclaims that AHMO pride.

This video was shared with me by my beast’s math teacher. It is a great example of people working together to create something really incredible. And…every member has to work hard to memorize all the music and all the steps. If even one person forgets, the whole show will not be as spectacular. It takes a unified vision to make this happen.

May your vision be as spectacular!

Vision focused,

Amber