3/18/2024 155. The #1 Structure for Sustainable Family Partnerships with Ari Gerzon-KesslerRead Now
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In this episode, Ari shares tons of insights on building Family-Educator Together (FET) teams. These teams aim to deepen the connections between schools and families, creating a dynamic and inclusive space where voices from historically marginalized backgrounds can share insights and drive transformative change. Ari shares practical ideas, specific examples from actual FET teams, and gives us a link to several of the ready-to-use resources in his book.
Ari Gerzon-Kessler leads the Family Partnerships department for the Boulder Valley School District (Colorado) and is an educational consultant working with schools and districts committed to forging stronger school-family partnerships. He has been an educator since 2000, having served as a principal and bilingual teacher. Ari is the author of the new book, On The Same Team: Bringing Educators and Underrepresented Families Together. The Big Dream To embrace an innovative spirit that honors the whole child, incorporates families more into the educational process, and reduces the overwhelm for educators. He envisions more connected school communities that are inclusive, equitable, and where trust is a key lever for change. Ari references Dr. Bettina Love’s words, "We have to actually trust the people we say we want to empower to make structural changes, not just tinker at the edges of injustice." Mindset Shift Required Move from a one-sided family involvement approach to one that truly values parent voices as experts on their children and partners in change. As Ari notes, "We shift the traditional paradigm of family engagement to a more collaborative and empowering model," where trust and psychological safety are paramount. Action Steps While many of the practices in Ari’s book are useful in many family partnership scenarios, he specifically shares ideas for creating and leveraging an FET team. Once you understand what FET teams are and the goals behind them (i.e., strengthen relationships, build trust, and co-create meaningful change) and you as the leader are ready to invest in one… Step 1: Build Your Team There are 5 educators (including the principal) and 5 family members. More are welcome, but the ratio should be even. Educators should not outnumber family members. Step 2: Prepare Ari suggests taking an hour to plan for each 90-minute FET meeting. Logistics to tackle include funding, organizing the meal, securing interpretation (typically meetings are held in the most common home language of families), determining dates/times/location of meetings, and securing child care. Step 3: Facilitate Your Meeting(s) Following a meal and team-building activity, invite families to share their experiences and ideas. There are many specific prompts in the book. It could be: What do you want us to know? After initial trust building, the team will decide on an action project and work towards that goal. Challenges? A significant challenge is the initial trust-building with families who have never experienced such a collaborative space in schools. Creating a comfortable atmosphere where families feel safe to share honest feedback is crucial. Additionally, educators must navigate how to bring family-driven changes back to the staff in a way that encourages co-creation and buy-in from all parties involved. One Step to Get Started For educators looking to make immediate improvements in family engagement, Ari suggests starting with simple yet impactful actions like making positive phone calls to parents to share good news about their children or asking families: How do you prefer we communicate with you? These examples are both energizing and practical, laying the groundwork for deeper connections and future collaborative efforts. Stay Connected You can connect or follow Ari easily on LinkedIn at or reach him at arigerzon@gmail.com. To help you implement FET teams in your school(s), Ari is sharing several reproducibles from his book with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 155 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript here. Quotes:
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Whether your teachers are developing their own curricula or adapting “off the shelf” curricula, all teachers need to figure out what it will look like to actually implement a curriculum. In addition to factoring in holidays and field trips and other school events, if you’re supporting teachers to create classroom cultures that prioritize student voices and personalized learning, you’ll want to help teachers consider how to embed flexibility and co-creation with students into their pacing calendars.
Why are realistic pacing guides important? Without considering pacing that creates intentional space for student voice and personalized learning (and all of the places those priorities can take a class), teachers are set up to feel pressured to just “cover” content in a rushed manner because our idealized pacing calendar is too unrealistic. When we strive for fidelity, what we often get is rigidity, which does not serve personalized learning and co-creation. Research on fidelity in “off the shelf curriculum implementation” suggests an optimal approach to curriculum implementation is a scaffolded one, in which teachers first focus on implementing a curriculum with fidelity before adapting it. To ensure adaptations are still effective, teachers should have deep knowledge of the theory(s) behind the curriculum. This is more likely “if the fidelity phase is framed as an opportunity for teachers to learn the program before adapting it, as opposed to being framed as the end goal,” (Quinn, 2016, p. 42). An additional consideration is that curricula may be more likely to be used over time when teachers are able to adapt them to their specific contexts (Dearing, 2008, cited in Quinn, 2016). I acknowledge this research and also recognize many off the shelf curricula could do a better job of embedding space for student voice and personalization within the curriculum and suggested pacing guides. For the purpose of this episode, I’m focusing on how to realistically pace a curriculum (whether your teachers wrote it or you’re implementing an existing curriculum). How to Create a Flexible Pacing Calendar:
Final Tip To account for the unexpected, I suggest building in even more “blank space” days. They can be named “Flex Days” or designated as Workshop Days if the idea is that it's okay to skip them when needed. This way, we’re decreasing the pressure to “cover” everything and concentrating on doing fewer things better while preserving a culture of student voice and co-creation. To help you effectively support your teachers’ curriculum planning, I’m sharing two resources with you for free. If your teachers are internalizing an “off the shelf” curriculum, try my New Curriculum Training Agenda. If your teachers are designing their own curriculum, try the Curriculum Planner I use in my Curriculum Boot Camp programs. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 154 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript here.
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3/4/2024 153. Leading Equity Takes Belief, Vision, Systems, and Acknowledgement of Barriers with Dr. Don ParkerRead Now
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In this episode, Dr. Don Parker talks about the necessity of relationship-building, developing a robust equity-based vision statement, and policy alignment to systematically embed equity in your school.
Dr. Don Parker is a transformational keynote speaker and professional development provider. He specializes in SEL, supporting teachers to build trusting relationships with students, restorative practices, trauma-informed practices, and improving the culture and climate of schools to enhance students’ and teachers’ feeling of belonging. Dr. Parker is a former principal, frequent conference presenter, and the author of Building Bridges: Engaging Students At-Risk Through the Power of Relationships and Be the Driving Force: Leading Your School on the Road to Equity. The Big Dream Equitable schools and classrooms provide high-quality, equitable educational experiences for every student. Dr. Parker elaborates saying, "we can provide each student with a quality education, support their social, emotional learning needs and really truly help them reach their highest potential." Mindset Shifts Required To enact change, school leaders and educators must genuinely believe in the value of equity and the possibility of transformation, as this belief will drive their actions and commitment. Action Steps There are more concrete ideas in the book, but we discussed the following: Step 1: Equity-Focused Vision Statement Develop and adopt an equity-based vision that is robust and reflects actionable outcomes for historically marginalized groups. From there, it’s easier to determine if all school policies and practices are in alignment with the vision. Step 2: Systematize Relationship-Building One example is Dr. Parker’s implementation of dedicated time for student-teacher connections on Monday mornings through the school. There’s a dedicated hour built into the schedule just for this. Step 3: Consistently gather input from students Use surveys and action items to measure and drive improvements in school effectiveness regarding equity. Challenges The biggest challenge, according to Dr. Parker, is overcoming the "acknowledgement gap," where schools fail to recognize systemic inequities. Overcoming this requires a collective commitment to identifying and addressing these issues head-on. One Step to Get Started Engage directly with students, particularly those from marginalized groups, to understand their experiences and needs. This direct interaction lays the groundwork for developing targeted strategies to support student success, so go ask a student how you can better support them! Stay Connected You can find Dr. Parker on his website or send him an e-mail at DrDonParker@DrDonParker.com To help you implement equitable change, Dr. Parker is sharing his survey on Leading Equitable Practices with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 153 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript here. Quotes:
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In this episode, we’re exploring a mindset shift for when you feel like you can’t move forward because you don’t have all of the answers. If you’re feeling stuck, have a sense of imposter syndrome, or fearful of making a misstep because you (of course) don’t know everything there is to know, this episode will give you an action plan for addressing those challenges.
Why? There is a lot of research on the value and organization of learning communities pursuing a common goal, including the connections to shared leadership, ongoing data collection and analysis, and learning in partnership with one another, both from failures and successes (Harvard). John Hattie’s work has highlighted Collective Teacher Efficacy (CTE) as having the largest impact on student learning when compared with 251 other influential factors (visible-learning.org). I propose we treat not just school committees and teacher teams as learning communities (e.g., communities of practice, PLCs), but also majority-student spaces such as classrooms and student groups. How do we create a culture of learning (in pursuit of justice)? Step 1: Recognize you literally can’t do it alone. The answers to adaptive challenges lie in the community, not with you or any one person (Heifetz, Grashow, & Linsky, 2009). Step 2: Form power-sharing structures and processes. At the school level: Bring students and teachers together to lead school committees. Clarify the decision-making processes for each type of decision. For decisions that will be made collaboratively, specify the process. For example: options are created by the leadership team, shared with grade team committees, shared with all students and staff in that grade, grade-level feedback is collected by grade team committees and shared with leadership team, leadership team shares final plan for approval via consensus voting. This episode contains several concrete ideas for shared leadership at the school level. At the class level: Teachers identify regular opportunities to gather feedback from students about what’s working, what’s not, and ideas for change. This data can be specific experiences students have in class. Consider a range of modalities for how students can share this information. At the peer group level: Co-create group working agreements. Determine how decisions will be made (e.g., consensus vs. majority vote). Specify at least one time point to check in with all members about how the group is functioning and how each member is feeling. Step 3: Regularly practice inquiry cycles Ground it in a search for positive deviance (where things are going well) and experiential data, centering people and perspectives that have not been/are not being served by the current way of doing things. Step 4: Systematize experiential data collection Identify who data is collected from, in which formats, how often, and by whom. Consult Dugan and Safir’s book Street Data for some excellent ideas for implementation. This month, I reviewed several of these ideas on my YouTube channel in 5 minute videos. Step 5: Practice building skills of critical discourse. Identify when and for which topics the group avoids talking about or deflects responsibility. Name the type of discourse being discussed (Bridges Patrick & Lyons, 2022)—namely, polarizing, silencing and denying, intellectualizing, or generative mobilizing discourse. The latter is the ideal form of discourse. Final Tip No one can know it all. The best you can do is to surround yourself with brilliant people with diverse experiences who can help you and the community learn and grow. And once you create this culture, it helps address a wide range of challenges! To help you implement a culture of learning in your community, I’m sharing my Leadership Bundle with you for free. It includes my Diagnosing Adaptive Challenges Mini Workbook, a series of culture building agendas you can use for staff meetings, and my Learning Walk protocol. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 152 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript here.
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In this episode, we delve into the intricacies of school leadership and the transformation journey. We talk about equipping students with necessary skills, navigating staff dynamics, and the importance of self-awareness and emotional intelligence in leadership. Beth shares practical ideas including how to collect perception data to get the lay of the land and gain clarity on what to do next.
Beth founded the charter network Chicago Collegiate and served as Chief Executive/Academic Officer. Prior, she led a team to train 650 new TFA teachers. She deepened her people and instructional leadership skills at KIPP, and first started teaching in Washington Heights with TFA. She's GallupStrengths-certified and is now a coach-sultant for leaders. The Big Dream Schools that act as microcosms of society, preparing students to live the lives of their choice and contribute positively to the world. Schools that actively support and empower students by equipping them with academic, social, emotional, and interpersonal skills and all kids have the opportunities they want. Alignment to the 4 Stages: Mindset, Pedagogy, Assessment, and Content Adult mindsets and culture within the school is a priority for Beth. She emphasizes the importance of creating a culture of partnership, ensuring clarity of roles and responsibilities, and aligning around common goals. Moreover, she stresses the need to use tools like surveys and focus groups to gather data and inform decision-making. Mindset Shifts Required Shift from focusing on issues to taking a broader view that includes understanding the dynamics of the school community. Action Steps Context as relevant… Step 1: Gain a clear understanding of their school dynamics. This could be done by conducting anonymous staff surveys and using the data collected to inform decision-making. Step 2: Be transparent about the limitations and constraints of decision-making. From there, you can involve others in the process and share the decision-making power, which can help build trust within the team. Step 3: Invest time in self-awareness and emotional intelligence. These skills help you become more effective! Challenges? One of the major barriers to transformation for leaders is the lack of clarity and alignment. Beth suggests leaders be clear about what they believe in, what they expect from their teams, and what they consider important. One Step to Get Started One practical step to start addressing these challenges is to take Beth's two-minute leadership quiz. This quiz helps identify what you need most as a leader and provides a starting point for addressing your needs. It's a quick, easy, and fun way to gain some insight into your leadership style and the areas you may need to work on. Stay Connected You can find Beth on the following platforms:
To help you get started with what we talked about today, Beth is sharing her 2-minute quiz to help you figure out what you need most as a leader for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 151 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript here. Quotes:
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where I go over a year long support plan for teachers:
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In this episode, Coach Carlos, explores the concept of performance-based relationships in education and highlights the importance of fostering a positive and healthy classroom environment for the success and well-being of both teachers and students. He delves into the pressing issue of teacher shortage and emphasizes the significance of parental partnerships in overcoming these challenges.
As a professional speaker, trainer, and author, Mr. Johnson, AKA “Coach Carlos,” is locally bred, but his work and research on culture and engagement have taken him national and international. His training and strategies have helped to change school culture and increase parental engagement, student enrollment, and staff and student retention. His driving belief: a highly engaged culture is the mother of high performance. The Big Dream Education is a holistic experience that goes beyond the traditional classroom. He dreams of creating a culture where performance-based relationships rule and teachers view themselves as life coaches who aim to bring out the best in each student. This transformative approach would pave the way for an inclusive, equitable, and fulfilling learning journey for all students. Alignment to the 4 Stages: Mindset, Pedagogy, Assessment, and Content Coach Carlos believes that the foundation for effective teaching and learning lies in cultivating a growth mindset that values relationships, embraces equity, and fosters resilience. This mindset should then guide pedagogical approaches, shape assessment methods, and inform content creation, ultimately resulting in a learning environment that prioritizes student well-being and success. Mindset Shifts Required One of the most significant barriers is the belief that some students are genetically incapable of succeeding, a misconception that can hinder teachers from building meaningful relationships with their students. Another barrier is cultural biases, which can prevent educators from connecting with students who have identities, experiences, and beliefs that are different from their own. Action Steps Once we address our biases, here’s what we can do: Step 1: Foster Healthy Relationships Coach Carlos encourages educators to cultivate healthy, performance-based relationships with their students and create a welcoming classroom environment that promotes student success and teacher well-being. Step 2: Involve Parents Involve parents in the solution and create a partnership between families and schools. Start by defining what “meaningful minimum” engagement looks like from families and school stakeholders. Step 3: Optimize Stress There is a specific kind of stress that is healthy: eustress. “That's the one we want. That's the basis for accomplishment, that is what gets us moving, that's what changes and that's what transforms.” Teachers can act like a “master chef in the kitchen…this kid over here, oh, I can turn the flame up…and here I better turn the flame down a little bit.” To do this well, we have to know each student well. One Step to Get Started Examine your biases and beliefs about their students' abilities and help your teachers do the same. Once we recognize and address these barriers, we can implement effective teaching strategies and create a positive learning environment for all students. Stay Connected You can find Coach Carlos at www.carlosjohnson.org and on YouTube. To help you identify some of the deeper culture pieces we discussed in this episode, I’m sharing my Diagnosing Adaptive Challenges Mini Workbook with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 150 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript here. Quotes:
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where I talk about overcoming barriers to student voice:
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In this episode, Dr. Daman Harris, the author of "The Anti-Racist School Leader," advocates for personal commitment, vision casting, and professional learning experiences as key components of antiracist leadership in schools. Daman discusses implicit bias and the role of homophily, suggesting that the tendency to gravitate towards the familiar can inadvertently foster discrimination. He also talks about the importance of continuous evaluation of the impact of professional development on student learning and growth and what this might look like.
Dr. Daman Harris is the manager of professional development schools and higher education partnerships in Anne Arundel County Public Schools. He is also a co-director of the Building Our Network of Diversity Project, a Maryland-based nonprofit that supports male educators of color. Dr. Harris has had a wide range of experiences as a teacher, instructional coach, administrator, author, adjunct professor, speaker, and consultant. He leads courses related to effective teaching methods, research protocols, antiracism, teacher recruitment, and teacher retention. The Big Dream Everyone belongs and can achieve. Daman wants to see schools where antiracist values are not just talked about but acted upon. He believes that antiracism is a behavior, not a static characteristic, and encourages all school leaders, teachers, and community members to actively contribute to creating change. Alignment to the 4 Stages: Mindset, Pedagogy, Assessment, and Content The Table of Contents in Daman’s book aligns closely with these four pieces. In terms of mindset, he advocates for recognizing and understanding our biases and committing to change. Pedagogically and curriculum-wise, he emphasizes the importance of creating an inclusive curriculum that encourages critical consciousness among students and teaches antiracism. We also talk about assessment of learning for adults, specifically that we should have ongoing evaluation of professional development and its impact on student learning. Mindset Shifts Required Rather than identifying our in-group as race, religion, language, or political beliefs, we can see our school community as our in-group and strive to give all students and families the benefit of the doubt. I absolutely LOVE this framing! Action Steps What are the early steps we can take? The following steps are aligned to the first 3 chapters of Daman’s book. Step 1: Educate Yourself and Commit Learn information about and recognize the dynamics of racism. Commit to making a change. Step 2: Cast an Anti-Racist Vision Develop a vision for your school where anti-racism is not just a buzzword but a lived experience. Share your ideas, and then co-create with stakeholders. Step 3: Plan Professional Learning Experiences Develop a professional development plan that promotes critical consciousness and equips teachers with the skills to promote anti-racism. Use backwards planning to start with the end in mind. For Daman, this is the development of critical consciousness for all students! Challenges? Sorting through competing priorities. So there's a lot to do as a school leader. Here’s Daman’s approach to address it: Antiracism is a part of the solution to all of the competing priorities. This is not one of the competing priorities, this is a part of all of them. So when you think about holistic remedies for the obstacles for your students and their families, this is where you start. One Step to Get Started Find an accountability partner. Begin having these conversations about what you claim you want to do or what you claim you are going to do. Be a sounding board for that partner as well, and push each other to learn more. Stay Connected You can email Dr. Daman Harris at: dharris@bondeducators.org You can find his latest book at www.SolutionTree.com/Antiracist. For additional information on the book, click here. To help you identify white supremacy culture and related adaptive challenges in your school or district, I’m sharing my Diagnosing Adaptive Challenges Mini Workbook with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 149 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript here. Quotes:
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where I share the most important checklist for a root cause analysis:
1/29/2024 148. Hiring for Transformation and Building Effective Teams with Dr. Eric SkansonRead Now
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Given the challenges of hiring during a teacher shortage, Dr. Skanson takes us behind the scenes to look at his process of how to effectively hire teachers who are a great fit and then build a values-driven staff community. Dr. Skanson also delves into the strategies he employs to navigate biases in the hiring process and the vital role of mindset and disposition in hiring.
In addition to being part of the foundation of School Pro K12, Dr. Eric Skanson has over 17 years of experience in public school administration and 24 years of education at large. He is a seasoned leader focusing on positive change, outstanding culture, and collaboration. Through his doctorate, Dr. Skanson’s academic core focus was on the use of collaboration for organizational improvement. The Big Dream Providing opportunities and experiences for students that they wouldn't have access to otherwise. Dr. Skanson emphasizes the importance of nurturing a mindset that views education as a means to impact communities positively. His ultimate goal is to enhance student growth and make schools a nurturing and compassionate space for students. Alignment to the 4 Stages: Mindset, Pedagogy, Assessment, and Content Dr. Skanson believes in the importance of mindset in the hiring process. He argues that a positive disposition is essential in educators. Specifically, Dr. Skanson is looking for educators who are positive, kind, and supportive, emphasizing the human aspect of education. Pedagogically, he stresses the need for diversity and balance in teaching teams to create an enriching learning environment. Regarding content, he encourages educators to be conscious of the context, and craft their teaching approach based on their specific school and student community. Mindset Shifts Required We need to acknowledge and challenge the biases that often surface during the hiring process. How do we hire effectively? Here are the key ideas Dr. Skanson wants leaders to keep in mind… Key 1: Emphasize character, competency, and craft in hiring, over mere credentials. Step 2: Conduct a systematic and thoughtful interview process, focusing on asking the right questions (ones that ask about a candidate’s actual experience versus just a theoretical approach) and understanding the candidate's actual impact on students. Step 3: Ensure diversity and balance in the team, considering the specific needs and context of the school community. Challenges? There can be tension between internal and external candidates during the hiring process. Dr. Skanson suggests having a good succession plan in place and controlling the process to make it fair for all candidates. “I think every interview, especially for school leadership positions, should have a balance of an internal and an external [candidate]. However, you have to control the process to make it fair for internals and externals…people will bring in extra information about the internal candidates…let the person talk about their experiences and leave about all the other things [horns bias],” Dr. Skanson said. One Step to Get Started Slow down the hiring process and take the time to understand the candidate's character, competency, and craft. Rather than rushing to fill a position due to a scarcity mindset, he advises leaders to focus on finding the right person who will truly contribute to the school's success. Stay Connected You can find this week’s guest on www.schoolprok12.com and on social media @skansone. To help you implement the ideas of creating a new staff community following new hires, I’m sharing my Staff Meeting Agenda series starting with co-creating Community Values & Agreements with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 148 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript here. Quotes:
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As coaches, administrators, and teacher leaders, we often design and facilitate professional learning experiences for teachers. This episode helps us think about ways to help teachers experience awesome pedagogy as learners, so they may be more equipped—even more interested—in using these pedagogical moves with their students.
Why? I was recently talking to Dr. Dawn Bentley, Head of Schools at RFK Community Alliance. She referenced Triple Track, an approach developed by Thinking Collaborative. In this approach, professional development workshops are designed with three tracks in mind. Track 1 are the strategies used to support teachers’ learning in the PD itself. Track 2 is to consider applications for these strategies with adult groups, and tips for sharing them with other educators. Track 3 is for applications for these strategies in classrooms with students. We’ll focus mostly on Tracks 1 and 3 here. What? I’m breaking these down into specific categories of pedagogical moves, similar to how I think about protocol purposes. Moves During to Set Up
Moves to Personalize I like using WIN Time with the following options:
Moves to Engage
Moves to Close
More Moves… For reading “texts” or critical analysis. Final Tip My favorite tip for PD facilitators and teachers is to create a common slides resource bank of the moves or slides you regularly use (or want to use). That way, when you’re planning, you just pull the ones you need over! (If you love this idea, you will absolutely love the resources I have for you below.) To help you get a sense for some of the moves I model, check out the video series below! In it, I walk through specific slides I use for each protocol, and then share the slide decks with you for free through a link in the video description. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 147 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript here. If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where I explain how to improve the quality of discourse in your school:
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I talk a lot about collecting student voice data or “street data” (Safir & Dugan), so in this episode, I discuss systems and scheduling strategies you can use to identify times during the school day that teachers, counselors, and other school stakeholders can regularly listen to students. You may be willing to invite students to share their experiences and ideas, but you may not know when this might happen. Let’s think about some ideas.
What is student experience data, and why do we need it? Let’s start with the second part. There are many benefits to gathering data about student experiences, both for youth and adults. I’ve covered these in previous episodes. For now, I’ll say: schools and districts make better decisions when students help make the decisions, just as organizations in general have better organizational outcomes when diverse stakeholder groups are part of the decision-making process (Kusy & McBain, 2000). In their book, Street Data, Dugan and Safir (2021) write a comprehensive model of school transformation could consist of “...stitching together four often-siloed elements: equity as the fundamental purpose, pedagogy as the fundamental pathway, adult culture as the vehicle, and street data as the GPS system that keeps us on the path of equity-centered transformation” (p. 59). As educators, when we look at data, it’s often what Dugan and Safir call satellite data (broad, quantitative measures such as test scores, attendance patterns, graduation rates) or map data (social-emotional, cultural, and learning trends within a school community which may include rubric scores or surveys). Deeper dives into data sets may include street data (students’ lived experiences that illuminate how students are performing or feeling about their learning environment and themselves). Street data, or what I’ve been referring to lately as student experience data, could include a student sharing what’s impeding their ability to thrive or suggestions for what adults can do differently to improve instruction or other aspects of school. However, these deeper explorations of student experience typically occur every five or so years during strategic planning processes and are rarely practiced on a daily or weekly basis. If you have the willingness to engage in this work, but can’t find the time, this episode is for you. Where might we gather data and listen to student experiences? Below are some ideas for where this may live in your school(s). Advisory, Mentoring, or Morning Meeting Develop prompts for students (whole group or individually) to share ideas about what’s great about the school, what’s not so great (and what the impact has been on the student), and what could/should be changed. Counseling At the end of a group or individual session, ask if students are comfortable sharing their ideas (e.g., what they like, dislike, or want to be changed), with adults in the school (e.g., a leadership team) to help improve the school and the students’ school experience. Let them know the ideas will be shared without any student identifiers, so adults will not know which student(s) shared the ideas. College, Career, Civic Planning sessions or IEP Meetings Prompt students to share experiences of what their aspirations are, to what degree school stakeholders and structures (e.g., course offerings) have supported these dreams, and what could be more supportive. Main Office or Restorative Room The students who are sent out of class are likely the students who are not feeling successful or supported at school. These are the students we want to learn from! Setting up a system, whether it’s a person to talk to, a space to record their thinking (verbally, in writing, or as an image—drawing or selecting/taking a picture) in response to some prompts similar to ones above would help us learn how to support that student and other students who might have similar experiences or ideas. End of Lesson, Week, or Unit Conversations in Academic Classrooms Instruction is a central part of why we’re all in schools. All students take academic classes, so this is an opportunity to invite all students to reflect on their student experience in relation to curriculum and instruction. (You can also invite students to share experiences and ideas about school supports and policies beyond curriculum here.) Final Tip Once you have the structures in place, you can regularly invite students to share their experiences and ideas for change. For how to do this, check out the upcoming Student Experience Data Strategy series on my YouTube channel starting February 7 (2024). For now, you can check out a related video below! To help you start to gather student experiences right away, I’m sharing my Student Leadership Capacity Building survey with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 146 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript here.
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where I explain about the types of discourse in schools:
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Time for Teachership is now a proud member of the...AuthorLindsay Lyons (she/her) is an educational justice coach who works with teachers and school leaders to inspire educational innovation for racial and gender justice, design curricula grounded in student voice, and build capacity for shared leadership. Lindsay taught in NYC public schools, holds a PhD in Leadership and Change, and is the founder of the educational blog and podcast, Time for Teachership. Archives
January 2024
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