Lead Learners Update 5.28.12

Lead Learners Update

5.28.12 - 6.8.12

Collective responsibility is not just a commitment; it is the exercise of capabilities on a deep and wide scale. It encompasses positive competition: challenging the limits of what is humanly and professionally possible. Hargreaves and Fullan, 2011

May - August Events - Important dates are highlighted in red
5.28 Memorial Day
6.1 Oversight (8:00 - 11:30)
6.4 Bill and Ying train summer curriculum coaches (All Day); No Admin meeting
6.6 Tech/Rubicon Boot Camp
6.7-9 PLC Institute
6.11 Quarterly Conversation
SIAC (1:00 - 5:00)
6.12 Reserved for cadre to work with principal (Principal driven)
6.13 Consensus Mapping (Principal attendance 7:45 - 3:45, PHS Study Hall)
6.14 Consensus Mapping (Principal attendance) 7:45 - 3:45, PHS Study Hall
6.15 Quarterly Conversation
Curriculum Work Session
Celebrate Kathy and Dan’s retirement (6:00 @ Cedar Ridge)
6.18 Curriculum Work Session
6.18 Board Work Session and Principal Panel Discussion (5:30); GT Teacher Board Presentation
6.20 PBL pre conference at Muscatine (with HTH teachers)
6. 21-22 PBL workshop at Muscatine (hosted by HTH, CCSD and Muscatine)
6.25-28 CORI workshop (Point and Creek teachers) @ GWAEA
6.25-28 HTH trip (Point and PHS teams)
7.30-8.2 Digital Train the Trainer Workshop (Point Presentation Room, 7:45 - 3:45)
8.1 Registration (11:00 - 7:00)
8.2 Registration (3:00 - 7:00)
8.3 Consensus Mapping @ PHS Study Hall (Principal Attendance 7:45 - 3:45)
8.6 New Teacher Orientation Day (Principals join the first part in the morning, 7:45 - 3:45)
8.7-9 New Teacher Orientation week
8 7 -9 SAI Conference
8.13-15 Teacher work days and PL day
8.16 First day of school
8.27 First Admin Learning Meeting (12:00 - 3:30) - Welcome John

Board Work Session and Principal Panel Discussion- June 18, 2012 (Ying Ying Chen)
Principals are scheduled to join the Board work session on June 18 at 5:30.  The purpose of the session is for the school leaders to highlight yearlong progress against school goals.  In the beginning of the school year, each principal submitted a short summary about your leadership thoughts and actions.  For the June session, each principal will only need to add one paragraph at the end of the same document.(Keep the top portion in tact).  Please e-mail the updated document to the webmaster and cc to the Superintendent and Director of Student Services by June 12.  (Click HERE for the blank form)The Board asked to receive the documents before the board meeting so that they have time to review them and formulate thoughtful questions. The work session will start with each principal highlighting one key idea he/she chooses to share (3-4 minutes per person) followed by the Q/A panel discussion (Approx. 25 - 30 minutes).  The total length of the panel discussion is one hour.

Consensus Mapping- Math (Ying Ying Chen)
This year’s consensus map will continue to be lead by Susan U and two GW mathematics consultants.  We have shared our district’s work on Power Standards and common formative assessment with her.  She also worked with Brock Storfa, from Rubicon, on the template design and has lead other schools through the similar process that use the same curriculum tool.  The process will engage staff in:

1. Unpacking common core and keeping the rigor/embed mathematics practice
2. Power unpacked standards
3. Sequence the unpacked standards  

We predict that item 1 and 2 will be done in the two days in June and item 3 will be done on August 3.  The sessions start at 7:45 and ends at 3:45 each day in PHS study hall.

The Golden Circle of Leadership (Ying Ying Chen)
To close this year, I would like to thank you for being such wonderful leaders for the sake of our students.  I fully understand your sacrifice and the willpower it takes to do what you do each day.  I am sharing this TedTalk with you as it reminds me about the message of moral purpose.  Take a moment to absorb the core message, pause, celebrate and ask, “What do I believe?”   This video may help you discover your leadership core and help renew your energy and passion as set new goals for the following year.  Wishing you a very deserving and relaxing summer!

Daniel R. Venables and Authentic PLCs - Mark Your Calendars Now for August 9 (News from Iowa ASCD)
Daniel R. Venables, author of The Practice of Authentic PLCs - A Guide to Effective Teacher Teams, will be a featured speaker at the SAI conference in the morning of August 9.  In the afternoon, Venables will be providing an opportunity for Iowa ASCD members and their leadership teams to further explore ways to take their PLCs to a higher level. The fee for this value-added opportunity will be $15 for Iowa ASCD members and $45 for non-members who register before August 7.  Each participant will receive lunch and Venables' book as well as opportunity for ongoing conversation with Venables in a follow-up webinar and discussion board.  Watch the June 1 issue of The Source, Iowa ASCD newsletter,  for details on registration.

Digital Literacy Update:  Craig Barnum

I’m excited to announce that we will be partnering with Atomic Learning to provide all staff (and students next fall) with their own login.  Atomic Learning is a web service devoted to providing short “how to” video clips for all sorts of technology related things.  Currently, we have access to Atomic Learning via the AEA Coop.  However, the account is a building-based, generic  account.  With this new login, there will be much more personalization available.  There are tons of great videos in Atomic Learning such as how to use the iLife Suite (iMovie, iPhoto, Garage Band, etc...).   We will be posting our own special login page on the Staff Hub inside PrairiePride.org.  The new staff accounts will be loaded to Atomic Learning after 5/29/12.  Staff can login with their email username (i.e. cbarnum -- not the full address) and their email password.  Please encourage your staff to check out this great set of references.

Curriculum Matters:  Bill Poock

It is difficult to believe that the end of the year is already upon us!  I cannot believe how FAST this year has been.  I want to take this time to personally thank each and every one of you for the dedication and passion you bring to your work each and every day.  To see such dedicated leaders makes this tough work all worth it.  I have been fortunate to begin my administrative career at CCSD and to be surrounded by such divergent, quality thinkers!  Professionally, this year has been a whirlwind of learning, hard work, and rewards.  While the daily work can be challenging, I always try to take time to reflect on what we’ve really accomplished.  To sum up our year, here are some of my reflections about the path we’ve taken this year:

• We succeeded in transforming the professional learning structure at CCSD to move towards a more differentiated approach at each building.
• We succeeded in holding what is “tight” constant across all buildings:  continuous improvement cycle; quality unit design; and AFL strategies to strengthen teaching and learning.
• We succeeded in honoring what is “loose” across all buildings--ensuring that building leadership cadres have the latitude to create meaningful PL sessions that are truly responsive to your building’s teachers.
• We succeeded in creating another reflective tool to change practice in the Teacher Practice Profile for Unit Design.  This is yet another way we can collect and use “cause data” to see if our efforts have any impact on our students’ achievement.  And guess what?  It does!
• We succeeded in journeying to Phoenix to begin work/thinking about how to incorporate PLC thinking into our existing culture.
• We succeeded in studying, selecting, and implementing a new curriculum work tool using the Rubicon-Atlas mapping tool which is completely aligned with our backwards design philosophy of unit/lesson design.
• We succeeded in helping teachers investigate how to incorporate common formative assessments within existing structures to benefit the learning and achievement of our students.
• We succeeded in moving forward with the identification and selection process for creating and using Power Standards.
• We succeeded in strengthening the will of our system.  While the tension is great at times, with any systems change, that tension and pull towards change is necessary and is often a vital component in creating the destabilized environment that leads to positive, systemic change that truly impacts teaching practice, and ultimately, student learning and achievement.

One thing I know for sure--we have MUCH to celebrate as we complete another school year.  I am thankful that we have the drive to continue to move our system forward in ways that we might yet not know about right now.  However, we have momentum and we have that drive to seek continuous improvement.  Thank you!

Lead Learners Update 5.14.12

Lead Learner Update

May 14 - May 25, 2012

"The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly."

Jim Rohn

Calendar of Events
5.14 Admin Learning (EdInsight/School Goals, etc.) @ 12:30
Advisory Committee for Gifted and Talented @ 5:45
5.15 Digital Learning Community Meeting @ 6:30
5.18 Celebrate Dick’s Retirement 4:00 - 7:00 (Program starts at 6:00) Kirkwood Hotel
5.21 Admin Learning @ 12:30

John visit with Admin (follow the schedule sent by Dick/Steve)

Board Meeting

5.23 Kathy’s retirement celebration at Edge starting at 4:00
5.24 Dan’s retirement celebration at HS starting at 4:00
5.26 High School Graduation

June 1st Oversight Meeting (Ying Ying Chen)
Time: 8:00 - 11:30
Location: High School Study Hall
This will be a very important session to decide cadre specifics for 2012-13. (e.g. Meeting schedule, tight/loose, etc.)  Be sure you have this on the calendar and plan to attend on time.

End of Year Report (Ying Ying Chen)
The end of year report is slightly revised to reflect the current language and practice.  The data components, rather than having Sheri input them on the form, we will make the resource available to you as links.  A new tab, Building Improvement Plan, is added to the Lead Learners Home Page   for your convenience. The due date for turning in this report is June 30.

Some principals asked if they can revise the plan after June 30.   I developed the following guideline to clarify this question:

There are four main components in the report

1. Needs Assessment/Data Analysis (Where are we? What does our data show?)
2. Goal Establishment (What student learning outcomes do we want to see by the end of 2012-13?)
3. Action Plans (What are we going to do to reach our established goals?)
4. PL Plans (Month by month PL opportunities to support the staff reaching the goals)

The Guideline

Components of the Report	Can you change the plan after June 30?
I. Needs Assessments Information about CSIP, APR and ICC Building based data Cause data Student results Your analysis of strengths and area of growth	Principal Considerations: Collect staff feedback in May Additional analysis to be done by principals when organizing the end of year report Many principals will work with teacher leaders to clarify strengths and areas of growth. Recommendation:  There is no reason to change this part once the analysis is done.
2. Goal Establishment Help Tips Goal statements	Principal Considerations: Principals work with Cadre in May and June to establish goal statements for next year. Principals consult with ESC administrator to clarify goal statements Recommendation:  These goal statements should set the focus for the following school year.  Generally, these statements should be student result focused and in SMART format. They should not be changed once it is established.
3. Action Plans A detailed plan in a matrix format	Principal Considerations: This is the most important part of your school improvement plan.  Without it, the goal statements will only be a statement on paper or in the cloud.  A good plan will require a principal to exercise Leadership Standards 1 (vision), 2 (Culture of learning) and 3 (Management).  It specifies team structures/norms, defines tools/protocols, sets timelines and establishes distributive leaders.  Data analysis, especially summative ones, should be established in the plan so that you can map out the year accordingly.  It should be clear and thoughtful and can be used to leverage or anchor the improvement process. Recommendation:  Some update is OK.  Most of the update may happen between June and September/early October (before the Fall  board report)  so that you still have the rest of the year to implement your plan.  The update should be made due to a new insight, new resource or new discovery as you implement your plan, not an afterthought toward the later part of the year.
4. PL Plans Month by month PL focus	Principal Considerations: This is a skeletal plan for PL design.  It records major known and potential PL activities that support the school goal.  (Ex: If X needs to happen by X, then, X must be planned in X week/month.  If we collect X data in X month, then we might have to provide X in this month. )  Educated prediction will be exercised during this process.  UBD thinking could be applied as you sketch out the PL calendar for your building. Recommendation: A lot of update could happen throughout the year (if you choose to update the plan)

Summer Boot Camp on Digital Learning and Curriculum Tool (Ying Ying Chen)
A flyer will go out to all staff by May 18 with sign up procedures.  Principals may start to promote the information via building newsletters and communications.  These are services to the staff not paid sessions.  Electronic learning such as video streaming and recorded webnar will also be available to provide flexibility.

Boot Camp Dates: June 6 and June 19 with multiple identical sessions

AM sessions (identical to PM sessions)

7:45 – 9:15  (Setting Up MacBooks Airs and email)

8:15 -- 9:15 (imovie/iPhoto)

9:20 – 10:50 (Garage Band/iTune)

10: 55 – 11:40 (Rubicon)

PM sessions (Identical to AM sessions)

12:10 – 12:55 (Rubicon)

1:00 – 1:30 (Setting Up MacBooks Airs and email)

1:30 -- 2:30 (iMovie/iPhoto)

2:35 – 4:05 (Garage Band/iTune)

Digital literacy Update:  New Staff Laptops (Craig Barnum)
We are working with Apple to have the new staff laptops here on 5/25.  This will not give us a lot of time to get the new laptops turned around and out to the buildings before school is out.  I believe we can do this, but as I referenced in Tech Hawks last week, this will be different than any rollout we’ve ever done before.  I will provide much more detail in the upcoming days. But, here’s a quick overview of the process:

May 25th-29th -- Computers arrive.  They are inventoried.  Computers are sorted into building grouping.  Labels (staff names) are put on the boxes.  Computer setup instructions (with Outlook setup instructions) are stuffed into staff computer sleeves(bags).  External hard drives are placed in staff sleeves.
May 30th -- Computers and sleeves are delivered to buildings.  Each box will have a label with a staff member’s name on it.  There will be an identical number of sleeves (bags) pre-stuffed with computer setup instructions, Outlook setup instructions, and external hard drives.  Distribution methods of the new computers will be up to the local building.  New staff computers (if the name is known) should be included in this initial delivery.

Once staff get their boxed computer and sleeve, they can setup their computer on their own.  It’s a relatively simple process.  It’s very much like what happens with an new consumer computer.  Here’s a brief overview of that process:

1. Unbox the computer and start it up.
2. The “Mac Buddy” assistant will run.  It will ask for a preferred language and other simple demographic questions.  Before it ends, it will ask teachers to enter a username and password to setup an account on the computer.  They will use their current email username and password for this.
3. The computer will restart.  Upon restart, the computer will ask which wireless network it should to connect to.  If  at Point or the High School, staff will select “CCSD-RA-A” and enter email user name and password.  If at one of the elementary buildings or Creek, select one of the networks with a building name in it and enter email username and password.  The MacBook Air will remember the username and password information.  So, this should only need to be done once.

New staff laptops will come with MS Office (Word, Excel, Power Point, Outlook) pre-installed along with iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie and the rest of the iLife suite.  There’s another, very simple process to setup Outlook as well.

With all this in mind, here are a few things to think about as building leaders:

Where do you plan to store the staff laptops and sleeves when we send them over on 5/30?  It will need to be somewhere secure. I will be contact to coordinate with each building, but I’ll need this information before the 25th.

What process do you intend to use to distribute the computers once they arrive?  Several buildings are requiring check in of the Byte Speed before check out of the new computer.  Please also be sure to have a way to track who has gotten a sleeve (bag).  The sleeves will come pre-stuffed with instructions for both the computer and email (Outlook) setup.  They will also include an external hard drive.  So, it’s critical that every staff member gets a sleeve.

Again, I will be sharing more  detailed information the week of the 21st on how this process will work.  There will be a brief session at the start of each Digital Literacy Boot Camp on how to setup MacBook Airs and Outlook. In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to drop me a note or give me a call if you have further questions.