MacGyverizing Teaching - How Did We Kill Creativity?

I am always amazed at my lovely wife's natural ability to create a speech lesson out of most anything, MacGyverizing (remember the show, he could fix a bulldozer with gum and duct tape).

As I work with educational teams and listen to the opportunities and challenges of continuously improving student success through instruction, it makes me wonder how we (society) have killed or at least wounded the creativity in our approach to teaching and learning. Research does say that 95% of our creativity is dead by the age of 13, how sad. For those folks attending college and starting new in a teaching career, I wonder how long it takes before the other 5% is squashed. I am playing devil's advocate a bit, there is still a ton of great teachers out there tapping their creativity to meet student needs, but I bet they work hard to do it.

As I worked with an educational team defining the schools values that resulted from a school culture values survey we completed, one of the teachers on the team challenged the reality of making creativity a priority value that would be defined and then action items would be incorporated into the school improvement plan to increase creativity as well as results. I knew he was a top-notch teacher (one reason he was on the team), so I asked him this:

If you life depended on making sure all your students pass the upcoming state exam and you were sent off with your class to live in the middle of the forest with no outside contact, no technology (blackberry stays at home), no text books, no worksheets, etc., could you make it happen?

You can guess, his answer was, "it would be a challenge but yes". I asked why do you say that? His response, "I would use what was available to me to help the kids learn - even if it is my own experience, sticks and stones". I said, you would get "wildly" creative in your approach to teaching.

So my question, how do we help make sure all educators embrace their creativity and put it to work for the students as well as for their own mental health? Creativity has the potential to eliminate excuses related to available resources, turf battles, teaching to tests, differentiated learning, etc. How can you and your teaching teams crank-up the creativity meter starting right now?

A quick exercise: the "walk about". At your next teaching team meeting, select your challenge/opportunity (for example literacy lesson -- new approach to instructing), then have everyone get up and take a 3min walk around the school. They should walk alone without talking with anyone else and simply note the things that catch their eye - maybe the one thing that resonates most upon their return. Have all team members write down what caught their eyes on a flip chart paper, get it all down. Then ask each person to individually select one item from the list and come up with an idea on how it applies to the challenge/opportunity. It may apply directly or it may have spurred an idea related to the challenge/opportunity. Have team members share their thoughts (be sure to make the ground rule that no ideas will be viewed as dumb ideas and everyone will respect everyone's input).

Remember if you are educating our young people, you may be someone's everyday hero as they share stories later in life. Have a great week! Coach Bob.

Maximize Team Effectivess by Keeping Structure in Place

As I worked with a great instructional leadership team yesterday including principals, assistants and teacher leaders (some central office admins too) it reminded me of the benefits of team structure when groups are asked to function as teams. If you have more than five members on your team, you will benefit from defining roles and following a structured approach to your meetings as well as projects.

It's not rocket science, but it does require a bit of discipline. More and more teams I work with (department, project or leadership) don't approach their team with any type of defined structure and act more as a group of individuals vs. a collaborative team. So what can you do with your team?

1. Create a team charter, a plan for your team that defines the following (usually done in a single meeting)

• Team mission - purpose for working together
• Team values - agreed upon and defined guidelines for working together (5-7 of these)
• Team roles - sponsor, leader, facilitator (internal/external and depend on the size of your team), members
  
• Team goal(s) - desired outcomes the team will be responsible for
• Resources needed by the team ($, materials, labor, people, etc.)

2. Don't skip the team building stuff that allows your team to connect as individuals

• Ensure you all understand each others' communication/behavioral styles, work tendencies and personal commitments to the team
• Professional and some level of personal trust must be in place
• Keep a focus on this element of team building throughout your work together
• Minimize the forming/storming phases and get to the norming/performing stages quickly
  

3. Use meeting plans that include the following information (request a sample plan from me)

• Meeting purpose
• Team members attending
• Agenda items with descriptions and or information needed by members for each item
• Time allotments
• Call to action for each agenda item including a "who" that will own it
• Practice good meeting process by sticking to agendas and "parking" side info

4. Team leaders, fulfill your leadership responsibilities

• Keep a "Eagle's Eye" view on things that includes a perspective on your team working within the entire department/organization (which is the bigger team)
  
• Keep the structure in place for the team and meetings
• Maintain a focus on the mission and values of the team
• Engage all members
• Secure support from your sponsor and the resources needed for success
  
• Hold members accountable for being prepared for meetings and taking action on their specified assignments
• Ensure measures are used and goals/objectives are being met
• Celebrate

I have the pleasure of working with a lot of great teams as well as individual team leaders and members. A simple structure/framework adds consistency to the team process and ensures team goals and objectives are met. Every team who participates in our team building exercises have agreed that they would have benefited from a few minutes of planning, selecting a leader to keep things in control and considering how they were defining "team" (their small group or the group as a whole when it came to resource allocation and best practice sharing).

How is does your team rate? Download our manual scoring Teams4Levels Assessment and Scoring sheet (we can set-up an online team survey for only $300/team that includes a feedback comments section and great reporting for use with your team).

Make it a great end of the week. Coach Bob.

Education in Action

Time flies when we are having fun (or at the very least, extremely busy). It is already the end of another school year. I can't believe how fast the year has gone. Now it is about wrapping things up and enjoying a little bit of summer.

Part of our summer fun will be getting together some teacher leadership teams for our July 22-23 Teacher Leadership in Action Conference. We will hold it here in Rochester at St. John Fisher College. If you have not heard about this PD event, I will be glad to put you in touch with previous attendees. The teams that have attended have really enjoyed themselves as well as taken away specific action plans to implement instructional change in their schools.

In addition to this session, we will kick-off our Principal Leadership in Action Coaching & Development process with registered principals and assistant principals for the 2009-2010 school year. This is a comprehensive one-to-one coaching program that includes a School Leadership Development 360 as well as school-based support. This year's participants shared that this process has been the best PD experience that they have ever had.

I will be happy to share the details on either of these programs with you, just contact me by phone or e-mail. Also, keep a look out for our new Education in Action E-News Letter that will be out shortly. Quick articles featuring strategies, links and resources that you can use to develop your leadership skills, team collaboration and school culture.

Learning Network -- Weekend Homework

"No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals." -- Brian Tracey


What a great quote as I sent an invitational e-mail out this morning to encourage my network of educational leaders and providers to join our blog and share their expertise. The feedback that I have received from many educators that we have worked with is that they don't take enough time to reflect on their own personal goals, identify people who can help them succeed and actually tap that expertise by taking action. So, here is a quick exercise to get you started:

1. Write down 3-5 goals you would like to accomplish in the next 12-15months (personal/professional).
2. Create a list of the people/groups that can help you be successful at accomplishing these goals.
3. Write down the specific knowledge, skills, information, resources and support each is in a position to provide you with (be specific).
4. Set-up a meeting with a minimum of one of these people each week until you have talked with them all (in-person, phone, etc.)
5. Send a follow-up note with regards to how they have helped you move toward your desired goal along with a thank you.

If you are skeptical, take the 10min to go through the process with just one goal and with just one contact. Then you be the judge.

Have a great weekend! Let the network know your thoughts.

Protocols

From this month's Tools for Schools, NSDC. Protocols are simply an agreed upon set of guidelines for conversation. Protocols help educators take conversations and learning to the next level. The need to have a more challenging conversation, reference protocols @ www.nsrfharmony.org for more information. Volume 12, No. 3 provides examples of three protocols that you can use to improve learning and development in your educational team - 1) Wagon Wheel 2) Three Levels of Text and 3) Success Analysis. I am looking forward to integrating these protocols into our upcoming educational team work, coaching and training.

Please share some of your thoughts and experiences with protocols.

Also, you may want to pick-up Professional Learning for School Leaders @ store.nsdc.org.

Professional Learning in the Learning Profession

This morning, NSDC releases Professional Learning in the Learning Profession: A Status Report on Teacher Development in the United States and Abroad. The study, conducted by Linda Darling-Hammond, Ruth Chung Wei, and a team of researchers from Stanford University's School Redesign Network, presents a comprehensive look at teacher professional learning in the U.S. and in other high-performing nations. The report examines how teachers in the U.S. experience professional learning compared to teachers in other high-performing nations. NSDC members can access the report as well as the longer technical report and the press release at www.nsdc.org/stateproflearning.cfm.

"You have to 'be' before you can 'do,'
and do before you can 'have.' "
— Zig Ziglar: Is a motivational author and speaker

January is flying by. I get a motivational quote a day from a couple places. I enjoy reading them and it is amazing how aligned they tend to be with my work for that day or week.

This one seemed to stick as we prepare for our Teacher Leadership in Action: Making Instructional Change Happen conference being held next Thursday and Friday. Our main differentiator is a dual factor model that includes both the instruction side as well as the teamwork side. So this quote got me thinking.

1. What do teacher leaders have to consider with regards to "being" before doing?

Our answer: "Being" is personal leadership. Insight and understanding into your own personal talents and leadership capacities as well as taking ownership for your results. Modeling desired behaviors and getting the coaching support you need to "be" the best.

2. What do teacher leaders have to "do" before having?

Our answer: "Doing" is about building a high performance team that can execute and take action vs. talk a lot and never seem to implement change. It is about measurement and accountability. It is getting positive results and using them as a springboard for even greater accomplishments.

3. What can teacher leaders (and their teams) "have" as a result of being and doing?

Our answer: "Having" means that teacher leaders and their teaching teams improve learning and student success. Today's results are better than yesterday's and tomorrow's will be better than today's. A powerful teaching and learning environment is created that sustains long-term excellence.

While this doesn't seem too complicated. School leaders must consider if they are providing the resources and support to allow teacher leaders to "be" and "do". Only then will they get to "have" what all educators, students and parents desire.

Share your thoughts. How are you "being", "doing" and "having"? What is your district doing now or should be doing?

Bob

The 20/20 Perspective

Prior to going out on my own as a talent management consultant and leadership trainer, I worked for one of Rochester's top companies in human resources. We always used the 20/20 scenario to reinforce the importance of being a great place to work and shop. What is the 20/20 scenario? Lead, work and serve (model behavior) so you are always ready for a 20/20 (news) investigation. If 20/20 was to investigate you, your business and your people, are you ok with what they will find. Better yet, do you think it will be a great opportunity for some positive PR? If yes, great.

As far as schools go, consider the following when evaluating what you are spending your time on and how you go about doing what you do:

1. What would your school's 20/20 headline be?
2. If 20/20 conducted interviews with your students, staff and parents what would they say?
3. As the cameras caught everything live, what would they be catching?

What is less important is your answers to these questions. What is most important is if your answers to these questions raise any concerns, you begin to take the actions needed to be a 20/20 Spotlight on Success vs. an investigation.

Don't forget to share your thoughts and have a great weekend!!!

Bob