Week Eleven

What is the Role of Knowledge Creation and Sharing in a Healthy Educational Organization?

I've never heard of the term "edcamp" before reading the article posted by edutopia. After some research, I discovered that edcamps are events that offer teachers free professional development. Anyone can participate in an edcamp. Edcamps have no set agenda and no set presenters; educators show up, have some coffee, mingle and then write topics that they would like to learn or share about on a board. This board turns into a spreadsheet of rooms and times with topics. People wander in and out of the rooms, help present and/or just listen to the conversation. These edcamps are quite popular in the lower 48. A quick google search brings me to a website where I can search for an edcamp near me, unfortunately of the 50 listed edcamps for the remainder of 2019, there are none within 300 miles of Sitka.

NY Times

My school follows a similar model to edcamps on professional development days set up by my principal. She will put out a list of "committees" (as we call them) and the room and times they will meet during the PD day and teachers can go to the committees that they are interested in. We have a requirement that we must attend two or more but that is really the only requirement. One administrator attends each meeting to take notes and lead the group if there isn't someone else to take the lead. The pro's - only people interested in the discussion show up, the meeting are short and to the point and we usually come up with a plan to move forward. The con's - not everyone is in the loop and some people might feel left out.

I found an interesting article by Alaskan Council of School Administrators that spoke about a school in Nikiski that began to use the edcamp model at their school with teachers. They extended the model to their students and now they have a few days during the year dedicated to "a day of students teaching students something they were interested in". (Carstens) For this school, this experiment/shift seemed to be working. The staff was on board and believed in the process, which is very important when you introduce something new to a large group of people.

Carstens, Dan. “Ed Camps: Placing Students at the Center.” Alaska Council of School Administrators ACSA, www.alaskaacsa.org/ed-camps-placing-students-at-the-center/.

Week Ten

Explain and give examples to argue why the following statement is true or false: "Get the right people on your team, and get the wrong ones off."

I believe this statement, "get the right people on your team, and the wrong ones off" is a true statement and something to live by. The right people on your team help with classroom and school moral, producing products, and decision making. The wrong people can bring down school moral, increase the stress level and drag out the decision making process.

As a teacher leader in my school, I try my best to surround myself with teachers who are positive, forward thinking and open to change. These teachers help me stay positive even when I'm having a hard day. I lean on these teachers to help me work through problems with students, parents or curriculum. I am also there for my colleagues when they need someone to vent to or work out a problem.

In the fall we will be using a new grade book at the high school. I am the teacher trainer for my school. I will participate in webinars and then present the information to the staff. I have a small group of teachers that I will rely on and ask for feedback before I present to the whole group. This small group of teachers helps me as a teacher leader because I am able to prepare myself for possible hiccups in the presentation and anticipate some of the questions other teaches might ask. 

The math curriculum at my school has been under a microscope since before I started teaching over seven years ago. The community did not like that we were using an integrated curriculum and because of that, our teaching expertise was always being questioned. We have since then gone through a curriculum change at the K-8 level and we are currently rearranging our topics at the high school to be better aligned with the algebra, geometry, algebra two sequence. Having a supporting principal has been very helpful through this process. It has also been nice to be able to fall back on the expertise of a few veteran teachers who know more of the school's history with this topic.

In each of the scenarios listed above; teacher leader, technology and curriculum there are slightly different people in my circle that are my go to people. A few teachers overlap but not all. I am lucky in that my classroom is at the end of the hallway so I do not get a lot of foot traffic (students or teachers) so I can sort of hide and do my own thing if I need to. It's nice that I have the option of what teachers I choose to surround myself with because I teach at a school with 20 something other teachers. I don't like confrontation, so I tend to avoid people if we do not agree on something. This is one of the reasons that I could never be an administrator.

Week Nine

How is Mentoring Adults Different from Teaching Children?

One of the main differences that comes to mind between mentoring adults and teaching children is life experiences. The adult learner is motivated by life experiences because they have lived through a lot of circumstances that influences their options. "Common sense tells us that life experience greatly influences our motivation, our ability to learn, and the attention we choose to give learning." (Papa, p. 93) Adults who participate in a mentorship have mostly likely chosen to do so and therefor have a high interest in learning.

Children, on the other hand, feel that they are being forced to learn and therefor do not always enjoy school. While attending school, there is not a single focus. Students are required to meet certain graduation requirements set by the school district, thus not able to only focus on subjects they feel passionate about.  Children also have not had a lot of exposure to life experiences so it is not know what their main interests are yet.

All teachers participate in a mentorship before they can be a teacher. This mentorship is structured in a way that is highly motivating for the mentee and of high interest. This mentorship lasts for one or two years and then the teacher is "set free". I would argue that it is important to find a person at the school you work "who can challenge you, advise you and celebrate you, helps you embrace being reflective and encourages you to take risks" (Wolpert-Gawron) not matter how much of a veteran teacher you are. I am lucky to have one of those people in the room next to me at my school. We talk daily about instructional materials, students and life. She is a great sounding board and I am as well for her.

At my school, some of the students participate in a mentorship with students from the elementary school when they sign up for a Spanish and art class. This is not a requirement, simply something that teachers have set up.  It is very interesting to see how much work these students do in preparing the lessons that they are going to teach and to see the interactions with the younger students. We also have an internship class, where students are paired up with a business in our community and work with them for a semester. This is a new class at our school and I hope that it can be developed into something really great for our students.

I have never had a student teacher in my classroom, but I can image that it is a lot of work. I also worry about the forced pairing and how well we would get along. Despite this, I would welcome any new teacher help, as I know many teachers have helped me along the way. "Mentoring is considered the most complete human skill to acquire immediately followed by negotiating and instructing." (Papa, pg. 100) I know that I would be rewarded immensely while working with a student teacher.

Working with adults and students definitely have their differences but both can be very rewarding. Most of my experience only comes with working with students, and this is where I feel more comfortable.



Papa, Rosemary. Technology Leadership for School Improvement. SAGE Publications, Inc, 2011.

Wolpert-Gawron, Heather. “Every Teacher Needs a Mentor.” Edutopia, George Lucas Educational Foundation, 27 Mar. 2018, www.edutopia.org/article/every-teacher-needs-mentor.

Week Seven

Why are all five components of leadership necessary for success in leading through change?

We've all been in school where the teacher leaders, principals and/or superintendents are not successful leaders. You could look to the five components (listed below) and pretty quickly pick out the qualities that they lack. I will talk about each component and list them in order that I feel is the most important quality to have as a leader. The five components of leadership are necessary for success because all "together [they] operate in a checks and balance fashion." (Fullan) 

The first component is moral purpose and I believe this is the most important quality to have as a leader. As a leader you must act with intention and be aware of your surroundings. 

The definition of moral: "concerned with the principals of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character" (google dictionary) speaks to what I believe in. 

Next comes relationship building. If you do not build relationship with teachers, students, parents and community members, as a leader you are going to have a hard time inserting change; "if relationships improve, things get better." (Fullan) A strong relationship helps to improve the overall feel of the school climate and therefor helps with coherence making. Coherence "the quality of forming a unified whole." (google dictionary) 

Next on my list is knowledge creation and sharing. As new policy gets pushed down onto the schools by the state, leaders have to know how to shift through the information. Leaders must bring each party member (teachers, students etc.) together to come up with the best way to move forward.

The last component of leadership is understanding the change process. To be effective, a leader must understand that change is challenging and it will bring up emotions among the people they are working with. "For better or worse, change arouses emotions, and when emotions intensify, leadership is key." (Fullan)

Having checks and balances is essential when it comes to change. All leaders are not perfect, they "improve their style over a period of time due to experiences, education and training." (Bradshaw) Finding the best way to implement change with the people you work with is an essential skill and remembering that "not all plans work out, but [to] have the structure to go back and consider all the factors to determined what [was] missed." (Bonde)

Leadership is hard work, we all know that. In my classroom, I teach with the "intention of making a positive difference in the lives of [students]." (Fullan) I do the best with the knowledge that I have and that is what we can hope for in our leaders.

Bonde, Elijah. “Leading Change in Schools for 21st Century Teaching and Learning.” Atlas, 22 Oct. 2018, www.rubicon.com/strategies-lead-change-management-schools/.
Bradshaw, Robert, et al. Leadership and Knowledge Sharing. 2015, pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f4ff/44a040fc64efb1de223f5902bbe4248340ef.pdf.

Fullan, Michael. “ED467449.” Jossey-Bass, 2001.

Week Eight

What strategies do you use that are related to your “moral purpose”? How do these contribute to your overall leadership?

Every year a new batch of students walk through my doors. Some are students I've had the year before and some have never stepped in my classroom. For those students that I have not had as students before, I do my very best to make my own judgement based on the actions of the student rather than judging them on what I've heard from other teachers. I believe each student should have a chance to start over at the beginning of the year and start with a clean slate. This is my first moral purpose strategy, treat people fairly.

Secondly, I surround myself with like minded people. I believe having people around that have a "strong moral compass" (Elias) helps me stay true to myself, especially for the duration of a school year (or tenure at a school). At school, there are some teachers that I do not interact with as much because of how they treat students or how they conduct them self outside of school. I feel that they're negativity would drag me down and wear me down.

And lastly, being a leader at my school helps me to have a strong moral purpose. "Leaders in all organization, whether they know it or not, contribute for better or for worse to moral purpose in their own organization and in society as a whole." (Fullan) As a leader in my classroom or in my school I must always act as if someone is watching and this is one of the ways I remain a moral leader. Elias wrote that "to follow any leader, others must be convinced of that leader's dedication to equity [and] fairness." 

I became an educator to "make a difference in the lives of students" (Fullan) and I believe that I do a pretty good job at that. I listen to students, treat them fairly, surround myself with solid people and lead when necessary. "It takes a staff, who have strong, trusting relationships to truly propel and maintain a high-functioning [classroom and] school." (Alber)

Alber, Rebecca. “How to Give Your School Leader a Grade.” Edutopia, George Lucas Educational Foundation, 14 Aug. 2009, www.edutopia.org/effective-school-leadership-characteristics.
Elias, Maurice J. “6 Paths to Better Leadership.” Edutopia, George Lucas Educational Foundation, 20 Dec. 2016, www.edutopia.org/blog/educators-improving-school-leadership-maurice-elias.
Fullan, Michael. “ED467449.” Jossey-Bass, 2001.