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Matthew Lynch published in Equity, HBCU's, Higher Education, Matthew Lynch

Diverse Conversations: Supporting Underserved Populations in Higher Education

The field of higher education has changed completely in the past couple of decades. Unlike before, when only a few talented and intelligent students went on to get a college education, now it has become a necessity as the jobs available in the new economy require more than just a high school diploma. Because of this, American institutions of higher learning are experiencing an influx of students that may not have been part of the college scene as early as a decade ago. Recently, I sat down with Dr. Stella M. Flores, Assistant Professor of Higher Education at Vanderbilt University, to discuss how institutions of higher learning can better support underserved populations.

ML: How are first-generation, low-income, and minority students faring in the modern academy in relation to the past? How can we get things to where they should be?

SF: The trends show that we have more access to higher education due to increased options via the community colleges and now online learning programs. So the modern academy does not look like an older traditional academy. However, when we account for other characteristics, the demographic trends are less favorable. We are not doing as well with some groups such as Hispanics, while we’ve seen some improvements with other groups.

First-generation, low-income and minority students fare better when they have adequate access to financial aid, support programs that properly introduce them to and sustain them through the academy, and proper high school preparation that equips them to handle the rigor of college work. The reality is that many of the high schools that launch these students have not provided this preparation placing the burden on the academy to make up for this lost ground.

ML: What can policy and decision makers do to help historically underserved students to succeed in college?

SF: First, policymakers and decision makers can come to the table as stakeholders in support of educating underserved students as a larger societal and economic mandate. Educational attainment is beyond an individual good yet we behave as if it is a zero-sum game in almost every instance. Second, succeeding in college is largely based on succeeding in high school. While it seems that aiming for the high school diploma is no longer a problem, the new battle, it seems to me, is an equity fight for the courses that lead to reasonable and serious college eligibility for all groups.

Some states have enacted policies to make the college curriculum a default curriculum. This is a great step but we have to know when policy is not enough. Stakeholders as a group can identify what levers will also have to be in place for the policy to work. Policy is an essential but insufficient step in helping students succeed in college. I would also argue it also not only the responsibility of education policymakers as health care, family, and employment decisions are especially competing options in low-income and underrepresented student lives.

At the college level, I would suggest the funding and expansion of interventions we know work for students based on their institutional culture. Institutions that enroll a moderate to high percentage of students in need of remediation will require different interventions than an institution with innovative retention programs for students with the preparation and motivation to major in a STEM field.

Third, reducing time to degree to the extent possible, will likely be a key element in all of these programming efforts. Fourth, many highly successful historically underrepresented students will point to at least one minority faculty who made a difference in their pathway to greater achievements. That is not to say that non-minority faculty members don’t play a role in this pathway to success. However, this is one element that seems to be consistent in the average underrepresented student success story. I know my life would have been different had I not seen the first Mexican-American female professor at my university.

ML: Historically underserved students are disproportionally burdened with student debt when compared to other groups. What can be done to close this gap and alleviate their burden?

SF: There is emerging research on financial literacy on how to plan for college, choose college based on options and loan debt, and the timing of the receipt of this information. One reality, however, is that many students faced with a “first” in completing college, specifically a selective college, take on more debt than they can handle in efforts to make family history. My advice would be to understand the tradeoffs in these decisions.

Second, there are many schools now that offer free tuition to high achieving, low-income students if parental contribution is under a certain amount. The lesson here is to tell the low-income eighth grader that if he or she is able to achieve at high levels, college may be reasonably affordable if not nearly free at a good school. This is of course dependent on the economy and institutional sustainability of programs. However, it seems we are providing incorrect information when we say a public school education will always be cheaper than a private school education.

One good formula to suggest to our younger students is to aim to be academically high achieving, get information on options across all institutions, don’t “undermatch” yourself, and plan to finish in time if at all possible. For those of us with loan debt, I can imagine a new pool of teachers, professors, health care professionals with simple loan forgiveness programs administered at the state or federal level. It seems to me this would be a relatively easy marketing campaign that could change the structure of the labor market in ways the labor market needs to stretch – stronger teachers in the professions, more nurses in our hospitals, etc.

ML: By 2050, Caucasians will no longer constitute a majority in the United States. What does this mean for higher education?

SF: This is an important demographic to keep in mind as we plan for a future. Will we respond with safeguarding stratification at institutions based on race, ethnicity, and income, or will we prepare leaders from all groups for all institutions? In essence, this means state economies will likely thrive or die based on how they educate their least educated group. This will have even more dire consequences for states whose least educated group is also its most populous group.

ML: What is your vision for higher education in the 21st century, and what are the key opportunities and challenges suggested by this vision?

SF: My vision for the 21st century is to more profoundly understand the potential of our individuals and institutions in the context of historical and remaining challenges. By that I mean moving past stereotypes, fears, and anxieties to a place where we have the opportunity to see all groups as equals because we have seen leadership, research, success, and vision from everyone in our circles. In my vision, we won’t second-guess each other’s talents and contributions based on what we look like.

My vision is also to speak up for each other’s educational well-being even if that person is different from ourselves. In sum, we create a vision in which all have an opportunity for a solid high school education that prepares you to succeed in college and a college education that prepares you for a job and dare I say the opportunity to attend a graduate or professional program. The challenge will be to do this in a world with exploding and evolving technology in which the “have-nots” will likely be the last in line to access the future.

Well, that concludes my interview with Dr. Flores. I would like to thank her for taking time out of her busy schedule to speak with us.

Click here to read all our posts concerning the Achievement Gap.

 

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education

Are community colleges the answer?

President Obama’s State of the Union address this week laid out proposals to revamp the tax code by raising taxes and fees on the wealthiest Americans and largest financial institutes. The additional money from these taxes would be used to pay for free tuition for two years of community college.

Obama’s plan would give many people in America the opportunity to receive an education– something that many people in our country have always wanted, but could never afford.  The President points out that more people will have the ability to obtain a degree, and we will also see a more competitive nation with a stronger middle-class economy.

In his proposal for free tuition, Obama highlights that students would need to maintain a 2.5 GPA, attend at least half time and be on track to graduate on time. The proposal would not be exclusive to recent high school graduates.

The President estimates the cost of the free tuition program at $6 billion a year.

I think community colleges are the key to an affordable education, especially when paired with 4-year college initiatives. If community college becomes more affordable, I think that some students may not have to work full-time as they take classes, so they could quicken the pace of their attendance.

Many Americans wish they could pursue their dream of college education, but they just do not have the means to follow through with their plans. I appreciate Obama’s focus on the future of America’s children, inclusion and equality, and college affordability.

Should a free college education be like public schools — an American right?

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Matthew Lynch published in Policy & Reform

Obama in favor of longer days and academic years

President Obama has outlined an ambitious education agenda stating, “The challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom.”

He highlights that this reform correlates with the economic crisis and says that a well-educated workforce will improve the nation’s future prosperity.

The President wants to see changes — which translate into longer school days and more days of the year in classrooms — in early childhood education. He says he will pledge new grants to states for programs to help children prepare for kindergarten.

He discussed a longer school calendar in the US, noting that children in America spent a month less in school than their South Korean counterparts.

Obama broadened his views on the topic too, saying he  hopes to see improvements in K-12 including less difference between the 50 states when it comes to “benchmarks for academic success.” He explains the goal of the No Child Left Behind Act is higher standards and hopes to see reach these goals through the help of the Act.

He also wants to recruit and retain better teachers. Obama advocated merit pay for teachers, despite the opposition from allies in the teachers union and Democratic Party. He also said states and school districts should work to eliminate low quality teachers from the classrooms.

In addition, Obama proposed increases in Pell grants to keep up with inflation rates.

I like the education reform that Obama outlined. Most of the ideas he’s pressing would do a lot of good for US students and beyond, especially when it comes to classroom time.

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Matthew Lynch published in Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform

Year-Round Schooling: 3 Common Arguments against It

In my last post, I talked about the reasons I feel that teachers should get behind the push to support year-round schooling and how more consistent time in the classroom will lead to higher student performance, boosting teacher accountability ratings and accommodating a much more streamlined education process. Today I want to look at the common reasons that people are against switching from a summers-off school calendar to a year-round schooling model.

Rising costs

The summer months are typically the highest ones for energy consumption. In fact, the average electricity bill for homeowners in the summer months goes up 4 to 8 percent. The same concept would be true of schools. Having empty classrooms in the summer months means less money going out to air conditioning and prevents other warm-weather costs from hitting school utility budgets. It may seem like a minor point, but an increase in utility bills for one-quarter of the year really could hurt schools’ bottom lines.

Not enough “down time”

Some childhood development experts believe that particularly when it comes to younger students, time off in the summer months is a vital component of healthy development. The argument follows that kids are not designed to spend so much of their time inside classroom walls and that the warmer, pleasant weather of the summer provides a perfect opportunity to get outside and experience childhood. The problem with this argument, of course, is that most children are not spending their summers frolicking in fields of flowers or running around their neighborhoods, hanging out with other kids.

The days of kids spending their summers outside, communing with nature and getting plenty of exercise, are long past. A recent Harvard University study found that school-age children tend to gain weight at a faster pace during the summer months than during the school year, a fact attributed to more time spent in sedentary activities like watching television or using mobile devices instead of being outside or participating in active pursuits. Not only must K-12 students relearn the academic items, but they must also shift their mentalities from less-active, sedentary ones to sharp, alert learning models – and teachers face the brunt of this responsibility.

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry reports that by the time children graduate from high school, they will have spent more time watching television than in classrooms. What’s more – children who watch an excessive amount of television generally have lower grades in school, read fewer books and have more health problems. While some children visit summer camps, or attend child care when school is out, others stay at home, inside, with not much else to do than watch TV or play games on electronic devices. This is especially true for kids who are middle-school age or higher and are able to stay home alone when parents work. The “down time” of the summer months is really just empty time, often void of anything academically or developmentally advantageous.

Scheduling adjustments

For parents with children of different ages and in different schools, a year-round schedule could present serious scheduling issues. This argument assumes that schools would actually adhere to different time off schedules – something that seemingly could be adjusted so that all schools within a particular district or geographic area were on the same schedule. There is also the child care debate that says it would be difficult for working parents to find babysitters for one or two weeks at a time every few months, as opposed to three months straight in the summer. Again though, the market adjusts with demand and it seems to me that child care centers and camps would offer programs when students needed them. Just because those programs are not available now does not mean they would not exist when families were willing to pay for them.

The most common arguments against year-round schooling seem like a stretch, at best. They are based on assumptions that are not entirely grounded and reek more of the fear of change than of actual concern.

What arguments against year-round schooling do you hear? What ones do you agree with?

 

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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, Matthew Lynch, Teachers

These Teacher-Friendly Software Tools Are Your New Best Friends

The Internet is a huge arena of resources, but sometimes, navigating it effectively can seem like a daunting task. How do you know what’s worth clicking on? Is a site really reliable? What sites have the best tools for you as a teacher?

Certain aspects of technology that are readily available for use by anyone can be put to very specific use by teachers. These are easy to use and can be of help for the general tasks teachers do as part of their job description, such as attendance forms, delivery of grading charts, and finding new resources.

This software can also be a timesaver for a variety of classroom tasks. Here are some of the software tools that can make a teacher’s life easier:

Time-Management Tools

These types of tools are basically calendar
software. They can be used to schedule your appointments, or you may want
to take advantage of more complex features. Some tools can be viewed online, so more than one student can access it. A teacher can arrange appointments or
make a note of due dates for assignments so that all students in their class can see. Most of these
tools allow the option to put some information in private mode and some in public mode, so the administrator can choose which calendars can be seen by everyone and which cannot. Most of
these tools include a feature allowing teachers to arrange meetings and groups.

Software Grade Books

This tool is basically a database that keeps records of student information. Teachers can enter contact information as well as grades. These kinds of tools provide valuable statistical information regarding grades, tests, and performance, giving the teacher a view of each student’s performance and learning progress.

Test Generator Software

With these tools, a teacher can create a database of different questions and tasks. The software will then construct tests from these questions. It can also create versions of the same test using different questions or ordering them differently.

Blogs

Derived from the term web logs, blogs are journals that are available online for any Internet user. Students can publish their photos and videos. The fact that their work is published online motivates students to care more about their work and make a greater effort on it. If the blogs are associated with the school, teachers must be certain to check the entries to ensure that no inappropriate content is posted and that copyright is not violated. Students should be tutored in correct blogging etiquette.

The World Wide Web is vast and variable, but the list above can give you a good place to start in your search for digital resources. For even more information on bringing media into the classroom, check out our other articles to sharpen your tech savvy up even more!

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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, Matthew Lynch, Teachers

Do Your Online Resources Pass This Test?

How do you know whether or not a website is a worthwhile resource? It can be hard to tell from a single glance if a website is valuable. If you’re considering using a certain site for information for yourself or as a potential site to point students toward but aren’t certain about the website’s value, try evaluating it across the following four categories:

1. Authoritativeness
 The author(s) are respected authorities in the field.
 The author(s) are knowledgeable.
 
The author(s) provide a list of credentials and/or educational background.
 The author(s) represent respected, credible institutions or organizations.
 Complete information on references (or sources) is provided.
 
Information for contacting the author(s) and webmaster is provided.

2. Comprehensiveness
 All facets of the subject are covered.
 Sufficient detail is provided at the site.
 Information provided is accurate.
 Political, ideological, and other biases are not evident.

3. Presentation
 Graphics serve an educational, rather than decorative, purpose.
 Links are provided to related sites.
 What icons stand for is clear and unambiguous.
 
The website loads quickly.
 The website is stable and seldom, if ever, nonfunctional.

4. Timeliness
 The original website was produced recently.
 The website is updated and/or revised regularly.
 Links given at the website are up-to-date and reliable.

Decide whether the site in question matches up against each characteristic in a way that’s poor, fair, or excellent. Tally up the score for each. For a website to be worth using, it should fall mostly in the “excellent” range, have some qualities that are “fair,” and have extremely few to, preferably, no “poor” tallies. You should also decide whether any of the categories and sub-characteristics are “make or break it” qualities. Figuring out ahead of time what you need from a site can help you determine whether any given source will actually give you what you need.

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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, Matthew Lynch, Teachers

Get Ahead with the World Wide Web of Teacher Development

Technology isn’t just expanding the possibilities for teaching youth – it’s also building up how teachers themselves are trained. Technology is not only influencing the education of students – online resources are being ever the more incorporated into professional education, too.

To save money and time, and capitalize on the technology boom, many school districts in the United States are turning to online professional development for teachers, as a viable alternative to traditional face-to-face training. The impetus for online professional development stems from the need to accommodate teachers’ busy schedules while also providing them with materials and information that may not be available in their district.

At first glance, these programs seem like a godsend to districts struggling to provide quality professional development to their students. But little research has been done on best practices in or the effectiveness of online professional development programs. Many districts issue surveys to measure professional development effectiveness, but unfortunately this practice is unreliable. Also, more research must be done concerning the design and implementation of these programs to ensure that they are operating efficiently and positively impacting student learning. Needless to say, the jury is still out on these programs, although they do seem to hold some promise. That will likely change, however, as more education moves online, and as online development tools are refined.

Has your teacher education included any online resources? If not, what technology is available to you now to help you continue to grow and learn? Don’t be afraid to seek out new tools for your own educational development, as well as that of your students!

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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation

Technology has the Power to Equalize Personalized Learning

Technology has the power to greatly improve equality in learning opportunities in K-12 classrooms. Not every school can afford the latest high-priced learning management software, but what if all you needed was internet access?

I recently had the opportunity to demo the personalized learning platform Kiddom and learned about a lot of cutting-edge features that are streamlining teaching.

Class Mastery

Kiddom was co-developed by serial entrepreneur Ahsan Rizvi, former alternative educator Abbas Manjee, and growth engineer Jordan Feldstein. Manjee is a teacher by trade who once worked with at-risk students in the South Bronx. During his 6 years as a public school teacher Manjee used the technology available to him (not much, and not very advanced) to figure out ways to better teach to the individual student. His system worked but wasn’t as streamlined as he knew it could be. Manjee also knew from talking with other teachers that their own students could benefit from a streamlined system and with the added expertise of Rizvi and Feldstein, that hunch became a reality.

Class Mastery 1

Today, tens of thousands K-12 teachers use Kiddom, some just for the gradebook feature and others for the full-platform experience.

See, what Kiddom creators got right is this: most teachers are haphazardly using multiple resources, aggregating on their own, and using a less-than-stellar grade book option because it’s all they have at their disposal. All of that takes up too much time and can frankly lead to some understandable frustration. Kiddom cuts right to the heart of that conundrum by consolidating resources and placing everything a teacher needs for lesson planning, grading, classroom organization, student tracking, and assessments in a central, easy-to-use hub.

Kiddom contains standards for all 50 states and updates its offerings when those standards change, making it easy for teachers to lesson plan and write assessments. In addition to classroom teachers, homeschool parents and groups have also signed on with Kiddom as a way to create lessons, track progress, and monitor state academic standards.

The end goal of Kiddom tools is not to simply automate assessments, though. It’s to create richer, more engaging projects by providing more time (and accessible content) for teachers. It’s amazing what educators can develop for students when they aren’t being overburdened with constant quick-fire assessment creation, grading, prepping for high stakes tests, and related tasks. Kiddom frees up that bandwidth so teachers can provide better learning experiences for students.

Teacher Influence 

Teacher input is important to growth of the Kiddom platform, so the company has a team of advisors called the “brain trust” that use the platform and offer insight and feedback. Anyone can apply to be part of the brain trust group, and there are also less formal teacher message boards and forums that give teachers access to answers right away.

Teacher-Student Communication

Some of the unique features of Kiddom include:

  • A teacher’s control center, with detailed reports on student progress that inform next-step instructional details.
  • Content library, with material for assignments, quizzes, videos, games and more. Some of the content partners include Khan Academy, CK-12, IXL, and CommonLit.
  • Third-party integration, so teachers can sync with other classroom management tools they already use, like Google Drive.
  • Direct teacher-student feedback.
  • Concise rubrics for students that guide them on what they should be doing and when.
  • Easy setup, with one-click student roster setup from Excel, Google or Clever.
  • Student access to real-time reports on what they’ve accomplished, what is still assigned, and where they need improvement.
  • Alignment and sharing ability for assessment material based on Common Core, state, or custom requirements.
  • The Kiddom mobile app, giving students and teachers all the classroom resources on-the-go.

The affordability of Kiddom (it’s free for teachers and students) makes it a smart tool for classroom management. Providing equity in resources is so important in our at-risk student populations and I’m so impressed that this message is at the heart of what Kiddom offers. I like that a public school teacher is part of Kiddom’s leadership team and that classroom teachers continue to drive improvements on the platform.

To sign up for Kiddom for free and request a demo, head to Kiddom.co.

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Matthew Lynch published in HBCU's, Higher Education

3 Ways to Reform College Debt

There aren’t many people who will dispute the value of a college education. College graduates tend to have higher levels of job satisfaction and quality of life. The cost of those efforts is steep for the individual though – to the tune of $35,200 college debt on average for 2013 graduates. On Wednesday I looked at the statistics associated with the cost and payoff of a college education and also some federal efforts to make those payments more affordable once a degree is earned. Today I want to look at some specific ideas that aim to bring down the initial cost of a college education and to help students avoid thousands in interest over time. Here are some of those ideas.

  1. S. Senator Marco Rubio has spoken about his own efforts in his home state of Florida, and perhaps on a federal level, to make college attendance a shared cost. Rubio is no stranger to college debt. When he arrived at the U.S. Senate, he still had $100,000 in outstanding student loans. Rubio has been upfront about his modest upbringing and also the power his education gave him but he has acknowledged that the cost is too high. The basics of his college plan would allow private investors to pay for the tuition of college students in exchange for a portion of their earnings later on. This would mean the students acquired no traditional debt and would not start out their careers in the hole – at least not in a typical way.

While I like the out-of-the-box thinking of this plan, it raises more questions than answers. At least when a student takes out a federally-backed loan or even a private one that meets federal regulations, there is some protection for the student. I worry that allowing too many private investors in on the college lending game could mean more financial pressure on the borrowers. And what happens if a student finds him or herself unemployed for a long period of time? Or unable to work due to injury? These are all issues that would certainly be addressed before legislation was drafted and approved but there are already some red flags that pop up in this hands-off government approach to college debt reform.

  1. Another college payment idea that is arising across the country is a state-run repayment program that is similar to Rubio’s private investor one. Already in Oregon the Pay It Forward program has been approved (though not yet enacted) that will give students their public college education upfront, free of cost, in exchange for paying the state a portion of their earnings post-college. Supporters bill it as a “debt free” alternative to a college education, but like Rubio’s plan there is still money owed at the end of the college term that does impact actual earnings. It will be interesting to keep an eye on Oregon in the coming years to see how the program impacts the first groups of students who take advantage of it.
  2. What if a public college education was completely free, though? That’s the approach Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam wants to take when it comes to the state’s community colleges. At his State of the State address, he called for free tuition at Tennessee’s community colleges in order to improve the state’s reputation as one of the least educated. Haslam proposed that the money to pay for it come from the state’s lottery earnings that would be placed in a $300 million endowment fund. While a short-term solution, I’m not sure that this is a sustainable payment plan. But if even one class of students in the state are able to take advantage of it, that may make a huge positive impact on Tennessee’s long-term economic outlook.

Paying something for a college education is reasonable, I think, but the current setup puts an undue burden on the nation’s young people and as a result, the entire economy suffers.

What creative cost and repayment options for a college education would you like to see implemented? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

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Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership, Teachers

The trendy classroom management strategy you should never use

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

A guest post by Michael Linsin

There is a lot of bad classroom management information out there.

Now more than ever.

Not a month goes by that we don’t hear of another irresponsible method being promoted.

We hope to list our top ten worst strategies in a future article, but today we’d like to cover one in particular that is gaining considerable traction.

It’s a strategy that both surprises us here at SCM and leaves us dismayed anyone would think it’s a good idea.

Yet, it’s actually being encouraged in many school districts.

It’s a close cousin of the “caught being good” strategy, which we also don’t recommend, but is far more damaging to the targeted student.

The way it works, in a nutshell, is that when you notice a student misbehaving, you would first approach them so they’re aware of your presence. Then, instead of confronting them directly, you would . . .

Praise the students around them.

That’s right. You wouldn’t say a word to the offending student, but instead gushingly tell the students near them how well they’re doing.

“Wow, I love how you’re working, Ana!”

“You too, Javier. Way to go!”

“Emily is also working beautifully.”

You would give the students within proximity of the misbehaving student an enthusiastic pat on the back for not misbehaving.

The idea, in theory, is that the targeted student would see their tablemates receiving praise, and thus they too would begin behaving properly.

They too would desire your praise. They too would seek to be recognized for doingwhat they’re supposed to do.

Setting aside the troubling and bar-lowering message you’re sending to the entire class by offering false praise—which you can read about in Dream Class—the strategy attempts to manipulate or fool the offending student into better behavior.

It’s the classroom management version of a magician’s sleight of hand. But it’s cruel and dishonest and doesn’t help the student actually change their behavior.

It offers no helpful feedback, no meaningful lesson, and no opportunity to reflect on their misbehavior.

Although it may work in the moment—which is why proponents of the strategy are quick to cite its “research based” credentials—it will quickly weaken over time and train every student in the class to become extrinsically motivated.

It will make difficult students less inclined to get back on track in the future and turn your classroom into a petri dish of neediness, dependency, and underachievement.

So what should you do instead?

Well, first imagine yourself on the receiving end of such a strategy. How would it make you feel? How would you feel about a teacher effusively praising everyone around you while you’re being ignored?

Is this someone you would trust or admire? Of course not.

Like your students, you too appreciate a straight shooter. You too appreciate a teacher who tells the truth rather than tries to manipulate you, toy with your emotions, or underhandedly bend you to their will.

Being a leader students look up to and want to behave for isn’t so difficult. Have a classroom management plan that clearly lays out the rules and consequences of the class.

Hold all students equally accountable by letting them know exactly how they’re misbehaving (feedback) and what the consequence is.

Follow through. Be a person of your word. Do what you say you will.

Sadly, most difficult students have been on the receiving end of an endless procession of strategies that attempt to appease, manipulate, and deceive them into better behavior—which only makes them worse.

What they really need is your honesty. They need your truth and forgiveness. They need your accountability, your leadership, and your consistency.

They need your praise based on genuine achievement. The kind of praise that is real and heartfelt. The kind of praise that uplifts and informs.

That stirs internal motivational engines.

That matters now and forever.

PS – If you’re a principal and would like to improve recess behavior, click here.

Also, if you haven’t done so already, please join us. It’s free! Click here and begin receiving classroom management articles like this one in your email box every week.

This post originally appeared on smarclassroommanagement.com, and was republished with permission

_____________

Michael Linsin is the founder of Smart Classroom Management, the top classroom management blog in the world with more than 60,000 subscribers.He has taught every grade level from kindergarten to eighth grade over the past 24 years, and is the author of three bestselling books about classroom management. He holds teaching credentials in Elementary Education, English, and Physical Education.

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Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership, Matthew Lynch, Uncategorized

34 Points on Strategic Leadership in Schools

Modern educational leadership is complex and demanding. Challenges include reestablishing novel national visions, crafting new educational aims for schools, restructuring education systems at different levels, privatization, and diversifying school education, all at the macro-level, and being proactive in facing up to these contextual challenges using various strategies. Strategic leadership is strongly linked to the organization’s vision. Here are 34 points about strategic leadership in the school environment to prompt school administrators to action.

Vision is an essential part of strategic leadership. Without it, school staff and personnel aren’t working towards the same goal and therefore will find themselves at odds, slowing progress and impeding success. The following four points are essential for incorporating leadership vision in the school environment.

  1. Outstanding leaders must have a vision for their organizations.
  2. A school’s vision should be communicated in a way that secures commitment from other members of the organization.
  3. Communication of the vision requires communication of its meaning.
  4. Focus should be given to the institutionalizing of the vision if leadership is to be successful.

The development of strategic direction involves a process in which we don’t just look forward from the present, but we also establish a picture of what we want the school to look like in the future and set guidelines and frameworks on how to move forward to that position. As we have seen above, from the conversations with strategic leaders, there must a clear understanding of the direction the school is headed in. What strategic leaders need to do can be summarized by the strategic leadership points 5-8.

  1. Strategic leaders set the direction of the school.
  2. Strategic leaders challenge and question – they are dissatisfied with the present.
  3. Strategic leaders translate strategy into action.
  4. Strategic leaders prioritize their own strategic thinking and learning by building new mental models to frame their understanding and that of others.

One key characteristic of strategic leaders is their ability to envision the different ways their organization might perform in future. They always have a desire to challenge the status quo and improve for the future. This means that strategic leaders have to deal constantly with their dissatisfaction with present arrangements, while facing the challenge that they are not able to change things as quickly as they might want. Leaders, as change agents in their organizations, constantly ask questions such as:

  1. What are the things taught that have been clearly successful or unsuccessful in the past?
  2. What accounted for the success or failure?
  3. What do we need to do differently in the future?
  4. Which relationships between the school and students, parents, or the wider community have been successful or unsuccessful, and why?
  5. What can be done to change things for the better?
  6. How can we assess what we do to challenge the current understanding and operations?
  7. As a school, are we cruising and strolling or are we challenging and creating?

Wisdom in the context of strategic leadership is defined as the ability to take the right action at the right time. Strategic leaders need this kind of wisdom to successful foster school growth. Here are ten abilities that are central to using wisdom in strategic leadership.

  1. Creative ability to come up with ideas
  2. Analytical ability to decide whether the ideas are good.
  3. Practical ability to make their ideas functional and convince their followers that their ideas are valuable.
  4. To balance the impact of the ideas on themselves, others, and their institutions in the short and long run.
  5. Successful intelligence to adapt to varying situations and challenges.
  6. To balance the interests of various stakeholders in the school setting.
  7. To balance timeframes in a way that allows for optimal work to get done.
  8. To infuse values in a mindful way throughout the school environment.
  9. To align responses to the environment appropriately.
  10. To apply knowledge for the common good.

Strategic leadership is a powerful tool for school reform. These final nine points regarding strategic leadership deal with school reform, and specifically how administrators can create meaningful change within their school environment.

  1. Strategic leaders have a vision of the reformed system and how to achieve it.
  2. Strategic leaders create a broad understanding and support for the reform vision at the highest levels.
  3. Strategic leaders bring commitment of school and district leadership to the reform vision and its implementation.
  4. Strategic leaders rely on the use of interventions to translate the reform vision into practice.
  5. Strategic leaders recognize that, for reform to be achieved, one has to start small, refine activities as needed, and provide evidence that interventions lead to desired outcomes.
  6. Strategic leaders develop system capability and capacity to scale up reform with quality.
  7. Strategic leaders enhance and facilitate development of formal policies that provide guidance and incentives for reform.
  8. Strategic leaders avoid controversy.
  9. Strategic leaders develop capabilities for the next generation of reform leaders.

Strategic leadership consists not only of the vision element in leadership ability, but also encompasses other wide-ranging factors. The question thus remains how we can develop a coherent model that informs us about what strategic leadership truly entails. These 34 points offer administrators a powerful place to start exploring strategic leadership, or to deepen their practice of it in an effort to continue to improve their school’s ability to success.

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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation

How to Save Time Lesson Planning, Grading This School Year

Teachers: if you could have one additional thing to help in your classrooms this school year, what would it be? More technology? Better behaved students? Less paperwork?

How about more TIME?

When all things are equally weighed, you’d probably spring for the time component (even though a few more iPads might be nice). Teachers spend 95 minutes per weekday outside the classroom on preparation and grading and the typical teacher workday is actually 10 hours and 40 minutes according to a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation survey. Early mornings, nights, weekends – you name it, and teachers are working during it. Teachers can’t just show up before the bell and leave when it sounds at the end of the day and expect to succeed. There is a lot of work that happens when students are not in their seats and it’s necessary work to support students.

What if those additional 95 daily minutes of prep and grading could be cut in half? Or even by 75 or 85 percent?

Teacher Prep goes High-Tech

I recently had the chance to demo Ogment, an educational content curation tool that “clips” relevant information online and saves it for teachers to use in lesson planning and execution. Unlike other systems that simply allow you to save links to reference later, Ogment actually “scrapes” the content so you have all the details, including images and videos, when you are ready to piece it together for a lesson. Ogment allows teachers grab content off the web and strip out the extraneous muck, align the content to standards, cite, format and enhance the content with other technology. In short, Ogment makes lesson creation much easier and less time consuming.

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Ogment offers The Stream – a treasure trove of content that teachers can search to find materials on the lesson at hand. Teachers can also collaborate inside The Stream and share content. Teachers can even add their own content to complete lesson plans. And all of the organized content is searchable.

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Teachers can project the content in their Ogment accounts for students and also manage assignments within the tool. A live curriculum mapping tool keeps both students and teachers on track, too. Customized lesson planning is possible based on student progress tracking within the tool, making it easy to modify lessons for students or student groups.

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The technology behind Ogment is so cutting-edge that it actually won a SIIA CODiE award, an AAP Revere award, and three Bessie awards when it was still in pilot program testing. It’s now officially rolled out to the public with the benefit of feedback from actual teachers and administrators in how the platform best works.

Ogment’s Relevancy in Today’s Classrooms

When I was a public teacher, I would have LOVED to have a curation tool like this so I had more time and energy to devote to my actual students. I know the digital native teachers-in-training in our colleges today can make an even bigger impact with the type of technology streaming that Ogment provides, too. By freeing up some of that time traditionally weighed down by research and compilation for lesson planning, teachers have more energy to inject into what actually matters: supporting student progress.

Want to start this school year off with better organization? Try a free 30-day trial with Ogment.

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