Connecting School Work To Real Life: 2014 National Quality Education Conference
The challenge to all of us in education is to find ways to make learning visible by connecting school work and real life for the students we serve. One of the ways to do that is to call on “the hand in the back of the room” and answer “why” with real world relevancy. Students understanding, mastery of basic science curriculum, and ability to use science concepts have been shown to improve when the science concepts were taught in the relevant and real world context of agriculture. Teachers many times fail to provide a context through observations, inferences, and actions appropriate for students to make the connection to the real world. These connections help the students to understand higher-level science concepts.
Through my research I investigated low student achievement in science and the social change impact of real world application through a study of agricultural science. Other current research on teaching science in a relevant context and the opportunities for cross-curricular collaboration were also investigated. I will be presenting on how to use transformative educational strategies to help students move from memorizing facts and content to constructing knowledge in meaningful and useful ways.
I am very excited to be presenting at the 2014 National Quality Education Conference this Sunday, November 16th in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I will be presenting my research on the effects of teaching science concepts in the real world and relevant context of agriculture. While at the conference I will be tweeting using the hashtag #ASQEd. I will be encouraging those attending my session to follow me on twitter @ByronErnest and also tweet using #ASQEd.
Here is the Powerpoint presentation I will using in my presentation: NQEC2014_Ernest
Here are PDFs of the handouts I will be referencing: Ernest_NQEC2014_Handouts_1 Ernest_NQEC2014_Handouts_2
Being an educator can bring an array of challenges. How can you continue following standards, make learning fun and innovative for your students, encourage creativity in the classroom, raise state testing scores, ensure students are college and career ready, and apply student learning in unexpected ways? Discover how continuous improvement strategies, tools, and support can be implemented in order to improve processes to help address some of these challenges and increase student achievement at the 2014 National Quality Education Conference.
Key Learning Outcomes for the 2014 National Quality Education Conference:
1. Discover innovative ways that processes have been made more efficient to allow resources to be applied in unexpected ways from pre-K–12 through higher education.
2. Learn how the Baldrige Criteria can be applied to improve learning, services, and fiscal health.
3. Understand measures that have been taken to narrow achievement gaps and ensure that all students are achieving their goals, regardless of baseline data, and socioeconomic background.
4. Learn advanced practices in continuous improvement as applied to classroom and broader institutional improvements.
5. Find out what tools, practices, and professional development programs designed to assist districts in implementing Common Core standards and in measuring achievement based on these standards.
As you can see it is going to be an exciting learning experience. Don’t forget to follow my tweets from the conference at the hashtag #ASQEd.
National Standards Day
Yesterday was a great day at Hoosier Academies. We brought our entire staff together around the idea of making sure that all of our curriculum was aligned to the Indiana Academic Standards, we were teaching to the standards, and how we would use rigor, relevance, and relationships to be good stewards of our students’ achievement. Our teachers were very engaged and there was incredible collaboration all day.
As always, I am using my blog as a way to reflect on the day. For this post I am going to bullet point the top tweets that were done during the day using the hashtag #HoosierNSD. The tweets were great and so was the learning. Also, I have attached the powerpoint that I used to guide my introductory kickoff session to the day. Here is the link for the powerpoint: Ernest_NSD_k12_2014
Here are the top tweets from the day for you to think about and reflect on:
-21st Century Learners? That’s old school. #HoosierNSD is creating 21st&1/2 Century Learners!
-Push for best effort. With effort comes results.
-Acknowledge a student that reaches an expectation, praise a student that exceeds it.
-Assume every kid is your brightest and best!
-Focus on the now and move forward – not on what went wrong #teachlikeachampion
-Describe the next move, not what went wrong #teachlikeachampion
-Positive framing by modeling and narrating your workable goal! It isn’t impossible. #TeachLikeAChampion
-Relevance makes rigor possible; relationships make anything possible.
-Reviewing not repeating. That’s RIGOR.
-Rigor: ask higher level questions and push students to respond at a higher level.
-If they had to buy tickets to your class would they come?
-5 Steps to get to quadrant D. Reaching for the summit one step at a time.
-Less than 5% of high school lessons provide opportunity for student collaboration! This needs to change! We can do this Hoosier Academies.
-Was your lesson worthy of the student’s undivided attention???
-We have to bring the engagement up. Not just Hoosier, but all high school teachers.
-Teamwork makes the dreamwork
-Getting to know those you work with makes a difference
-Reflection is important. Why we are having #HoosierNSD.
-Thankful to have a minute to take a step back, learn the standards, and focus my instruction. #thirdgrade
-Make school work more like real work.
-Demonstrate the rigorous and relevant learning.
-My pillar of rigor would be action.
-Teachers have to make schoolwork more like real work.
-If you say it can’t be done, then you are doing it wrong the first time.
-Rigor and relevance and don’t forget motivation in our virtual environment.
-Great day! Real-world project based learning in HS English. How do literary themes connect with my students’ worlds?
-Real world application can only exist in the virtual world if strong relationships have been built for optimal engagement.
-Rigor and relevance and backwards planning are our best friends.
-Students need collaboration, critical thinking, oral and written communication
-Taking students to the 21st 1/2 Century and beyond
-We’ve been in the 21st Century for 15 year! We’re here. Think 21st 1/2 Century skills.
-As it relates to teaching, these three remain…rigor, relevance, and relationships. But the greatest of these is relationships.
-We’re spending a day breaking down standards.
-Teaching to one standard is not enough. You need to make them all connect together in a meaningful way with purpose.
-It is virtually impossible to make content relevant to students you don’t know – Carol Ann Tomlinson
-Key pieces of education: rigor, relevance and RELATIONSHIPS.
As you can see, some great learning went on. You can’t help but think about making education rigorous and relevant when you reflect on theses tweets. Additionally, the tweets reinforce the importance of building relationships with our students.
What Is Your Organization’s Microclimate?
While flying into Denver, Colorado today to get my connecting flight to Indianapolis I noticed what appeared to be clouds stuck on one side of the Rocky Mountains. I have included pictures I took out the plane window here in this post. I then decided to do a little research on this because it really made me think about my journey with Hoosier Academies right now that we have themed, “Hoosier Climbs Everest.” To me, it looked like the clouds were clinging to mountains or stopped on one side. I compared this in my mind to the obstacles and storms that happen as a school system or any other organization is working very hard to put the culture, processes, and learning organization in place to be high achieving.
Mountains also experience more severe weather in the form of rain, sleet, and snow on their windward sides. Think about it, organizations that are in turnaround mode are on the windward side of the mountain. These landforms do not so much attract clouds as cause them to form, in a well documented meteorological phenomenon. They are, in fact, a very important factor in meteorology — without mountains, the Earth’s climate would be very different. To continue my analogy we must realize that the culture we are building will also build the climate of our organization.
Air currents are constantly traveling across the surface of the Earth, usually in patterns that remain consistent. In the United States, for example, the prevailing winds run West to East. As air travels, it picks up water molecules in vapor form, which remain vaporous in the higher pressure at low elevations. When the air encounters mountains, however, it is forced to rise.
In the same way that the air is forced to rise when it reaches the mountain, we know that as we climb the mountains of building and improving our organizations that storm clouds will develop. Just remember, these are a necessary part of the meteorology and climate building of our organization. And, just as certain weather patterns can be dangerous when climbing mountains (remember the Everest disaster of 1996), we must too watch the weather patterns on the organizational mountain climbs we are making with our teams.
With the Continental Divide running northwest to southeast though the center of the park, two distinct weather and climate patterns are created. Typical of the east — Estes Park — side is a dryer, semi-arid climate with annual percipitation of 13.10″. The west — Grand Lake — side is marked by a moister climate with 19.95″ of annual percipitation. I have been on both sides of the Rockies and both sides are beautiful. Therefore, we can use this analogy to realize that the different weather patterns will drive the climate of our organization. Therefore we must always understand how these climate patterns of our organization are developed.
Large mountains often form their own microclimates, with extreme variations in weather depending on whether the observer is on the windward or lee side and what the elevation is. Think about it, our organizations form their own microclimates as well. Improving an organization can be as daunting a task as climbing Mt. Everest and we must make sure we are balancing the weather patterns of the windward and lee sides of the mountain. We need to make sure we create a balanced microclimate of shared leadership and learning.
Education: Our Military Mission
While flying home from Calgary, Alberta Canada today I had the chance to finish reading Tom Vander Ark’s amazing book Getting Smart. In his book he give vivid descriptions of the ‘digital revolution’ coming in our educational system. One part of the book really jumped out at me and reinforced the topic of using relevant contexts to improve student achievement and performance, and increase student motivation and engagement. Vander Ark tells the story in the book of how the U.K. ministry of defense has tapped Lockheed Martin to train all of its aircrew for the next 25 years. There are at least four things that K–12 education can learn from the military and specifically the relationship with Lockheed. First, they really understand how to differentiate. Something that education and specifically many teachers still struggle with. We should be using Lockheed Martin to help us understand how. In their model, Lockheed Martin creates rapid pathways to mastery and the flexibility to test ways to blend different components and types of learning for different types of students.
Secondly, some of the training is conducted to simulate the stress of realistic situations, but with the safety to fail. Our facilitation of learning needs to use more real-world-connected learning—more opportunities for students to see why learning matters and to experience the consequences of actions. It is why my own research in the effects of using agricultural science to teach biology concepts is so important. Students learn at a much high level when taught in relevant contexts with high rigor. Simulations, internships, lab experiences, inquiry based and problem based learning, can all help make learning real. This in turn has the students solving real world problems. Third, the military is really good at job training and preparation. We need to step up our game in the area of Career and Technical Education (CTE) in the United States. The military takes a systematic approach to certification. As a former CTE I know the value of these programs. The problem is there is a great deal of variation in the quality of programs from school to school and state to state. These programs need to be leveraged to not only provide certifications, but also the relevant context for teaching the core subjects of math, English language arts, science, and social studies.
Finally, the military is an outstanding example of a learning organization. By learning organization I mean an organization that is constantly learning from others, the team members are learning from each other, is free from risk of failure, and is able to put lessons learned into play. The military has perfected the art of being a reflective practitioner; something we know is important as educators, but rarely take, or make, time to do. The military after action reviews are something that every teacher and school leader should take time to study and learn from. Additionally, the military is great at forming partnerships and have systems in place to learn at a high level from those partnerships.
In conclusion, we need to leverage the partnerships we have in our own states and communities to help us provide the four things we have learned will help us achieve Getting Smart!
Reference
Vander Ark, T. (2012). Getting smart. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco, CA.
Learning To Lead Together
As is standard operating procedure for me after some type of professional development, I have written a post reflecting on my learning. The Kappa Delta Pi Learning, Leadership, and Practice: Educating Global Citizens International Research Conference in Calgary, Alberta, Canada really caused me to reflect on my own leadership journey. Many of the presentations touched on environments, situations, and leadership that were in place, enabling me to get to where I am today. This post is a compilation of the thoughts I have had over the last couple of days and those of the presenters.
There are really five characteristics that great educational leaders that I have been associated with possess: Passion for learning, Supervisory intentionality, Reflective Conversations, Learning Culture, and High Expectations. Other Characteristics of exemplary leaders include moral purpose and interactive visibility (awareness). Great leaders then coach and mentor learning leaders who are “schooled by the system” so they are ready to move into all leadership positions. These all start at teacher leaders.
Highly effective schools with highly effective teachers promote environments where everyone can be “Learning Leaders.” Everyone in an organization fits into one of these three categories: Aspiring, Beginning, and Experienced Leaders. Because of this coherent and coordinated quality learning opportunities to support school leaders must be a part of career long professional learning. As a leader, we are a leader of learning. As such you have a responsibility to take part in career long learning.
Leadership Matters! School leadership is second only to classroom teaching as an influence on student learning. High performing school leaders regularly lead, sponsor and participate in formal and informal teacher learning. Every person in the school shares the leadership for student success. Great school leaders build a strong connection between learning and the collective leadership. High performing schools have fatter decision making structures. This fatter, more effective structure comes from shared leadership. Shared leadership works through its motivational impact and the school staff works to create structures for collaborative decision making. The school then really becomes a shared learning school.
When a school becomes a shared learning school it can more effectively address three of the most important factors of a school: Learning, Well Being, and Engagement. There are four parts of effectively building a shared learning school and classroom: Setting Direction, Developing People, Redesigning the Organization, and Managing the Instructional Program.
Built correctly, a shared learning school has an instructional ethos where there is an an acute awareness of the instructional actions and an acute awareness of teaching and learning in the school. Then everyone in the school become designers of worthwhile tasks for students.
One Man’s Trash…Leadership is Art!
I am writing this post while in Calgary, Alberta, Canada for a conference. I am always amazed at how the littlest of events will inspire posts for my blog. Allow me to tell a story of another one of those times. With a little free time I was doing what I do best – explore and be curious. As I was exploring the streets of Calgary I came across an interesting sculpture of a horse outside Saltlik A Rare Steakhouse (I am eating there tonight). I have posted a few pictures of it in this post. It is actually a major work of art in my opinion. Basically, the artist took metal pieces of farm equipment and tools and welded them into this great representation of a horse. Really, it is amazing enough that I probably looked at it and analyzed for about an hour. Now, as a farm boy, let me tell you it is awesome!
When I first viewed it, in awe, I first thought of the old phrase, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” because all of these tools and parts would really be of no value to anyone today, from an agricultural industry point of view. Yet, these worthless pieces of metal were looked at by the keen eye of an artist who saw value and placed the pieces together in perfect harmony to form this magnificent representation of a draft horse.
The longer I gazed at the beast and identified the parts of metal (my dad would have been proud) two other thoughts came to mind. Some leaders, and I consider myself one of these, are artists. We take what we have, what we can find, and what we can develop – whether time, treasures, talent in the form of people, or other resources, and mold those into something amazing. Some call this visionary, but I prefer artist. A visionary is not necessarily an artist. A visionary person can see direction and predict what needs to be done, but can’t always see how to put it all together. Take a close look at the horse and imagine all those pieces lying on the ground. A visionary might say, “let’s make something,” but the artist starts taking the pieces and welding them together while seeing the horse the whole time in her mind. The artist says, let’s make a horse,” and then proceeds to do it. I strive everyday to hone my skills as an artistic leader providing wowful educational leadership.
Another thought I had while looking at the iron equine was all the different pieces that were welded together are like all of the different individuals that make up our teams or organizations. Every piece of metal that makes up this horse had a specific role to play. If you look closely there is a tractor seat, part of a sickle, plow shear, cultivator points, leaf springs, and the list goes on and on. Again, every piece had a role. Sound familiar? This imagery hit me so hard and reminded me how important it is to make sure that every person in your business, organization, or school understands his or her specific role in carrying out the vision, mission, and action plan of the organization. This then empowers your team members to work effectively on high achievement of the key performance indicators (KPI) for your organization.
Next time you are working with your team, take a little time to imagine them all as pieces that come together to build the artwork of a successful organization! If you do that you are not just horsing around!!!
Educating Global Citizens
As I write this post I am flying over the beautiful Canadian countryside on my way to Calgary, Alberta, Canada for the Kappa Delta Pi Educating Global Citizens International Research Conference. This will be my first time to Calgary and I just know it is going to be a breathtakingly beautiful place with lots to do. I am super excited to be able to attend this conference. I was turned on to Kappa Delta Pi when I was invited to membership as 2010 Indiana Teacher of the Year. I have even had the opportunity to make professional development videos with KDP on educational leadership, effective student engagement, and highly effective facilitation of learning using technology. Kappa Delta Pi has become an important part of my personal professional development. I am even more excited that I am a conference presenter on my research entitled, “The Impact of Agricultural Science on Student Achievement and Performance in a Biology Class.”
I cannot wait to share the impact that teaching in a relevant, real world context can have on student learning. I have shared the powerpoint and supporting documents as a blog post as well entitled, “#KDPLeads.” Click #KDPLeads to read that post. My goal is to effectively facilitate a discussion and planning session that helps teachers, administrators, and other stakeholders to use relevant contexts to facilitate highly effective learning. Really, shouldn’t that be the goal of the whole conference and all our schools?
Furthermore, I picked the sessions I am going to attend (Conference Program) with one simple goal in mind: I want to learn how to be a better leader of highly effective principals and teachers in our school corporation. To do this, I want to hone my personal call to action of: delivering wowful educational leadership! It is always exciting to go to an international conference. The chance to connect, interact, and learn from leaders all around the globe is exciting. As a believer, promoter, and practitioner of global connectivity and citizenship it is a chance for me to model asset based thinking. In other words, no matter where someone comes from or their cultural orientation, he or she brings assets to the table. And, I for one, want to learn from everyone in attendance at the conference.
With the goal of connecting with everyone, I have created the hashtag #KDPLeads to organize all of my tweets and hopefully others at the conference will tweet their learning and thoughts to this hashtag as well. I am always amazed at what a great professional development tool Twitter is. Even those not in attendance at this conference can follow along and even make comments. How cool is that? So, make sure you follow me at @ByronErnest and learn with me at #KDPLeads.
The great part about belonging to an organization like Kappa Delta Pi is the smorgasbord of professional development it has to offer. These opportunities are so important for teacher leaders and school leaders because your school’s circumstances will dictate the choices made for professional development. It is also important to note the advantage KDP brings to the market because of all the platforms they make available for members to choose from. These range from live, face to face conferences like I am on my way to, to recorded videos that members can watch on their time. This truly differentiates the learning for members. I am a huge believer that professional development must be differentiated for professionals the same way it is differentiated for student learners – both in modality and content.
It always amazes me when I here educational leaders talking about not having time for professional development. I change that to the question of, “There isn’t time to not take part in personal professional development.” The educational landscape changes so quickly that we must stay current and put ourselves in the best position to create learning organizations where we can learn from others. We must be learning from each other’s mistakes, failures, and successes. The bottom line is we must be sharing the knowledge we have created. There is such a sense of urgency that we must have whether turning schools around or moving high achieving schools to the next level. The students and families we serve are so valuable that we must do everything possible to develop our skills so we can perform at the highest level. Isn’t that what we expect from the professionals that serve us – doctors, lawyers, pilots, et cetera?
If you are not doing so, I challenge you to make time to take part in some personal professional development yet this fall!
Living & Leading Like Curious George
Who isn’t a fan of Curious George? No matter your age, the inquisitive little fellow who always seems to get into one scrape after another has, in all likelihood, captured your heart. I think I am such a fan because I still live every day just like like him. In fact, as you can see from the picture on this post, I have an area in my office dedicated to him. When I am at Harvard University I always have to stop into the World’s Only Curious George store to do some shopping and get my “Curious George Fix.”
Perhaps his popularity lies in the predictability of his unpredictability. You know that as soon as the man with the yellow hat leaves the house, warning George to be careful, George is going to get into trouble. And when George starts getting into trouble, he only digs himself deeper. The more you poke around, question systems, and look for new ways of doing things, the more you will frustrate some people. As a leader, though, this is what you need to be doing. All to often, however, it’s easier to leave the status quo untouched. This can really get organizations in trouble. To assume you can “arrive” and be done growing and changing is maybe the biggest mistake anyone can make. And the more you push for those out-of-the-box changes, the more you’ll frustrate those who are satisfied with keeping things the way they are.
Children naturally gravitate towards creativity and fun. But life has a tendency of breaking many of us of that. I am so blessed I have been able to resist this tendency because curiosity is a beautiful thing. It leads to new discoveries and new adventures, as long as you’re willing to pursue it. As Margret Rey (who created Curious George with her husband, H.A.) observed, “George can do what kids can’t do. He can paint a room from the inside. He can hang from a kite in the sky. He can let the animals out of their pens on the farm. He can do all these naughty things that kids would like to do.” As leaders we need to remember curiosity is a beautiful thing and needs to be embraced and encouraged. One cannot give enough credit to the Reys. H. A.’s delightful illustrations and Margret’s clear and precise turn of phrase may appear effortless, but that’s only because they labored over each book to achieve that perfect look and tone. Don’t get so tangled up in details, systems, and processes that you forget to have a little fun along the way. There’s an adventure around every corner if you’re willing to look.
If you embrace creativity in life and encourage creativity as a leader, know that things will get messy and chaotic. Rarely will you find order in the middle of creativity. As an artistic leader, I know that I’m going to have to put up with a bit of chaos in the creative process. But at the end of the day, it’s worth it. The insights, new directions, and “art” you’ll create for your school, organization, or business through the process make it worth the effort.
H. A. and Margret Rey each looked to the child within. “I know what I liked as a child,” H. A. once said, “and I don’t do any book that I, as a child, wouldn’t have liked.” By portraying George as a servant leader, they really created a great role model for all of us. If you’ve read the books or watched the cartoon’s you know George’s goal is always to help people. In helping people, however, he often gets into big messes. Doesn’t this sound familiar as a leader? Many of the characters in the books get frustrated with George. Even the one that loves him the most, the man with the yellow hat, get frustrated with him. Again, sound familiar? Which is what you’ll sometimes, unfortunately, find as a servant leader. Facilitating change, growth, and dealing with life is often messy and frustrating.
As a leader, however, the most joy I receive is in the mentoring, coaching, and creatively developing the professional growth of our team members. There are many young and talented leaders in our organization right now that have very promising careers ahead of them and I am so honored to serve them in taking that journey. Their success, advancement, and ultimately, outstanding service to others makes me as happy with them as the man in the yellow hat is with Curious George.
So, my challenge to you is to live and lead a little more like Curious George!
Identifying The Thoughtful Classroom
I am writing this post while on the flight home from Las Vegas. I flew in this morning to be a part of a Data Driven Instruction professional development. During the professional development I was asked the question of what a highly effective classroom looked liked. I was also asked if I thought it looked different for face to face instruction or virtual facilitation of learning. While there are certainly modality differences, I said great instruction is great instruction. Period.
Then I went on to discuss the adjectives I would use in describing a highly effective classroom. I used these five: engaging, comfortable, collaborative, flexible, and safe. Really, all of these have to do with the physical environment of the classroom. There are then cultural forces that go along with each of these adjectives. To be engaging the teacher will use rigorous lessons that might include global connectivity and uses a relevant context that the student cares about. A collaborative environment has a lot of student to student interaction and might include partnerships with business and industry for enabling the students to solve/research real world problems. Flexibility is also the key – in a brick and mortar setting there should be no front or back to the classroom and in a virtual setting many different modalities of technology may be used. Finally, the environment must be safe. This safety not only includes physical safety and safety from bullying, but also a safe environment where students are encouraged to think creatively, be curious, and share those thoughts.
The routines and structures that guide the life of the classroom are also important to creating an engaging and thoughtful classroom. Instead of creating thinking -skills lessons, highly effective teachers must create rich thinking opportunities. It is important to create relevant content students care about. Relevancy matters! Relevant context must be the norm, not a discrete context disconnected from anything going on in the student’s life. Course themes and generative topics make learning opportunities relevant to the students.
Guiding questions help the students keep in mind the big ideas. With the standards it is easy to get bogged down with isolated bits of knowledge. We must remain aware of the forest even as we look at individual trees. Connecting course activity to big ideas enhances the purpose and meaning of the work for the students. In other words it gives them the “why” of what they are learning. How many times have we heard students, or even ourselves for that matter, say, “Why do I need to learn this?” or “Where will I ever use this?” This relevancy makes it easier to engage students in the thinking because they are actively exploring.
Having the students pose unanswerable questions will also foster engagement. Teachers should expect students to be independent thinkers, take risks, and show initiative. Again, why it is important to have a safe environment. Making assignments iterative is also very important. There should be several drafts involved in assignments. This will emphasize process refinement.
This all really means creating a student self managed environment. This includes student to student interactions that the teacher does not control. The teacher should be a role model of engagement in the context of the class. The bottom line is we must provide students with Thinking Opportunities!
Yellow Flag Leadership Strategies
Be A Leadership Lifeguard
This past weekend as I was re-reading Leverage Leadership I was struck by the analogy used of yellow flags used on beaches. The section of the book was, “Early Warnings, Yellow Flag Strategies.” As we know, a yellow flag means the potential for rip currents or danger exists. Well, as you know, I love the beach and I have always noticed that very rarely is there a green flag flying. The green flag signifies calm seas and no threats.
This is rarely ever true with oceans, or our classrooms and schools. There is always the threat for riptides or something to go astray. In the ocean if caught in a riptide it is very specific what you do. Riptides (properly called rip currents because they are not actually a tide), are long, narrow channels of water which move from shore to sea and can take you with them as they go. 80% of all water rescues are because of riptides and claim over 100 victims per year.
If you get caught in a riptide, here’s what you do: Don’t panic. You will feel like you are getting swept out to a deserted island, but most riptides go away in 50-100 feet. Don’t swim against the rip. No one is strong enough to swim against the riptide and this exhaustion is what causes most deaths. Swim parallel to the shore. You want to swim perpendicular to the rip current. In 20-100 feet you will be out of the current and you can swim at an angle away from it towards the shore.
Similarly, strategies should be employed when teachers are continuing to struggle, and the standard observation and feedback cycle needs additional structure. Author of Leverage Leadership, Paul Bambrick-Santoyo points to the following as “Yellow Flag” strategies: provide simpler instructions and techniques (bite-sized, as John Wooden would have called them), give face to face feedback more often (face to face makes the difference), plan an immediate post feedback observation, arrange for peer observing, and choose interruptions of the person you are coaching with care. Desire alone will not help you improve a struggling teacher (or team member in any industry/organization). You need effective systems and approaches that can be put in place immediately for teachers (or team members) who need them.
Really, when you think about it, these “Yellow Flag” strategies can be applied to any field; not just education. As leaders we must always be watching (awareness) for those where our feedback/coaching just isn’t helping or they just need extra help. Think about the last time you were trying to swim out of the figurative rip current! Let’s all try to be better leadership lifeguards!
Byron's Babbles 
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