WEMTA Conference 2011

Hi all! I'm at the WEMTA conference today and tomorrow and wanted to share the highlights with you!

I created this google site to track the highlights.

Leadership Final Thoughts

Before this class, I never thought much about the roles of teachers as informal and formal leaders. We all know who those informal leaders we have in our buildings are. But, how did they get there? What makes them successful leaders? Why do people follow their lead? I think that these informal leaders, to some extent, have more clout with their peers than the formal leaders. They stepped up to the plate and took control of some aspect of their building and others followed their lead, without 'having' to do so. That's real power. I believe that teacher leaders can be instrumental in internal changes within a school or organization. They can get buy-in easier than administration can. They 'know' what really goes on in a building. They know where changes to need to be made. They know who the 'rocks' are.

I would like to be a leader, but I sometimes have too strong of opinions for some peoples tastes. I have a hard time getting some of the 'rocks' to buy into my ideas. I feel like I now have the tools to change the way I lead others and that I could take on a leadership role. The biggest problem I face is that I teach a 'specials' class and I switch buildings each year. It's hard to gain any recognition or respect from staff when you are this 'young computer nerd' who just shows up in their building trying to make changes. Also, lots of people, even other teachers, don't view me as a 'real teacher' because I don't have a classroom teaching job. I don't understand this mentality and it frustrates me to no end! I have the same degree as them, know 'a little bit about everything' just as all elementary school teachers do, but I also have a specialized degree. They teach 23 kids, I teach 554. How does that make me less of a teacher? But I digress...






















I think that the only way to improve schools is from within. What is going on in our government in Wisconsin right now is going to destroy education. From all that I have heard from people who don't work in schools, they have *no* idea how they operate. I know that changes need to be made, but why not ask the experts to make those changes? At least to get the process going? We live it every day. We know what needs to change and many of us have great ideas to do it. We make changes every year to improve our students' performance. We work to better ourselves every year to improve student performance.

CEDO565 - Week 5

This week has been very trying on me. I had two after school functions that I had to take part in until 8 pm both last night and tonight. I found out today that all my hard work for this masters degree will not give me the raise as it is stated in our pay scale, because our district will not have the money to pay me for it after the budget cuts take effect. I have been counting on that raise to cover the cost of the tuition I borrowed for this degree.

What I learned this week:
Leadership matters. Good leaders do what is in the best interest of the majority and take the time to really figure out what that is. They don't decide what is best based on their particular beliefs, they take into account all facets of an issue. The Republicans did not do that. They did not take into consideration the hundreds of thousands of public employees that they would be financially devastating with this bill. All they see is the bottom line. There are people attached to this, not just money. And what about the children. Is anyone thinking about what is best for our kids?? People don't understand how much money it takes to run a school.

System-wide changes need to be done in a systematic matter, which careful planning. Had our government worked together, bipartisan, to come up with realistic, effective, and revolutionary ways to save money and generate new income for our state, we would be in a lot better shape and our state would not be literally torn in two. I think the simulation game we played in class made this so much clearer to me.


The change game was somewhat frustrating, but in the end, my team, who was so fabulous, figured out that the key to successful change is communication and collaboration.

Change Game

Wow, that change game is very difficult! I love strategy games, though, so I'm enjoying it very much. I learned a lot this week about systematic changes and how to effectively plan for and start a change. We need to change over our curriculum for K-5 Technology Enrichment and I think following the steps that I have learned this week will help this go much smoother. I've mapped out this surriculum change process in my head:

1. Assess our current curriculum on the basis of aligning to national standards.
2. Locate any gaps in our curriculum.
3. Get the rest of the team on board with the change.
4. Create/locate additional activities/lessons that will fill the gaps.
5. Train staff on new resources.
6. Implement.
7. Assess student progress towards the standards.
8. Adjust.
9. Repeat 7 and 8.

I'm not sure if I need to assess the students in the beginning or not. I'm thinking not, because we're solely looking at changing to meet the standards. We will need to, however, put a few common formative assessments into the curriculum and adjust as needed. I'm hoping by taking these steps, there will be fewer bumps in the road.

I loved the motivational leadership chapter in our book. We do a lot of these things in our school, not led by our administrator, but rather as a team effort to increase morale and support one another. We all have t-shirts that say READ on them, which we wore for our group picture.