5 Things Principals
Should Know and Do

Aimee Mendelsohn Ed.S., M.Ed

School Improvement and Academic Specialist Educational Service Center of Lake Erie West amendelsohn@esclakeeriewest.org

Participants will understand the importance of…

● Focus
● Leading teacher learning ● Collective leadership
and teams
● Sharing our learning
● Classroom Observations and Coaching

Talk with your tablemates: What is the first thing you need to do to help your school?

A Basic Understanding

Schools don’t get better by doing the same things!

Schools don’t get better until…

● They use (teaching and leadership) practices that work better.
● They figure out what works better at their school:
○ For our kids, ○ In our school? ○Why?
● They actually see and document what works better.

Group Activity

With your tablemates:

●	Spread out the instructional strategies located at your table.

●	Briefly discuss which each one means so that everyone “knows it when they see it”.
●	Watch the video clip and try to identify when each strategy is used.
●	Afterwards, discuss with your group when each strategy was used.

The primary reason for our lack of success is…

…our addiction to excess!

Payne, C., (2011)

Focus on What is
Working

Focus on What Works

● Five Thousand Leaders, The number one reason for success was focus.
● Student performance was increased when schools

reduced the number of initiatives and helped people to focus.

● Two Thousand Schools: The single variable that had the highest relationship to increased student performance was focus

Think about Your Work

• How many priorities are you and your school currently working on?

• What is the highest need you have?

• What can you and your BLT do to reduce the number of initiatives and FOCUS?

Talk with your tablemates: What does it mean to be a learner and vs. a knower?

Be a Learner, Not a Knower

● “Knowers often believe that they know all that they need to know to address the current problem.”

● While knowledge is a good thing (in routine situations), being a “knower” doesn’t work well in novel situations, or when learning new behaviors. (Technical vs Adaptive Learning --Heifitz)

● In novel situations people need to be

learners and engage in inquiry,	Hinken (2005)

di l	d di	i t

Start with the Principal Principals should be actively involved as the “lead learner” of their school.

Robinson 2007, 2008,

2011

The best leaders are the best learners.

Learning is the master skill.

Kouzes & Posner (2010)

Direct participation in the learning enables principals to m ore fully
understand the challenges, opportunities, and conditions teachers
need to be successful.

Robinson 2007, 2008,

2011

As principals become stronger instructional leaders…

…teachers see them as more knowledgeable and as a source of instructional advice.

Robinson,

2011

Two Overall Findings

● Collective leadership (collective capacity) has a stronger influence on student learning than any individual source of leadership.

● Higher-performing schools award greater influence to teacher teams

Seashore Louis et. al, 2010

You need more leaders to change the w hole school.

●Principals have more limited credibility when it comes to teaching and learning.

●Teachers trust each other more than principals.

●Teachers need to lead this change work.

Reeves (2008)

You won’t make it alone! ●Change requires a range of knowledge and skills ●There is too much Information to process alone ●You need different perspectives and solutions ●You need more credibility and skills

Developing More Leaders ●Principals need to first select/develop more leaders on the
BLT.

●BLT members need to identify and develop more leaders from the TBTs.

The most effective way to develop m ore leaders is through..

Building Leadership Team

BLT Membership

● You need to have the right people on your BLTs. Choose teachers (opinion leaders)who:
○ Are respected for their content and pedagogical knowledge
○ Who are socially well connected ○ Who can maintain confidentiality ○ Who are curious
○ Who are willing to lead

Build a strong guiding team (coalition) with the right composition and trust.

“Weak teams always fail.”

Kotter,
(1996 2012)

Talk with your tablemates: How do we share our learnings across the school?

How do we share our learnings across the school?

Better Use of Our Teams—TBTs and BLTs

Sharing Our Learning

People feel comfortable when information is recommended by someone they know and trust.

Trust Know

Rogers (2003) and Edmonson (2019)

Science Fair for Adults

• Each TBT conducts a study of a practice – No longer than 90 days
• Create poster boards, share:

– Challenge/Intervention/Evidence

• Each team shares their learning at least once a semester (preferably every quarter)

Reeves and Eaker 2019

TBT Teams Sharing with BLT

• TBTs should be sharing what they are studying, and the results of their collaborative studies, at least quarterly with the BLT.

• BLT should create ways to catalogue and share these practices across the school.

Talk with your tablemates: Do you think walkthrough work?

Do walkthroughs work? What do you think?

Walkthroughs are negatively associated with student outcomes.

Grissom, Loeb, & Master (2013)

Supervising individual teachers into better performance is simply impossible.

Fullan (2014)

Time spent on classroom observations is more negatively associated with student achievement gains...

…when not used for professional development.

Grissom, Loeb, & Master (2013)

Time spent directly coaching teachers is positively associated with achievement gains and school improvement.

Grissom, Loeb, & Master (2013)

Tie classroom observations and Coaching directly to what teachers are learning and practicing in their TBTs.

Classroom Observations and Coaching

• Observation and coaching should be tied to the instructional practices that the teacher is learning/practicing in their TBTs.

• Learning and using the practice well should be part of the teacher’s professional growth plan.

• The principal needs to know the practice well (reading, multiple observations, discussions with the BLT, TBT meetings, etc.).

• Principals should work with teachers to set times to observe the practice.

• Feedback and coaching should follow the visit.

Five Things Principals Should Know and
	Do	

• Focus

• Leading teacher learning

• Collective leadership and teams • Sharing our learning
• Classroom Observations and Coaching

5 Things Principals
Should Know and Do

Aimee Mendelsohn Ed.S., M.Ed

School Improvement and Academic Specialist Educational Service Center of Lake Erie West amendelsohn@esclakeeriewest.org