Reflections on Interviews

         This week we were assigned to watch two interviews of administrators or superintendents. I was not looking forward to watching videos online that weren't of people doing stupid things or that weren't on Brain Pop Jr! What can I say, I hang out with 8 year olds all day! :) However, I did find some of the things very helpful and interesting. 
         Throughout the videos, there were some things that stuck out. They stressed the importance of researching what you are struggling in and what you are interested in and not to reinvent the wheel. Don’t shy away from problems but attack it and save the stress in the long run. Often times, if you want to beef up rigor in the classroom, you must beef up your expectation and change the way your deliver instruction. By asking higher order thinking questions, you are ensuring that you students understand at a deeper level. Research and read research that other successful campuses and districts are doing and try to make it translate into what you are doing. Look at demographics; academic needs or other things that will help your campus become more successful. Find what is practical to you and apply it directly to your classroom. Stay consistent and enforce the practical change. 

How Administration Can Use Blogs

Administration can use blogs for school use and professional use. It would be easy to create a blogger account  and share the URL to parents in the school. This could be used to keep parents updated and in the loop of things that are happening at the school. Professionally, an administrator can use blogs to find information and ideas that can improve their school. They can find other principals blogs do generate ideas for their own campus.

Action Research and Implementation

Action research is the process that a principal takes in order to have a methodical and purposeful study to benefit their own administrative duty and taking an action to change it based on the findings. This includes creating questions and collecting data to answer them appropriately in order to gain insight. In order to fully acquire pertinent information, one may research journals and other literature, gain insight from other principals make changes to systems in the school and share their information with others. This is a powerful gateway for school improvement. As an administrator, I will be able to use this to find weaknesses in student education, teacher instruction or everyday processes such as the cafeteria line or dismissal procedures. There are many ways that you can implement an action research project throughout your school and school district. For example, instead of sitting in a boardroom and listening to someone talk during Superintendent/District Meetings, some school districts are organizing principals into smaller groups where they are given tasks to perform in order to identify an area of need in their school. Another way to implement is through leadership teams at your school. Leadership teams build a culture of collaboration that helps reform education, accountability, and improve standards of the school. The team shares problems, responsibilities, and decision making with the administration. Lastly, you can implement action research through, Professional Learning Communities. When a part of a PLC, you are learning from practice. This is a group of faculty who meet regularly to study more effective learning and teaching practices. PLC’s enhance the possibilities for conducting an inquiry and cultivating a community of inquirers.