HTSD Administrative Retreat

1. HTSD Administrative Retreat Partners in Leadership July 10-11, 2008

2. Video Clip 1 - Leadership

3. Team Building Activity • For 3-5 minutes, together in your group, brainstorm a list of attributes that make a good educational leader. • Make the “ultimate educational leader” by combining the traits into one imaginary person. • Give the “person” a name and draw a picture of him/her on the large sheet of paper with the attributes labeled. • One member per groups needs to be prepared to share their ideal educational leader. The sharing should include the amazing things this leader can do with all of the awesome characteristics you have given him or her.

4. Articulation of Vision and Beliefs • Spend a few moments consider the list of questions on the “Articulation of Vision and Beliefs” worksheet. • As you consider your answers to those questions, jot them down. • Come together into the same groups as the Team Building Activity and discuss the first 3 bullets. • Write the groups answers to each of those bullets on the large post-it note cards.

5. Video Clip 2 – 21st Century Skills

6. Overview of the Model Schools Conference… • Four important concepts that resonated for me at this conference: • The Need for Vision • The Rigor and Relevance Framework • The Learning Criteria • The urgency for preparing our students for the 21st Century

7. The need for vision… • Another term is “systems’ coherence” which basically means the ability to clearly articulate, where we are, where we want to be and how we are going to get there. • Everyone involved in and around the district needs to be pushing towards the same agenda and have the same priorities. • What the teacher is working on must be supported by the guidance counselor. • What the guidance counselor is working on is supported by the principal. • What the principal is working on is supported by the superintendent, and so on.

8. The need for vision… • In the nations most successful schools, students, instructional staff, administrators, parents and community members know and embrace their role in and responsibilities for assisting student learning. Add something visual here…

9. Three characteristics are found in this coherent systems approach: • Students are actively engaged in their own learning process. • The curriculum must have content that is both academically rigorous and relevant to students. • Teachers need have up-to-date skills and knowledge in the disciplines in which they teach, but the need to be teachers first, experts second.

10. Rigor, Relevance and Relationships • Basic philosophy of the International Center for Leadership in Education is: Rigor, relevance and relationships for ALL students.

11. Rigor… • Rigor: best defined as the quality of thinking, not the quantity. It’s the learning that students demonstrate through in-depth mastery of challenging tasks to develop cognitive skills through reflective thought, analysis, problem solving, evaluation and/or creativity.

12. Relevance • Relevance: refers to the learning in which students apply core knowledge, concepts, or skills to solve real-world problems. • Relevant learning is inter-disciplinary and contextual. • Relevant learning is created through authentic problems or tasks, simulations, service learning, connecting concepts to current issues, and teaching others.

13. Levels Rigor/Relevance Framework: Bloom’s C D A B 6 5 4 3 2 1 2 3 4 5 1 Application

14. Relationships: the Foundation for Rigor and Relevance • Strong relationships are critical to completing rigorous work. • Students are more likely to make a personal commitment to engage in rigorous learning when they know that teachers, parents and other students actually care about them. • Creating an appropriate environment for learning begins with establishing ground rules that include many of the aspects of quality teaching, such as respect, responsibility, honesty, civility and tolerance. • Only after these values are established with students in the classroom can real learning based on the other to essential “R”s – rigor and relevance – begin to accelerate.

15. The Learning Criteria: • Arranged in four data dimensions that school leaders can use to determine the success of their high schools in preparing students for current assessments and future roles and responsibilities. • Core Academic Learning • Stretch Learning • Learner Engagement • Personal Skill Development

16. Core Academic Learning • Achievement in the core subjects. • Indicators include: percentage of students meeting proficiency level on the PSSA and percentage of students graduating high school in four years. • Grade point average • The student schedule

17. Stretch Learning • The demonstration of rigorous and relevant learning beyond the minimum requirements. • Indicators include: interdisciplinary work and projects, AP results, IB participation, three or more years in a second language course. • Most difficult of the learning criteria because it compels schools to define how they are stimulating and stretching each student and not just the most academically gifted.

18. Learner Engagement • The extend to which all learners (1) are motivated and committed to learning, (2) have a sense of belonging and accomplishment, and (3) have relationships with adults, peers and parents that support learning. • Indicators include: attendance rates, participation rates in extracurricular activities, on schedule to graduate with cohort group, career planning activities, and service learning activities.

19. Personal Skill Development • Measures of personal, social, service and leadership skills and demonstrations of positive behaviors and attitudes. • Indicators include: service-learning participation, leadership/teamwork, and internship/shadowing activities.

20. The urgency to prepare our students for the 21st Century 1983 – A Nation at Risk • E-mail • Web pages • Google • iPODs • Laptops • Digital cameras • Doppler radar • Cell phones • Debit cards

21. 2000 • Blogs • Wikis • Tagging • Text messaging • MySpace • Podcasts • PDAs

22. E-Mail • Adult use often • 14% of teens use often

23. Content Creation & Social Media • Facebook • MySpace • Flickr • YouTube • Blogs • Personal Web Pages

24. Today’s Youth • Technologically literate • Trophy generation • Claim independence but return home • Increasingly bored with school

25. The “how” of change… • Embrace a common vision and goals – Rigor, Relevance and Relationships for ALL students. • Inform decisions through data systems • Empower leadership teams to take action and innovate • Clarify students learning expectations • Adopt effective instructional practices • Address organizational structures • Monitor progress/Improve support systems • Refine the process on an ongoing basis

26. Next Steps: • Refine our vision. • Write goals with the vision at the heart of everything we do. • Articulate the vision, goals and plans to our community. • Reflect, review, revise and redefine.

27. During the break… • Video clip 3…. • Do you know…

28. District Goal Setting

29. Professional Development Committee Recommendations

30. Activities Accounts • .

31. Break • 4:00 – 5:00

32. Curriculum Review • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8