What is your general definition of teacher leadership?
I feel that teacher leadership is a combination of regular duties and extra duties that a teacher wants to take on to better themselves and help better their school. I feel that teacher leaders must be knowledgeable, obviously have leadership skills, be flexible, have an open mind as far as education goes, work well with students and other teachers, and be enthusiastic about their work.
What examples of teacher leadership have you observed or experienced?
I haven't spent a lot of time in the public school or interacting with teachers. My work and my observations come mainly from the math department here at FSU. What I am currently experiencing and observing is the math department rising above and beyond their normal call of duty to help each other get the new math regulations fully implemented. A lot of us are putting in more hours of teaching, as well as researching and trying to determine what is best for our students. It's been stressful and a lot of hard work! But, we are succeeding and I feel that we are all showing some teacher leadership roles/skills as we plunge into the unknown.
How is leadership for meaningful technology integration different from other kinds of leadership?
In a lot of ways, it's the same; provide resources, offer support, mentor, be a leader, etc., and bring change to the classroom all while also learning as we go. There still needs to be support from the administrators, consistency among leaders, and the desire to better schools by actually wanting to make the change. The main difference is that now the ideas and the changes that are being integrated are that of technology.
From your perspective, what are the benefits and the challenges of teacher leadership for technology (for teachers, for students, for schools, for the profession)?
I feel that teacher leadership is a combination of regular duties and extra duties that a teacher wants to take on to better themselves and help better their school. I feel that teacher leaders must be knowledgeable, obviously have leadership skills, be flexible, have an open mind as far as education goes, work well with students and other teachers, and be enthusiastic about their work.
What examples of teacher leadership have you observed or experienced?
I haven't spent a lot of time in the public school or interacting with teachers. My work and my observations come mainly from the math department here at FSU. What I am currently experiencing and observing is the math department rising above and beyond their normal call of duty to help each other get the new math regulations fully implemented. A lot of us are putting in more hours of teaching, as well as researching and trying to determine what is best for our students. It's been stressful and a lot of hard work! But, we are succeeding and I feel that we are all showing some teacher leadership roles/skills as we plunge into the unknown.
How is leadership for meaningful technology integration different from other kinds of leadership?
In a lot of ways, it's the same; provide resources, offer support, mentor, be a leader, etc., and bring change to the classroom all while also learning as we go. There still needs to be support from the administrators, consistency among leaders, and the desire to better schools by actually wanting to make the change. The main difference is that now the ideas and the changes that are being integrated are that of technology.
From your perspective, what are the benefits and the challenges of teacher leadership for technology (for teachers, for students, for schools, for the profession)?
I think the benefits are almost limitless. It will help the teachers reach their potential and in turn, they can better educate our children. It will help the students learn in different, more abstract ways rather than just black and white, textbook and pen. I think the biggest challenge is funding. I don't think that schools, at least the few that I have been in, have the funds to bring all this new technology in and keep it running at full speed. Some other challenges that I see would be the time to train teachers to be leaders for technology (which I think comes back to money, sadly) and to get rid of the idea of the 'traditional' classroom, being able to show the benefits of this new age of media.
Digital Leadership: Changing Paradigms for Changing Times:
Chapter 1
- Digital learners prefer to access information quickly from multiple-media sources, but many educators prefer slow and controlled release of information from limited sources.
I'm going to disagree with this. I think that because technology is ever changing and because some of our older, 'by the book' educators are phasing out of the education system, we are seeing more and more young teachers who are trying to utilize the current technology in their classrooms. Or even BRING the technology to their classrooms.
- Digital learners prefer learning that is relevant, active, instantly useful, and fun, but many educators feel compelled to teach memorization of the content in the curriculum guide.
Unfortunately, I have to agree with this. Students that I have worked with always ask me why are we learning this, or when are they EVER going to need to know how to find the standard deviation of a set of numbers by hand. With math, there is definitely a lot of needed memorization that students will face. I try to tell my students that it's very important to have a solid set of basic math skills (adding, subtracting, dividing, multiplying) and problem solving skill, as well as critical thinking skills. If you can't remember right off the top of your head the Quadratic formula, that's okay; you can look that up. What you can't look up is the needed skills and the plan of attack of knowing HOW to actually use that formula to solve a problem.
Chapter 2
The two guidelines that seem most important to me are
- Principals must be consistent in their decisions and expectations about integrating learning technology in the school.
- Principals must provide appropriate professional development time and resources to support effective classroom implementation of technology.
I agree that leaders need to understand the true value of technology. If schools don't have the leadership helping to obtain and implement new technology, the teachers won't be able to learn how to teach the kids what they need to know to keep ahead in this ever changing, technology driven society.
Amanda,
ReplyDelete“When am I EVER going to need or use these skills.” I get these types of questions from my student regularly. With art it is even harder sometimes to justify, but I like to tell them art is everywhere. Every time they watch a transformer movie or animated pixar film, all those movies require a team of artists and designers that started learning in the classroom with those same questions. Many students today want to design or “test” video games, to which I dispel the same retort of information. ART IS EVERYWHERE! I was abysmal in Math, but I clung to my rudimentary skills and can balance a checkbook or figure out a percentage for tips, etc. So I feel that is a personal triumph and can relate to what you are encouraging your students to retain.
I also find it frustrating that many teachers want to cling to their text and memorization methods, when students of today learn in much more diverse and dynamic ways. There are times when a teacher can utilize memorization and some by the book concepts, but for the most part teachers need to be mixing the instruction and learning methods up often to keep students’ engaged and interested. This type of learning makes classes more fun and students often respond more positively with less behavior issues.
I enjoyed reading your responses and feel you are right on the money in your ideals. Nice job!
Your response to the first quote from chapter one was the most interesting I read and got me thinking a lot about how new teachers are phasing in more and more technology into schools. I know I picked one if not both of those things the principal should do as a leader myself; they are incredibly important so that we can move forward as a society, advancing our students and the world of education. I also liked your definition of leadership. It was a much better definition than mine lol.
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ReplyDeleteAmanda,
ReplyDeleteThank you for such a thought-provoking post! In your example of teacher leadership experience, you use the words, “we, us, help each other”, and I believe that demonstrates a collaborative leadership effort, which is important to successfully reaching new goals. Yes, time and money are always at the forefront for school systems in regards to professional learning and technology integration. So, this is why it is imperative for school administrators to recognize teacher leaders, and provide the opportunities for professional growth and encourage a mindset of transparency and trust within the school community. As an instructional coach, I’ve been able to form an opinion of “older educators and younger educators in terms of technology integration”. My belief is this: There are numerous factors as to why teachers choose to adopt meaningful technology integration. Some factors include building administrator expectations, District level expectations, teacher education programs, access to mentors, building level professional learning opportunities, educators truly embracing the school’s missions, teacher mindset, and support, support, and more support. Believe me when I say that I’ve seen the extreme – experienced teachers that will not budge in their mindset, and new teachers that were never taught how to meaningful address the curriculum and standards through technology. So, with all that being said, it is an absolute must to place digital leaders in key positions to not only implement and expect technology integration, but to recognize teacher leaders to guide and support the school’s mission.
I’m really excited to hear about the current needs in the mathematics department at FSU and what your plan of technology integration will include!
Amanda,
ReplyDeleteAs educators we should all be developing relevant authentic lessons for our students and since our students have access to many different types of technology we also need to find ways to integrate that into our lesson as well. I, too, have been faced with the EVER question so I try to offer a real world problem that they may face in the future... like learning geometric formulas the EVER question always comes up so I simply ask if they ever plan to live in a house? (yes) do you think you will ever paint a wall?(yes) Will you have unlimited amounts of money? (no) then you need to be able to figure out (before you start painting) if you have enough paint (Area) and money to buy it (budgeting) and thats an easy sell. Technology helps me sell the harder EVER questions because I think you are right when you said, "I think the benefits are almost limitless." when talking about technology integration. Good Post! Thanks for sharing you point of view.
Amanda,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your second quote from Chapter 1. When I taught math students were always asking when they were going to use this in life and why did they have to learn different equations. That is something that I do like from the common core and our math books, everything is real world situations that students can relate to. That's the only positive that I see so far. If students can't relate to something then they are going to have a harder time understanding it and won't make the effort to learn the content. With technology and in math students need to understand the steps or process they are taking to get to their answer. If they understand the process then they will be able to help others. Technology is limitless and there are so many amazing resources that it has to offer. Everyone just needs to be on board with the ever changing technology world.