Dangerously Irrelevant

This post is overdue, but last week I had a great time (again) with the "Women of Web 2.0" talking about K-12 technology leadership issues. If you haven’t yet listened to the podcast, it’s a great one (of course I’m biased!).

[cross-posted
at the TechLearning blog]

We have known for a long time (decades!) about what constitutes effective
staff development. As the latest version of the National Staff Development
Council Standards for Staff Development notes, effective staff
development

• has small groups of educators working together over time in professional
  learning communities;
• is based on principles of effective adult learning; and
• deepens educators’ content knowledge.

Yet what does staff development look like in most school districts? Typically
it involves three or four one-shot “sit and get” (or “spray and pray”) sessions
spread across the year, each on a different topic than the one before, that are
attended by most or all educators in the organization. A “one size fits all”
model is used, meaning that there is relatively little differentiation between,
say, music teachers and math teachers and industrial arts teachers. Sometimes
schools spice it up a bit and have a buffet day where educators can pick from
multiple choices throughout the day, much like a professional conference.

Rarely is there follow-up. Rarely is there sustained, focused conversation
about a specific learning issue over time. Rarely does educators’ staff
development satisfy any of the three bullet points listed above. In fact,
schools make deliberate structural choices that directly violate the three
bullet points above. The end result, of course, is that most school
organizations’ staff development practices have little to no meaningful impact
on instructional practice and/or student learning outcomes.

This is a shame, because staff development time and monies might possibly be
the most scarce resources in schools. Staff development also is one of the only
mechanisms that schools have for giving employees new skills and turning the
organization in new directions. It’s embarrassing and disappointing that schools
take this precious, limited resource and squander it.

So the question is… Given that we know what effective staff development looks
like, why is most staff development still so bad?

Surprised? Two primarily online universities and one community college among the top five. FYI, the University of Phoenix has more than twice the number of students (117,309) as any of the next four (which range from 54,169 to 50,663).

[Source: Chronicle of Higher Education. Campuses with the Largest Enrollments, Fall 2005. August 31, 2007.]

I was informed today that Dangerously Irrelevant AND LeaderTalk both made Edutopia’s short list of "edublogs they love." Here’s the link:

• Edublogs we love: Ten top stops for Internet interaction

We are distinctly honored (and oh so pleased!). Thanks!

P.S. If you’re not subscribing to Edutopia, sponsored by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, you should be!

Pierce, M., & Stapleton, D. L. (Eds.). (2003). The 21st century principal: Current
issues in leadership and policy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education
Press.

The essays in this volume examine the future of public schooling in the
United States – and what it will mean to be a leader in public schools – by
focusing on the issues that are most likely to have an impact on American
society within the next 20 years. (p. 1)

Total number of pages in book = 96

Total number of pages that discuss (and disagree about) the skills
needed for 21st century workplaces = approximately 3

Total number of pages that discuss the impact of digital technologies
on how K-12 education is delivered / done = 0

Total number of pages that discuss the need for school administrators
to be technology leaders = 0

Read the book title and opening quote again. Shake your head in
disbelief.

I just read this tale of woe about the start of the school year.

As Edward Deming noted, it’s the system, not the worker. Administrators are responsible for the system.

Good luck, Sherry. My thoughts are with you.

I received this recently:

Dr. McLeod, I am a math teacher in [school district] and have attended two of your presentations (one last school year). I am wondering if there is a place where I could create wikis for my classes that allow students to enter math equations, use correct geometric notation, etc. (similar to MathType). It doesn’t seem like this is an option?? Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

Got any suggestions for him?

I was the keynote speaker for the Owatonna Public Schools‘ kickoff day for all staff for the new school year. I’ve worked with the district before. Not only am I continually impressed with its desire to move its educators into the 21st century, this time the local paper covered my presentation. It’s always fun to see others’ perceptions of your work!

[cross-posted at LeaderTalk]

Even when principals and teachers have access to data, they often aren’t sure what to do with it. That’s why CASTLE (okay, it was me!) created School Data Tutorials, a web site intended to help K-12 educators work with raw student and school data.

The tutorials on the web site highlight many of the Excel skills that are helpful when working with building- and district-level data. The tutorials are targeted at data managers, principals, guidance counselors, teachers, and other school personnel who have the responsibility for collecting, analyzing, and reporting K-12 performance data (which is just about everyone these days!). You will see that the tutorials are much like the ones created by Atomic Learning (they trained us!) but are focused on data-driven decision-making needs of educators rather than being generic.

Below are the four sets of tutorials we recommend for every teacher and administrator. If every educator knew how to do these four things, schools’ capacity to do some basic monitoring of student progress would be greatly enhanced. They take just over half an hour to watch once, and of course they can be viewed as many times as necessary to accomplish mastery.

Many more tutorials are available on the site, including instructions on how to make your own data collection templates. Let me know if you feel empowered after watching these!

Freeze panes

• Freezing rows to remain visible (1:11)
• Freezing columns to remain visible (0:40)
• Freezing both rows and columns to remain visible (0:49)

Sort

• Sorting data using a single criterion (3:04)
• Sorting data using multiple criteria (2:29)
• Sorting data with multiple header rows (1:27)

Filter

• Filtering data with AutoFilter (1:13)
• Analyzing data with AutoFilter (1:45)
• Using Custom AutoFilter to filter numerical values less or greater than a specified value (1:41)
• Turning filters off (0:34)
• Printing datasets from AutoFilter (1:39)
• Copying just the dataset obtained from AutoFilter (2:23)
• Using the Esc (Escape) key to clear selections and copy another dataset (1:16)

Conditional formatting

• Changing a numerical cell’s color with single conditional formatting conditions (2:17)
• Changing a numerical cell’s color with multiple conditional formatting conditions (1:50)
• Changing a text cell’s color with single conditional formatting conditions (0:55)
• Changing a text cell’s color with multiple conditional formatting conditions (2:53)
• Changing a cell’s color with calculated value conditions (3:58)

Note that you may need to turn off your browser’s pop-up blocker or install the latest Flash plug-in to view these tutorials. Happy viewing!