Kristen Logan and Heather Bross, two of the personalized learning coaches from our office, discuss some best practices for leading the work of personalized, competency-based learning at the start of this school year. Read about the importance of intentionality, transparency, and being learner-focused when it comes to vision setting and professional learning.
What are some ways education leaders can be intentional about making an impact this school year?
Kristen: Just like with students, you want to get to know your teachers. Get to know where they are in their professional journey and think about ways to help them identify areas they want to grow in, whether it’s their own goal or school or district related goals. Some specific pieces I might point people to thinking about asking teachers to do some self assessment and share their reflections with school leadership. Or just talk about what matters to them when it comes to the classroom and where they want to grow.
Heather: Developing a culture where you’re building relationships and trusting relationships is extremely important. We can reimagine what school looks like based on what we’ve learned in the past year and a half. So think about developing a process for how we meet any learners where they are, adults or our students in the classrooms. Whatever the process is, make sure to work through the relationship development as well. Maybe the process is through learner profiles. You could have your teachers develop their own learner profiles, which we’ve seen some of our schools do, such as Macedonia Middle in Berkeley County School District.
Also, try to stay focused on what your vision is. As a leader, there are so many different things we can do and directions we can go in. Have those conversations and build those relationships with students, staff, families, and community members and talk about what their vision is. What do they want school to look like, sound like, feel like? It’s okay to take some time to do that. It’s part of that relationship building and trust you’re building and it’s building shared ownership so you can all figure out what the next steps really are.
When it comes to establishing professional goals for the year, where is the best place to start for leaders who want to best support their teachers?
Heather: I think it lands in two places in my mind: your people and your data. Again, how well do you really know your people and what they need? And how can we provide that support for them? And also looking at the data that will inform that as well. That may be LEAP data, classroom visits, student and staff conferring, quick check ins, parking lots, or other different feedback loops. It’s all about getting to know what your school wants and needs. By looking at those things, then you can really start to figure out what needs are and next steps. We may be thinking really big, but we need to have some informed data to act on that thinking. Be very transparent in that process, explaining that you want the feedback, and sharing what the feedback is after you receive it.
Kristen: When you think about your people and your data, make sure those things are helping inform your school and district vision. So revisit your vision based on your people and your data because your vision and data informs everything else. Also, when reviewing your vision, remember that most of us can only focus on three things on our plate at a time very well and any more than that is too much. So make sure that vision is tight and clear and everyone understands what they’re working towards. Also, keep in mind the SC Teaching Standards 4.0 rubric. Not necessarily for evaluation purposes, but for growth. You can use it as a conferring tool and ask teachers to reflect on which areas they want to grow in and help them see how that connects to the vision of where the school is headed.
We know professional development opportunities are essential for growth. What is the best way for leaders to make PD personalized for teachers?
Kristen: You need to find out what your teachers need, whether that is through surveys or conversations. That needs to happen first. In our office, we talk a lot about mapping the staff. It can be a shared responsibility where everyone is thinking about how we are all landing on a certain school goal. Where is each person in that journey and what are their next steps? Then the leader is providing the support they need to create some PD options for them.
Heather: Mapping the staff is a great way to step back and look. Get others involved with it instead of behind closed doors by yourself as a leader. It’s okay to be where you are on the journey. Setting up that culture to let people know that it’s okay to be where you are and take risks to move forward is important. And having the transparency of knowing the vision of where the district and school is is important and unpack it to see where everything fits inside it.
Daniel Pink talks about the three motivators: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. If we as leaders are looking at those three things and know that is what is going to motivate our teachers, then personalized PD opportunities are a route we should be exploring to help motivate teachers. Especially following the pandemic year, people are just now starting to figure out we need to access our learning in different ways, for both students and teachers. So personalizing it and making it purposeful for them and giving them the opportunity to master their craft skill by skill, is starting to grow.
The National Center on Education and Economy published a paper about wanting to create that sense of transparency around professional development. One element of creating that transparency was having a professional learning curriculum. There are standards, such as the one in the 4.0 rubric. If we look at those standards and the vision, and know we want to operationalize a student-centered system, what are the skills our teachers need and how do we provide opportunities for them to develop those?
They also mention having a way to manage that system. So just like with student learning, we want to manage, acknowledge, and certify adult learning. We want them to be able to access it and celebrate it as well, so they can feel recognition for what they have mastered. Finally, the third element is “What does that look like?” In other words, offering models, examples, and a process of seeing what it looks like, such as schools and districts that have model classrooms or teachers recording themselves teaching and sharing that with others. How can we offer access and provide models and examples too to increase the transparency around professional development?
What are examples of what this can look like in our state?
Kristen: We’ve seen a middle school in Rock Hill (Saluda Trail Middle School) utilize a professional development choice board. They might have some sessions focused on equitable resources, and one on preparing students for success, and one for STEAM. They have sessions available to teachers and then teachers have a semester or the entire school year to go through the choices and choose which ones interest them or best align to their needs. The leadership team also asks the teachers if they would like to host some of those PD sessions. So they are attending and leading the learning, which builds community.
We have also seen a high school (Batesburg-Leesville) where they have PD opportunities focused around one central idea of building competency-based rubrics. Then they personalize their PD by thinking about their content and how they want to navigate which skills each student would need. So you can personalize around lots of different options on different topics, or narrow it down to one focus for the school as a whole and personalize within it.
Want to hear more about how school leaders and the Office of Personalized Learning provide personalized PD opportunities?
Listen to the podcast episode here: https://anchor.fm/personalizeSC