Transformative Principal

Livonia Michigan Suburban district with 300 students, 16,000 in district Pre-K–4th. 5 years, 21 years in 14 years as a principal @jon_wennstrom sparkoflearning.blogspot.com teacher blog http://wennstromweekly.blogspot.com parent blog PBIS school, 7 Habits of highly effective students, Positive phone calls, student led announcements, PSAs. Class Dojo, 23% ELLs Wall feature. School-wide meetings. PB...

Participate.com use it for chats–it works really well. Check out this cool minute-long video about how it works. View a longer webinar about participate learning . Everything in there is based on conversations that Brad has with users. Chats are great, but how do you pay attention to everything that you learned from it? Calendar of chats Create collections from chats in the time period. Create col...

This is part 2 of my interview with Susie Wise. Susie has had multiple incarnations at the d.school – teaching EX-Tools back in the trailer days, launching the K12 Lab in 2007 with the Nueva School Innovation Lab project, and jumpstarting Media Ops and Hootenanny design for the inauguration of Building 550 in 2008–2010. Back again in 2012 she is leading our efforts to support the movement bringing...

Susie Wise has had multiple incarnations at the d.school – teaching EX-Tools back in the trailer days, launching the K12 Lab in 2007 with the Nueva School Innovation Lab project, and jumpstarting Media Ops and Hootenanny design for the inauguration of Building 550 in 2008–2010. Back again in 2012 she is leading our efforts to support the movement bringing design thinking into K12 teaching and lear...

Jon Laffoon is the principal of Pea Ridge High School in Arkansas, where they are using a dynamic schedule called the flex mod schedule to allow time to serve students, rather than students serving time. It is pretty remarkable and impressive. Save $10,000 on paper because of 1:1 Don’t hire substitutes Expectation is that teachers post everything to Google Classroom when they are absent. Subs are...

Jon Laffoon is the principal of Pea Ridge High School in Arkansas, where they are using a dynamic schedule called the flex mod schedule to allow time to serve students, rather than students serving time. It is pretty remarkable and impressive. Flex Mod schedule Form of a block schedule. Certain classes that might meet 4 days a week or 3 days a week. Videos explaining the schedule Empower the teach...

Ken Spero of @edleadershipsim seeks to help leaders develop their decision-making ability by running simulations of realistic situations. Experience is the best teacher What simulations in a box look like. Engage one’s own imagination Experiences of those who go through it. This is an experience to be able to talk about what you could do. Valuable and engaging. Stories engage people. Running simul...

Loading… Glenn Robbins ( Twitter and Blog ) is the 2016 NASSP Digital Principal of the Year . Duties of digital principal of the year. Things that were done to gain attention for this award. Idea Street Turtles in an aquarium in the school. Digital Shop. Design thinking. NCMS Innovates blog EdCamp Period . 5 days in a 45 minute period. We want to create designers. Using technology when appropriate...

Leyden East High School Principal Jason Markey , assistant principal Anita Huffman and principal-to-be-current-special-education-teacher Meaghan O’Neil join me to talk about the Assistant principal for Student Services - The importance of a title Breakfast with students to support the new students coming in. ACCESS Program - extra 25 minutes for freshman to help them get acclimated. Hand-schedule...

Today, Daniel Bauer and I talk about our Mastermind. I encourage you to join. Check it out here: Transformative Mastermind .   If you still have questions or are ready to join, please set up a brief phone call. Schedule a call Daniel and I are both setting up masterminds. I interview him on his podcast: Better Leaders Better Schools     Mastermind For Principals We all know that being a principal...

A continuation of my discussion with Eric Heiser, Exectuve direction or Sturgis Public Charter school in Mass. Teachers go above and beyond often. Teachers who join us are into teaching students, not content. Students thrive on feedback, and if they feel they are going to get it, they are going to go to teachers for it more often. Teachers mindset has to be, I’m going to do everything I can to hel...

Eric Heiser is the Exective Director of Sturgis Public Charter School in Massachusetts, where students have a 20% chance of getting in if you don’t have a sibling International Baccalaureate has programs from K–12 and early college. IB Diploma program the best preparation for College. IB Program is a whole conception of a program. Rigorous courses and also character building. Theory of knowledge,...

Kimberly Miles is the principal of East Gresham Elementary School. 425 kids, mobility rate 64 students moving in and out since the beginning of the year. 33 percent ELL students. SUN School - community support in the school. PLCs Leadership Team 25 minutes each week with principal discussing the instruction and learning. Instructional coach. Essential Questions Meet weekly as a team Sense of urgen...

I was so honored to chat with Todd Whitaker and Rick Wormeli after their keynote at the #nassp16 conference. This was a really fun conversation today. These two guys were so excited about what they were talking about they just kept going. It was awesome. Professional Development. Twitter chats ( Comprehensive list of Twitter Chats ) Twitter is the best free professional development there is. Expos...

Cory Doctorow is a Canadian journalist and science fiction author. Follow him on Twitter , Web site , BoingBoing Cory spoke at ASTE this week, and I am excited to share the things I learned from him. Failing well We tend to ignore failing. What we should teach kids about technology Reidentification - people can figure out who you are. What we should teach kids Anonymity + distance = jerky behavior...

Special Episode! This weekend I am at the ASTE Conference , and I had the privilege of learning from Carl Hooker for a leadership workshop all day on Saturday. It’s always fun to learn from a great presenter, and Carl is one of those. Carl did a great job of engaging a bunch of administrators, helping us get our guard down, and making the conversation great. Carl has been involved in education sin...

Kimberly Miles is the principal of East Gresham Elementary School. 425 kids, mobility rate 64 students moving in and out since the beginning of the year. 33 percent ELL students. SUN School - community support in the school. Turnaround principal. Everyone had the choice to leave or apply to stay. Looking for a willingness to do what works. How are we as a team going to fulfill that need for our ki...

Frederick Lane is an author, attorney, educational consultant, and lecturer based in Brooklyn, NY. He is a nationally-recognized expert in the areas of cybersafety, digital misconduct, personal privacy, and other topics at the intersection of law, technology, and society. Lane has appeared on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, the BBC, and MSNBC. He has written eight books, inc...

Frederick Lane is an author, attorney, educational consultant, and lecturer based in Brooklyn, NY. He is a nationally-recognized expert in the areas of cybersafety, digital misconduct, personal privacy, and other topics at the intersection of law, technology, and society. Lane has appeared on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, the BBC, and MSNBC. He has written eight books, inc...

Kara is an assistant principal at Edwin Lowe Elementary in New Town North Dakota. Her generation doesn’t feel that people are coming in to take away their culture. There’s nothing we can’t learn from each other. How to help kids choose to be in education: Be that outstanding teacher! Having authentic conversations. History of Indian Education in America . Boarding schools were opened up. Goal was...

Kara is an assistant principal at Edwin Lowe Elementary in New Town North Dakota. Grew up Cheyenne-Sioux South Dakota. Foster education. Emancipated as a young adult. Knew what it took to survive in life. Dropped out of High School. Started school again in her 20s. Life on the reservation due to socio-economic and other issues. She saw the world starting to pass her by. Writing a paragraph sounds...

Teacher-led Professional Development with Nathan Adams Transformative Principal 107 Nathan has been a special education teacher for 8 years. He has taught in middle, high, and elementary levels. Teacher led professional development Sponsored by the local teacher’s union. Joined the union that has supported him, in an effort to give back. Idea of helping general education teachers and special educa...

Kristin Bentley is a 2nd grade teacher in a Title I school. She created an awesome app that helps manage classroom behavior: Color My Day Introductory Video Why use this rather than Class Dojo. Think Time forms and Office Discipline Referrals are built-in to the app. Shoutout to Tricia Skyles ODRs going down means nothing if teacher morale is going up. The process of creating an app from the groun...

Kristin Bentley is a 2nd grade teacher in a Title I school. She created an awesome app that helps manage classroom behavior: Color My Day [Introductory Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4IrMJpInOk&feature=youtu.be) Using card pulls is not very effective. Clip charts use separate clips to show that positive and negative behavior. The two clips gave the ’93naughty’94 kids a chance to have...

Principal of South Heights Elementary in his 20th year. Rob doesn’t just look at his students currently, he has a much bigger vision of what they can accomplish and how they can make life better forever. Rob keeps in contact with kids who went to The 1199 many years ago and makes sure that they can still find ways to be successful. Special things you do during Christmas for your schools You can be...