Coach or Instructor?

We have turned the calendar to the 2nd month of 2015.

New Year's resolutions are frequently gym and fitness related.  Is your fitness "consultant" more concerned with how many fitness sessions you have signed up for or that you are actually making steady improvement to reach your goals?

The Value of Self-Reflection

In the final summary meeting with my teachers yesterday, I focused on self-reflection and planning, planning for next year, and professional growth.  I made sure to clearly communicate how much I appreciate their hard work, celebrated their success, yet stressed the importance of reflection on how we can (and need to) improve.


To begin the meeting, I provided a note card to every teacher, along with a list of good self-reflection questions, which I owe credit to The Value of Self-Reflection.  I asked everyone to select one question, take a few moments to reflect, and subsequently write their response on the card.  I did not ask them to share their responses, nor did I ask for the teachers to turn the note cards in to me.  The purpose was to provide every teacher to take an opportunity to reflect on their teaching and hopefully encourage every teacher to self-reflect on their own.


In the spirit of serving as an instructional leader, I wanted to share some of my own reflections from this school-year, using some of the same questions provided to my teachers.

     What is my top teaching goal for the coming year?

      My top teaching goal is for our teachers to capitalize on instructional "Best Practices" from within the school through digital collaboration.  Our teachers do a great job of working within Professional Learning Communities and would even go as far to say we are a "PLC Model" school.  Yet, I do not believe our teachers take advantage of collaborating with instructional strategies within the school.  My top goal is to provide opportunities for this to occur.

     What types of students do I tend to ignore or do I need to spend more time serving?

      We need to spend more time serving our LEP/ESL population.  Our ESL teacher, who is incredible, has discussed various ideas to be implemented next year involving, but certainly not limited to, strategic scheduling of LEP students to coincide with our tested courses and a school website in Spanish to coincide with our primary school website, increasing awareness for our ESL community.

     What can I do to be more proactive in my professional development? 

      I discussed the importance of this summer's preparation for instructional design to align with the Common Core curriculum with teachers yesterday.  It would be hypocritical for me to not spend the necessary time becoming acclimated with the core content changes, as well.

     How can I increase valuable parental involvement? 

      In a casual conversation a few weeks ago, my principal and I talked about how to get more Dad's, or generally speaking, more men, involved in the school.  The timing was perfect, because I had just read some great ideas via Twitter that other principal's had done at their schools to engage "Dad's" and encourage the men that serve as parents to be involved in the school. 

      What minor and/or major changes can I make to my academic program in order to directly increase my students' learning?

      The administrative team was heavily involved with the PLC's of our tested areas this second semester.  Personally, I worked closely with the Biology PLC with data analysis of Common Assessments and Probability Prediction data.  The Biology PLC used a number of interventions during the school-day, such as objective-based remediation grouping.  All three of our tested area's proficiency improved approximately 16-17% (no joke, all three had same improvement) from first semester.  This proves that our strategies and focus this past semester worked.  More importantly, it showed that it needs to continue.

My aspirations are to encourage all of our teachers, administrators, and staff to take some time for quality self-reflection as the school-year winds down.  We owe it to ourselves as educators to recognize our strengths and identify needed areas of improvement.


Thanks for reading and follow me via Twitter @CSmithGoBlue.  



CS


The opinions shared in this blog belong to Craig Smith and do not represent the school or district in which he works.

What Sean Payton's Suspension Can Remind School Leaders

The recently suspended Head Coach of the National Football League's New Orleans Saints: "As the head coach, anything that happens within the framework of your team and your program, you're responsible for."

This is an extremely important reminder to all School Leaders, especially Principals.  I think anyone involved in education can simply replace "head coach" with "school leader" and "team" with "school", resulting in the following:  "As the school leader, anything that happens within the framework of your school, you're responsible for."

The great Bobby Bowden said, "It was my job to be a chief executive officer and oversee the entire program.", when discussing the importance of having an idea of what was going on throughout his program.  He also acknowledged that, due to the size of a Division I college football program, it was impossible to stay on top of every single individual.  Therefore, he put forth a large emphasis on surrounding himself with assistant coaches that held the same beliefs about right and wrong.  He relied heavily on their judgement to make him aware of anything worthy of attention.

School leaders must also do the same.  It is an unrealistic expectation for a Principal to be directly involved in every single aspect of the school, as this type of micro-managing would drain any school leader into immediate burn-out.  But, as Coach Sean Payton eluded to, the school leader is responsible for everything within the framework of the school.  Therefore, it is crucial for a Principal to surround themselves with an administrative team in which they trust, as well as empower teacher leaders within the school.

We live in the modern society where responsibility must always fall to someone and, fair or unfair, this usually falls to the top.  Sean Payton's suspension, although unrelated to education, is a perfect reminder to all school leaders. 

Thanks for reading and follow me via Twitter @CSmithGoBlue

CS

The opinions shared in this blog belong to Craig Smith and do not represent the school or district in which he works.

Every HS Varsity Head Coach should be on Twitter

My previous blog post explained how Twitter has impacted my professional growth.  This post is going to briefly discuss why I believe every high school varsity head coach needs to be utilizing Twitter.  Here's why:

• Twitter allows coach's to publicize their own teams in a very easy format.  It takes no more than a few seconds to post scores, results, upcoming games/matches, etc.  The more people are informed, the more support your team will receive. 

• Local sports writers covering prep athletics can easily follow your teams.  When I was a varsity head coach, I frequently received compliments from local writers about how much they appreciated my website, where I would post information daily.  Sure, we as coaches often fall into the trap of, "Well, if they want the information, it is their job to come get it."  Hey, I was a Head Men's Tennis Coach, and I knew that I had go bust my rear end to get some ink in the local papers.  If you truly want your teams to get attention, you've got to publicize yourself.  Twitter allows this to be done with a very little time requirement. 

• The parents of your players will love it.  Happy parents = less headaches. 

• Twitter helps promote student body support for your support.  Your followers will extend to current non-participating students, alumni, and even students of other schools.

• The number of coaching resources on Twitter are endless.  I don't care if you coach basketball, tennis, or swimming, any coach can find hundreds of resources on Twitter.  The days of attending all-day coaching clinics are gone when you can reach out to the top coaches in the country, especially college coaches, on a daily basis through Twitter.  My mentor, while I was an Assistant Varsity Basketball Coach, told me that any clinic is beneficial if you can come away with three things.  On Twitter, you can pull away much more than that.

• There are hundreds of fitness training resources, as well, that are not necessarily sport-specific.  Most gyms have Twitter accounts that provide various workouts, exercises, and health tips daily. 

These are the main reasons why I believe every high school varsity head coach should be on Twitter.  As a former Head Coach who kept as intense of a schedule as most D-1 tennis coaches, I know that time is of a minimum.  But, I believe the above reasons are well-worth the time for all coaches to utilize Twitter.

A HUGE thank you to all high school coaches for everything you do for our student-athletes.

Thanks for reading and please follow me via Twitter @CSmithGoBlue.

CS

The opinions shared in this blog belong to Craig Smith and do not represent the school or district in which he works.