The Authors

1. Written Assignment 4byEwing Coleman GreenEDD 9100L CRN 35777Nova Southeastern UniversityApril 10, 2013

3. The Authors • Richard DuFour • Long-time educational administrator, author • Professional Learning Community (PLC) expert • Co-authored primary text in EDD 8111 Communities of Practice (DuFour & Eaker, 1998) • www.allthingsplc.info • Robert Marzano • Long-time educational researcher and author • www.marzanoresearch.com

4. Similarities to EDD 9100 • Kouzesand Posner (2007) extensively cited • Five practices of exemplary leadership (Model the way, Inspire a shared vision, Challenge the process, Enable others to act, and Encourage the heart) • Staying in love; leadership is an affair of the heart • Northouse (2012): leadership is an influence process to achieve common goals, and leadership is about relationships and results • Clawson (2012): importance of emotion; VABEs • Vision is essential

5. Similarities (cont’d) • Principalship is key to creating culture and building capacity (self-efficacy) • Distributed leadership • Principal’s Actions Collaborative Teams Teacher Actions Student Achievement • Professional development is embedded (learn from work versus taken away from work to learn) • Importance of communication (clear, inspiring) • Importance of celebration of milestones

6. Dissimilarities to EDD 9100 • Focused primarily on leading educational systemic change and improving student achievement through PLCs • Less on interpersonal aspects of leadership • No discussion of ethics and integrity

7. Learnings/Reinforcements • Every great leader is teaching and every great teacher is leading • Power of PLC to align resources to measurably improve student learning • Three Big Ideas • All students learn at high levels • Collaborative effort to meet student needs • Results orientation (use SMART goals: Strategically aligned, Measurable, Attainable, Results focused, Time-bound) • Evidence of impact • Administrivia Focus on Student Learning

8. Learnings (cont’d) • Collaborative practice, sharing, and observation • Learning from peers, mutual accountability • Shift from principals vertically ‘supervising’ teachers to educators horizontally building collaborative capacity • Transformation from culture of isolation to culture of collaboration • Recurring cycle of collective inquiry • Curriculum Learning engagement design Monitoring student learning • Individual student differentiation

9. Job Relevance • My role as 8Red PLC leader • Essential to gain shared vision and ownership of direction • My role on Middle School Leadership Team • Help us improve PLC effectiveness • My role on upcoming Differentiation Task Force • TBD, student learning enrichment • My role as Algebra 1 teacher • Individual student learning needs

10. Agreements • Senior leadership must ensure organization has the capacity to deliver against coherent initiatives • Avoid initiative fatigue • Focus on the critical few • Sustained, patient, continual effort • Provide time and resources • Collaborative time (i.e., common planning time) • Role of effective educator is a calling, a work of love, because it is fundamentally about serving others • The people; passion for a moral purpose • The process; must be a lifelong learner

11. Agreements (cont’d) • Beware the Dark Side • Clawson (2012): “Be aware that when people work on something they believe in deeply, they can work so hard that they begin to do damage to themselves and others” (p.232) • Be mindful of sphere of influence • Move to standards-based reporting including learning behaviors (O’Connor, 2007)

12. Disagreements • Including traditional letter or numeric grading schemes on standards-based report cards (O’Connor, 2013) • Discussion on formative assessment omitted importance of student self-assessment (McMillan & Hearn, 2008)

13. Who Should Read and Why? • Constituents in education at all levels • From Board of Directors to teachers • Alignment of organization on initiatives key to student learning • Professional Learning Community model is a paradigm shift in pedagogy

14. References • Clawson, J. G. (2012). Level three leadership: Getting below the surface (5thed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. • DuFour, R., & Eaker, R. (1998). Professional learning communities at work: Best practicesfor enhancing student achievement. Bloomington, IN: National Educational Service. • DuFour, R., & Marzano, R. J. (2011). Leaders of learning: How district, school, and classroom leaders improve student achievement. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree. • Kouzes, J., & Posner, B. (2007). The leadership challenge (4th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

15. References (cont’d) • McMillan J. H., & Hearn, J. (2008). Student self-assessment: The key to stronger student motivation and higher achievement. Educational Horizons (87)1, 40-49. Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov/ezproxylocal.library.nova.edu/PDFS/EJ815370.pdf • Northouse, P. G. (2012). Introduction to leadership (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. • O’Connor, K. (2007). A repair kit for grading: Fifteen fixes for broken grades. Portland, OR: ETS Assessment Training Institute. • O’Connor, K. (2013). Essentials for principals: The school leader’s guide to grading. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

16. Image URLs • Slide 9. SAS logo. Retrieved from http//:www.saschina.org • Slide 13. Board of Directors. Retrieved from http://ts4.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.4604759954425579&pid=15.1 • Slide 13. Teacher. Retrieved from http://ts2.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.4535250221531749&pid=15.1