This page is maintained by John McCabe and John Boniello, Lower Hudson Special Education School Improvement Specialists. Click here to send them a question or comment.
WHAT WORKS
Quality Improvement Process
Hopes & Fears: An Adaptive Schools’ Strategy for Engaging Staff
Times of change and heightened emotions go hand-in-hand like a snowstorm and dangerous driving conditions L or a snowstorm and an opportunity to make a snowman J. If a change occurs which you support, it’s “the best thing that has happen since sliced bread!” But if a change occurs which you’re opposed to it’s “the ruin of us all!” Because we care about the work we do and the impact we make, change is emotional, resulting in hope or fear. Oftentimes, we have both feelings about the occurring change. As leaders, we need to be aware that these complex emotions are present among our staff (and students) whether spoken or unspoken.
The Complexity of Coaching
Why is helping adults so complicated? Coaches often find themselves working with colleagues and hitting many roadblocks. Can we avoid these roadblocks? Jim Knight says “Yes!”, and describes five components of coaching adults that can help coaches avoid roadblocks by understanding the ‘complexity of helping’.
Our New Commissioner of Education: Priorities and Thoughts
This week I had an opportunity to attend a lecture by the New York State Commissioner of Education, Mary Ellen Elia, at Manhattanville College. The title of her presentation was: “On Our Way to Stronger Schools: Progress Made and the Work Ahead.” Quite impressively, she has spent the past year logging more than 35,000 miles in her car traveling across the entire state of New York, meeting and listening to students, parents and school leaders. She met with all of these stakeholders to hear their views on New York State’s learning standards, curriculum, assessments and teacher evaluations. Here are her some of her priorities:
Toolkit
Quality Improvement Process Toolkit
- Golden Circle Tools: The Why, How and What of the Quality Improvement Process: The concept of the Golden Circle, developed by Simon Sinek and articulated in this TED Talk is used by QIP Teams to ensure that their work is driven by a meaningful Why, or student outcome, and identifies Hows and Whats for the school to implement that are directly aligned to that student outcome.
- RSE-TASC Explicit Instruction Walk-Through Tool: The RSE-TASC Explicit Instruction Walk-Through Tool is both a teaching tool and a data collection tool. It identifies research-based practices that have been proven to be effective for all students, but particularly effective for students with disabilities, English Language Learners, and student of poverty.