It's Not What You Say; It's How You Say It
Some of the most difficult aspects of an educator's job are in the area of communication. The teacher evaluation system that bases pay upon performance makes trust and communication between principals and teachers a necessary ingredient in effective schools. Develop the skills school leaders need to communicate effectively and in ways that motivate teachers and other school leaders towards success. Based on the book, Communicate and Motivate: The School Leader’s Guide to Effective Communication, this presentation will empower leaders to communicate well as they work to promote a student-centered environment best suited to schoolwide achievement.
Who Should Attend: Principals, administrators, and other leaders who are interested in learning win-win approaches to conversations with teachers about their evaluations, parent communication, and much more.
Communication and Trust: Principals and Teachers
The national emphasis on performance-based evaluations for educators has highlighted the need to examine the relationship between principals and teachers. This workshop will be presented in part from the author’s book Communicate and Motivate: The School Leader’s Guide to Effective Communication as well as from adaptations made for a live audience, including multimedia presentations, role plays, etc. In addition, the author’s dissertation research will be included in the information presented, including trust builders and trust barriers teachers perceive in their principals.
Who Should Attend: Teachers (K-12), principals, administrators, instructional leaders, and anyone who is interested in learning effective strategies for building trust within the school environment.
The School Leader’s Toolbox: Discipline, Management, and Engagement
Designed specifically for school leaders, this session takes a look at current best practices in the areas of classroom management, discipline, and student engagement. Every school leader knows that well-managed classrooms with a focus on student engagement typically experience fewer discipline problems. This session will offer easy-to-use, practical strategies and interventions that will assist school leaders when developing or refining schoolwide plans and when working with individual classroom teachers. Participants will consider both school-level factors and classroom-level factors impacting student behavior.
Who Should Attend: Principals, administrators, and other leaders who are interested in helping teachers improve classroom management.
The Craft of Teacher Supervision: The Actions that Matter Most
The role of teacher evaluation is essential for an effective principal. This session will focus on evaluation of all teachers, from our superstars to our less-than superstars. Principals will have a chance to practice conferencing and note taking, and to examine the most effective ways to evaluate and improve our teachers.
Who Should Attend: Principals, administrators, and other leaders who are interested in improving instruction on a daily basis.
Formal and Informal Classroom Observations
Teachers need feedback more than just once or twice a year. Learn how to focus observations in order to provide useful feedback to teachers. Develop your skills in using informal observations to collect data and use it as a basis for engaging teachers in conversations about their specific instructional practices.
Who Should Attend: Principals, administrators, and other leaders who are interested in learning new ways to evaluate teachers through observation.
Develop a Professional Development Plan for Technology in Your School
The consultant helps schools and districts create long- or short-term plans for professional development in technology. This workshop will help you consider challenges and overcome barriers before they impact your plan. Develop a solid foundation and learning environment to help ensure effective professional development.
Who Should Attend: Principals, administrators, and other leaders who are in need of professional development plans to ensure new technology initiatives are implemented appropriately.
Enhance Your School Reform Plan with Technology Strategies
A principal’s most important role is improving instruction. This session will introduce ten tools that leaders can use with their faculty to strengthen and enhance teaching and learning.
Who Should Attend: Principals, administrators, and other leaders who are in need of innovative technology strategies to support school improvement.
Instructional Leadership Tools
Learn how to achieve your goals and motivate your students and teachers by utilizing the technology currently available to you. Expand your communication and sharing within the school through technology-enhanced collaboration.
Who Should Attend: Principals, administrators, and other leaders who are interested in learning specific tools that will enhance teacher instruction.
Making Change Stick
Why is leading change so difficult? The challenge for school executives is to find ways to make change stick while simultaneously building employee capacity for the next change initiative. This seminar gives practical frameworks, tools to reduce resistance to change, tips for creating a leadership plan, and ways to communicate the change to increase the chance that change will stick.
Who Should Attend: Principals, administrators, and other leaders who are interested in learning how to implement school change effectively.
Every Day is Professional Development Day
Teachers are professionals who want to take responsibility for their own learning. Learn how to turn day-to-day professional activities into opportunities for teachers to reflect, collaborate with colleagues, and problem-solve instructional challenges.
Who Should Attend: Principals, administrators, and other leaders who are interested in learning about job-embedded professional development along with other strategies to make the most out of training opportunities despite budgetary constraints and other challenges.
How Effective Leaders Get Results: Connecting Vision to Action for High-Impact Schools
Great leaders, as opposed to those who are merely good, make the difference in achieving bottom line results and driving success. What does high-impact leadership look like? What do really successful principals do to promote teaching and learning? Administrators will use rubrics to compare their practice and learn what to do to improve. Opportunities will be provided for discussion and reflection.
Who Should Attend: Principals, administrators, and other leaders who are interested in learning how to improve their own best practices to positively impact teaching and learning.
Decide, Design, and Deliver: Transforming Fact-Based Decisions into Result
Your team has made the move to data-driven decisions. Yet you're still not seeing the improvement you want to see. How do you move from data-driven decision making to demonstrable results? This hands-on workshop will help participants align data, resources, and people, and develop an action plan to drive results.
Who Should Attend: Principals, administrators, and other leaders who are interested in learning how to translate data-driven research into practical results.
The (Almost) Paperless School Leader
What if all of your information was available from anywhere and easily searchable? What if it was organized in a way that you actually knew what you had? What if you could drastically reduce the paper in your life? Learn not only that it can be done, but exactly how to do it: by constructing a digital filing system that allows you to find anything quickly; using iGoogle as your “digital dashboard” and accessing it from anywhere in the world; using dual monitors as a way to dramatically reduce your printing; using Dropbox for instant backup and a way to work on projects from anywhere; handling forms digitally; setting up Outlook to be the tool that drives your day; learning alternatives if you cannot use Outlook; keeping your Smartphone in sync with your Outlook (or other alternatives); putting repeating tasks on “autopilot”; getting your e-mail to “empty” every day; using reQall or Vlingo to turn voice notes into text you receive in your e-mail; communicating effectively through a blog; conducting paperless classroom walkthroughs; and streamlining the paper that remains in your life.
Who Should Attend: Principals, administrators, and other leaders who are interested in practical ways to increase productivity and decrease stress.
Data That Matters: Using a Balanced Scorecard to Summarize and Organize Data Length
Filing cabinets are filled with data, yet school leaders are at a loss as to how to organize and communicate what the data is showing. This session provides strategies around using a single spreadsheet into which schools can enter and track all group data. Stakeholders will be able to see at a glance past performance, current performance, goals, and the degree to which the school is accomplishing its goals. Participants will learn the following: the purpose of a balanced scorecard; the types of data that can be tracked using a balanced scorecard; the difference between leading and lagging indicators; how to set and record student achievement goals; a variety of uses for the balanced scorecard throughout the year; how to download and begin using the balanced scorecard; and how to use the balanced scorecard as the centerpiece of a strategic plan.
Who Should Attend: Principals, administrators, and other leaders who are in search of a unified tool to streamline data.
Finding More Time for Instructional Leadership
Many mid- and senior-level school executives want to spend more time focused on their priorities, yet get bogged down in low-value tasks. This practical workshop will provide new and experienced school leaders over 18 proven strategies to carve out additional time for their priorities, focusing on how to leverage more time to build relationships with teachers, community members, and fellow school leaders.
Who Should Attend: Principals, administrators, and other leaders who are interested in sharpening their time management skills.
Growing High-Performing Teams
It's not easy to pull together a group of diverse individuals to work as a team. Organizations increasingly turn to teams to get work done, but barriers can quickly derail collaboration and high performance. Yet at a time when companies are increasingly relying on cross-functional teams at every level to generate innovative ideas, it's more crucial than ever to tap the fresh thinking that teams can provide. This highly interactive workshop helps leadership teams overcome barriers to teamwork and unite a group of collaborators for improved school performance.
Who Should Attend: Principals, administrators, and other leaders who are interested in learning effective techniques for building and sustaining teams that demonstrate success.
Free Tech Tools That Increase Productivity
Technology can, and should, make our lives easier. Learn how you can organize all of your Internet resources in one place with iGoogle; learn how to access your information from anywhere with Dropbox; change forever the way you think about paper forms with Google Docs; put an end to forgetting with ReQall. You will also learn how to establish and maintain a good filing system on your computer; how to backup your data easily; and how to communicate your message effectively through a blog.
Who Should Attend: Principals, administrators, and other leaders who are searching for free tools to help them organize, manage, and communicate information.
Get Organized! The 5 Keys to Organization and Time Management
This seminar focuses on the 5 ingredients of a total system for managing time and organizing surroundings. Learn to focus on what is important while still handling multiple responsibilities. These 5 ingredients include handling the papers, adopting your own “signature tool” (either paper or digital) to organize all of your information in one place, putting repeating tasks on “autopilot,” managing the flood incoming information, and handling multiple projects.
Who Should Attend: Principals, administrators, and other leaders who are searching for easy-to-implement strategies for managing paperwork and other adminis-trivia tasks.