I was extra excited to see what others had to say on this topic because it can seem so simple, yet challenging to actually do. Education is constantly changing and that is what makes us lifelong learners. However, resistance to that change or adapting wrong habits is still too common in education. I believe because when change occurs, not everyone is on board with the reason why the change is coming about. Being a leader means giving every person a reason to believe that the change will benefit them.
Andrea brought up great points about how even though she held the title of the mentor, her and her mentee worked together. There wasn’t a blatant hierarchy- it was a collaboration. I don’t think I stressed this point enough (or at all) in my first post. However, I fully agree that this is the model of a great leader and the relationships with the team. Though leaders may have an idea or know a direction to take, the leader gets on the same level as the group to collaborate, share, and create a successful change.
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Thinking about change has been on the forefront of my mind. My district is in this phase of changing 2nd grade to a whole new school-- from 2nd to 5th to a K-2 school. Though this may have a lot of benefits, it is hard to see them all with so much disruption. I know this change will bring to light a whole plethora of new strategies, issues, techniques, philosophies and so forth. More importantly, this shift and change will make it obvious who can lead through change and who succumbs to resistance. As for me, this particular question and class has lifted me up and away to see from a different perspective. Change, regardless of its benefits, is enough to make people cringe and fight back. This week's question really makes me think about how I can take a potentially not-so-great situation and turn it into a chance to co-create and collaborate. Embracing the change could lead to creation of more practical and relevant curriculum. The change could allow for more growth in areas it may have been hard to reach with our previous school. Change, in all its vulnerable and unknown essence, CAN be the answer if the right people are leading the change. What I am realizing is that I have the potential to take this disruption and turn it into coherence making. Chapter six in our reading, Leading in a Culture of Change, outlines this as part of the essential characteristics to being a great leader. I find this element of leadership probably the most intimidating and risky. The text goes on to make it seem a lot more simple than most may experience by saying, “When change occurs, there will be disturbances, and this means that there will be differences of opinion that must be reconciled. Effective leadership means guiding people through the differences and, indeed, enabling differences to surface (Fullan, 2001).” With this new element I looked to the internet to figure how do people lead change in a successful productive manner? The article, 4 Things Successful Change Leaders Do, states these four core elements:
The picture found below is a good summary of change through self, others, and organizations. At each level, all are affected differently and these questions help process the unknown variables into manageable changes. Fullan, M. 2001. Leading in a Culture of Change. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED467449.pdf
Dinwoodie, D. Navigating Change: A Leader’s Role. Retrieved from https://media.ccl.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/navigating-change-a-leaders-role-center-for-creative-leadership.pdf Ready, D. 2016. 4 Things Successful Change Leaders Do. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2016/01/4-things-successful-change-leaders-do-well Week 11: What is the role of knowledge creation and sharing in a healthy educational organization?4/7/2017 One area of knowledge sharing that was a new idea to me was Edcamp. The first time I heard of it was when Dr. Lee briefly brought it up in our twitter discussion. I clicked on the links and had no idea what any of it meant. I continued to do more research on Edcamp and found out it is an open collaborative professional development strategy. Instead of professional development coming across as, “take this knowledge and run with it.” It creates the question at the very beginning of the session, “what do YOU, as a teacher, want to collaborate on?” It is a very organic and personable way to share knowledge with others. As stated from the Edcamp website, “Edcamp is a mosaic of ideas explored through conversation. Without a safe environment to share, debate, and curiously investigate what's best for kids, the power of Edcamp will be lost.”
The idea of this type of collaboration supports the theory that, “tacit knowledge is deeply rooted in an individual's action and experience, as well as in the ideals, values, or emotions that he or she embraces. Successful organizations access tacit knowledge (Fullan, 2001).” Relating back to the question this week, the role of knowledge sharing is to bridge the gap between surface knowledge and deep rooted knowledge. As a first year teacher, I have been doing what I can to dig into all the veteran teacher’s thoughts and feelings. Though I can’t help but feel like they still don’t share all they know. How do I collaborate and tap into their strategies/techniques/thoughts without them feeling like I am questioning their decisions? It is definitely much harder in reality than in a text. For example, the text Leading in a Culture of Change, argues that getting people to share can create a collaborative learning culture. Although, I would argue that no matter how many bridges and pathways you create to make it easier for people to share, in the education world it can be hard to get everyone on board. Further research on this topic led me to an article that listed ten ideas for knowledge sharing:
Sources: Edcamp. 2017. Edcamp For All. Retrieved from http://www.edcamp.org/blog-post/edcamp-all Fullan, Michael. 2001. Leading in a Culture of Change. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED467449.pdf Wolf, Jennifer. 2016. Top 10 ideas for Knowledge Sharing in Education. Retrieved from http://learningaccelerator.org/blog/2016/5/top-10-ideas-for-knowledge-sharing-in-education A goal for myself after all this leadership talk is to one day become the leader I hear so many people talk about. Any person in a leadership role has critics-- “he/she isn’t doing enough,” “they are too soft,” “they are too rigid,” “they don’t know what they are doing,” “they don’t have enough experience,” “he/she isn’t doing what’s best for us.” Part of life is taking the good with the bad. I never really considered that all the leaders I have had in my life have made a conscious effort to either include the wrong and the right people, or exclude the “wrong.”
I am curious how much of their choosing affected their ability to successfully lead everyone. Were the ones who only picked the “right” people often criticized and under appreciated? Or were they successful in different aspects? This week had me thinking a lot about leaders in my past and why I liked them. They valued everyone. They took time to hear everyone-- even the people whom were considered outliers. Larissa related this whole idea to our students-- which I appreciated. Do we give up on our difficult students just because we don’t agree with their decisions? Or do we persevere and continue to help them because that is our job? The same idea is related to a leader. Leaders don’t give up and don’t just walk away. True leaders hear you and consider your perspective. Andrea supported her leadership with a quiz that gave her a statistical look at her strengths/weaknesses. This is something I have not done so it was nice to get a quick quiz to look at. |
Author2nd Grade teacher at Keet Gooshi Heen in Sitka, Alaska Archives
April 2017
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