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Prompts 1 & 2 : In relation to at least one of the presentations, what did you learn about facilitating change? This can be interpreted as within your classroom, school, community, or otherwise. Change can be cultural, academic, or otherwise. What does this look like in terms of specific __#|steps__? (This last part can be in bullet form). Max. 1 pg.

1. I can appreciate the position that your middle #|school will be in next year. The elementary school that I teach at was put in a position of rethinking our way to doing __#|business__ two years ago when consolidations gave us the opportunity to absorb an entire School-Wide Title I building without any Title I funding. During the first year, it was quite obvious by looking in classrooms which students came from affluent backgrounds and which came from at-risk backgrounds. The “hidden rules” that you talked about were very evident. The second year after consolidation brought us to a new place. It was no longer as easy to tell which background students were coming from. I think this is due to several factors. First, I believe that children are a bit more transparent by nature. The way that students interacted with each other lead to increasing commonalities among each other. In essence, they taught each other about “hidden rules” that were otherwise typically denied to at-risk students. The at-risk students also brought things to the table in that they were a bit more independent at times. These students from varied __#|income__ levels and backgrounds helped level the playing field for each other. Secondly, the power of literacy is a humbling thing to observe in children. I believe that by giving students a strong literacy foundation, you are giving them the ability to compete in any arena. If you can read it, you can do it or be it. I know that the potential changes on your school’s horizon are staggering right now. I can speak from experience in saying that change can be a great thing. I’m looking forward to watching how your middle school evolves.
 * __Reply to Kelly McArdle (From Penny Church) pennykchurch@charter.net__**

__**Reply to Kelly McArdle from Margaret Doan:**__ Kelly- The interesting thing about the consolidations for the middle schools is that the Board of #|Education seems to have "prepared" the parents/students by telling them it will happen in 2013/2014. I would hope that with this much advance warning, both schools might __#|start__ to work on a plan to help these students. I found that when the elementary consolidation happened, it was very sudden and neither school was prepared to take in the other students. I saw a lot of what Penny saw at the elementary level. The students that we absorbed tended to be more "at risk" than our regular population. Most of them had come from a Title 1 school, so the parents of those students were shocked to learn that we couldn't offer them any extra services. Obviously we work extra hard to bring to bring those students to the level of their peers, but this is very time consuming and sometimes frustrating. Another thing to keep in mind is the "culture" shock to the teachers. I think that pulling in an entire Title 1 school to your school will be the hardest on the teachers. They will have to learn to teach a population completely different than they are used to working with. Good Luck! __**Reply to Kelly McArdle from Jennifer Brown**__ (jennifer.brown@bcreek.k12.mi.us) Kelly, This is will be an interesting time of transition and transformation for you, staff, students, parents and the community. I have been "reading between the lines" how this will all unfold. You have excellent insight into the problems that can occur with the merger and I am hopeful that Administration is listening to your (and other) concerns so that these issues can be addressed.

2.

Judy, although I am a 6th grade classroom teacher, and not an administrator, I felt that your goals for working with your staff, were goals that I could adopt in my classroom. Making sure that my students are aware of my "vision" or expectations of them, committing to establishing and maintaining relationships with my students that will nurture and guide them, and monitoring and providing meaningful assessments that will guide my student's academic growth will provide both me and my students with a solid foundation. Thanks for your observations! Kelly McArdle mcardleka@mps.k12.mi.us

When casting vision it is equally important to gain the support of our staff. It's one thing to present our vision, but it's quite another to articulate it in such an enthusiastic way that we will gain the trust and complete support from our staff. If the staff is not on board, even the best made plans will fail without that team effort. For instance, I can come up with the greatest plan to combat dress code violators. However, if the staff is not on board and doesn't send violators to the office, my plan fails. Therefore, when developing our plans as leaders, it is important to know our staff personalities and what it will take to gain their support. This would be my only addition to your well thought out response :)
 * __REPLY TO JUDY COX__: (From--Nicole Lyman)**

__**Reply to Judy Cox (From Penny Church) pennykchurch@charter.net**__ I agree that leaders need to have passion, vision, and courage. I also believe (like Nicole Lyman) that a strong leader ignites and facilitates passion in others around them. I've worked for 8 different principals in my teaching career. My current administrator is empowering in so many ways. First and foremost, she has a strong "vision" for our building and the students being educated there. She's always taking in account other people's feelings, thoughts, and reactions to situations while remaining level-headed. Her goal is always for the "common good". She never harbors any hidden agendas. Her transparency is another part of what makes her such an effective leader. She has an amzing way of bringing out the best in others. It is a pleasure and honor to work for such a leader. It sounds to me, like your style of leadership is very much like this administrator. As a staff member, I would appreciate your clear vision and willingness to be self-reflective.

__**Reply to Judy Cox (From Paula Weiss) weissp@bcschools.net**__ The idea of sharing your vision with all the stakeholders is very important. Therefor the strong people around you can support your vision and help achieve the vision at hand. The staff in the building is aware of the vision and drive from administrator. The plan is shared not only at staff meetings, but during the day with "open door policy". Conversations that occur during the day (or into the evening) is powerful in keeping staff comfortable with change and vision. Your reflection shares that you are giong to follow a plan you heard at the round table from Superintendent Dave Richards and John Searle. The plan of mentoring is solid with the staff.

3. Penny Church pennykchurch@charter.net

Prompts 1 & 2 : In relation to at least one of the presentations, what did you **learn** about facilitating change? This can be interpreted as within your classroom, school, community, or otherwise. Change can be cultural, academic, or otherwise. What does this look like in terms of specific steps? (This last part can be in bullet form). Max. 1 pg.

I learned that facilitating change takes more than good intentions. It takes passion, vision, and courage. It also takes the ability to ignite passion, vision, and courage in others. Simply put, teaching is a team sport. Sir Ken Robinson first inspirited me with his YouTube video on 21st Century Enlightenment. ([|21st century enlightenment - YouTube]) Needless to say, I was thrilled to hear him speak at theGreat LakesBaySummerLeadershipAcademy.

Change is hard. We resist it. This is evident in our current education system. It’s archaic. We have not kept up with the times. Sir Robinson said that we’re” living in time of revolution”. The way I see it, we have two choices. We can either bury our heads while continuing to doing business the same way we’ve done it for hundreds of years, or we can change our model of delivery. Many educators rest of the idea of change by saying that we do not have control over what we do in our classrooms due to things such as national curriculum, budget constraints, and standardized testing. I agree that teachers are not independent contractors who can anything they wish. There are rules that must be abided by such as curriculum, budgets, and even standardized testing. However, we have a great deal of creative license in the way we deliver content. Sir Robinson said that “Revolutions begin with people doing their work differently”.

The district in which I teach, recently face consolidations of its elementary schools to address budget issues. This change was difficult for our community. The particular building in which I work is in an affluent neighborhood. We absorbed an entire School-Wide Title I Elementary School. Unfortunately, the Title I funding did not follow the students. This left the staff with an opportunity to change our paradigm. We needed to meet the needs of many at-risk students with limited recourses. Additionally, we were combining teachers from several buildings. I had the great fortune to land in first grade with three other teachers. Two teachers were from the building and two of us were new to the building (and had been teaching at Title I schools for many years). We met before school started, to get to know each other and decide how we could best meet the needs of our students. We quickly adopted a team approach. We devised a program called “Walk to Differentiated Instruction”. We based it on what we knew about differentiation and best practice. We knew that the chasm between our lowest and highest students would be great. It was decided that we would assess students using DIBELS, DRA, district writing assessments, and observation to determine the needs of each student individually. Once we knew our students, we met as a team to group them into four groups. The “at-risk group” has the smallest number of students and focuses on increasing foundational literacy skills. The “developing” group is also small and focuses on foundational literacy skills while building automaticity and fluency. The “benchmark” group is large and focuses on fluency and comprehension. The “extended” group allows students to employ higher level thinking skills in a setting of homogeneous thinkers. This program might sound like the reading groups of yesteryear. However, the beauty of our “Walk to DI” program is that the groups are fluid and flexible. Students are moved up or down groups as needed based on data and assessment. No one is “sentenced” to a group for life. Groups change as academic and behavioral needs change. Evaluation and reflection are paramount to what we’re trying to accomplish.

Dr. Mike White spoke about breaking through barriers of poverty and lack of resources. One of his main focuses was data teams. Our school employs a data team approach to evaluate DIBELS data in order to inform instruction. The first grade team I work on took data teams a step further in that we meet more often to evaluate and reflect on our “Walk to DI” program. The team approach has allowed us to trust each other to share students. Our approach has been shared not only with other grade levels, but with other schools. [|Teaching approach helps Siebert first-graders excel]

__** Reply to Penny Church (From Jill Bartholomew) **__ //I agree Penny, change can be difficult and oftentimes we resist it. However, it can be done. Like William Skilling stated, “The person that says it can’t be done should not interrupt the person doing it.” Of course there are guiding principles and standards by which we teach and curriculum we are instructed to teach. Yet, like you pointed out, the delivery method is up to us. We need not waste time worrying about the things we cannot control, rather address the things we can. I really enjoyed reading about the four fluid groups that you developed in your four first grade classrooms. A very similar program was implemented in the building I work at. As Vivien Stewart addressed in A World-Class Education, we must constantly be evaluating and re-evaluating our education system to keep up with the ever changing needs of the students in an attempt to better prepare them for life after high school. It is through such a program as you’ve described, and I’ve seen happen in my own building, that we are in a constant state of change, development, and revision…all of which are the makings of creating a better system of learning, for both students and teachers alike.//


 * Margaret Doan**
 * doanmm@mps.k12.mi.us**

Prompts 1 & 2 : In relation to at least one of the presentations, what did you **learn** about facilitating change? This can be interpreted as within your classroom, school, community, or otherwise. Change can be cultural, academic, or otherwise. What does this look like in terms of specific steps? (This last part can be in bullet form). Max. 1 pg.

The biggest thing I learned about facilitating change is that it needs to start with me. It is so easy to sit back and continue teaching like you have everyday. It is easy to blame the problems of the school on budget shortfall or decisions by administrators. However, like Penny said in her response, and Sir Ken Robinson put it,"Revolution needs to start from the ground up. They never begin with the government." I think that was the statement that has resonated with me the most.

I teach in a second grade classroom at one of our seven elementary schools. Our classes generally have 23-26 students in them. The majority of our students come to second grade knowing how to read, but just need a little work polishing up their reading skills. They seem to have a solid grasp on basic addition and subtraction skills and are decent writers. They come enthusiastically to science and social studies, eager to learn. So, like every year, I say to myself that it is going to be a great year, and it is. However, now I am starting to question if my past years could have been magnificent or amazing years. I have been happy to have "great" years, but after attending this conference, I don't feel that "great" years are my best work. Have I really taught the kids to be creative, diverse, and organically developed like Sir Ken Robinson encouraged? Or have I just continued to enforce conformity, compliance and linearity? The sad part is, is that I think my leadership needs to start within my classroom and the way I teach. My plan this year is to work more on allowing the students to be creative and create conditions that will help my students grow into the kind of students and people that they need to be for the future.

Although I do not have complete freedom to do what I want (curriculum guides, mapped out science lessons), I do think that I can incorporate some of these ideas into my everyday teaching. One of the ways that I can create an environment that encourages creativity is through using the inquiry process. From what I have seen, this will be a completely new concept to my students. Usually, when my students come in, they sit quietly, raise their hand, and answer only when they are sure the answer is right. They get stressed out when they are not sure what I am looking for. Inquiry will help this. Although we have a day-to-day mapped out math curriculum, I can design my own inquiry based lessons. I need to spend more time looking through the lessons, making pre-assessments to see what they know, and figuring out ways to guide the students into the concept instead of me just going through the worksheets, hoping that they remember in time for the district assessments.

I can also use a more inquiry based approach in my reading units. In second grade, we do use very basic literature circles for the novels, but when it comes to the basal reading book, we just plow through in a really boring way. This is my chance to take those stories and let the kids lead the lessons. I need to just let go and have them draw meaning from the stories and make connections.

The hardest part about making this change and becoming a leader in my classroom is going to be letting go of control. The easy part about not leading a revolution is that I can continue to be the traditional teacher. But, if I want to start the change, I need to learn to let go and let the students make the most of their own education. I have to remember that I am not going to be sitting next to each and everyone of them when they are grown up and expected to be competent employees. My job, as a teacher, is to teach them to create and grow on their own, and hopefully I can do this by starting the revolution in my own classroom.

Paula Weiss, weissp@bcschools.net

Discussion for __#|Prompt__ 1&2//: In relation to at least one of the presentations, what did you **learn** about facilitating change? This can be interpreted as within your classroom, school, community, or otherwise. Change can be cultural, academic, or otherwise. What does this look like in terms of specific steps? (This last part can be in bullet form). Max. 1 pg.//

Change is usually the conversation in education every year. We are usually looking for the “new and better” way to teach our children. Being in education for 24 years, I realize that there have been so many initiatives tried…. Some successful, some not. Change needs to occur in education, but what change should we follow?

I am currently an assistant principle for an elementary school that is struggling with getting the MEAP scores up. I have also been assigned to a new position (half time assistant principal for a Middle School). I look forward to the new challenge, and I am reflecting on what we learned from the conference. The buildings I have been assigned to are currently under plans to make changes due to the Top to Bottom list. One of the primary focus this year will be getting the schools MEAP score up and getting “above the line”.

Sir Ken Robinson was a powerful speaker that described change from the “bottom up”. He does not think change can happen from the top but within our schools. He shares that the kids are not the problem (many times we “blame them or their parents), but the system is a problem. We keep doing the same thing over and over and not make fundamental change, we will continue to get the same results. We need to think differently and do differently. One strategy he shared in the break out session is to focus on 2 or 3 points of issues and master those problems. One key success point is to have teacher meet together to share results of testing. This is a different approach then the current “PLC”. Teachers are comfortable in sharing what strategies worked and ones that did not. It allowed me to see how a true productive PLC is run and what direction we need to take to get our teachers working together for the success of our students.

Specific steps:
 * Transition into a new school
 * Learn the processes of the new building
 * Attend and encourage new PLC approach to share ideas among staff
 * Encourage lead administrators to focus and master 2 or 3 key problem issues
 * Reflect and re-direct if needed

__**DISCUSSION PROMPT 1 & 2**__ Jennifer Brown, Bullock Creek High School Counselor jennifer.brown@bcreek.k12.mi.us

Margaret Mead was famously quoted as saying, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” I feel this is a perfect quote for anyone who works in education. While change is hard, someone has to step up and lead the charge and we as educators can be the small group to start a learning revolution of change.

Sir Ken Robinson challenged us to be the change and live our life forward. If we change how we think about education we can be the catalyst for change. I think this is a particularly difficult aspect of our life to change. Our preconceived understanding has been entrenched in our years of schooling and there are those out there that believe we need to "get back to basics" in education. Parents of our students share these same "rules" for education. They too have a difficult time understanding the rapid shifts we have had in regards to technology.

Another thing that Sir Robinson shared is that change needs to start from the ground up. I believe our Administration can change the climate and promote growth among our staff members and students. However, since I am not an Administrator I feel I need to step up and help to facilitate positive change in our school climate. Recent surveys of our graduating seniors stated they did not always feel safe at school. This is something that I can help to change.

What can I do? This past school year we hosted a Challenge Day for our students. It was a life-changing day for me and the majority of the participants. One of the biggest develpment from the day was the creation of the "Be the Change" Team. This is a group of students invested in facilitating positive change for our students. I believe creating a positive environment for our students will improve the climate for our teaching staff as well.

Ideas for next year:
 * Host a "Welcome Back" Day where "Be the Change" Team wildly welcomes the students back
 * Create team-building activities for the "Be the Change" Team that they can then in turn facilitate in their classrooms
 * Help the Team to develop monthly activities to promote a positive environment
 * Work on ideas for the Team to welcome new students to our district; create opportunities for them to be Ambassadors for our new students.

(I apologize in advance for my wordiness! I actually shaved off a full page. Jenny) Change is never easy and our knee-jerk reaction to change as human beings is often to oppose it—no matter what it is! That said, there are many reasons why change is absolutely necessary to the success of our students, and truly to that of our country. We are living in a time where it has never been more important to examine our current educational practices, shove the fear and the excuses aside and reinvent what it means to be a student in the United States of America. Many of our presenters talked about the need to change—and we, as a people, are great talkers. The challenge is to make good on what we know we need to do to move our country forward and give our students the future they deserve. In Dr. Michael White’s presentation, he talked about breaking through barriers of poverty and a lack of resources to achieve student success. He talks about Doug Reeves research on the 90/90/90 schools and uses that as a talking point for making positive changes in schools, rather than making excuses. He highlights what he sees as a systemic breakdown in our educational system, rather than a “teacher problem”, as some policy leaders suggest. White believes that, “When we really focus on something, we can change it-we can fix it!” He goes on to talk about how having a laser-like focus on student achievement within your school is essential to bringing about change. Working collaboratively with other teachers in the analysis of student data to identify trends and discrepancies is necessary to define specific academic breakdowns. Working together with other educators to come up with solid instructional solutions, as well as sharing them with other maximizes time and resources, while yielding thoughtful, meaningful strategies toward improved outcomes. When I first started teaching, I remember my mentor teacher telling me that the only thing that I would have control over as a teacher would be what I did when I shut my door. The mentality of that thinking spoke to the building climate in that district and was in direct opposition to what good teachers need to do and what good administrators need to support and help to facilitate. I decided that day that I could accept what I was being told from this twenty year teaching veteran, or I could forge my own belief system and prove her wrong. Through collaboration and intense focus, I proved her wrong every day, as the special education teacher in a high at-risk building where over 80% of the student population was impoverished. Sir Ken Robinson, along with Dr. Skilling, talked about the rapid changes that our world economy is facing and will continue to face, as well as how education, which is tightly intertwined with economics, needs to change with it, in order for our students to be competitive in our global economy. Systemic change is a difficult process, but one that we cannot afford to ignore, when it comes to our country’s educational system. More and more researchers and economists are talking about the need to change how we educate our students, and most seem to agree that an intense shift toward preparing our students for a flat world needs to occur. Deal breakers encompass factors such as financial resources to overhaul our educational system from the top down, as well as socio-economic and factors and value systems. Dr. Skilling, Superintendent of Oxford Community Schools, talked about how his district made significant and necessary changes to their system, without using finances as an excuse. Change is not an easy process, but something that needs to be ever present, if we are to prepare our students for a future we have yet to imagine, in a world that is becoming increasingly “borderless,” and is changing at a rapid rate. As the Assistant Principal of a Career and Technical Education Center in charge of curriculum and instruction, it is my charge to be looking at the best instructional practices and collaborative business and industry partnerships to assist our students in receiving exceptional knowledge, skill and ultimately employment acquisition. Our teachers come from business and industry, but also have teaching credentials. Our focus needs to be more directed at the needs of a global economy, as well as collaborative efforts with educators and organizations outside of our own backyard. It is with that background, that I share my plan toward facilitating change within my building. 1) **__Establish a need for change and a common understanding.__** First, I would pull together summative information from leaders in the area of globalization. This information would outline job skills that are needed for students to be competitive in a global economy. I would share this information with staff, in conjunction with a panel of business leaders in our region that have direct knowledge about how their organizations are dealing with a global society. (With our solid business partnerships in our region, we would look at McClaren, General Motors and Dow Chemical as panelists.) This piece is essential in gaining a common understanding of our charge. 2) **__Look at what we are doing and create a plan to complement it—not totally change it. Change, when executed well, is a process. When you force too much on people too quickly, with little or no common understanding, you are navigating a course toward failure.__** Next, we would look at the information presented and examine our current curriculums (each program had their own specific curriculum, as outlined by the state and federal governments) to see where we could expand the curriculum standards to include global initiatives, such as collaborative projects, inquiry based-learning with international companies, e-commerce, communication skills, etc… Teachers would work in teams to outline an action plan for the remainder of the current school, as to how they plan to infuse meaningful global initiatives into their lessons. 3) **__In order for people to maintain their motivation and energy, you must be able to look at what has been accomplished and celebrate successes, while making adjustments, if needed. People need to feel a sense of accomplishment, which promotes a feeling of wanting to do even better.__** Assessments would be developed toward evaluating their lessons and the impact on student learning, with results shared with their work teams and adjusted, as needed. These assessments would be largely project based and include a portfolio piece that could be shared with potential employers, as part of the employment portfolio students currently develop, while at the Career Center. 4) **__Essential to any project lies in the provision of time to talk to one another and work collaboratively, sharing strategies and ideas.__** **__The best ideas come from work sessions where everyone is pushing toward a common goal.__** Teachers would meet on a regular, ongoing basis to develop units of study that are effective and can be replicated/shared. Opportunities to showcase their successes will be created, as they learn and grow from one another’s work. 5) **__Establish an action plan for the following school year, either implementing new ideas or expanding on those that had just been started, ensuring that evaluation of initiatives and outcomes is ever present in all parts of the action plan.__** Allowing teachers to self-direct where they are headed with this, supports autonomy as we work toward that common goal, while still working to solve the problem ensuring that students leave our school with a greater global understanding than which they entered.
 * __Jennifer Geno, Assistant Principal Bay-Arenac ISD Career Center (genoj@baisd.net)__**
 * __Prompts 1 & 2 : In relation to at least one of the presentations, what did you learn about facilitating change? This can be interpreted as within your classroom, school, community, or otherwise. Change can be cultural, academic, or otherwise. What does this look like in terms of specific steps? (This last part can be in bullet form). Max. 1 pg__**
 * __Steps Toward Facilitating Change in My Building__**