The School Leadership Show

Latest Episodes:

S9 E1: A Truly Transformational Approach to Coaching Feb 11, 2025

Show notes

After 30 years in the field Elena Aguilar gathered all of her experience and learning and put together the most powerful book on coaching we've seen -- Arise: The Art of Transformational Coaching. Elena sees coaching as the way -- one conversation at a time -- that we transform our schools.

In this deeply insightful conversation she shares the importance of coaching more than the teacher BEHAVIORS we are all used to coaching. She shared an example of how, when she coached a teacher to change her behavior -- and change her classroom from rows and direct instruction to groups -- once Elena left, she reverted back to the rows. Elena asked, 'Why?" and the teacher was honest in saying she just didn't believe that groups were the best way for students to learn.

Elena has come to the conclusion that for coaching to be truly transformative, we need to coach teachers' BELIEFS, BEHAVIORS, and ways of BEING, or the "Three Bs" as she calls it.

This approach to coaching is so successful because she acknowledges that teachers are human, and we need to address the emotions that are involved in the job.

Listen to this great conversation, and you'll walk away with several ideas you can use immediately. Elena shares how you can transform that staff meeting you're planning by cutting out some of the content and carving out 6 minutes for people to connect before diving in.

She also shared a few tools that she uses in her coaching -- the Spheres of Influence and Gaps Framework -- and once you hear her explain them, you can use them in your conversations and coaching with staff as well.

Overall, Elena's ideas from her book Arise all aim at helping you to COMMUNICATE better with staff and creating the CONDITIONS so your staff can thrive.

Learn more about Elena and her work: https://www.brightmorningteam.com/

As always, send your comments, questions, and show ideas to mike@schoolleadershipshow.com. Consider rating the podcast in iTunes and leaving a comment. And please pass the show along to your colleagues. Additionally, if you have other non-education books with implications for school leaders, send those suggestions our way, too. And finally, If you or someone you know would like to sponsor the show, send Mike an email at mike@schoolleadershipshow.com.

S8 E10: Relationships, Relationships, Relationships Jan 08, 2025

Show notes

Mike returns to the podcast! Jenn and Mike had a great conversation with Coach Carlos about his book Power Engage: Seven Power Moves for Building Strong Relationships to Increase Engagement with Students. No, he's not a coach of a sports team, but a former school leader who has successfully turned around three failing schools by improving STUDENT ENGAGEMENT.

How? By focusing on relationships. Teacher-student relationships and parent-school relationships are particularly key. Listen as we talk about the 3 indicators every school should examine to detect problems with culture:

Three years of recruitment data
Three years of retention data (both student and teacher)
Response to quality instruction

Then make sure your teachers are having the right type of relationships with students, that is, performance-based relationships. These are relationships where teachers have control and engagement is high. Not punitive relationships, and not permissive relationships.

Coach Carlos also talks about the importance of our teachers having the right MINDSET. Do your teachers have a COACH-DRIVEN mindset? We know coaching is important as a pedagogical tool, but did you know it's important in building relationships, too?

To learn more about his book go to: https://www.solutiontree.com/power-engage.html

To learn more about Coach Carlos: https://www.solutiontree.com/carlos-johnson.html

S8 E9: Building trust matters, and it matters deeply in schools Jan 03, 2025

Show notes

Megan Tshannen-Moran and Jenn had a delightful conversation about the power of trust in schools. It is one of three factors that is so powerful that it oustrips SES in predicting student achievement. Far from being a "soft skill," building trust has become a must-have skill for educational leaders.

In this conversation Megan not only defines trust for us, but she also gives us lots of concrete strategies and tidbits to build and keep trust alive in schools.

We discussed what happens with betrayals of trust and Megan outlines in detail how leaders can bring their school through a step-by-step Appreciative Inquiry process to help when a school is experiencing a low-trust moment.

You can learn more about Megan Tshannen-Moran and her work here: https://schooltransformation.com/

She also kindly offered to answer your emails here: mxtsch@wm.edu

S8 E8: Is A.I. the teaching assistant we've all been waiting for? Dec 14, 2024

Show notes

What a great conversation about the new book, The Artificial Intelligence Playbook: Time-Saving Tools for Teachers that Make Learning More Engaging! Jenn got to talk to all three of the authors: Meghan Hargrave, Douglas Fisher, and Nancy Frey and learned so much.

We discussed everything from what AI is and isn't, to the reasons leaders should address teachers' emotions around AI, to whether AI is going to take over our jobs! (Spoiler alert, the authors quoted Ethan Mollick who says, "AI won't take your job, but someone who uses AI will!" ... so listen to this podcast to be the person who knows how to use AI!)

There are, however, things to be careful of — like students using AI for plagiarism — so we discussed some great ideas to address this.

We also got into some concrete examples of the ways AI can help teachers with the important work they're doing:

managing content
fostering student engagement
meeting students' instructional needs
assessing student learning
providing effective feedback, and
lifelong learning for educators

The authors share examples of prompts you can feed into AI and some of the tips they have for making sure you get the best possible answers from AI.

Since our listeners are mostly ed leaders, they also shared that on Corwin's website there's a school leader's guide to the book. There's also a study guide for teachers and a boot camp with self-paced modules on the website. The authors are all over social media. You can't miss them.

If you've been shy about diving into AI, this conversation and this book are two great places to start!

S8 E7: How to Supercharge Your Communication Nov 26, 2024

Show notes

You probably know Charles Duhigg from his book, The Power of Habit. Or maybe Smarter Faster Better. Now he has a newer book out that is another great resource for school leaders — Supercommunnicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection.

Charles shares with Jenn how people mess up communication and how to improve it. He says that most miscommunication happens when we are having different conversations, and when we fail to connect. There are basically three conversation types: decision-making, emotional, and social relationships.

You don't want to miss this conversation because you'll see how Jenn uses Charles's own techniques to connect with him emotionally in just ONE minute. And later in the podcast, Charles and Jenn role play a teacher and principal and how to diagnose and address a typical conflict.

There are so many nuggets of wisdom for educational leaders in this podcast. One small thing you can do tomorrow? Ask deeper questions with staff. Instead of asking WHAT questions, like "What is happening today?" Ask, "How are you feeling about how things went today?"

You can find more information at CharlesDuhigg.com or sign up for his Substack. He suggests supporting a local bookstore by picking up this book there. Also, Penguin Random House has a free guide for teachers and students on their website.

S8 E6: The Secret to Turning Conflict into Collaboration Nov 13, 2024

Show notes

Jenn had an outstanding conversation with Robert Feirsen, one of the two authors of From Conflict to Collaboration, along with author Seth Weitzman. They chatted about the tough stuff – like how prevalent conflict is in schools and a number of the sources of that conflict. But then Robert shared the positive way he thinks about conflict and how we, too, can use conflict as an opportunity for learning and growth.

Robert shared the idea that design thinking – an approach that comes from the discipline of engineering – can be used to address conflict effectively. First you put together a team of people with diverse roles and perspectives, and then they go through the stages of design thinking – empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test – in order to collaboratively come up with and test possible solutions to address a major conflict your school community is facing. To learn more about the authors you can go to TeacherEdge.net.

S8 E5: How about some help with talking about the election in schools? Oct 28, 2024

Show notes

Jenn made me do this episode. I really didn't wat to, but I'm glad we did.

As we approach the upcoming presidential election, you may remember the fallout from the last two elections. Some school communities experienced heightened divisions, increased bullying, more tension in classrooms, and a general sense of uncertainty.

Fortunately, there are some steps school and district leaders can take to proactively anticipate some of these challenges. We need to plan ways to communicate clearly, set expectations, and create a calm and inclusive school environment while also thinking through ways to address challenges that may arise (heightened emotions, legal issues, inappropriate behavior.)

All of this while remembering that our purpose in schools is to educate! We need to remember this election brings plenty of opportunity (and responsibility!) to educate our students about civic issues, media literacy, and respectfully engaging in challenging and often contentious conversations.

Take a look at this 2-page resource - 5 Ways School Leaders Can Prepare for a Contentious Election and listen to our conversation with the very thoughtful Debbie McFalone

Dr. Debbie McFalone has a long and distinguished career in the field of education – after serving as a Teacher, Principal and Supe she now is a consultant and coach who works with both school-based and district-based individuals and teams across the state of Michigan. Her work focuses primarily on the areas of courage and integrity in leadership. Plus she has her 3rd book coming out in early 2025 Meeting The Moment: A Call For Courage. You can learn more about Debbie and her work at her website: https://www.livewellleadstrong.com/.

S8 E4: Want better supervision? Listen to the source. Oct 08, 2024

Show notes

Kim Marshall needs no introduction. He is the most recognized name in the field of educational leadership because he is the person behind the weekly Marshall Memo -- a subscription service that provides curated summaries of the most important articles in education each week.

In this podcast Kim provides an overview of the three essential areas school leaders need to keep an eye on to be successful supervisors and coaches:

• Supervising and coaching TEACHING

• Supervising and coaching LEARNING

• Supervising and coaching PLANNING

Most know him because he is the guru of mini-observations. In our conversation he shares what you need to be sure to do to ensure your observations and feedback are effective.

S8 E3: Leading When It's Hard - A Cell Phone Ban. Sep 10, 2024

Show notes

In this episode, Jenn and I interview Dave Blanchard, a seasoned superintendent from a school district in Upstate New York. Three years ago Dave's district implemented a distraction-free environment, which included no cell phones during the school day. We talk about this leadership challenge in the context of Jonathan Haidt's 2024 book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.

If you would like a summary of the book along with discussion questions to use with families, email Jenn@TheMainIdea.net. If you would like to hear the research and ideas straight from the author, join a free webinar with Jonathan Haidt about The Anxious Generation on 9/24 at 3:00 PM EDT. RSVP here: https://home.edweb.net/webinar/mentalhealth20240924/.

S8 E2: Learn what the BEST principals do differently than the AVERAGE ones. Aug 26, 2024

Show notes

We were fortunate to get to talk to the renowned Todd Whitaker in today's podcast. He is one of the most influential thought leaders in educational leadership and has written 65 books on staff motivation, teacher leadership, and principal effectiveness!

Today Whitaker talks about the latest edition of his classic book, What Great Principals Do Differently: Twenty Things That Matter Most.

Todd shares 8 of the 20 things he has found (through research AND personal experience as a principal) the BEST principals do that the average ones don't.

He was quite a hoot to talk to and you'll love his anecdotes. But most of all he helps school leaders with what may be the most important task, (and he says all of his books are about this important task) HOW TO GET PEOPLE TO DO WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO DO.

To learn more about him, go to http://toddwhitaker.com/ or follow him on Twitter at @ToddWhitaker.

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