Transformative Principal

Latest Episodes:

For Kids, Family, Community, Today and the Future with Sarah Levy and Mark Parmet Transformative Principal 336 Jun 20, 2020

Show notes

Sarah Levy and Mark Parmet are the co founders Einstein Academy in Colorado.

K–5 and building out to 8th grade
Four components of the school: for kids, family, community, today and the future.
I got sick of hearing people say, “It’s school, kids shouldn’t have fun.”
Setting an environment where kids can be the best they can.
While working on things they’re good at, we can also work on things they struggle with.
What do you love? What do you enjoy? What gets you excited?
Until we’re feeling good, we’re not going to push ourselves.
You gotta get to know your kids and their families!
Parents have fears also.
As educators, we’re the deciders.
We tell kids what is important to learn.
Teaching students and not teaching curriculum.
How can we integrate hockey into the curriculum?
Packaged curriculum.
We’re really trying to build a program around our students.
Curriculum adheres to Colorado state standards so it does provide some framework.
Personalized learning profile.
Private school instead of charter school.
Only about 160 students in K–8
The way we get to the content.
Can’t lose sight of teachers.
How do we get the best out of the teachers without overwhelming them?
Teaching the student means you’re also taking the social emotional growth of the student into consideration.
Hiring school teachers and not classroom teachers.
All teachers will have a role and responsibility to the whole school, and not just their classroom.
Teachers all need something different.
What teachers want is to feel heard, cared for, and supported.
Planning every morning to talk with teachers and talking with teachers every day after school.
I wanted to know that my administrators had open lines of communication.
Creating a culture where teachers want to collaborate.
How to be a transformative principal? Sarah: Think about where you can be more clear and transparent in your communication Mark: Make a list of things you’ve been afraid to do and just start knocking them off that list.

Today’s Transformative Principal sponsor, John Catt Educational, has been publishing high quality guidebooks, magazines and educator-focused professional development books since 1959. John Catt’s mission is to support high-quality teaching and learning by ensuring every educator has access to professional development materials that are research-based, practical, and focused on the key topics proven essential in today’s and tomorrow’s schools.

John Catt amplifies fresh voices on timeless topics, with a list of authors recognized around the world for their fresh perspectives and proven strategies to drive success in modern schools and classrooms. Learn more about these professional development publications that are easy to implement for your entire faculty, and are both quickly digestible and rigorous, by visiting https://us.johncattbookshop.com/.

Visit this page to learn more about bulk orders and how to bring John Catt’s research-based materials to your school: https://us.johncattbookshop.com/pages/agents-and-distributors

Learn about some of John Catt Educational’s newest publications:

What the Academy Taught Us: Improving Schools from the Bottom-Up in a Top-Down Transformation Era by Eric Kalenze
Be More Toddler: Leadership Lessons From Our Little Learners by Emma Turner
A Quiet Education: Challenging the Extrovert Ideal in Our Schools by Jamie Thom
Rosenshine’s Principles in Action by Tom Sherrington
The Thinking School: Developing a Dynamic Learning Community by Kulvarn Atwal
The researchED Guide to Explicit and Direct Instruction: An evidence-informed guide for teachers by Various Authors

We’re proud to be sponsored by IXL.

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You May Think Vocabulary is Boring but its Not with Literacy Nerds Beth Lawrence and Deena Seifert Transformative Principal 335 Jun 13, 2020

Show notes

Literacy nerds Beth Lawrence and Deena Seifert cofounders of infercabulary.com

Infercabulary is a web-based k–12 interactive tool for helping kids improve vocabulary and skills.
speed up learning by making learning vocabulary like
Avidly reading.
We tend to make words simpler with oral language than authors when writing.
SLPs by trade.
Why should we help kids learn vocabulary?
TedX talk
65% of students aren’t capable of comprehending text on grade level.
Unless you know 95% of words in a text, it will impact your comprehension.
A foundational skill that needs to exist is a strong vocabulary.
Breadth and depth of vocabulary.
If you only have a surface level understanding of a word, you can’t link it to more
A child needs 10–12 exposures to a word in a variety of contexts to understand the word.
Tiered words.
Tier 1: These are the common, everyday words that most children enter school knowing already. Since we don’t need to teach these, this is a tier without tears!
Tier 2: This tier consists of words that are used across the content areas and are important for students to know and understand. Included here are process words like analyze and evaluate that students will run into on many standardized tests and that are also used at the university level, in many careers, and in everyday life. We really want to get these words into students’ long-term memory.
Tier 3: This tier consists of content-specific vocabulary—the words that are often defined in textbooks or glossaries. These words are important for imparting ideas during lessons and helping to build students’ background knowledge.
Over-generalization and under-generalization
When the author is kind enough to give you context clues.
How to help kids who hate learning about reading.
Semantic reasoning -
Beta tests showed quickly that assumptions were wrong about their intended target student.
How to be a transformative principal? Deena: Bringing words to life. Beth: Do additional homework to understand importance of vocabulary!

Visit this page to learn more about bulk orders and how to bring John Catt’s research-based materials to your school: https://us.johncattbookshop.com/pages/agents-and-distributors

Learn about some of John Catt Educational’s newest publications:

What the Academy Taught Us: Improving Schools from the Bottom-Up in a Top-Down Transformation Era by Eric Kalenze
Be More Toddler: Leadership Lessons From Our Little Learners by Emma Turner
A Quiet Education: Challenging the Extrovert Ideal in Our Schools by Jamie Thom
Rosenshine’s Principles in Action by Tom Sherrington
The Thinking School: Developing a Dynamic Learning Community by Kulvarn Atwal
The researchED Guide to Explicit and Direct Instruction: An evidence-informed guide for teachers by Various Authors

We’re proud to be sponsored by IXL.

Simplify and streamline technology
Save teachers’ time
Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Evidence-informed for Real Learning with Eric Kalenze Transformative Principal 334 Jun 06, 2020

Show notes

Evidence-informed for Real Learning with Eric Kalenze Transformative Principal 334

Social Media: Evidence-informed means looking at what has worked.

Eric Kalenze is the author of “What The Academy Taught Us: Improving Schools From The Bottom Up In A Top-Down Transformation Era.”

How to teach practitioners to put this into practice.

High school teacher, English, coach, journalism.
Help educators around the country become evidence informed.
Education is upside down.
ResearchED
Evidence-informed - looking at what has worked.
More fascinated with planning instruction according to the evidence we have based in cognitive or behavioral science.
“There’s contrary evidence that the reading program didn’t work in another district.”
This is an evidence-based program, well show me the evidence.
“What has worked” is an incredibly complex study.
Humans learn incredibly similarly to others, regardless of our backgrounds.
Repetition is the mother of all learning.
Practice can make permanent.
How do we learn, and how can we integrate those sorts of things into practice.
How might you retrain people who are already ridiculously busy?
Redesigning teacher coaching and evaluation process.
Little systemic ways we can talk about scientific studies.
In what ways can systems make sure their PD is about evidence-based
Give us the tools you do have, and how can we apply some principles that inform the little things you do?
In the control of districts.
I can’t do certain things because district is moving in this direction.
“What the Academy Taught Us” - less academic, but still crucial in education.
Remarkable amount of autonomy.
I don’t know that enough research has been done on kids post-K–12 experience!
10 years out - how do you look back on this experience?
What happened 5–6 years ago.
“They jumped the girl in front of me and told their story to me intentionally.”
Still close to each other even after all this time.
In Search Of Deeper Learning
Dr. Bob Perdaems
How to be a transformative principal? A book - Daniel Willingham - When can you trust the experts?
If the principals can push back on centrally

Visit this page to learn more about bulk orders and how to bring John Catt’s research-based materials to your school: https://us.johncattbookshop.com/pages/agents-and-distributors

Learn about some of John Catt Educational’s newest publications:

What the Academy Taught Us: Improving Schools from the Bottom-Up in a Top-Down Transformation Era by Eric Kalenze
Be More Toddler: Leadership Lessons From Our Little Learners by Emma Turner
A Quiet Education: Challenging the Extrovert Ideal in Our Schools by Jamie Thom
Rosenshine’s Principles in Action by Tom Sherrington
The Thinking School: Developing a Dynamic Learning Community by Kulvarn Atwal
The researchED Guide to Explicit and Direct Instruction: An evidence-informed guide for teachers by Various Authors

We’re proud to be sponsored by IXL.

Simplify and streamline technology
Save teachers’ time
Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

How We Nearly Doubled Math Scores with Kevin Finnegan Transformative Principal 333 May 30, 2020

Show notes

How We Nearly Doubled Math Scores with Kevin Finnegan Transformative Principal 333

Social Media: When we saw Math could be a discussion, it totally changed everything.

Kevin Finnegan is the principal of Prairie Hill School in Illinois. His students recently showed a 77% growth in Math, and we talk about how he made that happen.

Prairie hill is the school and the community comes together around it.
Northern Illinois, PK–4th grade.
9 years as the principal.
Mission statement: Students first, always.
PLC school
Reformed schedule so that every day (4 teachers per team) have an hour of common collaborative time every day.
Why are we making this decision? The students are always the bringback.
Norms: imagine the students you are talking about are here.
To be a great principal is easy. You just have to have a great staff.
PE teacher said, “I want students more.”
Each class has 10 half hour blocks each week: Art, PE, STEM,
Always been a high performing district. Makes change really hard when you have had success in the past.
staff is competitive within themselves.
Noticed that math scores were less than we expected.
Dove into the data.
Computation was awesome, but they struggled with elaborating on their thoughts.
In every math assignment, adding the words, “I know this because…”
If you see something that can be done in Kindergarten it can be done anywhere.
Ready Math - iReady as platforms for learning.
Standards based School, done in isolation.
Common language in math.
Didn’t get good training at first, but then got good training and that made a huge difference.
Math has always dealt black and white.
Math didn’t have to be one answer, it could be a discussion, totally changed everything.
Talking about kids’ growth, talking about assessments, classwork, and then looking at the data.
It’s not about what you teach, it’s about what we learned.
How long did it take to understand that it was working?
It fit us, rather than us fitting it.
How to be a transformative principal? Spend a little time with kids, like on their birthday. It’s a constant reminder that kids come first.

Visit this page to learn more about bulk orders and how to bring John Catt’s research-based materials to your school: https://us.johncattbookshop.com/pages/agents-and-distributors

Learn about some of John Catt Educational’s newest publications:

What the Academy Taught Us: Improving Schools from the Bottom-Up in a Top-Down Transformation Era by Eric Kalenze
Be More Toddler: Leadership Lessons From Our Little Learners by Emma Turner
A Quiet Education: Challenging the Extrovert Ideal in Our Schools by Jamie Thom
Rosenshine’s Principles in Action by Tom Sherrington
The Thinking School: Developing a Dynamic Learning Community by Kulvarn Atwal
The researchED Guide to Explicit and Direct Instruction: An evidence-informed guide for teachers by Various Authors

We’re proud to be sponsored by IXL.

Simplify and streamline technology
Save teachers’ time
Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Learning How to Learn with Jaime Casap Transformative Principal 1063 May 26, 2020

Show notes

Jaime Casap is the Education Evangelist at Google. Jaime evangelizes the power and potential of technology and the web as enabling and supporting tools in pursuit of promoting inquiry-driven learning models. Jaime collaborates with school systems, educational organizations, and leaders focused on building innovation and iteration into our education policies and practices. He speaks on education, technology, innovation, and generation z, at events around the world.   In addition to his role at Google, Jaime is also an author and serves on a number of boards for organizations focused on education, innovation, and equity. Jaime teaches a 10th-grade communication class at the Phoenix Coding Academy in Phoenix and is an adjunct professor at Arizona State University, where he teaches classes on policy, innovation, and leadership.

Education evangelist.
Launched Gmail, G-suite for education, and chromebooks.
Transforming education
Facts - education is not broken, graduation rates higher than anywhere else
21st century skills - Critical skill - ability to learn.
Education has become a process, but it is a mindset.
Our students have to be self-directed.
Let kids choose what they want to learn!
Math is the most important thing because everything has math in it.
There’s nothing that we can’t teach kids when they’re curious.
If you want to see pure creative genius, look at an undisciplined two year old.
7 minute meetings.
Linear vs vision ways of approaching things - to do list.
How to be a transformative principal? Whatever time you set up for a meeting is how long it’s going to take. Empower your teachers! We all want autonomy, purpose, and mastery.

Visit this page to learn more about bulk orders and how to bring John Catt’s research-based materials to your school: https://us.johncattbookshop.com/pages/agents-and-distributors

Learn about some of John Catt Educational’s newest publications:

What the Academy Taught Us: Improving Schools from the Bottom-Up in a Top-Down Transformation Era by Eric Kalenze
Be More Toddler: Leadership Lessons From Our Little Learners by Emma Turner
A Quiet Education: Challenging the Extrovert Ideal in Our Schools by Jamie Thom
Rosenshine’s Principles in Action by Tom Sherrington
The Thinking School: Developing a Dynamic Learning Community by Kulvarn Atwal
The researchED Guide to Explicit and Direct Instruction: An evidence-informed guide for teachers by Various Authors

We’re proud to be sponsored by IXL.

Simplify and streamline technology
Save teachers’ time
Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

What are Students Saying About Your School with JC Pohl Transformative Principal 332 May 23, 2020

Show notes

JC Pohl is the co-founder and CEO of TeenTruth.net/schoolculture

Young filmmakers looked at coverage of Columbine, and we always saw adults telling the story of what happened.
Look into teenage life.
Giving students a voice.
How to give kids voice?
Control - told what to do, what classes to take, and everything else in between.
Lack of control really causes a lot of stress in students.
Are we doing a disservice to kids by not giving them control?
Three major buckets (school assemblies, )
These kids made a movie, what are you going to do?
Students can take ownership by getting involved.
How do you want to solve it?
It’s about creating culture of agency and ownership for kids.
There are so many kids on our campuses that it’s easy to get lost.
Kids desperately want to be there.
It’s up to us to create an environment that makes them want to be included.
Finding their thing.
Open up as many opportunities as we can for kids to get involved.
What were some of the data points that came out.
Principals get caught up in the data.
One goal: work for Disney!
If you have a school motto on your campus and you don’t hear your kids say it, it’s not working!
If you don’t have a tight brand, your school culture is not as strong as it could be.
Don’t mess with Texas.
“We > I”
We form an emotional connection with some brands.
Got to involve students in the process.
How to be a transformative principal? Your job is so important. Every principal needs to go all in, even with a slogan. Every student and every staff member is doing their best.

Visit this page to learn more about bulk orders and how to bring John Catt’s research-based materials to your school: https://us.johncattbookshop.com/pages/agents-and-distributors

Learn about some of John Catt Educational’s newest publications:

What the Academy Taught Us: Improving Schools from the Bottom-Up in a Top-Down Transformation Era by Eric Kalenze
Be More Toddler: Leadership Lessons From Our Little Learners by Emma Turner
A Quiet Education: Challenging the Extrovert Ideal in Our Schools by Jamie Thom
Rosenshine’s Principles in Action by Tom Sherrington
The Thinking School: Developing a Dynamic Learning Community by Kulvarn Atwal
The researchED Guide to Explicit and Direct Instruction: An evidence-informed guide for teachers by Various Authors

We’re proud to be sponsored by IXL.

Simplify and streamline technology
Save teachers’ time
Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

The Difference Between Online And In Person Learning with Dr. Wendy Oliver Transformative Principal 1061 May 19, 2020

Show notes

Dr. Wendy Oliver serves as Chief Learning Officer for EdisonLearning, a leading international educational services provider with nearly a generation of experience creating effective and sustainable solutions to raise student achievement. In this role, her experience in digital learning and curriculum design, paired with her expertise in assessment and evaluation, are leveraged to design an innovative, learner-centered curriculum.

Expectations around online learning
How good design applies to online learning.
Teachers are working themselves into the ground to reach students!
19% of teachers said they were adjusted!
Also have an 8 year old in her second grade studies.
Everyone is in survival mode.
Edison learning offering free courses to seniors.
Where to go to get help.
quality matters and common sense media.
How to make things look better?
Less is more.
How to be a transformative principal? Care about kids.

We’re proud to be sponsored by IXL.

Simplify and streamline technology
Save teachers’ time
Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

The Four Sets of Mindsets with Ryan Gottfredson Transformative Principal 331 May 17, 2020

Show notes

Ryan Gottfredson, Ph.D. is a mental success coach and cutting-edge leadership consultant, author, trainer, and researcher. He helps improve organizations, leaders, teams, and employees by improving their mindsets. Ryan is currently a leadership and management professor at the Mihaylo College of Business and Economics at California State University-Fullerton (CSUF). He holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources from Indiana University, and a B.A. from Brigham Young University. Ryan is the author of “Success Mindsets: The Key to Unlocking Greater Success in Your Life, Work, & Leadership.” (Morgan James Publishing)

How a school changed their growth mindsets.
We take on the mindsets of our collective culture.
When people have a fixed mindset they focus on looking good.
When we are emphasizing grades and not learning and growing, we are emphasizing a fixed mindset.
Fixed vs. Growth mindset
90% of our thinking feeling acting is driven subconsciously. What drives that? Our mindsets.
Study about when kids faced difficult questions.
When we don’t believe we can improve, and we fail, we feel that we are failures.
Growth mindset - when we have that belief that we can change, we see growth as an opportunity to learn.
50/50 growth vs. fixed
Intervention for growth mindsets.
Small interventions can shift our mindsets for 2–4 weeks.
15 minute training just talking about how people are not fixed can be beneficial.
TED Talks and brain plasticity.
Open vs. Closed mindset
Compare our mind to a bucket relating to a particular area.
Closed minded don’t invite feedback.
Open minded folks leave space in their bucket.
Book recommendations: Success Mindsets
Bridgewater Associates - Principles by Ray Dalio.
Discussions - are we a team or a group where ideas can be heard?
Principles for success
Prevention vs. Promotion mindsets
Compliance is the stereotypical prevention mindset.
Is that place of safety the intended destination.
Interventions: Have a destination.
Amy Purdy ted talk
Greatest Showman Keala Settle
Inward mindsets: we see ourselves as being more important than others.
Outward mindset: others have needs just as great as my own.
Interventions: positive self talk. Am I seeing people as tools?
The Arbinger Institute: Leadership and self-deception
TED talk Benjamin Xander
When we have an inward mindset, we expect students to cater to us.
The most powerful thing we can do as educators is see students as people.
How to be a transformative principal? Go individually to his or her teachers and ask what stands in your way of being your ideal self?

We’re proud to be sponsored by IXL.

Simplify and streamline technology
Save teachers’ time
Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Closing the Educational Opportunity Gap with Nhon Ma Transformative Principal Special 1061 May 12, 2020

Show notes

Nhon Ma is the co-founder of numerade.com

Mom was an educator in South Vietnam, Chinese immigrants who then moved to LA.
Grew up in LAUSD system.
Better Chance program in middle school. Placed me in a top private school.
Shaped my thinking around education.
Ride bus to school in a completely different culture.
Close educational opportunity gap
Prices for tutoring for synchronous doesn’t drop.
Largest STEM video library.
Jethro’s YouTube channel from when he was an English teacher
Mass adoption of synchronous learning through zoom.
Participation rates are much lower.
Office hours, daily creation, Students consume content at their own time.
Anonymous q&a feature.
Especially with STEM students, if there is a fall-off, it’s very hard to make up lost ground.
Stitching together playlists of math and science for students.
How to be a transformative leader? Always focus on the why!

We’re proud to be sponsored by IXL.

Simplify and streamline technology
Save teachers’ time
Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Its More Than Growth Mindsets with Ryan Gottfredson Transformative Principal 330 May 09, 2020

Show notes

How do we tap into the “being” element of leadership?
different types of mindset:
Fixed vs. Growth mindset
Open vs. closed mindset
Prevention vs. promotion mindset
Inward vs. outward
Continuum of positive and negative.
The more we are towards the positive, the better we interact with our environment.
Innate beliefs about our ability to change affect how we interact with the world.
With a fixed mindset, we internalize failure as though it means we are a failure.
What kinds of interventions can help improve our mindset?
Engage in interventions to promote growth mindset but if the culture doesn’t support it, there’s no point.
How Jethro and Ryan each reacted when doing poorly in a class in their freshman year of college.
Our mindsets are foundational to everything we do. They shape how we see the world, and how we operate in the world.
Assess teacher’s mindset across the school and determine what our collective mindsets are across the school and what does that teach our students.
How a school changed their growth mindsets.
We take on the mindsets of our collective culture.
When people have a fixed mindset they focus on looking good.
When we are emphasizing grades and not learning and growing, we are emphasizing a fixed mindset.
Fixed vs. Growth mindset
90% of our thinking feeling acting is driven subconsciously. What drives that? Our mindsets.
Study about when kids faced difficult questions.
When we don’t believe we can improve, and we fail, we feel that we are failures.
Growth mindset - when we have that belief that we can change, we see growth as an opportunity to learn.
50/50 growth vs. fixed
Intervention for growth mindsets.

We’re proud to be sponsored by IXL.

Simplify and streamline technology
Save teachers’ time
Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

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