Your Network of Trust Published 2009-06-03 under administration, leadership

It's lonely at the top Whether you are a principal, supervisor, or secretary of education, you need a support network to share ideas, gain feedback, and let your guard down.

For those of you who follow my rants/ideas, you know how I value the personal learning network - a group of people and resources that help and even push you to be better at what you do. Executives and top managers whether in business or education are no different. We need a group to turn to for advice.

A recent article from MIT Sloan Management Review titled "Profiles of Trust: Who to Turn To, And for What" addresses the question "when a top manager needs personal support, who does he or she turn to?" This article caught my interest for its general breakdown of the types of persons managers seek out - essentially it depends on the type of advice they need. OK this sounds obvious but the authors do a good job breaking the discussion into some interesting critical parts. They start by dividing the kinds of support requested into four quadrants - high to low informational complexity and high to low emotional demand. {ed note: is four quadrants redundant?}

Essentially:

Raw Information

This is really just data. "What is our budget for professional development?", "How many students are taking AP classes?", "When is the next faculty in-service day?"

Actionable Advice

Support in this area is all about getting something done. The request involves high information complexity but low emotional demands, such as those involving processes. "How do our AP scores compare with others in the state?" requires knowledge of both process (how to get the stats) and nuances (which factors affect AP scores).

Emotional Support

When you seek emotional support, you are less interested in data or advice, but are in need of someone to listen and offer compassion/empathy. While some might dismiss such support as no being productive (resolving a problem), the need for emotional support is part of being human.

Strategic or Political Help

This type of support is characterized by high information complexity and emotional demands. "How do I break the news of teacher layoffs while maintaining a positive morale in the school?" "How can I sell the teachers on the need to improve our collective teaching methods?"

This is a long introduction to my essential point - and that of the article: As leaders, we (need to) seek out a support network comprised of a variety of "skills". We need that person who can give us the raw data and we need that person with who we can confide our frustrations and insecurities. The raw data gal needs to be skilled or renowned in her area, but doesn't necessarily need to be a "people person". The confidant guy needs to be more of a cheerleader offering unconditional support, no questions, no judgment.

The MIT article groups these skills or traits into what they call Trust. We seek support from someone we trust. As suggested, the definition of "trust" varies depending upon the situation. In general, "trust" can be measured in terms of ability, benevolence, and integrity. Ability refers to the individual's skill or expertise in a specific area. Benevolence is the degree to which the individual holds your best interests at heart. Integrity is the adherence to a set of principles that you value.

The Take Away!

I think we all unconsciously evaluate those from which we seek support in terms of ability, benevolence, and integrity &emdash; though we may not be aware of this process. My point is first: understanding of these three characteristics (ability, benevolence, and integrity) will help us better craft our support network. But, my bigger point is: we all need a network of individuals upon which we can rely. In the MIT article, they refer to someone who ranks high in all three characteristics as a "Trustworthy Partner". These individuals represent an enormous value and while often difficult to find, are a prized asset in your network of trust.

Do teachers need to be technologically proficient? Published 2008-08-11 under leadership, professional+development

Is there some minimum level of proficiency that all teachers need to reach with respect to technology?

Technology continues to become more and more ubiquitous in our lives. Cell phones keep us connected at all times. TiVo has changed the way we watch television. And the Internet has revolutionize the way we communicate. But we are not all the same when it comes to technology. There are vast differences in the adoption of technology into people's lives. Reasons for this "Digital Divide" are numerous and include:

• access the technology is not available in your area.
• money the technology is available but you cannot afford it.
• ability the technology is both available and you can afford it, but you are not (or do not perceive yourself as being) able to understand how to use it.
• relevance you understand how to use the technology but don't see how it will benefit you.
• lifestyle you not only understand how to use the technology but also see how it can be used to benefit lives, but you have made a lifestyle decision not to use the technology.

Given the prevalence of technology in the world today, should teachers be expected to be able to use some of this technology in their classroom and/or in managing their teaching? What forms of technology can be considered "basic" and all teachers be expected to not only know how to use but to be actually using?

Tech Tags: digiwalks professional+development proficiency edtech+forum

Week In Review: 2008-June-09 Published 2008-06-17 under leadership, professional+development, week+in+review

This week in review includes a discussion on open access, effective training, and the Alltop badge contest.

Berkman@10

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School celebrated their tenth anniversary this past academic year culminating in a conference - "The Future of the Internet" - that was held on May 15-16, 2008. There are numerous videos of the conference sessions / panel discussions and I encourage you to hear what these folks are saying.

But one of the topics really caught my eye - Open Access. In conjunction with the conference, the Publius Project published two essays on "access", the initial essay by Peter Suber and a response by Melissa Hagemann.

I have always been curious about the mystic behind journals and why researchers choose to publish in journals where they are not paid, they relinquish their copyrights, and the access to the ideas is limited to those who can afford subscriptions to the journal. Open Access is "digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions" (source).

The conversation continues in Melissa Hagemann's Open Scholarship where she discusses open education. "Open education resources", Hagemann writes, "are digitized materials offered freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners to use and re-use for teaching, learning and research" (source) An innovative teacher could compile a set of these resources, add her own material and product a textbook customized for her class - and the cost would be far less than traditional textbooks.

Effective Training

I enjoyed Doug Johnson's recent post titled "Seven Qualities of Highly Effective Technology Trainers". In a nutshell, here are his seven qualities:

1. The problem is on the desk, not in the chair.
2. No mouse touching.
3. Great analogies.
4. Clear support materials and advanced planning.
5. Knowing what is essential and what is only confusing.
6. If it breaks, we’ll fix it.
7. Perspective.

These "qualities" revolve around the theme of creating a safe environment for the technology student (e.g. teacher) so that they feel confident to try and even make mistakes. It is worth reviewing these seven ideas before any workshop, presentation or training day, as they remind us that we are not all geeks and what we might find exciting (and perhaps easy) is to someone else a scary mountain with no clear path to conquer.

Alltop Badge Contest

If you have not already discovered Alltop, it is a site that shows the latest posts from a selection of news and blogs organized by topic. For example, education.alltop.com provides a rich source of news and views on education. You will find the obvious (NY Times, NPR, BBC, US Dept of Ed) and the big guys (Dave Warlick, Will Richardson, Vicki Davis, Kathy Schrock). But you will also discover new sources of information or opinion like the "Generation Yes Blog".

Alltop has hundreds of topics ranging Ajax to Women. And their growing all the time.

Currently, they are holding a contest for folks to create badges for Alltop that bloggers or others can paste on their sites. The prize is an Apple iPod Touch so I had to try my luck. I have posted three so far (see blow) and may try some more. Deadline is June 29th, so you better get busy.

Tech Tags: digiwalks, week+in+review, open+access, open+education, berkman10, training, alltop

The Scary Thing I Did This Weekend Published 2008-05-30 under curious, leadership

"I pronounce you husband and wife..." How these words made for a scary weekend - even though I was not the one getting married.

In a recent post, I spoke of advice once given me: to do something that scares you on a regular basis. The point of this advice was to stretch me - put me in situations that are uncomfortable and challenge me. We learn and improve from such situations.

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to preside over my friend's weddings. While this was the first wedding where I was the officiate, I have spoken in front of larger crowds. So, it was not the idea of public speaking in it self that scared me. Actually, I really looked forward to being up there participating in their marriage.

But why was I scarred? It could have been that I had not completed my speeches (three during the ceremony) and obviously, I had not had a chance to practice. It could have been the amount of preparation that was going into this event and the knowledge that I was in a unique position to screw it all up. It could have been the conflict I was feeling between keeping my words to the traditional, limiting the chance I would insult or offend anyone, and expressing my feelings and making the ceremony unlike others. In the end, the real reason for being nervous is not important as much as the fact that this was a challenge, one of those scary things that I remind myself to embrace on a regular basis.

To be a successful scary adventure, I needed to come away with something new. At my brother's wedding, I came away with a silver calling card case, or was it a hip flask? For this wedding, we got chopsticks (actually they were from the rehearsal dinner). But that is not what I am talking about. What did I learn? How did it make me a better person?

The first "lesson" or success was my ability to craft the ceremony to be unique, include traditional elements, and (most importantly) be very personal. The second "lesson" was that you can't prepare for all contingencies. I did not anticipate just how emotional I was going to be. I lost it when the flower girls came down the isle and was a mess to the end. (In a moment of role reversal, the groom had to reassure me.) All that emotion made me forget what little of my speeches that I did manage to memorize. But in the end, the emotion was one of the greatest factors for the success of ceremony (more than my actual words - I have to admit).

But the greatest success or gift that this experience offered was the chance to reflect on marriage, what is important to me, and my deepest love of my wife. My words while written for the bride and groom, were really an expression of my feelings for my wife and our wedding. Actually, my writing became much easier when I pictured my wife and started writing for her.

In hindsight, my "fear" was about the pressure to make the ceremony perfect. Perfection, while an amiable goal, is rarely experienced and is really not necessary. I decided on settling for this wedding to be as special and meaningful as the one I got to have.

Tech Tags: digiwalks leadership scary

Teacher Learner: We Must Also Learn Published 2008-05-21 under creativity, leadership, professional+development

One of the most rewarding moments in teaching for me was when I had the opportunity to tutor a student in Algebra II.

One of the most rewarding moments in teaching for me was when I had the opportunity to tutor a student in Algebra II. My approach was fairly simple; each afternoon I would have him teach me the topics addressed in his class that day. I was teaching Algebra I then and was not necessarily familiar with the topics of his class. Thus, his efforts to teach me were not just a trick, I was learning (or re-learning) the topics.

My approach forced the student to reflect on the topics which in itself is a powerful teaching tool. But I would offer that my role as learner and the respect I showed to the student's teachings was a principal component behind the success of our tutoring experience.

I have been reading about the use of case studies as a teaching method and came across an essay by Charles Gragg titled "Teachers Also Must Learn". His basic premise is that the best teachers exhibit a attitude of being willing to learn from their students.

The teacher who has given up the art of learning from his students should also give up the practice of learning.

... how can he lead his students to undertake for their own parts the creative interpretation of knowledge? The answer lies in part at least in the ability of the teacher to listen to his students, not with a view to appraising them, correcting their mistakes, and filling in the gaps in their knowledge, but rather in the constant and true expectation of learning something.

from Teaching and the Case Method: Text, Cases, and Readings

Boy, if I think how I listen to my students, it is almost always with the air of the learned one ("the teacher") and infrequently as the one trying to learn. This could be explained by egotism, lack of confidence, lack of respect for the student, or just a traditionalist view of the relationship between teacher and student.

This points out the how important the art of listening is to the successful teacher.

The funny thing is that I started this blog with two purposes: an opportunity to reflect on ideas and to learn from this community of educators. Why shouldn't I expect to learn from students as well?

Tech Tags: education learning respect leadership

Week In Review: 2008-MAY-16 Published 2008-05-15 under administration, leadership, week+in+review

This past year, I have been working with a school exploring our digital world from a human development perspective. One of the issues to emerge was the need to revamp the school's acceptable use policy. Thus I was drawn to David Warlick's recent post "School AUP 2.0". Dave points out how AUP grew in popularity in the 90's but many have not been modified to reflect the "information landscape [which] has grown enormously and evolved in some significant and impactful ways."

Instead of just blogging about it, Dave has created a School AUP 2.0 wiki so we can all contribute to what we feel is appropriate use and more importantly discuss ways successfully adopting the AUP. (See the Notes section for an interesting discussion.)

Barbara Barreda enters the conversation drawing our attention to policies affecting cell phone use in class in her article "Cell Phone Conundrum". Barbara references a techLEARNING article ("Cell Division") while wondering "how to help the students develop the maturity they need to responsibly use this tool". As Barbara points out, an "AUP is much more than a set of rules", it should reflect consideration of the issues from many directions: curriculum, human development, legal, safety, and cultural.

The other topic that caught my eye was from a post by Chris Hitch who writes about "The Best Advice I Received". Chris offers three helpful bits of advice:

1. Recognize the "difference between working high value hours vs simply being at the office or working just to slog through some stuff."
2. "Rule of Three" which states that after three iterations of an email conversation (send, reply, reply-to-the-reply), the conversation should move to a more direct means - that is call the person or go visit them face to face.
3. It is important to always be learning.

While Chris' advice is useful as is the advice offered in the comments, I was taken to the post more because it made me think about what important advice has affected my professional and personal life. Of the many great pieces of advice that I have received over the years, two standout: 1) Do something that scares you every (day/week/month), and 2) have a bias toward action. What makes these two standout is that I see the benefit of each but need constant reminders to follow their wisdom. It is too easy to avoid uncomfortable situations (not to speak of scary ones) and it is easy to rationalize the need to approach projects and tasks cautiously erring on the side of too much preparation.

I thank Chris for reminding me that we occasionally need to step back and evaluate how we are doing. His post acted as a kick in the pants - one that we can all use from time to time.

Finally, I wanted to point you toward Detensionslip.org. While I admit to not really reading the posts, I have added their RSS feed to my reader as the titles are good for a laugh.

Tech Tags: aup warlick wiki cell+phone advice leadership week+in+review