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Using Feedback to Create a Culture of Excellence

A Principal's Reflections

On a typical day when I visit classrooms with principals in my partner districts across the country, both the building and district leaders receive a 1000-to-5000-word document laden with practical feedback. During each virtual coaching session, they were pushed to bring artifacts from their respective cohort.

Cultures 545
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Creating Interactive Lessons Through App Smashing

A Principal's Reflections

Content consumption does not equate to the construction of new knowledge, discourse, answering questions, solving a problem, or creating a learning artifact. I often recommend the use of this tool in History as a way to explore primary source documents. That is a good start, but not a solution if learning is the goal.

educators

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10 Ways to Grow as a Pedagogical Leader

A Principal's Reflections

Abolishing the routine of announced observations, having teachers provide artifacts of evidence to show the bigger picture since you can never see all that is done in a single observation, and prioritizing the collection assessments over lesson plans can also be effective.

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How Digital Tools Improve Teaching and Learning

A Principal's Reflections

A piece of student writing can become a diverse and substantive document when it is the basis for a step-by-step exchange of ideas and questions between teacher, peers, authors, and mentors. There are thousands of free digital tools available that promote the art of doing.

Teaching 419
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Measuring Impact with the Digital Practice Assessment (DPA)

A Principal's Reflections

We then leverage evidence-based rubrics to observe leadership and instructional practices while collecting artifacts to provide evidence of effective digital learning and innovative professional practice. During this reflective process, it is expected that school leadership teams collect and document aligned evidence for each item.

Archiving 345
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Students Yearn For Creativity, Not Tests

A Principal's Reflections

Total freedom was given to create a presentation in any format they wanted to including but not limited to: a written document, a poster, a collage, pin board, a chart etc. We witnessed our students shine when given the autonomy to produce a learning artifact that was meaningful, relevant, and reflected the importance of student voice.

Artifacts 419
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Quantifying Innovative Practices

A Principal's Reflections

Rubrics are then leveraged to observe leadership and instructional practices while collecting artifacts to provide evidence of efficacy-based innovative practices. School leadership teams are expected to collect and document aligned evidence for each item during this reflective process.

Artifacts 263