Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud

Why Focus on Deeper Learning for All Students

What is deeper learning and how does it meaningfully engage students, preparing them for success beyond the classroom? How can teachers incorporate deeper learning into their classrooms? Dr. David Reese, from Defined Learning, explores these topics and identifies the six critical competencies that are important to all students’ for success. These competencies are often framed within the context of future-ready skills, which also include creativity, citizenship, and character. 

Find David's blog post, "Why Deeper Learning? 6 Competencies EVERY Student Needs to Succeed" here.

Email David: david_reese@definedlearning.com

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Professional Development That Impacts Teacher Learning and Student Success

What should teachers expect from school leadership in the support of teacher growth? What expectations should school leaders have of teachers in their investment in professional growth? Katherine Hamilton, vice president of programs for Ensemble Learning explores these questions with Steve.  Designing for teachers as professionals is key to generating educator learning that impact student success.

Visit the Ensemble Learning LinkedIn page here.    

Visit the Ensemble Learning website here.

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Coaching Teachers to Fail Successfully

Just as students benefit from developing a positive, growth-oriented approach to failure, teachers thrive when they are supported in the same way. Instructional coaches and administrators can play a critical role in fostering this mindset. Teachers need opportunities to embrace challenges, experiment with new ideas, and persist through setbacks, in a safe environment. Too often, professional learning focuses on delivering strategies and best practices without acknowledging the discomfort and vulnerability that come with trying something new. Explore seven keys to “successful failure.”

"A Moment of Perspective," Christina (Kiki) Peterson

"Why Failing Well is the Key to Success," Megan McArdle

"7 Keys to Successful Failure," Mindy Crary

Subscribe to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast on iTunes or visit BarkleyPD.com to find new episodes!

Teacher Leaders in PLCs

Chad Dumas, the author of, The Teacher Leader Handbook: Simple Habits to Transform Collaboration in a PLC at Work, explores the mindsets, skills and strategies that generate team collaboration. Chad describes the important mindsets of “Seeing in others what they don’t yet see in themselves,” Being humble with a posture of learning, and "Spreading the contagion of joy." How should school leaders support teacher PLC leaders?

Find "The Teacher Leader Handbook: Simple Habits to Transform Collaboration in a PLC at Work" here.

Find the free downloadable reproducibles here.

Subscribe to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast on iTunes or visit BarkleyPD.com to find new episodes!

 

Coaching to Leverage Hardiness

How do coaches assist teachers in reframing stress from something to be managed to a catalyst for growth and improvement? How can understanding the roles of commitment, control, and challenge build teachers’ hardiness? Highly experienced coaches, Lana Cecil and Angela Buckingham, share the application of Stein’s and Bartone’s work in Making Stress Work for You to Achieve Your Life Goals to the work of instructional leaders and coaches.

Contact Angela: angela.buckingham@esc13.txed.net

Contact Lana: lana.cecil@esc13.txed.net

Find the Coaching Strategies and Coaching Questions for Hardiness here.

Subscribe to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast on iTunes or visit BarkleyPD.com to find new episodes!

 

A District’s Focus on Inspiring and Creating Joyful Experiences

What happens when a school system makes four promises as their mission: joy, connection, growth, and success and consider joy as the lead to the others happening? "If we want people to be present, engaged, and thriving, joy can’t be an afterthought. It must be a priority." (George Philhower, Superintendent Eastern Hancock Schools in Indiana) Hear about their summer Joy Jam conference for educators.

Visit the Eastern Hancock Schools website here. 

Subscribe to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast on iTunes or visit BarkleyPD.com to find new episodes!

Building Coachability for Myself and Others

“Coachability is not just teachability. It’s not just a willingness to learn. It’s a willingness to unlearn and change. Coachability is a moral capacity that allows a person to accept feedback, acknowledge faults, limitations, and deficiencies, and to act on that new information.” (Timothy Clark)

As instructional coaches and school leaders, we can play a big role in shaping culture of coachability. We do it through the way we listen, the questions we ask, and the tone we set when offering feedback. 

Find Timothy Clark's article, "Are You Coachable?" here.  

Subscribe to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast on iTunes or visit BarkleyPD.com to find new episodes!

 

Situating Responsibility With Students: Enhancing Learning

Barbara Smith, the editor of Urgent Care for Schools: Situating Responsibility as an Engaging Way for Students to Transform School Cultures, explores providing meaningful, memorable, and fulfilling learning experiences by situating responsibilities with learners.

From her experiences in public, independent, charter, and international schools, Barbara explores expanding the student identity to include that of becoming service providers, injustice responders, action researchers, designers, apprentices and teachers.

Visit the ZPD website and connect with Barbara here. 

Subscribe to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast on iTunes or visit BarkleyPD.com to find new episodes!

Radical Listening in Coaching

How can coaches’ use of radical listening generate teachers’ reflection and increase a sense of teachers’ empowerment? Examine some of the obstacles to and strategies for radical listening from the work of Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener and Christian Van Nieuwerburgh authors of Radical Listening: The Art of True Connection. As coaches, when we resist the urge to jump in with comparisons, advice, or quick fixes—and instead, lean into radical listening—we communicate trust, respect, and belief in the teacher’s capacity.

Listen to the Podcast, "Mastering Coaching and Leadership | Robert Biswas-Diener | Craig Dowden, PhD" here.

Subscribe to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast on iTunes or visit BarkleyPD.com to find new episodes!

 

A Thriving School Culture Through a Path of Student and Teacher Responsibility

From her career as a teacher and school leader in public, independent, and international schools and having opened three new schools, Barbara Smith proposes the importance of situating responsibility with students and teachers.  She describes why change is urgent and needs to be transformative. Just as teachers need to be facilitators of student responsibility to create their learning, school leaders need to be facilitators of teachers’ responsibility. Time and space for teacher collaboration and learning is a key.

Connect with Barbara & visit the ZPD website here. 

Subscribe to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast on iTunes or visit BarkleyPD.com to find new episodes!