Study: Why school leadership matters

In the recent Hechinger Report article, “Why school leadership matters” researchers reflect on how the trickle-down effects of improving superintendents and principals has been proven to come second only to teacher quality in the fight for improved student achievement. In the last few decades, school reform experiments have taken place on a wide range from local to federal, but only until recently have researchers looked to the important role school leadership plays in improving the entire school environment. The report shows leadership starts at the very top with superintendents who are consistent and layout groundwork for principals by:

setting a clear direction and tone,
investing in professional development,
setting up mentors for new principals,
giving principals the authority to make key decisions,
and elevating the importance of academic achievement.

In a 2009 study by New Leaders for New Schools, researchers found the joint impact of principal and teacher effectiveness impacted student gains by more than 50 percent — principals accounted for 25 percent and teachers 33 percent. However, even though research shows improving leadership will benefit most any failing school, the type of leadership that is right for individual schools varies. According to the author ofÂ Leading in a Culture of Change, some schools may need a transformational leader, while others may want to improve from good to great or even choose to distribute leadership roles throughout the school culture.

According to Stanford professor Linda Darling-Hammond and her colleagues, the most successful programs that train principals, include the following characteristics:

A focus on instruction, organizational development and change management.
Field-based internships that enable principals-in-training to apply leadership knowledge and skills under the guidance on an expert practitioner.
Problem-based learning strategies that support reflection and link theory to practice.
A structure that enables collaboration, teamwork, and mutual support among principals-in-training.
- For a complete list visitÂ www.hechingerreport.org

At LifeBound, we offer Academic Coaches Training for school leaders, teachers, counselors, administrators, mentors, and more. Coaching sessions are held as a six-day intensive that delves into different levels of coaching skills, including: listening, observing, asking powerful questions, and acknowledging. To learn more about Academic Coaches Training or to find out more about how LifeBound can customize a training program to meet your school’s needs, call us at 1-877-737-8510 or email atÂ contact@lifebound.com.

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Study: College Grads Lacking Verbal Communication Skills

According to a Job Outlook 2011 survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employment, employers agreed new college graduates are entering the workforce with poor verbal communication skills. Experts believe the increased use of text messages and emails have taken a toll on the new generation’s conversational skills. “One of the biggest issues in the last five years is employees e-mailing instead of going to talk to or at the very least picking up the phone to call the person they need to communicate with,” says Patti Wood, professional speaker and trainer.Â As a businessperson, I encourage my team of employees and interns – who exist on a wide age scale – to leave the comfort of their email and to call people.

College graduates need verbal communication skills not only to conduct business and successfully interact with colleagues once in their career, they also need to be able to present themselves in a professional manner to land the job in the first place. If students feel their skills are inadequate and won’t impress an employer in an interview, they should conduct mock interviews with a family or friend. Teachers can use this exercise in class and have students get interviewed by an intimidating panel or just one-on-one. Students should give each other feedback on what worked, what didn’t work, and if they would hire those they interview.

Experts are also saying, the only way to learn verbal communication skills is to use them, especially in situation that takes you out of your comfort zone. All ofÂ LifeBound’s books for students in grades 5 – 12 include oral test and review prompts to hone these sought after communication skills at an early age. At the college level,Â Keys to Business Communication – the newest addition to theÂ Keys to Success Series — Â emphasizes the need for students to be able to communicate in all modes with the end of chapter exercise framework: Know it, Write it, Speak it, Do it.

Referenced article: “Um, Like, Whatever: College Grads Lack Verbal Skills” -Â http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2011/03/03/um-like-college-grads-lack-verbal-skills/

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Teaching students to think globally in the 21st century

Over the last decade, the idea of incorporating global and 21st century skills in curriculum has grown from an experimental initiative to a requirement for student success. In the journal,Â District Administration, Sarah Jerome, superintendent of the Arlington Heights and former president of American Association of School Administrators, says she thinks school leaders have become too complacent, especially in the area of allowing foreign language courses to get pulled from the curriculum.Â Â On this past weekend, the fiftieth anniversary of the Peace Corps, which promotes worldwide service and understanding, it is appropriate to think of how all students can learn and act globally, especially in the United States from learning a language, to working overseas, to volunteering for causes that are strong around the world.

In Seattle, 10 of the districts 97 schools are hoping to become international public schools over the next five years. Even though there is much support from the community for teaching language immersion programs, it’s proven to be difficult to spread throughout the entire district. Part of the problem comes from the additional training teachers are required to have. In Seattle schools, all teachers must take an “exploratory” year before the school is redesigned. This year is spent understanding their expectations, such as enrolling in a foreign language class taught through the school if they are not already fluent, engaging in extra professional development and learning about the cultures and traditions of the children they are teaching.

However, as told in a recent article from theÂ Hartford Courant, Connecticut state education officials recently discussed improving their districts’ student success rates by urging local school boards and teachers to take a global approach to their instruction. Officials say, a key factor in poor student achievement with students of color is the cultural disconnect between home and school.

Teaching about cultural diversity is essential for students, whether it’s focused on learning about the different cultures that make up the student body or those half way across the world.Â The Association of International Schools in Africa 2011 is being held in Nairobi, Kenya, where I will be their keynote.Â Iâ€™ve also had the pleasure of working with the Tri-Association which covers Mexico, the Carribean and South America, two conferences in Australia and New Zealand and the EARCOS in Bangkok, Thailand.Â Â It is a wonderful to see the best practices from these international schools from around the world and then share that insight with the U.S. schools.

This past weekend, in cities around the U.S. former Peace Corps volunteers were gathering to share their experience Friday night by continent and Saturday night as a global gala.Â It is my hope that with more students growing up with a global mindsetâ€”in and out of schoolâ€”that we will have more Peace Corps volunteer promoting world-wide understanding and more young people with the vision of Sergeant Shriver who can see a worldwide opportunity and then it develop it to influence country-wide improvement and lasting impressions on the people who are able to serve.

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Friday Profile: General Wilma Vaught

In 1948, President Harry Truman signed the Womenâ€™s Armed Services Act, allowing women to serve as permanent members in the military — but only under certain conditions. It used to be that women werenâ€™t allowed to serve in combat or command men. Also, only two percent of each service could be comprised of women and they would never become generals. This was partly due to the common misperception that by the time women could be considered for an admiral or general officer they would be going through menopause and would therefore make â€œirrational decisions.â€

One woman who paved the way for women in military is retired General Wilma Vaught. In the 1950s, she was expected to have a husband and a child, but her dream was to serve in the military and eventually be in charge. Vaught went through special officers training designed for women to teach them to be â€œcharmingâ€ and â€œattractiveâ€ by showing them how to sit and put on makeup.

Then, the Vietnam War brought a status change for women in the military. As the military found that the tens of thousands of men who had been drafted werenâ€™t enough, in 1967 they decided to get rid of the restriction on the amount of women allowed in the military and let the thousands of women volunteers serve â€“ even as general officers.

General Wilma Vaught had almost 30 years of military service and was the first woman to deploy with an Air Force bomber wing. When she retired in 1985, she was one of seven female generals or admirals in all the armed forces. Today, Vaught is the president of the foundation that runs the Women in Military Service for American Memorial in Arlington, Va.

Who is an inspirational woman in your life, personal or famous? Do you know a woman who has broken through the â€œglass ceilingâ€? Share your story in the comment box below.

For more information on General Wilma Vaught, visit www.npr.org.

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Facebook Privacy Settings: Understanding the three privacy groups and how to adjust them

On Tuesday, I shared tips on how students can use social media to their academic advantage, one of which was setting your Facebook profile to private. Maureen recently received an email from a program her daughter is involved in informing her of how to talk with her daughter about the responsibility that comes with having a social media presence, the effect a bad presence can have on her future and instructions on how to set her settings to different degrees of privacy.

Since Facebook is the most popular social network used by students — and it is usually wrongly assumed that students born into the digital age are tech savvy — I think it is important to show parents, teachers, and students how to change privacy settings on the social networking site and the consequences of sharing private information in public areas. The following tips are adapted from Richard Rossiâ€™s newsletter, â€œIs Your Child Sharing Too Much Online?â€

The Three Privacy Groups on Facebook

In the upper, right-hand corner, click on Account and then Privacy Settings. Your child has a choice of their information being accessible to Everyone, Friends and Networks, Friends of Friends, or Friends Only.

#1 â€“ Connecting on Facebook

These settings control how other people will be able to find your childâ€™s Facebook profile.

Search for you on Facebook: This allows people to find a user by typing their name in the Facebook search bar. (Recommended setting: everyone)
Send you friend requests: After a user finds someone by using the search, they send a friend request to join each otherâ€™s network. (Recommended setting: everyone)
Send you messages: People can find you and send a message. This setting choice will probably vary depending on if you and your child decide they should be receiving messages from users who arenâ€™t their â€œfriendâ€.
See your friend list: Your child might be using their privacy settings on Facebook, but are their friends? Just in case someone is interested in learning something about your child by looking at the crowd they run with, consider using a privacy setting on this feature. (Recommended setting: friends only)
See your education and work; current city and hometown; likes, activities, and other connections. (Recommended setting: friends only)

#2 – Sharing on Facebook

This is where your child controls who is allowed to see their activity on their or their friendsâ€™ wall. This area should be customized from the default settings to display only the information they and you feel comfortable being public. For instance, it might be decided that sharing your childâ€™s birthday and interests are appropriate whereas sharing their cellphone number and IM screen name is not. This information most likely has the least amount of consequences attached to it. However, to play it safe, youâ€™re child might decide to only let â€œfriendsâ€ have access.

#3 â€“ Apps, Games, and Websites

You and your child need to discuss third party applications having access to their personal information. All the information that they have on their profile will be accessible when they click the â€œagreeâ€ button to play their favorite game or quiz. The following are some settings that you probably want to discuss customizing with your child:

Apps you use
Info accessible through your friends
Public search â€“ If your child doesnâ€™t uncheck the option â€œEnable public searchâ€ their information will show up in search results on sites like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

Social networking should be fun and kept between friends. Offer your child some scenarios, like their friend tags them in a picture that puts them in an unflattering light and a prospective employer sees it. Would they change their privacy settings? If your child has a hard time understanding why you want them to adjust their privacy settings, ask them to help you understand why it’s important to them to have their profile information public and see if there are compromises to be made. Have you had a Facebook or social networking discussion with your child or students? Please share your story in the comment box below.

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LifeBound’s Spring Webinars

We had excellent attendance and great feedback for our first live webinar. We are excited to announce that LifeBound will be presenting a new webinar every month that addresses timely issues parents may be facing during the school year, the summer or in transition.Â Yesterday, Maureen Breeze presented on the topicÂ Parenting Tips for Academic Success: Promoting Success at School and at Home that you still have the opportunity to attend live on March 22. One attendee,Â Kathy Mellette, North Hall County Honors Mentorship Coordinator wrote in to say:

“Thank you for the informational webinar! I teach a high school Honors Mentorship Class and my students who are planning on careers in education viewed this with me. We enjoyed it-good stuff!”

As the middle of the semester approaches, we are offering the webinarÂ Parents as Coaches in March and April toÂ give parents basic coaching skills to understand and motivate their child socially, emotionally, and academically. Then as the semester nears its end, you can join us for our last webinar of the semester which will focus onÂ Summer Learning toÂ give parents the resources and ideas they need to get their child involved in creative, active, and inexpensive summer activities.

To stay informed on dates and times of upcoming LifeBound events, go to the top right hand corner of the screen and click on the icons to follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. While you’re there, you can also signup for LifeBound’s newsletter for monthly updates and deals.

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Teacher Tuesday: 4 ways students can use social media to their academic advantage

The Kaplan Test Prep’s 2010 survey of college admissions officers shows 82 percent of admissions officers use Facebook as a tool to recruit students. It’s also suspected that searching for the social media presence of a prospective student is used by admissions officers at highly-selective schools to help them make decisions when deciding who to admit from a large pool of candidates. Elements like grades, test scores, and volunteering are still more important to a student’s admission but when it comes down to choosing between students with similar credentials, you don’t want your social media presence to give your competitor the upper-hand. In a thread on the websiteÂ Quora, an interviewer for Harvard College admissions admitted she occasionally will Google students to see if the presence the student carefully crafted for their admission aligns with their social media presence. She suggests if college and career is important to the student, they do a Google search of their name and pull anything that they wouldn’t want their parents to see.

There are more thanÂ 500 million users on Facebook and it is unlikely that a great deal of them will be inspired to delete their profile to increase their chances of getting into their dream college. On the blog,Â Student Advisor, editor-in-chief Dean Tsouvalas gives tips on how to have a social media presence and have it work for students instead of against them. Share the following tips in class to make sure your students are aware of the responsibility that comes with having an online presence:

1. Get informed.

Stay up-to-date on what’s happening at your prospective school by following them on Twitter, “Like” them on Facebook and subscribe to any other news feeds they offer. You can use the information they share to your advantage by incorporating your knowledge into your essays and interviews.

2. Use videos.

Tufts invited students to submit an optional one-minute video with their application so prospective students could show themselves engaged in extra-curricular activities or have reference deliver their kind words in video format vs. a letter. Post a video that shows your leadership or creative skills to YouTube and tag the prospective school.

3. Start blogging.

If you’re worried your personality doesn’t shine through in your admission essay or you’re worried about your average GPA, use a blog to showcase your writing skills, pictures of you helping in the community or your creativity. Add a link to your blog on your application and invite the admissions officer to check out your polished social media presence and encourage them to leave a comment.

4. Set it to privacy.

If you enjoy using your social networking tools for your personal entertainment, make sure you set it to private. Otherwise, everyone can access your information and your fun may be used against you.

Encourage students to use their social media tools to show their maturity, leadership and judgment by being intelligent about what and with whom they share personal information. What other ways can students use social media to their advantage? Share your ideas in the comment box below.

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Study: UNICEF calls for investment in adolescents

UNICEF released the report â€œThe State of the Worldâ€™s Children 2011: Adolescence – An Age of Opportunityâ€ that outlines challenges adolescents face in health, education, protection and participation, and the need to give young people a voice and help form the future by taking action immediately.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Friday Profile: “Fighting” the addiction

We’re getting ready to watch the Academy Awards this Sunday and are talking about our favorite nominees. “The Fighter” is an office favorite, nominated for multiple Oscars including Best Picture. For those who haven’t had the chance to see it, the movie shows the early life of boxer Micky Ward working his way up to pro status in the economically drained town of Lowell, Massachusetts. Micky’s half brother Dicky, also a boxer, is Micky’s trainer but proves to be consistently unreliable due to his crack addiction. Dicky agrees to have his daily life as a crack addict captured on film by an HBO camera crew, believing this is his shot at a boxing comeback, but which ultimately casts him in a less-desirable role as a leading man in the documentary “High on Crack Street: Lost Lives in Lowell.” If you’re interested in learning more about the documentary that’s depicted in “The Fighter” you can watch it in its entirety online, but due to its graphic nature isn’t recommended for young viewers.

While the role of addiction is still in the hollywood spotlight, I am inspired to take this opportunity to share some statistics from a presentation by Pat Wolfe, Ed.D entitled, “The Adolescent Brain and Addiction.”

The substance dependent brain is physiologically and chemically different rom the normal brain.
The progression of the disease is influenced by genetic and environmental factors.
The brain uses natural opiates to reward behaviors that enhance survival and are commonly released by:
- Food
- Sex
- Social Interactions
Some non-natural opiates (drugs) are so similar to neurotransmitters in their chemical composition that they fit into the receptor sites of the brain’s own opiates.
When the brain is consistently subjected to artificially high levels of dopamine, the brain starts making less of its own, leaving the user depressed, fatigued, and going into withdrawal unless they relieve it with more of the drug.
Addictive drugs dramatically blunt neural activity which may lead to poor decision making and problems with impulse control.
The average age kids start to drink is 12.94 years
By 12th grade more than 80% of students have consumed alcohol in the past 30 days

Early intervention is key in making sure addicts have a chance at a successful future. Dicky Eklund had a reality check to a degree that many will never get from watching himself as an addict in the HBO documentary and years later in a box office hit. If you know someone who can’t see the addiction, help them yourself or ask for help from someone you trust. To learn more amazing facts about the brain, visit Pat Wolfe’s website www.patwolfe.com

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4 ways for parents to help students ace the state test

As testing dates get closer, parents and students can work together to turn testing day into a stress-free event. Start talking about testing now so you can identify where your student is having problems early and intervene.

– ANXIETY: If students have anxiety about testing, identify why.Â It helps for parents to talk to their children about the test. Offering reassurance and talking about the process can be a great stress reliever, says Susanna Ramirez-Raab, director of categorical programs for the Enterprise Elementary School DistrictÂ (Redding.com).

– IDENTIFYING STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES: Where can students improve? Set time aside every night to help your child improve in their hardest subject. Students won’t learn basic standardized test concepts overnight. To encourage your child to approach learning on more than a superficial level, give them ample time to wrestle with the subject that’s troubling them so they know it through-and-through by testing day.

– WELL-ROUNDED TESTER: Practice tests are available through the student’s school or you can get practice books and find resources online. Work on getting your student comfortable with answering multiple choice, true/false, essay and fill-in the blank questions. If they have trouble answering a question, ask them: What do you think the answer is? What can you tell me about this topic? Why are you considering another choice?

– HEALTH: Healthy sleep and eating patterns should be part of the student’s everyday life, but if they are rare occasions make sure your child is rested, full and in class on time on testing day.

For more study tips, visit the following blog posts I posted earlier this month to get students prepared to ace the test:Â The 5 R’s of Note Taking,Â Students Studying with a Plan, andÂ Preparing Your Student with Skills to Ace the Test. Also, LifeBound’sÂ parent engagement webinar PARENTING TIPS FOR ACADEMIC SUCCESS: PROMOTING SUCCESS AT SCHOOL AND AT HOME is coming up on March 1.Â Click here to signup now while space is still available.

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