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How To Implement A Growth Mindset In Schools

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Introducing and Supporting Growth Mindset strategies

creeping phlox and grwoth mindset
Photo by author. Purple creeping Phlox on a bank.

Last fall I realized that if I wanted to continue to build this website and start a new site based on making and crafting, I would need to take my own photos and videos.  The prospect both excited and mildly distressed me.  And it gave me an opportunity to see how the growth mindset worked in my life.

In a show of support, my husband bought me a digital camera for Christmas.  I had never owned one.  In fact, I had no idea what all the buttons and screens would do!  How could I ever take photos good enough to put online?   (cue the distress)

I began immediately taking some online classes.  But I knew I needed more.  So I signed up for two beginning photography classes at the nearby Southwestern Community College.

One of the biggest lessons that I have learned is that I must take a lot of pictures in order to become proficient.  I’m dating myself here, but I am from the film era, where every click of the shutter meant money for processing.  

Taking lots of photos was exciting, but was hard to do because I had to constantly remind myself that it wasn’t costing me anything more to take all the photos!  

The classes are over, but I’m still taking photos.  I know my camera and the quality of my photos have increased.  There were many reasons – some good, some not so good – over those first few months to quit learning about photography.  But I knew that I could up my photography skills if I would just keep with it.  That’s the growth mindset.

Quick Review

In the What Is A Growth Mindset? article, which you can read here or here, I explain that a growth mindset is one where you believe that through effort and persistence you can improve your skills or performance.

A fixed mindset, however, is one where you believe that your skill or ability is ‘fixed’ and no amount of effort or practice can improve your situation.

How Does The Growth Mindset Look In Schools?

I believe that it is important that districts implement a growth mindset in schools.  Why?  Because if students are taught to approach learning with a growth mindset, then teachers will be supporting their students in developing their potential.

Implementation

So what does the professional development for a growth mindset initiative look like?  It’s important to establish a common foundation of knowledge around a growth mindset for all your teachers and administrators.  Your district or schools may already have a mechanism for how to do this.

One way is to provide basic training in a traditional way.  You can provide workshops or hire a consultant who can provide your educators with the fundamental concepts underlying the topic.

For your convenience, this post contains affiliate links which means I may make a commission, but it won’t cost you any more.  See my full disclosure policy here.

Another way – and perhaps a better vehicle for getting everyone on the same page – is to do a book study on Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset:  The New Psychology of Success (affiliate link).  Many schools utilize their existing professional learning communities (PLCs) or teams for book studies.  

An important question to ask is what do you really expect teachers (and principals) to do with their new knowledge of growth mindset?  When you visit classrooms, what would you expect to see?  

Solutions to these questions should be developed in conjunction with teachers and administrators.  This information should be communicated clearly to all educators.  Teachers also need resources and support for strong implementation.

Strategies for teachers

I think it would be difficult, if not impossible, for a teacher to truly implement a growth mindset in the classroom without having adopted a growth mindset.  As Dweck says, “…a good teacher is one who continues to learn along with the students (205).”

Don’t get me wrong.  Teaching is difficult work, and we can’t approach every minute with a growth mindset.  Mindset is fluid, and while most people tend to lean toward one more than the other, they sometimes move between a growth and a fixed mindset.

But it is important for teachers to model a growth mindset.  And when things aren’t going well, students really need to see their teachers and administrators persisting despite the difficulties.

(Honestly, I think students witnessed educators struggling, persisting, and growing this school year, 2020-2021, more than any other).

Train educators to be explicit about what they are doing.  Educators should show their thinking and teach students to do the same. 

In her book, Dweck writes about praise.  Teachers praise students every day, but Dweck discusses particular ways to praise.  Educators may need to re-learn how to praise.  

In a growth mindset, we should praise students’ processes, not their intelligence or talent (fixed mindset).  On page 178, Dweck writes that the praising of process encourages motivation, but praising intelligence or talent discourages motivation.

Don’t fall into the trap of praising effort, especially when the effort wasn’t particularly successful.  Dweck talks about this ‘false growth mindset’ in a 2016 interview with Christine Gross-Loh in The Atlantic (affiliate link).

Strategies for students

Teachers can help students develop a ‘not yet’ attitude about their learning.  Rather than feeling like they have failed when they didn’t meet a standard or complete a project appropriately, students will know they just need a little more time to develop the skills or improve the project.

This strategy is closely related to the idea of failing forward.  Each attempt builds on the knowledge and skills gained from the previous attempt.  It is this successive building that leads to acquiring new skills and knowledge.  

Support for Growth Mindset Initiatives

Districts should provide educators with the parameters and expectations for a growth mindset iniaties.  But it is important to provide teachers with the appropriate support.  That support can be additional training, coaching, and resources.  

Similarly, teachers and administrators should provide students with appropriate support.  We should have high standards for students, but we must show students the path to them.  

Summary and Next Steps

To implement a growth mindset in schools requires a well-developed plan.  The plan should include these components:

  • Provide preliminary or introductory training (e.g., book study in PLCs)
  • Provide teachers with strategies
  • Provide students with specific strategies
  • Provide teachers and students with specific support.

So what’s next?  Central Office leaders can continue to support schools in their implementation of a growth mindset initiative.  And through modeling it themselves!

growth mindset and flower picture

Although my beginner photography classes are over, I have not YET mastered all I want and need to know about taking photos for my website.  But I know my growth mindset will help to get me there, as I am looking at other training opportunities.  And of course, I am still taking lots of photos!

Have you started a growth mindset initiative in your school or district?  If so, I would love to hear about it.  Drop me a comment below.

If you are just starting your growth mindset initiative, an infographic can be helpful.  Check out my growth vs. fixed mindset infographic in my Resource Library.  

What Is A Growth Mindset?

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Growth Mindset = A Success Mental Model

Let me tell you a story.  Many years ago, a young student teacher faced a student twice her size who was refusing to do a journaling assignment.  

“Why should I do this anyway?  I’m not going to pass,” he spat out, sullenly.  

Her heart beat quickly because this was a challenge that would affect the tone of her classroom.  With other students closely monitoring, she gently explained the benefits of journaling to the young man.  

She stressed that the consistent, daily practice would lead to clarity of thought.  It would help him with later assignments.  And she assured him that if he just put in the work, he would see the reward he sought – in this case, a passing grade.  

He was dubious, but he trusted.  And so he did.

Definition of Growth Mindset

This anecdote is true, and it happened many years before the term ‘growth mindset’ hit the field of education.  Yet both the student and the student-teacher unknowingly were discussing growth mindset.

And the student adopted it and was successful, and the student-teacher continued to encourage it and provide space for it to develop.  For him and her other students.

So What Is The Growth Mindset?

For your convenience, this post contains affiliate links which means I may make a commission, but it won’t cost you any more.

Carol Dweck, who wrote the book Mindset:  The New Psychology of Success (2006,2016) (affiliate link), defined growth mindset this way, “the growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts, your strategies, and help from others (7).”

Listen to Carol Dwek’s TedTalk, “The Power of Believing You Can Improve.”

We probably know – or at least heard about – someone who was told they would never be able to do or be a particular thing.  But the person did not allow the negative assessment to deter them.  Rather, they practiced and kept at the work until they did succeed.

Those with a growth mindset believe that their intelligence isn’t fixed.  Rather, they believe that with practice and persistence, they can learn anything.  

They view new experiences and problems as challenges.  And they love challenges.

Growth Mindset Vs. Fixed Mindset

Someone with a growth mindset does not believe that they are helpless to change their situations.  As Dweck says, these folks aren’t stuck with the hand they were dealt, but rather this is the “starting point.”

But some people live with a fixed mindset.  They do not love challenges, and often if an activity or work is initially hard, those with a fixed mindset give up quickly.  They believe they aren’t smart enough to be successful at the new task.

Those with a fixed mindset often feel as if they have to prove over and over again that they are the smartest person in the room.  If your intelligence or genius in any area is fixed at a certain amount, then you might find yourself expending a lot of energy to demonstrate that you aren’t lacking.

Growth mindset folks value learning.  Whatever a person’s starting point is in regard to intelligence, aptitude, etc., those with a growth mindset believe that through practice and experience, they can grow, learn, and change.

Golf and the Growth Mindset

What does this look like in real life?  Let’s say that a person with a predominantly fixed mindset decides to take up golf.  Because this is a new activity, the person has a horrible round – if they even make it through 18 holes.  Balls are hit wildly or sometimes missed entirely.  No club seems to work.  They can’t read a green or line up a putt.  So they determine quickly that golf isn’t their sport and never pick up a club again.

A person with a growth mindset has a similar first round but comes away with a different perspective altogether.  Instead, this person watches golf videos, goes to the driving range to practice, arranges for some lessons, and keeps playing.  

And it pays off.  He learns to play golf.  No, he may not be Bubba Watson, but he can enjoy a satisfying round of golf when he wants to.  

But he might be Ben Hogan, as Carol Dweck mentioned in her back.  No one thought Hogan would go on to be such a great golfer since he was so awkward when he was young.  Yet he persisted.  

Puzzles and the Growth Mindset

Here’s another example.  Two people are presented with a logic puzzle to solve.  You know the kind I’m talking about.  I think the GRE used (maybe still uses) these types of items.  

Eight horses and riders are in the race.  The horse in Lane 1 has been racing for three years.  The jockey in lane five wears purple.  The horse in lane 7 is named Bullet.  Another horse is named Amethyst, and so on.

So one person reads the puzzle and gleefully says, “Oh what fun!  A challenge.”  The other person reads the puzzle and gives up.  Growth vs. Fixed Mindset.

Someone with a Growth Mindset will look at difficult tasks and situations as challenges, experiences where they can learn something new.  Someone with a Fixed Mindset will look at the same situations and determine that it is too hard for them and will give up quickly.

Application of the Growth Mindset

Where is the idea of Growth Mindset applicable?  Basically, in all aspects of our lives.  Let’s look at three instances.

School

Modeling the Growth Mindset is critical in schools.  Teachers and administrators need to demonstrate it every day.  

To be honest, most educators have had to adopt this way of thinking to make it through this school year.  Without a growth mindset, many educators would not have successfully pivoted to the remote-learning and hybrid schedules that we have adopted because of the pandemic.

It is imperative that we teach the growth mindset to students.  We need to teach them that difficult does not equal impossible.  They can learn to read and work with fractions.

When students struggle to master a skill or concept, as educators, we need to help them develop a repertoire of strategies to apply until they succeed.  It isn’t a matter of whether or not they are smart enough, but rather a matter of finding the right strategy.

Most educators could probably tell an anecdote about a high-performing student that was presented with learning a new skill that was not automatically easy for her.  The student shut down and refused to even try.

The problem was that the student was afraid that she would no longer be considered high-performing or smart if she struggled with the new task.  She didn’t recognize that the struggle equaled growth and that she could be successful if she persisted.

Teachers need to recognize this mindset early and quickly address it before it becomes the default position for a student.

Need A One-Pager on Growth Mindset?

Check out my Resource Library for an infographic on Growth vs. Fixed Mindsets.

Business

‘Failing forward’ is a term that we often hear in business and industry.  Failing forward means that a person or company puts forth a prototype – a product or a new process.  If it doesn’t work –  if it fails – then we re-group, analyze what went wrong and where. Then we design a new prototype, building on the lessons learned from the failed attempt.

Businesses typically need to continually innovate, but not every new idea is a hit with consumers or in the marketplace.  

If employees in these sectors have a fixed mindset, if they are afraid to fail, then they will stagnate and so will their companies.

However, if these businesses and employees employ a growth mindset and if employees are allowed to fail forward, then innovation is sure to come.  The trick is to make sure that the company and employee learn how to do it better through the experience.

For more information on leadership, read 3 Lessons On Educational Leadership For Beginners. 

The Growth Mindset builds an organizational culture that leads to success.  Companies that continue to produce great products and processes have developed organizational cultures where employees know that their work is to improve on failed strategies until successful.  

What is the growth mindset? Growth mindset vs. Fixed Mindset

Life

How does Growth Mindset apply to our lives outside of school and work?   

Ask yourself two questions – What new thing do you want to learn?  How can you continue to grow and improve in your life?

Maybe you are trying to learn graphic design on your own.  Yes, it can be frustrating when the bezier pen tool doesn’t give you the smooth lines and curves that you see in your mind.  But persistence and trying new techniques can result in flawless designs.

Perhaps you’ve always wanted to learn to make the home decor signs you see at craft fairs.  Your first attempt probably isn’t going to look exactly how you imagined it, but by researching, reading tutorials, and watching instructional videos, you can learn to put together a great-looking sign for your home.

With a fixed mindset, you might give up after the first attempt – if you even try to make the sign.  You might have to resort to purchasing a sign rather than learning the skills necessary to do it yourself.

Another example is taking up fly-fishing as a leisure activity.  Most new fly-fishers do not catch fish their first time out.  It takes a while to get the right rod, the right line weight, and determine the best fly for the waters you are fishing.  Then it takes lots of practice to cast the line so that it lands and floats just right to entice a trout to bite.

Someone with a fixed mindset can spend a lot of money and then give up after the first unsuccessful trip.  Someone with a growth mindset, however, understands that they can be successful if they practice casting and experiment with different rods and line weights.

Takeaway

Growth Mindset is for all of us and can help in all parts of our lives.  It is especially important for educators and especially a newly minted educational leader.  As central office administrators, we need to work toward providing training for our teachers in growth mindset strategies and developing district and school cultures that value growth mindset.  We should do this for our students, our colleagues, and ourselves.

Want More Resources?

Would you like more resources to help you with your district leadership journey?  Check out my resource library of checklists, infographics, ebooks, and more.

Effective Educational Leadership Amid a Pandemic

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Educational Leaders Should Double-down on Key Skills

educational leadership
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Educational leadership is tough.  I have always had a lot of respect for leaders of school districts and other organizations that are willing to step in and do whatever work needs to be done for their organization.  

I’m talking about a superintendent demonstrating effective educational leadership by picking up trash that escaped from a garbage can as she walks a campus.  Or a leader who pitches in at a company concession stand or fills in on the mail run when a staff member is absent.

Or this –  during blustery early spring days in a pandemic, a superintendent works beside other district staff including school food service workers, greeting parents, providing breakfast and hot lunches, and giving additional learning activities, as parents drive through a pick-up line.

Educational Leadership Playbook?

During the COVID-19 pandemic, uncertainty has been king.  While district leaders handle some ambiguity daily in education, certain things have always seemed inviolate.  


Until this past spring, most educational leaders would have said that the school calendar remained relatively stable throughout the year without long-term closures.  And state and federal testing?  No way would a district be able to eliminate that piece of accountability.

But both of those things happened for most school districts in spring 2020.  

And through the summer months, most principals and central office administrators worked feverishly to develop reopening plans that covered various scenarios.

educational leadership

While we wrestle with the puzzle of pandemic reopening plans, we can take a tiny bit of consolation knowing that every district leader is experiencing the same challenges and uncertainties.

While we don’t have a tried and true educational leadership playbook to help us (though we will have some by the time we work our way through this pandemic), our North stars can help us lead through these challenges.

So how do we provide the leadership that our districts need right now?

I wrote about leading during a pandemic in Navigating Our Work in the Age of Coronavirus.  You can also find the article on Medium.

Educational Leadership and Safety Above All

School is about education, right?  But even in pre-pandemic times, before teaching and learning, a district’s primary goal is to keep its students, faculty, and staff safe.  

During a pandemic, district leaders must double-down on health and safety.  If you have at-risk staff members, find a way to minimize exposure.  Remote working, while not ideal, maybe the best option.

Work with local health officials to determine what is best for students.  Should you plan to bring all students to school with certain safety protocols in place?  Will you need to reduce the numbers present each day by implementing a hybrid (A group day/B group day)?  Are the local indicators pointing to a remote-only option?

Determine your metrics and protocols.  Share widely, and do not be afraid to revise as new information is made available.  We are learning organizations, after all, so educational leaders should model how new information can refine a district’s perspective.

Don’t forget the psychological safety of your staff and students, too. Be upfront about the decisions being made.

Do everything you can to keep your campuses safe, ensuring the well-being of students and staff.  This doesn’t mean that no one will contract COVID-19, but we must take what steps we can to keep everyone safe.

Many districts are about a month or so into the new school year, and some of them are already transitioning between plans.  For example, some districts that began the year as remote-only are now moving toward a hybrid plan.  

Educational Leaders Maintain Focus

Keep your attention targeted on your true North.  

  • What is the district vision?  How has it changed because of the pandemic (if it did)?
  • What is the next milestone? (closing year, developing summer programs, re-opening schools)

As a district leader, you still have the responsibility to work toward your district’s vision.  The pandemic probably hasn’t changed the vision, though your mission may have altered slightly.

Effective educational leadership mans maintaining focus on the district’s vision and mission even during difficult times.  Especially during tough times.

The key is to determine if your mission (how you are going to achieve the vision) needs to be adapted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Do that by reviewing your milestones and tasks.

What do you need to accomplish next to keep your vision real?

For example, at the messy end of the school year, what does the district need to have in place to keep the vision of the district in focus?  Perhaps you need to look at your summer programming.  

What needs to remain?  What needs to be tossed?  Where can you pivot?  What can you do now to help with reopening in the fall?

In my district, we pivoted one program to a virtual environment, we postponed one program, and we added a new virtual program.  

These decisions have helped position my district to have a stronger remote reopening plan for the fall.  And we were able to maintain the district’s focus – even if how we worked toward the vision changed.

Form a Response Team

Tough times often cause the best leaders to forget a basic tenet of effective educational leadership.  One thing that has been obvious to me through the pandemic is that we can’t do it alone.

The COVID-19 situation is a complex one.  Complex problems need a team.

A complex problem means that there are many moving parts.  One person can’t corral all the parts.  

Districts have had to work through foodservice and distribution issues, pivoting to remote learning, developing hybrid plans (A/B days), working with local health departments, participating in emergency management meetings, purchasing sanitizing supplies, adding temperature stations and kiosks, creating signage and direction markers, closing areas of buildings, and the list goes on.

To lead effectively during a crisis with these different aspects of a situation, a leader needs a good team.  And members of the team will have their own leadership skills tested during this time.

From this team designate a point person to stay on top of official updates.  This person might be an Assistant or Associate Superintendent or she might be a PIO (Public Information Officer) if the district is lucky enough to have one.

During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, information was flowing quickly from some sources.  A point person to attend to official communications from the CDC, local health departments, emergency management teams, and departments of public instruction are critical to a district’s successful response to the situation.

New and Junior Educational Leaders

If you are a new or junior central office administrator, then you are likely to be a member of the response team.  While you will undoubtedly have specific tasks assigned to you, remember three things to help the district through the crisis.

  • Support the team.  You support the team by doing your part AND helping others when you can.  

Most of us have found ourselves out of our regular lanes during the past several months.  It’s fine if you are now hopping on a bus to deliver meals, even if you normally would be working on the academic side of things.

  • Volunteer.   This item goes along with working outside your normal lane as I mentioned above.  Undoubtedly, the COVID-19 pandemic has created new and interesting tasks for districts – activities that had never been assigned to a department or staff member.  

Volunteer to write the report or the protocol.  Volunteer to tape up the water fountains or hang signage.  

Take the initiative and volunteer for whatever needs to be done.

  • Encourage others.  At the beginning of the pandemic, I saw many people who were frightened and confused.  And rightly so.  

Life turned upside down overnight, and we had no answers to most of our questions. We need to take care of our people by encouraging them and extending grace.

Now that we are several months into the pandemic, we have acclimated to some degree to all the changes.  But we are still wrestling with questions that have no good answers, we are still nervous and unsure, but most of all, we are tired!

We must be encouraging to others in our district, even when we don’t feel so upbeat ourselves.  This is a great time to lead by example. 

For more information on educational leadership, see 3 Educational Leadership Lessons for Beginners.

Communication and Educational Leadership

All organizations should communicate with their employees about major events and shifts.  School districts are no different; we should be communicating with our faculty and staff on a regular basis.

Where we do differ from many organizations is that we have more stakeholder groups, namely parents, students, and the community.  Effective educational leadership means that district leaders communicate regularly with all these groups, especially in a time of crisis.

Districts that communicate often and with clarity build trust with their stakeholders.  During the early days of the pandemic, it was helpful to our community to share district information AND other pertinent information from local emergency management, health department, and the CDC.   

During the spring closure, one district’s Public Information Officer took to Facebook Live EVERY day to keep in touch with its students and families.  Some days he might have lots of information to share.  Other days, he might only have the drive-through lunch menu to relate.

But he shared consistently.  And the community learned to expect his announcements.  It kept them in touch with the school during a time when most people felt cut off from their communities.

Use your lines of communication (e.g., social media, texts, newspaper) to support district policies and procedures.  Many districts developed new procedures during the pandemic in the spring and these lines of communication kept everyone informed.

Don’t get too reliant on one means.  For example, don’t push your communication only on the district’s Facebook page.  While most people have Facebook, many do not use it.  Older grandparents who may be a student’s guardian sometimes prefer a phone call.  

Know how your stakeholders would prefer to receive information from the district and push it through those communication channels.

Practice Two-Way Communication

It is also important to remember that communication needs to be two-way.  Districts are usually excellent at pushing information out, but do you have the means to receive communication and feedback?

Don’t waste a good opportunity.

Remember the example above of the superintendent who carried meals to parents in a drive-through pick-up line?  He did not waste this opportunity.

No.  Instead he used it to gather information from parents about how they were doing as a family, how students were doing with remote work, and if there were any issues facing the families where the school might be poised to help.

It was also a time for the superintendent to learn whether any new procedures were unclear and how to improve messaging.  

effective educational leadership

Educational Leadership Amid a Pandemic Recap

Leading during a pandemic or other crisis is not easy.  Leaders keep moving forward, chipping away at what must be done for students and staff.

There isn’t a new skill set that has to be learned (Okay, maybe Facebook Live isn’t your thing….yet).  Rather it is time to double-down on those skills that will allow you to navigate the crisis and build trust and goodwill with your community.

  • Health and safety first
  • Focus on the vision (the what) and how the mission (the how) may have changed
  • Form a response team
    • Know your role on the team
  • Communicate consistently
Want More Resources?
Would you like more resources to help you with your district leadership journey?  Check out my resource library of checklists, infographics, ebooks, and more. 

3 Lessons on Educational Leadership for Beginners

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An Introduction to Educational Leadership

Thankfully, when I first came to the central office, it was during the summer.  Those couple of summer months provided me with valuable time to grapple with the idea that I was now in a district leadership role and to begin my educational leadership journey.

educational leadership development
Photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash

But first a simple definition.  A leader is someone who provides direction and support for a group or organization.  A leader often shares a vision of could be and marshals support for it.  

Educational leadership is providing these skills in an educational setting such as a K-12 district.  

Educational Leadership or Management?

One of the first lessons I learned was the difference between managing and leading.  Yes, I knew this already, and you probably do, too.  But until I put it into practice, the differences did not seem that big.

I was hired into my central office position to manage a couple of programs, specifically state testing and grant writing.  But leadership was also expected.

As a coordinator, I needed to manage my program, so that it ran smoothly.  Determine what had to be done and how it should be done.  I had to communicate that to our schools.  

I managed all aspects of the program so that it would continue to move forward.  As a coordinator and manager, it was my responsibility to ensure that the daily work – whatever that entails – continued.  

For more on creating collaborative agendas, read 2 Productivity and Collaboration Tips.

All of this is management.  You can be great at it, but still not be a leader.

However, leaders must have managerial skills to move a department or district forward.

Visionary

Taking the step from manager to leader often involves a change in vision.  Solid managers often focus on what’s in front of them or what it takes to keep the train on the tracks.  The leader looks beyond what’s here to scour all the locations that the train could go.

 

A leader must see what’s possible for the district and be able to communicate that possible future.

In addition, a central office leader must have situational awareness to know whether the destination is a good fit for the district.  Is the staff poised to move in this direction?  Will the community embrace the move or resist it?  How will it work financially?

Now that we have a working definition of educational leadership, what lessons do central office administrators need to learn early in their careers?

Educational Leadership Changes Perspective

A change in vision for a leader may also mean a change in perspective.  

District Leadership Perspective

When you are a teacher, your perspective and responsibility are to your classroom or classes.  You lobby and advocate for what you believe to be best for your students.  

When you become a principal, your perspective changes to what you believe to be best for the school.  Your perspective widens to include all students in the school.

Would you like more resources to help you with your district leadership journey?  Check out my resource library of checklists, infographics, ebooks, and more. 

When you move to the central office, your perspective widens to take in all the schools, all the students in the district.  

A teacher may want to purchase a specific book for her students because she believes it would best meet their needs at the moment.  A principal might be considering a different book because she believes it will meet the needs of an entire grade level, and thus strengthen the overall school.

What will a district leader be thinking?  If we choose option 1, then that will meet some of the needs for the elementary curriculum and will make some of the teachers there happy.  But if we choose that option, how will that support the secondary program in a few years?

 

As a central office administrator, your perspective must be broader than a classroom, grade level/department, or school.

District leaders must also develop a long-range perspective.  What are the implications in 5 years?  10 years?

Be cognizant of the fact that your objectivity might be compromised when you first come to the district office.  This is because you have a comprehensive understanding of the situation where you were.  You know it best.   

Don’t worry about it, just be aware of it.  Take the time to analyze situations from all directions.

Department or Program Leadership

If you are new to your role and the central office, take a little time to understand how your department or program was run before you arrived.  

What type of leadership did the previous director or coordinator have?  What are the strengths of the department?  Where do the challenges lie?

Don’t be afraid of how long this may take.  To get a true understanding of how a department runs, you may have to listen to a lot of folks and review a lot of work.  

Spend time with the staff in your department or program.  What are their thoughts on what’s working best (or worst) and why?

If you are in a small district, you may be a department of one.  But even if you are the entire central office testing department staff for the district, you can talk with the school level folks who carry out the district’s testing program in their respective schools.

If you are the entire curriculum department, you could talk to school-level instructional coaches or principals about the needs of the department.

And don’t forget to have these conversations with your director or Assistant Superintendent.  Your immediate supervisor can provide insight and provide guidance when you decide a change is needed.

Start Small

Many of us have watched new leaders come into a district and immediately begin making changes before they have taken the time to understand their departments or programs.  They didn’t take time to listen to their folks or review data.

3 Lessons on Educational Leadership

They felt the need to put their leadership stamp on the department and began making changes right away.

This does not usually end well for the new leader, and it is a struggle for all those affected.  Namely everyone in the district.

Start with small changes once you’ve done your homework on the department.  By then you will be able to articulate why the change is being made, and small changes are more palatable than sweeping change.

Start Building Educational Leadership Skills Now

Your graduate program should have covered some of the basics of leadership.  Now is the time to apply that book knowledge. 

If your master’s work did not cover leadership development, then you need to do some reading and listening.  I have a couple of names to get you started.

For your convenience, this post contains affiliate links which means I may make a commission, but it won’t cost you any more.

If you haven’t read any of Michael Fullan’s  (affiliate link) work, start there.  Fullan has written extensively on leadership.  

My friend and colleague, Dr. Lisa Younce at Perseverance Wins, especially likes Fullan because he shows you what to do and then gives you the theory.  Many books present theory first and provide little in the way of application.

Check out Simon Sinek’s work, too.  He is probably most popular for his TedTalk called How Great Leaders Inspire Action.  In addition to his books, including a new picture book, check out Sinek’s podcast.

Ongoing Education

Don’t think a cursory or basic understanding of how to lead programs, departments, or districts is enough.  The most effective leaders keep honing their leadership skills each year.  

Discover a way to continue your learning in Becoming Google Certified Educators.

Make leadership development a focus of your Professional Growth/Development Plan.  If it doesn’t fit with your district’s official framework, then make it a part of your personal growth plan.

Great leaders are continually learning and making changes based on their knowledge and experience.  Ongoing learning is one of the traits of authentic leaders explored in Amy Kan’s “4 Traits of Highly Authentic Leaders.”

Observe Other Leaders

You also need some practical education on leadership.  Start by observing other leaders in your district.  

How do other coordinators and directors provide leadership for the district?  How do they run meetings?  What communication skills work for them?  What is not working?

It is also important to observe leaders outside of your district.  Take time to notice how central office administrators interact with their teams when at regional meetings or at conferences.  How do they describe their processes?

Look outside of education, too.  What are some effective leadership skills from executives in other professions?  How are they leading their departments and organizations?

Don’t focus on the big-name organizations like Google or Berkshire Hathaway only, but look locally.  What organizations in your community have effective leaders?  What can you learn from them?

Takeaways

Central office leadership is multifaceted.  Three lessons that we all need to learn are

  • Knowing the difference between managing and leading
  • Broadening your perspective to include the whole district – all schools, all students, all staff
  • Developing leadership skills is on-going and includes observing leadership in action, inside and outside of education

Becoming Google Certified Educators

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Should Administrators Become Google Certified Educators?
Photo by Headway on Unsplash

Enrich Your Work with GCE Level 1 and 2 Certifications

I share a great many professional development opportunities with my schools.  Sometimes these training sessions are in-house.  Other times, I am sharing opportunities from universities or organizations.

In the past year, I shared an opportunity from Google Education with my teachers and principals.  Google offers two FREE courses based on their Google for Education apps, the Google Certified Educator. The content is organized into two levels with each level offering a certification exam at the end of the modules.

It is a great opportunity for teachers to learn more about how to use Google apps to enhance their own productivity.  More importantly, the teacher learns new strategies for enriching student learning.  

Sounds great for teachers, but as a district office administrator, should you complete the courses?

Google Certified Educators – Short Answer

The answer is ….yes!

Why would you not?  The courses are free.  

You would also be showing solidarity with your teachers.

And if you successfully complete the exam, you earn a cool badge for your email signature!

Example of my email signature with my Google Certified Educator Level 1 Badge!

Google Certified Educators – Longer Answer

Walking the Talk

If you, as a district administrator, ask your teachers to complete the courses, then I think it is super important for you to support their work by completing the courses yourself.  This is true, regardless of what type of professional development your district offers.

We know how important it is for teachers to see their principals in the same workshops and training sessions the teachers are completing.  I think it is important for teachers and administrators to see those central office administrators participating, too.  We need to walk the talk, for sure.

Supporting district technology and Blended Learning initiatives are other reasons why central office administrators should complete the courses.  Most likely, as a central office administrator, you are leading these initiatives and these courses can give you a nuanced understanding of how the initiative could transform teaching and learning for your district.

I encouraged our teachers and administrators to pursue these certifications when our district began implementing Google for Education and when we began our Personalized Education initiative.

Professionally

Some of the modules in the Google Certified Educator training will certainly be more applicable to teachers.  But quite a few of the apps can be useful to our work in the central office, too.

Google Sheets

Much of my work involves analyzing data in spreadsheets.  I prefer Microsoft Excel because that is the program I learned first.  I used Google Sheets for collaboration but tended to revert back to Excel for deeper analysis.

Now that I have completed Level II modules on Sheets, I feel much more comfortable with analyzing data with it.  I also feel that I can set up filters and charts in shared sheets that will advance the collaboration that my district needs around data analysis.

Google Groups

 I haven’t figured out exactly how I plan to utilize this in my district, but I instinctively feel that it could be a great platform to help foster more collaboration. 

One option that I am considering for using Groups is to continue discussions on topics from our Leadership PLC meetings.  I think it could be especially useful for side topics. 

You know, those sidebar discussions that some members of the group are interested in, but are not the focus of the PLC work.  We could utilize Groups as a way to continue the side conversation and share resources without detracting from the work of the PLC.

 If any of you are using this at a high level in your districts, I would love to hear what you are doing.

Case for Auxiliary Services Staff

Even if you aren’t directly involved in Academic Services, you can benefit from the training.  If you have struggled with some of the apps when others have shared items with you, then this training can make your life so much better.

If you are in finance, human resources, or other auxiliary services department, learning more about the productivity apps, My Drive, and Team Drive can move your work forward.  Finance staff can share ‘view only’ Sheets with others to reconcile purchases.  The budget process is expedited with principals and directors who can input numbers in a budget workbook before budget meetings occur.

All department meets can be streamlined with collaborative agendas and notes.

Personally

The training can be useful to you personally, too.  I wish that I had known about Google Scholar when I was in graduate school!  I would have found its research and citation capabilities useful for all the papers and projects that I had to complete!

Of course, it can be useful even now as I research educational articles to help with my current work.

Another tool that I learned about through the training is Keep.  I am planning to use it to keep up with all the tidbits and morsels (recipes, workouts, cool SVGs for crafts) that I find online that I know I want to revisit later.  

I can also use it to jot notes – which can be helpful for my writing work.  And also for grocery lists.

So What’s involved?

Now that I have convinced you to take the courses, you might be wondering what you will have to do.

The Level 1 training covers many of the often used apps and focuses on teaching basic functionality.  Level 2 dives deeper into the suite of apps and provides instruction on advanced use cases.  You can learn more about each level at the Teacher Center.

Definitely schedule some time.  Both of these courses will require time to work through the reading, viewing, and listening experiences.  Fortunately, it is asynchronous, so you can work through the lessons when it works for your schedule.

At the end of each level, you can choose to complete the certification exam.  While the course is free, you are charged a nominal fee for each of the courses.  

Make sure that you have plenty of time for the exams which will take you most of the three hours that are allowed.  

One reason for the length of the exams is because Google included many application type questions or tasks.  

As an educator, I appreciate this type of question as a way for students to show genuine understanding.  As a test-taker, I much preferred the performance tasks, too, because these items kept me from getting bored!

Administrators and Google Certified Educator

Google Certified Educators – Takeaway

Do the training and the exams to put you on the same page with teachers.  This will allow you to support their work.  

Do it as a component of your district’s technology or personalized education implementation plan.

Do it to improve your own personal and professional skills.

I have been using Google products for years.  But I also learned a lot during the training and exams.  And I think you will, too.

Want access to some super education resources to aid in your work? Get my free ebook on Blended Learning and other materials in my Resource Library here.