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Frank Shaw promotes change with teacher collaboration
51 Plays1 month ago
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Contact us: Starr@masteryportfolio.com crystal@masteryportfolio.com
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Learner Centered Spaces podcast, where we empower and inspire ownership of learning, sponsored by Mastery Portfolio, hosted by Star Saxton and Crystal Frommer.
Educator Conversations
00:00:14
Speaker
In each episode, we bring you an authentic conversation with educators, both in and out of the classroom, that will hopefully encourage you to try something new. This podcast is created for educators who want to learn more about how to make the shift toward learner-centered spaces for their students, schools, and districts or education at large.
00:00:34
Speaker
The learner-centered spaces podcast is a member of the Teach Better Podcast Network. Get ready to be inspired as we dive right into the conversation with today's guest.
Guest Introduction: Frank Shaw
00:00:48
Speaker
We are very excited to have Frank Shaw on the show today. He is currently a curriculum director and formerly he was a high school history and geography teacher and fifth grade STEM and seventh grade social studies.
00:01:01
Speaker
We asked him about his purpose and he said that his purpose in his current position is to help Beardstown School District improve through a renewed focus on growth for students and adults and to help navigate staff through the related changes in school culture.
00:01:16
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Fun facts about Frank, he's gonna be starting his doctoral program in the fall, leading to superintendent licensure. He also keeps bees and his family enjoys hiking and travel.
From Teaching to Leadership
00:01:28
Speaker
So welcome to the show, Frank. Thank you for having me. Frank, it's so awesome to have you on with us today. We love to start out with either a defining moment in your educational journey or something that you're working on right now that you're really excited to share. Okay, great. um So I would say four for my educational journey,
00:01:59
Speaker
um I guess that would be getting into educational leadership and, um in particular instructional leadership. And I really saw ah need for that during the COVID pandemic. And obviously that would have been the case everywhere globally, not just in Beardstown, but, um, but this is the kind of slice that I have available to work with.
00:02:23
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So, um,
00:02:27
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That was really my first opportunity to get involved in leadership in our district and seize that opportunity. And the more that I was involved in that, the more need that I saw for somebody who was specifically focused on academics and instructional improvement.
00:02:50
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And thankfully, our district leadership um about two years ago realized that that was also a need for our district and created this position of curriculum director, which a lot of other schools may have, but um but schools our size usually don't and.
00:03:07
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Our superintendent at the time realized that that was a need. If we were going to make a change to the school culture and really start to improve student outcomes, we needed somebody whose job was solely focused on those things and not also dealing with you know, sports issues or behavioral issues or all the other things that go along with school administration.
00:03:30
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And so the, the, an opportunity arose for me to move into that position about the same time that I was finishing my master's in educational leadership and qualified to take the position. So I was excited to, up to, to be involved in,
00:03:45
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to help out, um you know, kind of my home district right here as we navigate through school and district improvement. So Frank, I want to dive a little bit more deeply into that. So you were a teacher in the district first, and then you moved into this leadership role.
00:04:05
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What What was that like to be somebody who had spent however many years um that you were as a teacher? Like, what was the transition like into leadership and how were you received by your peers?
Building Relationships for Instructional Support
00:04:19
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And what do you notice differently as you're shifting into this instructional leadership role versus the role you played while you were still in the classroom? Yeah, it's a little bit complicated sometimes. I suppose if you were...
00:04:35
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starting off with a new district where you had never taught before you have to spend so much time building relationships with people just for them to take you seriously or to um to have buy-in with any of your ideas and thankfully i had a good reputation among at least the middle school high school faculty.
00:04:54
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I think I did. I suppose they can add something in the comments if they hear this and and disagree, but I felt like I had a good rapport with them. I was working with the teachers union um through COVID and and really helped guide the district through some things in that role as well.
00:05:12
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And so I think that paved the way for me to have um a voice in ah in a way like teachers knew that I was a very practical kind of solutions minded type person.
00:05:23
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And I wasn't going to be just on a power trip. um So yeah you if I've come in with solutions, then those those are things that I think are really gonna be beneficial, not just something that um is being passed down from the higher ups at the district level, so to speak.
00:05:40
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So I think that was helpful. um I'm sure that there would be you know there have been challenges, but there would be challenges no matter where. no matter where I was. So I really feel like the relationships I had at the middle school, high school helped out with that.
00:05:53
Speaker
um My main challenge this past year was really forming relationships at the elementary level because I didn't know a lot of those folks. And so it was important for them to to see me in the same light that I hopefully am seen by those in the middle school, high school.
00:06:11
Speaker
Well, as somebody who sees you around the folks that you work with, I know that you are well-respected. And so as you're trying to help make these instructional shifts, what do you imagine and hope for in terms of building these truly learner-centered spaces in your school environment as it is right now?
Current Practices and Student-Centered Learning
00:06:32
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Like, what are the first major steps you're hoping to make and what do you hope it will look like once you start making those changes?
00:06:40
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I think our first step has really been over the last maybe six or eight months in particular, getting a good idea of what's actually happening in classrooms. To what extent are we student centered in classrooms or not And I think we also have to build an understanding among the faculty of what does student-centered learning actually mean.
00:07:05
Speaker
They may think that they're doing things that are student-centered, um but that doesn't mean that it's a true representation of that. So um we we all have to have an understanding of where we are so that we can chart a course to where we want to go. Ultimately, we would love to see students really being in charge and being kind of co-creators of their own um learning and active participants in that where a student is exerting just as much cognitive force in a classroom as the teacher did to maybe create the lesson in the first place or um or something like that. So I think that's been really critical and I'm hopeful that as we
00:07:49
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um as we guide the faculty through some of those experiences that they're able to see the need for something else. It doesn't mean that what we were doing was wrong per se, but it just means that it wasn't as effective as it can be.
00:08:06
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And that's really what we're trying to guide them towards is an understanding of why am I doing what I'm doing in the classroom? And is that the most effective thing that I could be doing? Or is there something else that would be more effective?
00:08:19
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I think a challenge in the future is going to be getting students to realize they have to buy into that as well. Just because you create learner centered classroom doesn't it's not a magic wand where students are just going to automatically know what to do in that space or be comfortable with that level of responsibility for their own learning.
00:08:38
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Our students haven't, in many cases, haven't been exposed to that. They've never been asked to do that kind of mental work in a classroom. And they'll have to be trained and sort of scaffolded through that, just like the faculty are. So, you know, there's more work definitely ahead.
00:08:53
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But I feel like we have, you know, the train's left the station, so to speak. We're on the right track. And, um you know, we just have to continue working towards those end goals. Well, keeping with the transportation metaphor, somebody once said to me that changing culture is like turning around a cruise ship, which I've never done, but I imagine that's very difficult to do and probably takes a lot of time to do so.
00:09:19
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so you talked earlier about culture and how in this role, you're really focusing on the curriculum and academic culture of the school, the instructional culture, learning and teaching.
00:09:32
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How does one even begin to turn that cruise ship around or to to start to touch the culture in any way. Do you have any advice for someone who's beginning that work? um Yeah, maybe.
00:09:46
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So I think in order to even start that conversation, it's so critical to have a higher level leadership that recognizes the need for that kind of change.
Leadership and Cultural Shifts
00:10:00
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So if we didn't have a superintendent that was interested in making those kinds of changes and it really investing the time and energy and financial resources needed um to to start that process it would never get off the ground so that's the first thing and then i think we've increasingly noticed that it's important for our building level and district level administrators to also be involved in this um change process that you can't just change
00:10:35
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the faculty if there isn't also ah similar level of of culture shift among the administrators. So that's a really important piece, too. And um just one person by yourself, if you're just a, you know,
00:10:50
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you know ah district level administrator or building level administrator that's interested in making changes like this, it really is a team effort. I don't know that you can steer the, you can't turn the ship just by yourself. It's, you know, there are all levels of people who are involved in making that happen and getting all those people on the same team and on this, in the same mindset to where they recognize the direction you're trying to go and why you're trying to go that way. That's so critical.
00:11:18
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um But it's also really difficult if you don't have support. Thank you for sharing that. It's very helpful. And thinking about and teaching and learning in your school, where does assessment come into
Aligning Assessment with Goals
00:11:32
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that? Do you address assessment first and then the instruction?
00:11:35
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which Which comes first in the conversation or is it all just one conversation together, instruction and it ah assessment? um Maybe we should unpack assessment for a minute.
00:11:46
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Okay, sounds good. So are we talking about formative assessment or summative assessment, like state level assessments? You know, there's there's a lot that's packed into that. That's kind of a loaded term in a way. Yeah, I think I would clarify my question by saying, how do the teachers know the students are learning? What evidence do the teachers have that students are learning the material?
00:12:10
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Yeah, that's really where we're at right now. So this past semester, our teachers did a lot of work trying to identify what are the priority standards that they're really going to focus on.
00:12:21
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And that was um more difficult for some departments and grade levels than others. But everybody put in a lot of effort and and at the end of the semester,
00:12:32
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they all have a pretty good idea of the most critical things that they need to cover in their classes. That's the starting point, because if you don't know what the end goal is, you can't measure how far you are towards meeting that goal.
00:12:45
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So now at this point, we're we're having conversations about um what is evidence of success towards mastering those priority standards?
00:12:59
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And that could be any number of things, including your more traditional assessment types, but also just student work um samples that come from from the classroom.
00:13:11
Speaker
We really want our teachers to start bringing those together and having conversations about what are they seeing um in their common grade levels or in their department And what is that
00:13:26
Speaker
what does that mean? What does that show them about course corrections that need to be made potentially or interventions that need to happen with certain subgroups of students who maybe aren't as far along towards standards mastery as what what they wanted?
00:13:41
Speaker
So, um you know, you kind of have to backwards design the whole system and selecting the learner centered teaching strategies is a component of that.
00:13:54
Speaker
um But you have to sort of tailor that to what are the needs of the student and certain students are going to need certain things and other students are going to need something else in order to get to that final destination. So.
00:14:06
Speaker
um Those are really critical conversations that we want our teachers to engage with this semester coming up. I don't know that that answered your question, though. it's It's getting there. You know, I think it's difficult to answer in just, you know, one paragraph on one podcast, right? It's a whole conversation that takes years in school. But I think you you started on the answer, the journey that we're all on. So thank you.
00:14:33
Speaker
Yep. No problem. So Frank, as you're starting to make these changes and help really shift the direction of how things are happening instructionally, are there specific resources you would recommend to other folks who are in your position so that they could be successful? Are there specific people you follow that you'd like to shout out or specific resources that you have found useful?
Recommended Research for Leadership
00:15:01
Speaker
um So one resource that we found to be really eye opening for our faculty. um At a and of course you were involved with this when you were here on site in our district, but um but at a school improvement day in second semester we had teachers write out like what are their most commonly used instructional strategies that they think are really effective or impactful or engaging for students.
00:15:35
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And then, you and then didn and they did that in small groups. um And then we asked them to go look those up on ah John Hattie's website to really look and see based on the meta research that he's been doing for 20 30 years.
00:15:53
Speaker
um what is the effect size of that particular teaching strategy or that particular influence on students? Because it isn't just about teaching strategies. It's everything from home life influences and um the you know the um environment in the classroom and just all sorts of things that impact student learning and student engagement.
00:16:16
Speaker
That was really eye opening for our faculty because so many of the things that they thought, wow, this is great. Students enjoy it. It's really awesome. It's doing a great job. And then they looked it up and they thought, wow, maybe that actually isn't as good as I thought if the goal is.
00:16:34
Speaker
helping students achieve success on a, you know, in or increase engagement or, you know, whatever it is, as opposed to just like, oh, students really enjoy that.
00:16:44
Speaker
Or I really enjoy teaching that. um That was an eye opener for a lot of our faculty. So getting people to expose to something like that. I think is really important.
00:16:55
Speaker
um So John Hattie's research, anybody that has time to to watch any YouTube videos that he has out or um explore to that website, it's really helpful. um For instructional leadership and kind of change management and those sort of things, I like what comes out of um what Jim Knight's group puts out.
00:17:16
Speaker
Those are also great. um So, you know, anything that's
00:17:22
Speaker
Anything that's helpful to um
00:17:28
Speaker
help locate where your teachers are at and then give them some practical resources so that they can um kind of see a path forward.
00:17:41
Speaker
I don't feel like it's really helpful to tell teachers that what you're doing isn't working if you don't have some alternative solution to put out there um or something that like a a group of solutions that they can pick from.
00:17:55
Speaker
they They need to co-construct that just like we want the students to co-construct learning in the classroom. We need the faculty to be involved with sort of co-constructing what is success gonna look like as a teacher in our district.
00:18:08
Speaker
So they have to be involved with that. I can't just come at them and say, well, here's the three things that I saw um at a conference that I went to, and you guys are all going to do that. um I don't think that's really that helpful.
00:18:19
Speaker
um if If they don't have some role to play in deciding what's a What's the next step that they can take in their own classroom? It has to be practical too. It can't just be theoretical.
00:18:33
Speaker
That's great for some of us who are super into the research, but at the end of the day, teachers just want to know what's going to work in my classroom and how soon can I start doing it? um And so that's another aspect of it.
00:18:48
Speaker
It has to be something that is like immediately they could take that and say, oh, yeah, I can use that in my third grade class tomorrow. Or, yeah, I can use that with my high school English students tomorrow.
00:18:59
Speaker
That's what they're looking for, because they don't have time to they don't have time to read all of that. Being a teacher is really busy. um So for us to just sort of put things out there and expect them to spend hours and hours and hours combing through it to decide what's going to work best for them.
00:19:14
Speaker
um It's really like my job is to distill that stuff down so that they they get what is immediately useful and I can put tools in their toolbox and it's it's not theoretical.
00:19:28
Speaker
It sounds like what you're describing and as far as the culture of your district is collective teacher efficacy, which is very strongly correlated ah with Hattie's research on student
Teacher Collaboration and Efficacy
00:19:40
Speaker
achievement. So I think you're on a very good start if your teachers really do believe that they can make a difference in really looking towards that. it about collaboration, right? They have to have a role in that and they need to understand that, um yeah you know, for so long in our district and I'm sure in a lot of districts, teachers have just sort of like, hey, this is my these are my four walls and I have my students in here for 45 minutes a day or whatever. And and I do what I do. And and, you know, you're kind of stuck in your own echo chamber or silo and getting them to realize that even in our own district,
00:20:14
Speaker
There are other people who are going through similar things and dealing with similar issues. And what you know to be effective in your class could be really helpful for that other person if you could get out of that and, you know, out of your classroom and and kind of experience.
00:20:29
Speaker
um collaboration. And our teachers have consistently requested that over the years, but there hasn't been an opportunity for them to do it. There hasn't been the buy-in from the district level or the building level to really make that a priority.
00:20:45
Speaker
I think we're at a point where that's starting to happen and it really is having an impact.
00:20:51
Speaker
that's That's really good news. That's great. And I love the way you talk about your faculty. It just shows that you have so much belief in them and in so much hope going forward. So it's inspirational. Thank you.
00:21:02
Speaker
ah I know that you're not so much of a social media person, but if any listener wanted to reach out to you with questions, is there a way they could do that?
Connect with Frank Shaw
00:21:11
Speaker
I am on LinkedIn. Okay.
00:21:14
Speaker
So they could, they could find me there. um i to be honest, I go on Facebook about once a year, just so that people I graduated high school with realize I'm still alive. um But, um but, but I don't do a whole lot with, I just don't do a whole lot with social media.
00:21:32
Speaker
Maybe I should. And maybe that's a, maybe that's a professional growth goal that I should set for myself. You do you, whatever works for you. So Frank, this has been fantastic. And we want to thank you so much for being on our show. I think you gave us a lot of great information. So thank you.
00:21:48
Speaker
Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. And hopefully our experiences here can help somebody else. If nothing else, just realize that um it's possible, even in a small town, sort of middle of the country type school district um that, you know, these kinds of changes are possible if if you work together as a team.
00:22:12
Speaker
Thank you for learning with us today. We hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as we did. If you'd like any additional information from the show, check out the show notes. Learn more about Mastery Portfolio and how we support schools at MasteryPortfolio.com. Please sign up for our monthly newsletter for resources to support your learner-centered pedagogy.
00:22:33
Speaker
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00:22:48
Speaker
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