SEL in 5 – Optimizing Environments for Educators to Thrive
Read this month's digest of SEL leadership insights.
This month, we discuss ways to empower educators to experiment.
P.S. Our friends at GiveThx are launching an Educator Wellbeing Program Grant Initiative to support school and district leaders working on staff wellbeing, culture or retention. The program is fully funded for the 2023-24 academic year. You can find more information here—deadline to apply is August 15.
3 SEL Leadership Thoughts
The role of a leader is to make it easier for their teachers to conduct experiments. What is the “R&D” budget set aside for teachers? How can we help teachers learn from each other in peer learning cycles—that is, create times and spaces for teachers to share their learnings with one another? How can we shift the bulk of what we do in department or faculty meetings into time about how we are improving teaching and learning? [Tweet This]
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Teachers have influence over pedagogy.
If you want to empower educators to innovate and change their teaching practices, you need to deliberately create spaces for them to learn from one another; to experiment and share the results of these experiences with their colleagues. This is a hugely important insight—that this cycle of peer learning is the main way that teaching and learning actually changes in schools and is a powerful lever for improving student learning.
You cannot improve schools without empowering teachers to generate new practices by conducting experiences and sharing their learnings with others.
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Using a top-down approach can make it incredibly difficult when convincing teachers to try something new (and implement it with fidelity).
Most educators are naturally skeptical (and, usually, rightfully so) of new ideas that come down from the state or from their superintendent, especially when so many don’t stick year after year. The majority of teachers are patient pragmatists, sitting on the fence and watching as these new initiatives come and go. They want to see if there is evidence—not from research studies, but from their colleagues—that a new tool or program is working.
That said, there are always small groups of teachers who want to give it a shot; early adopters who get a lot of energy from trying out new technologies or teaching new lessons. When these early adopters informally share what they are doing with their peers or are given a platform to share successes and lessons learned, it creates a flywheel effect in which more teachers try it out and share.
Long story short: if you want to get teachers to do something new, you have to get them to learn from one another. [Tweet This]
2 Quotes from SEL Leaders
“Teachers who engage in communities of practice often feel more capable of addressing challenges that arise in their work. Learning from colleagues ensures that teachers grow in knowledge relevant to their unique contexts and validates the value of teachers’ collective knowledge. For now, district and site leaders should consider replacing mandated professional-development time, often implemented in a top-down manner with little individual meaning for teachers, with time to engage with communities of practice that learn and share evidence-based practices related to teachers’ present needs.” – Sarah Caroleo, Johns Hopkins University [Tweet This]
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“Teachers… have two spaces that they learn [in]. One of those spaces is in a college of education classroom or a seminar room where you can kind of talk about teaching. That is not the way that we improve in most circumstances… Part of what we have to do to help teachers get better is to try to make the chunks of what we're experimenting with small enough that we can iterate on them — small enough so we can say, ‘Hey, in our next faculty meeting, why don't you teach a 10- or 15-minute mini-lesson where we try this new thing?’.” – Justin Reich, MIT [Tweet This]
1 Question to Reflect On
How are you planning to create spaces for peer learning and collaboration this school year?
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Until next month,
Nick Woolf
Author of SEL in 5
Founder of Inside SEL
p.s. here’s what else I’m reading and listening to: