Among the identical twins, 42 pairs out of 280 pairs showed significant differences in reading improvement during the year studied, said lead researcher Jeanette Taylor, an associate professor of psychology at Florida State.

In each case, the teachers also had significantly different quality scores. Twins with similarly good teachers got similar scores.

And yet, U.S. schools of education continue to churn out substandard teachers (which is not to say that many excellent teachers are being produced as well). Here is the bottom line: To the degree a school, district or state invests in its teachers, learners will progress to the same degree. In the end it’s not the facilities, resources or PC considerations that get results; it’s having smart, well-trained teachers.

The researchers believe their results showed the best teachers made the biggest difference in learning achievement. Genetic differences between students seemed to disappear in classrooms taught by less effective teachers, because children don’t reach their potential, the researchers found.

Interesting final sentence in the quote above. Could it be that political lobbies prefer that students are equally poorly taught in a misguided attempt to be egalitarian? Surely they don’t think that far ahead; they’re just incompetent.

Give me a core of really good teachers, and I’ll show you a successful school.

The purpose of supervision (as it applies to the relationship between a school leader and school teachers) is:

To assist in creating a tone

• A tone of respect
• A tone of inclusion
• A tone of caring
• A tone of professionalism
• A tone of reflection
• A tone of “doing it better”
• A tone of celebration

To assist in crafting a vision

• Where are we versus where do we want to be

To assist in collaboration on goals leading to the vision

To assist in assessing improvement—movement towards the vision—and help in changing, adjusting, reformulating goals for continued improvement

To assist in caring for teachers—not only professionally but personally

To assist in the self-actualization of teachers

• Here I’m alluding to Aristotle’s view that life’s goal is to attain a state loosely translated as happiness but upon inspection refers to fulfilling the measure of our creation—i.e. to be excellent human beings, to live excellently. This comes about as a result of reflecting on our present state and constantly striving for oneness with our ideals. Bringing it back down to earth in the teaching realm, the supervisor can help teachers become “self-actualized” by providing opportunities for constant reflection, reinforcing a common vision of what it is to be an “excellent” teacher, and working together to make that vision a reality. In the process, the supervisor also moves towards self-actualization.

All of these with the goal of educating learners (understanding that defining “educating learners” is the preeminent precursor to all else) and helping them become fulfilled human beings.

Note that with all of these “purposes” I have used words such as assist, help, and collaborate. This speaks to my view that supervision is most effective when it is collaborative. Yes, the school leader sets the tone and gets the ball rolling, but from there I prefer that mission, vision, aims, improvement, policy-making, etc. is collaborative. The problem I have run into with teachers new to my style is that they sometimes find it unsettling initially, that Kevin is not a strong leader because he isn’t dictating to me from on high. My hope is that in time they realize that it takes considerably more leadership and effort to pull people together on a common task than to tell them what to do.

In regards to the reading, in chapters 4 and 5 Glickman spent considerable time on numbers 3, 4, 5, and 6 in my echelon. I was first given pause by the considerable time devoted to knowing my teachers, though it is patently clear that the better I know them, the better I can supervise them. The corollary to this is I cannot expect to treat all of my faculty the same way, as they are sometimes far separated in age, experience, and expertise. The need for tailoring my approach based on these and other factors hit me right between the eyes. The research points out something that is intuitively true but which I hadn’t internalized into my practice.

A further insight I gained was the importance of ensuring that teachers feel secure and of providing proper pastoral care for them. As with students, so with teachers: If a student is having non-academic problems in or out of school, it’s going to affect her performance. Likewise with teachers. Glickman cites Merriam and Clark’s study:

One of Merriam and Clark’s most significant findings was the predominance of work-related learning for both men and women and the evidence that more learning occurs when things are going well in both arenas (work and family life). However, learning that led to a real perspective transformation most often was associated with coping with the difficult times in either work (e.g., being fired) or family life (e.g., losing a parent). Since much of the most significant adult learning appears to be from life experience, the role of the supervisor may be critical in helping teachers to experience growth as an outcome of unsettling life experiences in the professional, personal, or family domains. Although the supervisor need not and should not assume the role of therapist, one implication of the social roles models of adult development is that a teacher’s personal, family, and professional roles interact with and affect each other and need to be addressed holistically by supervision (Glickman 75).

I’m currently enrolled in a master’s class from Lehigh University labeled “Supervision and Professional Development.” As part of the class we were asked to contribute a “best learning experience.” Given my enthusiasm for classroom tech, I offered the following submission:

“The best learning experience I’ve had in the last couple of years is one that not only affected me deeply but has grown to influence and, I believe, improve learning for my faculty and students is the integration of 21st century technology in the classroom and in the school generally.

As a teaching principal, I’ve used online resources over the years to great affect in the classroom. And while useful, the resources I was using were often discrete and disjointed–i.e. I would find a rubric I like here, a worksheet I like there, a study guide hither, and a classroom activity yon. The recent evolution in web 2.0 utilities, however, has changed everything.

I began immersing myself in utilities such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, wikis, NewsReaders, etc. about a year and a half or two years ago. Immediately it was apparent to me how these utilities might be useful not only in the classroom but in the school as a whole. While I had had my students dabble in these technologies previously, they quickly became central to our skills-based learning outcomes as I realized that this is the direction in which learning was moving.

In order to make sense of the exponentially increasing information out there, collaboration via these media has become essential so that I can work together to collate and process the information. And not only that–how I can communicate more effectively with students and colleagues is being revolutionized in new tools such as Google Wave. (I’m kevinblissett@googlewave.com, by the way, if you’d like to join my wave. I have plenty of invites if you need them.)

The upshot of all of this is that I’ve gotten most of my faculty and students on the technology train as well–not because I’m forcing my own interests on them, but rather because they quickly come to realize that we can learn and collaborate better via these media. I’m still learning these techologies; something new comes out every week. But I’m genuinely excited about the tools, and I’ve grown more efficient and connected as I’ve used them. I believe my faculty and students have as well.

• Develop a Personal Learning Network (PLN) on Twitter.
• Take charge of professional development.
• Involve parents by creating a link between home and school.
• Find educational blogs to discover new ideas, encouragement, and educational news.
• Don’t reinvent the wheel.

Kelly offers lots of detail about each of her suggestions so be sure to read the whole article.

As part of the seven-day training session–Creating and Administering an Effective School–I am required to pre-read a book/doc titled How the World’s Best School Systems Come Out on Top. I’ll be reporting, reflecting and commenting on the reading as I make my way through as part of my learning process. Your comments are always appreciated.

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It seems clear that the best type of education centers on information discovery and processing, making connections, and collaboration and community. I read an informative piece by Will Richardson about the importance of building community as a precursor to the introduction of new learning tools. That is, unless I understand how to best use the tools within the context of a personal learning network, my understanding and internalization of concepts will not be as deep. Richardson:

It’s difficult to understand the impact that online learning networks and communities can bring (and their potential downsides) without being a part of them.

We need to do personally what we expect our students to do in the classroom; proper modeling cannot be underestimated. How will I inspire my students to do classroom blogs unless I cannot point them to the joy and fulfillment I find in blogging? How can I encourage them to collaborate if I cannot demonstrate how I collaborate in a variety of media? Richardson continues:

As Linda Darling-Hammond suggests, “…teachers need to learn the way other professionals do—continually, collaboratively, and on the job.”

Yet, I suspect that some of us educators are standing pat and not extending ourselves in this way.

Our continued emphasis on tools in pd misses that larger point, obviously, because the power of the Read/Write web is not the ability to publish; it’s the ability to connect. Broken record, I know, but tools are easy; connections are hard.

Image by D’Arcy Norman