Assignment 6: Schoenbrun Reflection Assignment

Describe the steps you would take as a principal to ensure that the curriculum is implemented and assessed at the classroom and school levels so that students learn the intended content.

I am going to reflect on this question as if I were new to the position.

First and foremost I feel it is essential to familiarize yourself with the current curriculum. Basically, I would go through similar steps that we did during our curriculum analysis project but obviously not to the same depth. I would then record areas that I did not understand and seek out the professionals in the district who could explain them to me. I don’t know how you can act as an instructional leader if you are not clear about the curriculum yourself.

Next I would begin by meeting with the subject and grade level team leaders to understand how they view the curriculum and their perspective of how it is being implemented at our school. I would need to listen carefully to their descriptions in order to assess their understanding of the curriculum and recognize if it is aligned with the districts understanding. This is also important because it sheds light on issues that may arise and also allows the principal to gauge where change may need to begin.

The next step would be to speak with the remaining stakeholders; teachers, students, parents, and community members. I feel even 1st graders can give you a good sense of how the curriculum is being implemented if you ask the right questions. From all of this I would need to solidify what I see as the big picture of the school at that moment in time, share and clarify that picture and then begin the work of understanding where we need to start our on-going journey towards continued improvement. This is the part that can get tricky, the principal needs to set a tone of collaboration and not blame. You need to help your faculty see that the next steps are for the good of the whole and will be taken in a spirit of stewardship. Teachers, no matter what, will feel some disequilibrium when anyone talks about assessing their instruction and student performance. I think we need to acknowledge that and understand that in the initial stages we are only setting a tone, it is the act of instituting that changes that will be the true test.

The next step is to gather all of the data that is available and begin to make sense of it. Organizing it in a format that is accessible to everyone and working with the faculty to pull out the important story it tells us about our school. Then we need to collaboratively create a collective vision of what we believe the characteristics of high-quality, rigorous, inquiry-based curriculum is when implemented in the classroom. We need to build consensus during the decision-making process to insure that at least a critical mass of the faculty is bought into the idea of growth. At that point I would work with teachers to create data collection tools such as a school walk thru model. This would help us further identify areas of concern for us and areas of success. You need to celebrate the successes.

From that we can create professional development opportunities that make sense for us. The data may reveal school-wide initiatives such as reading strategies, or it may be content driven, we won’t know until we have taken the steps to self-assess. At this point we need to create a plan for implementation, set measurable goals, understand how to collect reliable data, and institute a cycle of reflective practice. The long range goals could take up to 5 years while some short range goals could take only a quarter.

Once we have a clear road map, knowing that it may take detours, I would need to be in the classrooms observing, helping to instruct, reflecting with teachers, providing authentic valuable feedback, and looking at student work. I would need to support our efforts by supplying the needed resources whether that be PD, time, materials, or continued education. But always understanding that in order to move forward we need to be truthful to the process and honest about how our implementation is working. It is a constant cycle. We would need to collect, organize and analyze data collected from formative and summative assessments to help use evaluate the effectiveness of our interventions and make adjustments to the process as needed.

I don’t feel there is one correct answer to this question because so much depends on the culture of the school at the time that you take on the leadership role. There are also the variables of culture, economic levels, teacher preparation, and federal/state/district mandates which may be in direct conflict with what your school needs. It is an adventure to say the least.