Monday, March 25, 2013

EDLD 5398 - Competencies 1-7


Week 3, Part 1 Assignment: Reflections on Domain I Competencies 1-3

DOMAIN I: School Community Leadership

Competency 001 – The principal knows how to shape campus culture by facilitating the development, articulation, implementation, and stewardship of a vision of learning that is shared and supported by the school community.

During the course of this internship, I spent over 60 hours in a variety of leadership activities that led to approaching the mastery of this competency. I learned the importance of creating a positive campus culture that allows for collaboration between colleagues and stakeholders that provides for a environment and climate that ensures high expectations and success. Collaborating with others gives the leader an opportunity to take ideas to a higher level from the input of others. 

One activity that I completed was serving on the Campus Improvement Team.  The CIT provides strategies and procedures to implement and assess successful achievement of community, campus, and district vision for teaching and learning within the district.  I have actively collaborated with administrators and campus leaders to facilitate more trainings of aligning district curriculum to improve student achievement.

In addition, I actively participated on the campus’s discipline committee that worked hard at controlling and maintaining discipline issues on the campus.  The focus is on ensuring that there is a plan of action in place to promote good behavior versus improper behavior. This committee included all stakeholders that are committed to having a positive campus culture that supports student learning.

 

Competency 002 - The principal knows how to communicate and collaborate with all members of the school community, respond to diverse interests and needs and mobilize resources to promote student success.

As lead 5th grade math teacher, I have spent numerous hours working on several projects and committees that assist teachers and students. My mission is to be the liaison between administration and teachers in our department and collaborate with other departments to cross content collaborate.  I also communicate various administrative and instructional and directives from the principal to the staff in order to communicate the goals of the campus.  This allotted me the appreciation of working with the diverse characteristics of the stakeholders in the community to improve students’ achievement.

I implemented a parental involvement committee that worked diligently in getting parents more involved in students’ success.  This committee included all stakeholders that were motivated to improving student achievement.    The goal is to get parents actively involved in education, extra-curricular activities, and school events to improve the campus culture overall.

 

Competency 003 - The Principal knows how to act with integrity, fairness and in an ethical and legal manner.

An instructional leader must always act with integrity, fairness and in an ethical and legal manner.  Often principals’ ethical standards are put to test but it is important to stay ethical at all times. I had to model fairness when dealing with student discipline, apply the rights to all students equally, and keep information confidential. I learned from my internship that it is the responsibility of a leader to do what is right even if others may not agree with the decision.  I will be an advocate for all students ensuring their rights are protected and have equal opportunities to be in educational environment where learning occurs. 

As the principal, I always will be in compliance with The Code of Ethics and Standard Practices for Texas Educators and report any violations.  The laws, and policies, and procedures must be administered in a fair and reasonable manner.  The instructional leader must remember that he/she is there to serve as an advocate for all children.  My entire internship as well as my teaching career, I was able to master the competency.  This was not difficult since I always practice integrity, fairness and am ethical in all situations.



 
Week 3, Part 2:  Reflections on Domain II Competencies 4-7

Domain II

Competency 004 - The principal knows how to facilitate the design and implementation of curricula and strategic plans that enhance teaching and learning; ensure alignment of curriculum, instruction, resources, and assessment; and promote the use of varied assessments to measure student performance.

As an instructional leader it is important to monitor students’ progress thru student’s learning, the quality of the student’s work, and the degree of implementation of teaching and learning strategies through multiple data sources.  Through the course of this competency, I found myself to be extremely data driven.  The use of a variety of assessment and the observation approach to collect evidence of learning is an important factor where analyzing the data is needed.   Reflection should be given to the curricular and strategic plan on a regular basis when reviewing data so that any adjustments needed can be made immediately.    

Throughout the year I spent over 40 hours working on this competency.  I continuously attended professional development on analyzing data and collaborating on how to improve student achievement in deficit areas.  I also provided trainings to the math department on materials that I learned at district and out of district staff development.  I also lead the search on finding more resources to implement the strategies to improve student achievement for the campus. 

 

Competency 005 - The principal knows how to advocate, nurture, and sustain an instructional program and a campus culture that are conducive to student learning and staff professional growth.

During the course of my internship, I not only worked as part of the campus and discipline committee to improve student achievement but I also worked as an interventionist for underachieving students.  I worked with the students that were not successful on district benchmarks every six weeks to help improve the gaps in academics these students needed.  I was also responsible for finding the best resource of intervention that was beneficial to each student. 

I also had the opportunity to be a part of my campus’s Professional Learning Community. In PLC, we collaborated, shared and communicated on great ideas to use in the learning environment.  Facilitate the development of professional learning communities to support instructional improvement and change is important to the nurture of a good staff.  By analyzing the instructional needs and allocating resources effectively and equitably to the teacher, the student’s needs are met.  Overall this improves the campus culture in the goal of improving student achievement. 

 

Competency 006 - The principal know how to implement a staff evaluation and development system to improve the performance of all staff members, select and implement appropriate models for supervision and staff development, and apply the legal requirements for human resource management.

PDAS is the instrument tool used to evaluate teachers in my district.  During my internship, I was warranted the opportunity to participate in doing various teachers evaluations by doing walkthroughs.  Prior approval from participating teachers was given before the walkthroughs.  A few teachers allowed me to sit in on their final evaluation and summative with the principal.  It was a great experience because I saw the great deal of experience a principal has in the competency.

Also in this competency, I was able to sit in on the interview committee.  I was able to see the process of how new teachers were selected and all of the criteria behind it.  I was actually given the opportunity to give feedback and suggestions on the qualifications and opinions of applicants.  My opinion, as well as the others on the committee, was vital to the selection of the new teachers.  It was important to select someone that was qualified and fits with the current campus culture. 

 

Competency 007 - The principal knows how to apply organizational, decision-making, and problem solving skills to ensure an effective learning environment.

An instructional leader has to possess skills in organization, decision making and problem solving to have an effective learning environment.  Continuous professional development is the way to keep current with these skills.  Staff development is a process that seeks to promote professional and individual growth and development for all stakeholders.  Staff development activities should be research based, mission and vision driven, quality activities that are meant to lead to high levels of student learning. 

My internship has provided my opportunity for me to demonstrate my abilities to manage group of students, parents, and staff to ensure the maintenance of an effective learning environment.    One of the activities I spent some time was serving on the district improvement committee and conducting a comprehensive needs assessment.  This committee examined data for curriculum, instruction, and assessment.  Overall, a principal must possess great problem solving and decision making skills to guide and lead the campus to a path of student success.





 

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