SamTastic Weekly Tip: 5/20/24 - Take Time to Enjoy Your Win

Today’s tip:  Take Time to Enjoy Your Win

Congratulations on a great school year.  Over the last six weeks, Time Change Coaches completed the end of year rubric assessment with each TimeTrack user.  This assessment is a reflective practice process focusing on your gains, goals, and next steps.  Your instructional time gain is impressive.  What is more impressive is your commitment to helping teachers and other staff positively impact student learning.  The annual report summarizing the progress of all SAM teams will be released July 17.

Most TimeTrack users are on vacation in June and/or July.  As a result, your Time Change Coach will limit interaction to what you request.  Weekly TimeTrack reviews, and monthly TCC attendance at your SAM Daily Meetings, will resume August 1. 

The new TimeTrack will debut August 5.  You will find that using the new TimeTrack, after using the current, is the same as using a new iPhone or Android when you have an older model.  Easy.  All data/entries from your current TimeTrack will automatically transfer.  The new TimeTrack has dozens of new improvements and features.   It is easier to use and will allow populating Google or Outlook with TimeTrack events. Additional integration features will be released in stages. You won’t have to change your log-in or password.  You can enjoy the great new look and features.  For new features and functionality, we will provide short videos, online session options and recordings.

Leaving your current employment, retired, or retiring?  Applications for Time Change Coach training is open today through June 21.   Currently, NSIP employs 51 full and part-time Time Change Coaches.  Each year we select additional Time Change Coach applicants so we can serve new and current SAM teams.  Use this link to access the application form and for more information:  https://forms.gle/z6CKygJX7AkvJTuG8

Registration opens Labor Day

18th Annual National SAM Conference

January 16-19, 2025

Loew’s Miami Beach

30+ Breakout Sessions Featuring National Presenters and SAM Practitioners

A few things to consider when planning to attend:

• Online registration opens Labor Day.

• To be eligible to attend, you must be a TimeTrack owner or SAM doing the process with efficacy, NSIP staff, Board member or presenter.

• The conference will be held at Loew’s Miami Beach, January 16-19, 2025. Conference fees:

•  $2,895 covers three nights at the hotel, conference sessions, food/beverage, books, and ground transportation

• $895 covers the all-day pre-conference and includes the extra night at the hotel, sessions, food/beverage, books and ground transportation

• $429 covers additional nights at the hotel after the conference—we have secured additional rooms Sunday night as we expect many attendees will want to stay Sunday and travel home Monday, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

• $545 covers the cost of bringing a spouse or significant other—the fee covers the cost of ground transportation and evening events

A Message From Your SAM: click here

SamTastic Weekly Tip: 5/13/24 - Take Time for an Exit Interview

Today’s tip: Take Time for an Exit Interview

You can learn a lot from people who are leaving your school or district. Schedule time to discuss with departing staff their experience with you and the school. Here are four focus questions:

1. What did we do together that helped improve your practice?

2. What could I have done that would have been more helpful?

3. What are we best at as a staff and school?

4. What should we work at to improve?

Some SAM principals print a TimeTrack chart showing work completed during the year with the departing staff member.  They ask these question: 

1.    When you look at the time I spent with you this year, what would you have liked me to do less?  More?

2.    If you were coaching me, what would you want to accomplish?

 Exit interviews with students can be helpful, too: 

1. Tell me about teachers who you learned the most from.

2. If you were going to change something at our school that would improve student learning what would it be?

3. Which adults at school will you miss?

Taking time to listen can give you great insight on where to focus your time.

Please consider sharing the SAM process with colleagues.  We will add SAM school in two new states in August, South Carolina and Oklahoma, and have scheduled training for twelve new districts in states currently with SAM teams July, August and September.  Copy this link to a three page overview of the SAM process and send to principals you know in your district as well as leaders in other districts and states: https://bit.ly/4a9XePV

Registration opens Labor Day

18th Annual National SAM Conference

January 16-19, 2025

Loew’s Miami Beach

Keynote Speakers

Willow Sweeney

Ken Williams

David Horsager

Kara Swisher

Pre-Conference All-Day Workshop Presenters

Ted Ma

John Antonetti

Will Parker

Da’Mond Holt

Jenn David-Lang 

30+ Breakout Sessions Featuring National Presenters and SAM Practitioners

A few things to consider when planning to attend:

• Online registration opens Labor Day.

• To be eligible to attend, you must be a TimeTrack owner or SAM doing the process with efficacy, NSIP staff, Board member or presenter.

• The conference will be held at Loew’s Miami Beach, January 16-19, 2025.  Conference fees:

•  $2,895 covers three nights at the hotel, conference sessions, food/beverage, books, and ground transportation

• $895 covers the all-day pre-conference and includes the extra night at the hotel, sessions, food/beverage, books and ground transportation

• $429 covers additional nights at the hotel after the conference—we have secured additional rooms Sunday night as we expect many attendees will want to stay Sunday and travel home Monday, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

• $545 covers the cost of bringing a spouse or significant other—the fee covers the cost of ground transportation and evening events

A Message From Your SAM: click here

SamTastic Weekly Tip: 5/6/24 - Asking Good Questions

Today’s tip: Asking Good Questions

You make a point of asking good questions in feedback sessions and in your SAM Daily Meetings.  Getting a person to reflect on how they can be better is not easy. 

The questions you ask when interviewing candidates for teaching and support staff positions are important, too.  The questions must reveal a candidate’s attitude, commitment, professionalism, skills, and knowledge.  The questions you ask also tell the candidate what you value and what it will be like to work with you if they are selected.

Mike Rutherford, an accomplished principal professional development presenter and thought leader, suggests twelve questions when interviewing teacher candidates:

Question 1: Can you identify a curriculum goal or standard that students find especially difficult to master? How might you go about teaching this standard differently?

Listen for… speed and ease of recall. Skillful teachers know which areas of the curriculum are more problematic and adjust accordingly.  crucial.

Question 2: Describe a portion of curriculum where the sequencing of the learning is critical.

Listen for…specific examples of dependent curriculum sequences. Skillful teachers know what parts of the curriculum require a specific order of instruction.

Question 3: Is there any curriculum you’d like to teach if there was more time in the school year?

Listen for…speed and ease of recall. Skillful teachers teach only a fraction, perhaps 20%, of what they know from the curriculum. It should be easy to give examples from the other 80%. 

Question 4: As you think about a future episode of teaching, talk about specific learning goals that are most important to you.

Listen for…clear and assessable verbs such as diagram, solve, create, and discuss. Be wary of fuzzy verbs such as understand, know, appreciate, and experience.

Question 5:  Describe some strategies you’ve found effective in increasing students’ ability to remember what they have learned. Follow-up with:  How do you think that this strategy works? or, Why is that approach so successful?

Listen for…specific instructional approaches. Skillful teachers teach according to principles of learning that enhance memory and can describe how the principles of learning operate.

Question 6: Are there strategies that you’ve found successful in accelerating learning, actually causing students to learn faster?

Listen for…specific instructional approaches. Skillful teachers teach according to principles of learning that accelerate learning and can describe how the principles of learning operate.

Question 7: Describe a time that the classroom environment either helped or hindered the learning in your classroom.

Listen for…a specific element of the physical or social/emotional classroom environment and the teacher’s understanding of environment cause and effect.

Question 8: Can you describe any other principles of effective teaching that you rely on for successful learning?

Listen for…specific conceptual or theoretical instructional approaches. Excellent teachers don’t follow recipes. Rather, they teach according to scientific principles such as mental models, personal relevance, locale memory, etc.

Question 9: For you personally, what is the most fulfilling and satisfying thing about teaching?

Listen for…genuineness and sincerity. High efficacy teachers derive genuine fulfillment from their work.

Question 10: Describe one of your favorite teachers…what made them especially successful?

Listen for…specific characteristics of compelling nature such as the ability to connect with students, genuine enjoyment of the work, accomplishments that were due to skillful practice.

Question 11: Describe a time when you found yourself so wrapped up in something that you lost track of time.

Listen for an example form the teacher’s work life. One proof of high efficacy is regularly getting lost in the moment of an interesting and challenging task. Be wary if all the examples of this come from leisure time or hobbies.

Question 12: Teachers who establish a personal connection with students seem to be more effective in teaching them. Why do you think this is so?

Listen for…the teacher’s understanding of compelling nature as the ability of the teacher to connect with students, draw them toward self, and, in so doing, connect them to the work at hand.

You can find more great information at Mike’s website:  www.rutherfordlg.com

Mike has been a keynote and breakout session speaker at the annual National SAM Conference.  Use this link to see his inspiring keynote session Ten Unforgettable Classroom Visits:  https://bit.ly/3wm3plY

71% of SAM teams have completed the end of year rubric assessment. Congratulations!  If you haven’t completed the assessment with your Time Change Coach yet, you have something good to look forward to this week or next.    The annual assessment is a celebration of your work and an opportunity to plan and set goals for the next school year.  You’ve done great work staying in the GREEN, reflecting on next steps in improving teaching and learning and caring for students, staff, and families.  Impressive.

Please consider sharing the SAM process with colleagues.  We will add SAM school in two new states in August, South Carolina, and Oklahoma, and have scheduled training for twelve new districts in states currently with SAM teams July, August and September.  Copy this link and share ~ https://bit.ly/4a9XePV

Last week we featured Board Member, Emeritus, Debbie Daniels.  Today, meet Board Member Emeritus Carol Lensing.

Carol retired in 2006 as superintendent of schools in Anamosa, Iowa. She helped bring SAMs to Iowa in the fall of 2006, starting with three schools and expanding to 70 teams across the state. She served as the state coordinator for Iowa SAMs, worked with the School Administrators of Iowa as a Time Change Coach and Implementation Specialist across the nation, and was instrumental in bringing legislation in Iowa that certifies SAMs in the state.

Carol became an NSIP board member in 2011 and served as vice president until she retired and became a board member emeritus in 2018.

Carol has a deep passion for children and their learning. As a former principal, she knows she would have loved to have someone help her with increasing instructional time against the time spent managing the school. Carol stays active with the board because, as a grandparent, her passion for ensuring optimum learning for every child has only intensified and become more important. NSIP and the SAM process helps to ensure optimal learning for every child.