SamTastic Weekly Tip: 8/28/23 - Show Agency in your Leadership Work

Principal Agency is when a leader acts with intentionality and believes they have the power, rationality, or responsibility, to do so.

Principals with agency act with intention, are goal oriented and accept the risk in acting. They understand resources, and district culture, create limits, but focus on what is possible, what they can do rather than what they can’t.

Agency, when responsibly applied, can lead to creative solutions. Great leaders have agency and use it to involve others in decision making. Communications Coach Jennifer Kammeyer believes leaders need two leadership styles, Agentic and Communal, to be effective. She describes communal leadership as the ability to pull the best from everyone and to generate new ideas, build relationships and foster community. She describes Agentic leadership as the ability to drive toward a goal taking the risks and demanding the standards to reach excellence.

Today’s SamTastic Weekly Tip is taken from a draft article on principal agency by NSIP Director Mark Shellinger. Click here for a copy of the complete draft and an opportunity to share your thoughts and experiences: Agency

Registration opens for the 17thAnnual National SAM Conference, September 4, Labor Day.

SamTastic Weekly Tip: 8/21/23 - Consider the Frequency and Sequence of your Interactions

This week’s tip: Consider the Frequency and Sequence of your Interactions

As you start the new school year, you’ve likely selected teachers you intend to spend more time with than others. You’ve also likely told TimeTrack who these “focus” teachers are by going to the TimeTrack orange logo, selecting settings, and then Individual/Group Set-Up.

Clicking the focus button shows the hours/minutes spent with each teacher you intend to spend more time and effort. This gives you quick access to data showing the time you’ve spent with each person, in groups and individually, in hours/minutes number of interactions.

Many leaders with open he chart showing the time spent with each focus teacher and click on the Interactions button, top left. This changes the chart to show the number of separate times the leader worked with a teacher, rather than the number of minutes. Many leaders go a step further by clicking the frequency button. This shows a comparison of the number of times the leaders observed the teacher in a classroom with the number of feedback sessions. In addition to frequency, it also shows the pattern, or sequence.

The chart to the left, shows the principal had five interactions with the teacher in October, two times seeing the teacher in a classroom and three feedback sessions. SAM teams use this information to consider if the frequency of work with the teacher, and the sequence of the interactions, will likely lead to improved practice.

TimeTrack data is like an onion. Peal back one layer and you’ll find more below. By clicking on the October bar, here’s what is revealed:

Now the leader can see the sequence of the interactions. The first week of October, the leader was in the classroom twice and had one feedback session, after. The leader had a single feedback session in each of the following two weeks.

The data doesn’t say good or bad. The data helps SAM teams be reflective. Does my work with teachers improve practice? Is it frequent enough? Is the sequence of interactions logical?

Registration opens for the 17thAnnual National SAM Conference, September 4, Labor Day.

SamTastic Weekly Tip: 8/14/23 - Go Beyond Visiting Classrooms

This week’s tip: Go Beyond Visiting Classrooms

The SAM process is all about intentionality. Leaders often say they want to give teachers more feedback about what they observe. This makes sense, as working effectively with teachers requires thoughtful conversations.

Determining your purpose for having a feedback session starts in the SAM Daily Meeting. When you select the descriptor for feedback, you are stating your intentionality.

Directive Feedback: Your intent is to provide direction. You are stating an expectation, a “non-negotiable”. Your intent is to gain compliance.

Non-Directive Feedback: Your intent is to get the teacher to talk about a particular issue, or instructional practice, and think through options and ideas. Your intent is build competency and a commitment to trying new ideas and approaches to help students learn.

Celebratory Feedback: Your intent is to point out a “win” and get the teacher to talk with you about it. Your intent is to cement good practice and let the teacher know you appreciate their work…without going to the next step. Why? You know it is more likely the teacher will keep doing the good work you observed if you can let them enjoy the win…and they will be far more receptive for the other two kinds of feedback, Directive and Non-Directive, if you don’t rush things. Think of this as cementing good practice.

Good SAM’s make it a point to ask the leader after they’ve watched a lesson what kind of feedback they would like to schedule.

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Registration opens for the 17thAnnual National SAM Conference, September 4, Labor Day