Blog

I recently transferred my old blog to this new domain site and in the process decided to add categories and tags to each of my posts. I previously had no idea of why one would categorize blog posts until I read this post by George Couros and watched his video from a session he led on the topic:

In George’s video clip he says that blogging is “learning openly.” He goes on to say that “this is not to ‘toot my own horn,’ but to put my ideas out there, because there are a lot of great educators online that can respond to my posts, challenge me and add to my thinking.”

This past year our district implemented the CESA 6 Teacher Effectiveness Project to meet what will be the new state requirement for the teacher evaluation process in 2014-2015.  As part of this new system, each educator must submit artifacts into a documentation log (similar to a portfolio) to demonstrate evidence of effectiveness for the standards.  As I watched George’s video, I realized how easy it is to turn your blog into a portfolio if you align your posts to the standards.

Easy, right? Well, since I had over 100 posts that didn’t have categories it did take quite a bit of time to go back and review them. It was interesting to read my old reflections and compare to where I am now. I then realized how it can be difficult to decide which standard each blog post fit into (to my teachers reading this…I do realize the dilemma you had deciding which standard each of your artifacts should be in!) Over the past year I became an expert on the teacher standards, but I realized that I couldn’t even recite the administrator standards, let alone identify which standards that each of my practices aligned with!

As I read through my blog posts, I had the document of administrator standards open in my Evernote file to refer back to.  I found several of my posts fit into more than one standard and also found that a handful of posts didn’t really fit into any of them, so I created a “Personal Learning” category in addition to these standard categories.

While this took me a great deal of time (it took me a few different sittings over a week’s time), I felt like it was time well spent for me to better understand our administrator standards and reflect on my practice according to these standards.

So, from this point forward, my blog posts will be aligned to the following CESA 6 Effectiveness Project Administrator Standards (plus the personal learning category):

Performance Standard 1: Leadership for Student Learning

The school administrator drives the success of each learner through collaborative implementation of a shared vision of teaching and learning that leads to student academic progress and school improvement.

Performance Standard 2: School Climate

The school administrator fosters the success of all students by advocating, developing, nurturing, and sustaining a safe, positive, and academically engaging school climate.

Performance Standard 3: Human Resources Leadership

The school administrator provides effective leadership in the area of human resources through selecting, assigning, inducting, supporting, developing, evaluating, and retaining quality instructional and support personnel. 

Performance Standard 4:  Organizational Management

The school administrator fosters the success of all students by supporting, managing, and overseeing the school’s organization, operation, and use of resources.

Performance Standard 5: Communication and Community Relations

The school administrator fosters the success of all students by effectively communicating, collaborating, and engaging stakeholders to promote understanding, support, and continuous improvement of the school’s programs and services that are aligned with the school’s vision.

Performance Standard 6: Professionalism

The school administrator fosters the success of all students by demonstrating behavior consistent with legal, ethical, and professional standards and by engaging in continuous professional development and contributing to the profession.