functions of a leader

Hi, I'm abby Gregory and here we are with the

degree capstone, the final steps of our journey.

And I want to present to you today the functions

of a curriculum leader.

Um And there's eight functions of becoming a leader of

curriculum and they are curriculum instruction assessment, becoming a leader

of processes, a leader of professional development, leader of relationship

building, leader of performance and becoming a leader of operations

and change.

And I set it up like this.

Have you ever put together a puzzle and if you

have, do you like it for me?

I do like putting puzzles together.

I'm really good at putting non connecting puzzles together And

I can do 50 pieces pretty well if it gets

over that I need some help from some of my

students, they can sort some of the pieces out and

help me connect them and put put parts together.

Um Now if we're talking about 1000 piece puzzle, I

do like those, I need a lot of people to

help me.

Um But once you have those people you can get

it put together and you can have fun.

So this is kind of a metaphor.

Um You know we're going down this journey down this

road and we're putting pieces together to become a curriculum

of instruction leader curriculum and instruction leader.

So I'm going to take a look at the first

one which is leaders of curriculum instruction and assessment and

leaders really need to focus on the alignment of curriculum

instruction and assessment.

Um When they identify uh district wide standards and benchmarks

at every grade level, they really need to drive that

and have each grade level team help in that.

So, oh and I should mention that this standard, this

is aligns to the Missouri Leader, standard standard number one,

which is vision, mission and goals.

And so the class that really you learn a lot

about this from is the capstone class.

What I learned was a lot and in all of

my research I learned a lot and all of the

discussions, the discussions were wonderful and it got me thinking

more. Um but here's one thing that I did learn

is that research is a black hole and black holes

can be scary.

Um But the way that I thought was I'm researching

about my topic and I would come across something else

and something else and it would just sparked my attention

and it was something that I really wanted to go

towards to improve.

So I mean you can get stuck in a black

hole or you can keep moving and make things better.

So anyway um research is a very powerful tool tool

that helps leaders to make informed decisions.

And I have learned that in this class in this

class of capstone, as a teacher helped me to address

what needed what needed to be changed.

And as a leader the assignments that helped me to

learn to be aware of what is happening in my

school. Um were several assignments in here.

So I along with a team can decide how to

make it a better place.

School is a huge thing.

There's so many topics in school that you can't do

it alone.

And my research was was based on a need that

I saw needed to be taught to help teachers make

informed decisions for the success of their students.

So this is just a sample page of the research

that I focused on.

And this sample page is called the eye page which

is something that's in an I.

E. P.

And it's new this year um That everyone, every teacher

who fills out an IP must fill out this because

it talks about if a student or if there were

school closures again, how would the student have access to

education? So my contribution through all this research research will

be to support the teacher and parents to ensure that

access to education, no matter where the student is, learning

will be attainable.

The next function is the leader of data data analysis.

And just to be vulnerable and honest, I would say

this is where um I feel most insecure and where

I will rely on my colleagues to help me beef

up this area.

But it's just um I think leaders need to create.

Leaders of data analysis should create systems for teachers to

collect data and then together they can analyze and monitor

um the implementation and and then the impact of improvement

that the strategies have had.

Um And the, so the leader would sit down with

a teacher, but then look at a whole for a

district level.

Um But I think it's important for leaders to have

these systems in place because teachers need to be lead

that way.

Um They don't need to be um designing one way

to to collect data when there's something already made for

them. Uh So there's that saying work smarter not harder.

This would be a great example of how a curriculum

leader would be able to help that teacher work smarter

not harder.

Um So by comparing data, it shows where students are

in a certain area and where instruction needs to be

altered in my profession.

I'm a special education consultant and I come alongside teachers

to look at the their progress monitoring of individual students.

So this data literacy and assessment class really opened my

eyes to be a leader to these teachers.

And it will help the teacher and I determine if

any changes need to be made to the IP based

on the progress monitoring of the teacher.

So we would look at that progress monitoring and the

trend lines.

If the students trendline is going up and it's consistent

with Like three weeks in a row or whatever the

IP. says then we need to make modifications for that

student and so that the next goal can be met

and they can get to the next goal in the

next goal and maybe look at exiting them eventually.

Um Now it on the other end end of the

students trend line is below where it should be.

Then we need to look at where it can be

modified because the student needs to be set up for

success. Not being able to accomplish something is not very

motivating. And this is my data wall from in that

class. And I was very impressed because I've never made

anything like that.

So I was looking at letter naming fluency um and

the data wall was showing the pre test and post

test results.

I used the doubles to help our two as the

pre and post test.

So that's just a picture of my dad a wall.

Another class that helped with the this becoming a leader

of data is the academic quick uh inquiry.

And I learned that research focuses on the concerns of

teachers and engages teachers in the design data collection and

interpretation of data around a question that they are concerned

about. So everything everything is driven by data and then

that data shows the teacher something and there's areas that

are spotlighted of areas of concern.

So the function of the curriculum leader is to collaborate

with that teacher um that when the issue was discovered

and how it can be addressed to bring about stronger

student wellbeing learning and engagement in this class, I learned

how important completing research of issues that needs to be

solved is the action research is evidence based and has

been reflected on and evaluated and revised to better the

solution of action research.

So in my professional practice now the action that I

would take would to assist educators and that is my

job is assisting the educator.

So I would assist educators to implement simple and successful

strategies, intervention methods and tools to guide them toward a

successful change of the area that they're concerned with.

Now we're still putting pieces of the puzzle together and

we're going to be going to the leaders of processes.

Um this is where leaders need to assure the capacity

of a system for success for students in collaborative leadership,

benchmark initiatives are planning um will help determine the specific

steps that needs that will be needed to achieve a

desired outcome.

And this aligns with standard number five, which is ethics

and integrity and standard number three management of organizational um

systems, which is part of the Missouri leader standards, transition

issues in curriculum and instruction is a class that helped

with this um function of curriculum.

What I learned from this is I learned a lot

about different things, but technology was something that I was

very passionate about during this class and it is definitely

something that educators need to improve on, especially with what

happened during the pandemic.

Um it's just crucial that the technology uh that we

are instructing with is going to be useful and that

educators are able to access it and know what to

do with it to keep the students engaged.

So it's important to the leader to develop an initiative

or a plan to determine specific steps that will need

to be achieved for the desired outcome again of technology.

So that would be like professional development areas.

What are some ways that you can use technology to

help students be engaged?

My particular assignment is an early childhood.

It is a very controversial subject right now because there's

many teachers that believe that you should not what preschoolers

use technology.

And there's a lot that say, these guys can learn

a lot more and we just need to show them

how to navigate in appropriate ways.

Um, so my contribution would be to provide and encourage

professional learning for educators who need instruction in teaching through

technology. There just are a lot of teachers.

Um they don't know how to use it.

There's somewhat old school, I would say.

Um this program has helped me with technology, but I

still have so much to learn and many teachers asked

me what apps are good or what computer programs can

I use and I have to go research because I

need to find ones that are research or evidence based

and not just throw out, oh, just look up, just

make a search of phony, make awareness.

So yeah, the next class that helped in this was

visionary leadership and I learned a lot about smart goals.

When I was in the classroom, I was in a

district that just started using smart goals and I really

never knew how to use them.

So I was very appreciative of how to do this,

um, how to set goals to accomplish a vision and

um make them so their specific, measurable attainable relevant and

time based.

Um as a curriculum leader I thought something that was

very important and very simple was just setting goals with

an educator and then celebrating small winds.

Because when you set a goal that's a big picture

item and so sometimes it feels very daunting to get

to the end of the goal.

So you have to celebrate those small winds to keep

motivating teachers and the assignments help me just understand what

smart goals were and how to write them and the

way that I can make goals now are to individual

and I write initial I.

E. P.

So um that will help me to individualize student goals

in an I.

P. And as a leader I would want to work

with educators to set goals for themselves and assist them

in guiding their own students to develop goals for themselves.

It's important that the teacher isn't saying, yep, this is

what you have to do.

Students can hold themselves accountable and take the ownership of

their learning Prezi The next function of leadership is leaders

of learning and professional development.

This is where leaders just need to equip.

functions of a leader

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