Leadership Improvement Practices

By: Hannah Holler

This Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, at the Oregon Convention Center, the Association of Middle Level Education (AMLE) conferences are underway. I sat down in the workshop "Leadership and School Improvement Practices that Accelerate High Student Growth" Mr. Bobby Moore, the presenter, offered many interesting points in his lesson.

The seminar focused very much on the way we can help teachers work together to share ideas and practices that have worked well for them. This will translate into better student effectiveness. He said that engaging high-performing districts through research and innovation focused on commitment, action, and collaboration will increase/impact productivity in classrooms. Most problems are caused by lack of understanding and initiative fatigue. If we cultivate our societies as we would a garden, build on teamwork, and don't blame one another for everything that goes wrong, our education system can be successful. The first thing is to limit the goals to focus on what really matters.

Collaboration
Support
Respect
Care

Creativity
Adaptability
Vision
Relevance

Structure
Plans
Rules
Procedures

Achievement
Goal Orientation
Accountability
Progress

These goals are structure around control, external focus, internal focus, and flexibility. Once we can manage these, our education system will work more smoothly. In his presentation he wanted to say that any child could be leader and the school system has great room for potential.