Working At The Edge

Make School Different: Digital leadership & Transformation

Impromptu Administrator PD

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This past week was my first week as Superintendent in the Salisbury Township School District. While I have the advantage of having been an administrator in the district for 9 years, it was able to experience both challenges and exciting moments of learning. One of the things I have enjoyed most, especially over the past several […]

Is there a monkey on your back?

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There’s a polish proverb, Nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy. Literally translated, you get, Not my circus, not my monkeys. Basically, “not my problem.” Over the holiday break I read the quick read by Todd Whitaker, Shifting the Monkey: The Art of Protecting Good People from Liars, Criers and other Slackers.  At first the title may seem a little jarring, […]

3 considerations for transforming classrooms

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What is the greatest challenge schools face using technology for teaching and learning? As a practitioner, the data I’ve collected both formally and informally suggests one of the greatest challenges is to use  technology in ways that transform the teaching and learning process (as defined by the SAMR model). It is often easy for students to use technology in ways that […]

Measuring Leadership

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In our measurement obsessed culture, the words of Simon Sinek are a breath of fresh air. This from The 21st Century Workplace podcast – Your Leadership Echo – with Simon Sinek and David Marquet: Leadership, like parenting, is like exercise. It cannot be measured on a daily basis. You can go to the gym and […]

Actions speak louder than….talk?

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I remember first bumping up again Argyris and Schön’s theory of action – espoused theory and theory-in-use – when I was studying my administrative team for my dissertation back in 2009. A simple explanation of the two components: When someone is asked how he would behave under certain circumstances, the answer he usually gives is his […]

#Edleaders and the Myths and Truths of Social Media

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As an educational leader, social media has become a significant part of my daily work. I set time aside every morning to learn something new, whether it be from my RSS reader (Feedly), numerous blogs or Twitter. There are also various other unscheduled times throughout the day when I’ll check in on these resources for […]

5 Ways to Make Our Leadership Work More Like Art

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“If it’s work, we try to figure out how to do less. If it’s art, we try to figure out how to do more.” ~ Seth Godin Our work can either be “work” or it can be “art.” But what exactly does that mean? What is art? To that question, Godin adds, “Art isn’t only […]

VUCA and Educational Leaders

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This school year I am participating in the Pennsylvania chapter of the Education Policy Fellowship Program. We meet monthly as a group and hear from informative speakers on issues related to education policy. In October, we spent a day at the US Army War College in Carlisle, PA. It was a fascinating day hearing about […]

What is a leader’s role in setting organizational aspirations?

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From How to Help Kids Find Their Aspirations: The Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations, an independent non-profit organization, defines aspiration as the ability to set goals for the future while maintaining the inspiration in the present to reach those goals. When a student has dreams for the future and is actively working towards them, she’s in […]