With the superintendent's departure, I fear a return to the "hire from within" typical Worcester response. I could totally see the Board saying, well we did a national search and it only got us someone for 3 years . . . . This would be a terrible reaction and conclusion.
I disagree that it would be a terrible reaction. I think it depends on WHO they hired within...there's two people I think could do well in that role. The thing about bringing in a completely new person right in this moment is new superintendents have egos (for better or worse) and need to "put their stamp on things" and make big changes. I don't think we need that at the moment and it would create more uncertainty. My vote is hire someone within who is committed to the vision and strategic plan and who doesn't have the ego. And I think there's currently two very strong choices who fit those criteria-Brian Allen and Dr. Kue.
"Digital portfolios" and "curating artifacts" sounds a lot like a push for even MORE time spent on screen for our young kiddos. No surprise this is being piloted at Wawecus where their principal is simultaneously Director of Ed Tech.... the more tech the district purchases and pushes, the more job security she has. The last thing the district needs is more tech, the next to last thing they need are more "coaches," just another layer of middle management and administrative bloat. Why not put the money towards more teachers to decrease class sizes? Better salaries for paraprofessionals? School librarians? Before and after-school activities? Healthier buildings? A million other things.
Full disclosure: I am a current Spark coach. My understanding is that the district is not adding more coaches-they are looking to include additional folks who are currently building-based coaches into the Spark program, which provides a solid coaching structure to help teachers address a problem of practice through innovative student-centered approaches.
Good to know it won't be more coaches, just more clearly defined roles for the coaches. Could you elaborate on "a problem of practice through innovative student-centered approaches" because, no offense, that kind of sounds like a bunch of jargon that could mean anything or nothing at all - could you rephrase into plain english that actually explains what the spark will do besides add another reason for little kids to spend even more time staring into screens?
Sure. The teacher identifies a problem or issue that they want to try to adjust or improve (this is the problem of practice). For example, in one of my coaching cycles, the teacher was concerned about a lack of student engagement with a unit focused on creating arguments. Through discussion, we decided that a good way to build engagement was to have students participate in a cooperative project rather than solely writing the required argument essay. We worked together to co-plan and co-implement a mock trial of Odysseus. Students were broken into two teams (one side arguing that Odysseus should be considered a hero and the other arguing that he should not). The students then worked together to identify the main points of their argument, identify which witnesses they would need to call to support their points, and then develop openings, closings, directs and crosses for their side. The culmination of this work was a two day mock trial with students playing the attorneys and witnesses. The students really enjoyed it, and they gained important argument building skills that strengthened the essays they later needed to write. They also learned how to work together towards a common goal. The only technological component of this particular project was that students organized all of their questions and arguments into a shared set of Google slides. Everything else from brainstorming questions to the actual trial itself was analog.
Ariana, thank you for this reply! I appreciated hearing about this project during the presentation. Sometimes it's hard to get the full picture of things in a brief!
That all sounds great! But now I'm wondering is it only the spark coaches who are doing this type of work, because this seems to be what should be happening in all classrooms. Or is that the goal, that this type of coaching model is what every building is moving towards, as opposed to whatever they are doing now? I don't mean to be so surprised, but this is honestly the first time I've heard of a coach co-teaching with a classroom teacher. My son is supposed to enter kindergarten in the fall and I'm learning a lot about all the different apps the kids use and the new digital curriculums for science, math, and reading the district has recently bought, and the mandated daily ST math time, and the fact that every single textbook is digital once the kids hit 3rd grade. So I've been asking lots of parents and administrators in the district to understand how much time and work the younger grades are doing on their devices since the K-2 kids are not allowed to bring them home where parents would be able to look through the history or add a screen-time extension to chrome, and I've heard a wide-range of reports from 1 hour to up to 6 hours a day for 1st graders (plus the multiple accounts of kids spending the entire day in the back of someone else's classroom clicking away on their device all day long when their regular classroom teacher is out and there is no available sub). The director of ed tech has claimed that no child has ever even once been "unsupervised" on their device even for a moment. As a parent, the lack of transparency is concerning, which is why I get nervous when I read about more and more digital platforms being introduced. But, I do like to hear the positives, so thank you for sharing! I hope there are lots more of the same happening across the district!
Cat, in the presentation they talked about how the spark coaches expanding exponentially to help implement vision of a learner. Each year there will be more people trained and by the end of 2028 it will be integrated in the district and there will be 75 spark coaches.
That does sounds very promising, hopefully they can follow through since it seems like coaches who are trained, like Ariana above, have the potential to make a huge difference. Thanks for elaborating!
With the superintendent's departure, I fear a return to the "hire from within" typical Worcester response. I could totally see the Board saying, well we did a national search and it only got us someone for 3 years . . . . This would be a terrible reaction and conclusion.
I disagree that it would be a terrible reaction. I think it depends on WHO they hired within...there's two people I think could do well in that role. The thing about bringing in a completely new person right in this moment is new superintendents have egos (for better or worse) and need to "put their stamp on things" and make big changes. I don't think we need that at the moment and it would create more uncertainty. My vote is hire someone within who is committed to the vision and strategic plan and who doesn't have the ego. And I think there's currently two very strong choices who fit those criteria-Brian Allen and Dr. Kue.
"Digital portfolios" and "curating artifacts" sounds a lot like a push for even MORE time spent on screen for our young kiddos. No surprise this is being piloted at Wawecus where their principal is simultaneously Director of Ed Tech.... the more tech the district purchases and pushes, the more job security she has. The last thing the district needs is more tech, the next to last thing they need are more "coaches," just another layer of middle management and administrative bloat. Why not put the money towards more teachers to decrease class sizes? Better salaries for paraprofessionals? School librarians? Before and after-school activities? Healthier buildings? A million other things.
Full disclosure: I am a current Spark coach. My understanding is that the district is not adding more coaches-they are looking to include additional folks who are currently building-based coaches into the Spark program, which provides a solid coaching structure to help teachers address a problem of practice through innovative student-centered approaches.
Good to know it won't be more coaches, just more clearly defined roles for the coaches. Could you elaborate on "a problem of practice through innovative student-centered approaches" because, no offense, that kind of sounds like a bunch of jargon that could mean anything or nothing at all - could you rephrase into plain english that actually explains what the spark will do besides add another reason for little kids to spend even more time staring into screens?
Sure. The teacher identifies a problem or issue that they want to try to adjust or improve (this is the problem of practice). For example, in one of my coaching cycles, the teacher was concerned about a lack of student engagement with a unit focused on creating arguments. Through discussion, we decided that a good way to build engagement was to have students participate in a cooperative project rather than solely writing the required argument essay. We worked together to co-plan and co-implement a mock trial of Odysseus. Students were broken into two teams (one side arguing that Odysseus should be considered a hero and the other arguing that he should not). The students then worked together to identify the main points of their argument, identify which witnesses they would need to call to support their points, and then develop openings, closings, directs and crosses for their side. The culmination of this work was a two day mock trial with students playing the attorneys and witnesses. The students really enjoyed it, and they gained important argument building skills that strengthened the essays they later needed to write. They also learned how to work together towards a common goal. The only technological component of this particular project was that students organized all of their questions and arguments into a shared set of Google slides. Everything else from brainstorming questions to the actual trial itself was analog.
Ariana, thank you for this reply! I appreciated hearing about this project during the presentation. Sometimes it's hard to get the full picture of things in a brief!
That all sounds great! But now I'm wondering is it only the spark coaches who are doing this type of work, because this seems to be what should be happening in all classrooms. Or is that the goal, that this type of coaching model is what every building is moving towards, as opposed to whatever they are doing now? I don't mean to be so surprised, but this is honestly the first time I've heard of a coach co-teaching with a classroom teacher. My son is supposed to enter kindergarten in the fall and I'm learning a lot about all the different apps the kids use and the new digital curriculums for science, math, and reading the district has recently bought, and the mandated daily ST math time, and the fact that every single textbook is digital once the kids hit 3rd grade. So I've been asking lots of parents and administrators in the district to understand how much time and work the younger grades are doing on their devices since the K-2 kids are not allowed to bring them home where parents would be able to look through the history or add a screen-time extension to chrome, and I've heard a wide-range of reports from 1 hour to up to 6 hours a day for 1st graders (plus the multiple accounts of kids spending the entire day in the back of someone else's classroom clicking away on their device all day long when their regular classroom teacher is out and there is no available sub). The director of ed tech has claimed that no child has ever even once been "unsupervised" on their device even for a moment. As a parent, the lack of transparency is concerning, which is why I get nervous when I read about more and more digital platforms being introduced. But, I do like to hear the positives, so thank you for sharing! I hope there are lots more of the same happening across the district!
Cat, in the presentation they talked about how the spark coaches expanding exponentially to help implement vision of a learner. Each year there will be more people trained and by the end of 2028 it will be integrated in the district and there will be 75 spark coaches.
That does sounds very promising, hopefully they can follow through since it seems like coaches who are trained, like Ariana above, have the potential to make a huge difference. Thanks for elaborating!