Weekend Workshop with Bambi Betts – Leadership Tools for Team Leaders

Weekend Workshop with Bambi Betts “Leadership Tools for Team Leaders” October 17-18, 2008

What is team dynamics in an international school? What type of leaders are we and what are characteristics of successful team leaders? Educators from three International School in the Tianjin area discussed these and many other issues regarding teamwork and leadership at the “Leadership Tools for Team Leaders” week end workshop at the Teda International School in Teda, China, held on October17-18.

The workshop was presented by Bambi Betts, the Director of the Principals’ Training Center (PTC) for International School Leadership and the CEO of the Academy for International School Heads (AISH).

Forty participants from Teda International School, International School of Tianjin and Tianjin International School took part in this inspirational workshop. Day one was dedicated to activities on building effective teams in international schools.

To be a leader in an International school is a complex task. On day two, we took part in collaborative activities, in which Bambi Betts with the participants of the “Leadership Tools for Team Leaders” workshop.

Bambi Betts focused on the latest research regarding various lead ership styles, roles and essential work of a team leader, as well as qualities of a successful leader. Very practical, clearly outlined leadership strategies were presented to us. We left the workshop with an understanding that that the goal of everything we do as teams and leaders must be the improvement of the curricula and, ultimately, of our students’ learning.

Suzana Ivancevic-Berisa HS Teacher, Teda IS

Weekend Workshop with Carrie Ekey Using Classroom Based Assessment to Drive Instruction in Reading and Writing September 19-20, 2008

Assessment Drives Instruction. We’ve all heard it before. But it can be little more than an educational platitude unless you know what to do with the assessment data you collect. With the help of Carrie Ekey, 35 participants from Taipei American School and other EARCOS schools spent these two days learning how to effectively use the classroom based assessment data to focus instruction.

Carrie Ekey is an educational consultant who spent most of her career in the Denver area public schools as a teacher, curriculum specialist, and staff developer. In her “retirement’ she has served as a literacy consultant in residence at two EARCOS schools and has conducted numerous workshops in the region and around the world on literacy development, instruction, and assessment. Taipei American School has been fortunate to have Carrie work at our school in the past, and we were happy to host her again so we could continue learning from and with her.

The participants at this workshop were eager to learn how to use the data from their reading and writing workshops to determine the effectiveness of their teaching and to plan for next steps. Car rie began with reviewing the basic practices of reading and writing workshops and then shared possible frameworks for how to organize curricular units in both reading and writing. Participants learned strategies for gathering numerous types of data from their classroom instruction including anecdotal notes, conferen cing, and student self-reflection.

The real focus of the workshop though, was using all this data to inform and guide classroom instruction. Because, really, what good is all the data if we don’t use it? “I used to be the queen of anecdotal notes,” Carrie told participants. “That was actually my nickname at my school. After a while, though, I realized I had so many notes, but I was not using them to tell me what my students needed next.” Judging from the chuckle in the room, many partici pants knew what she was talking about.

Carrie showed us how to angle our classroom data collection to answer the big question “What did my students learn?” She helped us think about how to analyze our classroom assessments to plan the next concrete steps in our teaching. Her strategies were practical, achievable, and based on best practice in literacy educa tion.

Carrie’s presentation style is straightforward and offered am ple time for teachers to talk with each other. Devoting time to this important professional conversation with Carrie as our guide was powerful way to spend two days and will surely have a direct impact on the instructional practices of those who attended.