Notes From Academia - Fall 2015

Notes from

Academia

A Quarterly Newsletter from the Office of the Assistant Head of School for Academics

I’ve fielded the question all summer.

“When do you go back to school?”

Everyone who has asked me that has regretted doing so, because instead of a simple answer, they hear a discourse on all of the wonderful FWCD professional development programs over the course of these last few months. By mid-July, a dozen or so of our teachers were attending a technology program at Lausanne Collegiate School in Memphis, many of them presenting. Across the country, teachers attended workshops on everything from instruction through the Malone Schools Online Network to sculpture to Advanced Placement preparation. Back here in Fort Worth, I delighted in seeing two additional homegrown programs develop to complement our outstanding Teacher Induction Program, a faculty-initiated orientation week about which we’re constantly fielding questions from our peer schools. In this issue, I’ll share a brief overview of these “homegrown” programs, giving you a little peek into what we do to continue to grow as professionals while school is out of session.

Best,

Bradley S. Philipson, PhD Assistant Head of School for Academics

Fall 2015

Grad School (Abridged) Like many fields, teaching is a craft best honed in front of a classroom. A college education, particularly one that focuses on a given discipline, can only take you so far. What if, though, we took a group of early career teachers, both new to FWCD and returning, and had them in a classroom for a solid week? What if we could design a curriculum that begins with a broad background in educational philosophy and then digs into the classroom methods that will take raw teacher talent and form it into the practices of a seasoned professional?

That was what we set out to do with Grad School (Abridged) this summer. Planning was no small task. I sat down with Nicole Masole, Breakthrough Fort Worth program director, to learn how she educates her teachers each summer, and we mapped out the basic structure of the program. An FWCD parent who is on the faculty of TCU’s College of Education came by and offered helpful suggestions on what we should include. Additionally, we had fantastic expertise on campus to draw upon in the design of individual course modules.

Beginning on August 3, 10 teachers, split evenly between new and returners, worked through a curriculum that featured presentations on learning differences from Lower School and Upper School Learning Specialists Teresa Hoppe and Laura Michaelides and on socioemotional learning from Lower School and Upper School Health and Wellness Counselors Theresa Fuss and Kathy Roemer. The division heads, Shari Lincoln, John Stephens, and Bill Arnold ’86, spoke about parent communication, while the assistant division heads, Trey Blair, Brad Jones, and Peggy Wakeland, spoke about discipline and classroom management. Nicole taught modules on active participation and lesson planning.

Participants also learned about backward design, checking for understanding, and current research on noncognitive intelligence, risk, and resilience.

Grad School (Abridged) continued Perhaps the most important element of the course came from the work the participants did in creating sample lessons in their own discipline and at their own age level. They created lesson plans, received feedback from two different peers, then taught the lesson and received feedback from the whole group. They also role-played student and parent interactions, again receiving feedback from their peers.

New Middle School Spanish Teacher Matthew Perse, a Latin American studies scholar, praised how the program helped him channel his content knowledge in a way that would engage Middle School students. “It enhanced my ability to differentiate in my curriculum planning,” he said.

Given the opportunity to comment for this article, Middle School History Teacher Austin Walton wrote this in an email: “The Grad School (Abridged) program is another example of what makes this community so special. Whether it is conversations while

passing in the hall or in formal division, team, or departmental meetings, FWCD fosters an environment for teachers to hone their craft. The Grad School (Abridged) program encapsulated so much in a weeklong session, from discussions of education theory, to classroom management, to the latest in cognitive research. Experiences like this make me grateful to be a teacher here, but, more importantly, they make me grateful to be a parent here.”

Speaking on behalf of the faculty of this program, I could not have been happier with what I saw out of the teachers that week. They were excited by ideas both new and old, and they were eager to absorb everything thrown their way and to decipher how they would use what they had learned to improve instruction. Their sample lessons provided a medley of outstanding teaching, proving just how lucky the School is to have these teachers in our midst, teachers for whom great isn’t good enough, teachers committed to their own continued betterment as educators.

Institute for Independent School Leadership Last January, in preparation for a professional development workshop, I was reading a book authored by the leader of that workshop. Buried in an early chapter was a paragraph about a onetime collaboration between an independent school in Richmond and the University of Richmond’s Robins School of Business, an executive education program for school administrators. I was able to arrange phone conversations with the school head and business school dean involved, and soon, with their help, began meetings with Tandy Center for Executive Education Director Jim Roach and Professor Greg Stephens at TCU’s Neeley School of Business. Together, we developed a model for the Institute for Independent School Leadership, beginning with a four-day intensive summer program and followed by six monthly meetings and a culminating project. Graduates would receive a Certificate in Independent School Leadership from TCU akin to the “miniMBA” certificates offered commonly by top business schools in their executive education programs.

Slowly, the pieces came together. Jeannie Deakyne joined the staff at Neeley’s Tandy Center as director of executive program development and took lead on logistics, while Professor Stephens was hard at work

on content. One by one, almost the entire FWCD senior administrative team, along with a department chair and an assistant division head, signed on to participate.

We invited our colleagues over at Trinity Valley School (TVS) to join us, expecting perhaps two or three people to help us round out the numbers, and they sent us eight people, including Athletic Director Tim Jones, who, as the program liaison for TVS, became a key voice in helping the program take its final shape.

Finally, July 27 arrived, and 19 of us gathered in the Global Seminar Room at TCU, learning about such topics as “Vision, Mission, Strategy, and Your Role as a Strategic Leader”; “Giving Constructive Feedback and Having Difficult Conversations”; “Coaching for Success”; “Leading Others through Change and Ambiguity”; and “Adaptive Leadership.” The professors were all published experts in their fields, including some of TCU’s most frequently celebrated

Institute for Independent School Leadership continued scholars and one lecturer brought in from SMU’s Cox School of Business. I couldn’t have been more proud to be affiliated with my wonderful FWCD colleagues as they engaged the professors and worked through the course material, which frequently included hypothetical scenarios and role plays.

At the end of each day, the business faculty left the room, and we debriefed the day’s lessons and how they applied to work in schools. As we progressed through the week, excitement grew as participants developed action plans for putting this newfound knowledge to use. We discussed ways to make current systems work better, new approaches to coaching our faculty, and means of holding ourselves accountable for following through on these ideas.

As a group of educators, we relished the opportunity to become students once again, and there are few ways to get to know colleagues better than shared endeavor. We grappled with challenging new ideas and nodded with familiarity to statements about organizational behavior, known from experience, as they were affirmed by theory. Of special note was the joy with which the TCU faculty approached working with the class, all excited and honored to be part of this collaboration, as evidenced by their attendance at the closing reception hosted by the heads of school.

The initial feedback from the week was fantastic, and we look forward to the monthly meetings and ongoing projects as the course continues throughout the school year. We are lucky to have partners as wonderful as TCU and TVS in this endeavor, and it is our hope that this program will reach beyond the borders of Tarrant County in future years, bringing educators from around the country to the Neeley School so that they might learn and grow as leaders with the help of these fantastic resources.

Teacher Induction Program Anyone who has sat down for a conversation with Middle School Math and Science Teacher (and sixth-grade team leader) Michael Parker has encountered a degree of interpersonal warmth that may well be unparalleled on this planet.

What better choice, then, to spearhead the Teacher Induction Program (TIP), a faculty orientation program first developed some nine years ago by the Faculty Education Committee (FEC). Michael, who runs this program with the help of the evergregarious Sixth-Grade History Teacher Chuck Maddux, speaks eloquently of how difficult it once was to be a new member of this community. He, along with other faculty members of the FEC, wanted that transition to become smoother, for new teachers to feel at home right away, and to start with some common foundational understandings about instruction. They studied programs at other schools, dug deeper into the ones they really liked, and put together the earliest version of our current program.

According to Michael, “It is about building a foundation so that eventually every hire, every person teaching in the classroom, will have that foundational piece. It is the majority by now. At graduation, when [faculty process down the aisles], you

can find the line of where it’s started and where we are. The line shrinks in the front with people retiring. I feel very fortunate just to be able to be a part of it, because I know every single person, and in some way have a relationship with every person we hire.”

The contents of the program include history lessons on the School, discussion of the School’s mission, and a review of routines around classroom management and procedures. New teachers get a chance to meet the division heads, the Business Office staff, and other administrators in order to match faces to the names they’ve seen on paper. Director of Technology Steve Uhr and his staff offer a technology orientation, and Michael and Chuck are sure to walk the “newbies” around campus so that they’re familiar with the world beyond their classroom’s borders.

Interspersed among the visitors comes training on the everyday procedures on campus, from whom to see about what to classroom procedures and best practices.

Special time is devoted to a presentation on the School’s core values by the Counseling Department, and teachers learn how these values permeate the day-to-day here at

Teacher Induction Program continued Country Day. Usually at this point, Fifth-Grade Science Teacher Dan Bloch H’06 makes an appearance to discuss how the history of the School is intertwined with these core values—and after 46 years of teaching here, he certainly has perspective to offer.

This packed week would already be a significant accomplishment, but the program doesn’t end there. New hires participate in two years of monthly TIP classes. The first year teaches them about coming tasks and events, such as Parents’ Night, so that they’ll know what to expect. TIP II, as year two is often called, focuses on teaching and learning, with each meeting serving as a specialized in-service program on some aspect of instruction. Last year’s TIP II program included, for example, workshops on student engagement and differentiated instruction.

Lest you think we’re working these new teachers too hard, though, rest assured that there’s a reward. Once per quarter, the class of new hires dines out with the Head of School, where they get to reconnect with their cohort and share their progress with the head. This cohort serves as a great means of making connections across divisions and departments and builds an esprit de corps among each new-hire class that has traditionally lasted well beyond the term of the TIP program.

As someone with a great deal of contact with peer schools, I am flattered by the number of requests we get to hear more about TIP. The reputation of this program has spread far and wide, and schools around the country are eager to learn more about how it works. Lucky for them, that gives them a reason to have a conversation with Michael Parker.

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