Have a Good Life

Brad Barber is a former business owner who is now an educator who founded a school called the Tesla Academy. At the Tesla Academy, they coach students rather than teach them.

* Business process outsourcing.
* Went back to school as a teacher.
* Started at a charter school.
* Not the primary person who delivers the content.
* Education is so inefficient.
* I can teach it, but I want my students to learn how to learn.
* The difference between a coach and a teacher.
* They’ve been surviving school for 9 or 10 years.
* The teachers become babysitters (in other classes) and that’s not what we’re about.
* We’re observing the entire time.
* Kids understand that the technique wasn’t right

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

 

Dr. Grayson Maas is the Director of Communications for the Art of Problem Solving, a unique solution to teaching math anytime, anywhere.

• Motivated students in grades 2–12.
• We are the place students come to to learn math that they aren’t going to learn in school.
• Instill motivation in kids to want to do math.
• By and large math is traditionally taught with an emphasis on procedures, memorizing, and pattern matching.
• We are losing the art and beauty of mathematics by how we teach math in schools.
• We challenge them and ask them to rise to the occasion.
• We give them puzzles.
• We get a flood of serotonin when we solve problems.
• It’s not wrong to have the wrote, it’s wrong if that’s all you have.
• If you don’t move beyond the basics, you won’t be able to apply it later.
• If you take a problem-solving approach…
• We need to carve out time for kids to be uncomfortable with a problem.
• But how do we make time for that?
• It limits the incentive for kids to take intellectual risks.
• We can do this together. Education doesn’t just have to be teachers in a classroom alone.
• There’s a dissatisfaction because there is still a lingering question about how I would have done that.
• Rigorous activities early on!
• ASTE Keynote
• How to be a transformative principal? Carve out time and space for students to do some thinking without a goal in mind! gmaas@aops.com

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Creating Better Learning Environments with Kevin Stoller Transformative Principal 291

Social Media: Every school has defined their vision, the space should reflect that.

Over the past 10 years, Kevin has visited over 1,000 schools and spoke with educators and students to learn how student outcomes are impacted by the learning environment. As CEO of Kay-Twelve, a company committed to improving learning environments for 10,000,000 students, Kevin wants to share his findings with others involved with education.

• Came from a family of educators.
• Hesitant to get into education furniture business because it was all the same.
• If you’re implementing change, it’s really difficult to do without changing the environment.
• Start small, learn from it, and then make the changes needed.
• The furniture is preventing me from doing it.
• It’s not about the furniture.
• Every school has defined their vision, the space should reflect that.
• Need to establish some rules around chaotic furniture.
• Space can have a big impact on driving change.
• Start with shared spaces.
• Flex seating or student choice seating.
• Get your free copy of “Creating Better Learning Environments”
• How to be a transformative principal? Find a network where you can be talking to other people. Join the mastermind

Schedule a call with Jethro

Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need about 2 more hours each day to accomplish everything? Here’s how I help principals work manageable hours: Create your ideal week, so that you can leave work at work and enjoy your life!

Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher. 

Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show.

Buy Communication Cards

Show notes on TransformativePrincipal.com

Download Paperless Principal.  

Take Control of your email

Web Site

Transformative Principal on Stitcher

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Best Tools for Busy Administrators Survey

 

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Communicating to Create Happy Families with Jennifer Larson Transformative Principal 290

Social media: If you have a good communication system and everyone is engaged, there’s a positive buzz to the school.

Jennifer Larson is he co-founder and CEO of Hive Digital Minds, which provides parent-school communication solutions through schoolbzz.com

• Completely overwhelmed
• Couldn’t keep up.
• Shift towards personalized learning means there are a lot of different adults supporting a student.
• “I don’t even read the newsletter anymore.”
• Parents want to know what the two or three places for information.
• Grades communication is an important part of it as well.
• School website is a great marketing tool to recruit students, teachers, and families to your school.
• Figure out what information you want to share with the public and put that on the web site.
• Find tools that work well for your enrolled families.
• Build a communication strategy that gets information to the families quickly and efficiently.
• Do a communication audit to see what you are currently using.
• Which have information that parents might want access to.
• Need to implement a multi-year strategy.
• Talk to your parents.
• When schools jump into parent engagement, they are probably meeting the needs of those who were already having their needs met.
• Challenges around native languages spoken.
• Focus on mobile.
• Recognize that not all parents can be there physically at the school.
• Parent engagement is about making sure the families understand the value of education.
• Volunteer hours.
• Parents want to be engaged but they don’t know how.
• If you have a good communication system and everyone is engaged, there’s a positive buzz to the school.
• If you have happy families at your school, there is no other better testimonial.
• How to be a transformative principal? It all comes down to communication. Connect with each of your staff members and parents.

Schedule a call with Jethro

Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need about 2 more hours each day to accomplish everything? Here’s how I help principals work manageable hours: Create your ideal week, so that you can leave work at work and enjoy your life!

Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher. 

Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show.

Buy Communication Cards

Show notes on TransformativePrincipal.com

Download Paperless Principal.  

Take Control of your email

Web Site

Transformative Principal on Stitcher

Refer A Principal

Best Tools for Busy Administrators Survey

 

 

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal