Four #EdTech Blogs to Bookmark

Constant, reliable technology news about what’s important and pertinent to private schools can be difficult to find, much less rely on. (That’s why you subscribed to our e-Letters!) But sometimes you can find resources that, while only tangentially related, still help you keep abreast of conversations and imagine ways to take your school into the 21st Century. Take a look at these four ed-tech blogs and see if you’re not impressed and informed by each.

Conflict Resolution: Moving From Risk and Toxicity to Predictability and Support

A positive work environment has a direct impact on your school’s ability to retain and attract highly qualified, mission-appropriate faculty and staff—the people you rely on to bring your program to life. As School Head, you know from experience how quickly the positive tone you strive to maintain can deteriorate. This is especially true when one person is frustrated with the school’s requirements or has a conflict with a colleague, and shares his/her views with increasing intensity and frequency. Minor disgruntlement can lead to full-blown toxicity, spreading quickly from individuals to small clusters and larger groups if there is no policy in place to resolve the dilemma and promote healing.

Six Questions to Answer Before Diversifying Your Middle and Upper School World Language Offerings

Global awareness and cultural literacy are themes associated with contemporary learning outcomes. While these outcomes may be achieved through enhancements in social science and English curriculums, they are manifested in world language instruction. Some school leaders seek to diversify their world language offerings. While languages such as Mandarin Chinese and Arabic may be useful languages for students to learn given their importance to global economic and political issues, adding a new language carries with it significant risk. It can negatively impact a school’s existing language program(s), schedule, and bottom line. ISM has cautioned schools to evaluate this issue before adding a new language in lower schools, and seeks here to help guide those considering it for their middle and/or secondary school.

Prep for the Test!

Private-independent school students are blessed in many ways. One of their advantages is the lack of state-mandated standardized tests that plague the public school sphere. Still, your students will serve their time filling in bubble sheets with #2 pencils when they take the SSAT or the ISEE for future private schooling, or even the SAT I & II and ACT tests for their college applications. (Side note: More students have taken the ACT than the SAT since 2012!)

School Is Five Days a Week (Except When It's Not)

There can be little doubt that most—if not all—schools east of the Mississippi River have lost required class time, thanks to a spate of winter storms and arctic vortexes determined to keep everyone at home and off the roads and playgrounds. Schools across the country are scrambling to compensate for the lost class time, but how they do it varies from place to place.

Snow, Snow, Go Away: Winter-Recess Policies

Winter has settled in with a vengeance in the Northern Hemisphere, heralded by the recent “Polar Vortex.” While the temperatures have slowly risen back to seasonal averages, the question of how to handle outdoor recess in the face of extreme cold has been raised on our Lower School Head/Division Head e-List. There are no national regulations beyond the common-sense meter, but when you’re bracing for wind chills that make the world feel colder than Mars, you know it’s time to set some ground rules for future arctic blasts.

Faculty Motivation, Schedule Change, and School Change

Schools continually talk about their schedules. The typical targets are the sense of constant rush, the recognition that incremental annual changes have fragmented the schedule, a desire for more effective teaching time, and an interest in collaboration. It can be a frustrating conversation. It is easy to identify issues that need attention, but difficult to persuade faculty to adopt potential schedule changes. Everyone knows change is necessary, but few want to risk jumping from the frying pan into the fire! ISM has previously stated, “The skill of the School Head will be sorely tested as he/she moves faculty culture from a place of semidependency (“just tell me what to do”) to a place of organic vibrancy that bubbles up creative, critical, and innovative ways to maintain a freshness that continues to enable the school’s mission to be practiced in a hyperchange environment.” Scheduling is a change mechanism, whether moving to a six- or seven-day cycle, rotating classes, lengthening periods, and so on. Typically, this mechanism is intentional in three ways, including:

Don't Be Afraid to Jump on the Bandwagon

The media and companies tout new and improved teaching strategies every year. Remember when everyone thought that MOOCs—Massive Open Online Courses—were the solution to slashed budgets? Now it seems that low completion rates and limited interaction have crippled the online course movement’s momentum, with only a 4% completion rate in some college courses. However, just because one new idea wasn’t fully vetted or properly implemented doesn’t mean that you should avoid trying novel programs.

Rally the Troops From Their Seasonal Slump!

Winter break is a time to recharge your battery, as well as reconnect with family and friends. But, how many times do you and your faculty come back feeling down and discouraged? January hits like a dump truck and everyone’s enthusiasm is as flat as week-old champagne sitting in those glasses you still haven’t cleaned. While others daydream of their immediate vacation plans, you as Division Head should make plans now to counter the seasonal malaise.
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