Tag: principal

Beginning a New Job

~ Terry Whitmell ~ 1 Comment
Terry Whitmell - first day of work

Today is the first day of my new job. As a teacher, this is only my second school board, so it’s been a long time since I was truly walking into a brand-new organization. And it is very different from my first day back in 1983.

  1. You need a lot more “stuff” to begin work in 2021, especially in a pandemic:
    • Email account
    • Internet access
    • Logins to all the various digital tools
    • Computer
    • Headset with microphone
    • Good lighting
    • Make-up to look good in a virtual meeting
  2. You need to get to know a lot more people:
    • In 1983 I only needed to know our office staff, my department head and Principal, a few colleagues in classrooms nearby, and my students. And all of them were in the same building as I, and were easy to get to know. I would never have any way to connect beyond my school, so my world was very small.
    • In 2021 I will need to know almost everyone in the organization, eventually, but all of them are “invisible” to me. I did meet three people in my interview, and have talked to a couple more on the phone, but I have yet to get to know anyone in person. This means that building trust is a more challenging task.
  3. With social media you can easily make “faux pas”!!
    • I was originally to begin work on Friday, so I thought over the weekend I could update my profiles in places like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Not a good idea! The organization hadn’t yet determined their communication plan for me, and my premature communication complicated theirs.  Not a good way to begin a new role!
    • I have had two years of freedom in my retirement, having only to be accountable to myself. Now I am returning to a “family”, and will need to be sensitive to the possible responses from all of my colleagues. When I first stepped into Twitter my audience were people who knew and trusted me, and this network has grown. Now there will be people meeting me for the first time, and they have the potential to learn a great deal about me just by “Googling”.
  4. It’s not as simple as “getting the keys”.
    • Information flows digitally through an organization in a clear sequence, with checks and balances at each point. So, having been signed on by HR, there are still many steps that might lead eventually to creation of email and network accounts. And if you don’t have them, you don’t have clearance to view any of the information you need for the role.
    • Computers are configured specifically for the role, and then they have to be transported.  Given the size of my new organization, and the snow day today, this could take some time. I might have to continue to struggle with Sharepoint until I get a new computer; it confused my university and school board accounts, and now there is a third organization.
    • And each person who will eventually be working with me has to receive explicit instructions to share with me. Since the communication of my appointment has yet to happen, they cannot proceed, much as they would love to hand off tasks as soon as possible.
  5. Your identity needs to be more explicitly communicated:
    • Am I Dr., Mrs. or Ms.?
    • Should I add “she/her” as my pronouns, to assist those who might interpret “Terry” as a male name.
    • How do I structure my email signature? What is my name in Zoom or MS Teams or Google Meet? 

So, I stand here in front of my rather empty desk.  I have both phone and virtual meetings scheduled this week, which I know will add to my comfort level and task list. But in the meantime I wait.  In 1983 I would have been thrown into the classroom, and not stopped until the last day of June.  Today’s been very different. Perhaps I should enjoy the calm?

 

Project-Based Professional Development

~ Terry Whitmell ~ Leave a comment

This Friday the teaching staff of Brampton Centennial Secondary School participated in our first full Professional Learning Day. As Principal, and lead learner, I chose to apply some of my learning about planning and instruction to our day’s activities.

Here are the Principles that this Principal followed:

1. Choose the simplest technology for the task
* paper not PowerPoint (for the Agenda and Exit Card)

2. Design backwards
* begin with the Ministry and Board requirements
* layer use of technology, innovative instruction, and collaborative tools on top of the content

3. Honour learning styles
* communicate, don’t lecture
* provide flexible frameworks and timelines
* clearly outline assessment criteria

Our teachers had organized themselves in Professional Learning Cycle teams at the previous week’s “Early Release” session, so they were ready to begin; some at the Reflect stage, some ready to Plan. The work of each team supported one of the Ontario Ministry of Education’s four “Pillars” of Literacy, Numeracy, Pathways, or Community, Culture and Caring, and also linked to one or more of the Peel District School Board’s System Goals.

We began the day with breakfast (food is always good!), and then our teams departed to work. A few hours later, we reconvened, and teams submitted their Exit Cards, which restated the focus of their work framed as a “Theory of Action”. With this focused statement of intent, our teams are now prepared to Act in their classrooms. Though we’ve not yet introduced “Instructional Rounds” to our staff, we’re planting the seeds for work in this area later in the school year.

The feedback we received on this half of the day was overwhelmingly positive: one teacher told me that this was the best PD he had experienced in a decade. And I believe that the work of the morning served to set a positive tone for the more traditional “presentation” format of the afternoon, where we were presented with information on Anxiety in Adolescents.

I plan to continue to model processes and tools, hopeful that my teachers will recognize those they might wish to try in their classrooms. I will continue to take risks with my staff, and reflect on the results, be they good or bad. And I will, I know, love being back in the role of “teacher”, if only for a few PD days a year!