Five Fundamentals for Creating a Positive Writing Atmosphere

Five Fundamentals for Creating a Positive Writing Atmosphere
By Gaetan Pappalardo
6/23/11



Writers write. They never say they're "going to write." They write here, there, and everywhere. Professional writers usually stick to a schedule. But most writers write when they can, when life doesn't get in the way. Some write on napkins at the local diner or on a receipt using the steering wheel as a desk.

I'm writing part of this blog on my dining room table at 6:45 am, dressed and ready for school; my three-year-old is snoring on the couch in the living room and I'm trying to delay cleaning up the cat puke. That's my usual atmosphere when school is in session. No coffee shop, no fancy den, no oak desk with the dull glow of lamplight, just fifteen minutes to pound the keys.

I've been writing for quite some time so drafting most of my blogs in the shadow of the morning routine is no biggy. However, junior writers need more of an atmosphere to concentrate on the art of writing.

TIME + SPACE + CHOICE = REAL WRITING
---Barry Lane

1. Set a Time to Write and Stick to It!
Real writing needs real time. Hemingway once said, "Writing is long periods of thinking and short periods of writing." While I don't have the luxury of a regular writing time, our students absolutely need one.

Barry Lane, in his book But How Do You Teach Writing?, calls for a "regular and predictable writing time, which allows students to rehearse what they are going to write about in their heads, hours before it's time to write." Kids need that "heads up" when it comes to writing. Plus, it helps them focus on the events, thoughts, and curiosities in their life about which they can write. This is what Pulitzer Prize winner Don Murray calls "writing before writing."

In plain clothes, "writing before writing" is daydreaming. I spent most of my elementary school days daydreaming about what kind of battle I would create with my Star Wars figures when I got home. Playing with action figures is undoubtedly responsible for my ability to write today. I was writing every day of my life, just not on paper. Just imagine if I had the freedom and the time to write it down. Where would I be today? No matter how you slice it, writing is hard and kids need daily, uninterrupted time to mess up, scribble out, slash ideas, and find gold without the question of ". . . when will I get another chance?"

2. Writers in Spaaaaaace (Announced like "Pigs in Space")
I allow my students to write anywhere in the room their little heart fancies -- on their desk, under their desk, at a free desk/table, on the rug, lying down on the rug, in the corner, on a chair with a clipboard, next to the fish tank -- wherever! However, the key word in this whole paragraph is "write." Wherever they end up, they need to write. If not, students begin to lose mobility privileges. It's important to set precedent early in the year: "You have the freedom to move only if you intend to use your space efficiently." Oh, and I always allow my students to take off their footwear. We release heat from out heads and our feet. It's just a comfort thing (though maybe smelly).

3. Choose Your Tools Wisely
I present my students with a smorgasbord of writing tools in order for them to find comfort, which will promote writing confidence. And we all know what happens when a writer is confident: ***Poof! Super Duper Pow***!

I offer pens, erasable pens, pencils, mechanical pencils -- I honestly don't care what a student chooses as his writing weapon. I'll let a student write in blood if it makes him/her feel comfortable enough to take the risk. At least four different types of lined paper, a journal, blank paper, and a computer are on the menu. However, students do need to prove themselves worthy of using such tools. After observing some drafting, I will encourage (and sometimes require) certain students to use certain tools. It really depends on their fine motor skills and how efficient they are with certain types of lines and/or computers.

Note: Regardless of the tool they use, I heavily discourage students from erasing during the drafting process. We often chant in the beginning of the year, "No braking for erasing! No braking for erasing!" Erasing causes a burp in the thought process. Just keep going, man.

4. Modeling: Set Pure Tone
Jeffrey Wilhelm, professor of English education at Boise State University and the director of the Boise State Writing Project, believes that teachers need to write in order to teach writing. In his interview for the book, Teaching the Neglected "R", he clearly states that it's important for teachers to do the writing assignments they give students and then ask, "Would I do the work I'm asking my students to do?"

I spend a great deal of in-class modeling by writing in my journal or on my computer. This technique is a double-edged sword. It shows that I (teacher) value writing and it controls the sounds volume in the room.

If the idea of a writing workshop is new to your students they will feel a bit weird with the freedoms they just received and will probably . . .

a) talk
b) look for friends to sit next to and talk
c) hide in a corner and . . . you guessed it, talk.

My response? "Excuse me, but I can't concentrate when you're talking." Never fails. If you do this persistently and consistently, it will diffuse the talkers long enough for them to realize that, "Hey, this writing thing isn't so bad," and they'll stop talking because they'll be engaged in the writing process.

5. Embody the Writer's Attitude
I learned to write in my room, not in school. It's not a terrible way to hone your craft, but I often think how my writing life would be different if I had a mentor, a teacher, or a fellow writer as a child (other than my mom). Different, I presume.

My thoughts on how I became a writer resonate with Donald Murray's reflection on his life: "All the qualities that made me weird in my family, in school, on the street corner, the qualities that I usually tried to hide and was often ashamed of, were what made me the writer I am." I want you to remember that, brothers and sisters, the next time you just don't get a student.

I let the reins loose in the name of creative freedom and in the spirit of the education I wish I received. My ideas might not be right for you, but there's one point on which I guarantee we will agree. We both desire to inspire each and every student in our classrooms. We want them to come to the page with confidence, a feeling of ownership, and an attitude that blinks in neon lights: I can do this.

We both want them to want to write, right? What are some of your techniques to foster a writing atmosphere?

Building the Best Educational Staff: The Interview

Building the Best Educational Staff:The Interview
by Stuart Singer, The Teacher Leader

Developing an Effective Interview Process

Academic success has been directly linked to the quality of a school’s teaching and administrative staffs. Prescriptions are continually being proposed to improve educational personnel. These plans have included merit pay, improved evaluations, and easier termination policies among others. But this goal is too complex to be accomplished with singular solutions. What is required is a multi-faceted program that will address a variety of shortcomings in the current hiring system. Previously, I have compiled eight fundamental areas that need to be reassessed in order for districts to be able to hire, improve and retain the most talented educators.

This is the third in a series of articles that will detail the steps needed to implement those improvements. This post will focus on the interviewing process.

Rule 1: The interview begins with the resume

One of the most important components to the interview process begins before any face-to-face meetings occur. Choosing the best interview candidates from among dozens of resumes can be difficult. No single piece of paper can tell the complete story of an applicant’s strengths or weaknesses. But there are some items that deserve extra attention.

What is the candidate’s academic background and teaching experience?

Only applicants with a strong academic background in the subject area should be given serious consideration. While a major in the field would be preferable, the minimum requirement would be a significant number of successfully completed courses in the curriculum. In many states the requirements for certification are unrealistically low. For that reason there should be a thorough examination of the candidate’s GPA particularly in the subject area. If this information is not contained on the resume, a transcript should be requested. This extra step can reveal a great deal about a prospective teacher. For example, one individual who applied for a Chemistry position at my former school had a reasonably good overall GPA. However, a detailed look at the candidate’s transcript revealed that every course in Chemistry was “C” or lower including a few that had to be repeated. This information is not trivial.

Previous employment, summer jobs, and areas of interest should also be carefully examined. Matching an educator to a school is a subtle process. Different student bodies require different strengths. Evaluate prior experiences in terms of preparing the candidate for the school’s particular needs. After determining the top choices the interviewing process should begin.

Rule 2: Have the right people doing the interview

Teacher interviews should be conducted by the two individuals most directly involved in the development of new staff—the department chair and the supervising assistant principal. If one of the two does not attend an interview no hiring should take place until both have had an opportunity to talk with the candidate. Offering a position should require a 2-0 “vote”.

The inclusion of the chair is particularly important. No one understands the exact needs of a department as well as a person who works with this group every day. In addition having a teacher in the process gives the applicant an opportunity to ask specific questions concerning working at that particular school. While an AP has first-hand knowledge of the learning environment, it is not the equivalent to that of a full-time teacher. Moreover, if the department chairs have a voice in the hiring, they will also have ownership and accountability. It is now incumbent on them to make this hire work. And finally having both the AP and department chair conducting the interviews makes the process more consistent, allows them to develop a coordinated working relationship and gives this somewhat subjective decision making process more objectivity.

Rule 3: Everyone should be asking questions

An effective interview is one that allows information to flow in two directions. As the interviewers assess the qualifications of a candidate through a series of questions, the applicant should be seeking information about the makeup of the student body, an overview of the department personnel and educational philosophy and administrative support and expectations. This understanding of the educational environment within the building is critical. Hiring the right teacher is not always about hiring the most talented one. Good teachers and successful schools are not automatically a perfect fit. I have known many underperforming teachers who have found great success after transferring to a new location. People often underestimate the importance of personal chemistry in teaching success.

Rule 4: Ask questions that result in meaningful answers

The inquiries posed during an interview should elicit introspection of one’s beliefs about education. The goal should be to determine the applicant’s beliefs regarding why some students fail to achieve, how to reach different learning styles within a classroom, the most productive student/teacher relationship, and classroom management approaches. Some of my personal favorites include:

•Within your curriculum what is your favorite topic? How would you share that enthusiasm with your students?
•Next October when I visit your class, what facet of the lesson I observe will be the most impressive?
•During that visit what will be the most notable aspect of the classroom environment?
•What teaching issues would most likely require you to ask for advice from your colleagues?
A series of such questions should be created that will give true insights into the philosophies and beliefs of the candidate and also express the academic direction of the school.

Rule 5: The questions are only the beginning

The give and take of the interview should be only a portion of the process in determining who is offered a position. A comprehensive interview would include the following:

•Writing sample. The most basic skill required of a successful educator is the ability to communicate. This talent must exist both verbally and in writing. Having applicants express their views in words can reveal additional information not necessarily apparent in a question and answer setting. Sample questions could include “What motivates you to be an educator?”, “What was the primary reason you applied to this particular school?” “Think of your favorite teacher. What made this person so special to you?” A written answer to any of these inquiries could give some extremely important insights.
•Teach a lesson. Tell the applicant in advance that they will be asked to teach a fifteen minute portion of a lesson they have done in the past. They should be prepared with handouts, power points, board work, etc. If they are uncomfortable with this request, what does that say about their future in front of a classroom of students?
•Tour the school and visit classrooms. Remember this is a two-way interview. Give them a genuine feel for the educational environment. An interviewer can gather insights about a candidate by observing their reaction to a classroom visit. After one of my interviews a teacher asked me when the students would be dismissed. She then situated herself in the main office and watched the students as they left the building. She later told me that the manner in which they conducted themselves and their interaction with adults convinced her that she wanted to be at this school.
•Make a lunch date. Prior to offering a position, a highly-rated candidate should be invited to have lunch with the department during a school day. This setting provides a wonderful opportunity for interaction with potential future colleagues and often served as the final stage in the entire process.
Rule 6: Aggressively contact references and previous employers

Some of the worst information acquired during the interviewing process is obtained from references. Too many people are loath to give honest appraisals or worse they want to get rid of a problem teacher. Consequently interviewers need to ask pointed questions when contacting these individuals. The importance of their input needs to be clearly stated and emphasis be given to the need for candor. Books could be written about the harm caused by misleading references. Consequently, it is a process that must be undertaken carefully and with caution.

Rule 7: Use your new hires as a resource

Your new hires can help in improving the interviewing process. I always asked them why they chose to accept our offer and how our process compared to others. These conversations revealed some important insights that were used to strengthen our work in the future.

Pour un discours réussi à la Grads!!!

Commencement addresses: 6 steps for making the grade

By Guest Blogger on May 12, 2011 | Comments (0)

This post is by Richard McKeown, an executive communications coach, conference speaker and workshop leader specializing in presentation training, media training, crisis-communications strategy and leadership development.
It’s another day at the office, and you’re going through the mail. You begin reading a letter from the high school, community college or university you attended back in the day. “On behalf of the board of directors, it is my honor as its president to extend an invitation for you to serve as commencement speaker for our graduating class of 2011.”
The invitation usually gets one of two responses: “Wow, what an honor!” or “Why would they want me?” Whatever the response, another question enters your mind: “What in the world am I going to say?”
Here are some guidelines to make your comments relevant and memorable.

• Keep your remarks brief. Who hasn’t endured a graduation speech and thought, “I wonder when this is going to be over?!” The length of a graduation speech should not be its most memorable aspect, but too often it is. Think in the 10-minute range — 15 max — bearing in mind that no one gets into trouble for speaking too short.

• Organize around a theme and a few supporting points. This approach will help you in preparation, and the audience will better retain your comments. Ask yourself, “What answer would I want someone to give when asked “So, what was the speech was about?’ ” The answer you want — ideally expressed in a single sentence — can serve as your theme, or at least its essence. Once you have a theme, which you might want to suggest as the title of your remarks in the printed program, support it with three points.

• Focus on what you’ve learned, not what you’ve done. Graduation day is about the students and their future, not you and your past. This is not to diminish your possibly substantial and impressive accomplishments, but they should speak for themselves and be covered by the person who introduces you. In fact, when you submit biographical information to the institution before graduation day, enumerate a few of the accomplishments that prompted the invitation for you speak. It is likely that they will be used verbatim in the introduction and perhaps even in the event’s printed program. Use your time to share valuable nuggets you have learned in your career, be they guiding principles, mistakes to avoid, effective decision-making … things graduates can apply moving forward, no matter their career path.

• Avoid attempts at humor. You shouldn’t start with a joke. Or end with one. Or even stick one in the middle. Humor’s risks far outweigh its benefits. This is not to say that you shouldn’t inject some humanity and personality into your comments. You should, but only as they relate to your message, and your audience. Anecdotes, illustrations, personal references, yes. Humor for humor’s sake, no.

• Plan your delivery as carefully as your message. Audiences remember how something is said longer than they recall what is said. This has become increasingly so in today’s visual society. If a message is not conveyed in a compelling manner, its chances of being absorbed, much less remembered, drop dramatically. I am not saying that style is more important than substance, but for that substance to have impact, at least as much thought and planning need to be given to a talk’s delivery as its content. Thus, you should do at least one complete run-through in a setting that replicates as much as possible the commencement venue. Videotape yourself, paying particular attention to how well you convey key points supporting your theme.

• Do not use a script. Nothing, absolutely nothing, turns an audience off faster than being read to in the flat, uninspiring tone that a script prompts. If you are going to use a script, why not just e-mail it to everyone? Use notes, but organize them around your central theme and key points. It is perfectly fine to refer to notes but only to get a thought, not every word and syllable. You should know the topic. Whether you verbally cross every T and dot every I doesn’t matter — conveying your primary message and the points that support it does.

Journée internationale contre l'Homophobie

The Top 5 Skills Students Need For Their Future: The Results Are In!

The Top 5 Skills Students Need For Their Future: The Results Are In!

Thank you to everyone who responded to my survey calling for the Top 5 Skills students need for their future. The list to choose from initially came from one included in my book, ‘Tween Crayons and Curfews: Tips for Middle School Teachers. Now, I’m not saying that there aren’t more that I would like to see on the list, but my point was to examine what the Elementary and Secondary Education Act has to say as it relates to its goal of College and Career Readiness.

So, I initially asked myself, what does that mean exactly to those in higher education and business? The following list of 13 skills (an excerpt from my book) is based on the responses of leaders in both colleges and businesses when asked what skills K-12 education should be providing for the students of tomorrow.

1. Collaboration – learn how to work in groups. It’s a given in the business world and has become a given in our global community.
2. Communication – learn how to talk to anybody at a party. Learn how to speak with respect to both the waitress and the owner of the restaurant. Learn how to talk to your boss and your co-workers. Learn how to write an email, leave a voicemail, and even shake a hand. Learn to read the communication of gestures and expressions, and understand what your gestures and expressions send out as well.
3. Problem-Solving – learn how to research answers and solutions. Learn where to go and how to get there.
4. Decision-making – learn how to be definitive.
5. Understanding Bias – learn how to recognize agendas.
6. Leadership – learn how to be a leader, not a ruler.
7. Questioning – learn to be skeptical appropriately (see above section), to question with clarity, and to inquire calmly. Learn to question as a means to guide others to an answer, and learn how to use questioning as a means to make your own knowledge deeper.
8. Independent Learning – Learn to Find Answers Yourself
9. Compromise – Learn to find contentment even while giving something up. Learn to find contentment with finding a middle ground.
10. Summarizing – Learn to get to the point.
11. Sharing the Air – Learn to shut up. Learn to that you can learn from others.
12. Persuasion – learn use the art of persuasion both in the written and spoken word.
13. Goal Setting – learn to define your quarry and hunt it down. Learn to identify and visualize where you want to get to and the path that can get you there.
So this past weekend, I asked colleagues and friends and followers and readers to answer a survey to help me whittle the list down to the top 5.
And the winners are:
Collaboration
Communication
Problem-Solving
Questioning
Independent Learning
The next question is, are teachers at least using these 5 in their everyday lesson planning? And if so, how? The key is to use these skills to promote content in lesson planning, note taking, and assessments.
Over the next few weeks I’ll share some lessons that you can do to address these skills and for you to mull over for Someday or use on Monday. Hope you’ll share some of your lessons with me and my readers in this thread as well. After all, collaboration is a key future skill and one that must be modeled by the teachers in the room

The Courage To Blog With Students

By Marsha Ratzel

Premium article access courtesy of TeacherMagazine.org.

When I asked my students recently how blogging in class makes a difference to them, they had lots to say. Blogging has allowed them to meet students from all over the world and discover new interests. It's also helped them improve their technology skills and write more on assignments than they could if they had to use paper and pencil.
But for the teacher, bringing blogging into the classroom can be both thrilling and terrifying at the same time. No doubt about it, making the decision to try student blogging is an act of courage. With that in mind, I’d like to share eight things I’ve learned that can help ensure your brave step is also a wise and successful one for you and your kids.
Tip #1: The best way to get your feet wet without drowning is to use a group blog. On a group blog, the whole class participates together. Teachers provide the writing prompt, and students reply in the comments section. The most popular blogging platforms are Edublogs, Word Press, Blogger, posterous, and kidblog. Depending on the software, teachers can have moderating controls set so comments appear immediately or stay in the queue until the teacher "approves" them. You may want your blog to house student work that looks like traditional assignments (e.g., writing portfolios or story drafts). Or the blog could have student writers reporting on the day’s classroom activities, or sharing their artwork, or what they’ve learned during the semester. Sometimes comments might be specific to a class assignment from history, math, or science.
Be sure to set up your class blogging guidelines from the first day. Post them on your class blog, send them home to parents, and make a poster for your classroom. There are outstanding examples of such guidelines at classroom blogs like Dare to Care, iThink, or the Bayonne High School Band.
Tip #2: Teach students how to write comments. It's a critical skill they won't possess without practice. Let them read lots of high-quality examples. Find other classes that blog, then cut and paste sets of comments that demonstrate thoughtfulness and excellent writing techniques. Have students evaluate your examples and identify why they're good. Students must be taught from the beginning that we expect them to go well beyond comments like "Wow, that was a great post." Or "I really liked what you wrote." Encourage them to write something that shows they actually read the post, that makes a connection between the writer and the reader. Show them examples of students encouraging a blog author. More than 30 people commented on this girl’s story of her father’s early life in Inner Mongolia. By reviewing it, you'll get a peek at the power of students helping other students gain their online voices.
Tip #3: Use what you already have in your teaching plan, with some minor modifications. The biggest difference between a blog and the typical class writing assignment is that blogging invites a digital conversation. Teachers need to tailor assignments to this purpose. With a bit of tweaking, you can take a traditional task and customize it for a blog. When I wanted students to summarize what they'd learned about ancient China, the prompt was "Let’s Talk Shang," where they were to convince the reader of the most important Shang dynasty achievements. In another assignment, they had to post a blog comment to explain whether John Brown was a terrorist or a martyr. These assignments started off as the traditional "Explain three achievements of the Shang dynasty" and "How did John Brown’s action spark the start of the Civil War?"
Tip #4: Practice commenting without computers. A terrific first post activity is to actually not blog electronically. Post the prompt in a place visible to all. Remind everyone what they learned by reading the comments of other students and classes. What made some of them really interesting to read? Give each student a Post-it on which they can write their response. They can then post the sticky under the prompt. Check out how this teacher tried the technique with her students.
Students can then look at each other's comments, trying to find things that are done well and meet the requirements of the prompt. They might compare the ones they like best. With a different color Post-it, students can respond to (or challenge) what their classmates have posted and physically attach their comment. I used the gallery walk instructional strategy to have students stroll and examine the posts on the board. If they see enough examples of good writing, they'll learn what they should be doing.
Eventually all the notes will begin to nest under different comments and get quite long. You might leave these up for a week or two until it seems all the commenting is done and then spend time discussing the writing process. This computer-free commenting and writing can be repeated several times with different prompts until the teacher feels the students understand the commenting and responding process and have lots of examples of what to do and not do.
Tip #5: Make student use of the class blog a privilege. The privilege has to be earned by showing responsibility and a commitment to excellence. This may not be the outlook of all teachers, but it seems critical that students realize their work will be representing not just themselves, but the teacher, the school, and the district, in front of the whole world. Their work should show that they take pride in their writing, understand Internet safety, and can offer insights about the ideas discussed. If it takes five revisions to accomplish that standard of quality the first time out, it's time well spent.
My first class Internet post in September took almost three weeks to brainstorm, write, edit, revise, and polish before I was willing to share what they had to say with the world. It set a tone for the entire year: You have to do your best. The benefit of setting the bar like this is that students feel a huge sense of accomplishment when you ultimately accept their comments. In my classroom, it has generated more self-esteem than almost anything else I’ve done.
An easy way to enforce this standard without a lot of false starts is to have students complete a pre-writing activity using a word processor. The pre-write will help them organize their ideas and know what they’re going to say (which always improves the quality of their writing). Using a word processor allows for spell check, and you can easily review saved drafts and explain what needs to be revised to meet the posting standard.
Tip #6: You can’t emphasize safety too much. Use your school and district guidelines as a starting point—blogging creates an opportunity for students to actually apply the rules they've been taught. The first lessons students need to learn include the difference between public and private Web information and how to share ideas and information safely. My students, for example, have learned they can tell people they love basketball and even the name of their favorite college or pro team, but they cannot tell them their school team's name. As students become more advanced in blogging, they’ll also have to learn about copyright laws and how to cite their sources.
Tip #7: Decide how you will choose usernames. You should make this decision before you talk to students about blogging. Some teachers allow students to use their first names only, some require them to create online names, and some assign online names. There’s no right solution; it’s a matter of balancing the security needs of your classroom, parents, and the school. Sometimes software lets students create customized avatars. They love this activity. For some excellent places to create school-appropriate avatars for free, read Mrs. Watanabe’s account.
Tip #8: Communicate with parents early on. Explain what you’re going to do and enlist their support and help. Many parents have jobs that require them to maintain a professional blog or read their company’s blog. Capitalize on that by asking them to comment on the things that appear in your class discussions. Maybe they can do it weekly or once a month. At Mrs. Morris's school, May is "Getting Parents Involved in Blogging" month.
I think it’s best to have students work with only the group blog for at least a semester, until the posting and commenting processes feel very comfortable. Once you have the class blogging down pat, and students are performing well and feeling comfortable, you might move them into their own blogs. That decision comes with a new set of considerations, including overseeing blog design, moderating postings, and dealing with technology glitches.

When You're Ready for a Challenge

One of my favorite online activities is the Student Blogging Challenge. It's sponsored by Edublogs and starts each September and March. Over 10 weeks, students can choose from dozens of activities and chat with peers from all over the world. When the Student Challenges are running, Edublogs also offers the Teacher Challenge, a series of professional development activities during which teachers can sharpen blogging skills and learn about the technology behind the tools. See Get Blogging with Students and Kick Start Your Blogging. With both beginner and advanced teacher groups, there’s a lot to learn and there are many tuned-in colleagues to meet.
Blogging makes sense to students. In their words, it makes school fun. I believe if I’m holding them to high writing standards and content standards and they’re enjoying the process and writing more, then I’ve found a successful instructional strategy.

Marsha Ratzel is a National Board-certified teacher in the Blue Valley School District in Kansas, where she teaches middle school math, science, and sometimes social studies. To read more of her writing about her teaching practice, visit her blog Reflections of a Techie.

What CEOs do...

What CEOs Do, and How They Can Do it Better

Published:	April 25, 2011
Author:	Michael Blanding

Executive Summary:

A CEO's schedule is especially important to a firm's financial success, which raises a few questions: What do they do all day? Can they be more efficient time managers? HBS professor Raffaella Sadun and colleagues set out to find some answers. Key concepts include:

• On average, some 85 percent of a CEO's time was spent working with other people, with only 15 percent spent working alone.
• The time CEOs spent with outsiders had no measurable impact on firm performance. But time spent with other people inside the company was strongly correlated with positive increases in productivity.
• In companies with stronger governance, CEOs spent more time with insiders and less time with outsiders, and at the same time were more productive.
• The research could help CEOs learn to be more productive.

Why did you come in late on Tuesday? Did you really need an hour and a half for lunch on Wednesday? Why wasn't that report done by Thursday? For most of us, justifying our schedules is an expected part of the job.
But what employee hasn't looked at the closed door of the corner office and wondered what the boss is doing all day. For all of the minute-to-minute monitoring of employee performance from the time of Henry Ford onward, it's amazing how little any of us really know about how CEOs of major companies spend their time.
"Fundamentally, it's because no one knows what a CEO should do," says Harvard Business School professor Raffaella Sadun. "Most of the time it's difficult to codify the qualities of a good manager."

"We went in with the curiosity of trying to understand the life of a CEO"

Despite that difficulty, however, it's self-evident that the way a CEO chooses to spend his or her time has much more of an effect on a company's success or failure than if a middle manager spends a half hour more at lunch. With that in mind, Sadun and three colleagues-Oriana Bandiera and Andrea Prat of the London School of Economics and Luigi Guiso of the European University Institute—set out to get to the bottom of CEO time management by following nearly 100 top managers in Italy, as reported in a recent paper with the deceptively simple title, What Do CEOs Do?
"We had no way of knowing what we were going to find," says Sadun. "We went in with the curiosity of trying to understand the life of a CEO."
But what they did discover should help CEOs learn to be more effective with their time, and provide boards with a new tool to help assess the effectiveness of their chief executives.

Under a microscope

Of course, it's not so easy to codify all of the many actions a CEO could take during the course of a day—attending meetings, reviewing a marketing campaign, schmoozing clients on the golf course. So Sadun and her colleagues instead divided up activities with a much simpler measure of looking at the people with whom a CEO spent time.
After all, the boss is in a unique position within a firm not only to spend time with employees, but also with the outside world, making connections and gathering information. However, not all of the time the boss spends with outsiders might help the firm, especially if a CEO's and a company's interests are not aligned.
"CEOs should be working with both constituencies, insiders and outsiders," says Sadun. "However, if there are governance issues, there might be the possibility that the CEO is in the outside world more for his or her personal benefit than for the benefit of the firm."
In order to test whether this was true, the researchers enlisted 94 CEOs of major Italian corporations who agreed to put their lives under the microscope for a period of a week at a time. The CEO's personal assistant was asked to record every activity the boss engaged in that lasted at least 15 minutes.
Tabulating the data, the researchers discovered that the vast majority of a CEO's time, some 85 percent, was spent working with other people through meetings, phone calls, and public appearances, while only 15 percent was spent working alone. Of the time spent with others, chief execs spent on average 42 percent with only "insiders" (employees or directors of the CEO's firm); 25 percent with insiders and outsiders together; and 16 percent with only outsiders. (Exact numbers varied dramatically among the sample, with some CEOs spending more than 20 hours a week outside the office, while others spent almost none.)
Next, the researchers crunched a number of factors measuring company performance—for example, profits per employee—in order to see which CEOs were more productively using their time.

Better on the inside

Their first finding, which might seem unsurprising, was that the top managers who spent more time at work were more productive than those who spent less time at work. In fact, Sadun and company found, for every 1 percent increase in hours worked, there was a 2.14 percent increase in productivity. "That's never been shown before, so that was reassuring," Sadun says.
Likewise, time spent with insiders was strongly correlated with productivity increases. For every 1 percent gain in time spent with at least one insider, productivity advanced 1.23 percent. Less reassuring, however, was that the time CEOs spent with outsiders had no measurable correlation with firm performance.

"It's a way to monitor where the efforts of the CEO are going"

In a final measure of CEO's performance, the researchers rated firms based on the quality of governance, measuring a variety of factors such as the size of the board, the presence of at least one woman on the board, ownership, whether the company was based in another country, and if so, the general level of governance in that country. Again they found a clear correlation: in companies with stronger governance, CEOs spent more time with insiders and less time with outsiders, and at the same time were more productive.
"There are some industries where a CEO really needs to be outside, so we don't need to be proscriptive, but if you were taking these results literally it would tell you that since a CEO's time is constrained, he should be mindful of the time spent with his own employees," says Sadun.
In extrapolating from the data, Sadun cautions the sample size used in the study was relatively small (though exponentially bigger than any past research on the topic), and that the results of the study (especially when it comes to the link between CEO time use and firm performance) should for the moment be interpreted as suggestive correlations rather than firm causality statements. Even so, encouraged by the results of the initial study, the group is planning to continue along this line of research by expanding the data collection in other countries (India, China, and the US) in order to increase the sample as well as to take cultural differences into account.
Sadun says that the group has received nothing but positive feedback from the anonymous CEOs who participated in the study. In keeping with the adage that "it's lonely at the top," many of the managers studied had little idea of how they could make their time more productive. Sadun hopes that the information will be equally helpful for boards in evaluating the performance of their CEOs.
"It's a way to monitor where the efforts of the CEO are going, and to get them understanding that perhaps spending too much time on the outside might not be as beneficial as they might think," she says.
If nothing else, next time employees ask the question "What is the boss doing with all of his time?" at least they'll have an answer.

About the author

Michael Blanding is a freelance writer who lives in Boston.

Politique de portes "fermées"

Five Reasons Why Leaders Need a Closed Door Policy

by Kevin Eikenberry on April 18, 2011

in Leadership,Learning

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Let’s start with a short thinking exercise . . .
Think of every new leader speech you have ever heard.  They will all include “I have an open door policy.”  Does every leader truly practice that policy?
If you made a list of leadership clichés, the “open door policy” would likely make the top ten. Clichés exist because truth exists within them, and clichés often beg further examination beyond the nugget of truth.
Such is the case with the “open door policy”.
The intention of course is about availability, access and openness. When someone says their door is always open, they are implying that when you need help, advice or information, they will be available.  The problem here is twofold:

• This is a hard policy to live up to. (Even if the door is open, it doesn’t mean the leader is available – look at your calendar, after all). So stating this universal policy often sets expectations you can’t live up to.
• When the leader is available, they likely have work do to, and the interruptions of the open door can be detrimental to productivity. After all, leaders are there to serve their teams, and they have responsibilities and work output of their own.

That is the backdrop for my assertion that leaders need a closed door policy.  This doesn’t mean that access, availability and openness don’t matter — far to the contrary! Rather, a closed door policy as I will describe it actually allows for these things to exist realistically, and perhaps paradoxically, allows productivity to rise for everyone!
What is a Closed Door Policy?
Now that you are over your shock that I would debunk the leadership standard, let me describe what I mean.
Should you make yourself accessible and available to your team? Yes, of course, just not at their whim and leisure!  Think about it: when was the last time someone popped their head in the door with a question, interrupting your thinking and flow of work, with a question that was truly an emergency? How many of those questions could wait 15 minutes, 2 hours or until tomorrow?
The closed door policy is more like the office hours of a college professor. You knew when they were available and so you planned to meet with them, ask your questions and get your coaching during those times. This approach certainly made the professor more productive — and you too!
The closed door policy is about putting some discipline and intentionality into your work day for the purpose of creating better control of your time and skyrocketing your productivity.
Whether you use office hours, a planned time to meet with team members, or devise some other approach – the goal of the closed door policy is to create space for everyone to have greater productivity because there are fewer avoidable interruptions.
The Benefits
Here are five specific benefits you will gain from creating your version of a closed door policy.
You will create clearer, more accurate expectations. Since your door can’t be open all the time, or you sometimes ask people to come back later (or you aren’t in your office anyway), why not have an expectation you can deliver on?  By telling people when you are available or having some other process that creates a clear and reliable expectation, you set everyone up for success. You also manage people’s perception of your honesty and intentions.  Far better to be available when you say you will be than to say you are available and not be.
You will manage interruptions. While we all believe we can multi-task, that is a misnomer. Have you ever been working on an important project, document or plan and had someone pop in to ask you a question? After they leave, how long does it take you to reconnect with and be productive on the other piece of work again? Interruptions sap our productivity! By managing the chances for interruptions (remember there are few true emergencies and when they occur people will interrupt anyway) we are improving our productivity vastly.
You will develop others. A true open door policy is one of the fastest ways to hamstring the development of your team. Why? Because when they have a question they can immediately come ask you!  Would they ask you that question if you were on a business trip or vacation, or would they figure it out, make a decision without you, or wait until you were available to share their questions? In any of those cases, your availability is keeping them from learning.  If you truly want to coach and develop your team, you must be supportive and available, AND you must allow them to try new things! Closing the door and creating an expectation of trust helps people grow.
You will allow space for important, not just urgent, work. As leaders we must do work that is beyond the urgent. We must have time to think, plan, check our vision and more.  It is nearly impossible to do this with a constant focus on the urgent and immediate. A closed door policy is one step towards giving you the time you need to work on the most important things.
You will improve organizational productivity. When you close your door, explaining to your team why you are instituting this new process, you not only improve your productivity, but you improve theirs.  Some questions they will answer themselves. Some will go away, and those that they need to ask will be asked in an effective and efficient manner – and they will remain more focused with fewer of their own interruptions too!
Let me be clear – the intention behind an “open door policy” is fine, admirable, and important. In theory, this idea is to provide access to information, ideas, wisdom and help. Unfortunately, in practice this isn’t what happens. The unintended consequences that surface in a lack of time control and reduced productivity far outweigh the advantages.
Should leaders be accessible, available and open to conversations? Should they feedback and provide coaching? Of course they should – and if they don’t their effectiveness and value as a leader is severely limited. These goals can be reached — and in most cases reached more effectively — with a more realistic, structured and clear plan and approach. An approach that sometimes includes a closed door.

5 raisons pour intégrer la technologie dans l'enseignement

Five Reasons for Integrating Technology

By Heather Wolpert-Gawron

3/17/11

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We speak about the achievement gap between the different cultures in our schools. Meanwhile, however, many of the stakeholders in education have created a vast trench that lies between those who accept the inevitability of technology and those who still refute its place in our classrooms.

Policymakers demand our schools must reflect the 21st century, yet continue to deny schools the funding to do just that. Additionally, our districts block many of the online sites for collaboration from our schools.

It is fear that guides many of the decisions about educational technology: fear that we will be left globally behind by countries more committed to technology integration and also fear that our students will somehow be scarred its use.

Frankly, there are many reasons to avoid providing technology as a more common and frequent tool in education. However, as stated in "Strictly Ballroom," one of my favorite movies, "a life lived in fear is a life half lived." Fear cannot shut us down from our mission: to educate students for their future.

For the Naysayers

Here are some typical arguments against technology in schools -- and better ones for using it:

1. The legal issues are daunting: what if a student writes inappropriate content online? Answer: Our job is to teach them how to use the tools of the real world. After all, using a circular saw is dangerous too, but only through shop class have many students learned to build a birdhouse safely. So is it with technology. Parents and teachers must be a part of monitoring and modeling. It may be scary, but without teaching students about appropriate use, they will surely encounter exactly that which we are most scared of.

2. How ever will we train all those teachers? Answer: It's simple. Have teachers train teachers. Give teachers who know how the paid release time to be trainers during their contracted hours of those who don't know how. There are willing teachers on every site, at every district, teachers willing to take on hybrid roles in education that allow them one foot in the classroom and one foot working to improve the pedagogy and practice of those who need to learn. For those who train, they will, as a result, avoid burnout by being permitted ways to utilize their other skills, all the while helping other teachers improve their own 21st century knowledge.

3. Where does the time come from? How can we add more to a teacher's plate? Answer: How 'bout this? Don't. Instead, take something off teachers' plates rather than put more on. We have to prioritize, and including technology is too important. We can't continue to have teachers waste their time on the curricular needs of yesteryear. We need to redefine how a teacher spends their time during the day and redefine the curriculum of tomorrow.

4. Some students don't have access to technology at home so how can we expect them to use it for assignments? Answer: To this I say, many homes don't have libraries either, but we still teach how to read. The fact is that it's a school's job to step up to provide and instruct. Even though some students may not have access to a computer at home, the school needs to see its role in equalizing the differences between those who have and those who don't. It's also society's role to find a way to provide for those homes in a more equitable way or our country's children will be left behind. Some districts are already working in conjunction with phone providers and computer companies to help bridge this gap. Those districts should not be few and far between, but should be commonplace.

5. It's expensive. Answer: Nevertheless, we cannot afford to fall any more behind in our comfort and use of technology. Policymakers need to start backing up their demands with funds. Parents need to be a part of monitoring their student's use at home. Teachers must continue to develop the skills that make them the technology guides in the classroom. For as the gap gets ever wider, the money it will take to fill the divide will increase. We are already in the red. Our reluctance to think and plan ahead has already created a debt of technological knowledge.

Taking Action

We can't allow fear to dictate our progress, nor can we allow those who won't move forward to dictate whether we do move forward. We cannot allow policymakers to insist on adoption and not provide for it, or worse yet, tentatively provide it and not find bravery and support by those within education's walls.

Teachers need to be on the forefront of curriculum, not in its wake. We need to be leading the charge towards preparing our students for their future, not hindering our march towards tomorrow

La semaine de 4 jours...

Four-day school week passes first test

Scores from the state’s Measures of Academic Progress test show that math proficiency and reading skills have improved among first- through eighth-grade students in Two Harbors and Silver Bay schools, even though classes have gone to a four-day week.

By: Matt Suoja, Lake County News Chronicle

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Scores from the state’s Measures of Academic Progress test show that math proficiency and reading skills have improved among first- through eighth-grade students in Two Harbors and Silver Bay schools, even though classes have gone to a four-day week.
The MAP tests showed improvement in all grades, except for seventh grade in Two Harbors, where there was a slight decrease in scores.
“Academically, it seems to be working,” Lake Superior School District Superintendent Phil Minkkinen said at a school board meeting Thursday.
He said discipline problems and absenteeism for both teachers and students also is down.
Minkkinen said the MAP tests were done at a different time of the year compared to other years, so correlation for the results is difficult to show.
Students will be taking Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment Tests later in the year, which will be another indication of how the school district is faring with the four-day week.
District principals say they have not seen a lapse in student achievements.
Pat Driscoll, principal at Minnehaha Elementary in Two Harbors, said she hasn’t heard any negatives from parents or kids.
“[I hear] pretty much the same thing,” said Brett Archer, principal. He said there have been focus groups done with students showing positive results, and that teachers are on track with their syllabi or ahead of the game.
Much of the same news came from Principal Joe Nicklay in Silver Bay. He said his community has been upbeat. He said teachers feel like they are on schedule and students are getting more out of the school day.
Others are not so sure about the four-day week.
“I hear things that aren’t quite that way,” said Dwight Moe, school board member. He said he heard that six students from North Shore Community School will not be coming to Two Harbors because of the four-day week.
North Shore is a charter elementary school in Duluth Township. Once students graduate, they either go to Two Harbors or Duluth for the upper grades.
Minkkinen said he wasn’t aware that fewer students were coming to Two Harbors because of the four-day week.
School board member Renee Saamanen said she hears a “surprised positive” from residents on the success of the four-day week.
Students have been given options to participate in other activities on Fridays during the school year.
Chris Olafson-Langenbrunner, the Community Education director who is also in charge of Friday events, said students are not using the school’s “Fabulous Fridays” program very often.
She said the district isn’t getting signups for anything that costs over $15, and that families are figuring out daycare options on Friday. The district is working on a plan for Fridays off next year.

Tags: two harbors, silver bay, news, schools, fccnetwork

Faire disparaître les interuptions en salle de classe...

Let Kids Express Themselves Rather Than Exasperate You

By David Ginsburg on March 12, 2011 4:15 PM | Leave a comment | Recommend

I previously wrote about my student James whose selective sneezing--always during whole-group instruction, never during small-group activities--gave new meaning to attention-seeking behavior. Yet as strange as the manifestation of James' need for attention was, the cause of it is quite common: teachers not calling on students when they want to be called on.

And students' reactions to this are often far more disruptive than "sneezing." I'm reminded of an exasperated elementary school teacher who asked me for help with a challenging student I'll call Oscar. The principal warned me that Oscar had been a "problem" in previous years too, so I expected to see a real monster. What I saw at first, though, was a kid who entered class with high energy but channeled it in constructive ways. In fact, he was the first student to hang up his coat, sit down, and get started on the opening writing activity.

Then it happened. After a few minutes, the teacher asked for volunteers to share their responses to the writing prompt. Oscar's hand shot up, but the teacher called on one of his classmates. The teacher then asked for another volunteer, and Oscar's hand went up again. But the teacher chose someone else again. This played out a few more times before the teacher said, "We need to move on."

And move on is exactly what Oscar did. Whether it was making faces to get laughs from classmates, swiping the stapler off the teacher's desk, or chanting "this class is stupid," Oscar was indeed a monster for the rest of my visit.

But the teacher had an "aha" moment when I shared my observations with her later that day, and she saw the connection between her failing to call on Oscar and him acting out. And now that she knew the cause of her problem, we were able to find a solution.

So what is the solution to the problem of kids acting out if you don't call on them? Well, you can't call on all students all the time. But you can give them regular opportunities to express themselves--and feel "heard" in the process--even when you can't give them class-wide air time.

Here, then, with a tip of the hat (or wave of the handkerchief) to Oscar and James, are a couple of ways to let students express themselves rather than exasperate you: 

• Give students a chance to write down their responses to a question, while you circulate to acknowledge what they've written. (Instant response devices can be a good alternative if you have an interactive whiteboard; another option is to give students mini whiteboards to write their responses on and hold up for you to see.)
• Give students, in pairs or threes, a few minutes to share their responses with each other. (This is akin to the Think and Pair stages of the Think-Pair-Share cooperative discussion strategy.)

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