Project Based Instruction

After receiving some fantastic P.D. from Mr. Antoniw, social studies teacher at Kenilworth, our staff has become reinvigorated towards the idea of project based instruction. The question that I now face is how to keep this momentum alive. In the textbook for my Spring Session class SMO 652 Leadership Skills the author (Clawson) opens his work by stating that, "Leadership is all about managing energy, first in yourself and then in those around you." Using the management of energy approach to leadership I will now take on the challenge of creating, with my colleagues here at Westlawn, a culture of project based instruction.

First of all Project Based Instruction needs to be defined. What do we mean when we say project based isntruction? Here is one explanation, and it is quite complete.



Project based instruction should strive to be as real-world and ambitious as the video explains, but I want to assuage teachers here. PBI can be much less daunting in scope than the projects highlighted in the video. Students do not need to start out by changing the world. It would be ideal if they could try to grapple problems and projects that were very real to them and their community, but if the first couple stabs at it are confined to the classroom, grade level or school community that is definitely okay.

Secondly, I need to set some manageable goals for this endeavor. I will manage my energy by setting achievable goals that will be completed within a reasonable timeline. My goal is to help create, in this school, one project per grade level. It doesn't matter what subject, it doesn't matter what project. Projects could even be duplicated across grade levels. What matters is that by the middle of June every student has had an opportunity to work on some kind of project in one of their classes.

Finally, the teachers who will be implementing this need to be involved from step one all the way to completion. I have made the mistake in the past of creating projects for teachers instead of creating projects with teachers. I did this under the misguided intention that my colleagues wanted most of the work done for them, but this was a mistake because the teachers then have no ownership over the project. My process for making this happen will be as follows:

1. Keep teachers inspired, motivated and thinking about PBI through use of the Westlawn Staff Site and email. 
2. Invite teachers to brainstorming sessions. First one today after school at the school or maybe in my backyard if there is interest.
3. Crashing the team time meetings to bring PBI to the conversation.
4. More brainstorming sessions if needed.
5. Support and involvement. Help with documents, create time for reflection with the teachers and getting into the classroom for short (10-15 minute) periods of time while the projects are ongoing. 
6. Celebrate the completion of successful projects publicly. 

So here we go, wish me luck!

SMO Reflection Post #11: Connecting Management and Leadership

Before I jump into this week's topic I want to reflect on the grade received for my group's presentation and how it applies to some of the content covered in the course. The grade our group received points leads to a discussion about motivation. One of the most compelling ideas that I am taking away from this class is the over-arching, even all-consuming importance of motivation. Before anything else the employee must be motivated. So let us look at this class and the grade received as a potential tool for motivation, one that we can ascribe the characteristic of "pay."

In this class, then, the grade that we receive is our pay (I know that doesn't capture the reality of our situation, but just work with me for this example). The grade should motivate. I look at the grade I receive, and like so many other students, I want to know how it compares to my classmates. I do not how well I am being paid, until I know the grade of my classmates. This relativity of pay as a motivator is something that a couple of authors have discussed. Moss and Sanchez argue that employee performance evaluations should be compared to a standard, or a metric, instead of being measured against other employees. Okay that is fine, but in personal experience I am always measuring myself against my colleagues and against my classmates, isn't that culture? Rynes, Gerhart and Minette are arguing a sligthly different element of employee pay, and they highlight the importance of relative wealth in society. Having received this grade, and working in a field where everyone knows everyone elses relative pay, I conclude that knowing what everyone is making is very important for employee motivation. People earning more feel compelled to work harder for their pay, and people earning less are motivated to either achieve that higher position or they are content to work within their own category at the expected level of performance. Whether you agree with my conclusion or not is moot, what matters is that I now know the importance of pay for employee motivation.

Pay does matter, but only to a certain point. 

It is fitting that the last course material I encountered here in SMO 500: Managing People would reference author Daniel Pink. Leggett and Neill mention Pink's book Drive when they are discussing the importance of articulating a vision. That communicating purpose is a key aspect of a leaders success. I have been talking, probably too much, about Pink and Drive, ever since the start of the course. I can now say with confidence that he is completely correct in his findings about the importance of autonomy, mastery and purpose, but I can also look critically at his ideas because they lack certain ideas that are key to getting the most out of an employee. Pink does not discuss the need for extrinsic rewards, except to tell us how they often stifle creativity. I still believe that a transformational leader is capable of transcending the transactional needs of employees, but why would they? I will try to articulate this particular idea shortly, but for now I want to cover a couple of different ideas.

One of the biggest ideas that I will take away from this class is what a transformational leader looks like. Idealized influence, inspirational motivation, individual consideration and intellectual stimulation are nice big words, but what do they mean? I think they can be condensed into one clear statement that has come up time and time again in the course: When working with People, treat them like People. No matter what the position: janitor, professor, construction worker, administrative assistant, school administrator or any other position that can be named, it is a person. That person is an individual that wants to be doing something with their life. Is that person motivated soley by bringing home enough money to raise family? Fine, are they working in an environment where they can do it with dignity and a certain sense of pride? Can you, as leader make sure that they are? Do there goals go beyond the extrinsic? How can you, as leader, foster their ambition to do more? How can you as leader see the individual, understand the ir purpose, and communicate it to them effectively? People are not that difficuly to understand. Sure they are irrational, but they can be understood. People want to feel valuable, they want to contribute and they often want to be challenged.

Not sure who made this, but I found it here and I think it applies.

The big idea, that I take away from this course, that is really captured in the explanation of transformational leadership (which should really be named human leadership, preferred leadership, peak leadership, effective leadership or.... I guess transformational leadership is best) is that human management means being human about leadership.

I should mention the whole four drives that motivate as really missing the mark. They got so much correct, but they also missed so much. It was nice to finally read an author point to the individual manager (not ceo or company founder, but the guy or gal on the ground) as someone that makes a difference. I just don't understand how they could create a narrow category called comprehend to capture so many big human drives like mastery, autonomy and purpose. Like so much else in this coures, and hopefully a great deal of my analysis, the reward is in the synthesis of all these ideas. It just so happens that my next and final post will be a synthesis of all the ideas covered in class, my set of personal management practices.