Back in 2015, Alberta Education, through a very collaborative process, established a policy on Teacher Growth, Supervision and Evaluation. It was very forward thinking by eliminating cyclical teacher evaluations and replacing those evaluations with a focus on growth. It is not that all evaluations were unnecessary (there are still four reasons to initiate an evaluation) …
Tag: continuous improvement
Jan 08
What zone are you in?
Below is a great visual provided by Dr. Amy Edmondson that links psychological safety to performance standards. In the visual, she identifies four zones that people within organizations reside based on the relationship between psychological safety and performance. Great leaders understand the importance of psychological safety in the workplace. There is no doubt that it …
Oct 27
The Diploma Exam Debate
Recently, the Minister of Education in Alberta announced that Diploma Exams for students written in November would be optional due to COVID-19. In the Red Deer Advocate on October 20th, editor Dave Marsden wrote, “Rather than having less testing, if anything, the school system needs more.” His premise, because there may be gaps in the …
Mar 14
Results and Outcomes…What do they truly mean? Part II
In part I of this series, I spoke a little about how results and outcomes can be manipulated to prove one’s point. In this blog, I want to discuss how to start looking beyond simple results and outcomes and begin moving a culture towards learning and continuous improvement. While this is my journey, I believe …
Oct 13
Standards and professional growth
In 1997, the Ministerial Order, Teaching Quality Standard Applicable to the Provision of Basic Education in Alberta was signed. It provided a standard with descriptors of the knowledge, skills and attributes related to teachers who were new to the profession (i.e. Interim Certification) and those who held a permanent certificate. A new policy derived from that Ministerial …
Nov 12
Alignment counts!
This week our senior administration completed our school continuous improvement plan reviews with all of our school leaders. The process is fairly simple in that each school administration team comes into the board office and shares their plan with our senior education leaders. While I understand that it can a little intimidating for our newer leaders, it is meant …
Dec 07
From the Desk of the Superintendent- Continuous Improvement Plan Reviews
This past week, over an intense 3-day period, members of senior administration and I visited all fourteen schools in the division to review continuous improvement plans (CIPs). This process occurs every 6-7 weeks and allows senior administration an in-depth view of the work occurring in the schools. It may sound a little intimidating (3-6 senior administrators descending …
Jan 04
Continuous improvement is not a New Year’s resolution
I’ve made my feelings known about New Year’s resolutions before. To put it politely, I’m not a big fan. It is not that I’m against kicking a bad habit, getting in better shape or making a positive lifestyle change. All of those life adjustments are positive but my complaint, is that one must seemingly wait …
Dec 31
Not another New Year’s resolution
You can probably tell from the title that I’m not a fan of New Year’s resolutions. It really doesn’t make sense to me to wait until the beginning of a new year to change some aspect of your life. Why is January 1st so important? Didn’t we want to have a healthier lifestyle, lose weight, …