MODULE 7
Leading to Support Educators Across Learning Environments
In the prior six modules, we focused on the shifts that teachers can make in their classrooms to achieve the vision of teaching across learning environments (TALE). In Module 7 – Leading to Support Educators Across Learning Environments – we look at those shifts from the school leader’s perspective. We seek to answer the question: How can we, as school leaders, guide, support, and advance practices that support TALE? The sessions will reference learning from the prior modules, so we suggest that you complete at least Module 1 prior to engaging in this module.
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Module 7
Session 1
Shifting Mindsets: From Emergency School Management to Leading for TALE
The time has come to switch from emergency school management as a result of the pandemic to leading for teaching across learning environments. This session explores the challenges school leaders faced during the pandemic and change leadership in the new normal of education. We introduce the framing of a VUCA world — one characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity — and how to shift our thinking using the hallmarks of effective leadership.
leadership, change leadership, mindset, emergency remote teaching
Module 7
Session 2
Resilient Design for Leading
Resilient design for learning (RDL) teaches us to use extensibility, flexibility, and redundancy to design learning experiences that are adaptable to different learning environments. Resilient design for leading helps us make mindset shifts from volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) to vision, understanding, community, and agility. We also explore how using resilient design for leading helps school leaders and teachers to create learning environments that are grounded in predictability, flexibility, connection, and student empowerment.
leadership, resilient design for learning
Module 7
Session 3
Leading to Support Excellent Teaching for Everyone
Universal design for learning (UDL) focuses on three domains to create equitable, flexible learning environments that accommodate individual learning differences: engagement, representation, and action and expression. While UDL can help transform the way we teach, its implementation often faces barriers. In this session, we explore the phased approach of the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) to implementing UDL schoolwide, including strategies to support implementation across learning environments.
leadership, universal design for learning
Module 7
Session 4
Leading to Support High-Leverage Practices Everywhere
Making a teaching practice portable begins with pinpointing a learning barrier to teaching across learning environments, creating a learning goal, and identifying practices to address the goal. To help us become skilled in this way of teaching, we can rely on professional learning communities (PLCs) with our peers. In this session, we look at how we as school leaders can support collaboration to help teachers adopt new practices for teaching across learning environments. This includes strategies we can use to create successful PLCs.
leadership, collaboration, professional learning communities
Module 7
Session 5
Leading for Student Engagement Across Learning Environments
The shift from how students demonstrate engagement to how students experience engagement (attraction, persistence, and delight) is part of creating trauma-informed, equity-centered learning environments. The topic of student engagement is explored throughout the TALE Academy; however, this session focuses on how we as school leaders influence student engagement by the way we support teachers as designers of learning environments.
leadership, engagement
Module 7
Session 6
Leading for Family Engagement Across Learning Environments
Throughout the TALE Academy, we explore how to treat students’ families as partners in students’ learning. In this session, we explore the ways our organizational policies and structures support family engagement and provide resources to help us advance family engagement, including the Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family-School Partnerships. We also explore how to expand the instructional core for teaching and learning to include families. We conclude with elements we should consider when selecting technology tools that support family engagement.
dual capacity-building, leadership, family, partnership, technology, engagement
Module 7
Session 7
Leading for Schoolwide Social Emotional Learning
Building a schoolwide culture of social emotional learning (SEL) starts with school leadership. In this session, we revisit what SEL looks like in the classroom using CASEL’s five SEL competencies and the New York State Education Department’s SEL Benchmarks. Then we zoom out to explore a schoolwide approach for SEL. We share indicators to help us monitor SEL in our schools and ways we can model SEL for teachers and students through our own leadership practices.
social emotional learning, culture, leadership
Module 7
Session 8
Technology for TALE
In order to be effective, technology must be integrated into our teaching practices, not just leveraged as an add-on. To do this, teachers need to thoughtfully approach technology integration and consider how it can engage students, enhance their learning, and extend beyond the classroom. This session helps us embrace technology by looking at the expanded instructional core and considering how technology can support the four constants of learning: predictability, flexibility, connection, and empowerment. It also provides a technology decision-making matrix to help guide our adoption of technology to support teaching across learning environments.
leadership, technology