Motivation Discussion Wkd. 2

During the class we had a discussion about overall motivation. I found it insightful as I listened to the rest of our class discuss this issue. Several students spoke about the direction of their schools. Some stated they had a plan in place for professional development, but other schools did not. It would be hard to motivate our schools if we did not what our needs were. From the discussion I felt the best way to motivate staff is by studying our data and then creating a plan from the results. At this point we should create a plan that will involve the staff and benefit students

IIRC data

I got sick of analyzing data, but I did learn soo much from the flood of data we looked through. The financial side of the data was very interesting to me to hear the brainstorming of the "what ifs." I also found that looking at the data in groups was more effective than myself alone, because I would get caught up in one particular area (usually reading/math scores). The set of questions kept direction and motivation (to get done).

This class

The best piece of advice I think we received was to treat people respectfully (because it can burn bridges if you don't). I think that many people get done with master's and doctorate programs thinking that this makes you a better person. It does not make us better people only better educated. I've seen it happen in all walks of life. I have been the person that many people have underestimated and I have been the one on the high horse. I think it is always necessary to evaluate ourselves in terms of our own expectations and the expectations of the community, teachers, and staff. We need to take the time to listen to complaints about ourselves just as we would the compliments because many times.........we learn more about ourselves from the complaints.

Year round schedule

You two had a great presentation about year round schooling. I have one question for you and that is Would your high school district schedule affect the elementary schedule? What I mean by that is what would happen if you had a student in high school and middle school and you are on two totally different schedules. I know that there are schools out there that work like that, but it is something to think about.

Minority Teaching presentation

Kudos to you guys. What a great presentation. I would like to know more about the minorities in coaching. We don't have many minorities in the coaching positions around Oregon. The only school district close to us that has minorities as coaches in Rockford. I feel that more minority coaches are needed not only in urban districts but rural districts also.

Last Saturday Class

The presentations this weekend were very informative. I agree that student led conferences would be a great way to have the students tell their parents/guardians what they have accomplished and what they need to work on. I love the idea that the teacher just facilitates it and the student leads. More schools need to do this type of conferencing. This would be a way to get high school parents to our school. We have a very low turnout for P/T Conferences. It is only the parents of the students that we don't need to see.

Last class

I feel that the case studies are very helpful to prepare us to be future administrators. This class was one of the most relevant classes that I have taken. Thank you Dr. Closen for making me think like a administrator. I also feel that we should all have a good idea of what IIRC is all about. The exercises you gave us makes us analyze what is going on in the schools in Illinois.