Domain+II



DOMAIN II—INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP

Competency 004 - The principal knows how to facilitate the design and implementation of curricula and strategic plans that enhance teaching and learning; ensure alignment of curriculum, instruction, resources, and assessment; and promote the use of varied assessments to measure student performance.

Upon review of my logs, it appears I have about 16 internship hours in this competency. I would rate my level of mastery as proficient because I need a lot more experience in creating schedules that maximize the instruction time afforded, while accommodating requirements from TEA.

By far, the activity that created the most knowledge and skill was working alongside my principal to create a master schedule for the upcoming school year. My previous experience with scheduling was a nightmare, so I wasn’t expecting anything better when I engaged in this activity. As predicted, I was correct in my assumptions that scheduling was a tedious process that required collaboration and thinking outside the box. The key part in my experience was collaborating so that problems were tackled easier. Sometimes one person would see something that would work better and problems were solved quicker. The process was painstaking because you had to make choices that would affect both student learning and decide which grade levels should have priorities over another. There were various things to consider because changing one thing created a domino effect on everything else. This activity allowed me to clearly see the challenges and how to decide something that has a huge impact on everyone in the school.

Competency 005 - The principal knows how to advocate, nurture, and sustain an instructional program and a campus culture that are conducive to student learning and staff professional growth.

There are 11 documented hours in this competency from the Campus Supervised Log and the Course Embedded Log. I would rate my level of mastery as exemplary because I think one of my strengths is applying best practices and research based strategies to improve student learning. I believe using student assessments to drive instruction, and collaboration of the staff to identify successful teaching tricks and strategies that create student success can do this.

One of my favorite activities that utilized this competency was to create a wiki-based study group, creating a lesson using Universal Design for Learning at the CAST Lesson Building, creating a sample electronic book, and writing a team reflection. This activity increased my knowledge of how to better address a diverse group of learners by using different methods within a lesson. It also showed how important collaboration is, which is also important to advocate, nurture, and sustain an instructional program and a campus culture that promotes student learning and staff professional growth. This activity made a huge impact on me because it showed me a way to address student needs in a way that is less traditional and more project based. I realized that this is where students will learn the best and students are then responsible for their learning. It also offers students more choices in how they present the information they learned, rather than a traditional multiple-choice test. Furthermore, this activity empowered me to make improvements in my own teaching.

Competency 006 - The principal knows how to implement a staff evaluation and development system to improve the performance of all staff members, select and implement appropriate models for supervision and staff development, and apply the legal requirements for personnel management.

A total of 59 hours were spent in this competency. I rate my level of mastery at proficient because I believe that until I have actually experienced certain situations involving legal matters that I cannot achieve a level of exemplary. Some specific examples that come to mind are suggesting non-renewal of a teacher contract, or handling disciplinary action of a special education student. I think after having real experiences in handling those special situations, I would rate my mastery at exemplary.

There were so many activities that brought about great learning, it was hard to pick just one. I would have to say the most difficult one was to develop my internship plan alongside my supervisors to address the needs of the school. It took a lot of collaboration and communication to figure out how we would address the needs of the plan and the school. I also think having two supervisors allowed the needs to be addressed in a clearer fashion. One supervisor guided me through the principal/leadership part, and the other on the technology side. My supervisors had different things to offer as far as creating activities. The plan that we came up with has helped our school and district in so many ways that I never dreamed. When I started, I knew what the plan said. Now that I am done, I am able to look back and see the impact the plan has made in improving our school by meeting both my needs and the school’s needs.

Competency 007 - The principal knows how to apply organizational, decision-making, and problem solving skills to ensure an effective learning environment.

What a surprise that I only have 3.5 hours from both logs in this area. With that being said I would have to rate my level of mastery at minimally proficient due to the lack of experiences as well as a personal area of weakness in resolving conflicts.

Even though I rated myself as minimally proficient, I did learn a great deal about implementing school change and how not to go about making certain changes. In this activity, a few things became very apparent to me involving communication in our school. It personally affected me and caused me to think about the way the change was handled and how it could have been handled differently to create a more positive environment within the group of those involved. The change itself was not negative; it was made with the best interest of the students in mind. The way the change was communicated was negative and created a lot of non-support from many teachers. Had the change been implemented in a healthier way, then I probably wouldn’t have learned as much from it. Any kind of change can be difficult for most people; a leader must really contemplate the best way to handle it so that it is a smooth process.