Setting Goals & Creating Accountability

With each school year comes the opportunity to wipe the slate clean and begin again.  Over the past few days I have spent some time setting goals for myself and for our students for the 14-15 school year.  What dawned on me is that even though it is a chance to wipe our slate clean of past projects, failed ventures, the stress of a long school year, etc, I believe that we should each take the time to fill our slates up with the messages and goals we want to showcase to the world.

At ISTE in Atlanta this summer, I had the opportunity to once again hear +Adam Bellow (@adambellow) speak.  During his session he asked each of us to snap a selfie and use the hashtag of #TYIW (This Year I Will) and post something that we will challenge ourselves to accomplish professionally.  If you have ever had the chance to hear Adam speak, you know how motivational he can be, but even more importantly you know how impacting his comments are.  It is not surprising that his challenge was one of the things I am going to work on bringing back to our school.

In my mind the real power of this is not just writing down a goal.  It is hidden power of social pressure.  My artifact found at the top of this page is not one that I have hidden.  I have it posted outside my office, posted above my desk, and I am sharing it via social media.  My hope is that others in our school will do the same.  Posting and sharing these goals publicly and permanently will allow us to hold each other accountable throughout the year and focused on what we said we would achieve.

I am choosing to fill my slate with several new initiatives this year.  Fortunately, my Principal Mr. Beckenhauer (@B_Beckenhauer) and Superintendent Mr. Applegate (@applegate_joel) have given me the professional latitude to pursue many if not all of my professional goals.  Without their support, the things I write on my 'clean slate' would be little more than just more scribbles.  Just as important as having supportive leadership is to be surrounded by great teachers and I truly feel that I am surrounded by a World Class teaching staff who will be instrumental in helping me accomplish my goals.

Because I am pillar of moderation (read that with a sarcastic tone) I took this challenge to heart and created a large set of goals and initiatives I will work to accomplish this year for the benefit of our students.  I am willing to share my large working document with anyone who wants to take the time to read it.  So if you are interested in reading it, shoot me an email at dustin.favinger@cozadschools.net and I will share it with you.  The document I am willing to share elaborates on each of these ideas that I am listing below.

Here are four of the things I will work to accomplish this school year:

• Host an innovation week where students drive their own learning

• Work to organize a school-wide day of service where students and staff volunteer in our community

• Organize a college week with activities for students and staff to increase our college going rate

• Continue to work on growing the ‘Genius Hour’ initiative for our students

If you see me out and about feel free to ask me about my progress in achieving these goals.  Here is to a great school year!

Follow me on twitter @CHS_Mr_F

The Power of Do -- Living your life in Beta

As the school year is just around the corner I am recommitting myself to blogging about my experiences in a school going through a transformational time.  This post (and probably those to follow) will be different from my past posts, less refined but hopefully more authentic.  In the past I wrote many blog, but left them unpublished because I just didn't feel there were real world ready.  Well, this summer I was bludgeoned by the obvious reason why I need to change self imposed restriction to sharing.

Once again this summer, I had the wonderful opportunity to attend ISTE 2014 international conference and the Great Plains Google Summit.  Just as expected, they were just what the doctor in terms of re-energizing me and reminding me of just what we need to move our educational systems from 'good enough' to 'the best it can be'.

During the ISTE 2014 conference I had the opportunity to listen to Phil Hansen (@Philinthecircle) talk about 'Embracing the Shake'  If you do nothing else after reading this blog, then watch this TED talk about discovering your true limits.  He posits that 'In order to limitless, we must first be limited'.  How can each of us Embrace Our Shake to make the classes and schools we work in be the best they can be for students.


http://youtu.be/YrZTho_o_is


The keynotes at these sessions all spoke of the importance of letting go of our fear of failure.  As educators we tend to be a conservative bunch.  By nature we want to succeed and help others succeed.  However, stop to consider the fact the in the real world, failure is where we learn the most impactful lessons.  Check out this video from the Google Summit Keynote Speaker Jia Jiang (@Jia Jiang)


http://youtu.be/ZFWyseydTkQ

Rejection and failure are what shape us to better next time.  We need to live our life in Beta mode.  We need to model for students that it is ok to fail so long as we evaluate our venture and do better next time.  Education has been a cumbersome beast when it comes to change and moving in the way the real world does.  (Remember we educators are conservative by nature).  So many times we rob the world of our gifts because we fear failure.  So many times we limit opportunities for students because we fear our inability to provide the perfect experience for them.  It is time we stop allowing our own fear as educators be the limiting factor for our students.