Leaders Coaching Leaders Corwin

With her emphasis on relationship building as the backdrop for linguistically and culturally sustainable assessment, the bestselling author Margo Gottlieb tells educators that we can do better when it comes to how we assess multilingual learners. In this episode she discusses her latest edition of Assessing Multilingual Learners, and she offers educators welcoming and encouraging ways to support multilingual learners to succeed in school and beyond. How?  By authentically integrating the needs of multilingual students as core to the assessment as opposed to just adding on components that may fail to meet their needs. To do this, Gottlieb suggests educators use asset-based language, student centered activities, relevant classroom assessments and more.

Politics, learning loss and a tsunami of initiatives can get in the way of what matters most in education: strategies aligned to key goals, systems for high quality professional learning and, most of all, creating a culture where all are seen and heard. Lionel Allen, hand picked by Arnie Duncan to lead the nation’s first turnaround school, is committed to helping leaders and teachers remember their “why.” In this episode, he passionately discusses a vision for our schools that centers students and values the adults charged to educate them. As he outlines in his new book Lead With CARE, affirmation, responsiveness, relationships and empowerment are all integral to designing the schools that students deserve. 

 A perfect storm is upon us and educators are in the middle of it. Identity issues often incite and divide us, but they are actually our way out of the storm. This is what this episode’s guests, Andrew Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley, posit. In their latest book, The Age of Identity, they seek to shed light on this topic to help educators make meaning of this highly complicated issue. They demonstrate how to be vulnerable, ask questions, and interrogate our own thinking to better prepare young people for a future where they can learn to live together and help others belong. 

Too many schools still rely on deeply ingrained, segregated practices that fail to serve all students. Author of the book Leading for All and district leader Jennifer Spencer-iiams would like to change this. In this episode she shares lessons learned from spending nearly a decade building a school district where all students are served in their neighborhood school and in classrooms with their general education peers. Hear how to get better academic outcomes for all students, not just those identified with disabilities, by promoting self-efficacy, improving social and emotional health, and consistently implementing research-based instructional strategies.
 

One does not often pair unreasonable and irrational with care and hospitality, but superstar superintendent Mike Nelson does. As he sees it, to get at the kind of collaboration most school leaders crave requires them go far deeper into human relations than usual. In this episode, he defines what he calls human interconnectedness and provides specific examples of what it looks like and how to get there. Topics include how to make your staff feel seen and heard every day, the benefits of taking the time to build strong connections and tips for fully immersing yourself in the daily experiences of those you lead.  

When there’s a nuclear meltdown happening with a student in your school, you don’t have a second to think. Author and consultant Ben Springer, shares the framework from his bestselling book Happy Kids Don’t Punch You in the Face, to discuss what to do in the heat of the moment, and how you can decrease the chances of incidents happening in the first place. His approach is a field-tested, integrating principles of behavioral intervention with the best practices of positive psychology—a fresh, effective response that respects the tough realities facing today’s educators.