Secret+Four---Learning+Is+Work

Tell me about this one.... I think we all agree, should we even read this....(my bad humor)

I think he could have called this chapter reflection and improvement...then moved forward from there....he does pose many interesting points (thought provoking and challenging in a school too) which I will list below

(75) Prescription is not the answer there needs to be a dynamic between consistency and innovation. Willingness to change while keeping the best practices. (76) Carry over from last statement finding ways to make hospital better with diligence. (77) The key is not new technologies, or special skills...the answer involves make a science of performance, investigate and improve how they use the things they already have... simple banal changes that produced enormous improvements. (78) second paragraph holds one of the biggest statements and is inherent in teaching...measure ourselves and be open about what wee are doing......do not cover the bad but look for ways to improve it. Continuing down to end of paragraph four....curriculum is summed up here....a process that will require continued, sustained effort forever. (81) This page was great the whole thing...started with Building continuous improvement into the culture of an organization is the backbone of secret four....if this is not a good leader's greatest task i am not sure what is.... Lower on the page 3 topic highlight teachers who have a solid core of beliefs and understandings and deep moral purpose....and develop highly personalized classrooms what about the leaders creating highly personalized schools and or libraries... (82) Are you sick of reading about Toyota? I am :) the rest of the statement and .2 paragraph the pursuit of precision not proscription in collaboration with other teachers and leaders constantly monitoring and making adjustments. This applies to every member of a school staff. (83) school plan for building teacher capacity for literacy instruction through shared leadership student literacy programs and activities. (84) Every program is continually evaluated and refined to improve. surveys seem like a lot of testing but they have the ability to do this type of things using technology... (85) The school is so devoted to helping students become literate that it seems no student goes unnoticed....all leaders need this as it tales back to secret one and two... Last chunk of the page........... How do you put things in place...do schools miss this portion? EXTERNAL WORKSHOPS AND COURSES WONT DO THE TRICK What??? I think they are still important for a refresher but I understand how they improve maybe one teacher or staff member and do not really help the others. (87) the success of the so called student (worker being trained) is the top priority Wow number two...does your school make you feel like this? key points for the learner and the student. (88) people have a tendency to hide problems....do librarians do this fearing their job versus open discussion of how to improve? there is an amazing amount of plot lines for fictions books based on this idea.....think about how many characters improve only when their flaw is pushed to the forefront.....hopefully in the happy ending they discover how to fix....as a leader will you chastise someone like this or help them learn... ( 89) If people are not learning in the specific context in which the work that is being done, they are inevitably learning superficially....

MELISSA: I thought several of the points made in chapter 4 were insightful. For example, on page 80, he talks about the parallels between schools and school districts and firms like Toyota. Both need to rely on the idea of continuous improvement being built into the culture and expectations of an organization. The CLIP framework (critical learning instructional path) described on page 81 seems a useful way of looking at working on literacy with students. He also mentions the way that teachers need a "deep moral purpose" in order to develop the highest functioning classrooms. I apply these ideas to my library performance in that I believe that I need to focus on continously improving the library, utilizing a learning model that sets a path for all students to be able to achieve at high levels, and developing a sense of moral purpose to drive goal setting and overall direction for the library program. One discussion question we could post on our final assignment is: How should librarians respond to teachers that feel their leadership style is overbearing and "bossy"?

What do you think?

NATALIE: Librarians continually need to look for ways to improve and reflect on best practices. Our job is so multi-faceted that it might be easy to continue to do things the same from year to year. We must continue to attend conferences and be life-long learners so that we can instill that in our students. The chapter also discusses the importance of “adopting processes that will create a more precise, validated, **data-driven** expert activity that can respond to the learning needs of individual students” (81). The livelihood of librarians in today’s economy is at stake without data. It will be important for us to continually provide data that proves how we are essential to improving student success. The plan outlined on page 84 sounds a lot like the mandated Rti that schools are enforcing this year. What I gained from this chapter is that as leaders in our school building, we need to provide ways for teachers to continually grow/reflect in what they are doing (as do we). Page 87 says: “the most important job of any manager is to teacher workers to become more effective.” We can collaborate with teachers and help them become more effective, efficient by using a new web 2.0 tool or research database.