Final Course Reflection (Organization and Administration)

It is that time again, another post to round out a course from Hopkins.

This course gave you an opportunity to practice a range of leadership strategies when making decisions. It required you to think politically, orchestrate collaboration among all stakeholders, and remain steadfast in your original vision. What do you envision to be the pitfalls you might face as a first year principal, and how will you implement the strategies learned to overcome the pitfalls?

As a first year administrator, I imagine that I will be falling into a wide range of potential pitfalls! I think that is a necessary role of the first year of experience in any position. We must walk before we can run; I expect to stumble.

The task of imagining ourselves in a variety of roles was helpful as an intellectual exercise. In my opinion, it is difficult for us truly to imagine the roles of each stake holder and how that plays out in Leadership and Administrative meetings. It was valuable to learn about the wealth of knowledge that we have in each other. By leaning on one another, we can work through the most difficult administrative challenges. I feel that this course was a great introduction into creating a solid leadership team, because we became one in our own right.

When I was taking this course, it was somewhat like drinking from a fire-hose  I felt that I was constantly inundated with large amounts of information and was unable to synthesize it all. As we all leave Hopkins and begin leadership roles around the world, I think that this wealth of information will come in handy as we approach every situation. Now that I have made it through, I have a digital binder full of resources that I can use when I need help as an administrator. I am looking forward to a time when I can come back to these posts and articles that I have written and use them to help my school succeed.

How has this course prepared you to use twenty-first century leadership skills as you model a new culture for collaborating, analyzing student performance, and continually reflecting on instructional practices, school climate, and quality decision-making?

I have been using 21st century tools since the 21st century rolled around. Where this course really made a difference was through working as a team. Our team used a wide range of tools to collaborate, but consistently returned to the top few tools that I have used in the past (Google Apps). It was great to see that each member of our team used the suite in a new way.

We all have collaborated on using the Google suite and its resources, but I was inspired by the way we used it as a collaborative team to design look fors and share information. I feel that the suite will be a resource for me for many years as I build a leadership team and continue to expand my own knowledge about student learning.