Visionary Leadership Reflection

(1993), describes leadership in one

John Maxwell, author of Developing the Leader Within You

easy phrase Leadership is influence...the ability to gain followers (p. 1). He goes on to explain the

different levels of leadership, how everyone influences someone, and how that ability to influence

people and acquire their trust gains followers. In his book, he explains how everyone has the ability to

become a leader and experiences opportunities to become a leader; it falls on that person to be mature

enough, ready, and willing to be a leader.

Although I agree with Maxwell and his simple definition, when speaking directly about leaders

and leadership in technology education my definition is a bit longer.

Leaders in technology education are people who work to improve themselves through their

personal development and growth to incorporate technology in order to build their leadership

capacity and that of others.

These technology leaders show leadership through using tools to enhance their classroom and

influencing others to do the same, in order to improve student achievement, and to support the mission

and vision of a school. With this definition in mind, I will explain what leadership skills I use in my school

to help meet our mission and vision, as well as continue to build leadership capacity and student

achievement through various projects I have completed in my M.Ed. CIT courses.

Leadership Skills

Using my definition to hone in the skills I use on a daily basis, I must first look at my schools

mission and vision to ensure that my leadership skills are helping meet them.

Harding Mission: To ensure a safe space in which all students are afforded
unique opportunities to learn and grow

Harding Vision: To be an innovative school that empowers all students to be

academically, socially, and emotionally prepared for life.
Visionary Leadership Reflection

I consistently provide students and staff with an open-door policy, so that they feel comfortable

sharing information with me. This information is held in the utmost confidence unless I am given

permission to share it, or it requires me to mandatorily report it. This ensures that all parties have a safe

space where they feel welcomed. In order to provide students with unique opportunities to learn and

grow, as well as be empowered academically, socially, and emotionally for life, I organize and offer

professional learning for our buildings teachers around the use of a variety of instructional strategies.

This includes both device-driven and non-device lesson ideas and strategies to help support teachers

where they feel they need it. All professional learning is done around the Marzano framework, ensuring

that I keep with district initiatives. I often help teachers plan and co-teach lessons using strategies that I

modeled during professional learning. In addition, planning and presenting professional learning has

helped me build my own leadership capacity by creating a larger sphere of influence in order to help

our school build the rigor in classrooms and ultimately become a School for Rigor.

Examples of Leadership

For CI 511:Technology Diffusion, Leadership and Change, taught by Dr. Lance Wilhelm, I

created three projects that created opportunities for me build my leadership skills and present my

abilities to my superiors. These projects included: a written grant proposal for additional technology in

my school to empower cross-curricular collaboration, which directly stemmed from my second project

Purchasing & Integrating Technology School Board presentation I presented to my administration.

Finally, the third project was a building professional learning presentation on different tools teachers

ll three of these projects created the opportunity to

could use in the classroom, besides PowerPoint. A

build my leadership skills and demonstrate them to my superiors.

Empowering Collaboration through Technology Implementation in Science and Math

Empowering Collaboration through Technology Implementation in Science and Math is a written

NEA grant proposal. This proposal stemmed from a school board presentation I made to my
Visionary Leadership Reflection

administrators, in order to obtain more technology in classrooms to support both Science and Math

standards. This proposal was specifically written to purchase HP Revolve computers in order to use the

app Rocket Science 101. Since my building is currently not 1:1 and hardly have enough computers to

support one computer for every three students, this written proposal was essential to taking the first

step towards creating a building that is more 21st Century equipped. There were three main goals of

this grant: 1. To increase the amount of technology used in classrooms, 2. Prepare students for a 21st

Century education and workplace, and 3. Increase the rigor in Science and Math classrooms using

technology.

Although the end goal was to present this to the school board, my administrators listened to my

proposal and I was able to submit my written proposal to increase the amount of technology in our

building. This proposal also used my leadership abilities to wield the influence I needed to get the

necessary supplies purchased. I showed my competency of the subject matter and public speaking

skills to my superiors, by presenting this to four administrators. I showed my understanding of the

technology field by incorporating a clear focus of how technology would be integrated as well as

accurate research and information to support my grant proposal.

Purchasing & Integrating Technology Board Presentation

Dr. Wilhem pushed us to create presentations to be given to our school boards. Since I work for

Des Moines Public Schools, a large district, he agreed to allow me to present to my four

administrators. I advocated for this presentation because there are so many chains of command before

the Board that I would have to go through, and I needed my administrators approvals before presenting

something that would impact our school.

This presentation was threefold: it was to increase awareness of the lack of devices and the

need to purchase more, to find a new resolution for checking out devices to teachers, and to explain the

need for a permanent storage of devices.

Visionary Leadership Reflection

Only having 255 devices in a building of almost 800 students, creates a problem that has

started to turn teachers against technology. The constant lack of availability makes teachers not even

attempt to reserve carts, therefore, retiring to older ways or previous methods of teaching a skill or

topic. When carts are available, teachers are considered the luckiest person alive, if all of devices

within the cart are working. Every time I use a laptop cart, the number of available working laptops

dwindle. In conjunction with that, the amount of standardized testing like MAP, ELPA21, NAEP, prevent

teachers from using laptops and iPads for a total of 12 weeks throughout the school year, usually

during the most crucial points where we are trying to engage students. Having each teacher receive a

classroom set of HP Revolves or iPads would solve this issue.

This presentation challenged me to prepare a professional presentation that incorporated the

latest research and understanding of technology devices in order to make an accurate presentation.

Additionally, this was the first time I have ever created a presentation pushing my superiors to support

an idea of mine that could potentially affect the entire building. I realized that in order to be seen as a

leader, I would need to step out of my comfort zone and suggest what I believe is in the best interest of

students.

Beyond PowerPoint Professional Learning

Our teachers are afforded the opportunity to plan in both grade level and content PLCs multiple

times a week for no less than 45 minutes at a time. This has lead to great collaboration and consistency

across teams when planning. Unfortunately, this has also led to the same PowerPoint being used in

every grade level content room. For example, the same 8th grade science PowerPoint is used in all 8th

grade science classes, even though each class might need a different thing or way of presenting due to

student needs.

I created a PowerPoint presentation, to prove how they are overused and are boring, to present

professional learning. In this PowerPoint I provided teachers with new presentation tools that they can

use to present content and students can use to show their understanding of materials. In order to
Visionary Leadership Reflection

introduce staff to new ways of presenting their lessons I held a whole-staff professional learning

session in our library. After that initial contact and presentation, I followed up with all staff in their PLC

meetings and initiated new platforms while working with teachers in learning cycles. These learning

cycles provided 1:1 attention to the teacher, allowing me to provide direct instruction, modeling,

co-planning, and feedback to teachers about using different platforms like Google Classroom, eMaze,

Prezi, ThingLink, etc and definitely increased my leadership skills and power of influence on these

teachers.

This presentation was probably the one I was most comfortable with. By the time I had to

present this to staff I was a regular presenter in our professional learning sessions. I also was confident

and comfortable in the material I was presenting. I felt that this was the best way to address all staff,

increase student engagement by having teachers use a variety of platforms to convey skills and

materials, and build teachers toolboxes with new ideas.

Conclusion

As an instructional coach, I am a visible leader within my building. I work with teachers to guide them

towards best practices while taking risks. Having focused in graduate coursework to embed technology

use into the classroom, it is imperative that I use my knowledge gained through research, readings, and

application to use my influence as a leader and help teachers incorporate technology to increase

student achievement. In keeping with the goal of t echnological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK),

I have allowed teachers to remain autonomous in their desire of how to incorporate technology but

have used my influence to help them understand the importance, given them tools to be successful,

and collaboratively planned flexible classrooms and lessons to allow for the successful implementation

of technology.
Visionary Leadership Reflection

SOURCES

Maxwell, J. C. (1993). Developing the Leader Within You. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson.