Teaching Learning Leading K-12

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Episode 71: Team Building Tip - How Cohesive Teams Behave

September 27, 2015

Today, I have another Team Building Tip for you. (Take a look at my other team building tips: Episode 57, Episode 62, and Episode 65 )

One of my favorite leadership books is Patrick Lencioni's,

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable.

Toward the end of this amazing book, Mr. Lencioni sums up his ideas by focusing on how a cohesive team behaves.

According to Lencioni, truly cohesive teams do the following:

1. They trust one another.

2. They engage in unfiltered conflict around ideas.

3. They commit to decisions and plans of action.

4. They hold one another accountable for delivering against those plans.

5. They focus on the achievement of collective results.

I hope that this makes you think about your team.

Does your team follow Lencioni's thoughts about a cohesive team?

For more info about teams, I encourage you check out The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, share it with your team members, and use it to help guide your team to becoming more cohesive.

Enjoy!

Length: 7:46

Episode 62: Fighting for Who is on Your Team-Team Building Tip #2

July 19, 2015

Just a few weeks ago, I began a 5 part series of short podcasts that are focused on team building.

Check out the first team building tip episode here.

Today, I am focused on fighting for who you want on your team.

As the leader, it is important that you have a say in who gets to be on your team. Too often there are forces at work that would like to fill the openings on your team with their picks.This practices flys in the face of what it takes to build a quality team. The team has to work together to achieve its mission and goals.

When the leader interviews potential new members, he is looking for the right fit. He is looking for someone who is driven and a self-starter. He is looking for someone who makes things happen.

The candidate is also interviewing the team leader. The potential team member wants to know if the team and the organization are a good fit, as well.

The team is important to the well-being of the organization, therefore it is important to take ownership. This can't happen if others who are outside the team place new members in the group.

Who is on your team is worth fighting for.

Hopefully, this is good food for thought as you get ready to start the new school year.

Length: 6:15

Episode 60: Vicki Davis-The Cool Cat Teacher

July 1, 2015

Vicki is a teacher and an IT Director in a small school system in Camilla, Georgia, but she is connected through her writing, speaking, podcast, and social media content throughout the world!

This is her 13th year teaching.

She writes regularly for the website Edutopia and Vicki can frequently be found as a national keynote speaker presenting on a multitude of topics.

She is a published author and has her own podcast on the BAM Radio Network called Every Classroom Matters

I subscribe to her podcast on iTunes and look forward to every episode.

Her books are Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds: Move to Global Collaboration One Step At A Time and Reinventing Writing: The 9 Tools that are Changing Writing, Teaching, and Learning Forever

She has an amazing blog, http://www.coolcatteacher.com/, where she expresses her thoughts about many different areas associated with teaching from technology to classroom management and many topics in between. She also connects the readers to many resources for helping with better teaching and school leading.

She also is very active on social media, especially Twitter, where her handle is @coolcatteacher

https://www.pinterest.com/coolcatteacher/

https://www.facebook.com/coolcatteacher

https://www.youtube.com/coolcatteacher

Vicki is engaging and overflowing with incredible ideas for making the classroom experience unforgettable.

After talking with Vicki, I couldn't stop talking to my team members about her inspiring words!

I think that you will get just as energized.

Enjoy!

Length:

40:45

Episode 59: Amanda Miliner, 2015 Georgia Teacher of the Year

June 17, 2015

Amanda is an elementary teacher in Houston County, Georgia who was recognized as the 2015 Georgia Teacher of the Year. In 2006 she was Miss Georgia and competed for the title of Miss America.

This last year she spent time in schools model teaching, presenting, co-teaching and talking with various organizations across the state. She also traveled to Washington, DC where she met the President, twice.

She sees herself as a self-made person. She knows how important education is. She likes to explain to kids that she came from a single parent home but that she has not let that interfere with her life journey. She is a first generation college graduate in her family and now she is working on her doctorate. She emphasizes to kids that she wanted something better for herself.

Amanda has a no excuses mentality in the classroom. She expects the kids to work hard and not ask for handouts.

She comments that she didn’t start out wanting to be a teacher, but explains how the desire to teach rose to the top.

Listen closely as she talks about the teacher who hooked her into wanting to be a teacher because she had a classroom that was like an educational theme park!

We talk about what her ideal classroom would look like as well as what her favorite resources are.

She describes herself as being orange not blue and how that impacts her teaching and her interactions with the kids.

She will challenge you to think about how you see and work with the kids.

Catch up with Amanda on Twitter @gatoty2015

Amanda mentioned these resources:

Kidblog

iMovie

Length: 30:36