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June 10, 2021

The Why of Digital Leadership

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    Mastering digital leadership means being able to focus efforts toward deeper learning and equity.

    Leadership
      Simon Sinek describes how inspirational leaders lead "from the inside out" and are guided by their why (p. 40, 2009). Members of their organizations recognize this deeper meaning and appreciate being part of a thriving, learning, and evolving environment. Over the past few years, we studied a group of school principals who have been recognized for their work as innovative principals who have successfully navigated the digital space. We refer to these school leaders as digital principals.
      The National Association of Secondary School Principals' Digital Principal Award recipients are leaders who demonstrate success in three categories: collaborative leadership; curriculum, instruction, and assessment; and personalization (NASSP, 2020). We interviewed one dozen of these principals prior to the COVID-19 pandemic for a study on digital leadership. These principals were at the forefront of integrating new technologies such as Kahoot! and Padlet to foster student engagement and Twitter and Instagram to stayed connected with learning networks across the world (Sterrett & Richardson, 2020a).
      These principals were not just technology leaders. They also saw the powerful potential of ensuring that teachers and staff stayed on the cutting edge as well, through relevant, differentiated professional development and leadership opportunities (Sterrett & Richardson, 2020b). When the pandemic hit, these leaders were uniquely positioned to provide for students' needs and to foster deeper communication to move their schools forward.
      Recently, we followed up with two of them—Derek McCoy and Darren Ellwein—to learn how they have guided their school communities through the pandemic while building capacity, supporting innovation, and never forgetting their why of keeping the needs of students first. As members of an active professional learning network, they provide each other with encouragement, ideas, feedback, and tips, despite being many miles apart. Derek serves as a principal of North Asheboro Middle School in North Carolina, while Darren leads South Middle School in Harrisburg, South Dakota. 
      In their new book The Revolution: It's Time to Empower Change in our Schools, they advocate for rethinking teaching and learning by using strategies such as having students share their writing to a global audience, using videos to dialogue with learners in other classrooms, and re-envisioning learning spaces and traditional classrooms through methods such as flexible furniture and open spaces for movement and collaboration (Ellwein & McCoy, 2019).
      There were various stages of school response to the pandemic (McCleod, 2020). Some schools were in survival mode (Phase 1) and scrambling to ensure students had the basic necessities for learning, such as access to Wi-Fi. Other schools were overwhelmed with needing to quickly train teachers in learning technologies and online modalities (Phase 2). Schools that were equipped for these challenges could then focus on designing online instruction for higher-level learning (Phase 3). Finally, schools that were prepared for this digital transition were able to pay greater attention to equity concerns (Phase 4).
      Most U.S. schools were in Phases 1 or 2, but Derek and Darren found themselves in Phase 3 in the spring of 2020. Prior to school closures, they ensured every student and teacher had a device to take home, they trained teachers to use technology to facilitate meaningful learning experiences, and they refined their acceptable use policies to include learning with devices inside and outside of the physical school building. These leaders also communicated digitally with parents prior to the pandemic. Mastering digital leadership means being able to focus efforts toward deeper learning and equity. They shared a few insights for how they made the switch happen.

      Students' needs.

      Since his school was already equipped to teach in an online environment, Derek and his staff members could be more flexible with instructional delivery and made the decision to place a focus on the whole child. Darren used a Google Form to regularly monitor the needs of students' families, such as food and clothing. He also worked with a local internet provider to ensure all families had access to Wi-Fi. This not only helped individual students, but also served entire families with household internet access.

      Effective communication with families.

      Darren explained that while he already had a relationship base with parents before COVID-19, he "had to learn how to communicate succinctly, with the fewest number of words" because parents were being flooded with emails and other online communications. He noted the key was "hooking parents" through information-rich, short video posts (about three minutes in length) via Instagram or YouTube. These videos served as a two-way communication channel, since parents and families could comment, respond, and ask questions publicly, via social media, about how to best serve students.

      Social-emotional learning.

      In a face-to-face environment, Derek knew it was important to focus on the social-emotional needs of students and teachers. This need became doubly important in an online environment. Derek explained how his teachers emphasized social-emotional learning by starting the day with an interactive morning meeting in which teachers met with the whole grade-level group to ask to students how they were doing and check in.

      Rethinking meetings.

      The pandemic caused Darren to re-think how to prioritize his presence once students had returned to the building in order to spend more time with them. He told us that he loved having administrative meetings on Zoom "because I don't have to travel 10 minutes to get to the business office. I'd rather stay right here … and do whatever I need to for kids." With the affordances of Zoom, these digital leaders were able to engage at the district level from a distance, while also having more time to walk into hallways to physically engage with students and teachers. As such, he could be in 'two places at once.'
      Digital leadership is not just about tech-savvy innovation or acquiring the latest apps. When guided by the why, leaders like Derek and Darren can move beyond computer deployment and technology training and instead focus on what matters most—students.
      References

      Ellwein, D., & McCoy, D. L. (2019). The revolution: It's time to empower change in our schools. Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc.

      McLeod, S. (202). School responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Retrieved from https://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2020/04/chart-school-responses-to-the-covid-19-pandemic-version-01.html

      NASSP (2020). Who we are. NASSP. www.nassp.org/

      Sinek, S. (2009). Start with why: How great leaders inspire everyone to take action. Penguin.

      Sterrett, W., & Richardson, J. W. (2020a). Leading a tech-savvy school: Reinventing learning through collaboration and innovation. Kappa Delta Pi Record, 56(3), 100–104.

      Sterrett, W., & Richardson, J. W. (2020b). Supporting professional development through digital principal leadership. Journal of Organizational and Educational Leadership, 5(2), 1–19.

      William Sterrett serves as Professor and Department Chair of Educational Leadership at Baylor University. Previously, as a principal in Virginia, Sterrett received the 2008 Milken National Educator Award. Sterrett earned his B.S. in Middle Grades Education from Asbury College (Kentucky) and his Ph.D. in Educational Administration & Supervision from the University of Virginia.

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