Using the Principles of Neuroscience to Lead in the 21st Century
For the third consecutive year, the VT-HEC is partnering with the VPA to offer coordinated leadership supports to help administrators and their leadership teams utilize what we know about the brain and learning to work through the ever-expanding list of requirements and initiatives to establish a clear direction tailored to their school and community. The supports include:
- Bring Coherence & Relevance to Your Leadership Work Through Brain-Based Principles – A strand at the VPA Leadership Academy with Bill Rich and Val Gardner on August 5 and 6. Participants will be using the principles from research on the brain and learning to make sense of the many competing demands that face school leaders to chart a coherent course for their school and staff. (Register at vpaonline.org.)
- “The Best Start Ever” – Jump-Start the Year Planning Together This year we are again offering the option for strand participants from 2013, 2014 or 2015 to participate in supported planning sessions on the afternoon of August 6 and August 7 following the VPA Leadership Academy. Strand participants can have members of their school leadership teams join them in applying the principles covered in the strand to their planning for the new year with the help of Val Gardner, Bill Rich and other TASS consultants. Administrators who participated in this planning last year reported they got off to “the best start ever”. For more info contact Dennis.kane@
vthec.org
We are very excited to be working with the VPA to continue this component of our program. It is clear that many school leaders struggle to maintain a clear focus given all of the challenges and demands they face. It has been our experience that school leaders that can establish a clear direction based on common principles and develop a coordinated plan for the coming year have the best chance of hitting the ground running and making significant progress during the year. We believe that these learning and planning opportunities will help leaders accomplish these goals.
This opportunities is also available to the schools that are working with our TASS, Teaching All Secondary Students, program that supports middle and secondary school improvement. Recently, three Vermont schools were awarded grants working through the League of Innovative Schools and the Great Schools Partnerships – all three of those schools have worked with TASS. They were the only Vermont schools to win this very competitive grant.
One can’t do much better than having experts such as Val and Bill on hand to assist leaders in applying these basic principles of learning and behavior to the work of their schools and staff. Together Bill and Val make a powerful team that works to practice what they preach by designing learning opportunities that give participants the content, coaching and feedback they need to apply the new learning to their own situations.
