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Compass PD Podcast with Dr. Carrie Hepburn
Compass PD Podcast with Dr. Carrie Hepburn
Episode. 69: The Powerful Connection Between Teacher Empowerment & Achievement Pt 2
In this episode of the Compass PD Podcast, Dr. Carrie Hepburn welcomes back Dr. Bridgett Niedringhaus to continue the conversation on The Powerful Connection Between Teacher Empowerment and Student Achievement. Building on Episode 61, this discussion dives deeper into growth mindset, risk-taking, teacher well-being, and student-centered learning, all key components in fostering a thriving educational environment.
Dr. Niedringhaus also addresses common challenges schools face when working to empower teachers and provides practical solutions to overcome them. By prioritizing teacher support and engagement, schools can create meaningful connections between educators and students, leading to increased achievement and a stronger school community.
Join us for part two of this important series, and stay tuned for the next episode, where we’ll explore how strong teacher, student, and parent relationships fuel continued success.
Hello and welcome to the Compass PD podcast, where we dive into evidence-based practices and research-driven strategies that empower educators and leaders to make a lasting impact. I'm Dr Keri Hepburn, your host, alongside my good friend and colleague, dr Bridget Niedringhaus. Today we're exploring, continuing the conversation. We're not even exploring. We're continuing the conversation from last month where we're going to talk about empowering teachers and the connection of that empowerment to student achievement. In December, hopefully, many of you were able to listen to episode 61. It was the powerful connection between teacher empowerment and student achievement, part one. Today we're talking about part two. If you haven't listened to it, I want to recommend that you go back and listen to it. Don't stop and then go there. Continue listening today, but go back and listen to that. After you listen to this episode. Dr Niedringhaus is going to build upon that conversation today, hi Bridget how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm really excited to move on with our podcast today. Just a quick recap teacher empowerment. We talked about those three things in our first podcast, so hopefully people take a chance to go back and listen to that. Today I'm really excited to kind of move into some areas that I think are really very empowering for teachers. Not that the others aren't, but I think one of the things that, as we move forward, is remembering that what we empower teachers to do, teachers are then equipped to empower their students to do, and so again, we're making that connection between teacher empowerment and student achievement. So the first thing I'd like to talk about today is promoting the growth mindset, and I think as educators, we've heard a lot about growth mindset versus fixed mindset. As we look on, how do we go about focusing on our teachers and empowering them in a promoting a growth mindset? The first thing we talk about is encouraging risk taking. For some people, that is a scary level. Of innovation really resonates with our students. This can include integrating technology, and not just using technology, but integrating technology into what we're doing. It can also include things like project based learning, and so, as a teacher, I might really have to spend some time understanding what project based learning is, understanding how do I roll that out and assess that? And we would also talk about differentiated instruction. I think a lot of times we talk about differentiated instruction. We think about how do we reach all levels of learners.
Speaker 2:The other part of promoting that growth mindset that I think is going to be really important is providing that positive feedback and reflection. So, as an adult who doesn't love to get that positive feedback and we need the reflection as well and so reminding ourselves, what do we do as adults, what do we do as teachers, what do we do as administrators? When do we do as administrators? When somebody gives us positive feedback, it gives us a sense of pride and it gives us the opportunity that maybe we reflect a little bit more on our practices because somebody noticed something. It can be something that we didn't even think was that big of a deal, but when that feedback is provided and it gives us that time for reflection, we need to make sure that, as administrators, we're providing our teachers feedback and time for reflection. And so reflection cannot be always an instant on the spot experience. Sometimes reflection takes the opportunity to step away and really think about what you just heard Thinking now about how teachers are going to then make that connection for their students. Right, so we empower our teachers to make that connection for their students. If we are giving our teachers time to give positive feedback and reflection, it needs to be authentic.
Speaker 2:One of the things I did as a principal was that, honestly, was not my idea, but I tweaked it a little bit is I used to leave these love notes on the students' work in the hallways. I wouldn't be able to do everybody's, of course, but I would try to go to the bulletin boards and read some things and provide some feedback. It started off as I love this great job, great work, work. And then I remembered that when I give feedback, not only do I need to be positive about the feedback I'm giving them, but I want it to be a growth opportunity. So we want to give teachers an opera, a growth opportunity when we provide them feedback which translates into maybe some more effective teaching methods and help to boost that student achievement.
Speaker 2:As a principal, I needed to learn to give more specific feedback to students, and so I might have asked the teachers what was the point of this assignment or lesson and then provide my feedback accordingly, and so, if it was, we are working on staying on topic in our writing, then I would find examples of writing that did a good job of staying on topic and I could write feedback specific to that staying on topic and students then knew what they did well. And we can be the same way with our teachers, whether it's through walkthroughs or evaluations or just conversations. Be specific about what you're giving them feedback on and what you want them to reflect on.
Speaker 1:Yes, no, I love that. As you were chatting about that, I was thinking, first of all, I was able to experience the love notes when I was a teacher in your building and the students loved them. They really valued seeing a love note. They were little, the post-it, little hearts. So we've been using post-its for a long time those of us here at Compass PD for a lot of different reasons, and I think that the giving teachers that feedback that's positive and then it's aligned with what they're doing at the time, and giving teachers that feedback that's positive and then it's aligned with what they're doing at the time, and giving them that reflection time. Reflection time is often the thing that we skip because of time and you have to be really thoughtful and intentional to ensure that you're giving teachers that time and student and that then they give students that time of reflection, because that's how we grow, that's how we improve. I thank you for sharing that. Those are all really great tips.
Speaker 1:I was thinking, as you were chatting, about the risk taking and some of your examples. One of the examples I can speak to recently that was a big risk taking for secondary teachers that I've been working with is for them to stop scaffolding so heavily and having students do the work independently, and that's very scary for them. So a lot of times in secondary classrooms I'll see teachers. In secondary classrooms I'll see teachers lecturing a lot of the time and then going step by step through exactly what they want a student to do, instead of releasing some of those reins and seeing what students can actually do, because that feels very scary to them. So I spend a lot of time encouraging them taking a risk and letting students try it and then them using just what you were talking about that feedback, that positive feedback and reflection time in helping students be able to make growth. So thanks for sharing that.
Speaker 1:What else do you have for us? About, about, um, empowering our teachers.
Speaker 2:This one's very important to me and I think it's it's very important to us, to everyone in every industry, and it's that supporting teacher well-being and we talk about well-being a lot, and the first thing I'd like to talk about is that work-life balance, and so I cannot think of an industry right now that doesn't talk about that at some level, about work-life balance. In the medical industry, in the medical field, how important it was, as caregivers, to find work-life balance. Teachers are caregivers. Teachers have students that they are caregivers for day in and day out, and so we have to support our teachers so that they can find that work-life balance. If they have that healthy work-life balance, they're going to be more effective in the classroom.
Speaker 2:What that could look like is what are we asking our teachers to do? How do we provide them with some reasonable workloads? We've all talked about you know what's on your plate, what can we take off your plate, or weeding the garden. You know what do we need to take out so that other things can flourish? That's one of the things that I think we need to focus on is providing those reasonable workloads for our teachers. We also need to consider providing them some mental health resources. We talk about that a lot with our students and making sure that they have the proper mental health resources. But let's take that a step back and talk about the teachers, and how do we provide them mental health resources so that they are actually part of the mental health resource team for the students? What does that look like? You know, I've been in some schools that have specific like a timeout or a break room or, you know, a lounge area for teachers. That's not your typical teacher's lounge go and eat and gossip. It is meant for some downtime, some reflection, things like that. I have seen where teachers have the ability to sign up to talk to counselors, whether in their building or sometimes districts or employers will provide through their employee assistance programs. They'll provide those kinds of opportunities to meet with counselors and things like that as part of their salary package.
Speaker 2:Also, the other thing we want to consider is how do we create that supportive school environment for everyone that enables teachers to be their best when working with students, and so we want our students to be their best. They cannot be their best if their teachers aren't at their best Very difficult, they're constantly looking to teachers for that model and if teachers are constantly feeling stressed out and unbalanced, then that's what students are seeing and that's what's being modeled for them. So we really want to talk about, you know, finding work-life balance, and, as an administrator, there are some things you can do within your building, like I talked about. There are also things that you can remind teachers of that are provided to them throughout the district. And that leads me right into the next point, which would be emotional support Knowing that when we empower teachers to have that culture of respect and trust, they feel valued and supported by showing them that we respect their time, that work-life balance, that we trust that they're making good decisions. We know that it has a direct impact on student achievement, because our teachers are going to become more motivated and more energized and they're going to want to bring their best self every day, and they'll have some strategies or their own toolkit to help them bring their best self to work every day.
Speaker 2:The next point I'd like to talk about is how do we incorporate student voice and choice? What we really need to step back and say is how do we incorporate teacher voice and choice? And so when we empower teachers to have the ability to design lessons that give students voice and choice, or when we give our teachers voice and choice in some of the things that they do, we are really making that connection to student achievement, because we're also, by empowering teachers, they're going to want to empower their students. So I can tell you that one of the things that I hear sometimes that really is disheartening is that teachers feel like their teaching is dictated by standards, by curriculum, by this, by this, and that we've taken all the creativity out of teaching, just wanting to really go back and show teachers that, yes, we do have standards, yes, we do have curriculum, but where do we start incorporating our own creativity into what we're doing?
Speaker 2:When we're teaching, you know, choosing different instructional strategies we talked a little bit earlier about differentiating things. Like that we do have a great opportunity for teacher voice and choice and getting back to their creativity, which then empowers students, as you're modeling that to have that voice and choice. And so when students have a say in what they're learning and how they learn it, they're going to be more engaged and motivated. And so when you also allow teachers to tap into students' interests and strengths to tap into students' interests and strengths right, and so we talk about that all the time how important it is that we know our students as individuals and that we know what their interests are and what their strengths are. And when we really look at how we tailor instruction based on that, we are going to lead to better academic outcomes because the students are going to be more motivated and engaged in the lessons themselves. Just looking at that, student-centered learning is going to be so important.
Speaker 2:And then the final that I want to talk about is they call it student agency or student voice and teachers giving students control. It isn't that difficult. Looking at how they can have some control over their learning paths by offering opportunities for self-directed projects. Personalized learning plans would be one area.
Speaker 2:Making your assessments flexible. Does it have to be a paper pencil? Does it have to be, you know, like? How do you assess that? You can see that students are understanding and that also boosts that intrinsic motivation for our students. Yes, they can take ownership of their learning. When it's time for when we look at how students kind of take over and have control, then the teacher can take that other role where the students have to walk them through what to do, what they're doing, how they're meeting whatever standards or goals are set for that assignment. It's the students then teaching the teacher what they're going to be doing and how they're going to be doing it and how they are meeting then the criteria for the assignment which is oftentimes a deeper level of learning than when we do all of the instruction and everyone's getting the same thing.
Speaker 1:Kids, like you mentioned, will bring in that intrinsic value and they'll get excited about it and you'll see a much more thoughtful approach to the work that they're doing and they appreciate being valued the same that we appreciate being valued as the educator. So thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 2:You're welcome. One of the things I wanted to share when I was teaching sixth grade, we were doing some biographical kinds of things and timelines and things. I had a student ask me if, instead of doing one individual, if they could do like a family tree. I was really hesitant and then I thought about it and I thought, well, they're kind of doing the same research, but it's so much more personalized. I hesitantly said yes, thinking oh, I'm going to have a whole class full of students that want to do that. And that wasn't the case. It was this one student that really really dug into an immigration story for their family and it was so meaningful to that student to have that understanding. And then they actually were able to take the criteria for this biographical and go further than any other student in the class.
Speaker 2:So so those are the three I have for you today. Those, those three would be the the promoting a growth mindset. And the support teacher wellbeing. And incorporating student voice and choice.
Speaker 1:These are great tips, bridget. Thank you so much for sharing them. Sure, I'm excited about how they built so nicely off of our last episode, and now I'm even more looking forward to what the third episode in the series is going to be all about. I know that you will continue to look at the powerful connection between teacher empowerment and student achievement, and in our part three of this podcast, you'll be exploring building strong relationships between teachers, students and parents, which is so important, and then promoting high expectations and accountability, which can be scary for some, but it can be empowering as well. So we want to say thank you to everyone for joining us on the Compass PD podcast. Remember, at Compass PD, we believe that every educator has the power to inspire, change and transform student learning. Stay focused, stay inspired and keep making a difference.