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Compass PD Podcast with Dr. Carrie Hepburn
Compass PD Podcast with Dr. Carrie Hepburn
Episode 75: The Powerful Connection Between Teacher Empowerment & Student Achievement Pt. 3
In Part 3 of The Powerful Connection Between Teacher Empowerment and Student Achievement, Dr. Carrie Hepburn is once again joined by Dr. Bridgett Niedringhaus to continue the inspiring and actionable series. This episode focuses on the essential relationships that fuel student success: teacher-student, teacher-parent, and teacher-self.
Dr. Niedringhaus explores how empowered teachers foster deeper connections with families, support the whole child through holistic practices, and build classroom cultures of high expectations and student ownership. Together, Carrie and Bridgett share real examples and simple strategies that help educators strengthen communication, celebrate student progress, and inspire achievement.
Whether you're a teacher, coach, or school leader, this episode will leave you equipped to empower your staff and students through meaningful relationships and actionable reflection.
Hello, hello, 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. Strategies that empower educators and leaders to make a lasting impact. I'm Dr Keri Hepburn, your host today, and I am with my good friend and colleague, dr Bridget Niedringhaus. Hi, Bridget.
Speaker 1:Hi, Keri, Glad to see you today. I know I'm excited. I'm really looking forward to part three of this series. Today we get to continue the conversation about empowering teachers and the connection to student achievement. You may have listened to previous episodes on this topic. Dr Niedringhaus was on episode 61, part one the powerful connection between teacher empowerment and student achievement and then she was recently on episode 69, which was part two same title, but here's just like a little teaser, part three. It's going to be the same title, but part three. That's what today is. If you haven't listened to those, I recommend you go back and take a listen. Dr Niedringhaus, in part two, discussed promoting a growth mindset, supporting teacher well-being and integrating student choice and voice. Today, Dr Niedringhaus is going to build upon those conversations. So, Bridget, based on our last conversation, we're looking forward to hearing about how we can continue to empower our teachers.
Speaker 2:Right, and I will say, as we go through this next part of the podcast, you might hear some repeat phrases or keywords and terms, because we know in education things overlap sometimes and so we don't work in silos, and so, of course, this research isn't going to be based looking like it's silos either. So I'm really excited to talk today about some things, and the first point that I'm going to talk about today is building strong relationships between teachers, students, parents and community, and so we all know how important that is. Just to make that statement that we need to work on those things. But what we as administrators really need to do is empower our teachers to engage with parents and students and the community in lots of different meaningful ways.
Speaker 2:When we talk about communication and effective communication, people throw things out all the time, but we want to really highlight those. Fostering those strong relationships with families, leaders, teachers, all of us can ensure that we are going to have students that feel that extra level of support, and that's what we want. We want to empower our teachers so that they can help students feel supported both at home and at school, in order to help enhance their student achievement. So, carrie, some examples of that you know, we talk about effective communication. We talk about things like school-wide newsletters, and so those look different for everybody, and so you know who your population is and, as an administrator, my school-wide newsletter was very different than what my teacher's individual classroom newsletters looks like. And that's okay, because, just like we want to get to the personal level of our students, we want our teachers' personalities to come out and reach out to their own individual families and communicate with them and have that communication established. We're going to make sure that teachers are doing things like those personal phone calls, and people were like, oh, we don't do that anymore, we text. I know text is so, so convenient, but today I was subbing in a building as an administrator and I did get to make a parent phone call and I think it was the reassurance that the parent felt heard before I responded, and so I was able to make that parent phone call and let them know.
Speaker 2:Here's what I heard you say and here are some steps that I can can help you with. And I think that went a long way and I actually had the opportunity to call the parent back because I realized I had made a mistake and so I needed to call them back and rectify that, and not send them an email or send them a text message, but really just have that conversation and say I am so sorry, but here's what I really needed to tell you. I told you the wrong number and so personal phone calls go a long way.
Speaker 2:Parent teacher, student conversations. I love these. I love student-led conferences. I think it's so neat when students can present to their parents and their teachers and, of course, that's going to be a great communication tool for our teachers because they're going to guide the students through that. They're not going to leave them on their own, but they are going to let the students have that voice and choice and highlighting some things both academically and socially and emotionally. And parents are right there with the teacher and they're all working together with the students as a team and I think that's just wonderful.
Speaker 2:Classroom apps I have to be honest with you. I'm hit or miss on. I love the classroom apps that can give some pictures or give you some highlights of special events, things like that. I think sometimes classroom apps can be a little bit overwhelming for both the parent and the teacher, and so I would say you really want to know who your class is, who you're sharing this with, and know if that's going to be the best route, or know how often should you use that and do you need to send an email to say, hey, check your app because you might need to. They might not always be in tune and looking for that Right, and finally, those family engagement nights.
Speaker 2:I loved as a principal I loved any of the family engagement nights we did, but I especially loved some of the just social ones we did. Like if we did a game night, parents came to school to maybe get some pizza and maybe it was board games or maybe it was different stations, maybe some of them were academic, maybe some of them were not, maybe some of them were getting to interact with other families, and so I think those are great ways just some examples, of course, not the end all to be all list, but just some ways that as administrators, we can really encourage and empower our teachers to help build those relationships with the their students and parents.
Speaker 1:I can I pause you for just a minute. One of the things when you're just first of all, I can hear the the passion in your voice when you're talking about these things, about effective communication, but under the umbrella of building strong relationships with teachers, students, parents and the community. I loved when you said like in meaningful ways, but what I think is really critical here is when parents know that we care about their kids and we're building these relationships with them and their child. It makes it easier when we have to have a difficult conversation, when we have a relationship, because they know we care and we know about them. And it makes it really nice when we get to call and celebrate those moments too.
Speaker 1:And the phone call when you mentioned the phone call, there's just something about a phone call compared to something like a text message or an email. The only thing I would say that would be as equal to it, like a really positive phone call, would be somebody actually writing a little letter just to let you know. That could be something that you keep as well. But I just love the passion and excitement and I we don't want to lose out on the fact that relationships are vital, especially in communication.
Speaker 2:Yeah, You're right. You know, as a former principal, there are a lot of times that I had to make some tough phone calls and to this day, a former parent and I can kind of joke about a couple of the phone calls I had to make because she had two boys that were just about a year or so apart in school, in school, and they would duke it out on the bus and come into school just by and I would pick up the phone and say, hey, what happened at home this morning? Or hey, did dad put him on the bus? Or was grandma there this morning?
Speaker 2:or you know and we can't wrap about those things because and she would just get on the phone with the boys and try and straighten things out and, yeah, and restart their day and not be upset that she was getting a phone call from the principal because she knew I had their best interest in mind it's, it's already. The bell hasn't even rung yet and we're already all we're duking it out. Right? They sat for the backyard after school you know it happens.
Speaker 2:I get that, but yeah, so you're right, when we take time to make those good phone calls, those good contacts, it does go such a long way in our relationship. So one of the other things I wanted to talk about in building relationships between teachers and student parents is using that holistic approach to student development and so remembering that we are addressing academic achievement, but we are also looking at the social and emotional component and the social, emotional learning that needs to take place. And so, as an administrator, I have to make sure my teachers have the right tools and they feel the support and the empowerment to work with the whole child in an environment that helps everybody grow and learn. And so, while overall achievement is always our goal, you know we want students to achieve. We want them to achieve academically, we want them to achieve socially, we want them to achieve emotionally, and so I think that for some parents, they get in their mind that, academically, my kid is not going to be the one that's getting on a roll every time or getting those kinds of recognitions, someone appropriately, how to go from I can't and use that growth mindset that teachers can help students with to I can't yet and the power of the word. Yet I love when we talk about things like that and how we are working to get there, even if we haven't arrived. Yes, and so some examples of ways that we can do those kinds of things and support our teachers is through their project-based learning, and so that could be students coming together in cooperative groups or having a common goal that they're working towards. That can be field trips, you know. Think about the student who gets to go on that field trip to the science center or to a planetarium that has never been before. Think about how powerful that is. Like they are seeing a whole new environment, they're seeing ways to interact with students and with adults, and it is an all-encompassing event.
Speaker 2:We want to encourage physical well-being, right?
Speaker 2:I mean, when we talk holistic, we cannot forget encouraging the well-being of students, and so, whether that's breaks within the classroom, that we need to take some physical breaks, or that is, you know, things that are going on in the PE classroom, or specific things that are going on at recess, or really promoting some team activities, things like that that you can do at recess.
Speaker 2:And then, finally, what I talked about earlier, just promoting the growth mindset, and for me, I always sum that up when people say what does that really mean? I say focus on the word yet. And so, while I might not be able to run a marathon I'm not going to be able to run a marathon my growth mindset should be I can't run a marathon yet, but I can walk a mile, and so I can do something towards that goal. And that's what I'm going to be focusing on. And so when we talk about that holistic approach, we're taking the mind and we're saying think beyond what's in front of me right now and what I can do right now, and let's start to stretch and let's talk about more things that we can do.
Speaker 1:When you were talking about that holistic approach, it reminded me of some of the research we've been doing, talking about you know, what are the skills that we need to teach kids that AI can't replace? Like. To teach kids that AI can't replace Like. Oh yeah, one of the things that you were talking about was emotional intelligence. So, emotional intelligence I've been reading Harvard Business Review's 10 best reads on emotional intelligence. Executive functioning skills. We need to be teaching students explicitly executive functioning skills, because AI won't be able to replace that. Creative thinking. Ai can't replace that. Those are the kinds of jobs that will be available later, and some of the things that sometimes we spend time on will be things that AI will be doing for us in you know, who knows? I don't even dare guess the timeframe, so I love that you were talking about that holistic approach. I think that's really important, so I'll let you keep going, thank you.
Speaker 2:All right. So the kind of wrap up all of the podcasts that we have gone through so, this being our third one, kind of comes to this last point, and that is promoting high expectations and accountability. And really, when we think about education, isn't that really where we're at? Isn't that really our goal? Isn't that really what we want? We want to set high expectations. I have high expectations for myself as an educator. Teachers need to have high expectations for themselves and model that for their students, and so we want to have those high expectations and then the accountability to let us know where we are along the way. And so when we think about that teachers believing in their students and their abilities, and they communicate their expectations to students they're going to be more likely to rise to the challenge, right? And so I can sit down with a little guy and look at his writing and there might be 101 errors and I can really star the one that didn't wasn't an error and really go on about how great this sentence is and how I bet that he could do at least two more that look exactly like that. And so, just, really, you know, building up that confidence. And so when we talk about promoting high expectations and accountability. We talk about things like student goal setting, and so student goal setting that's not new. Goal setting in general is not new, and so let's take some time to think about not just student goal setting how the teachers would do it but letting students take ownership of their goal setting. We have to model it, especially for our younger students, and we're helping them as we model how to set a goal and how to update a goal and how to reflect. But as our students are getting older, even like upper elementary, they should be owning that, they need to be taking ownership of that, and with that ownership comes a ton of pride. Think about all that internal pride that kids have when they see how they have done, how they have been monitoring and reestablishing goals and maybe even conferencing with the teacher or conferencing with a peer or something to talk about their progress. We talk about students having conferences and leading conferences with parents to discuss their progress, and so I talked about earlier, with that communication piece, that parent-teacher-student conference. So we're going to set our students up for success through goal setting and then the students are going to be able to communicate how they went about that, how they took ownership of their goals, the monitoring of the progress and then where they are, and they are going to be able to talk to the teacher and the student about those things I'm sorry, the teacher and the parent. Yes, we want to encourage students to, just in general, take ownership of their learning right?
Speaker 2:When we think about this, we think about things like leadership roles. What kind of leadership roles can we give our students to take accountability for their learning? That could be that we have them helping to do some goal setting with our class. That could be them. You know, we can start off by their reading our objectives for us and they're sharing them with the class and they're discussing them in class. And what does that mean? And what do I want my personal goal to be in order to meet that objective? We can talk about peer teaching and working with others, and so, whether that be peer teaching because I have a student that really could use an extra boost or whether that be more cooperative learning, or whether that be some of the cooperative learning strategies, specific structures such as a jigsaw, where we each learn a piece of something and then we teach it to everybody else, yeah, and then self-directed projects, and so, as we're thinking about self-directed projects.
Speaker 2:I was talking to a fourth grader today who was working on a project based on a civil rights speech and she actually got to choose the mode in which she would be presenting this project. The teacher gave a menu and so there were, on this menu, there were, nine choices and she let the students choose the mode, the two modes actually, that they would be using for their project. Then they had to meet with the teacher to talk about what they chose from that menu and from there the teacher might encourage them, like the little girl I was talking to today said she was going to just do hers a written report. And the teacher said but what about those times that you've gotten up in class and you've kind of talked about this? Or you know, when we did our morning meeting time and you shared this, do you think you could maybe get up and share some of that? And and it was the student decided absolutely, I can share some of that. It kind of transitioned a little bit through that little conference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that Again. Relationships, right, I just you're taking us back to relationships. That's how that you got to that point. So OK, I'll let you keep going.
Speaker 2:Let's wrap this up with my favorite celebrating success. Yes, who doesn't want to be celebrated? Yeah, right. And we need to empower our teachers to celebrate student achievements. It doesn't matter how big or small they are. They need to be empowered to celebrate those achievements. People do these a lot of different ways, but we know that positive reinforcement really fosters that growth mindset. It encourages students to persist past what they thought they could do. It helps to build confidence. It all contributes to that improved achievement that we're looking for, whether that's academic or social, emotional.
Speaker 2:You know, we like the way that somebody resolved the situation or how somebody came in and helped resolve a situation, and so we need to be able to celebrate those things. And so when we talk about some of the ways that we can do that, we want to include things like, again, verbal and written recognition and encouragement. We can talk about again the phone calls. We can talk about again the phone calls. Yeah, about a written note. Those personal notes go such a long way. Um, we can talk about just doing a general shout out in the class, or we could do a shout out building wide, whatever.
Speaker 2:Whatever structure you have in place, you can display student work and that's's another way to celebrate them is to show how they worked toward the objective that you are trying to meet in the lesson. You can recognize, have peers, recognize other peers for specific reasons. And there's my personal favorite, which I've talked about before. Yes, and that's where I, as the administrator, got to walk the halls with heart-shaped post-it notes and look at the work that students were doing and understand what the lesson objective was and write some notes to students about things that I noticed that they did to help meet that objective. And so you know who doesn't love to be celebrated and who doesn't love to just have that recognition. And we all kind of swell a little bit when we get that and our hearts are swelling with pride. And, as a teacher or administrator, we kind of swell with pride when we give the celebration as well, which I think is really important.
Speaker 1:I think it feels as good to give the compliment as it does to receive the compliment. So celebrating other people is a great way to kind of wrap up that whole. The whole thinking about empowering our teachers so we can impact student learning. That is so great. So really we're going to walk away from this with some great wisdom from you, bridget, and we are so thankful for that. That's from years of experience as a building administrator and research that you've done trial and error pros and cons, like you've lived it. You're like, okay, this worked, this didn't work, and so I know that principals are really going to appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Something I walk away with from you in this time is really keeping relationships at the center of all that. We do Be sure that we're highlighting those relationships and communications, expectations and celebrations and then thinking about as we explore these strategies to empower our teachers and enhance student achievement. We have to recognize that it's multidimensional. I think you've said that when we first kicked off too, like we're going to hear some of the same things Again. It kind of layers. You know all layers, so there's a lot that goes together, again grounded in those strong relationships, which has a trust and a shared commitment to deeply engage students through the focused efforts of both teachers and learners. So thank you so much for today, bridget.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I appreciate you.
Speaker 1:I love it. Thank you, I know it was. It was really fun. Thank you to everyone who joined us today 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.