Kendrick, Thanks for sharing your log and reflection for 02/01/13 02/08/13.

Your log continues to reflect a focus on issues of teaching and learning. As always, this is good. Your reflection shows a focus on improving instruction. You did a quite appropriate thing in calling attention in the lack of alignment between instruction and assessment. Research is clear that if proper alignment among curriculum, instruction and assessment is missing student learning outcomes will be limited. Your advice to the teacher is on point. There is a moral imperative to "doing the right thing" with our students. This example of coaching is evidence of effective instructional leadership. In monitoring this situation over the next few weeks it will interesting to see if the improved practice continues. HJ Kendrick, Thanks for sending your log and reflections for 01/28/13 02/01/13. Below are my responses. I apologize for not getting this to you sooner. Log and reflections - Please share more about your conference with the DPI Instructional Coach and the visit with federal officials. Were there any particular "take aways" from these or other experiences during the week? I enjoyed reading about the visit of Wesleyan students and how you coached them. Acknowledging their nervousness as normal was good. Further, asking them to identify "take-aways" was an excellent strategy as it encourages reflection, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Regarding the conversations with 3rd grade teachers and use of iPaD, your advice was excellent. Use of a tool without a purpose is not likely to bring desired results. It reminds me of an old adage: theory without action is little more than intellectual musings, action without theory is little more than random

activity. Instructional activity should be guided by some rational notion of what and why. Too often, some people in organizations do something just to be able to mark it off as having been done without clarity of why, how and when. Good job! HJ

Kendrick, Thanks for sending the log and reflections for 01/14/2013 01/18/2013. I'll address each together below. Your log continues to reflect a varied set of administrative experiences. I am particularly please to see your continued interest in engaging stakeholders from outside the school in order to provide additional support to students in school. This reflects "systems thinking" and an understanding that success for most students (particularly those from challenging backgrounds) requires collaboration among school, family and community. My first reaction to your reflections is that in considering how to proceeed you established a team and created a plan of action with analysis of data and a theory of action. Developing and sharing with students the set of criteria before actual selection was a good idea. My only question on this item is whether student input could be obtained and be useful for creating addiitional but-in? The second thing that comes to mind for me is how important modeling is in creating expectations. Practicing how to enter and otherwise conduct oneself in an assembly is important for students to learn. Sometimes modeling and practicing behavior is taken for granted. You are to be commended. When I was principal at Ligon Middle School we found it necessary to do this even with students at that age. The third thought for me was a re-enforcement of the notion that

everything has context. Adjusting your presentation to the audience is wise. Being cognizant of and using age-appropriate language and examples is good pedagogy. Teachers (including principals) who know how to differentiate instruction tend to be more successful. Finally, your inclusion of students in acquiring a truer picture of strenghts and deficits in your instructional program is encouraging. Even little ones can have insight and wisdom. Too often we don't seek input from the targets of our actions - the students. Again, being inclusive shows maturity and good decision-making. Thanks for sharing. HJ