I recently attended LILL, Leadership Initiative for Language Learning conference, which is an ACTFL initiative. It is only in about its third year and you must be nominated by your state level organization to attend. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to attend as I was nominated by WAFLT. Below I share some of my main take-a-ways that helped shape me into a stronger leader. My hope is that you too will gain some insight from my experience.
The participants representing PNCFL, myself, Megan Hambrick and Jaime Basham.
What type of leader are you?
One of the first things we did was purchase and read the book Strength’s Finer 2.0 which gives you a code to an online test to discover all of your untapped talents. The talents highlighted really are leadership qualities and you focus on the top five. Some of mine were responsibility, discipline and achievement. To be a good leader, it is important to know what kind of leader you are to ensure you are reaching your full potential. For example, if someone’s talent is a wooer, they are more likely to be able to influence others while someone with a talent of ideation will strive with strategic planning. Once you know your top five talents, you can then reflect upon your present positions in leadership, or ones you hope to be in, to decide if they really match with who you are. Lastly, you may discover that some of the talents on your list aren’t areas of leadership you have tapped into. All of the talents are positive in nature and many educators share how they have done the same test with their students and include it as part of their curriculum.
What kind of group are you in?
One combination of a talent isn’t better than another, but instead, our five top talents categorize us into four different domains: executing, influencer, relationship building and strategic thinker. Think about a team of educators you are on, does someone fall within each category? If not, what type of untapped talents is your group missing? I fall into the executing domain, which wasn’t a surprise, but as I sit down putting together a team of world language teachers to work on adoption of material, I need to make sure I have members from each different domain. This way the work we do can reach its full potential. Understanding your talents is one thing, but as a leader, you also have to ensure your team represents a variety of talents.
All of the participants from Cohort 2.
How do you evaluate your leadership impact?
I have facilitated world language professional development for my district and surrounding areas for several years now. I always have a good turn out and value the collaboration as I too grow from my colleague’s knowledge. During the LILL conference, one of the opportunities we had was to network with other educators and idea share. From it, I gained an excellent idea that made me ponder why, as educators, we don’t often use best teaching practices when we are teaching other teachers! A world language district lead shared with me that she sends out a pre and post-test online survey yearly to gauge the impact of the professional development she facilitates. To ensure the world language teachers in her district actually do the survey, she does a random giveaway for all who complete the survey. She shared her survey with me and I plan to use it this upcoming school year. As a teacher, assessment data guides my instruction. I am constantly assessing, reflecting and revising my lesson plans based on student data, why not also do the same with teacher focused professional development! With the pre and post-test I will have actual data to know what worked, what didn’t and what areas to improve on.
What is your action plan?
As a leader, I am always thinking of the next thing I want to work on. Whether it be a grant, a professional development, committee or advocacy plan. During my time at LILL, I was able to come up with an action plan for my next project. As the World Language Teacher District Lead, one of my main goals is to engage, equip and empower my colleagues as we move into performance based classrooms and step away from traditional language teaching. The action plan outline included a headline, a plan, goals, timeline and steps, resources and potential roadblocks. Including all of these elements safeguards against an action plan with no action. My action plan included a year layout of professional development trainings I will facilitate based on the 6 Core Practices by ACTFL and a pre and post survey to evaluate the effectiveness of the trainings. I also included several teachers, from different languages and levels, attending the WAFLT conference with two follow up meetings to ensure the knowledge gained is on-going and reflective. I also created a form administrators can use when evaluating world language teachers and a similar one for teachers as a self-reflection. The trainings will be kicked off with a summer professional development in August to prepare teachers for the upcoming school year and presentation to all the administrators of the changes occurring for world language, the seal of biliteracy and how to best support their teachers. Lastly, share your plan with others and consider who to have as part of your team. I was able to share my action plan and gained insight from those who have already walked in my shoes.
My table group's reflection on our big take-a-ways!
How to be a leader?
While at LILL, I reflected on the amazing opportunity I was given and how I got there. I remember when I was asked if I would consider running for a board position in WAFLT. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine being part of such an inspiring group of world language teachers nor that I had leadership potential. With a little push from two colleagues, Nick O’Neill and Bridget Yaden, I decided to run. I am now in about my third to fourth year on the board and have loved every moment and am president elect. I ask you, what type of leadership position are you in? How involved are you in your state association? You may be surprised the positions that they have open and how, when working with likeminded folks, you can accomplish many things. I took a leap when running for a board position in WAFLT, and have been rewarded ten times over. At your next state conference, ask a board member about the responsibilities, commitments and the benefits. Within a few years, you may also be sitting in a room as the selected nominee from your state surrounded by inspiring world language educators from all over the United States including several Teachers of the Year, ACTFL consultants and authors. What is your next leadership step?