As with all vacations I try to learn a bit more in my fields. Here are some accomplishments so far.
1. WIDA Virtual Institute. An online course availble for members of the Multilingual Learning Research Institute (MLRC). Admin of this service can add teachers and staff so that they can partake of the 15 hour course. Mostly self assessed, but very practical. Ideally all teachers would complete this course. A good goal would be to have your WIDA team or your EAL team take the course to start or you could focus on an interested teacher in each grade level as a means to build the network capacity at you school in the field of EAL and best teaching practices. https://mlrc.wisc.edu/
I am thinking that the WIDA portrait would be good in a Google Form or a custom Moodle Database. Currently, I am learning to the Moodle database. I think the trick is to get a nice printable format.
2. Framework Laptops: Devices that are build to be repaired and upgraded
Recently purchase a 13 Framework laptop DIY kit and assembled it. This took about 3 or 4 hours including download time for the pre-purchase Windows OS and Driver updates. I am hopping that with upgrades and repair this laptop will last 5 plus years. Anyone familiar with digital technologies will know about the right to repair movement and how Mac computers have also been slowly making their devices more difficult to repair or upgrade. What did it for me has learning that Mac hard solders in their componets to the mother board making it near impossible to upgrade or replace hard disks etc.
Wikipedia: The Right to Repair
3. Repair work in Leadership & Psychological Safety
Reflecting on previous years, this is usually some repair work to be done in any profesional learning community with past grievances often being a barrier to potential future collaboration and learning. Interesting summaries here on potential strategies for leaders to utilize.
Note that creating a work environment that is psychological safe is a key concept for a professional learning environment. Nice overivew here:
The fearless organization: Creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation, and growth. John Wiley & Sons https://www.lean.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/pl_Psychological_Safety.pdf
Leader-follower transgressions, relationship repair strategies and outcomes: A state-of-the-science review and a way forward. Published (PayWalled) Version is here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1048984318308270
Leader-follower transgressions, relationship repair strategies and outcomes: A state-of-the-science review and a way forward. The full paper without tables and figure is here: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/preview/1310844/29980.pdf
References:
Edmondson, A. C. (2018). The fearless organization: Creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation, and growth. John Wiley & Sons.
Epitropaki, O., Radulovic, A. B., Ete, Z., Thomas, G., & Martin, R. (2020). Leader-follower transgressions, relationship repair strategies and outcomes: A state-of-the-science review and a way forward. The Leadership Quarterly, 31(1), 101376.