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Discover The Power Standards
Solution

Creative Leadership Solutions support districts, schools, teachers, leaders, and communities focus efforts on what matters most. We recommend focusing on fewer than six initiatives at the district and/or school level. Impact Insight is a process that identifies what initiatives have the most impact on teaching and learning. The Power Standards process enables practitioners to identify what will and will not be priorities, what we will and will not focus on. The Power Standards series focuses on the importance of a coherent and consistent curriculum based upon an agreed upon subset of essential concepts and skills all students are expected to master. Educators always learn the research of the effective practice, apply the appropriate process, and commit to a short- and long-term action plan that includes implementation strategies to ensure fidelity of focus areas.

 
 
 
 
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Webinars
Overwhelmed by Initiative Fatigue?
Overwhelmed by Initiative Fatigue?
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Take The Initiative Fatigue Challenge
Take The Initiative Fatigue Challenge
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Critical Thinking From the Classroom to the Boardroom
Critical Thinking From the Classroom to the Boardroom

The primary importance of critical thinking is to compare the claim to the evidence. Every academic skill requires critical thinking as it is the foundation of creativity, communication, and collaboration. Dr. Douglas Reeves engages participants in a case study activity, What you already know versus What don't you know that doves deeper into effective implementation of critical thinking strategies from the classroom to the Boardroom.


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Overcoming Initiative Fatigue: Focusing Time, Energy, and Resources for Student Results
Overcoming Initiative Fatigue: Focusing Time, Energy, and Resources for Student Results

Initiative fatigue is real and overwhelmingly impacts hard working teachers and leaders across the country. Many initiatives have impact but many do not get the attention they receive because there are just darn too many to do and do well. Dr. Douglas Reeves' research suggest less is more. When you look at all the research that was conducted, there are about five things that matter most.

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This Year Will Be Different REALLY! Improving Achievement, Discipline and Faculty Morale
This Year Will Be Different REALLY! Improving Achievement, Discipline and Faculty Morale

In this interactive webinar, Dr. Douglas Reeves engages leaders to have teachers watch teachers. Therefore, leaders are in the classrooms, while colleagues observe and learn from one another. Engage with disengaged students' parents and/or adults in their lives immediately. There is no time to waste. Dr. Reeves encourages educators to reduce the D and F rates within 100 days by stop using the average and by getting rid of the zero. That will definitely improve morale for all. Finally, he addresses what is most effective with homework and practice.

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Articles
Five Professional Learning Transformations for a Post-COVID World
Five Professional Learning Transformations for a Post-COVID World

As schools continue to recover from the tragedy of a global pandemic, they can look to new opportunities emerging amidst the trauma and grief. These opportunities include a return to the primacy of relationships among adults and students, the abandonment of ineffective practices such as inspirational monologues without meaningful interaction, and dramatic improvements in professional learning. To realize the latter, educators need to drive toward five transformations in professional learning. Although we have long known the inadequacies of traditional approaches to PD, the constraints imposed on schools by the pandemic create a sense of urgency that should make us intolerant of such ineffective practices.

Too Many Standards? My Four Answers
Too Many Standards? My Four Answers

WELL BEFORE the global pandemic caused a wave of school building closures and consequent learning losses, teachers complained there were too many standards for student learning. The problem was that, however well-intentioned and thoughtfully designed, state standards all su!er from the same faulty assumption: Students need only one year of learning. That assumption always has been questionable, but after students in 2020 lost at least six months of learning (and many would argue they lost more), teachers in 2021 are facing students who may be two years or more behind their current grade level. The idea of teaching and assessing three years of learning in a single year is preposterous. Fortunately, some practical solutions are available.

Implementation Audit

We see all the time that educational systems spend millions of dollars and countless hours on interventions, without knowing the degree to which these efforts influence student results, and other key systemic indicators. Without Impact Insight services, school systems risk wasting precious funds and time on fragmentary and ineffective efforts. 

 
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Our Method

Working closely with system leadership and teacher leaders, we identify existing instructional and leadership efforts and focus on the criteria that are most important to the client. This means that we never take a one-size-fits-all approach, but rather create indicators for success in collaboration with the district. Our data sources include direct observation, interviews, surveys, and document reviews. 

The Results

Our completed Impact Insight™️ report includes the following:

  • Permanent observation instruments that can be used by administrators and teachers in order to continue progress on a sustainable basis.

  • Detailed report for each instructional and leadership effort, providing reports for the system as a whole and for each school.  If the district requests, the identity of the individual schools can remain confidential.  No individual teachers or administrators will be identified and all participants in interviews and surveys are guaranteed confidentiality.

  • Planning progress guide, with specific recommendations for building on successes, improving focus, reducing distractions and ineffective expenditures of money and time, and directly addressing the greatest challenges in the district.

  • Follow-up and Support:  Each Impact Insight™️ contract includes a year of follow-up services, including one-to-one executive coaching for administrators and teacher-leaders, four Webinars on topics selected by the client, and a follow-up survey to determine progress from the baseline data gathered in the original analysis.