If you’ve sat behind the principal’s desk for more than 6 hours, you know it’s difficult, and in some cases impossible, to stay focused on any single task. Magnify that challenge across days, weeks, and semesters, and you have the daunting challenge of staying focused as a school principal or educational leader.

Why is it so hard to stay focused? What are the pitfalls and sidetracks for meeting goals or following through?  How can we make it easier to say no to distractions? What supports can we use to stay focused?

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Learn more about the collaborators who made this episode possible.

Problem-Solving on Teams is not as easy as it looks. Teacher teams, school leadership teams, and district leadership teams can get distracted by sophisticated problems. In this episode, you'll find the role leaders can play in improving the performance of teams in educational improvement. 

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What are your ideas or questions? Leave a voice message using the link below.

Bonus Episode: Saying No This Summer. It really is the only way to open the space for improvement. Why must we say no? How does it benefit the school?

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Need help with a topic? Have a question I can answer for you?

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What is a blog crawl? This strategy will increase your school leadership network, your professional learning, and your contribution to the profession. A blog crawl is a great way for school leaders and principals to collaborate and generate new ideas and solutions. This episode will examine the benefits of a blog crawl and show how to get started.

 > Why a Network?

 > How to Build Your Network

 > Leadership Collective Efficacy

 > Why a Blog Crawl?

 > What is a Blog Crawl?

 > Biggest Benefit of a Blog Crawl?

 > The Essence of a School Leadership Network

 > Blog Crawl First Steps and Invite

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This is the single most important strategy to improve learning in any school, and here's a simple 3 step process for scaling A/B Testing (split testing) in your school. Plus:

 - The Fallacy of Waiting on Proof - 

 - John Hattie Misunderstood and Misused - 

 - An Example of A/B Testing - 

 - 3 Steps to Scaling A/B Testing - 

Get the research, book references, and show notes at https://mafost.com/mashup.

I'd love to hear your thoughts or questions. Send me a written comment at https://mafost.com/pod or a voice comment in the link below.

Now is the time to jump start the next school year. Here are 5 strategies to help you with this, plus bonus ideas from a few friends.

School Leadership Strategies in this episode:

Comments and Ideas from Friends: Decluttering, Goals with Initial Steps, Using Padlet, Pause But Don't Stop, Community Engagement Slide.

Share your comments or ideas at  https://anchor.fm/mafost/message 

Get the show notes for the podcast or join the educational leadership blog at https://mafost.com/ 

It takes more than spreading the narrative, using social media, or creating a "brand" to make change happen in school culture. As a matter of fact, there are three categories for leadership behaviors that can impact school culture. In this episode, I'll share 5 ways to initiate change that can result in a positive school culture.

Get the research and show notes at mafost.com/mashup/ and look for this episode title.

Let's get concrete on the topic of empowerment. Here are 6 ways to empower your teachers, teams, and staff members. Download the research for this episode at mafost.com/mashup/

In part 2 of this discussion, we talk about the core concepts and practices in personalized learning, both with and without technology. Several metaphors are given for personalized learning, and Marci shares insights into how Lexia Learning uses technology to enhance teaching.

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