CaseNEX and Gale Group: A winning partnership

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Harnessing the Richness of Administrator Online
collaboration in Professional Development CoSN
Conference Diane S. Reed, PhDCaseNEX Joanne
Goodwin,Fairfax County Public Schools
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• LEAD Fairfax Grantor
• Wallace Funds
• 150 million initiative to promote systemic
  reform of leadership to improve learning
• Leadership for Education Achievement in Districts
  (LEAD or LEADERS Count)
• Focus on disadvantaged students
• Funds districts in State Action for Educational
  Leadership Program states

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Goals

• Improve the professional preparation of
  educational leaders at all levels
• Strengthen and diversify the pool of future
  leaders to support succession planning goals
• Create better conditions for leaders to succeed
  at increasing student achievement, especially of
  economically disadvantaged students

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Administrative Intern Leadership Topics

• Developing Professionally
• Leading People
• Managing the Business of Education
• Building Community Relationships
• Leading, Planning, and Assessing Instruction

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Leadership Tool for Leading Learning
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CaseNEX and the Case Method

• A better way to learn
• There is no need to invent artificial
  challenges for teachers. Real life in schools
  presents the best opportunities from which to
  learn.
• - John Dewey

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• The new face of professional development will no
  doubt look like CaseNEX.
• - Vincent L. Ferrandino, Executive Director,
• National Association of Elementary School
  Principals

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What is CaseNEX?

• Research-based professional development founded
  at the University of Virginia Curry School of
  Education.
• Case-method learning in a collaborative setting
• Reflective case analysis process applicable to
  real education problems and opportunities
• Funded by two Department of Education Grants
  Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers To Use Technology

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Benefits of the Case Method

• Realistic slices of life depicting actual
  school scenarios as they are, not as they should
  be
• Traditionally used in legal, business and medical
  education
• Active engagement and reflection by teachers
• Training to act vs. training to know
• Cost efficient train-the-trainer model
• Convenient and flexible - 24/7 access to learning

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The cornerstones of CaseNEX
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Collaboration

• A community of learners
• Reflect on what works
• Collaborate on the design of solutions to
  instructional challenges
• Assume a propensity for action
• Facilitate communication through
• Live chat
• Online journaling
• Discussion boards
• Interactive workbook

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Real-life Elements of a Case
Current research and journal articles relevant to
case topics
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Methodology

• Reflective approach to problem-solving

The part of the course that I will probably
continue to use the most is the case analysis. I
think that we do case analysis every week as we
work with our students and try to meet their
needs...I had never approached it from the
perspective of using a rubric. I really like
breaking it down into the categories of Issues,
Perspectives, Knowledge, Actions, and
Consequences. This is a terrific approach to
evaluating a situation, and I will continue to
implement it. Middle School Teacher,
Howard County, MD
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Keeping Score Case Study

• Multicultural
• ESOL
• Special Learners
• Teacher Evaluation
• Instructional Leadership

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How We Used CaseNEX

• Read case ahead of time and write an online
  reflection
• Online discussion board
• Round table discussions
• Role playing
• Data driven decision making
• Collaborative problem solving

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Impact on My Leadership

• Opportunity to practice the leadership craft
• Clarified and affirmed my thinking about issues
• Made me think about ethical leadership
• Practice situations and scenarios
• Collaborative problem solving
• Confidence
• Ready to take on the challenge of a principal

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• Joanne Goodwin
• Administrative Intern
• Stenwood Elementary School
• Fairfax County Public S.hools
• Joanne.goodwin_at_fcps.edu
• http//www.leadfairfax.org/
• Diane S. Reed, PhD
• CaseNEX
• Director of Instruction
• http//www.casenex.com
• dreed_at_casenex.com