Leadership
​Where am I now?

1. In the Room Activity:
             
  At home in the study room. The six random pictures: 1) myself thinking, 2) educator journal ”Where It All Comes Together”, 3) board:Teachers Change The World One Child At A Time, 4) book shelves 5) Tools , 6) table( computer and calendar).

The six random pictures that I took  were connected to who I am and what I do. Even, I am at home, my mind set remains the same. It is all about, how can I serve my students better everyday. The atmosphere reminds me that: “Teachers change the world one  child at a time” as posted on my personal board. My current emotional state, I am reflecting on or thinking on the future of Chicago Public School, my career as going to 14 years of service by June 2016, and uncertainty beyond my control. 
Leadership means an ability to make a difference from the people I am serving. I am a public servant and I alway consider how my students can have the best educational learning experience considering what resources we have. A leader for me can be anyone, does not need to have a title, or high position to be one, or visible. One barometer of leadership, did you make a difference to someone’s life today?
 In my eyes, the six random items and its connection to leadership.1)  A thinker, 2) Well Inform, 3) Wide Perspective, 4) Resourceful, 5) Use Tools/ Measure or fix things, 6) Task/Goal Oriented
           This room is the place where I usually begin thinking or planning because I have my computer, printer, and scanner that I may need on this digital world. So by the time I come to school, I am ready to collaborate with my STEM III team, I am ready to share and listen to everyone’s idea. Having this space for me to reflect and think deeply, as a leader, I should provide the environment for each members to reflect on and space for collaboration.

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Rocking the boat
Reading: Meyerson, D. E. (2008). Rocking the boat: How to effect change without making trouble. Harvard Business Press.


Setting Goals: Instrumental and Missional Thinking My mission is always been to improve student learning. Both content and skills are important in order to be knowledgeable member of the society who can make sound decision. In my vision, missional thinking and instrumental thinking complement one another, however, missional thinking comes first followed by instrumental thinking, In my school, our mission statement: Each student learns at high level. In achieving our mission, a restructuring plan of math and science department into STEM department transpired. As tempered radical: turning personal threats into opportunities, I seek to know more about STEM by setting a goal to be part of MSUrbanstem to know the current pedagogy in achieving STEM in the classroom. Integrating technology becomes a basic part of classroom now including how lesson plans are written and posted on our network drive. Professional Learning Committee (PLC) are collaborated online, the way grade are evaluated we use masteryconnect in addition to CPS Impact Portal for students, teacher, and parents to see grades. These instruments or tools evolved as new software or programs, or hardwares become available and affordable for the district. Donorschoose helped a lot for us to achieve some of the instrumental goals but again, the tool is good as the user. The bigger picture, what the students should know and be able to do or apply in taking the class that will lead them into a humane and literate society that they will lead on or be in. So, a balance is needed. Can our young generation succeed in the future without knowing the tools they need in the future, with the assumption that digital culture or technology will be just a norm into any type of work place.

Background Information:
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Setting Goals: Instrumental and Missional Thinking. Having read Rocking the Boat and completing Tasks Zero to Three, you should now be able to situate yourself on the continuum of being a Tempered Radical. We will now focus on using what we have learned from our reading of the book and its application in our professional settings. In Task Three: Facing Challenges, you read Meyerson’s 4 levels of challenges and reflected on how you see yourself dealing with some of these challenges. Holding the thread from this task, let’s start thinking about setting some goals for ourselves. Now that we know the challenges we could face and ways to deal with them, what kind of goals do you visualize for yourself? Take a moment to write these goals down. In your vision, do you imagine your goals being more instrumental or missional? Don’t know what these terms mean? This quick reading will help you decide for yourself:
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Instrumental Thinking
Instrumental Thinking is the tendency to fashion a vision for a tool or an idea around that tool or idea itself. That is, this is a tool-centric way of thinking. For example, here is something a person with instrumental thinking would say: “The focus of our technology plan is on adding interactive whiteboards to the classroom. We’re also interested in student response systems and thinking through Twitter use and applications.” Some consider instrumental thinking to be both prevalent and problematic. Sometimes, it can be one of the biggest enemies of vision.
Missional Thinking
Missional thinking, on the other hand, is generally thought of as based on a larger vision, strategy, or goal. For example, a missional thinker would say something like this: “Our technology plan is about increasing student engagement in learning. We know that the research is unambiguous in its view that meaningful student learning is realized only when students are active, invested, and engaged. We need technologies that help our teachers engage students who live in worlds dominated by computer mediated experiences. As such, we are exploring interactive whiteboards, student response systems, and social media like Twitter for classroom projects.”
The best articulation of the division between instrumental and missional thinking is found in the work of Professor Stanley Katz. Katz spent much of his career as a professor at Princeton (after studying at Harvard), and worked mostly in history and law. He is not a computer contrarian per se, though he can be critical of technological thinking. He published a piece in one of the Edu-cause journals (which exist to promote information technology in higher education) because he noticed a disturbing trend in higher education: it seemed that the conversations around technology at colleges and universities were about how to draw in technology for technology’s sake. This is what we term “instrumental thinking”: the focus is on the instrument and not the purpose the instrument must support.Read Stanley Katz’s Don’t Confuse a Tool with a Goal.


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Responsive & Interactive

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Cleaner Graphics

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Wider Scope

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Tablet Ready

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See Some Examples