Need a bit of digital help. . .

Alright, Radical readers—I need a bit of digital help!

I’ve got a good friend who moved on to become one of the best principal professional developers that I know.  His current project is designed to try to help school leaders understand that the kinds of leadership traits and behaviors that support new teachers are not always the same as the kinds of leadership traits and behaviors that support experienced teachers.

Basically, he’s hoping to get principals to differentiate a bit—and that’s not a bad thing at all!

The only hitch is that he needs to begin collecting a bit of anecdotal data from real live practicing educators—which is why he contacted me!  Knowing that I’m still in the classroom, he figured I could convince a few of my practitioner buddies to fill out a short, five question survey detailing the kinds of working conditions that either keep them in—or drive them away from—the buildings where they work.

Now, you know me:  I’m a digital junkie, so I immediately saw this as a way to experiment with one of my favorite new tools—-the form feature of Google Docs.  I took his survey and whipped it into a neat little form that you can fill out here:

School Leadership Survey

It’ll take you anywhere from five minutes to five hours depending on how thoughtful you are—or how much you like/dislike your current teaching situation!

The best part is that once you hit “Submit,” your answers will automatically be added to a spreadsheet for me.  Just like that, I’ll have a growing collection of answers that paint a picture for principals about the kind of working conditions that matter to teachers from all points on the teaching spectrum.

What do you get out of all of this?

Well, if my undying love isn’t enough, I’ll promise to write a blog post in the near future explaining how you, too, can create forms using Google Docs.  It’s a pretty nifty little feature that has about a thousand applications for classroom teachers.

And feel free to email this post along to every teacher that you know!  The more replies we get, the better our chances are of influencing the principals who are leading our schools.