Unit 3: Assignment

Unit 3, Assignment: The First Meeting

1. Start your meeting by briefly sharing your goal of increasing library collaboration to support student learning, and briefly describe some examples of what you’ve already done.

• FRL Self-Reflection

• Research into district strategic goals

• Research into school improvement plans or goals

• Reading and reviewing social media and communications

2. Begin your conversation by asking the questions you shared in advance from the last activity. If you have questions of clarification based on your research of district and school goals, ask them as well. Some examples of questions:

• What are the most immediate needs and challenges for students?

• What specifically do teachers and staff need to be able to support students effectively?

• What is an important initiative, project, or priority that you've had to put on hold for the present?

• Are there areas where you need additional or specialized leadership support?

3. Listen carefully and take notes, pausing as necessary to ask questions of clarification. Your goal for this first meeting is simply to listen and learn. You will have time to process and reflect and begin identifying possible ideas to share at your next meeting.

4. Finish the meeting by thanking your administrator for their time and let them know that you will be using this information to identify some possible solutions that can be considered and discussed at the next meeting.

5. Following the meeting, reflect on the interactions and conversation in your Leadership Conversation Portfolio considering these questions:

• What is your administrator most hopeful about?

• What are they most concerned about?

• What are the most immediate needs?

• What did you notice about yourself or your administrator that you need to pay attention to in the next meeting?

6. Send a follow-up email to your administrator thanking them for their time and if you didn't already do so, scheduling another conversation within the next 1-2 weeks. Give yourself enough time to review, plan and prepare for that conversation. If you wish to, you can share some of the initial observations you made in the previous activity. Example:

Thanks for your time and conversation today. I appreciate you sharing your hope for improved services to ELL learners and your concern with ensuring that our students have reliable access to wireless when learning from home. I look forward to exploring these ideas in our next meeting. Would you be available for a follow-up meeting toward the end of next week? That will give me time to identify some ideas for collaboration which we can review together.

7. In the Facebook group, reflecting on your first conversation, share something that was said or happened that was promising, exciting, funny, or unexpected from your administrator.