Organization and Administration of Schools

So far this course is extremely different from the other courses. The main bulk of our work is as a team. The Action Plan with the team is a great way to learn how a real team would work in a school. My team and I are lucky to have such a cohesive group that works together well and effectively. I couldn't imagine this with a dysfunctional group, but it could just be that our personalities won't allow this to happen. As we work together each week, we have created our own process that is very effective and similar to how I would run any meeting needing consensus. We begin each week with a group discussion synchronously and then move to chatting, emailing and posting on the website during the week. The principal and the vice-principal work together closely and come to an agreement about the group discussion before the end of the week. Once that is done, it is shared with the rest of the group in order to make sure that all agree and are ready to implement the decisions. I am very proud of how things are working and definitely have a much better idea of how to run my future administration. There is also a smaller group project to run a discussion during a 2 week stretch. I like the idea, but think that it is something that not many are focusing on during the course. If people were required to comment, it might help, but it can be very confusing at times with all of the little things going on. For the individual assignment, I know that I am not a great writer and that is one of the things that I worry about the most as an administrator. I know how to get things done, motivate people and be effective, but writing is not my forte. With that said, Sue is doing a great job with timely and helpful feedback to help me improve my overall action plan (and writing skills).

I am pleased with the course, but the lack of structure at the beginning threw me and my group for a whirl. I can definitely see all of the benefits and what we are learning. I would like to suggest that the topics for the weekly discussion could be more interactive with a little more emphasis on them in the grade. Things are going well and the course is definitely going to leave us with plenty of real world experience to apply in our future positions.