The bravEd Seminars
The bravEd Accounting for What Matters Seminar Series
The first step for many in the journey towards a benefits-based accountability and the trust that comes with itÂ
The purpose of the bravEd® Accounting for What Matters Series is to induct each participating educator into the work.
That can be someone learning how to bring it to their school or district, or it can be a new leader in a school and district already doing Benefits-Based Accountability.
Over the series you will gather a sense of how to:
- Build trust in the work you do; with those you work for, and those you work with.
- Build trust in stakeholders towards the organization you work in.
- Empower each educator to do the right work and account for it meaningfully.
- Change your life (we mean it—this is transformational stuff).
We do this by teaching you the basics of how to account for what you do differently than you ever thought possible. Educators aren’t conditioned to thinking about accountability as a trust building exercise and yet that is exactly what it is in most professions.
Accountability in education should always have been a discipline of leadership, which is how it is in every other profession. That way leaders are positioned to argue effectively about policy because they have a clear sense of what accountability should really be.
The series consists of six 90-minute sessions. Our objective is to help form a foundation that you'll want to build on more in the future.
The bravEd mission is to see to it that public education becomes the most trusted of our public institutions. We achieve that one educator, one school, and one district at a time. The Seminar is a first step in that process. We encourage you to join us.
The topics we’ll discuss during our sessions include:
- How did we get into this mess?
- How do we create the conditions to get out of it and into something better?
- What is that something better? What does it look and feel like?
- Is it doable without a policy change? (Note, the answer is yes).
- How does real trust get built?
- What will this mean for me and my schools?
- What about testing? (Seriously, what about it?)
Â
The DashBoard Seminars
Creating dashboards should be about creating meaningful understandings – that requires a whole lot more than data transparency
Â
Getting there is easier than it soundsÂ
The topics we’ll discuss during our sessions include:
- What frameworks are required to create a truly meaningful dashboard?
- How do we create understandable dashboards from the incredibly complex data and evidence that make up a school?
- How do we do this in the smallest possible footprint, and without the need to buy software?
- What will be the effect on our board, our community, and the trust they feel towards us?
Â
The Dashboard Seminars...
Are about how to communicate, clearly and effectively, with your most important audiences. That includes:
- School Boards
- Community Members, &
- Policy Makers
Dashboards have audiences. The highly technical dashboards that include real time data regarding the operations of an organization are for those in the organization. Technical data require technical understandings. There is nothing wrong with sharing technical data, but it isn't likely to be properly understood by those who lack technical training. Understanding requires something different.
At bravEd, all we do is help school leaders create these sorts of understandings.Â
Over the years we developed the capacity to create dashboards using desktop software that communicate in ways that shift the dialogue. The most common question in the old ways of doing dashboards, shifts from "What does this mean?" to "What do you need?" That is no small feat, and yet all it takes is to internalize and then put into practice a few practical frameworks.
As part of this series we include one coaching session for school teams learning to do this work. The more successful you are at learning to do this work, the closer we get to our mission regarding accounting for what matters in schools.
Â
The FairTest/bravEd Measuring What Matters Series
Real accountability requires great evidence. Measuring What Matters puts you on that journeyÂ
John Tanner of bravEd, and Harry Feder of FairTest...
...have teamed up on a topic that matters greatly to a great many people. John teaches about how to account for the things that matter most in a school, and no one is better than Harry at showing how to create evidentiary sources for what matters most.
This series combines their expertise in pragmatic ways for those who need to see the link between performance assessment and a meaningful way to account for what happens in a school. That connection feels elusive, and yet for both John and Harry it is anything but.
This series is appropriate for teachers and administrators alike. To that end, registrants will also be given access to the Accountability Mindset Online, which is a self-paced course that can place these topics into a larger context.
If you are someone who would like to increase your capacity to understand the effectiveness of the teaching practice in your classroom or school, please join our next series.
