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Welcome to the NMAdmin Wiki.

What should central office be doing to support teaching and learning? Read the research at this link.

The New Conversations About Learning Insights From Neuroscience and Anthropology, Cognitive Science and Workplace Studies by [|Theodore J. Marchese] But how does an //organization// learn? How does my department or college get smarter and better over time at prompting appropriate learning in students? And the answer is, //we// learn as //I// learn. That is, a faculty gets smarter and better at its tasks by systematically collecting feedback, reflecting on it, and using the resulting understanding to enact next cycles of work. Those of you with a background in quality management (CQI) will immediately get the point. Kolb's cycle is quite the same thing as the "plan, do, check, act" cycle of continuous improvement developed by Walter Shewhart at Bell Labs in the late 1920s. . . different words, same idea. (Shewhart, by the way, knew John Dewey, the intellectual father of so many of the ideas in this paper and in whose writing you'll find the idea of cycles of learning. Dewey, I'm told, got the idea from an essay written in 1904 by philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce, Dewey's predecessor in pragmatism.) All of quality management's injunctions, as Deming and Peter Senge have pointed out, are on behalf of organizational learning. A key element to continuous improvement is the "systematic gathering, interpretation, and use of information for purposes of improvement." In academic settings, that statement also defines assessment. Thus, I say to the quality-management proponents in this audience: Think assessment. And to the assessors here: Think continuous improvement. CQI and assessment are alike in this regard: They are acts of learning in themselves, and the key to prompting the deep learning we want for the students we serve.
 * How do we learn as an administrative team?**

The purpose of this Wiki is to provide resources for the administrators of North Middlesex. This site includes a calendar of meetings and all of the readings as well as supplementary information connected to the 2010-2011 professional development of the leadership team made up of the superintendent, assistant superintendent, directors of curriculum, human resources, technology, business, building and grounds, as well as the principals, headmaster, and assistant principals from the three elementary schools, the two middle school, and the high school.
 * Do you know what makes a group more intelligent??????**
 * The breadth and depth of participation of all of the members of the group.**

Copies of the readings, the dates for the discussion, and focus questions are located on the following link: Readings and Dates for Discussion

Below is a video by Marzano in which he discusses "defined autonomy" which establishes a clear expectations for the district and central office with school-based management. The results of his metaanalysis found that school based autonomy had both a positive (.28) and a negative (-.16) relationship to student achievement. This led him to the concept of "defined autonomy" between the superintendent and the school-based administrators.

Does the district have an impact on student achievement?

If this video doesn't work because YouTube is blocked in NM, go to [] media type="youtube" key="TKcgU0UfhCI?fs=1" height="385" width="640" Marzano on Second Order Change (Paradigm Shift). media type="youtube" key="iv7crrER_S4?fs=1" height="385" width="480"