Name: Brenda D.

Anderson
Date: July 19, 2008
General Reflection Paper

Introduction
My internship activities for the Johns Hopkins University certificate
in Administration and Supervision were completed as essential tasks of my
current job as an instructional specialist in the Department of School
Library Media Programs in Montgomery County Public Schools. Some of the
activities I was able to start and complete within the timeframe of this
internship and others are still ongoing. I can state with certainty that
looking at these activities through a reflective lens during this
internship brought clarity and purpose to my role within this department.
I have shared my insights and learning with other staff members and we
have changed some of our policies and processes because of my new
knowledge. It is my desire to continue to reflect on the job that I do in
order to grow as an educational leader.

Section 1: ELCC STANDARD 1 (Vision)

Revised Interpretation of Standard 1
In my position at the district level in the unit of School Library
Media Programs, I have come to see how I play a key role in facilitating
the development of a vision that is used to promote the understanding that
library media programs are integral to student learning. As a leader at
this level, I must not only include the school-based library media
specialists in the development and articulation of the vision, but this
new vision must be used as the impetus to communicate this new role with
administrators at the district and school level and with parents and
members of the wider school community. It will be through this
communication and development of understanding that school library media
programs will become powerful instructional centers used for the success
of every student.

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 Reflection
I found out that leading a group in visioning is a challenging yet
exhilarating experience. As a leader, I feel that I must have a strong
personal vision that I am able to clearly communicate. At the same time, I
must believe that the group visioning process will create a statement that
truly meets the needs of all stakeholders. To lead the process, I must be
strong, flexible and remain open to all ideas.
I learned that I do have the skills and talent to effectively lead
meetings when a group is collaborating to develop a vision or a plan. I
found professional satisfaction in this leadership role because I used my
organizational and interpersonal skills by keeping the group focused, on
track and by summarizing key ideas. I loved the philosophical component of
the visioning process, but also the very practical aspect of producing a
viable statement that reflects the common understanding of the role of
education in students’ lives. Through visioning clarity of purpose is
achieved, and I see this as the tool that a leader needs to guide the work
of a school or district department. I found it interesting to observe the
energy and the dynamics of a visioning meeting. I realized all members of
the group must participate and have an opportunity to communicate their
personal ideas before transitioning to whole group writing and visioning.
As a leader, I must understand how to channel this energy to benefit the
purpose of the group.
I feel that it is extremely important as a leader that I use the
collaborative power of technology to support any type of group work. I
will continue to explore and use collaborative online tools. However, I
know I have more to learn about how to engage all stakeholders in actively
participating in an online collaborative forum. Not everyone is as
comfortable in this environment as I am, so I am sure there are strategies
I can learn to facilitate the growth of an online community.
This process also brought with it frustration, as I was working to
effect change within a large district. If I become a district leader, I
would like to learn more about affecting change within large
organizations. I am interested in taking some organizational development
courses and will continue to study the work of DuFour and Senge. I am also

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interested in the current discussions around the “wisdom of crowds” and am
now reading, Hear Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without
Organizations by Clay Shirky to learn more about how people work as
groups.

Section 2: ELCC STANDARD 2 (Creating a Culture of Teaching & Learning)

Revised Interpretation of Standard 2
As an instructional specialist in the department of School Library
Media Programs, I lead the way in designing an effective curriculum that
integrates information and technology literacy into the content
curriculum. I lead a team of library media specialist who draft high
quality lessons that include the use of best practices to support student
learning. Based on feedback from the library media specialists in the
district, I plan and design professional development opportunities to meet
their professional growth needs.
Reflection
I think it is extremely important that a leader model lifelong
learning and develop a way to publicly share the learning process and new
knowledge. I have seen the power of reflection through this program, and I
plan to write a blog to share my knowledge and reflections, which will
support my professional growth. For each of the activities under this
standard, I had to research and design a presentation, which forced me to
learn something new and this learning kept me energized. By sharing and
modeling this process, I think a leader will promote a healthy, vibrant
workforce. I learned that leaders must almost remain open to new ideas and
be willing to see that there are different approaches to support teaching
and learning. This openness is key when planning professional development
for staff. I also learned that leaders must also respect the purpose of
planning meetings and follow the agendas in order to reach the desired
goals. As a leader, I must remember that learning is a process and it
takes people different amounts of time to change and grow with their new
learning. I must offer a safe environment for adult learners in which they
can take risks.
I really do love teaching and I learned that I receive the same
enjoyment from teaching adults. When training adults there is a dynamic
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 sharing of ideas, and I learned a lot from the participants just by
remaining open and listening to their thoughts, concerns, challenges and
successes. I also reflected on what worked and did not work after the
trainings growing in my awareness of the characteristics of effective
professional development. There are different challenges to preparing
quality professional development for adults, and I think it is wise to
gather feedback from the adult learners so the training truly meets their
needs. I know that I must continue to work on refining the process of
receiving feedback from my current adult learners. Technology can support
this information gathering process with the use of online surveys and
evaluations of trainings. Start small is a great way to approach teaching
some adults about how to incorporate technology into their teaching
practice.
Technology must play an integral part in supporting teaching and
learning. It is a tool that can be used to deliver and assess both teacher
and student knowledge. As a leader, I must model the effective infusion of
technology to support teaching and learning by making it a seamless
component of all professional development offered to my learners. I would
like to learn more about creating screencasts using Captiva or similar
software so that I can create or design on-demand training models for
routine tasks associated with library media specialists use of technology
for their management and administrative tasks. I want to also start
filming model lessons that incorporate technology and have them available
through web-based video streaming to support the ongoing development of
library media specialists’ teaching practice. In addition, I want to
continue to develop the online professional learning community that I
started this year. This requires that I continue to research and learn how
to make this an active online environment where the library media
specialists will come to support and learn from each other.

Section 3: ELCC STANDARD 3 (Management)

Revised Interpretation of Standard 3
In my position at the district level in the unit of School Library
Media Programs (SLMP), I take a leadership role in communicating to
school-based library media specialists the organization of and services
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provided by this department, the district policies and procedures
affecting the daily operations of the school-based programs and the
district level resources needed by school personal to effectively
administer their programs.

Reflection
I learned that managing a school or a district level department
requires that a leader have strong organizational and time management
skills. Establishing systems and processes for regular procedures, routine
tasks, daily, weekly and yearly activities give a leader the structure to
facilitate an efficiently run organization. The leader must make clear the
methods of communication used for staff, students, parents and the
community. Various technologies are available to support the management
and communication needs of an administrator.
I have always been interested in the way in which a space can assist
or hinder the learning process. Library media centers are now teaching and
learning centers and I enjoyed analyzing architectural plans for this
purpose. Being detail oriented, I enjoyed traveling around the plan
checking for all the existing specifications and making suggestions for
incorporating technology. During this review process, I thought about the
complexity inherent in running a school system. As a leader, I must
understand how all the various departments within the school system work
together to support the teaching and learning process. I know that I still
have a lot to learn about the business aspect of running a school.
However, I think the best way to learn this is on the job solving real
problems, so I will be open to these issues when they arise. I do feel
that my involvement in reviewing library media center plans is assuring
that these new centers will be safe, productive, technology rich learning
environments.
The communication of procedures, systems and guidelines is key at
both the school and district level. A leader must ensure that there is
regular review and updating of the procedures. Participating on the team
that is working on updating the School Library Media Programs Policies and
Procedures Handbook, I realized what a challenging task this can be. I now

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understand how important a clearly organized and easily accessible
document is to the efficient use of library media specialists’ time. There
is a need for clarity in the writing and organization of the information,
so as a leader I must either have these skills or have staff to which I
can delegate this task. On one level, I found this task intelligently
challenging especially designing the web-based document delivery interface
as I am learning a lot about the organization of information in an online
environment. Using an online environment to communicate policies and
procedures certainly will facilitate the frequent updating of the
information. To organize this document for web access, I must understand
the big picture of not only how library media specialists do their job on
a daily basis, but also I must understand the relationships School Library
Media Programs (SLMP) has with other departments within Montgomery County
Public Schools (MCPS). As I continue to develop this project, my
leadership and technology skills will continue to expand.

Section 4: ELCC STANDARD 4 (Collaboration & Diversity)

Revised Interpretation of Standard 4
An educational leader must build district level, school and community
partnerships to enhance student learning and achievement. In my current
position as the coordinator of the Montgomery County Schools Media
Festival, I facilitated the growth of the media festival by developing
partnerships within the school district, the business and art communities
and non-public schools. By involving professionals in the judging of
students’ entries and in the organization of the showcase events, student
learning, creativity and innovation are celebrated.

Reflection
School leaders must be active community members and must be able to
enlist community support for the education of our children. When involving
community members in the educational program, a leader must clearly
communicate the purpose and goals for community involvement. I experienced
how community involvement can enrich student-learning opportunities in a
very meaningful and exciting way. I think leaders should always be
exploring ways that schools and community organizations can collaborate to
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support student learning. I think this creative problem solving is a vital
characteristic for a leader. A creative leader also works with other
groups and organizations to develop a stronger program or product because
she knows she is not an expert in all aspects needed in the process. She
wisely uses the knowledge and expertise of others to support student
learning.
For the activities associated with this standard, I really had to
step outside of my comfort zone to enlist the support of the business and
community partners. I learned that it is important to have clear goals and
needs when asking for gratis support from other organizations and with
this clarity it is easy to solicit support. I saw how my willingness to
explore and establish business and community partnerships contributed to
the success of the MCSMF and in doing so enhanced student learning. I
practiced my facilitated leadership skills during the meetings and
developed my ability to coordinate volunteers to meet deadlines. It has
been quite a few years since I used these types of leadership skills and I
was pleased with my success. I used technology to support communication
between the business partners and myself and to plan and schedule
meetings.
I grew in my self-confidence so for next year’s event, I will expand
on the business partnerships. Next year, I will use various online forums
or networks to expand the invitation for judging support. I have been
thinking about allowing remote judging by providing streaming videos of
the motion media entries. I do not have the technical knowledge or skills
to make this happen so I know that I will be creating some new
partnerships in order to make this a reality.

Section 5: ELCC STANDARD 5 (Ethics & Law)

Revised Interpretation of Standard 5
An educational leader must understand and make decisions for student
success based on students’ rights by acting with integrity, fairness and
ethics. As the coordinator of the Montgomery County Media Festival, I
acted with fairness and integrity when making a decision to include
students’ entries in the media festival based on the legal rights of
copyright and free speech.
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 Reflection
An educational leader must have a clear understanding and working
knowledge of school law, and must know when to seek advice if her
understanding is unclear.
This aspect of being a school leader was very challenging for me. At
the time of the event I used for my artifact, I had not taken the school
law course. I now realize how valuable the knowledge is I learned from
that class. I found myself emotionally drained by this incident as it
presented numerous legal issues. I learned that I have a strong desire to
do what is ethically right for students and will persist in making the
correct decision. I know that sometimes I will have the luxury of time
and will be able to carefully weigh different options and other times I
will not. In the later case, the decision I make will need to be done
quickly and judiciously knowing that there are not simple, easy answers.
What I did learn was that I work for a large school district, and there
are others who can support me in situations such as this one.
I really did not use technology in this particular situation. We held
face-to-face discussions to resolve this issue. I am sure if needed, the
communications could be conducted electronically or with a virtual
meeting. However, I know that I will use technology to continue to study
and stay informed about school law. One way I will do this is to use the
resources found on the National School Boards Association web site and
will continue to read EdWeek’s electronic newsletter and ASDC SmartBriefs.

Section 6: ELCC STANDARD 6 (Larger Context)

Revised Interpretation of Standard 6
The educational leader must understand and know how to use the
different systems and processes that affect the business and policies of
the public school system. As an instructional specialist, I have been
involved in the revision of a regulation that defines the role of school
library media programs in a district.
Reflection
I learned that an educational leader must have a through knowledge of
the policies and regulations that guide the work of the school district
because these documents shape the daily decision-making process of the
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leader. The leader must also play an active role in guiding the
development or revision of these policies and regulations. If as a leader
I use the regulations to guide how I run my school or department and make
decisions, then I am knowledgeable in regards to what would need updating.
I became aware of why it is so important to keep regulations up to
date so that they truly reflect what the educational practices need to be.
I think clarity of purpose comes from having district level documents
current and relevant. Again, I learned to value the collaborative writing
process as I saw how a regulation grew in strength and clarity because of
the involvement of a variety of stakeholders in revision process. By
creating an online discussion forum for this process, I gave the
stakeholders an opportunity to continue their dialogue about the
regulation after the face-to-face meetings. Technology can also support
the communication of the regulation to the larger community. In MCPS, all
regulations are available on the district web site.
As a future leader, however I am somewhat concerned with the slowness
inherent in the process of revising regulations. Then I call to mind our
discussions from the Effective Leadership course, which centered on the
length of time it takes to create a vision/mission for a school.
Therefore, I am wondering about my impatience with processes such as these
and will need to always remind myself that it will take time to produce a
quality document that is meaningful to all stakeholders. The other
perception I had from this process and especially from working on this
team is that a strong leader is also a good listener and someone who can
tap into the talents of their staff.
I am interested in getting more involved in promoting the role that
school library media programs plays in shaping our 21st century learners. I
would like to become more active in the state and national professional
organizations in helping to shape policy and lobbying for government
support for school library media programs. I see using technology as a
communication tool to support my efforts.

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Conclusion
As I reflected on my reflections, I noticed some common threads of
thought weaving their way through each of the standards. The following
thoughts are qualities of an effective leader that I have internalized
because of my experience during this internship.
I am a lifelong learner and as a leader, I will model my excitement
for learning and will share my new knowledge with my school community and
the wider educational universe. I must continue to develop effective
communication skills because clarity in communication is vital. I see
myself as a creative problem solver who is open to new ideas and ways to
do the business of teaching and learning. Whenever possible I will
collaborate with staff, students, parents and community members.
Technology is a tool that was instrumental in all aspects of my
internship. Modeling technology use for the daily activities needed for my
work as a leader is key to infusing the seamless use of technology in the
classroom.

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