As a school leader, many difficult choices fall on your shoulders, and building a strong peer network for support can be a challenge. The good news is that you’re never truly alone but are part of a global community of leaders facing similar challenges and working to find solutions. It’s just a matter of uncovering them.
We’d like to make that easier, so Microsoft Education has created a weekly podcast, Leading Innovation, that brings together school leaders to discuss what we’re thinking, saying, and doing to guide our schools. Our podcast will help give voice to leaders through a platform that’s ideal for sharing challenges and triumphs, and will focus on the small, actionable steps leaders can take now to effectively work toward larger goals.
Meet our hosts, then read below to learn more about what’s upcoming and how to listen:
Jamie Trujillo
Jamie is a 20-year veteran of the technology industry. He serves as the Chief Information Officer for GOAL Academy, where he is directly responsible for leading technology efforts and enabling digital transformation across the school—with a passion to prepare students for a life centered around technology.
Frank Chiappone
Frank is a Sr. Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft with a focus on school leaders and IT audiences. He loves to go deep on how institutions undertake digital transformation, the challenges they face in implementing and driving technology adoption in the classroom, and how Microsoft can best deliver innovation to help institutions around the world enable student success.
Dina Ghobashy
Dina currently champions schoolwide education transformation and manages school leader strategy and programs at Microsoft. Dina possesses a broad background in technology and its effective application to transform teaching and learning. She is passionate about achieving positive social impact through education and she sees technology as a catalyst for realizing this vision.
Episodes of Leading Innovation air on Mondays and feature real-world educators sharing insights, strategies, and ideas about what’s working in their schools and what’s not. From tackling “innovation fatigue”—the overwhelm and exhaustion tied to rapid technology adoption in the classroom—to overcoming budget limitations, here’s a peek at the discussions from some of our recent episodes:
- What Every School Leader Needs to Know About Managing Innovation Fatigue
In the premiere episode of Leading Innovation, we kick things off with a discussion about the need for school leaders to share ideas and strategies. Then, we dive into the challenge of managing the “innovation fatigue” that is being felt in school and classroom environments. Find out how some school leaders are using data to rebalance school priorities and reduce teacher burnout while maximizing student achievement. - The New School Leadership Challenge: Inspiring and Energizing Teachers Without Adding to Their Stress
This episode tackles a challenge that has risen to the very top of every school leader’s priority list: talent management. As teaching becomes more demanding and the pool of talent shrinks, how do leaders inspire and energize teachers without becoming a source of the stress that is burning them out? Hint: Open communication is key. - Five Practices That Enable School Leaders to See What Matters Most for Teachers’ and Students’ Success
In this episode, we introduce five practices that give school leaders the ability to see what teachers and students need most to achieve their academic goals—at any point in the school term. Join us to learn the what, why, and how of putting these practices to work. - How School Leaders Can Connect With Teachers and Students When It Doesn’t Matter… So We Can Connect With Them When It Does
We all know that meaningful connections between administrators and teachers are required for effective learning, but the pandemic disrupted the traditional face-to-face connections educators rely on in schools. As our podcast guest, instructional coach Kimberly Moyer, explains, “We need to continually look for creative ways to build those bridges to our students. It doesn’t matter if it’s face to face or using technology; it’s all about relationships.” Tune in to this episode for techniques to connect with teachers and students when the stakes are low—including through resources such as Microsoft Teams and the Microsoft Showcase School program—to maintain those critical connections when it counts most. - How Exceptional School Leaders Create Cultures That Work Around Budget and Resource Constraints
For many schools and school leaders, budget constraints and limited resources are the big barriers to greater student performance. In this episode we talk with a school leader who transcended extreme budget limitations, using solutions such as free Microsoft 365 Education A1 licenses, to create a model school that attracted interest from around the globe. Our guest, Paramjeet Kaur Dhillon, the Founder Principal of Kamla Nehru Public School in Phagwara, India, offers empowering insights: “When it comes to finances, I have budget constraints. But when it comes to human resources, we are bountiful. Our resources are the culture of the school. Our resources are the attitude which we possess. Our resource is the will to change the world of our students.”
Upcoming episodes will explore topics including why technology hasn’t disrupted education as predicted, how to find inspiration when you aren’t inspired, and how to cultivate and measure culture within a school.
Tune in to Microsoft Education’s Leading Innovation podcast to listen to these episodes and more, and tweet us your thoughts about the latest episode using the tags @MicrosoftEDU, @DinaMGhobashy, @GOALACADEMY, @frankchip2, and @BAMRadioNetwork.
