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Christina Hamilton
Purposeful Instructional Leadership
Welcome to My Blog
HELLO,
I'm Christina!
Assistant Principal,
Instructional Coach,
Educational Consultant,
and National Trainer
I absolutely LOVE all things education! Educational leadership, literacy, interventions, tutoring, and classroom management are some of my top areas of interest. I am currently an elementary assistant principal and I LOVE what I do!. As an instructional coach, I loved to facilitate learning for teachers daily. I am also a certified National Classroom Management trainer for one of the most dynamic classroom management programs in the country. I hope you gain some worthy knowledge from my blog! Please visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store for classroom treats & goodies!
My Passion Planner!
I LOVE my Passion Planner
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The Passion Planner is an absolutely fabulous way to stay organized with your goals, passions, and your busy day-to-day life. It helps me stay on track by keeping me focused with a simple weekly and monthly design. I personally love the 1 year, 3 year and 5 year goal planning templates that The Passion Planner provides. There are several versions in different colors that you can order, but as an assistant principal in an elementary school I personally prefer the Academic Passion Planner. I have the cute Teal version pictured above. There are reflection questions given at the end of each month to help me revise and edit my goals. It is easy to customize pages with flair pens, stickers and washi tape. I wouldn't use any other planner to stay organized.
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My website and blog include affiliate links. As an associate I only earn commission from qualifying purchases through my links on this website that are of no extra cost to you.
With every new school year comes new colleagues, new parents, new students and new community members. It can be such a daunting task to make sure you have introduced yourself or at least letting everyone know who you are and your role for your campus.
This is an important task for myself as an Assistant Principal. As I begin to go into my third year as an Assistant Principal here in Arkansas, I want to find the right way to introduce myself to all of the new and important people I will be developing new relationships with. I've learned how important this is as an instructional leader. I will be joining a brand new school this year. That's right, that means I'm the new gal! I will be busy developing new relationships with staff members, meeting parents and getting to know students. It all makes me a bit anxious but I'm so ready for it.
To introduce myself to staff members, I decided to create a fun brochure about myself: All About Christina. I had lots of fun with this by creating my own Bitmoji and just inserting fun little known facts about myself. I tried to pick things to tell about myself that showcased my personal side. Staff members will have the opportunity to get to know me as their new assistant principal throughout the school year, so I felt it was important to show them my family, personal interests, hobbies, etc. My All About Christina brochures turned out really cute and were easy to make using my free educator account with Canva. If you've never used Canva it is AWESOME! I use it for just about everything that I need a professional look with images. Canva has the best templates, layouts and graphics. It is also very easy to use and upload your own personal images.
You could easily create your own brochure or newsletter to tell all about yourself to your staff, students, and/or parents. As I continue to enjoy summer, I'm now thinking about how I will introduce myself to students and parents. I want them to see how much fun I like to have and how much I enjoy learning. YouTube video? Postcards? Newsletter? Social Media Posts? Hhhmmmm.....Do you have any ideas? I'd love to hear from you.
If you are an instructional coach, you probably have a huge binder of coaching forms and data you keep for your campus and on your teachers. I love a good, sassy, chic looking coaching binder! It's something about flipping through your cute tabs of teachers, data, student evidence and professional development that creates an energy within ourselves as professionals. But lets face it....Google is taking over! Technology is always and forever evolving. So I'm trying to evolve with the current times we live in.
Click Here to receive a FREE download of coaching forms like the above observation form!
As an assistant principal, I've made the switch to trying to go digital. Right now I am very much in-between continuing to keep a binder and keeping my files digital in my Google Drive. I currently maintain a principal's binder full of ALL things campus life! Many of the forms I've included in my principal's binder are the exact same forms I used as an instructional coach, except for a few extra administrator tools, sections and tabs. (Be on the lookout for my Principal Binder coming soon!) I just can't get enough of using my instructional coaching tools as an Instructional Leader.
When I first launched my printable Instructional Coaching Tools & Forms in 2015, they were a huge hit. Over the years, I cannot tell you how many online requests and emails that I've received asking me to convert my famous Instructional Coaching Tools, into a more digital and editable version. Well, I'm so excited to finally launch my instructional coaching tools for your Google Drive.
Keeping your coaching binder in your Google Drive has some pretty awesome advantages. For starters, you can access your online Google Binder from anywhere!! This is the biggest payoff. As an assistant principal I am extremely mobile around the building. I usually carry around my Ipad for ease when roaming the building, or attending meetings at another campus, or even at home. My online binder is always easily accessible in my Google Drive. I don't have to worry about carrying around my bulky binder, which is one less thing to worry about. It is much more convenient to hop online to any computer or my Ipad and access my online binder in Google.
It is also easier and faster to search up information within my online binder. My Google Drive will alphabetize all of my folders within my binder and I can even color code them if I choose to. This is a tremendous help since I am an organization junkie. I can search for a teacher or data quickly. If I need to share information with others within my district or school, Google drive makes this simple and easy to do with their share buttons. No more scanning a copy to email! This makes life so much simpler and more efficient.
I want to make sure I'm clear that I still keep a printed Instructional Coaching Binder in my office. I just can't help it, I love having one. I enjoy working with the printed documents, especially when I need to do side-by-side comparisons or when collaborating with a coworker. There are times when I need to pull things out of my binder and spread them out to work and utilize for big projects or presentations. When I attend workshops, administrator meetings, or receive handouts I always add them to my printed binder. Also, if there is an internet issue in the building I still have my binder that I can access if the network is down. Life Saver!
I honestly can't see myself without both options. I believe it depends on your comfort level and preference on whether you are all in with digital or plan to stick with the printed binder. They both serve the same purpose which is keeping you organized in providing purposeful instructional leadership.
:-) Christina
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