Connected Educators
Meaningful interactions happen for isolated school leaders through professional learning networks
By Jeffrey Zoul and Jimmy Casas/School Administrator, February 2016


The jubilation she had felt during the welcome-back-to-school week had worn off. Gone was the energy of connecting with new faces and interacting with her professional peers while preparing for the arrival of students eager to get back to school after a long summer.

Joe Sanfelippo (left), superintendent in Fall Creek, Wis., with elementary school students promoting the school district’s #gocrickets Twitter hashtag. (Photo by Cindy Kolpien)

The teacher was now alone in her classroom, physically, emotionally and intellectually removed from the rest of her colleagues. She was feeling isolated, less effective and thirsty for some adult personal and professional interaction.

This is a scenario all too common in our profession, affecting not only teachers but also school administrators, especially superintendents who have no job-alike colleagues to lean on in their own district and principals in school districts with only a few other site leaders serving alongside them. Although we are surrounded daily by those who matter most — our students — too often education becomes a lonely profession in terms of meaningful daily adult interactions with fellow educators. In fact, we know school administrators who equate serving in such roles to serving on “Administrator Island.”

In such schools, teachers walk into a classroom 180 days each year, shut their door and do the best they can to educate their students. Meanwhile, their administrators are equally bereft of quality professional connections during the day. They spend the majority of every day deprived of any significant adult interaction focused on professional engagement. Over time, this lack of connectivity with other professionals leads to low efficacy, aversion to risk-taking, burnout on the job and high turnover. Sadly, we begin to question whether we can even make a difference when working in isolation.

Educators, like any other professionals, need peer-to-peer interactions and reciprocal investments in order to grow and develop. Why is this so critical? Because effective educators recognize the importance and value of making the time to connect with others both personally and professionally to avoid these islands of isolation. They know that students who feel connected to a school are more likely to succeed, and they realize the same holds true for them as professionals.

An Island Mentality
One way many educators are breaking out of an island mentality is by connecting with fellow educators around the globe. This begins by establishing a personal learning network, or PLN, a group of equally passionate educators whom they can rely on to problem solve, share resources and discuss issues of mutual interest. Ultimately, we recognize that the success and impact of any personal learning network depends on the investment of time and effort that each individual is willing to commit not only to others but also to their own growth.

Jeff Zoul and Jimmy Casas

Creating a personal learning network is a collective effort, but unless each of us is willing to give of ourselves, the likelihood of that investment paying any positive dividends is dubious. Let us be clear, giving of ourselves does not imply that we are restricted only to giving to others, but equally important, taking time to pause so that we benefit from our own reflection on what we receive in return. Educators who connect with colleagues outside their own school district are likely to find themselves more engaged in their profession and, in turn, more likely to engage those around them to follow suit.

Being a connected educator is not a formal title, of course. There is no degree program or certification process one goes through to be deemed a connected educator. Our view is that serving as a connected educator is a mindset more than anything else. In short, we define connected educators simply as ones who actively and constantly seek new opportunities and resources to grow as professionals.

Global Engagement
Based on our experiences connecting with our own PLNs, we wrote a book, along with Todd Whitaker, a professor of educational leadership at Indiana State University, describing eight key behaviors in which educators engage that allows them to grow and learn — anytime, anywhere, from anyone — so they continue to serve their schools and their students in the best ways possible. In our book, What Connected Educators Do Differently, we highlight members of our professional learning network who model the way in this area, serving as examples to the teachers they lead that learning must be an ongoing process and finding new ways to learn — anywhere, anytime — is more important (and easier) now than ever before.

At the end of each chapter, we ask readers to “Follow 5, Find 5 and Take 5.” We list five educators they should follow on Twitter, offer five resources they are likely to find useful and suggest five action steps they should take to increase their engagement with their PLN. One school leader we highlight as someone to “follow” is Joe Sanfelippo (@joesanfelippofc on Twitter), superintendent in Fall Creek, Wis. Sanfelippo is a perfect example of a school leader who models lifelong learning for his community and has managed to put tiny Fall Creek, with its 846 students, on the global map as a district that is leading the way in engaging students, staff, parents and community members and transforming teaching and learning for all.

Sanfelippo attributes much of the school district’s recent recognition and success to the way he and others in the schools and community have branded their good work via the district’s Twitter hashtag, #gocrickets, a nod to the school’s unique mascot. What started as a tiny movement in a tiny community in a fairly remote area of Wisconsin has blossomed into a powerful movement in which educators around the globe now are familiar with the activities occurring in the schools, classrooms and athletic venues of Fall Creek. The pride that community members now have in their schools is readily apparent and has had a trickle-down effect, reaching all levels of the school community, according to Sanfelippo.

Now serving in his fifth year as superintendent, he has become a better, more-informed leader due in part to the connections he initially made once he actively sought to establish a professional learning network. He says other staff members, community members and even students have followed suit, growing and learning through the connections they have established, often through the use of Twitter as a learning platform.

“Our entire school community has become more engaged in all aspects of our schools in the past several years,” Sanfelippo says. “Although there is no single cause for this increased engagement, I am confident that a significant contributing factor is the way in which we have connected with those outside our community to both learn from others and share our own story.”

Extra Bonus
Sanfelippo is but one example of a school system leader who has seen his own engagement in his work — as well as the engagement of those with whom he works — increase as a result of establishing and maintaining a personal learning network. Thousands of others, many of whom we highlight in our book, are experiencing equally impressive results in terms of increased engagement as a result of the intentional efforts they have made to connect with fellow learners and leaders around the world.

As an added bonus, getting connected to other educators around the world is actually quite fun once you learn how to go about creating a learning network and begin interacting with members of your network. However, if it were only about meeting new colleagues and personal enjoyment, we doubt anyone would continue along this path for long. What keeps connected educators energized and engaged in their learning network is not only the people with whom they connect, but also the ideas they get connected to, ideas that help them get better at what they do.

Regardless of their initial attitudes, connected educators we have met are passionately committed to seeking new ways of interacting with educators around the world to improve their own professional lives as well as the lives of the educators with whom they connect and the staff and students they serve. Wherever you currently stand on your journey to connectivity as an educator, we encourage you to take the next step — it will be a giant move forward in increasing your level of engagement in your work and those around you.


Jeffrey Zoul is assistant superintendent for teaching and learning with the Deerfield School District 109 in Deerfield, Ill. E-mail: jzoul@dps109.org. Twitter: @jeff_zoul. He blogs at http://jeffzoul.blogspot.com. Jimmy Casas is principal of Bettendorf High School in Bettendorf, Iowa. They are co-authors of What Connected Educators Do Differently.