Biggest Challenges Faced By An Associate Director Of Professional Learning At Rocketship Public Schools
Lauren's biggest challenges as Associate Director of Professional Learning at Rocketship Public Schools involve building relationships and establishing the team's role within the organization; the team is "newer," requiring Lauren to proactively seek collaborations and manage time effectively, as "logistical parts of the role" sometimes detract from using skills in higher-impact ways.
Project Management, Teamwork, Communication, Overcoming Challenges, Time Management
Advizer Information
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Lauren Keough
Associate Director of Professional Learning
Rocketship Public Schools
UCLA - 2008
Lehman College - CUNY (2010) - Masters of Arts in Social Studies Education & Stanford University (2019) - Masters in Policy, Organization & Leadership Studies
History, Art History
Education
Education
Took Out Loans, Worked 20+ Hours in School
Video Highlights
1. Building relationships and collaboration across teams to increase the team's impact and relevance within the organization.
2. Balancing logistical tasks (e.g., event planning) with higher-level strategic work and effectively delegating or seeking support for less impactful tasks.
3. The importance of time management and auditing one's own time allocation to ensure focus on high-impact activities and to identify areas where support is needed or delegation is possible.
Transcript
What are the biggest challenges in your role?
My team is newer to the organization, so not everyone really knows what we do. Sometimes we have to push to collaborate with people.
For example, if we see a legal professional development session, we might have to ask, "Can we help you?" It's not ideal and we have to insert ourselves rather than being part of the process teams are already using. This can be tricky, and you feel like you would have a lot more impact if you were more organically part of the organization.
I think this will change over time, but we're still in the newer stages. Also, some of the logistical parts of my role, like moving tables and ordering lunch, have to be done. I'm fine with doing them sometimes, but I also wonder if somebody else could do them. I question if I could use my skills for other things instead.
So, I really need to be sure I'm keeping an audit of how I spend my time. If I'm spending too much time on those kinds of tasks, I need to bring that up. That doesn't feel good.