School Culture

A Handy List for Evaluating Your Shool's Culture


When teaching in the Communications & Culture department at Hannam Univeristy’s Linton School of Global Business, my primary focus was teaching media creation courses and courses analyzing the effects of new media and traditional media.  One course that I taught outside of my core focus was Organizational Communications. One of my favorite long-term assignments of tat course was when students were tasked with working as ethnographers to try to analyze the culture of an organization which they either currently belonged or aspired to join.  For the class, we used Kathrine Miller’s 5th edition of “Organizational Communication: Approaches and Processes”.

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This book will help you rethink how you look at the culture of any organization.

It is sadly priced for it's primary audience of university students. If you can find an older edition of the book or if you can afford a current version, I highly recommend it!

 

One of the side books that I have had around during this busy semester but haven’t opened much, Is “School Culture Rewired: How to Define, Assess, and Transform it” by Steve Gruenert & Todd Whitaker. I have found value in Whitaker’s other works and I have recently been intrigued at just how different two schools with the same mission can be. I will do a full review later of this book, but here is Witaker's quick preview. For now, I want to share this very practical list as an excellent starter of how to analyze the culture of a school which you belong or aspire to join. Note: This list is from page 28 of their excellent book. Of course they expand with more details on how to study each item on this list. -Climate
-Mission and Vision
-Language
-Humor
-routines, Rituals, and Ceremonies
-Norms
-Roles
-Symbols
-Stories
-Heroes
-Values and Beliefs

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Defining School Culture

-Mission and Vision
-Language
-Humor
-routines, Rituals, and Ceremonies
-Norms
-Roles
-Symbols
-Stories
-Heroes
-Values and Beliefs

Note: This list is from page 28.
Take a screenshot and maybe print it out to remind you of the elements of a school culture.

Four Lists of Four

People often ask me about my favorite books, websites, podcasts, etc. Perhaps I will give a more in-depth review of these later. However, for now, here is a quick look at some of my favorites:

TWO MINUTE TECH TOOL REVIEW: TodaysMeet

You may have heard of Socrative for engaging your students in real time while getting a pulse of how the room feels about a topic. It is a great tool which I have benefited from and seen some master teachers use extremely well.

Today I would like you to meet 'TodaysMeet'. This tool does all of the core things that Socrative does. It also allows you to do two things that have kept me from fully embracing Socrative.

Perhaps you have seen the TodaysMeet Logo?

1) TodaysMeet allows teachers and trainers to 'mute' students who are purposely disruptive. Hopefully it does not happen in professional training sessions and it does not happen in school systems as much as some people feel that it might. However, this is a nice option to have and it makes me much more comfortable to use leaving open for comments to people in distant classrooms or for extended hours outside of a controlled environment.  

2) Download the transcripts. This option serves as a clear advantage over Socrative. Although the  classroom sessions are open for limited times, it is wonderful to have access to download the transcripts. If chosen, this can serve for formative and perhaps even summative assessment. Of course it can also be great for documenting for adapting or integrating into future sessions. 

I am a big fan of Google Forms and other Google Apps for Education. I love the ecosystem provided by Google. However, especially in the corporate world or when working with minors, the signup process of using a Google Form can keep people from choosing to participate.  Today'sMeet is a no-nonsense, no-barrier, noncommital way to get a quick pulse without needing pesky delays waiting for participants to set up an account.  With that said, it works perfectly well for generating contact information while engaging an audience if needed.

For more information on how it can benefit you as a teacher or trainer, here is a quick overview on the main site: https://todaysmeet.com/about/teachertools

Old Linton Global College Brochure

This brochure from 2012 brings back some wonderful memories of teaching at Linton Global College's old campus. I am proud of the success of some of the smiling faces in this photo.

Note. Linton Global College was the winner of a Korean government CK-1 special restructuring grant. This was a nation-wide competition among universities. We are not named Linton School of Global Business.