How do we make decisions about what and how to teach? Effective organizations make decisions based on some measure of objectivity so we are not constantly pursuing personal agendas of the loudest person or strongest interest group. Several schools I work with have wrestled with the idea of creating "Simple Rules" to help guide these [...]
Hitting a moving target is all about aim, velocity, and trajectory. When NASA fires off a satellite to intersect with an asteroid, they need to accurately calculate where that little rock will be a few years from now. If they are wrong in those calculations, and if the satellite has booster rockets, they can make [...]
Tesla took orders totaling more than $14 billion for their new car model...in one week. There are a number of other electric and hybrid cars on the market and coming soon, and some with arguably better range and price point. The analogy to Apple computers should be lost on no one. What Elon Musk did [...]
What will "school" be 20 years from now? I am not ready to roll out my entire argument, but one result that I think is inevitable is that all schools, public and private, will increasingly fall into one of three categories (and probably some mixtures of the three): Struggling to stay open. Insulated from market [...]
I met Jordan Greenhall last night; he has a remarkable background in technology companies and I was immediately impressed with his thinking about connected learning and social systems. This short video outlines some of his thinking about "why we have jobs" and what social and economic benefits they provide in a post-industrial economy. This is [...]
I have been recording a series of short (10 minutes or so) conversations with Garth Nichols and Justin Medved, two educators in Toronto, as they and their interscholastic group of colleagues, and the Canadian Association of Independent Schools, use #EdJourney as one guide in their conversations around changing schools. If you are looking for a [...]
There is nothing like deep discussions with thoughtful colleagues to solidify a key idea. Yesterday I got to hang out via video chat for an hour and a half with Bo Adams and Tim Fish, two of that unique group of educators who can both "think big and do small": develop theory and deep understanding [...]
In a battle of fear and trust, trust needs a great hand to win. This morning's always-provocative #satchatwc, hosted by Shelley Burgess, on the nature of trust, generated a rapid and steady stream of great, targeted, and pithy advice about how leaders can build trust in their organizations. There were powerful quotes from Stephen Covey and [...]
When we benchmark against other schools, are we focusing on the river or on the banks? Assessing how well an organization is meeting its mission is a difficult job. Most organizations compare themselves against other similar organizations with similar missions following the logic that measuring against an "average" or a "best in class", tells us how [...]
I am starting to research my next book and in the process will be interviewing education thought and action leaders from around the country. As I do so, I will run across great tidbits, and of course I love to share, and will drop them into Tweets and here on my blog from time to [...]