"Principal learner" at the Trinity School in Montgomery, Alabama Michael Zavada, has written a wonderful "first review" of my new book, #EdJourney. He says it is a first review because he is biting off the book in smallish chunks and thinking as he goes. What a great "novel" strategy for good learning! Here are a [...]
In my metaphor of educator-leader as "farmer", the principal/superintendent/head of school farmer's job is to nurture and grow a strong learning organization. The teacher farmer's job is to nurture and grow strong students. This interview with Roger Martin, Dean of the Business School at the University of Toronto is a great nine minutes. Translate his [...]
Six boxes showed up at my door late yesterday, 50 copies of my new book, #EdJourney. In 90,000 words I do my best to tell YOUR story of how schools are overcoming the enormous challenge of innovating to meet the needs of a rapidly changing world. If you have followed my blog, hopefully you have [...]
Innovation in schools occurs when "regular, like-able people" can engage the process in a trusting, supportive environment. In her review on Amazon of #EdJourney, 4th grade teacher Lisa Goochee, now teaching in Brazil after global experiences from Philly to China, finds those common elements of successful innovation that are available to every educator-leader: ...showcases how regular, [...]
"What does a transformed learning space look like? How can I show my teachers what student-owned learning entails? Where can I send them?" These are questions I hear from nearly every school CEO I visit who is seriously trying to evolve the system away from the traditional assembly line model of teacher/subject/routine-centric education. Here is [...]
Thoughtful leaders. There is a mouthful: thoughtful, leader, thought leader; those who are all three are rare, not because we lack "thought-lead DNA", but often because we are consumed by busy lives and day jobs. I have frequently pointed Twitter followers to Mark Crotty, head of school at St. John's Episcopal in Dallas who takes the [...]
The classrooms look huge...but only because there is no clutter of "stuff and the minimalist furniture. "All we have to do is focus on the kids and not ourselves." That was principal Sonya Wrisley's response as I gawked at the seemingly vast amount of space that her students have in the newly-opened Design [...]
I have had a full spring/summer of reading, and thought I would pass along the following recommendations (most of which came to me through recommendations of others!): Some of these I have already blogged on, so have created the link to those reviews: A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger Creative Confidence by David and [...]
What if every teacher and student in your school/district/county/state/country had access to a shared, fully searchable knowledge base of educational content, ideas, resources, curriculum, and links? What if they could both access the knowledge base and contribute to it? What if they could follow and share with other users who have common interests, and report [...]
As followers of this blog know, I find THE key to transforming learning is painting the picture for adult educator-leaders, and then giving them the resources to re-tool and create dynamic, flexible, adaptive, engaged learning ecosystems. We are seeing a mini-explosion of professional development events aimed at meeting this critical need. Schools and districts realize [...]