It was about 40 years ago that I sat in Prof. Jim Ingle's oceanography class at Stanford as he described the ebb and flow of climate patterns throughout geologic time. With a waving of arms he talked about the rise and fall of sea levels and massive changes in rainfall patterns, each arm flap covering [...]
There is surely one thing that unites all educators: we are responsible for both the well-being and learning progress of our students when they are in our charge. The role that testing plays in schools has correctly become an enormous point of controversy as we question just what are we testing and what the results [...]
Regardless of your politics, there is no question that the elections last week were revolutionary, and the potential impacts widespread. It is way too soon, with such volatility, to know for sure what those impacts will be for schools, communities, or individuals who comprise those communities. But if there ever was a time to make [...]
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 [...]
As many of you know, I formally resigned my position at Francis Parker School this spring after almost a decade and a half in a variety of leadership positions. I hope to continue my association with Parker, which my great aunt and uncle founded 100 years ago, in informal ways. For now, and following on [...]
Yesterday’s NPR report on the research by O’Boyle and Aguinis regarding the potential death of the bell curve standard has already started to provoke important conversation. Yesterday I took a first stab at how this research might impact how we view student performance and the structure of classes and assessment. Those are huge topics that [...]
Last week I read a series of interviews with author Gary Hamel on his new book What Matters Now, conducted and posted by Steve Denning on his blog on Forbes.com. Hamel is an expert on change management and innovation and I thought a number of the points he made in the interviews are highly relevant [...]
This morning on NPR there was a short story about a new start-up company out of Stanford that has piloted offering FREE university-level courses with full assessment of student performance, for free. University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, and University of Michigan are also participating. The new company is called Coursera and venture capitalists have put in [...]
I recently wrote an article for the NBOA publication Net Assets on implementing an enterprise risk management program. It is a hot topic; I have probably had 40 business officers and others email me for more information. We all know we need to look at this, but it is a hard road to start down. [...]