I came up with a set of professional goals before I graduated college, and they have never left me: work with smart people to tackle difficult problems, create elegant solutions, for something of value. This week has been another link in that chain! All this week I have been able to sit in with a dynamic team [...]
What if we named a public school "We Imagine" or "We Change the World"? I am working informally with a crack team at the large Poway Unified School District on two tracks: program design for a new K-8 to open in 2014, and an adaptive learning model to be piloted at the new school and [...]
A month or so ago I had my feet up thinking of draft language for a new vision statement for The Martin Institute for Teaching Excellence. The broad mission of the Martin is professional development for educators, which is really just about learning. The challenges to how we will learn in a rapidly changing [...]
I think I just made up a new term: "missioning". It is the activity of bringing your organization's mission to life. This spring I have been focusing with school leaders on the relationship between three critical aspects of institutional sustainability: vision, systems, and value. Creating a vision is actually pretty easy. Developing systems-wide alignment between [...]
I had to post this; one of the nicer things anyone has ever written about my work to date. It is from a long and very thoughtful blog post by Jack Hassard, a writer, former high school science teacher and Professor Emeritus of Science Education, Georgia State University. The post also includes extensive connections with Narcis [...]
This is the future. No platform exists. Blank slate. Smart people. Tough task. Big, worthwhile goals. “Let’s build it”. I love it! Yesterday I got to spend three hours with a tremendous team at Poway (Ca) Unified School District imagining the future of differentiated and adaptive learning systems. Poway is a 35,000-student district, and visionary [...]
This is a bit late, but as promised, the video of my Google Hangout webinar two weeks ago with our friends at Whipple Hill. It is about a 20 minute conversation about change in schools based on my trip last fall and many workshop interactions this spring. Thanks to Whipple Hill for co-sponsoring my work. [...]
One of the reasons I agreed to work closely with The Martin Institute for Teaching Excellence in the future is that they really know how to swing a bat. And here is a great example. The Martin and Presbyterian Day School have agreed to bring the widely-acclaimed Project Zero of Harvard, in conjunction with the Center [...]
Am I a little excited/stoked by this photo? Yes! Faculty at Trinity School in Atlanta were given five book titles to choose from for their summer reading. Theme: the Art of Questioning. Not gonna disclose the other titles, but you can see a couple of them. My book, The Falconer, was selected by more than [...]
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 [...]