Is your school special? Do you have a shared community passion that drives your teachers and students? Are there things you do better than other schools down the road or across town…or anywhere else in the country? Do have dreams, wishes, or aspirations for the future that can be realized with strong collective effort and [...]
Yes, I am a very proud dad. But most of my readers are involved in education, so what lessons can we share with our students from what follows? At least two, I think: the powerful link between passion and purpose, and the untapped potential of "one person doing". As many of you know, our daughter, [...]
Good problem solving requires that we consider many options before settling on a path forward. In schools, whether we are engaged in a five year strategic plan or working with departmental colleagues, good problem solving starts with an “expansive” or “generative” phase. We often call this brainstorming, where participants are asked to generate many ideas [...]
I was honored to participate in a lunch yesterday with a team from the Harvard Doctor of Education Leadership (Ed.L.D.) program that is in San Diego visiting and working with San Diego Unified School District. The lunch was attended by a small, select group of San Diego-area education thought leaders. Ed.L.D. is a relatively young [...]
I may have lied; I think this series may be seven posts, not six. I leave open the possibility of corrections along the way, and last night I realized I had left out a key step in shifting from worn out strategic planning models to a more nimble and dynamic approach. And it is a [...]
I have studied problem solving and the arts of strategy for decades, and their application to schools for more than 15 years. Simply, school organizations have gotten strategy wrong; we have been active but ineffective problem solvers. During times of relative stasis, that is a condition we can live with; during times of dynamic change [...]
Last night Bo Adams and I were honored to chat about the nature and strengths of design thinking and its role in K-12 education. This Fireside Chat was organized under the auspices of the weekly #DTk12Chat on Twitter which takes place on Wednesdays at 9 PM ET/6 PM PT. It is routinely attended by dozens [...]
If, like me, you are less than a mathematical prodigy, any study of Chaos Theory other than the popular model for civilians is beyond our reach. But even at that non-rigorous level, we find that there are few concurrences more elegant, observable, repeatable, and downright beautiful than the fractal patterns of our world. We find [...]
It was just a couple of years ago that we started hearing the term MOOC, and in my work with educators around the country, just the last 6 months that it has really percolated into the mindset of most K-12 educators. In that ridiculously short period of time, hundreds of millions of dollars have been [...]
For those of you who are not active on Twitter or do not follow me (what??), my post a few days ago that responded to Ira Socol's thoughts about "grit" and "slack" has touched off what I think many of us feel is a truly important discussion for educators. Some of our best educational thought [...]