Two weeks until my new book, #EdJourney: A Roadmap to the Future of Education ships! For all those folks in all of my workshopping events who ask "where can I go to get more information or find a school that is working on...?", I put as much of my knowledge base from the last two [...]
There are two reasons that organizations change: because they have to or because they want to. Proactive change from a position of strength is always preferable to reactive change at time of stress. I really enjoy working with schools that recognize the need to change and engage the process, even though some in their community [...]
What an honor and pleasure to work with educators who have dedicated a large piece of their lives to the fulfillment of children! And all the better when I find a group well rested after summer, ready to dive back in, not only to the work of the upcoming school year, but with a passion [...]
I just saw a Tweet from thought leader and blogger Scott McLeod calling for short posts on technology leadership to celebrate the anniversary of his blog. I am on the road so this will indeed be short, but I have a lot of respect for the work and sharing that Scott promotes, so want to [...]
Can a traditional, low-performing school serving a community of impoverished students from families largely disconnected to the urgency of education quickly transform into a place of deep, student-owned, passion-based learning? Many of the schools I visit don’t face these challenges; they have the luxuries of choice, independence, and resources, and only need to overcome their [...]
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 [...]
Shouldn’t our learning be attuned to the rhythms of the world around us rather than isolated from them? And not just at the margins, but at the core? How many teachers, given a blank score upon which to compose their lesson-learning would select the same march they taught 20 years ago, and how many would choose to [...]
One of the big obstacles to school innovation I have found is the "dam" of college admissions and college entrance exams that focus on lower-order knowledge acquisition and regurgitation. Anecdotal evidence points to the fact that if a good school de-emphasizes AP's and college test prep and emphasizes deep, rigorous, student-centered, project-focused learning, their students will be attractive [...]
Yesterday I posted some reflections on how schools can more effectively move from broad vision statements that sometimes sound formulaic or canned to a real pathway of strategic implementation. One critical step is to paint a picture of what success looks like in the future. Innovative organizations recognized two elements of painting this picture: The [...]
As I reported in Independent School Magazine in 2014 ("Zero-Based Strategic Thinking"), we are living through a rapid global shift in producer-consumer relationships across most industrial sectors. Companies that deliver generic, higher cost products and services are being replaced by lower cost competitors that can tailor products and services to individual consumer demands. According to people [...]