LeaderTalk

Compliance vs. Rigor

Lately I've been having a number of conversations with other educational leaders on the issue of efforts to improve classroom instruction.  These conversations eventually lead to a discussion of how to identify deep, rigorous instruction as opposed to just looking for some sort of base-level compliance. 

I am working on a lengthier blog post that will detail a recent strategy that we are using to help administrators and lead teachers who are working to improve the quality of instruction in our classrooms, but for this blog post I want to pose a question to our readers to generate some thought around this issue.

Let's assume that on your campus you are working on implementing a new instructional strategy across the campus. Let's say that your campus has chosen to implement a structured approach to note-taking by implementing the use of Cornell Notes or two-column notes.

How do you, as a campus administrator (or instructional coach/lead teacher) monitor for effective implementation?

How do you monitor for deep, rigorous implementation as opposed to just simple compliance?

Post your response here and in the next few days I will post a strategy that we are beginning to use with our administrators and instructional coaches to address this concern over compliance vs. rigor.

(Note:  I know that "rigor" can be interpreted differently by various educators.  By "rigor" in the context of this blog post and this discussion, I mean instruction that engages the students in deep exploration of the content at higher-levels of thinking.)

District Leadership Book Club

Let's tap our collective intelligence to generate ideas that some school/district leaders might find useful if they were interested in starting up their own book club:

If you were going to start up a book club among a group of leaders in one school or in one school district for the 2008-2009 school year, what ONE book would you choose and why?

Shift Happens -- Now What?

(Cross-posted at Change Agency)

You've just watched “Did You Know” or a keynote by David Warlick for the very first time.  You feel your heart begin to race as panic sets in... you think:  “My school is in no way prepared to help our students learn what they need for work and life in the this very different and constantly changing world... What should I do?!”

Too often, the initial response is to look for money to buy more computers.  Some educational leaders may say “Let's make sure we have laptops in the hands of EVERY student!... SmartBoards in EVERY classroom!”  While it is nice to have administrative support for new technology purchases, a “technology purchasing frenzy” is simply NOT the correct response to the realization that our schools are not doing enough to prepare students for their futures.  This is really about changing adult perspectives and adult behaviors to create student-centered classrooms that exemplify research-based best practices around learning.  It's not about buying the latest, greatest, and most expensive tech toys on the market.  Expensive tech in the hands of educators who haven't made changes to their behaviors and instructional practice are no better than the good old chalk board, pencil, and paper.  Even worse, expensive tech that the teachers see no use for will end up just collecting dust in a storage room.   

The examples are endless... SmartBoards as expensive chalkboards... PowerPoint & media projectors as flashy and expensive overhead transparencies... computers as typewriters & calculators... Distance-learning labs that only get used for faculty or team meetings -- or worse, as a nice empty room to use during testing week...

PLEASE NOTE -- from here on out on this blog post I am using the word “learner” for everyone on the campus -- teachers, administrators, staff... AND -- I am unapologetic with some of the things I say below.  If we are serious about changing our learning environments so that our students leave fully prepared for life and work in a globally connected and collaborative environment, then we are definitely going to be moving the cheese of many people in our organizations -- it won't be easy and we can't wait for all of the state and federal policies and mandates to catch up before we take action.

So what should we do when we realize that the world has changed for our students?

Rather than immediately engage in a technology purchasing frenzy, take some time to begin discussions on your campus about how to transform your school into a place where teachers see themselves first as LEARNERS who are invested in improving their instructional practice through reflection and inquiry, and where students are more globally connected in a way that enhances and supports their individual learning.  Collaborate with your faculty and staff -- your learners -- to learn more about how the world has changed and what that means for our profession...

Locate the “early adopters” in your district/schools and bring them in to a conversation around change — recruit them to help spread change virally...

Change adult behaviors and practices first... Change the way you work together, the way you speak with each other... Change your vocabulary... Begin by redefining yourselves as learners rather than educators... Acknowledge that in order to prepare your students for their futures of the 21st Century, all learners on your campus must be equally prepared for those futures... Commit to the belief that being “technophobic” or “technology illiterate” is no longer an option for 21st Century learners (and after you've redefined yourselves as learners, understand what that means for professional learning on your campus)... Be firm about this -- it should NOT be okay on your campus for ANYONE to say “I don't like technology” or “I'm just not very techie... can you do this for me?”... Banish the phrase “Kids these days” from the vocabulary of everyone on your campus... While you are at it, you should also banish the phrase “My teaching methods have always worked and I'm not going to change just because these kids (fill in the blank)...”

Don't form a committee to “study this and bring back suggestions for change” -- committees take too long and you just don't have time... change needed to happen yesterday...

Don't create a “pilot project” -- same reasons for not forming a committee -- it takes too long and change needed to happen yesterday...

Do not purchase any new technology hardware until you have first ensured that your network is up-to-date and accessible... How many network drops are in each room?  Do you have wireless access across your entire campus?... Drops in every room and wireless access across the campus are “must-haves” before you start buying anything else!...

Give your teachers time to “play” with Web 2.0 -- to explore the use of Web 2.0 (blogs, wikis, Twitter, etc.) for THEIR professional learning BEFORE they attempt to use the same tools in the classroom with students.  In fact, put a moratorium on classroom use of blogs and wikis for at least four months until teachers have used them weekly for their own learning by reading and writing and connecting with other edublogging educators...

Inform all new first-year learners on your campus that their “learning” is just beginning and will never end... and that it certainly did not end upon completion of all degree and certification requirements...

Begin all interviews for new hires with “what is the most recent thing that you learned and how did you learn it?”...

Understand that all of this can and should happen in conjunction with other changes in professional practice such as Professional Learning Communities and Critical Friends Groups, and along with structural changes such as Smaller Learning Communities, varied student grouping strategies, and/or early college campuses... Transforming your school into a 21st Century Learning Center does not mean that you throw out other initiatives and other research-based best practices...

Campus leaders should model the professional learning use of Web 2.0 tools through transparent blogging and wiki use with the faculty on a weekly basis... Begin putting all of your professional “knowledge” on a wiki (accessible from anywhere -- NOT on the campus intranet) and when your learners ask where they can find certain documents, policies, etc., smile and tell them “It's on the wiki!”...  Give your learners password-protected access to edit the wiki so that knowledge on your campus is collaboratively developed...  This is as much about being transparent in your own learning and in your communication and collaborative decision-making with all of your learners as it is about modeling the use of new tools...

Don't know how to use these tools for professional learning, collaboration, and communication?  Take time THIS SUMMER to learn... A few great places to start include a wide variety of edublogs as well as “Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms” (Will Richardson), “Redefining Literacy for the 21st Century” (David Franklin Warlick), “Classroom Blogging: 2nd Edition” (David Warlick), and “Web 2.0:  New Tools, New Schools” (Gwen Solomon, Lynne Schrum)...

If our students need to be educated for a globally connected workplace rather than educated for factory work (and yes, they do), collaborate with your learners to make system, process, and structural changes so that your school looks, feels, and functions less like a factory and more like a globally connected communications and learning center...

Remember that the most important thing is a change in behaviors and practices -- a change in pedagogy -- NOT just buying new technology...

Finally... when you do make technology purchases -- provide support... provide support... provide support... AND provide training... but provide training that is a model of effective instruction and learning practices... create cheerleaders who will coach other professional learners and promote continual learning around changes in the world, economics, technology, and workforce trends that have an impact on our work as learning professionals...

Here are a few other blog posts that offer more suggestions for creating a 21st Century learning environment on your campus:

Your job is to make something happen
First Steps Toward Becoming a 21st Century Educator
The Barriers May Not be so Great
Disruption or Demand to Learn
Purposeful Networking
I'm on a Path -- Come Join Me!
The Teachers We Need
Don Tapscott Speaks Out on Education -- Keynote for Horizon Project 2008
9 Principles for Implementation: The Big Shift
ISTE's Refreshed Technology Standards for Students
Social Networking Sites are NOT the Problem... BEHAVIORS (and bad statistics) Are!
The Five Phases of Flattening a Classroom

I know I haven't covered all of the do's and don'ts around this issue of reinventing our schools for the 21st Century, so I'll throw this out to the edublogosphere...

What do's and don'ts would you add to the list I've compiled above?

Technorati Tags: 21st Century, Classroom, education, Fear, Flat, School 2.0, Technology, Warlick

Leadership Development - Paths to Leadership

(Cross-posted at Change Agency)

I've been thinking about "paths to leadership" quite a bit lately.  In recent months my school district and a local organization that works with area school districts on a variety of reform initiatives have both announced two separate principal leadership "academies" to help prepare more leaders for our urban schools in the Houston, Texas area.  You can learn more about HISD's academy and Houston A+ Challenge's academy by following those two links.

My own path to leadership was interesting and surprising to me.  When I graduated from my undergraduate program all I wanted to do was to make art.  I was accepted into a master's program in studio arts and that experience led me to an interest in teaching art as a career (at the college level.)  In time, after a few years of teaching at the college level, I made the decision to move into K-12 art education.  I was living in Texas at the time and I was able to take advantage of a program that allowed me to begin teaching while I went back to school to take the required coursework leading to K-12 certification -- another 30 credit hours (including "student teaching hours") and state certification exam later I was fully certified as a K-12 art education teacher.  During the three years that I was taking the coursework -- and teaching in a local high school -- I was selected to be one of five teacher-leaders for a new comprehensive school reform initiative on my campus.  This was my launch into leadership and school administration. If someone has asked me even then (in the first two years of my teacher-leadership role) if I wanted to pursue a path to school leadership as a principal I would have firmly stated NO.

However, as time went on I decided to pursue a Master's in Educational Leadership Administration & Supervision (along with principal certification) to add credentials that would allow me to pursue a variety of leadership roles in education.  I started the program while I was serving as a campus-based School Improvement Facilitator -- a role focused entirely on assisting the campus principal with implementation of a variety of school improvement initiatives (Small Learning Communities, Professional Learning Communities, literacy initiatives, etc.).  My leadership path emerged from some very innovative work on my campus, and I eventually had the opportunity to also serve as a Dean of Instruction on another campus and am now working as a Literacy/Instructional Coach on another campus.

As I look at the two new programs in the Houston area that have been developed to bring new and better prepared leaders to our campuses, I am thinking about my own leadership path and the experiences that have shaped who I am as a learning professional.  I include in that the non-traditional and informal learning that I have experienced as a blogger and member of a loosely-joined and voluntary online learning network (my PLN) -- experiences that will certainly not be a part of the two new programs emerging in region -- as well as the formal training in my graduate program and in a leadership cohort in which I have participated over the past two years, and the on-the-job practical experiences that I have had in my campus-based positions.  (Which leads me to the question of what content should be included in a leadership development program -- only traditional leadership topics/activities, or emerging technologies and emerging professional learning options as well?)

I think it's valuable to reflect on one's leadership path as we work on ideas for developing new leaders.  Whether we are developing new leaders through a formal program or through one-on-one on-the-job mentoring, I believe we can provide greater value to the "learners" if we have a better understanding of where we have been, how we moved into leadership roles, and where we see ourselves going as educational leaders.

What was/is your path to leadership?  In reflecting on it, is there anything that surprises you? 

On a less personal note --
What is your school district, state, or any local organizations doing in the way of developing leadership academies designed specifically for preparing new leadership/new principals for the schools in your geographical area?  Do you think these efforts are adequate or not, and why? 

What other general thoughts do you have on educational leadership development in the 21st century?

Turning On the Lights

(Cross-posted at Change Agency)

In this month's issue of Educational Leadership (ASCD), Mark Prensky (Don't Bother Me Mom--I'm Learning!) writes an article “Turning On the Lights” where he discusses the gap between what students are doing outside of school and what they are (or are not) doing inside of school.  He says “It's their after-school education, not their school education, that's preparing our kids for their 21st-century lives -- and they know it.”

I am happy to see this article included in a prominent leadership periodical because the message is being spread to a wider audience of people who may not necessarily be “connected” in the way that many edubloggers currently are connected.  In this article, one of the sidebars includes “Prensky's Principles for Principals”:

Prensky's Principles for Principals

• Announce that henceforth students will have a meaningful voice in setting all school policy regarding technology use.  Hold assemblies that include teachers, students, parents, administrators, and technologists to hear all points of view and establish school policies regarding such issues as blocked Web sites and use of cell phones.
• Make it your business to eliminate boredom from your school -- make 100 percent engagement the goal.  Poll students as to which of their teachers and classes are engaging and which are boring and why.  Investigate and take action.
• Talk with 2 to 4 students each day for at least one-half hour about their learning.  If you feel you can't spare that time to engage with kids, you may need to rethink your priorities.
• Work with both students and teachers to implement the new “kids teaching themselves with guidance” model.  eliminate lectures and busywork from your school.  Ask teachers who use active learning to share their practices with their colleagues.
• Promote technology use and move toward one-to-one computing.
• Orient your school toward the future.  Offer classes in programming, robotics, long-distance collaboration, and cutting-edge science.
• Keep the computer lab open late and on weekends, especially in areas with limited technology access.
• Introduce computerized exercise games that kids really enjoy, such as Dance Dance Revolution, into your physical education classes.
• have students share your school's most effective practices and results with the world via YouTube.

He then shares in detail four important practices that can help “turn on the lights”:

1. Give students the opportunity to use technology in school.
2. Find out how students want to be taught.
3. Connect students to the world.
4. Understand where kids are going -- that is, into the future -- and help them get there.

I think all of these practices and ideas are not only good suggestions, I believe they are necessary if we want to truly engage our learners and improve the learning culture of our campuses.  A key theme running through all of these suggestions is “student voice.”  I don't believe ANY school improvement efforts can be successful -- truly successful (sustainable, success beyond just improved test scores) -- without student voice and involvement in planning and decision-making.

Prensky ends the article by stating that by using these practices schools can make a difference through their instructional program rather than relying on after-school enrichment programs.  He isn't suggesting that we do away with after-school programs.  His point is that we must make better use of the time we have rather than trying to tack on more time with the hope that just “more of the same” will solve our problems.  (Insert “definition of insanity” here)  I am a strong proponent for improving how we do things on our campuses with the time that we have.  Too often I have seen well-intended administrators restructure a school day to “double up” students into additional math or science classes without making any effort to change the practices of the teachers in those classes.  If I don't learn well from lectures and worksheets, I am not going to learn better with a double-helping of lectures and worksheets.  I don't have time to look it up, but there is ample research out there that proves that extended time that simply provide more of the same does not result in improved student learning -- nor does it result in increased student engagement.  We need to make substantial changes to our instructional programs -- we need to reinvent in many cases what we are doing with “schooling” -- if we hope to engage today's learners.  The ideas present by Prensky in this article are great places to start -- and don't forget that most important ingredients: STUDENT VOICE & STUDENT PARTICIPATION in the improvement processes.

Calibrating Observations & Walk-Throughs

Ask any teacher what they think of administrative observations and walk-throughs, and most will sigh and roll their eyes before expressing frustration with their experiences.  Why are teachers so frustrated with these observations and walk-throughs?  What is it about the experience that makes them so disappointing from the teacher's perspective?

The problems are many and the solutions are neither easy nor convenient for most administrative teams.  To begin with, an administrator's daily "schedule" is... well... let's be honest... "schedule" is an optimistic term to use for a day that is usually characterized by one emergency or crisis after another.  The best administrators do create daily schedules for themselves, but even the best have to deal with unexpected events and emergencies.  Too often the work of observation and teacher coaching gets pushed aside, taking second place to student discipline issues, last minute administrative team meetings, and the variety of other sudden and unscheduled events.

A second problem that plagues the "team" is the fact that for many administrators the training in observations and formal assessments of teachers lasts for about one week and is not supplemented with any follow-up or ongoing training.  The nice big binder that the new administrator gets during the training gets placed in an empty spot on the bookshelf and is usually never opened again. 

Additionally, this work of observation and evaluation is too often done in isolation.  Administrators are assigned to a certain group of teachers, and in most cases, aside from the occasional "nudge" from the building principal to "get those observations done before the deadline," administrators are on their own in the process of observing teachers and completing the assessments.

On a large campus with multiple administrators, many teachers will complain about the "luck of the draw."  How good or bad your evaluation or experience with walk-throughs is, all depends on which administrator is assigned to you.  The grapevine is very good about sharing information on which administrators are helpful, which ones are "out to get you," and which ones are "absent" and never come to your room or meet with you before giving you your evaluation.

On our campus we decided to tackle the problem of inconsistency in observations and evaluations across the administrative team.  Our school principal has implemented weekly "team walk-throughs" with the goal of "calibrating" our observation and evaluation process.  There are usually two team walk-throughs per week -- usually targeted at the math and science departments, but all content areas have been included in at least a few walk-throughs this year.

During a typical team walk-through, the team will meet in the principal's conference room to discuss what aspect of instruction we are targeting (this year it has been primarily "student engagement"), and what department we are going to observe.  The team is then divided into pairs -- each pair is then assigned to visit 2 to 3 classrooms during the observation period.  The pairs go in to each room together and after the observation they are able to discuss what each observer saw -- this is the key to the "calibration."  When the observation period is over, the pairs meet back in the conference room to discuss their observations as a whole and to debrief the process. 

So far this process has been successful.  The individuals on the team are all improving in their observation skills and the teachers are seeing more consistency in observations and in instructional focus.  It is still not a perfect system and the team is constantly "tweaking" the observation forms based on previous walk-throughs, but the most important aspect of this process is the learning.  The administrative team is meeting weekly in an environment and through a group learning activity designed to foster individual learning around an important and critical professional activity.

What other solutions have you used or experienced that were successful at overcoming some of the obstacles described above?  How are you or your administrative team working to improve your observation and evaluation system on your campus?

A View from the Balcony

(Cross posted at Change Agency)

In their book Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading, Martin Linsky and Ronald A. Heifetz explain how leaders can easily fall into the trap of being so close to the work that they fail to see the bigger picture.  It's so easy to get caught up in all of the details -- meetings with parents, classroom walkthroughs, discipline, leadership team meetings, off-campus meetings, etc. -- that we lose sight of the bigger picture.  Their solution for overcoming this pitfall is to step away from "the dance floor" and to place one's self on "the balcony."

The balcony metaphor captures this idea.  Let's say you are dancing in a big ballroom with a balcony up above.  A band plays and people swirl all around you to the music, filling up your view.  Most of your attention focuses on your dance partner, and you reserve whatever is left to make sure that you don't collide with dancers close by.  You let yourself get carried away by the music, your partner, and the moment.  When someone later asks you about the dance, you exclaim, "The band played great, and the place surged with dancers."

But if you had gone up to the balcony and looked down on the dance floor, you might have seen a very different picture.  You would have noticed all sorts of patterns.  For example, you might have observed that when slow music payed, only some people danced; when the tempo increased, others stepped onto the floor; and some people never seemed to dance at all.  Indeed, the dancers all clustered at one end f the floor, as far away from the band as possible.  On returning home, you might have reported that participation was sporadic, the band played too loud, and you only danced to fast music.

Achieving a balcony perspective means taking yourself out of the dance, in your mind, even if only for a moment.  The only way you can gain both a clearer view of reality and some perspective on the bigger picture is by distancing yourself from the fray.  Otherwise, you are likely to misperceive the situation and make the wrong diagnosis, leading you to misguided decisions about whether and how to intervene.

The authors go on to stress that we must find a balance between being an observer and being a participant -- and that in itself becomes a "dance" where we move between the two roles fluidly in order to at once see the big picture of the whole system while also making decisions and plans that generate effective changes within the system.

This reminds me of a technique that I learned in art school that I later used with my own students when I started teaching.  Artists spend a great deal of their time with their nose in the painting -- so close to the work that they must make the effort to step away and look at the whole picture.  My professors (and I, in my own classroom) frequently asked students to stop drawing/painting/sculpting and to move to the other side of the room to look at the work from a distance or a different perspective.  The purpose of this was to allow the student/artist time and space to see the whole work -- to look for the patterns, to assess the balance and harmony of the whole piece.  The technique is very effective.  I've also found it helpful when doing other kinds of projects -- painting rooms in my home, decorating, etc. -- and it's essentially the same thing as viewing "from the balcony."

Imagine your school from "the balcony."

What patterns do you see?

How might this view allow you to rethink solutions to the challenges you are facing in your school?

How might you help other members of your leadership team -- as well as other members of your faculty -- see the school from the balcony?

How might you also guide your team to apply what they've learned "from the balcony" to affect change when they return "to the dance floor"?

Taking Care of Ourselves

(Cross-posted on Change Agency)

I missed the deadline for my November 19th post here on LeaderTalk.  I missed the deadline because early that morning around 3:00 a.m. I awoke with a rumbling in my stomach that turned out to be a horrible stomach virus.  I ended up at home, in bed for the next two days trying to stay hydrated and recover my strength before the Thanksgiving holiday.

I missed two days of work.  I felt terrible.  I thought briefly about my LeaderTalk article and decided to write this short post about taking care of ourselves. 

When I first started teaching I had perfect attendance at work for the first few years.  I was very proud of this.  I pulled myself out of bed every day even when I felt ill and went to work despite looking like “death warmed over” because I wanted to be there for my students.  As I moved into a leadership position I would come to work when ill because there was always some meeting, deadline, or some other “very important” thing that just had to get done that day.  I thought this the "right" thing to do.  I thought it was the "heroic" thing to do.

I am a little older now and my body just doesn’t bounce back from illness as quickly and easily as it once did.  I also realize that the school building really will not fall apart if I am not there. Technology has advanced enough that I can email key documents or reports to other team members if for some reason I can’t be at the “very important” meeting, and I can be easily contacted via email or even a phone call if there is a question that only I can answer (which is rare).

Last year in my Leadership Academy cohort we read an article that briefly discussed the idea of educators and educational leaders establishing a healthy balance between work and home/family life.  I think this also includes taking care of our health as well.  In a small group we discussed this issue with great interest.  One of the younger principals in our group had two small children at home and she felt torn between her commitment to her school and her role as a mother.  We discussed the fact that educators have a responsibility to the students and to our schools -- a unique responsibility to others that doesn't exist in most other professions in the "corporate world."  However, we all came to agreement that as committed as we are to our schools, if we aren’t taking care of ourselves and our families first, then our ability to give 100% at work is diminished because we come to work preoccupied with other thoughts or in poor health without the physical energy that our roles demand of us.  If we don’t take care of ourselves, we come to work exhausted, frustrated, distracted, or burned out.  There is nothing about coming to work in that state that is "right" or "heroic". 

We can’t believe that we are indispensable on our campuses.  We can’t operate with the belief that there is no one else capable of making decisions or taking the leadership reigns on the campus except ourselves. 

As leaders, we have to create a work environment where our faculty and staff understand that it is okay to take a sick day to take care of personal health needs.  We can’t create an environment where people are afraid to take that time when they really need it.

We also need to be leaders who build and nurture leadership capacity in others.  We need to ensure that there are numerous leaders on our campuses who can step up and take charge if other leaders are out of the building for any reason. If our schools or classrooms can’t survive without us, then it may be time to look into the mirror and ask ourselves hard questions about our own leadership/management skills.

As we enter the peak of "flu season", we need to keep in mind that the true "heroic" teacher or school leader doesn't come to work when sick (spreading germs to everyone else in the school).  Instead, we need to stay home, drink plenty of clear fluids, eat some warm soup, get plenty of rest, and then come back to school healthier and ready to give the students and staff 100%.  We need to take care of ourselves without feeling guilt about not being on our campuses.  Instead of feeling guilt, perhaps we need to remember that by taking care of ourselves, our familes, and/or our own health, that we are fulfilling part of our responsibility to others by ensuring that when we are back on campus we are able to give of ourselves fully without feeling sick, tired, or distracted.

(By the way, I have fully recovered and am looking forward to going back to work tomorrow with renewed energy and strength -- ready to serve my students and my teachers to the best of my abilities!)

Learning is the Work

(Cross-posted at Change Agency)

Recently I had the opportunity to participate in a small, invitation-only, day-long workshop with Dr. Micheal Fullan.  During this workshop, Dr. Fullan covered a great deal of research findings and the implications of those findings on systemic school reform.  He talked a bit about his new book, "The Six Secrets of Change: What the Best Leaders Do to Help Their Organizations Survive and Thrive" (Michael Fullan).

Six Secrets of change

1. love your employees as well as your customers
2. connect peers with purpose
3. capacity building (building capacity in others -- support, guidance, encouragement) trumps judgmentalism
4. learning is the work
5. transparency rules
6. systems learn

At one point during the workshop, Dr. Fullan quoted Richard Elmore who stated that "you must be able to learn within the setting in which you work (or the learning will not have an impact) and most teachers do not have many opportunities to learn in their work."  Fullan equated this with the difference between superficial and strong PLCs.  In superficial PLCs, people just work together and collaboration is limited to shallow conversations that don't result in significant learning on the part of the participants.  In strong PLCs, the collaborative work is conducted in such a way that the participants -- the learners -- are transformed through work-embedded learning.

It is not only the teachers' responsibility to learn in their work, but also the responsibility of campus and district leadership to ensure that time is embedded in the daily schedule for collaborative, reflective learning work.

Just over a year ago, I quoted Jim Collins in a blog post related to this very concept:

In one of his articles about “Learning Organizations” (can be found here) Jim Collins ("Good to Great") presents the challenge to become a true “Learning Person“:

How would your day be different if you organized your time, energy, and resources primarily around the objective of learning, instead of performance? For many people, their daily activities -- what they do and how they go about doing it -- would be dramatically changed. Indeed, despite all the buzz around the concept of the "learning organization," I'm struck by how few people seem to have embraced the idea of being a true learning person.

As we begin a new school year — as educators who strive to create “learning environments” — how do we act as role models for learning?

Our work is about learning.  Our work IS learning.  As Dr. Fullan states: Learning is the Work.  Of all of the professions, ours should be the one filled with "learning people" as Jim Collins describes above.  Everyone -- every professional in our organizations -- should be "learning persons."  I am beginning to even question whether or not we can refer to someone who works in education as a "professional" if they refuse to be a "learning person" in their own work. 

I am quickly growing tired of educators who don't have time to read a book or professional article related to research-based methods of instruction or student learning... or who aren't interested in learning new technologies or who refuse to see the need to embed technology in their work... I am growing tired of hearing educators complain about "kids these days" and who refuse to take the time to really learn more about "kids these days" (their passions, their interests, their dreams.)

We -- educators, educational leaders, learners -- must hold each other accountable for being "learning persons" invested in making learning -- for ourselves and for our students -- the highest priority in our work.  I believe we will never be successful in achieving success in learning for all students, until all of us accept our individual responsibilities for our own professional learning.   If we aren't focused on learning, then what the heck are we focusing on?

EduCon 2.0 -- Registration & Call for Conversations!

The EduCon 2.0 Conference is now calling for "conversations" and is open for attendee registration.  Educon 2.0 is being hosted by the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, PA (Chris Lehmann, Principal.)  Read below for more information for attendees and conversation session facilitators.

EduCon 2.0 is both a conversation and a conference.
And it is not a technology conference. It is an education conference. It is a School 2.0 conference. It is, hopefully, an innovation conference where we want to come together, both in person and virtually, to discuss the future of schools. We are looking for people to present ideas, facilitate conversations, and share best practice.

The Axioms / Guiding Principles of EduCon 2.0:
1) Our schools must be inquiry-driven, thoughtful and empowering for all members.
2) Our schools must be about co-creating -- together with our students -- the 21st Century Citizen
3) Technology must serve pedagogy, not the other way around.
4) Technology must enable students to research, create, communicate and collaborate
5) Learning can -- and must -- be networked.

Call For Conversations
In addition to the many informal conversations we believe will be a big part of EduCon 2.0, we do want structured sessions in the following broad strands:

School 2.0 -- What are the schools we need to prepare kids for the world to come?
Classroom 2.0 -- What are the classrooms our students need -- today and into the future?
Student 2.0 -- How should the student experience change in our schools?
Teacher 2.0 -- How should the profession of "teacher" change?
Innovation 2.0 -- How do we best act as agents of positive change?
Library 2.0. -- What is the role of the library in the future and what does it looks like, act like, feel like?

Conference proposals are due Nov. 1st. Please submit proposals via Survey Monkey -- Call for Conversations.

All proposals should include:
Title:
Conversational Strand:
Conversational Focus / Main Idea / Presentation (in 250 words or less):
Conversational Practice -- How will you make this an conversation, not just a presentation? Skypecast? Conversational Protocols? Building a wiki together? For more ideas, visit Stephanie Sandifer's post on Conference 2.0 Resources or the wiki page "Protocols Examples".
Conversation Website (Optional):
Presenter(s) Names:
Presenter(s) Afflilation:
Contact Email:

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Information for Attendees:

Educon 2.0 -- January 25-27, 2008 Science Leadership Academy Philadelphia, PA EduCon 2.0 is both a conversation and a conference.
And it is not a technology conference. It is an education conference. It is a School 2.0 conference. It is, hopefully, an innovation conference where we want to come together, both in person and virtually, to discuss the future of schools. We are looking for people to present ideas, facilitate conversations, and share best practice.

The Axioms / Guiding Principles of EduCon 2.0:
1) Our schools must be inquiry-driven, thoughtful and empowering for all members.
2) Our schools must be about co-creating -- together with our students -- the 21st Century Citizen
3) Technology must serve pedagogy, not the other way around.
4) Technology must enable students to research, create, communicate and collaborate
5) Learning can -- and must -- be networked.

Cost: $50 ($80 after January 16th) -- Payable to the Science Leadership Academy

Register TODAY At http://educon20.eventbrite.com

Hotel Information -- The Windsor Suites -- 17th and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway

Attendees

Join the Facebook EduCon 2.0 Group!