Over these past few weeks, I have been teaching a program on The Authentic Leader. Twenty-six leaders from around the world came together via Zoom to self-reflect, examine their life journey, and envision who they are (and want to be) as authentic leaders. Leaders leading organizations where people thrive and are encouraged to be themselves and where teamwork fosters inclusion and development.
During our final session, we explored participants' "crucible moments" (True North, Bill George). It struck me as I prepared for the session that every single educator is likely experiencing their own crucible moment as we prepare for the 2020/2021 academic year. A crucible moment is the real test of our character. It provides an opportunity for learning and growth and is often formative for what comes next in our life. Too often though, crucible moments can be incapacitating; they can cause anger and grief, and prompt us to feel like a victim. As a result, the temptation is to go into denial and to shut down.
How do we pull ourselves through a crucible moment? By relying on ourselves - and others. Ground yourself in your purpose, your authentic self, and your self belief that you can and will get through this. Reflect back on previous crucible moments and remind yourself how you got through them. Perhaps the most helpful strategy I have used to navigate my own crucibles has been the support of others. Surround yourself with positive, forward-thinking friends and colleagues. While nobody can do your internal work for you, these friends and colleagues provide much needed perspective, encouragement and comfort.
As we reflect on this crucible year for schools across the country, if this crucible moment is formative for what comes next, what would you like that to be? How might this crucible moment be the genesis of THAT vision?
I hope you find the below resources to be helpful this month. I will leave the last words of this newsletter to the master of the crucible, John Lewis,
"I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe."
Guest Blog Post by Jane Davidson
This post is brought to you by Jane Davidson, author of #FutureGen: Lessons from a Small Country. In this post Jane shares her reflections on the current exam debacle in the UK - and what might be possible if we were to focus on “ real educational reform, using that trinity of teachers, parents and curriculum to introduce the skills and competences to build resilience and hope in this fragile world.”
Why we need a human face to education for the sake of us all
Education is a long game, taking many years to demonstrate results of interventions. A national curriculum change for school-aged pupils for example may only impact many years later and will take 15 years to deliver in the UK – the equivalent of three political administrations, each of which is likely to tinker with the proposals. As someone who has been a teacher and an Education Minister, parent and school governor, I believe that the three core pillars of a good education system are the curriculum, (content), the parents who recognise that education gives people the chance to reach their potential (expectation) and the teachers - highly qualified trusted professionals (expertise). Perhaps I should have put teachers first, as a high performing education system needs high performing professionals who have the autonomy and confidence to instill a love of learning and who are trusted to deliver. Students always remember the teachers who inspired them, who cared about them, who respected them, who challenged them and made them think, who encouraged them to perform beyond their own expectations. Teachers are among the most trusted professionals when the public are surveyed - and politicians among the least trusted - so perhaps it’s no surprise that students and young people rallied behind their teachers and against the UK Government in the debacle we have just witnessed here in the last couple of weeks over A levels, our university entry qualifications.
Essentially the crisis arose because COVID 19 made the risks of public examinations so great that governments in the four countries across the UK, each of which has responsibility for their education systems, had to find a fair mechanism to award marks to students in absentia in a system predicated on examination results, in the full knowledge of the consequences that would have for those students’ next career steps – particularly university applications to prestigious universities in prestigious subjects.
In such an exceptional year, it seemed to me from the outset that once that decision was made to cancel the exams, the logical action would be to rely on teachers’ predicted grades for this year. As an exceptional year, the results could be discounted in the trend data as it would be a statistical outlier. Had that been done immediately following the announcement, and explained, it would have been justifiable decision and had the support of young people and parents. Instead, the UK Government supported the proposal for a ‘robust and fair’ algorithm to be used that purported to tackle the problem and to avoid ‘grade inflation’. Unfortunately, on closer scrutiny, once Scotland’s results were published, the first country to do so, it became clear that the algorithm results led individual talented students who had never had less than an A in their lives being given grades as low as C and losing their university places as a result. Tearful interview after tearful interview with young people on television demonstrated quickly that rather than a leveling up, this was a leveling down. Scotland announced within days that they would use predicted grades. Despite this, the UK Government pushed on with the algorithm and only after Wales and Northern Ireland also announced they would use teachers’ grade predictions, did the UK Government capitulate – but by then they had a whole new set of problems of their own making; private school pupils in small classes who had benefitted from the algorithm by 4.9% on average were allowed to keep their grades thus leading to universities having insufficient capacity to accommodate both groups – those who had benefitted from the algorithm and those who benefitted from the teachers’ grade predictions.
How did it come to this? In many ways, it is a metaphor for our times. Algorithms are not unbiased; by their nature they build in their designers’ preferences. Deloitte US says ‘algorithm design is vulnerable to risks such as biased logic, flawed assumptions or judgments, inappropriate modeling techniques, coding errors and identifying spurious patterns’ We know this, yet we allow our daily lives to be ruled by algorithms in terms of who we see on social media, which box our emails are in, how we travel from place to place, what music we listen to. There is human bias in human data; it is a human construct but without humanity - or empathy. At its heart, this was a political problem needing a political solution. The focus of all governments should have been on shoring up life chances for the next generation in these exceptional times and trust in those delivering educational opportunities must be at the core of that.
I’ve spent years feeling that my generation is a bad ancestor. The post-war generation wanted their children to succeed to make up for their ultimate sacrifice; for us to have lives without war, without want, with opportunity, with full employment, with decent housing. We should be that standard-bearer for the next generation, but instead what I see today is young people who are poorer, less likely to be home-owners or to have pensions than my generation. If you’re under 30 now, you have probably acquired thousands in student debt. You and your friends are probably furloughed, with your education on hold, living in poor accommodation and worried about losing your job later this year. Your job applications will be assessed by algorithm and the same effect will happen to bright young people in the job market as just happened to those bright A level students in the UK whose zip code determined their performance. The system will write you off. It is unsurprising that more of you are seeking mental health support than ever before. I heard a newscaster say this week, ‘I don’t want to sound apocalyptic, but do we just have to write this generation off?’ Emphatically no, but how on earth did it come to this?
It is government which sets the tone and the agenda in a democracy. A re-set post-COVID 19 must ensure that future generations do not pay a further price for the failings of the current one. The governments of all nations have been given a once in a life-time chance to build back better. As John Rawls, the American philosopher says, ’do unto future generations what you would have had past generations do unto you.’
John Rawls’ philosophy has guided my life and work, so I was delighted that in Wales, my proposal for a law to protect the rights of future generations, was carried through by the Welsh Government and the National Assembly for Wales - the first country in the world to make such a commitment. The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act came into law in 2015. The legal obligations cross all key Welsh Government responsibilities: health, education, prosperity, climate change, environment, energy, culture, communities, equality and global presence. The government itself must deliver on its obligations as must all the public services it funds, including local authorities. How they deliver is also enshrined in law – they must think long-term, preventatively, collaborate with others, integrate their outcomes and involve those affected by decisions. Importantly, the government does not mark its own homework: there is an independent Future Generations’ Commissioner and Auditor General to apply external pressure, as ultimately can the courts.
Education systems are always a target for reform. The clear message from this year is that trust in the education system will only be maintained if we put the human face back into it and we trust our teachers again; that we need new assessment methodologies to assess for learning rather than what is learnt and that a single set of exams should never again be allowed to determine young people’s futures. Such a blunt instrument should be consigned to the bin and in its place, let’s have real educational reform, using that trinity of teachers, parents and curriculum to introduce the skills and competences to build resilience and hope in this fragile world.
Author: Jane Davidson, author of #futuregen: lessons from a small country , published by Chelsea Green in the US and Canada on 20th August 2020.
Be Part of the Solution
I am not a futurist, but I do follow futurist thinking and David Houle's writing has been informative over these past few months as we navigate a vastly altered reality. Here's an excerpt from his recent blog post on A Pandemic of Magical Thinking:
"We are living in an incredibly important, intense, historically significant time. The benefit of that is that we, humanity, can collectively alter our course to shift our trajectory towards a new beginning… a newly designed future for us all. If you don’t like change, you will have difficulty, and resistance to these massive changes will only cause more pain.
That is our collective context."
2020 is indeed proving to be a disruptive and transformative decade and legacy thinking is not going to help us find and navigate a way forward. Legacy thinking is not going to help us address the vast inequities in our education system nor redesign it so that every child, regardless of demography, is able to design, build and live a life of their own choosing. An outcome that I believe should and can be a natural byproduct of an equitable, holistic, whole-person system of education.
(Image Credit: Virginia Martin)
Last month I participated in a virtual workshop, Dismantling White Supremacy Culture in Schools, with Joe Truss, Founder of Culturally Responsive Leadership. The workshop was humbling and instructive. I was challenged to examine my beliefs, prior actions, and inaction. Specifically, as a facilitator, I realized I have been part of the problem with my desire to establish a safe place for conversation - using norms that I thought were conducive to doing so. What I realize now, is that if we are to have a real conversation, it's never going to feel safe. Joe set the stage for our two-day workshop when he called this out explicitly and instead of safe norms, introduced these braver norms:
Be curious in emotional discomfort
Keep liberation for the marginalized/oppressed students at the center of our work
Be part of the solution towards anti-racism
He helped me understand that norms should push us and that safety is usually for the privileged. I think of myself as progressive, but this workshop made me aware of my legacy thoughts - and they were definitely exposed in this workshop. My racial illiteracy is not benign and I have much work to do. In the below article, Laura Crandall poses a question for white business leaders learning to change the system and provides guidance on what to do next. Joe's workshop brought me face-to-face with my white fragility and Laura's guidance is helping me take what I learn forward. If you did not participate in Joe's workshop, I encourage you to participate in the next workshop this weekend. Over 1,000 people attended the last workshop.
Thank you for reading and for being part of the change we all want to see.
Being Part of the Change
Welcome to summer. The summer of 2020 is not the summer you might have planned. As we enter month four of our altered COVID-19 reality, we find ourselves amidst a global “Tale of Two Cities." It has the potential to bring out the worst of humanity, and in equal measure, the best of humanity. In addition to the ever-present danger and uncertainty of our lives amidst COVID-19, we are witnessing ongoing crimes in the name of white supremacy and the rise of a collective voice around the world demanding racial justice. There is tremendous hope inherent in this global voice and the actions that individuals and organizations are beginning to take.
Since the founding of the IFL, our mission has always been to transform the "one size does not fit all" model of education. I am realizing the extent to which my assumptions regarding change and transformation have been made through the lens of white privilege. I have much to learn and much work to do and am starting with a workshop by Joe Truss on Dismantling White Supremacy in the Classroom. The pre-read has been eye-opening - might any of the following culture characteristics sound familiar?:
Perfectionism
Sense of Urgency
Defensiveness
Quantity over Quality
Worship of the Written Word
Paternalism
Either/Or Thinking
Power Hoarding
Fear of Open Conflict
Individualism
Progress is Bigger, More
Objectivity
Right to Comfort
The article provides helpful antidotes and ends with discussion questions. I will share with you what I learn in the workshop and resulting commitments.
Here are a few other resources that I have found helpful over these past couple of weeks: an interview by Joshua Spodek where he pushed my thinking on the IFL's role in education transformation, a beautifully written booklet on Practical Hope and, speaking of practical, an article on how brain research helped retool a school schedule for remote learning.
Thank you for reading and being part of the change we all want to see.
Dismantling White Supremacy Culture in Schools
On June 1st, the President of the United States ordered the tear-gassing of a peaceful protest. A protest against the killing of a fellow human being by a policeman. A policeman whose sworn duty is to "To protect with courage. To serve with compassion." A protest against centuries of atrocities against innocent people. I have shied away from systemic racism for too long. I am part of the problem with my white privilege and my white fragility. I have much to learn. I hope you will join me on June 27 and June 28 to participate in this virtual workshop Dismantling White Supremacy Culture in Schools by Joe Truss. Redesigning our education system for anti racism is the best chance we have for a fundamentally different future.
Now is a Time for Reflection
It's that time of year when attention turns to summer professional development workshops and faculty and administrative retreats. This is not the usual "Summer of PD". Many of you are focusing on scenario planning for perhaps the most uncertain school start in our lifetime: the start of academic year 2020/2021.
Amidst the planning, my hope is that you pause and invite your colleagues to do the same. This article prompted me to (re)listen to David Whyte reading his wonderful poem, "Everything Is Waiting for You". I encourage you to take time to reflect on your experience of the last 8-12 weeks, these questions might help, and then shift. Invite your team to listen to David reciting the poem and then ask these questions: What is the conversation your school needs to stop having right now? What’s the real conversation you can start and keep alive? What is your individual relationship to the unknown?
We are being invited to our developmental edge - we should not walk this path alone, nor with the heavy armor of the past.
Managing overwhelm, insights into this generation's crucible moment, and the invitation of a new superpower.
This month's '3 Things' are brought to you by three people whose work and humanity I greatly admire: Robert Poynton, Michael Horn and Otto Scharmer. The links below include practical support to managing overwhelm, insights into this generation's crucible moment, and the invitation of a new superpower.
Many of this month's conversations with clients and colleagues are centering on planning for the emergent 2020/2021 academic year. The most helpful signpost being Eisenhower's quote that "Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." Amidst the volatility and uncertainty we have the opportunity to become a global community of learners - this is very much in evidence by the generosity, thoughtfulness and wealth of COVID-19 resources being curated by the Association for the Advancement of International Education (AAIE). If you have not done so already, I encourage you to subscribe to their COVID-19 briefing. This past week, resources, planning documents, checklists, and advice were shared from fellow educators in Germany, Frankfurt, Vietnam, Brazil, Switzerland, Scotland and Denmark.
Some Small Things to Try
by Robert Poynton, author of Do Pause
COVID-19 is a Crucible moment for high school and college students
by, Michael B. Horn
As COVID-19 grinds society to a halt and shutters physical college campuses, today’s high school and college students are experiencing their generation’s crucible.
A New Superpower in the Making: Awareness-Based Collective Action
by, Otter Scharmer
Summing up: The first step in confronting any disruption is to stop downloading and wake up. The second step is to realize that we have a choice: we can close down, or we can open up. And the third is to act both as individuals and as a collective.
Our Lives with Covid-19
Here in Massachusetts school closure is extended through the end of the school year. Schools and districts are moving from the phase 1 stage of "frantically shipping Chromebooks to homes" to the next stage of scenario planning for multiple versions of what may or may happen in the summer 'break', and fall and winter semesters. None of us knows what will unfold in the weeks and months to come, but there is much to learn, and, as institutions of learning, we have the opportunity to lead the way in harvesting that learning.
The above graphic caught my eye recently on my LinkedIn feed. It was sketched by Frederic Debailleul, a student in Kelvy Bird's generative scribing class. The questions he poses are great questions for schools and communities to begin asking themselves as we navigate an emerging new reality. The global education system has never experienced this level of disruption before and all of us find ourselves in William Bridges Neutral Zone - the chaotic and creative stage between the ending and the new beginning. We are in a liminal state and a liminal state always hold the promise of the new - and our vision for what that might and could be. It shapes us - and we have the opportunity to shape it. Frederic's email promoted me to brainstorm a few additional questions to help you and your teams reflect and re-orient in the weeks ahead:
What have you lost?
What have you gained?
What is truly important?
What choices will you make? What are the values that will guide those choices?
What are the best and worst-case scenarios for which you should plan in the next 30, 60, 90 days? Six months - twelve months?
What should you keep/stop/start doing?
What is possible now that might not have been possible before?
List your organizational habits - which ones should your stop and which ones should you keep? New ones to try?
What is essential?
What have you learned?
What will you build?
What advice does your 20-year-old version of yourself give you in this moment?
I wish you resilience and hope as you lead during truly transformative times. If you would like to get together online to unpack what is currently happening, explore challenges, and give space to brainstorm ideas, I am here for you. If you would like to get together online to share a cup of tea and just chat - I am here for that too :) Just email me and we'll set up a day/time that works for you.
Lockdown, by Brother Richard
As many of you know, I like to share '3 Things' every month related to the human side of changing education. This month, I believe we need space, inspiration and hope - and it comes to us via Richard Hendrick (Brother Richard), a Franciscan monk in Ireland. His poem, Lockdown, really touched me, as did this beautiful animation of the poem by Margaret Zheng.
Lockdown
Yes there is fear.
Yes there is isolation.
Yes there is panic buying.
Yes there is sickness.
Yes there is even death.
But,
They say that in Wuhan after so many years of noise
You can hear the birds again.
They say that after just a few weeks of quiet
The sky is no longer thick with fumes
But blue and grey and clear.
They say that in the streets of Assisi
People are singing to each other
across the empty squares,
keeping their windows open
so that those who are alone
may hear the sounds of family around them.
They say that a hotel in the West of Ireland
Is offering free meals and delivery to the housebound.
Today a young woman I know
is busy spreading fliers with her number
through the neighbourhood
So that the elders may have someone to call on.
Today Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and Temples
are preparing to welcome
and shelter the homeless, the sick, the weary
All over the world people are slowing down and reflecting
All over the world people are looking at their neighbours in a new way
All over the world people are waking up to a new reality
To how big we really are.
To how little control we really have.
To what really matters.
To Love.
So we pray and we remember that
Yes there is fear.
But there does not have to be hate.
Yes there is isolation.
But there does not have to be loneliness.
Yes there is panic buying.
But there does not have to be meanness.
Yes there is sickness.
But there does not have to be disease of the soul
Yes there is even death.
But there can always be a rebirth of love.
Wake to the choices you make as to how to live now.
Today, breathe.
Listen, behind the factory noises of your panic
The birds are singing again
The sky is clearing,
Spring is coming,
And we are always encompassed by Love.
Open the windows of your soul
And though you may not be able
to touch across the empty square,
Sing.
Checking In
In The Human Side of Changing Education, I introduced the skills and habits of mind needed to thrive in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world. These past two weeks have felt like VUCA on steroids and those skills and habits of mind are ever more needed, I would argue required, to navigate our way through this 'new normal'.
How long with this go on? How deep will the effects be? How might our institutions be forever changed? I don't know. Right now I have more questions than answers - and I will leave those answers to the futurists. What I do know is this is a global invitation to face reality, pause, make the decisions that need to be made, and to be kind to ourselves and to others as we collectively navigate this path together.
In just two short weeks we have witnessed 300+ year old institutions of education convert their entire learning experience online. Yes, schools are slow to change. Except when they are not. I am struck by the eternal depth of our human capacity and what we are capable of, and how we can collectively rise, when faced with crisis. While none of us know the depth and extent of what we are currently living through, I do know that it is imperative that we lean on each other and ask for help when we need it. I am here if you would like to talk. No charge and no agenda. Simply email me and we will set up a time to get together via phone or Zoom.
In the meantime, here are three resources to support you: research-based strategy packages for families with students with special needs, a heart-warming example of a superintendent, Dr. Amy, thanking her teachers and administrators for their great work during this time, and a 50,000ft reflection and perspective entitled, Preparing for a Confusing Future Complexity, Warm Data and Education.
Stay safe, stay well,
Julie.
10 Prominent Women Education Leaders Share Steps to Improve the U.S. Education System
I remember as a teenager in the eighties thinking of the year 2020 as something of a Sci-Fi concept. It is exciting that we are on the cusp of a new decade and the possibilities before us. No one knows what lies ahead, but ever-accelerating change is a given. In just the past couple of years, I have seen the conversation shift from, "The education system was built for a different era and needs to change" too, "Yes, yes, we get that. But HOW do we change?" Authority Magazine's recent feature, 10 Prominent Women Education Leaders Share Steps to Improve the U.S. Education System, provides a diversity of insights in answer to the question and I was honored to be asked to share my thoughts. I encourage you to read the article and to share your comments on the "how" of change.
Interesting conversations were afoot this past month related to education in Northern Ireland and I am excited to see what might unfold there in the next number of years. Click here to read. Stay tuned :)
10 Prominent Women Education Leaders Share Steps to Improve the U.S. Education System
The US K-12 and University System as a whole, has a lot of things that it does well. While that is true, there is no question that the US education system has much room for improvement.
Authority Magazine recently ran an interview series called “5 Things We Must Do to Improve the US Education System.” We had the opportunity to talk to scores of school and university leaders to discuss what is working, and what is not working in the US Education System.
In the course of our interviews we asked these leaders the following questions:
Can you identify five areas of the US education system that are going really great?
Can you identify the five key areas of the US education system that should be prioritized for improvement and explain why they are so critical?
If you had the power to influence or change the entire US educational infrastructure, which five things would you implement to improve and reform our education system?
A Conversation with Tyler Thigpen, Founder, The Forest School
Below is an interview with Tyler Thigpen, the founder of a school whose philosophy I really love: The Forest School.
What brought you to a partnership with the Mastery Transcript Consortium (MTC)?
The mission of The Forest School (video overview) is that every person who enters their doors will find a calling that will change the world. What is their purpose in life? How might they be a great person? How might they live and thrive with others? The Mastery Transcript is one of the only tools out there that not only seeks to measure a broader set of learner outcomes - but also celebrates them. It is a manifestation of a deeper beliefs regarding the whole child. Also, I consider myself an early adopter and love the chance to try something, shape its formation, and have a say in its development. Also, having access to thought partners in the MTC was very appealing.
What have you learned so far on your MTC journey?
Key learnings thus far have been how to go about building an architecture for mastery credits both inside and outside of school and how to connect that to our badge work. Badges are earned by performance based mastery. You either pass, or wait and try again until you reach the desired level of performance. The approach is similar to how karate students test for their next belt. Skills are evaluated by peers and masters. Learners present their learning via “Practicals” where they come before a panel of experts and showcase their work, drawing from evidence inside or outside of school.The MTC provides a much more holistic view of the child. A recent example of mastery was a senior who presented her learning of entrepreneurship and creativity. She and her mother collaborated to launch a 5K run for cancer research. Thousands of runners participated and over $60K was raised - a pretty compelling demonstration of learning! At one point, I was sitting with the family - their daughter had gone through so much with her illness - hours in hospitals and navigating the health care system - she had developed incredible perseverance as a result. When we had the conversation with her parents about her MTC, tearfully her mother said, “This is the first time I have been in a school meeting where administrators see who she is. In the past, she has just been a number.”
What have been your biggest learnings? Surprises?
The ripple effects through the entire learning model. It has implications for EVERYTHING we do: curriculum, cultural practices, communication, logistics - understanding the nuances is a good thing - it’s what attracted me to MTC in the first place. You need to be wiling to embrace the power of these ripple effects.
Also, it takes time to build this out, we are a small team and we are rolling up our sleeves and doing it. I have learned how excited learners and parents are to visualize their learning in this way. I am learning a lot more about competency based learning in general and the different approaches, especially those that most closely align with our learning model. Our approach to Practicals and awarding mastery credits is evolving - I am sure this is going to change.
I imagine it is easier to implement MTC in a new school, compared to an existing school (with all of the existing norms around assessment practices). What advice do you have for readers who are interested in implementing MTC in an existing school?
It’s hard, but possible, and it will take time. I recommend Transcend’s 5 Conditions for Innovation framework as your guide. It’s a culture changer because it requires you to solve a new problem. If you can stoke conviction for transformation (not just incremental change), manage change wisely by building skills in your community and build the coalition, real change is possible. For full implementation, much depends on the strengths of existing conditions. For existing schools, it will likely take anywhere from 3-7 years. I could see the leader getting it done more quickly if they piloted a school within a school model .
What about parents? What advice do you have to get parents on board?
I am huge believer in creating learning experiences for parents where they have the chance to connect the things they want for their children - and to talk about it in a safe space. We provide learning experiences that give them chance to self-authorize and set their own goals. Essentially, we mimic the deep learning and work of the MTC. Every few weeks, I have a Friday morning one hour parent meeting. Recently, parents, in small groups, did a mock Practical - i.e. identify one of their learners outcomes, find a world class definition, list all kinds of evidence they might bring to to prove mastery, and then draft a three minute narrative that tells the story of them going through the Practical. This approach put them in the shoes of the learners and gives a direct experience of the depth and meaning of the MTC approach.
Thanks for taking the time for this conversation, Tyler. The Forest School is leading pioneering work in pedagogy and assessment - thank you for being an early adopter and an inspiration!
Rethinking Assessment
The quote above by Eric Mazur really struck me recently when thinking about assessment. Back in 2015, I interviewed 27 thought leaders on the topic of 'Assessing the Learning That Matters Most' (you can read the findings here) and began to build an open source database of emerging practice. Fast forward four years and I am delighted to see the movement to assess what we value in schools gather momentum - and to see it being led by educators.
In the coming months, I will interview several thought leaders and practitioners to get myself up to speed on what has changed since the 2015 report and how the field is evolving. In the meantime, if you would like to learn more about emerging practice, I strongly encourage you to buy Jonathan Martin's new book, Reinventing Crediting for Competency-Based Education: The Mastery Transcript Consortium Model and Beyond, (available September 18th). I interviewed Jonathan for the 2015 report and his insights and depth of experience were invaluable. As he prepares for book launch, I asked Jonathan a few questions about the book: why he wrote it, what he hoped readers would learn from it, and the work that is in his heart to do. You can read his replies below and follow Jonathan on Twitter.
Be sure to watch Eric Mazur's Dudley Herschbach Teacher/Scientist Lecture on assessment being the "silent killer of learning" - and if you have any suggestions of people I might interview on the topic of assessment, I would love to hear from you!
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The Relational Coordination Research Collaborative
Pictured above: Lainie Loveless, Lauren Hajjar @LaurenHaj, Jody Hoffer Gittell @jodyhoffergit, AJ Loprete @northreadinghs, myself and Daniel Downs @danieldowns
Last week, I had the pleasure of returning to North Reading High School with The Relational Coordination Research Collaborative from Brandeis University. North Reading High School is a catalyst member of MAPLE (the Massachusetts Personalized Learning EdTech consortium) and together we have been exploring how the Relational Coordination framework can support and accelerate personalized learning at the school. Personalized learning shifts the "one-size fits all" and "one to many" model of learning 180 degrees - and it's an opportunity to think and design explicitly from the individual student's perspective - what are the learner's questions? What engages them? How does this impact the school's structures and relationship interdependencies? The work is in its early days and I am excited to see how it unfolds.
If you would like to learn more about the research base behind the RCRC work, click here to view Jody Hoffer Gittell's Dean's Distinguished Lecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Education - "Building RC in the Education Sector: Toward Multi-Level System Change."
Free Summer Reading Download
Can you believe June is upon us?! I have a special summer reading (free) download for you below and I'd love to hear your thoughts. Download it here and let me know your questions/thoughts.
Also, I found this great list recently by Brad Latzke and had to share it with you. It has some fantastic resources for individuals, teams, schools, and communities seeking transformational change and innovation. I'm also honored to have been included on it.
Lastly, have you grabbed your copy of "The Human Side of Changing Education" yet? If not, click here to buy on Amazon now. Bulk copies are available at a discount directly from Corwin Press.
The Human Side of Changing Education Seminar, Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Welcome to March! This month is full of travel and meeting new people - starting with a trip to Northern Ireland. In the next few updates I will share my learning from those adventures, starting with a visit to my alma mater, Queen's University, in Belfast Northern Ireland.
On March 8th I was honored to lead a conversational seminar on The Human Side of Changing Education, co-hosted by Denis Stewart of the International Futures Forum and Tony Gallagher, Acting Dean of Research, Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Queen's. Denis masterfully coordinated the moving parts of the seminar and organized the conversation around three questions:
What's worth learning?
What needs to change?
How can transformative change be enabled?
We had a diverse group of participants – including local and international masters and doctoral students, beginning and veteran teachers, and representatives from local and international government agencies. Although there was significant diversity of background, experience, and professional focus, there was shared agreement with regard to the skills knowledge and habits of mind that are worth learning and the (sometimes overwhelming) nature of the work in facilitating the level of change we need.
Tony summarized the conversation beautifully by highlighting that our capacity to lead the kind of change we need is directly proportional to our individual and collective appetite to embrace uncertainty and risk. A topic we don’t often discuss in education as so much of what we do is grounded in “knowing” – in too many schools, the worst answer you can give to a question is “I don’t know” – for students and adults alike.
We also discussed the power of collaboration. Prior to the seminar I had thought of collaboration as a tool in the change leader’s toolkit, but in Northern Ireland, Tony has been leading work where collaboration is as much the end as the means. For over a decade he has led work in bridging the divide between Catholic and Protestant students through a collaborative model. I encourage you to read his 2016 paper from the Oxford Review on Education on the topic: Shared education in Northern Ireland: school collaboration in divided societies.
Briefly quoted here are the five core elements that emerged from the shared education model:
“First, they need to be based on bottom-up, locally tailored solutions, as each school partnership needs to address local circumstances, challenges and opportunities…
Second, partnerships are unlikely to be successful unless they involve teacher empowerment…
Third, the importance of regular, sustained contact was confirmed…
Fourth, the importance of combining economic, education and social goals was also confirmed. Partnerships should seek to enhance social, educational and efficiency gains for the participating schools…
Fifth, our experience was that connections between people were crucial to cultural change and sustainability...”
Tony’s work on the collaborative educational model is gathering significant international interest and he is working on associated initiatives in Israel and California. It strikes me that as we become more and more divided as a citizenry, both locally and globally, there is much we can learn from this work, in every neighborhood. Equipping a generation of students to not only value difference, but to transcend its limitations, gives me hope that they can and will bridge the divide that too many have inherited.
3 Change Management Strategies to Lead Transformation
“Our moral obligation is not to stop the future, but to shape it…to channel our destiny in humane directions and to ease the trauma of transition.”
- ALVIN TOFFLER, FUTURIST
There is no shortage of ideas for transforming the education system. In the past decade or so, we have witnessed a rising tide of consensus that the acquisition of knowledge is the floor of school performance, and we need to lift our sights higher—preparing our children with the habits of mind that will enable them to thrive in an unknowable future. The national conversation is (at last) shifting from, “How do we close the achievement gap?” to the deeper challenge of addressing the complexity of the relevance gap.
A growing number of school and district strategic plans now call for the nurturing of skills such as creativity, systems thinking, collaboration, and critical thinking. They call for a pedagogy that leans more on high-quality interdisciplinary project-based learning than siloed subjects delivered via lecture and assessed via rote memorization. These plans make a great deal of sense and articulate the essential skills necessary to thrive in an uncertain and ambiguous world. Too often though, adult behavioral change is either glossed over or not considered as a pivotal component of the implementation strategy.
In my work helping school leaders lead change, one of the biggest challenges a leader and their team face is the behavioral shift required to build and nurture the human ability to change. If a bold strategic plan stands a chance of being implemented, it is vital that the adult behavioral shifts are discussed, understood, and nurtured—all in service of the transformational vision laid out in the plan.
These are the most common behavioral shifts I have noticed in my work with leaders and teams implementing change in schools:
Does this resonate with your own experience? Are there shifts you would amend or add? I often think of the above as a continuum. Some situations might require us to lean more towards the left-hand column, and some to the right; but for the most part, the cultural norms of the industrial model of education lean heavily towards the left. We need to build our collective capacity to live more in the right-hand column.
At the core of this work of education transformation is adult transformation. The majority of us were raised in the old industrial system of education, and we find ourselves in the dual role of hospice worker to the old way and midwife to the new (Leicester 2013). It involves a shift away from the mental model of “How do I manage change resistance” to “How do I build change resilience?” This shift is critical.
It is highly unlikely that any five-year school strategic plan will be implemented with 100% fidelity and then enjoy a period of status quo once the plan’s goals have been achieved. Ongoing iterative changing—change that is meaningful and sustainable—is required.
One of the biggest obstacles of transforming the industrial model of education is the industrial model of management that underpins it—a model of command and control. Authority and autonomy are consolidated at the top with limited decision-making ability at the point of delivery (i.e. the relationship between teachers and students).
Is Change Management an Oxymoron
The Industrial era model of change management taught us that implementing change was a linear process. A group of senior leaders would gather around a boardroom table for several meetings to explore, discuss, and decide upon the strategic priorities of the organization. These priorities were then shared with the broader community, ideally resources were assigned, a solid communication plan was implemented to ensure that everyone understood the changes, and change would occur as per the timeline in the strategic plan.
There are (very) few circumstances when this linear approach to change works, but if you are leading the shift away from the industrial model of education, it is woefully inadequate to the task at hand. In their 2009 paper, “Building Organizational Change Capacity,” Anthony Buono and Ken Kerber unpack the complexity of change and identify two major factors to consider when leading change: organizational complexity and socio-technical uncertainty.
Organizational Complexity (vertical axis) refers to the intricacy of the system in which the change is to be implemented. Factors include organizational size, the number of services or programs offered, the extent to which different departments depend on each other for resources, and team interdependence to achieve desired results. The degree of complexity increases the more a change cuts across different departments and hierarchical levels, involves high levels of team interdependence, affects a range of services or programs, and requires the buy-in and support of a wide range of internal and external stakeholders.
Socio-Technical Uncertainty (horizontal axis) refers to the quantity and type of information processing and decision making required to implement the change. This is “based on the extent to which the tasks involved are determined, established or exactly known” (Buono and Kerber). If I am working in a traditional school and I want to shift from “Time-Based Learning” to “Mastery-Based Learning,” there is no cookie cutter model for me to pull off the shelf and implement. It involves an iterative cycle of working through what “I don’t know I don’t know” and a considerable amount of outreach, research, mini pilots, and learning by doing.
Read the rest of the article here.
Leading Change: What will you STOP doing in the year ahead?
The summer professional development season is upon us and I have been enjoying working with several schools as they continue the work of translating their pedagogical and curricular vision into reality.
A key part of this work is deciding on the work to be done - all while holding 'The Way' lightly and with a spirit of iteration. During these conversations, we typically add things to be done - very rarely do we discuss what we might stop doing.
A helpful exercise I often facilitate is called Keep/Stop/Start. Try it with yourself and your team and commit to the changes that emerge :)
Individual Level:
- What will I, as a leader of change, KEEP doing in the year ahead?
- What will I, as a leader of change, STOP doing in the year ahead?
- What will I, as a leader of change, START doing in the year ahead?
School/District Level:
- What will we, in support of our vision, KEEP doing in the year ahead?
- What will we, in support of our vision, STOP doing in the year ahead?
- What will we, in support of our vision, START doing in the year ahead?
At the individual level, this reflection helps reveal your growing edge. At the school or district level, it helps reveal outdated systems, processes and structures that no longer support the vision.
An added benefit to doing this work in groups is that we learn our colleagues’ growing edge, as well as our own. This helps build trust and supports the behavioral changes necessary when leading change.
What will you KEEP/STOP/START doing in the year ahead?
How to Increase Adult Engagement and Motivation
Do you look forward to going to work most days? Do you feel that your work matters? Are you part of the decision-making process in your school or district? Do you use your unique strengths and talents most days?
If you answered, “Yes” to the above questions, it is highly likely you are engaged in, and motivated by, your work. You go the extra mile. You are growing and developing in your role. You know you are contributing in a meaningful way.
Common sense tells us that our ability to engage and motivate children in schools correlates with the engagement and motivation of the adults in those same schools. Observe a school culture where the adults are actively disengaged and unmotivated and you will likely observe disengaged and unmotivated students.
Unfortunately, there is widespread adult disengagement in our nation’s schools. According to research from the Gallup Organization, only 30% of U.S. teachers are engaged in their work;[1] a percentage that matches the national average for all U.S. workers. If our goal is to unleash the potential of all students, we need to focus on unleashing the potential of all adults in the system, in equal measure.
As a school or district leader, you have the opportunity to lead in such a way that increases the engagement and motivation of your faculty and staff. What are some practical ways in which you might do so?
Click here to read the rest of this article at Corwinconnect
Leading Work in Assessment at Two Rivers Public Charter School
I participated recently as part of a panel discussion at the Ideas in Education Festival and shared a few of the themes from the IFL's 'Assessing the Learning that Matters Most' report. It was fun to note that it was at the same event last year where I pitched the idea of an open source database of deeper learning assessment practices and was in the middle of interviews for the report :)
Whilst at the event, I met Jeff Heyck-Williams. Jeff is the Director of Curriculum and Instruction at Two Rivers Public Charter School in Washington, D.C. Jeff told me about the great work that is underway at Two Rivers in assessment. This blog posting is brought to you by Jeff where he describes Two Rivers' pedagogical model and the deep work of the school. I love how Jeff shares the realities and frustrations of assessing these skills - and how he and the teachers are living Expeditionary Learning's pedagogy, i.e. "tackling messy, real world problems that don’t have easy paths to solutions nor do they have one clear right answer" as they pursue their own thorny questions in the messy world of assessment. Learn more about how Jeff and his team are addressing the challenge of assessing deeper learning in his guest blog posting below. I will follow Jeff's work closely as he and Two Rivers forge this path.
Assessing the Transfer of Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Skills, by Jeff Heyck-Williams
Two Rivers Public Charter School in Washington, DC is a network of EL Education schools serving over 700 students in preschool through 8th grade. Throughout our twelve-year history, we have continued to champion the importance of embracing a broader definition of student success than what has been handed to us by state and national policy. While we believe that it is essential for all students to be proficient in math, literacy, and the sciences, we believe that that is not enough. Students also need a rich set of social and cognitive skills that span beyond any given discipline.
Furthermore, we believe that we can best teach students these skills through hands-on interdisciplinary project-based learning. As EL Education schools, our projects are defined as expeditions lasting 10 to 12 weeks in which students tackle messy, real world problems that don’t have easy paths to solutions nor do they have one clear right answer. Through intentional design of these projects, teachers address the core content and basic skills defined by literacy and content standards; the social skills of collaboration and communication; the intrapersonal skills defined by character; and the broadly applicable cognitive skills of critical thinking and problem solving.
In the life of our schools, we have seen the powerful way that our students through project-based learning have embraced deeper learning outcomes, and exhibited the habits of effective critical thinking, collaboration, and personal character. However, our evidence that this is working is only found in anecdotes and in the quality of student work. We have been unable to demonstrate neither the degree to which students are developing these skills within projects nor their ability to transfer the skills beyond the context of the current project.
Focusing just on the dimensions of critical thinking and problem solving, our teachers expressed frustration at not knowing in concrete terms what those cognitive skills looked like when students exhibited them. Building on our understanding of the essential role that assessment for learning plays in the learning process and the very practical consideration of how we help teachers and students define and work towards developing these skills, we have embarked on a multi-year project to define and assess critical thinking and problem solving.
Critical thinking and problem solving, as we define it, are the set of non-discipline specific cognitive skills people use to analyze vast amounts of information and creatively solve problems. We have broken those skills down into these five core components:
- Schema Development: The ability to learn vast amounts of information and organize it in ways that are useful for understanding
- Metacognition and Evaluation: The ability to think critically about what one is doing and evaluate many potential choices
- Effective Reasoning: The ability to create claims and support them with logical evidence
- Problem Solving: The ability to identify the key questions in a problem, develop possible paths to a solution, and follow through with a solution
- Creativity and Innovation: The ability to formulate new ideas that are useful within a particular context
Our project is working to create learning progressions in each of these core components with accompanying rubrics. The progressions of learning and rubrics will both help define for students and teachers the skills that all students should be developing as well as function as evaluative tools to provide a picture where each student sits in the development of these skills and what are the next steps for further learning.
However, we believe it is not enough for students to be able to develop these skills within the highly scaffolded context of our expeditions. If they have truly learned the skills, they should have the ability to transfer them. With this in mind, we are working to create short content-neutral performance tasks that will give teachers and students valuable information about each of the five core components listed above. Our hypothesis is that through having students tackle short novel tasks, we will be able to draw clear conclusions about their learning of critical thinking and problem solving skills.
Through the course of this work, we hope that our process will be useful to other educators interested in achieving deeper learning outcomes for their students. We realize that deeper learning will not become a reality in most schools until teachers and leaders have a clear vision for what it looks like on a day-to-day basis and how we can clearly demonstrate student growth in these essential skills. We hope that our work will help to inform how to make deeper learning a concrete reality. It is a work in progress, and we invite you to share your thoughts and follow our progress at our website www.LearnwithTwoRivers.org.
This work has been funded by generous grants from CityBridge Foundation and Next Generation Learning Challenge’s (NGLC) Breakthrough Schools: DC, the Center for Innovation in Education (CIE) and NGLC’s Assessment for Learning Project, and New Schools Venture Fund.