Lead4Change – Page 6

What I Wish The Union Had Said

Maine has had two sets of educational announcements in the last month. One was for the Commisisoner’s plan, focused on customized learning and a performance-based diploma. The more recent came jointly from the Governor and the Commisioner, and focused on four proposed pieces of legislation: allowing public funding be used toward (certified) private religious schools, school choice, teacher evaluation and accountability, and greater focus on career and technical education.

Chris Galgay (president), and Rob Walker (executive director) from the Maine Education Association were at both announcements. News stories focused, not just on the announcements, but on how the teacher union was critical of the announcements.

Nationally, teacher unions have developed quite the reputation of blocking any kind of educational advancement and have become the villain in tales of attempts to improve education for all students.

I have mixed feelings about teacher unions. I think unions should be the defenders of the profession, negotiating contracts favorable to their membership, insuring good working conditions, monitoring evaluation procedures so they are fair and reasonable.

But the reputation teacher unions have is not for defending the profession, but for defending the least professional teachers, protecting mediocre performance, and preserving the right of teachers to do as they wish, not that that is needed to be done.

I suspect that this reputation is somewhat undeserved, but I also know I have experienced myself actions that reinforce this reputation. At a special purpose, project-based learning school I was part of creating, several teachers in the union told us they wouldn’t implement the educational program because the union told them they didn’t have to. When we had a workshop day, had bought all the teachers lunch (which we did as a nice gesture), and told them what time lunch would be served, several teachers came to us and told us that we couldn’t require them to come to lunch because it violated union rules (who had required anyone to do anything? We had just done something nice…)

And I worry that dour expressions of the MEA leadership and the news reports of their critical and negative message are reinforcing that image, as well. And yet, my wife is involved in some very progressive projects of the MEA that demonstrate a very different kind of defending and preserving the profession…

Here is what I wish I had heard from the union:

The MEA and our membership are working hard to insure that every zip code has a great school, so families indeed choose their local school. – I heard the union say they didn’t like school choice because it would take resources away from local schools. A long time ago, in the early 90’s when charter schools were first proposed in Maine, a teacher told me he was against charters because the public schools would just be left with the least desirable students. Yet, these issues would only come to fruition if the local schools were schools people wouldn’t choose. Is the MEA defending undesirable teaching, educational programs, and schools rather than promoting their own vision for creating “Great Public Schools for Every Maine Student“?

The MEA and our membership are working to propose a teacher accountability and evaluation system that is fair to teachers, uses multiple measures, and is based on best practice. – In the past, I have heard the union say that they are against teachers being evaluated based on the performance of their students. This sounds too much to me that the union doesn’t believe that workers (including professionals) should be expected to be effective in their jobs. I fail to see how this helps defend and protect the profession. This also seems rather counter to their own efforts. The Instruction and Professional Development Committee has been working for a while on adapting an evaluation system based on the MTA Teacher Evaluation program, endorsed by Charlotte Danielson and Linda Darling Hamond, and connected to the inTASC Model Core Teaching Standards. The MEA’s own position statement on teacher evaluation reads, “MEA wants a meaningful, high quality evaluation process that is based upon sound pedagogical criteria and multiple evaluation tools. It is in the best interests of students, programs, and career educators.”

Teachers ought to be given the training, support, and resources needed in order to do the job they are being asked to do. – With these new announcements, I heard Chris Galgay say that the MEA is against ineffective teachers being placed back on probation. Again, is the union really claiming that if you aren’t good at your job there should be no consequences? How does this give the message that teachers are professionals? On the other hand, it is a travesty when a teacher who needs help to get good or better at their job is not offered that assistance. Every teachers deserves professional development, coaching, and support, especially is this day of educational change. And it is right and proper for the MEA to be the organization that champions this on behalf of teachers.

In all fairness, I’m responding to what was reported on the news. MEA leadership might have said these exact things and the reporters chose not to include them in their reports.

But I still believe that an organization would earn more power and cred by taking on the issues of the day and being the ones proposing quality solutions, rather that appearing to defend the least common denominator and waiting around for others to propose solutions and publicly denounce them. The MEA is doing some very progressive work, insuring that teaching be a quality profession contributing to the changing educational landscape. But at the same time, they are getting the most press for when they simply criticize other’s work to improve education.

Or is perhaps the MEA simply caught between the days of the old unions that defended their workers no matter what, and the new unions that are trying to create a quality profession…

Myths About The Way We Do Schooling Now

Creating educational programs and systems that work for all kids has been my work for a long time. I have grown to understand that asking educators to change how they work produces a range of very human responses:

Let’s go!
Sounds good, but how?
Yes, but what about this?
NFW!

Of course, the challenge comes from the “Yes But’s” and the “NFW’s” (“No Bleeping Way!” – yes, this is widely accepted technical jargon…). They often raise the same objections, but with different objectives. The Yes Buts honestly want to know about the objection. If you satisfactorily address their concern, they will often say, “Oh. Ok,” and work with you. With the NFWs, if you address their concern, they will respond, “Well, maybe. but what about this?” and throw up another objection. The Yes Buts’ objective is to get their concerns addressed. The NFWs’ objective is not to do anything they don’t want to. (So don’t waste a lot of time and energy on the NFWs, except perhaps to have them reflect if they are in the right career or not…)

Either way, leadership is still responsible for addressing concerns and objections raised. Remember, sometimes folks have thought of something we haven’t, or remind us that we haven’t clearly articulated some aspect of what were doing. Responding to concerns is an incredibly helpful school change tool.

Change is hard, and today, often involves learning how to teach and organize school in ways we have never experienced ourselves. The current, Industrial Age approach to schooling is a strongly reinforced paradigm. So it is no surprise that even bright, caring, skilled teaches believe myths about the current approach to schooling.

What follows are some of the things that teachers have said to me that I believe to be myths, and my response to those statements.

Since some of our students go on to the military, we need to teach them to be compliant – This one often comes up when I’m doing a workshop on motivating underachievers. A wonderful young lady and teacher, who I consider one of my daughters, is a veteran. She served in the Army before going to college and getting her teaching degree. Our experience with the military was that they have an amazing, well designed educational system. It all starts with Boot Camp, which does a surprisingly good job of teaching how to follow orders and take direction (even for those quite reluctant to learn the lesson). I’m not sure th military needs our help teaching compliance. In fact, I believe they would be much happier if we were simply better at engaging learners in general, teaching them basic skills, lots of content knowledge, and how to think and communicate. Besides, people are better at taking direction when they are working on things that they are interested in, believe in, feel like they are contributing to, good at, and have had some choice in doing, not when those with authority are bossy…

Our schools are working just fine – Part of me understands that it looks like we are doing a good job and that schools are working when teachers look at some of the amazing successes of our easy to teach kids, or the auditorium filled with graduates each June. But I am acutely aware that whether we look at graduation rates, test scores, or the comments from employers, there are WAY too many students for whom we are not successful. It’s not 30%, you say! It’s only 20% (or 15% or 5%)… We could debate the numbers, but how ever you slice it, that’s way too many. (And again, I don’t believe it’s the teachers, but rather that we’re trying to meet Information Age goals with Industrial Age structures.)

Life isn’t about “redo’s” – This one is just blatantly false. Any teacher new to the profession knows you can redo the Praxis test until you pass it. If things in your life don’t work out the way you want the first time, you can go back and try again. Redo’s aren’t without consequences and always take work, but they are available. (And my wife hates it when I joke, “I’ve been married way too many times to not think life is all about do overs!” – my “current” wife, that is!). 😉

What about our Ivy League students? – I have seen no innovative approach that works for reluctant learners that has not also worked for our best and brightest. Some honors students get upset because they have been good at the game of school and now the game is changing (but once they get beyond that, they do every bit as well as they did before). Some (misguided) parents have been upset because other students can now succeed, not just their children. I know that Maine’s Commissioner of Education contacted more than a 100 colleges (including Ivy League colleges) to see if they would accept a standards based diploma, and all but one not only said yes, but that they were already accepting international students with standards-based diplomas. Massabesic High School has had its first student in two decades accepted into Harvard, BECAUSE of this Maine district’s focus on teaching differently. (And REALLY! What percentage of our kids go on to the best colleges? Are we really not going to get better at meeting the needs of our students for such a small fraction of our population?)

Let’s be thoughtful about how we respond to concerns raised. Whether they are legitimate concerns or not, most come from the right place. But let’s also make sure that concerns raised pass scrutiny and the “straight face” test.

It’s Your Turn:

What educational myths do you experience?

Apple’s “Textbooks” Potential: PD Creation Tools for Schools/Districts

This is another post where I explore the potential of Apple’s announcement about textbooks, textbook creation tools, and iTunes U for K-12 education.

I have already shared my reaction to textbooks in general and where I see potential in Apple’s tools as another choice for students creating products.

I think another potential use of these new tools is as a platform for schools and districts to create and deliver on-demand professional development.

I work on a couple school change initiatives focused on innovative approaches to student learning. One thing they all share is that teachers need lots of training and support since these approaches are often new to them. Trying to coordinate and deliver that training and support to any number of teachers (teachers who themselves are at all different developmental and readiness levels) can be a logistical nightmare. Further, all the current initatives I’m working on involve customized learning (learning systems that recongnize and respond to the fact that people learn in different ways and in different time frames), so it’s not a surprise that we’ve been exploring the idea of “just in time,” on-demand training and support systems as a component of an approach to PD that includes feedback and coaching, as well as traditional trainngs, workshops, and conferences.

I think the collection of tools announced recently may provide an infrastructure that would allow the easy creation and distribution of such a system.

My district could open an iTunes U Management Account, share webinars and videos that we would create, then use the iTunes U app to create “courses” (not just using our content, but that elsewhere in iTunes U) that each teacher could work through at his or her own pace. We could create interactive books to provide further support and reference materials (including interactive components). Teachers could then apply what they’re learning, with the support of peers and others who could visit their classrooms, team teach, observe, give feedback, and offer other kinds of support as teachers work on their practice.

This isn’t too different than the approach Carpe Diem schools use with students (online direct instruction with videos and coursework, followed by application activities with teachers), but generalized to the professional learning of teachers. Our iTextbooks and iTunes U courses could provide the background knowledge which teachers would then apply to their own classrooms under the support of a teaching coach.

Conferences, workshops, and training sessons would, of course, still have their place, but perhaps more of the time at those would focus on sharing ideas and resources, collaboratively processing and reflecting on experiences, and networking. But overall, districts and organizations could provide more training to more teachers, and, more importantly, on the teacher’s own time schedule.

It’s Your Turn:

How have you experienced (or are implementing) on-demand professional development and support?

One Auburn Student & Maine’s New Education Strategic Plan

Commissioner Steve Bowen Announces his strategic Plan

Big news in Maine on January 17th was the Commissioner of Education’s announcement of his new strategic plan. The plan promise’s to put “learners first” and promote customized, standards-based learning. Access the plan here.

In Auburn, we’re excited about the plan, because it promises support to the kinds of initiatives we (and other Maine Cohort for Customized Learning member districts) are involved in. We recognize that students learn in different ways and in different time frames, and are working hard to create systems that honor these two principles: our long history with MLTI; Advantage 2014, our primary grades literacy and math initiative that includes 1to1 iPads in kindergarten; Expeditionary Learning and projects at the middle grades; and multiple pathways and customized learning at the high school. Auburn is also a funding partner of Projects4ME, Maine’s virtual project-based program for at-risk and drop-out youth.

But Auburn is also excited about the plan because we were invited to participate in the roll out. Commissioner Stephen Bowen invited 5 students to speak at the announcement. Each was asked to talk about how the innovative work at their schools was helping them learn and succeed. We brought Gareth Robinson, an Auburn Middle School 8th grader, who spoke about the role technology has played in his learning. Gareth has used technology for learning going back to elementary school, both at school and personally for hobbies, like playing guitar. Among other things, he related how, for a recent social studies project, he and his group used iMovie to make a newscast of the battle of Bunker Hill.

You can read Gareth’s comments and watch a video of his talk here. Or watch this WCSH Channel 6 news coverage of the Commissioner’s strategic plan, featuring Gareth. Scroll to the bottom of this page to find links to the talks of each of the 5 students who presented, or go here for photos from the event.

It’s Your Turn:

What does the Commissioner’s strategic plan mean to you, your school, or your district?

Apple, Textbooks, and Carbon Fibre Buggy Whips…

The other day, Apple held a big education event in New York, focused on textbooks on the iPad. (Info here or watch the event here). Apple released several products and tools, hoping to further impact the education market.

Apple released iBooks 2.0 (supports multimedia in the books, interactive elements, highlighting, note taking, pinch for TOC etc.) and a new category in the store: textbooks. Pearson, DK, and McGraw Hill already have a couple textbooks available. They’re cheaper than a regular text, too: around $15, but I think the goal is to sell one per student, instead of using one with 5-8 students over a period of 5-8 years. (Cool Cat Teacher blogs here about what it was like to work with/test out an interactive text.)

There is a new Mac app (Lion only) called iBooks Author for making your own “textbooks” (think Pages combined with iWeb combined with Keynote). Completed books can be sold in the iBookstore.

Finally, there is a new iTunes U app for iPad which lets teachers harness “courses” based on content from iTunes U, and the addition of tools so you can add your own syllabi, message with your students, make assignments, etc. Looks kind of like if iTunes U, Noteshare, and Newstand combined. Apple also announced that although iTunes U has traditionally been for University use, K-12 can now sign upfor accounts.

I can’t blame Apple for wanting a piece of the textbook market. According to Wired, in 2010, Pearson had over $8 billion in revenues and McGraw-Hill over $2 billion. (Yes. Billion. With a “B”! As in 9 zeros!) And the traditional print publishing industry is struggling. Newspapers, magazines, trade books are are struggling to redefine themselves in a digital world.

What print textbooks share with those other genre’s is that they are not interactive in an age when our students are accustomed to accessing interactive media (as illustrated by Joe’s frustration at his non-notebook computer). At least Apple’s new textbooks and textbook creation tools address this issue and allow publishers to create textbooks with videos, interactive models and other elements. So, if you’re going to use a textbook, I guess I’d rather you use one with interactive elements than a static one…

But in general, I’m not a huge fan of textbooks. I think for me, the problem is that too many places use textbooks AS the curriculum. I’m perfectly happy with good teachers who see textbooks as one educational resource to use as they design (or as students design) learning experiences. But too often it seems the textbook is the only resource. Textbooks are insufficent for the curriclum because they only provide background knowledge. They don’t provide context, or experiences, or allow students to synthesize or apply information. In other words, by themselves, textbooks essentially only provide facts, they don’t help students create meaning.

Textbooks seem out of place in a day when schools are trying to reinvent themselves from a system that was designed to work for only some students. In this economy, we need systems that work for every student. And those systems need to engage students not just in aquiring knowledge, but in creating meaning from it. Textbooks are so “last century”! Given today’s interactive, digital world, educator and blogger Fraser Speirs refers to the new textbooks as “the equivalent of carbon fibre buggy whips.”

In my opinion (and other’s, and other’s, and other’s, and other’s) often the best learning (and teaching) happens when teachers don’t use textbooks. This is especially true, living in a state where every middle school student, and about half the high school students, have a school provided laptop (and all of my district’s kindergarten students have iPads!). You’d think teachers would work with students not only on how to find information, but then also how to leverage their technology to apply, evaluate, and create with that knowledge.

For example, imagine an introductory lesson focused on building a student’s background knowledge on a topic. Instead of having students read a chapter on the causes of the Civil War and then discussing what they read (which, by the way, every single child not only read the exact same description of the causes, but they all have been exposed to only one take on those causes – the textbook’s), have students open their laptops and ask them, “what were the causes of the Civil War?” Students could search and share what they found out. You could ask, “Did anyone find anything different?” You could even compare sources or discuss approaches to surfing and searching. You could have them find perspectives that would reflect substantially different points of view. You could explore and discuss different kinds of sources and the apparent relative value.

Well, maybe not the first time you do this with students, but certainly the more times you do, the more you model for them, and the more they reflect on the process, the more your “introductory” lessons could look like this. And think about the “learning” skills and digital citizenship skills your students would develop!

That all said, these announcements are ripe with possiblities and potential! There is certainly some incremental improvement having texts with interactive elements (still no real model of an interactive text). But I think the understated power of Apple’s announcement last Thursday are iBooks Author and the iTunes U app. I agree with Fraser Speirs’ assessment:

iTunes U is the game changer. Put iBooks Author and iTunes U into the hands of great teachers, put iPads in their students hands, put them all in a room together then step back and see what happens. That’s the ballgame.

Over the next week or so, I’m going to publish a series of posts that explore some of that potential:

Product Creation Tools for Students
A Platform for Creating On-Demand PD for Teachers
Curriculum Creation Tools for Customized Learning

It’s Your Turn:

What was your reaction to Apple’s textbooks announcement? How do you think it will impact schools, education, and educational reform?

Technology to Improve Learning: Strategies for Middle Level Leaders

What should middle level school leaders know about technology? What should middle level leaders do to provide the leadership necessary for effective learning with technology in their school?

When you look out among all your students, you certainly see that tech is an everyday part of their lives. It’s probably an everyday part of your life, too. But figuring out where tech fits in school may be a little more allusive:

It seems to be a distraction. Should we ban it?
Kids seem to like it. Can we use it as a motivator?
If we invest in technology, how do we make sure we get the most our of our investment?
We’ve bought technology, but we’ve got a lot of damage. Now what?

Actually, effective leadership is everything when it comes to technology in schools. It is no surprise that technology in schools is neither good nor bad, although there are approaches and strategies to integrating technology into the school that prove productive and those that are counter-productive. The school leader’s effectiveness will depend on how well she understands technology’s role and potential impact on learning, and how to lead and support working toward that potential.

Tomorrow, you’ll have the opportunity to learn more, if you’re attending the Association for Middle Level Education’s conference.

You can attend the featured Technology session (Thursday, 200p-315p in the Cascade Ballroom A (Convention Center)). At this session, I will describe specific strategies needed to lead for large scale school change such as integrating technology, including leading with a focus on teaching and learning and how to support learning with technology through infrastructure considerations, professional development, and much more.

Learn more about the Lead4Change Model here. Some of the early work that led to this model was published in the AMLE book Technology to Improve Learning: Strategies for Middle Level Leaders.

IT’S YOUR TURN:
What do you see as critical strategies for school leaders if you want to successfully integrate technology for learning?

Having a Plan and Knowing Your Outcome Isn’t Enough

During a training I recently attended, we had a maze activity.

Using a marker intriguingly suspended by several ropes, the team had to draw a path (while only holding the ropes) from the opening to the exit of the large maze on the table. It took us a while to get used to the device itself, but then we headed off on our plan to work through the maze. But we quickly ran into dead end after dead end.

Then we got smart and traced with our a finger a path back from the exit to where our marker was in the maze. At that point we had no difficulty using our marker to trace a path out of the maze.

Afterward, we were asked to think about how we had communicated with each other during the exercise. We had communicated well throughout, but for me, communication wasn’t the lesson from the activity.

For me, the activity became a metaphor for leadership.

Interestingly, we all knew the goal (we could plainly see the exit from the maze), and we had a plan (we had discussed how we might proceed, work together, and communicate). Even so we kept hitting dead ends and back tracking. (Admittedly, we were all probably assuming that some “trial and error” would be part of our approach.) But it was only when we went to the exit (our desired outcome) and literally worked backwards that we were really successful.

So, it was interesting to see firsthand the efficiency that backwards planning brings, and noting that knowing the outcome and having a plan on how to get there can be so dramatically insuffient.

Leadership for Change – Part 2 – A Model for Large-Scale School Change

In Leadership for Change – Part 1, I introduced the idea that large scale school change, change that really redefines the way things are done in school, requires careful attention to implementing the right components in a thoughtful way.

In this post, I’d like to introduce a model for large scale school change: the Lead4Change Model. It tries to make clear the desired outcome, the critical components, and the supporting but necessary componenets.

The overarching goal within the Lead4Change model is Learning. Although this may seem obvious, it is surprising how many times the goal of an initiative becomes (either officially or in practice) about some other aspect: about the technology involved, about a program, about an organizational structure, or about a new curricular resource. There is no doubt that these might be important pieces or contributors to the initiative, but in and of themselves, they are not sufficient reason to do any initiative. Why bother implementing anything within schools if it does not help to move the mission forward, to further the learning of young people? Keeping this key desired outcome in the forefront of their minds will help change leaders make the right decisions while working on each of the other components.

Probably the best evidence of Learning are the future accomplishments of students. Unfortuately, schools don’t have the decade or more it takes gather this evidence. We can fall back on more conventional measures, such as assessments, grades, or student work. Other secondary indicators can be equally as useful: attendance, behavior, engagement, and attitude.

There are two Critical Components to the Lead4Change model: Leadership and Teacher Practice. These are the most important components of the school change model and need the most careful attention. All other components of the model are there to help these two be effectively implemented.

As pointed out in the Part 1 post, leadership is everything when it comes to school change. This critical role doesn’t necessarily need to be played by the superintendent or the principal, but the pieces of the Leadership component need to be evident within the initiative. These include building a common vision, expectancy, supervision for level of implementation, policies and procedures, a safe environment, and that change is someone’s job.

Where Leadership creates the necessary conditions at the school or district level for implementing the change, the classroom is where the rubber meets the road. Teacher Practice is the second Critical Component of the Lead4Change model. It’s pieces include engaging teaching, classroom management and planning, and level of implementation.

There are five Supporting But Necessary Components within the Lead4Change model: Funding, Partnerships, Resource Management, Branding and Buzz, and PD for Paradigm Shift. Each of these is important to a well implemented initiative, one that successfully changes how schools work and therefore the amount of learning that takes place there. But it is important to remember that each of these five is in service to the Critical Components.

Making large-scale school change requires schools o think differently about funding. As a component of this model, Funding includes these pieces: seed money, “we’ll find a way” attitude, savings from avoided costs, and sustainable and integrated funding.

Partnerships are key to successfully implementing change initiatives. There are three types of partners that assist with this work: cheerleading partners, pedagogical partners, and implementation partners.

Resource Management is all about providing teachers and leaders with what they need to successfully implement the change. This component includes having what folks need when they need it, “we’ll find a way” support, and that “stuff just works.”

Public schools aren’t good at marketing. They have rarely had to do it in the past; the really prestigious private schools are much better at it. But in this era of competing for shrinking resources, and needing to make some fairly substantial changes, schools need to focus on Branding and Buzz. Branding and Buzz includes naming the initiative, stating your case, communicating with your community and beyond, telling your stories, presenting your evidence, and dealing with controversy.

Large-scale school change often includes having educators do things that are outside their experienced base and that they have never done themselves. That’s why large-scale school change involves paradigm shifting and why professional development needs to be different than the kinds of training schools are used to conducting. PD for Paradigm Shifting includes models, play-debrief-replay, coaching, just-in-time support, and building a human network.

So there it is, the Lead4Change model. Learning is the key desired outcome. Leadership and Teacher Practice are the critical components. And the Supporting But Necessary Components include Funding, Partnerships, Resource Management, Branding and Buzz, and PD for Paradigm Shift.

In the future, I’ll blog about these components and some of their pieces. But in the meantime, does this model make sense? Have I missed someone important? What are your thoughts?

Leadership for Change – Part 1

I was just starting my education career when the Nation at Risk report came out (Wikipedia provides a good overview – including a link to the full report). (Wow! Have I really been an educator that long!?) It was the report (or at least the first “modern” report) that warned that America’s schools weren’t doing the job they needed to to adequately prepare students, and seems to be the impetous for so many of the changes that schools have gone through in the last couple decades.

Since then, there has certainly been a variety of reasons named as to why we need schools to change. These include improving achievement, better preparing students for a future (or present!) that is significantly different from our past, increasing engagement and decreasing the number of dropouts, and being able to better compete in a global economy. And there have been quite a few approaches targeted at addressing these needs, such as increased accountability (testing and state and national standards), NCLB’s Highly Qualified Teachers, the introduction of computers and other new learning tools, and various pedagogies, such as curriculum integration, project-based learning, online learning, and massively customized learning.

Despite there being seemingly limited agreement on the why or how of school change (although there seem to be plenty of pundits for each – and that probably includes yours truly), there does at least seem to be consensus that schools need to change.

Over the years, I have come to believe several truths about educational change (and especially large scale school change).

Clearly, we only talk school change because we want something to be better than it has been. School Change Truth 1 is that successfully attaining those improvements hinges on making the right change, implemented consistently and with fidelity.

School Change Truth 2 is that human nature seems to abhor change. I don’t believe this one is about “bad teachers” trying to get out of something. I think we’re preprogramed to like a certain amount of routine and that making change goes against the grain. I’ve known really great people, including great teachers, who put twice as much energy into avoiding the change than it would have taken to simply make the change (ok, maybe not so simply…).

My third School Change Truth is that when people do accept change, it seems to be human nature that, if you arent careful, people will try to implement it in the way that is most like the ways they have always done things. For example, have you ever wondered why, with all the exciting capabilities and educational possibilities of technology, that interactive smart boards seem to be a favorite in schools? I can’t help but be reminded of the slightly tongue-in-cheek definition of “insanity”: doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results.

School Change Truth #4 is that, large scale school change is significantly different than the kinds of changes that schools are used to. Schools are used to changing staff or administrators. Schools are used to changing which textbook series or curricular materials they use. And schools are used to changing the grade configuration of a building, or the configuration of the building itself and how teachers themselves are grouped and distributed throughout.

But these are really only just tweaks to a system that essentially allow the system to continue to work as it always has. Large scale school change requires really doing things differently. Because schools aren’t really that different than they were 150 years ago, “really doing things differently” means that most of the school’s educators haven’t experienced for themselves anything similar to the innovation. That means at the root of large scale school change is paradigm shifting, something that requires techniques quite different from the usual “how to” and informational trainings teachers are used to.

School Change Truth 5: For school change, leadership is everything. This was an initial lesson in the early days of MLTI (the Maine Learning Technology Initiative – the first statewide learning with laptops initiative). While working for a group that designed and implemented engaging school programs to motivate students, I learned the hard way that when the leadership was not in place (or was no longer in place), even the best programs couldn’t continue or move forward.

And my last School Change Truth is that leadership is what you do, not what job or position you have. So, as a corollary to School Change Truth #1, not only does the school have to implement the the right change with consistency and fidelity, but the school leader(s) needs to put the right components into place, thoughtfully and skillfully.

For quite some time, I’ve been thinging about a model for effective large scale school change, something that would help define what those key components were. It started back in the early days of MLTI, with a model I called “Doing 1to1 Right.” Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to evaluate 1to1 learning with laptop initiatives, and to collaborate in creating a career academy, a magnet school program, a non-traditional middle and high school, and a statewide virtual project-based program for at risk kids, and have realized that the model generalizes nicely (with some updates, modifications, and additions) to other kinds of large scale school change.

So, if you might be a school leader, and you really want to see the kinds of improvements that can only come about, not by tweaking the system, but through large scale school change, then you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog. In addition to writing about the projects I’m currently involved in, I want to think more and write more about leadership for school change. And I can’t wait to learn more about your views, and to have the kinds of conversations around leadership that can happen with social media.

In Part 2 of this post, I’ll outline the model.