Earlier this week, together with our schools leaders, I spent time in a workshop led by Michael Fullan. The focus of his work was on improving student learning outcomes for all students and this involves a commitment to continuous improvement. Fullan states that improvement and innovation is not an either/or proposition. Schools need to be on the road … More From compliance to creativity
For those who don’t know, I am a rugby union tragic and die hard Wallaby supporter. It’s been a disappointing few years for the team (and supporters) but recently we had reason to hope with a new coach. All this came to a screaming halt on the weekend when we were outplayed by the New Zealand … More Playing our A game
For the past five years we have been working with our ‘learning partner’ Michael Fullan. Michael has acted as a system coach/mentor, helping us to sharpen our focus and stay the course. The benefit of having Michael as our learning partner is that he has a deep understanding of system change but is at arm’s … More Alive in the Swamp
A few months back, I received an email from Jack, an ed tech company director who had finished reading Educating Gen Wifi. He felt compelled to write a post on his blog about the book and sent me a link to it. Jack confessed that it wasn’t until he was half way through the book … More Educating parents
I observed something interesting recently regarding a question I tweeted. To provide some context, I read a blog post called the ‘Myth of Motivation‘. The post contained a quote by Fred Bucy, former president of Texas Instruments who made this point: What is effective in motivating people at one point in their careers will not be … More Understanding discipline
A few months ago I came across an ad for IBM in the Harvard Business Review. The title was “The more we know, the more we want to change everything.” Ads don’t normally capture my attention but this one did. As I’ve written before, there are many things that schools can learn from business. We … More Big data buzz
Jal Mehta, assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education wrote recently that we “have an almost endless list of things that we would like the next generation of schools to do: teach critical thinking, foster collaboration, incorporate technology, become more student-centered and engaging. The more skilled our teachers, the greater our chances of … More Teaching the educators
As I’ve mentioned previously, our focus as a system this year is on good teaching and good teacher practice. We know what the research tells us about good teachers and student learning outcomes. This of course is based on a very important assumption – the quality of leadership. Michael Fullan calls the principal the “nerve … More Learning leaders
When Billy Joel wrote the lyrics to It’s a Matter of Trust, he probably wasn’t thinking about the Finnish education system. Yet the more I read the literature on high performing systems, I am convinced that trust is at the core of the cultural change needed to reshape schooling. It’s not new nor is it … More It’s a matter of trust
One thing that seems to annoy educators is the intrusion of “business” terminology into the work of schooling. When terms like key performance indicators and data driven are introduced, we fear that business is going to take over the work of schooling, which has its own unique language and narrative. For too long we’ve seen … More Enterprise schooling: towards interdependence
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