Here's a bit of why change... and a bit of why change now... and a bit of the vision: connect ed


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The aim/desire/un-relinquishing passion is to improve how we do the 7 hours a day thing (public school

No agenda other than that.

No group served more..than another..

Of course - the goal is that a student learns... but we feel that learning is extremely enriched when all the other players are served as well.


groups we see as players in this new exciting game:

the community - We think this group is the most important group to focus on right now. For obvious reasons, it is their children we are talking about, huge invested interest. We believe the energy saved from ongoing conversations and misguided information is enough to make the change in school - in and of itself. Our desire is that first of all - they know what is happening at school...they know the potential if we really use that 7 hours a day and that public money - wisely. Our desire is that they see their child or their neighbor's child optimize rather than normalize. That they no longer stress about what is going on, what should be going on, and that their fridge is filled with brilliant projects/activities, and their table-talk is riveting.

the school board - Our desire is that they continue to see the potential web access can bring, but that they are no longer held back by a community climate of fear, uncertainty, misunderstanding, misinformation. Their decisions - on time and money in particular - can now be made purely on wisdom/research. Meetings are now very upbeat, less about rules and regulations and moneys, and more about realizations.

the super - Like the board - that s/he continues to sees the potential and, in working with the board, can actualize a district intent on passionate about learning. No longer NCLB - but rather ECOL (every child optimized learning - i just made that up - yeah.)

the admin - Hopefully you're with us, the trickle effect. Now the on-site guy/gal can make critical decisions for his/her staff and students. Decisions based purely on learning.

the teacher - We've left a lot of the bene's out for previous groups, in an effort to keep the story short. Some teacher benefits - we need to voice. With the rate of new info [doubling every 2 yrs in 2006, every 3 days in 2010 - i might be playing the gossip game there.. someone check those fact please] the current teacher's role can't continue. What we see as things that will disband:
1. pd as it is - if we are vying for kids learning (in school) to be different, teacher's must be as well - more on that here ((note to self - add link))
2. seat time with a class - (will change the following to a link shortly)
at one end - some teachers will prefer to keep the 90 min as is, some will choose to become a hybrid teacher, some to be a student-centric teacher, some problem-based, some online, (i believe most will become facilitators of connections and content) and at the other end - some teachers in each dept will prefer to be the content expert with no classes per se, their day would be spent in their/room/office attending individual and small group appointments, making lecture podcasts, and supplementing the schools platform (ie: moodle, brainhoney, ?...) with assessments via standards (via dan meyers model.)

the student - Our desire is that the student not only gets to experience individualization in their public schooling, but also the facilitation needed at k-12 level, that a face-to-face expert/mentor/tutor/coach can provide. Our desire is that every student leaves every day feeling like they matter, that learning matters, and that during their time in school, that day, the two connected in rewarding ways.

#1 - kids need to feel like they belong:

expeditionary learning - thank you Susan McCray

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via monika:
And of course - none of this will happen unless each one of us - whoever we are - learn something new each day.
I encourage you to find a blog to follow - find a writer you share a like passion with. Please don't do this for you profession or your students or because you think you should. If you do it for any of those reasons, it will probably last a couple weeks, maybe a month. If you do it for yourself, you'll be craving it each day, and craving things is a good way to sustain them.
I follow many writers... my absolute fav is Seth Godin.
Here are a list of 50 best blogs for ed leaders

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more on professional development here

making change via thecleversheep

Excerpts from Disrupting Class: Support for developing an Innovation Lab
Why do we need to develop student-centric learning opportunities?
via…Alicia….I think that the authors of this book make some good arguments for what we are thinking about for this school. I know many people in the district have read this so it might be a good conversation starter about the project. I’ve pulled a few excerpts from the book that sum up the major points.


pg.10, P4: “….schools’ interdependent architectures force them to standardize the way they teach and test. Standardization clashes with the need for customization of learning. To introduce customization, schools need to move away from the monolithic instruction of batches of students toward a modular, student-centric approach using software as an important delivery vehicle. “

via…Alicia… This is from chap. 1 which makes the case for invidualized learning based on what we know from educational psychology and neurobiology. The “NEW” thing in education is supplying a platform to develop a social learning network of online connections and face-to-face support/enrichment. The buffet style of offering we discussed sounds more like a modular student-centric plan than batch processing kids.

pg. 11, P1 “……schools is the US have in fact constantly improved. society just keeps moving the goal posts on schools by changing the definition of quality and asking schools to take on new jobs.

via…Alicia….we have to make sure people realize that we are not proposing this new set of options because the ones we has are bad. It’s just that when they (parents, students, community, government) move goalposts you have to readjust the kick-off.

pg. 12, P1 “……schools have done what all organizations are inclined to do when instituting new technology. They have “crammed” the new technologies into the existing structure, rather than allowing the disruptive technology to take root in a new model and allow that to grow and change how they operate.

via…Alicia… We talked a lot about this in the E2T2 grant meetings. David Warlick had some great ideas on how to avoid this cramming.

pg90, P4 “Up until this point in time, student-centric technology in the form of computers hasn’t had much impact on main-stream public education. But as is the case with all successful disruptions, if you know where to look-competing against nonconsumption- computer-based learning is methodically gaining ground as students, educators, and families find it to be better than the alternative—having nothing at all.

via.. Alicia… this is a strong argument for including k-5 homeschoolers in the plan—they have nothing in the way of support now maybe the computer packages that we talked about can fill this need. Maybe we could also add in some hands-on science kits like the ones elementary teachers use only scale them down. Parents could come check them out like a library- math manipulatives with lessons. Ideas for socialization at the elementary level—create video instructions for parents on how to sign students up for a forum or blog that all K-5 kids could contribute to.

philosophy:



updated philosophy on our parent/community connections site

philosophy
innovation lab door post
on validity vs reliability

ideas for school of the future:

future of ed
a foreign language twist