Don Wettrick is known for his award-winning work as a middle school and high school teacher; educational and innovation consultant; and educational speaker. Don is the CEO and founder of StartEdUp, author of “Pure Genius: Building a Culture of Innovation and Taking 20% Time to the Next Level” and Innovation Specialist at Noblesville High School, central Indianapolis.

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I’ve followed Don on social media and on his podcast for years and enjoy learning from him online. Now it’s my turn to interview him. I was excited to learn about FutureReadyU for kids and sharing it with my audience. Below are excerpts from our conversation:

 

About you, your family, and where you live

I’ve been in the Indianapolis area all my life and love it. I live in Indianapolis, IN with my wife, Alicia, and my three children: Ava, Anna, and Grant. It is literally the crossroads of America.

Everyone in my family was from education. My dad was a teacher, my mom was a stay-at-home mom which made her a teacher, and my sister is a teacher in deaf education. When I was young, we traveled all my life usually by pop-up camper always on a budget. I think one of the things that were instilled in me is that the best money you can spend is on (a) your loved ones and (b) on memories. Every summer was a road trip somewhere.

I promised myself that I wouldn’t be a teacher, but I wanted to be like my dad. I wanted to be the dad that my dad was. Part of it was to spend time with my children. The current position I had didn’t look like it was going to be as family friendly. My dad always had an optimistic view of education. He was very upbeat about things and wanted to keep what he taught fresh. So after 3 years out of college not being a teacher, I decided to go back and get my teaching degree. My favorite quote from my dad is what was at the heart of innovation:

“Don, I don’t care if you go on teaching for the next 20 years, but please don’t teach one year 20 times.” Chuck Wettrick

Curiosity has always been a part of my genetic code. I have a little more of my mom’s confrontational side where we used to get in these great arguments and enjoyed a good debate. My dad is more the agreeable type so I’m hoping I am a good combination of the two. I remember my first few years teaching in middle school, the kids would rush in and tell you all these things that happened over the break. Then when I started high school, the first thing the kids did was not talk. That whole middle school excitement and the social aspect of it was great. I taught ten wonderful years at middle school.

 

Teaching Innovation and Open Source Learning

Daniel Pink mentioned in his Ted Talk that most adults are not driven by money but by mastery, autonomy, and purpose. The lure of money didn’t necessarily put people over the top. I thought about what he said and wondered if kids are in school to work for grades or work for the sake of learning. Because of how the system is set up, they are working for the grade and school is something they have to get through not something to enjoy. This isn’t learning. This is just an exercise in compliance.

 

Why We Must Teach Innovation – Don Wettrick – Sparks Tech

I’m deeply concerned about what we are not doing in education. I don’t think “innovation” is the be all, end all. In fact, you cannot be innovative, if you cannot read or write, don’t know math, or cannot understand or appreciate history. I still think a large part of our standards is there for a reason. But, I do strongly believe that there should be a part of your school day that is centered around innovation and entrepreneurship. I started this wacky, weird class on innovation seven years ago at the high school level. We’ve been experimenting and doing strange things. They don’t work for me, I work for them. I help them find the tools, mentors, and open source their learning. If this comes across that I’m bragging about my students, I am, because they have done amazing things.

“The hardest things we do are the things we decide to do because we want to do them.”

The innovation class is about 7-8 weeks long on the innovative process, and I’m learning along with them. I have no idea in my class how they are doing what they are doing. Teaching them how to learn as they see fit is the hard part. What I have fallen in love with is being part of this cult of doers. The more I got deeper into this class, the more I realized I was only scratching the surface.

Actually, Daniel Pink, provided us feedback when we started this class. After that, it was Tina Seelig from Stanford University who helped us go deeper and pull the layers back. The class started out as a class on creativity and then was driven by the differences between creativity and innovation. Now the last few years, it is now driven by the differences between innovation and entrepreneurship. If you have a great idea and don’t do anything with it, then what does that do? Take a good idea and bring it to the world.  No matter what age, you have the ability to bring any idea you have to the world. That’s entrepreneurial!

Article on Forbes magazine: Endorsed by Entrepreneurs how this High School Teacher is Making the Classroom a Safe Place to Fail.

Don Wettrick with Gary Vaynerchuk

 

Preparing for the Future

In 2020, 45-55% of the world’s jobs will be gig related or freelance. So who’s going to find those jobs? People who understand patterns, where the trends are going and the opportunities are everywhere. People who are innovators and creators. So why do we continue to teach the same way we have that prepares them for jobs that will no longer be there? I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but my class and what it stands for is the most important thing we need for education. That’s not to say that everything else is not important. But if you are not doing anything with the knowledge you have, no one cares.

 

StartEdUp

For the past two years, StartEdUp has been empowering schools to provide #innovation  #Entrepreneurship & the entrepreneur MINDSET! Now we are taking our mission directly to students that don’t have this opportunity. StartEdUp is about enabling student-led entrepreneurs and bringing an entrepreneurial mindset into classrooms. This will help kids that are home-schooled. In fact, Seth Godin said to me that all kids are home-schooled. My kids are home-schooled. They get home after school and then we talk about school

Please go to http://www.futurereadyu.com  to be a part of our network!

 

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Don Wettrick is the Innovation Coordinator at Noblesville High School, and is the author of “Pure Genius: Building a Culture of Innovation and Taking 20% Time to the Next Level.” Wettrick has worked as a middle school and high school teacher; educational and innovation consultant; CEO, and podcast host. He is also the founder of StartEdUp, an organization dedicated to helping transform the school culture toward innovation and enable student-led entrepreneurship.

Don has lectured across the US, Europe, South America and Africa about collaboration, social media use, and work environments that enable innovation. Through his travel, he has worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley to Ghana, and seeks to bring that entrepreneurial mindset into our classrooms. His podcast, StartEdUp, has featured some of the most successful entrepreneurs, authors, and thought leaders in the world- focusing on educational change. Most importantly Don works with educators, students, and entrepreneurs to bring innovation and collaborative skills into education. 

Company/Podcast: http://www.startedupinnovation.com/
Twitter: @DonWettrick
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donwettrick/
Book: Pure Genius: Building a Culture of Innovation and Taking 20% Time to the Next Level

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dean Shareski is the Community Manager for Discovery Education Canada since 2012. From 2002-2012, he worked as a Digital Learning Consultant with the Prairie South School Division in Moose Jaw, SK, Canada. Previous to that Dean taught grades K-8 for 14 years and specializes in the use of technology in the classroom.

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Dean wrote “Embracing a Culture of Joy” and a new book with Scott McLeod, “Different Schools for a Different World.” I’ve been lucky to attend several of his keynotes and am honored to have a conversation about culture, joy, and so much more. Dean mentions no selfies but I’ve had a few with him so I had to include one. We didn’t talk about why he loves to take pictures of people jumping but I had to add a picture of Dean jumping. Below are a few excerpts from the podcast, some of his presentations, and about his books.

 

About you and your family

I always share my family in my presentations. It is controversial about how much to share about your personal life. I’ve always focused on the idea that you learn from people you like and there has to be some kind of connection so you can relate to them. So I hope that sharing my story helps connect to some of their own experiences. We live in the middle of Canada. My wife is an educator also and we have four wonderful children, three of whom are married. My youngest is in her first year of post-secondary school. Most exciting of all is that we are grandparents for the first time last October. Everything I talk about now is about my granddaughter who is just a real joy and delight.

 

Your background as a teacher using technology in the classroom

When I first started teaching in 1989, there wasn’t a lot of technology around. We were just starting to get a computer or two in the school. The idea of a computer lab kind of emerged somewhere in the mid-90s. I didn’t have any specific fascination with technology more than probably most teachers did then. I kind of remember a distinct turning point for me around the use of technology. One was access to a video camera and a digital camera which I took home and used first as a way of documenting my family. Then I started thinking how these could be used with students. I remember giving a session on an in-service day sharing what I learned about the digital camera with other teachers. That began my journey using technology and moved pretty quickly to the late 90s to where I believed that it had great potential. As the Internet began to emerge and software became more user-friendly, there was more of an opportunity to explore and use those resources. When I think of technology, the whole media production aspect is what I captured my interest.

I began teaching first grade and there weren’t many opportunities for them to create at that time. But when I taught middle school, there were a lot of opportunities so I had kids doing video production and even did video poems and other powerful stories. When I look back I was lucky to work with small groups of gifted students where I could really explore with and learn from them. It was an important time in my own learning.

• When Beauty Leads to Empathy (TEDx West Vancouver September 2016)
  

 

Being a Digital Learning Consultant in Moose Jaw

I became the Digital Learning Consultant in 2002 at our school district. I adopted that title Digital Learning Consultant to support the district-wide use of technology and pedagogy instead of Technology Coordinator. That was a great experience and opportunity to go even deeper with my own learning. For better or worse, by design or by luck, I tended to reach out to people I thought might be interested. I’d find something new and go to a school and share with a teacher what I thought would be perfect for them or mention to another teacher that they might be interested in this. It’s interesting that they say we might have to get everybody doing the same thing in the spirit of equity, and at the same time, some teachers were not ready for it. There was no way they were getting the kind of background.

That approach may seem somewhat haphazard really was exciting. I never came up with huge resistance. Some teachers were not ready for blogging where others requested my support. Forcing something on teachers was a mistake that we had made and continue to make. Somebody’s good idea for everybody isn’t the right approach. The idea of moving toward something when you are ready is a better way of approaching change than forcing everyone to change. It’s better to have some time and ownership first.

 

Your work as Community Manager for Discovery Education Canada

That was a nice opportunity for me in 2011 and was asked if I would like to do this. Discovery had been developing a community for many years in the US and had a presence in Canada, but it was more of a third party presence. They were just reselling their products to the school districts. In fact, in my role as Digital Learning Consultant, I helped bring Discovery to our school district. But they really wanted to get the community idea rolling so people are feeling connected. I first took a leave of absence from my district, but after two years I continued as Community Manager. It is a fabulous role. The work we do is so rewarding, interesting, challenging, and I work with such good people. It’s a move I never regret doing really important work.

When you’re not the smartest person in the room

Dave Weinberger wrote a book “Too Big to Know” about what do we do with so much information. He is the one that quoted “the smartest person in the room is the room.” For me, it was a personal testament to the fact that I had made so many connections over the years around the world. In 2005, I started blogging, and then in 2007, started Twitter and go to some conferences. The online connections became really real to me. It became evident in my role that there were people that I what I knew about video production, that there are people that know way more than I do. So why not connect to those people?

The moment you bring an Internet connection into the classroom, you open up your students to a vast world of knowledge and possibilities. Many teachers are beginning to realize this but are struggling to make it a reality. The shape of knowledge is shifting and what we as teachers and leaders can do to model ways to leverage the best of what this new frontier can offer.

 

Whatever happened to joy?

In a data-driven, achievement focused system, does joy in learning matter anymore? Not that these are mutually exclusive but in our attempts to see results we often forget that joy should not be a means to an end but a worthy and important goal on its own. So how do we ensure our students experience joy and wonder every day?

Book: Embracing Culture of Joy

Book: Different Schools for a Different World co-authored with Scott McLeod

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Dean Shareski is the Community Manager for Discovery Education Canada since 2012. From 2002-2012, he worked as a Digital Learning Consultant with the Prairie South School Division in Moose Jaw, SK, Canada. Previous to that Dean taught grades K-8 for 14 years and specializes in the use of technology in the classroom. Dean holds a Masters of Education in Communications and Technology through the University of Saskatchewan and is also a sessional lecturer at the University of Regina.

Since late 2004, Dean has been immersed in understanding what the Read/Write Web is all about and how the new shape of knowledge changes how we all learn. He believes teachers and students ought to use technology to connect ideas and learners in safe, relevant, authentic ways to answer questions, share ideas and develop community. Learning can be and should be, fun and personal. Dean was fortunate to be awarded the 2010 ISTE Award for Outstanding Leadership in Technology and Education. Dean humbly quoted after receiving the award “This honor is mostly a reflection of the great people I work with both within my school division and beyond. My greatest asset is that I know smart people and how to find them.”

Dean mostly blogs at Ideas and Thoughts but occasionally for Tech and Learning Magazine and the Huffington Post as well as on the DEN blogs. In 2016, he published a book called “Embracing Cultures of Joy” which details and summarizes my work and belief around a topic that best describes my beliefs around learning and community.

Website: Ideas and Thoughts http://ideasandthoughts.org/
Presentations at http://slideshare.net/shareski
Photos by Dean: https://www.flickr.com/photos/shareski/

From Dean: the spaces where I share(ski) www.shareski.ca/

• The Blog Where all the thinking happens
• Twitter A place to see the complete me
• Facebook I barely hang out here
• LinkedIn The professional stuff
• Delicious Stuff I’m reading
• Slideshare My slide decks
• Vimeo More videos
• YouTube Most of my videos
• Flickr All my photos

 

 

Joy Kirr, a middle school teacher, author, and speaker, was nominated for a Golden Apple award for excellence and teaching in Illinois. Joy has been a National Board Certified Teacher since 2007 and is the author of Shift This: How to Implement Gradual Changes for Massive Impact in Your Classroom.

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I’ve been following Joy on Twitter for some time and have been so impressed how much she shares online, on YouTube, and on social media. After reading “Shift This,” I reached out to Joy to have a conversation with her. Below are summaries of what we talked about in the podcast along with some resources and links.

 

Your background

My teaching career has been a series of shifts—in mindsets, practice, and experience. My first seven years was as an itinerant teacher in the “wilds” of McHenry County, Illinois with students ranging from three to eighteen who were deaf or hard-of-hearing. They needed to learn to read so I went back to earn my master’s in reading. Then I spent the next seven years as the reading specialist at my current school, became the ELA (English Language Arts) department chair, and became National Board Certified.

About Joy https://youtu.be/kaFYe6zM1bg

Being a middle school teacher

In my fifteenth year, I transitioned into a seventh grade ELA position in the inaugural year of the ELA “block” (reading and writing for 80 minutes). I was also going to be on a team consisting of two ELA teachers, one math, one P.E./Health, one science, one social studies, and one resource (special education) teacher with two teams per grade.

This was my first classroom so I had my plans and worksheet originals ready to fill up the four-drawer filing cabinet well before the first day of school. I also filled the shelves with books organized by author’s last name. Halfway through the year, I started questioning all sorts of things about the room I’d so carefully planned and arranged. All I knew were worksheets, grading, and compliance. My own experiences in school were all I had to draw upon.

 

Gradual change

After a few years, I decided to give my students time to learn what they wanted to learn. I needed to give some ownership to the students because what I was doing seemed too rigid. As the “sage on the stage,” I was working harder than the kids because I had all the control. I was on Twitter and learned some ideas to help initiate the changes I desired for my class. I now know I could never go back to the way things used to be. Finding a system that works for my students and for me did not happen overnight. You wouldn’t recognize my classes now. I don’t decorate the room, student choice is ubiquitous, we have time built in to personalize learning, students teach each other, and we use feedback in lieu of grades.

Check out Joy’s Class YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/user/MrsKirrsClass/videos

 

Genius Hour

When you assign something, do you make sure you complete the assignment before your students do? Thanks to A.J. Juliani, I joined the Genius Hour / 20% Time MOOC in the summer of 2013. I learned a ton about what I was assigning students, and what I needed to change.  Genius Hour is just a piece of something bigger than all educators are aiming for. I jumped into Genius Hour. Once I made the leap, I began to question and alter many other aspects of classroom time. I realized that you don’t have to dive in all at once to make huge, positive changes. 

Genius Hour LiveBinder (tinyurl.com/GHLiveBinder)

Teach Me Your Talent https://youtu.be/8BpHeBRnoDA

[This podcast was recorded in December 2017 so we brought in new ideas on the blog post about changing teaching so Genius Hour is not just one hour. It is now all the time. Joy mentions in the podcast that now we look at what Genius Hour did for the kids. Joy even mentions that all her kids signed her book.]

 

About the Book: Shift This!

I began writing this book during my twentieth year because I felt I needed to share how (and why) I’ve created the shift into teaching the way I believe we are supposed to be teaching–with a focus on children first and content second. My main goal with Shift This! was to share my journey and the small shifts I’ve made to promote student-owned, student-led learning in my classroom. I’m hoping other teachers will begin to feel comfortable and confident enough to make the shifts toward creating the kind of classroom culture they have dreamed of. Putting my ego aside and starting to cater to the students’ needs made all the difference. I realized that my teaching is not all about me and what I do during class. It’s all about the students and what they do during class. With these changes come great trust and a classroom culture that will surprise you. I started asking loads of questions. Why change if things are going well? Why not? Our kids are changing, and we need to change alongside them. It’s time to ask more WHY questions and HOW questions over and over again. So the book asks and provides ideas for WHY and HOW to…

• Shift student-centered learning
  
• Shift learning spaces
  
• Shift conversations to get kids thinking
  
• Shift away from homework and grades
  
• Shift time spent at school to balance life

Book site: http://shiftthis.weebly.com

 

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Joy Kirr is a middle school teacher, author, and speaker. Her 7th grade ELA (English Language Arts) classes are working to improve their lives through student-directed learning – without marks throughout the year. She teaches in a truly supportive district in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Joy is passionate about students owning their learning. She enjoys being known as a “Genius Hour Evangelist,” and is grateful for how her students have stepped up their learning while giving and receiving feedback in lieu of grades. Joy is sought after for her workshops on how to bring student-directed learning into the classroom. Presenting around the nation has helped Joy spread the message that educators need to strive for all children to become lifelong learners.

Joy earned her bachelor’s degree in special education with an emphasis on deaf and hard-of-hearing in 1995, and she later earned her master’s degree in reading from Northern Illinois University. Recently, she was nominated for a Golden Apple award for excellence and teaching in Illinois. Joy has been a National Board Certified Teacher since 2007 and is the author of Shift This: How to Implement Gradual Changes for Massive Impact in Your Classroom.

Twitter: @JoyKirr
Website: http://joykirr.wixsite.com/portfolio
Book site: http://shiftthis.weebly.com

 

Blogs & Links:

My Own Genius Hour: http://geniushour.blogspot.com/
Genius Hour LiveBinder: tinyurl.com/GHLiveBinder
Feedback LiveBinder: tinyurl.com/FeedbackBinder

 

Twitter Personalized Learning & Sharing

Personal resources for teachers interested in Genius Hour
Talks with Teachers Podcast on 5/20/14
Parent Resources for Grading
EdCamp Home session moderator on 7/10/14

 

Shift This: Celebration

Humans are naturally social beings. It is all about the relationships we build and grow. The better the relationships are at school, the happier and more productive students and teachers will be. When we have positive relationships, everything we do will be more enjoyable. When relationships are working, everyone is happier, more innovative and creative.

 

1. Create the Culture

Put aside at least two weeks at the beginning of school to build a caring, compassionate culture before jumping into academics. The more you get to know each child up front will save you time later worrying about discipline and behaviors.

 

2. Build Trust

Trust is the foundation of every good relationship. If you trust the people at school, you can be open and honest with your thoughts and actions. Put time aside to discuss issues and let everyone have opportunities to speak. If there is a conflict, give time and support for the people involved to resolve it.

 

3. Develop Mutual Respect

When you respect the people in your school, you value their input and ideas, and they value yours. Working together, you can develop solutions based on your collective insight, wisdom, and creativity.

 

4. Be Mindful

Mindfulness means taking responsibility for our words and actions. Those who are mindful are careful and attend to what they say, and they don’t let their own negative emotions impact the people around them.

 

5. Welcome Diversity

People with good relationships not only accept diverse people and opinions, but they welcome them. For instance, when your friends and colleagues offer different opinions from yours, you can take the time to consider what they have to say and factor their insights into your decision-making.

 

6. Schedule Time for Relationship Building

Relationships take time to develop and grow. Devote a portion of your day toward relationship building, even if it’s just 20 minutes, perhaps broken up into five-minute segments.

 

7. Appreciate Others

Show your appreciation whenever someone helps you. Everyone wants to feel that their work is appreciated. So, genuinely compliment the kids and other teachers when they do something well. This will open the door to positive relationships.

 

8. Be Positive

Positivity is attractive and contagious, and it will help strengthen your relationships with your colleagues. No one wants to be around someone who’s negative all the time. But we are human and things happen. When you have good relationships, you can also reach out to others when you are having a bad day. Read about Intentional Positivity

 

9. Practice Active Listening

People respond to those who truly listen to what they have to say. Focus on listening more than you talk, and you’ll quickly become known as someone who can be trusted. Read about Active Listening

 

10. Go Mobile with Care

Teach how to use mobile technology to build relationships effectively. Kids today are going to use their smartphone and other mobile devices to connect. We need to be there and show them how to thoughtfully connect and collaborate online

 

11. Be Kind

Kindness first. Everyone has other things happening in their lives. Practice empathy so you can understand what others might be going through. Be aware of the child who is alone or depressed, reach out, and listen. Kindness always.

 

12. Model Positive Relationships

Teachers can be the role models for positive relationships. We need to be mindful, kind and accepting of all the people in the school. All of our kids look to us for guidance. We need to reach out to those children that need the extra time to listen, really listen. We need to build the relationships with the other teachers and administrators and be careful what we say even in the staff room.

 

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Building positive relationships with students, teachers, and all school staff in school will spill over to the school community. Parents will feel more comfortable when their children are happier and feel cared for at school. Kids today need other kids and the world can be a scary place. We need to model kindness and be there for each other.

 

 

 

 

My heart is so heavy after what happened in Parkland, FL on Valentine’s Day and recently in Santa Fe, TX. The idea that one person could cause so much heartache and pain hurts so much. I pray for the families of the beautiful children who had their lives shortened so violently. I pray for the families of the teachers and coaches who gave their lives to save many children.

Every child is a gift. Every teacher shouldn’t have to figure out if they have to give up their lives to save the children. A school needs to be a safe place to teach and learn. Teachers are heroes every day and will do whatever they can to protect the children. Parents need to know that when they say to their child “have a great day” in school, that they don’t have to be concerned if their child will die that day. I can’t even imagine what the families are going through or how the children who lived through the horror will be traumatized for life. I don’t know what children think when they go to school now.

How many children dying will it take to say #ENOUGH?

Reality is starting to kick in by the children who survived. Funerals of their friends are happening this week. Teachers are on edge and trying to figure out how they can keep the children safe. How many shootings have there been since Newtown, CT?

What is going on in our country?

I know we can make the changes we need to make to save another child. This has to stop. The world is watching. We can all start with each of us being there for every child by believing we can make changes that focus on love and kindness first. I think if each of us believes we have the power to make even the smallest change happen, we can reverse the focus in our country from FEAR to focus on LOVE and KINDNESS.

FEAR stops us in our tracks and keeps us from moving forward. The only way to get through this is to embrace change and consider that demonstrating love and kindness will make us stronger together. Here are some posts from a few of my friends on Twitter who wrote about #kindness after Parkland.

• Tamara Letter @tamaraletter wrote I Can
• Rich Czyz @RACzyz wrote Let Love Win
• Roman Nowak @NowakRo wrote In the End Only Kindness Matters
• Tara Martin @TaraMartin EDU wrote Unconditional
• Pernille Ripp @pernilleripp wrote I don’t want to be a hero

When I read what my friends wrote, their writing made me think, reflect, and want to write also. We are not alone. When I read Pernille’s post, she is right. Teachers shouldn’t think that they have to die to protect the children. They also shouldn’t have to carry a gun. How would that protect them against a semi-automatic gun?  We can all reflect on how this makes us feel, what it means for kids, and help us on our journeys to #BetheChange:

 

Here’s what I believe:

• I believe that each and every child matters.
• I believe all of us have a purpose to be here.
• I believe every child needs a support system – “it does take a village.”
• I believe if a child is in trouble, we need to work together to get them the help they need so they don’t hurt themselves or anyone else.
• I believe we need to build communities that foster a culture based on respect, trust, and kindness.
• I believe now is the time to ban semi-automatic weapons.
• I believe teachers and parents can model and encourage “Kindness” to others.
• I believe we do not need more guns to stop school shootings.
• I believe we need children to tell and share their stories.
• I believe teachers need to tell their stories and be valued as the professionals they are.
• I believe that schools can be community learning centers where everyone is a teacher and a learner.
• I believe we can have a mindset to do what’s best for our kids and our country.
• I believe it is time to know each and every child in the school.
• I believe in building a caring community that encourages compassion and empathy.
• I believe it is time to address equity and social justice for all children.
• I believe that each of us is unique and needs to express our hopes and dreams.
• I believe it is important to listen more so you really hear what someone is saying.
• I believe people are mostly good and kind.
• I believe our country is better than this.
• I believe that we have to say “enough” now.
• I believe each of us can #BeTheChange!

 

 

 

This past year, I decided to step out of my comfort zone. I wanted to try some new experiences, but something was holding me back. I couldn’t figure it out. I think what was keeping me from finding my magic was fear. Fear of not having enough money so I kept taking jobs that kept me comfortable. Fear of looking foolish so I kept doing the same presentations. Fear of letting my family down. Actually, my family was pushing me to go out of my comfort zone. I didn’t realize I had a fixed mindset that I couldn’t do something. It was me holding me back.

So I decided to start over and rethink what I’m doing with my life. I needed to find my WHY, my purpose. You probably notice a theme around passion and purpose in my posts and podcasts lately. I tried to figure out why I was letting fear take over so I had help from my family, friends, and a coach. Here are some tips that helped me:

 

1 – Know Your Fears

Fear is a valuable thing. It keeps you safe and encourages you to be cautious when you need to be. But fear also limits you. Not everything you’re afraid of deserves fear or caution. Sometimes, courage and bravery are needed to make your life better. First, review your fears and if they are real. I had no idea I was holding myself back when I didn’t have to. So I took time to address each fear one at a time and talk about that fear. I needed to figure out on a scale of one to ten how real that fear really was. There were no fears in my work that were 10s. I made the fears bigger than they really were.

2- Challenge Yourself with Small Activities

One of my fears was changing the direction in my work. Before I jumped straight in, I needed to identify the direction I wanted to go. I had been blogging on my website Rethinking Learning since 2010 and before that blogged as Rethinking Learning on My eCoach since 2004. I really love to write and share. I figured the easiest thing to do was to start blogging again around passion, purpose, kindness, and agency. So I did. I’m loving it and writing every day. It’s about going slow and dipping your toes into what you’re passionate about.

3- Think of it as a Blesson

I learned from my husband that everything you do that takes you out of your comfort zone can be a blessing and a lesson: a Blesson. I love that. I decided to ask me a few questions: “What happened that I can learn from and learn about me? What am I learning about the other people who have gone through a similar discomfort? How can I use the information from both of these questions in my professional and personal lives?”

4- Be Your Own Coach

I am a coach for others and even help schools with their coaching programs. My coach asked me: “What questions do you ask when you are coaching someone out of their comfort zone?” I knew the questions and realized that I could do this for me. These are the questions I asked me: “What are the worst things that could happen if I go out of my comfort zone? What are the best things that could happen? Will I and others benefit from my actions? Would it be better to stay where I am? What is holding me back?”

5- Get a Handle on your Fears

After I identified some of my fears, I needed to do research on different topics. I needed to reinvent myself. That seemed so big, that I just kept doing the same thing even though it wasn’t working for me. I guess I didn’t feel confident in myself. I needed to get out and talk to people, visit schools, and travel. This is a mental trick anyone needs to do. It is about believing that you can do something if you do the research on what it is you want to do. The research builds knowledge. When you have that knowledge, you build the confidence you need to move forward.

6- Living with Uncertainty

Being uncomfortable is kind of the new norm today. The world is changing so fast that no one knows what is ahead for us. There is an uncertainty about the type of work is needed in the future. That impacts all of us. For me, I knew I couldn’t keep going down the same road because it wasn’t working for me and for others. The best habit for me was to practice becoming familiar with uncertainty and discomfort. I try to pick one thing each day that kind of scares me and act on it. The one big thing I did was start my podcast show. Each show puts me out of my comfort zone. I needed to push myself so I did big time. I really recommend the idea of picking one thing each day that scares you and go and do it. You will be amazed at how you will be able to live with uncertainty easier every day and build a growth mindset about whatever you want to do.

 

 

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When you take at least one small step to living uncomfortably and tackle your fears, you will be amazed at what magic occurs within you.

 

 

Ross Cooper is the Elementary Principal of T. Baldwin Demarest Elementary School in the Old Tappan School District in New Jersey, co-author of Hacking Project Based Learning and and was the Supervisor of Instructional Practice K-12 in the Salisbury Township School District in Allentown, PA at the time of the podcast.

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I have been following Ross on Twitter for years and was lucky to meet with him face-to-face at EduCon last year.  Planning on meeting up again this year in Philadelphia. He along with Erin Murphy his co-author even hosted a twitter chat for Personalize Learning. Since our conversation, Ross became principal of a new school so that information is not in the podcast but we added it in this post. Below are some excerpts from the podcast.

 

Ross, tell me about you, your family, and your background

I grew up in Trumble, Connecticut and went through the Trumble school district which was a typical school system. For the most part, it wasn’t for me. I was one of those creative students who thought outside the box, but was not as good at school work. To me, it seemed like school only offered one way to learn, and I had to fit in the system. My grades were okay, but school did not bring out my full potential.

One example is the way I hold my pencil which is a weird way but it works for me. Specialists worked with me to change the way I hold my pencil, but I could never change it. They kept telling me I would have problems when I got older. I didn’t. It’s a perfect metaphor. Instead of saying go with what works best for you, they spent way too much time trying to change how I hold a pencil They wanted me to be like everyone else.

In middle school, I decided I wanted to be a teacher, mostly because I wanted to do things different for children and be the teacher that the young Ross needed. My friends know me as a huge foodie especially dry age steak and pizza preferably from Connecticut or New York. I also was thinking of going to culinary school. I ended up going into education where I did some special ed full-time for 6 months in 3rd grade, then 6 years in 4th grade. I became an assistant principal for a year then 3 years as a curriculum specialist in Allentown, PA [Note: Ross is now principal at T. Baldwin Demarest Elementary School in the Old Tappan School District, New Jersey].

 

Share why you and Erin decided to write your book.  

A lot of  creative people are the outliers who have the confidence to do things their own way. They do not listen to the naysayers. You see educators who are outliers are writing more books than ever before because they use social media to share their writing immediately to attract people to their work. There are also more opportunities to publish with independent publishers. Project-based learning was a natural topic to write about. One of the lines I love is “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”  This is when you know a topic so well that you are able to communicate it in a very simple way so people can grasp it. Erin and I wanted to frame PBL in a simple way so it was very accessible so people would want to read it.

 

Structure and Design of the 10 Steps to PBL and Inquiry in the Classroom?

A lot of discussions around PBL are pie in the sky ideas like working on real-world problems or bringing in experts around a topic. We believed that could intimidate teachers. The work we do around PBL is using the Understanding by Design framework. Thinking about the different steps, we wanted to make the book as linear as possible. We structured the book around the 10 Hacks. Here are the first two hacks:

Hack #1: How can teachers develop a space that promotes risk-taking?

We start with building the culture in the classroom by bringing creativity. Culture is not an initiative. It is something you constantly work on. It is established and grows with PBL. Trying to fit PBL in a traditional classroom doesn’t work. Some teachers give up if it doesn’t work right away. If we expect our students to take risks, we need to take them as well. If we set the bar high,  trust our students, and work with them, they will not only hit the bar but pass over it by leaps and bounds. Even if they are 8 or 9 and we treat them like adults, what they give back to you is jaw-dropping. Sometimes what we do is limited by our own comfort zones. If you are not comfortable doing something, then the students will also be uncomfortable. But if you do something and believe that something is going to happen, you will see students jump in.

Hack 2: Teaching collaboration skills. How can teachers harness what kids know individually and encourage them to work together?

We need to teach kids the steps to get along and effectively collaborate with others especially when you are trying to have them work in groups for PBL. Even as adults, we struggle with getting along with our peers. We all need explicit strategies. One thing I did in my classroom was the Marshmallow Challenge. Students in groups are given a marshmallow, raw spaghetti, string, and tape. Then in 18 minutes, each group tries to see how high they can get their marshallow with the materials they have. Here’s a Ted Talk I shared with my students about the Marshmallow Challenge: Build a Tower, Build a Team with Tom Wujec

When I was teaching, I took risks also and modeled what I was doing along with metacognition, the why I was doing it. I encourage teachers to be involved, model and be hands-on with their students with any activity.

All of the Hacks…

In our book, we move through all of the hacks to get to Hack 10 where we finish the projects in style. It is important to infuse reflection, publish and share. Each hack includes what you can do tomorrow and a blueprint for full implementation. To make each of the hacks personal, there is an example in each chapter of a hack in action.

 

Want to learn more about PBL, make sure to get a copy of their book, Hacking PBL, and check out Ross and Erin’s FREE online course:

Hacking Project Based Learning http://bit.ly/2lX1TPU

 

We talked about some of your blog posts and included a few with links and graphics:

Learning Beliefs and how they intersect with PBL

Another recent post was on the 6 Drivers of Inquiry Learning. rosscoops31.com/6drivers

5 Ways to Promote Student Agency http://rosscoops31.com/agency

 

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Ross Cooper is the co-author of Hacking Project Based Learning and currently is the Elementary Principal of T. Baldwin Demarest Elementary School in the Old Tappan School District in New Jersey. Previously he was the Supervisor of Instructional Practice K-12 in the Salisbury Township School District in Allentown, PA. Before that he was an elementary assistant principal for a year, and before that a fourth grade teacher in the East Penn School District for six years.

Ross is an Apple Distinguished Educator and a Google Certified Innovator. His passions are inquiry based learning and quality professional development. He regularly speaks, presents, and conducts workshops related to his writing and professional experiences. When he is not working, he enjoys eating steak and pizza, exercising, reading books, playing on his computer, and provoking his three beautiful nephews.

Email: RossCoops31@gmail.com
Twitter: @RossCoops31 #HackingPBL
Website: https://rosscoops31.com

Book on Amazon: Hacking Project-Based Learning: 10 Easy Steps to PBL and Inquiry in the Classroom

 

Abbie Forbus is the Director of Teaching and Learning for KnowledgeWorks. She taught for 15 years in Lindsay Unified School District in California starting in K-2, then high school counselor and eventually became Dean of Culture. In her new position, Abbie works with learning communities across the country to coach them in redesigning learning structures toward personalized learning.

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I have participated in several convenings with KnowledgeWorks since 2009 and learned about Abbie who is Director of Teaching and Learning and the Back to School Toolkit. I was excited to have a conversation with her and even met her in person at iNACOL. Below are excerpts from the podcast.

 

I read that you worked with Lindsay USD for 15 years. Can you share your experiences there and what it meant to be the Dean of Culture?

I taught K-2, then became a high school counselor, and eventually Dean of Culture of Lindsay USD. Lindsay implemented the Performance-based System during my high school counselor role. I remember going through transcripts of incoming freshmen from their 8th grade year and encountered three transcripts in a row that had a 0.0 GPA.  After starting PBS, where every learner was required to show mastery before being promoted, I was embarrassed about some of the things we had done in that traditional world…like a 9th grader failing English 9, then putting them in English 10 the next year…because they could take English 9 in their senior year when they had more room in their schedule.

My former Kindergarten Students at their HS graduation (Lindsay HS)

 

Your role as Director of Teaching and Learning for KnowledgeWorks?

I get to work with various learning communities around the country who are working to create personalized, competency-based learning environments. At KnowledgeWorks, we are passionate about helping educators create learning environments that truly enable success for every student.

One of my favorite parts of this work is that we work with districts who are ready for this work, and we personalize it for them. Our teaching and learning team jokes sometimes about the idea of slidedecks…since we tailor everything to the district, none of our professional developments are ever the same. We do a lot of research on our districts and get to know them really well which was one of my hopes coming in to this job.  I worked in a rural community for all those years and would love when we had visitors come learn from us. I wanted to know what was happening “out there!”  These districts we work with love their students and want to do what’s best for them.

We use what we call the 10 district conditions for scale, which are things like learning environments, data systems, instruction, student supports, learning environments, professional development, leadership development, curriculum, assessment systems, technology, and partnerships. We know that when a district transitions to Personalized, Competency-based Learning, you can’t just talk about curriculum in isolation, We help districts create a system-wide plan to achieving their vision, understand opportunities for growth and build capacity for sustainable alignment in all critical areas.

 

You had an integral part in developing the Back-to-School Toolkit from KnowledgeWorks. Can you share the toolkit?

This culture toolkit is something that should be used throughout the year. Culture is something that learning communities and environments have to re-establish every year, but we all know we don’t just work on culture in August. We’ve drawn on the experiences of school leaders: superintendents, principals, teacher leaders who have done this work of Personalized, Competency based learning.

http://www.knowledgeworks.org/back-to-school-toolkit

The toolkit starts with how conversations create learning communities that create authentic engagement especially with families and the broader learning community.

Authenticity—only ask if you really want to know.  It’s more authentic. If you plan a parent meeting and no one shows up, you can’t just say, “Well, I tried.”  Parents want to have a voice, they just aren’t used to being heard. And they are busy people so you have to work around their schedules which sometimes is really inconvenient…but I think you will find is a worthwhile investment.

Transparency and culture is essential to this work.  The importance of transparency and stakeholder voice was something I learned in Lindsay. I had this instinct to just do things myself, but I learned that if you stop to get the voice of your stakeholders, you get a better product in the end and don’t have to put out as many fires.

 

Examples of Districts working with KnowledgeWorks

The districts that we work with that have the greatest success have a vision that is aligned to the needs and desires of the communities they serve.

We work with Garfield 16 SD in Colorado that received some parent feedback about lack of communication. They surveyed parents on how they wanted to receive communication and told the parents the results developing a communication plan around that. That’s transparency at its best! Community partners sometimes get put on the back burner because it can be very time consuming to involve the community.  

Marysville, OH is one of the district we work with 2013, Diane Mankins’ first acts were to hold more than 20 community meetings that were open to parents, educators, community leaders and stakeholders. She had two questions for attendees: What are you most proud of in our schools? And if you could wave a magic wand and change one thing, what would it be? Realized arrows were pointing in different directions.

Marysville Case Study:

http://www.knowledgeworks.org/sites/default/files/u1/case-study-marysville-district.pdf

“Prior to opening the early college, when I thought about community partnerships I thought if the local lumberyard could build me a picnic table, that was a partnership, But what I’ve learned, and what I truly believe, is that the partnerships have to be beneficial for the school and the partner.”

Kathy McKinnis, principal Marysville Early College HS

The community was concerned about:

• retirement age,
• workforce development needs, and
• ensuring that Marysville graduates had a reason – and the desire – to stay in the community.

Because they involved the community from the beginning, they now have strong partnerships and a phenomenal workforce development program that meetings the unique needs of their community.

 

Goals to set a Strong School Culture

Create a culture of transparency

As administrators and leaders, we have to set the same expectations for transparency as we expect teachers to set with students.  

1. What do the learners think about this?
2. What does the staff think?
3. Go to your critics?  Why will this work or not work?

Live your vision to support all learners

The vision of RSU2 in Maine is to be a system of student-centered learning. It’s not just a poster that hangs in the district office or is put on letterhead…everything they do is tied back to their vision.  

 

Other projects at KnowledgeWorks

We are doing some really cool work with learning continuums right now that I am excited about.  We believe that having a transparent guaranteed and viable curriculum creates opportunities for student agency. It’s critical to creating an environment where all students can succeed.  We don’t do that process for districts, we believe districts already have the knowledge and expertise needed to do the work, we just facilitate the process, which of course is customized to the needs of the district.

Also, one of my favorite parts about working at KnowledgeWorks are the incredible resources and teams that I have access to. There is a team of education policy experts that advocate for legislation and policy that supports local innovation and meeting the needs of every child.  

And my absolute favorite team is our future forecasters that research and analyze drivers of change to help us look ahead to the future of learning and work, so we can take action today to better prepare students. Their recent piece on The Future of Learning called: Redefining Readiness from the Inside Out, blew my mind…completely reaffirms the Why for the work we are doing with Personalized competency based education.

Future Forecast Paper: http://www.knowledgeworks.org/redefining-readiness

In it, they talk about the signals of change that point to a decline in full time employment… which will lead to employees piecing together career mosaics..

Because they are piecing together jobs, the future workforce will need to be highly relations, hence the need for SEL…They need the knowledge, skills and dispositions to be able to do that!

 

 

*****

As a Director of Teaching and Learning for KnowledgeWorks, Abbie Forbus works with learning communities across the country to coach them in redesigning learning structures toward personalized learning. Prior to joining KnowledgeWorks, Forbus spent 15 years working with learners in Lindsay Unified School District, a competency-based learning community in rural Lindsay, CA. She served as a K-2 learning facilitator, high school counselor, and Dean of Culture.

Abbie received a Bachelors in Elementary Education from Miami University, with a concentration in Spanish Language, and a Masters in School Counseling from National University.

Twitter: @AForbus

Articles by Abbie under World of Learning on KnowledgeWorks

• Are You Listening to Students?
• A Bell Schedule Without Bells: Redesigning the High School Infrastructure
• Building Culture Through Social Emotional Learning
• Encouragers and Inhibitors of Personalized Learning According to Teachers of the Year
• The Current and Desired States of Personalized Learning According to Teachers of the Year

 

 

Guest Post by Paula Ford @prford5, Kindergarten Teacher, Manuel De Vargas Elementary School, San Jose, CA

How can we be kind? The Driving Question for our kindergarten Project Based Learning (PBL) is a topic that should be prevalent in every classroom today. Building a positive social and emotional foundation in our learners is just as important as building their academic foundation.

 

The Launch

A great PBL needs a hook to engage the children and inspire them to dig deeper and further their learning. The launch for this PBL was a guest speaker. Mary Growitz spoke to the children about #LiveLikeMolly. Molly was Mary’s goddaughter. Sadly, Molly was killed in a car accident. As a way to honor her memory, her parents began the #LiveLikeMolly initiative, encouraging random acts of kindness.

Mary talked to the kindergartners about what it means to be nice and helped them brainstorm some random acts of kindness they could do themselves: pick up trash, give a hug, buy a coffee/hot chocolate for somebody, and write a nice note.

The Project

The children were challenged to perform at least one random act of kindness in four different areas: classroom, school. family, and community.  Upon completion of each act, they would share it with the class and then add their name with a picture of their act to our PBL wall.

Along the way, more questions were asked, and together we learned the answers.

• What is kind?
  • Doing or giving something that would make another person happy
  • Thinking about the other person’s wishes and needs, and acting on it.
• What is a random act of kindness?
  • Doing something nice for somebody without expecting anything in return.
• How can we find out what people need or want?
  • We have to be investigators and do some research

Random Acts of Kindness in the Community

The children used great creativity in their choices for random acts of kindness in the community.  

Soichiro delivered donations and a nice note to the local animal shelter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Devanshi performed a dance for people at a retirement home.

Siyona wrote a nice note for the garbage collectors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Warren packed care bags for the homeless

Making it Public

The children decided to follow in Warren’s footsteps and work as a team to help the homeless in our community.  We collected needed items and assembled blessing bags.  We invited Rodney, from Home First, to collect the blessing bags and talk to us about the homeless people in our community and ways to help them. He collected the blessing bags and told us how they would be of help. He confirmed our research and told us the socks were the most important item.  He then suggested that we could donate our unclaimed lost and found items to Home First, so that the children would have warm jackets for the winter. We thought this was a great idea.

 

Kindergartners fill blessing bags for the homeless (video):

 

Conclusion and Reflection

This PBL project helped the children learn about other people’s needs. They brainstormed different ways to spread kindness, and then acted on them. Through this process, they learned that though they may only be five years old, they still have the ability to make someone else’s life a little better.  Their random acts of kindness did not stop with the PBL as the children were all inspired to continue to #LiveLikeMolly.  This PBL’s message is one that I hope everyone can take to heart.   If you look close enough, you will find that you have the ability to brighten anyone’s day.  All it takes is a random act of kindness.

*Added note about Kindness

We recently talked about Martin Luther King Jr. in class. During our discussion, the children commented that he reminded them of our kindness PBL. I asked them to tell me more about that. The children said that he encouraged people to be kind, use kind words and not fight. I was thrilled to see them apply their learning to other things. This was after we concluded the kindness PBL, so it was nice to see that what they had learned had stuck with them.

******

Paula Ford, @prford5

Paula Ford graduated from University of California at Davis with a Bilingual Cross-cultural Language and Academic (BCLAD) multiple subject teaching credential, and has been teaching for over twenty years. She began my career in bilingual education, and then moved to teaching second language learners.

Paula taught kindergarten, first grade, third grade, and has been a resource teacher for grades transitional kindergarten through fifth grade. The majority of her career has been teaching low-socioeconomic English language learners. Currently, Paula is teaching kindergarten at Manuel De Vargas Elementary School, and she absolutely loves it.

Follow Paula on Twitter at @prford5

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Other Posts and a Podcast Conversation with Paula Ford

Episode #4: Conversations about PBL with Paula Ford

Traveling Toy Animals

Traveling Toy Animals – the rest of the story

Kindergarten PBL

 

 

 

Eric is an author, innovator, and speaker. He is a Senior Fellow and Thought Leader on Digital Leadership with the International Center for Leadership in Education and before that he was Principal at New Milford High School in NJ. Eric formed the Pillars of Digital Leadership, a framework for all educators to initiate sustainable change to transform school cultures.

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Eric is making change happen. The book he co-authored with Tom Murray, Learning Transformed, really opened my eyes about changing culture with the 8 keys. I”ve read most of Eric’s books and attended many of his keynotes. I have looked forward to talking to Eric and was so honored when he said yes to our conversation. Below are a few excerpts from the podcast along with resources and links:

 

Share about you, your family, and your background

I was born and raised in New Jersey, lived in New York for 13 years, and was a principal New Milford High School in New Jersey where we did some pretty amazing things. I was very fortunate to be surrounded by a dedicated staff and student body who was willing to embrace different and better to improve results. I played a small role to get everyone to see the part that they could play. I might have got the ball rolling in 2009, but the majority of my teachers didn’t change because they had to, they changed because they wanted to.When everyone in our community understood how we were changing, why were getting results along with the process and tools we used, it just became a celebratory culture of excellence.  Through that we had visitors from all over the world, and then I got asked to scale the work.

Right after moving to Houston

Now I am working with the International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE) so my family and I moved from New York to Houston, Texas. We are now residing in Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District (CFISD), an amazing school district. My son, Nicholas, is in middle school and my daughter, Bella, is in 5th grade where they are doing some incredible things transforming their learning.

 

Houston had a rough go being hit by Hurricane Harvey. It was a challenge, but we saw the best of people. We saw empathy, selflessness, and people rising up. I saw people organizing relief efforts using social media and on local Facebook pages. We were using push-to-talk applications sharing where demolition crews needed to go and where help was needed the most. I’ve used social media for my professional practice, but I saw it as a means for humanity to rise. My home was threatened but not  damaged so social media gave me the avenue to give back and help people in need. If it wasn’t for social media, we wouldn’t know where the help was or who needed help. We’ve rebounded and rebuilt. Thank goodness for the human spirit and technology to support each other when we needed it most. In fact, the experience helped my children look beyond their privilege.

[I’m including this article by Eric, Humanity’s Gift, written during the relief efforts about his and his family experience. Powerful!]

“Life can’t always be about what we do for ourselves. It has to be equally about what we do for others.”   Eric Sheninger

 

Change Begins by Believing in Ourselves

In our book, Learning Transformed, we say that “you” are the solution. The only way we can transform teaching and leadership if we all believe in our own abilities to initiate and sustain change. When we think about motivation and mindset, change begins with us. We cannot expect others to change if we are not willing to change ourselves. When we change ourselves and take calculated risks, we can inspire others. Success breeds success. Whether it is about increasing achievement or about our children owning their learning or hosting other schools to see how we were doing in the face of significant challenges. It all comes back to belief and the collaborative spirit. 

 

A Sense of Urgency

There is a sense of urgency to transform learning. I know everyone is talking about the why, but the how is so much more important. There was a sense of urgency for me to expose a vast body of research that supports all the talk about the why.  I’m in schools every week talking to teachers, walking in classrooms, and asking kids why you are learning what you are learning. What I’ve noticed is that the talk is not being backed up by scalable action. We have isolated pockets of excellence. We have districts and schools doing amazing things but we need to scale the work.

We need to prepare kids for a world that we have no idea what it will look like. We need to provide kids with human specific competencies not just skills that allow them to compete in an ever-changing world. We need to provide the research to back up what we need to do along with evidence that holds ourselves accountable to showcase a path toward efficacy.

How are we reaching our desired goals? How is it grounded in research and supported by evidence? Evidence should drive the conversations. When we talk about all this great stuff, we are able to show artifacts that support how we are changing teaching and leadership. We can keep talking, but we need to double our efforts in how we act to change things. There are a lot of great ideas but we have to account for the challenges schools have and how we act on them. This is why Tom Murray and I wrote Learning Transformed supported by evidence driven by research.

 

Leadership Lays the Foundation

I don’t have power now or a title. I’m not in a school, but I can talk about Laura Fleming who is a teacher at Milford HS who created a makerspace in the library. She did it. I just gave her the support and resources she needed to do the job. She had time conflicts trying to work with teachers so she created her own micro-credential platform to acknowledge each teacher’s professional learning. The most important changes that are implemented don’t come from people with titles in power, it comes from our teachers and our kids. If leaders want to have success with any specific mandate, they have to be able to articulate how they are doing that successfully. That’s how you persuade, inspire, and motivate those with the power and title to support the change.

When we talk about shifting mindset and practice, we need to focus more on the “what ifs” instead of the “yeah, buts.” If we focus on the “what ifs”, that how we get to a culture of YES. That’s how we get to really create a relevant, immersive, learning culture that primes kids for success.

 

What is Really New?

How can I craft a message that is relevant to the audience? Let’s talk about good, old fashioned research like Dewey, Vygotsky, Piaget and current research from Linda Darling-Hammond, John Hattie to build a vast research base that supports change. Project-based learning, student ownership of learning, and collaborative learning is connected to research, and learning approaches are not new. Technology is not new — it is a tool that supports and enhances.

Here’s a great quote from William Horton, “If we don’t get instructional design right, all technology is going to do is speed up the rate of failure.”

We need to inspire people about their own sense of urgency. We show Gallup data in Learning Transformed that the longer kids are in school, the less engaged they are. This data shows us that if kids are not engaged, then how do we expect them to learn. We connected the research to schools that focused on the what ifs, implemented change, and found success.

 

Make sure you listen to the podcast to the end…

The discussions got deep around disrupting school — you have to listen to Eric’s discussions around compliancy and parental pressure. Then Eric talked about his daughter, Bella, and the principal at Wells Elementary School. Eric even interviewed the principal on Periscope.

Bella loves school because they got rid of homework, bring their own device K-5 to leverage technology, flexible learning spaces, and portfolio-based assessment. The best part is that my daughter is happy and the journey to get to the destination is more enjoyable. All the teachers are sharing on social media with evidence to back up the research.

Everything comes down to relationships. Without trust, there is no relationship. Without relationships, no real learning occurs. Show kids you care! Get kids to trust you!

Don’t prepare your kids for something. Prepare them for anything! All kids have greatness inside them. It’s the job of educators to find and unleash that greatness.

 

 

****

Eric is a Senior Fellow and Thought Leader on Digital Leadership with the International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE). Prior to this he was the award-winning Principal at New Milford High School. Under his leadership his school became a globally recognized model for innovative practices. Eric oversaw the successful implementation of several sustainable change initiatives that radically transformed the learning culture at his school while increasing achievement.

His work focuses on leading and learning in the digital age as a model for moving schools and districts forward. This has led to the formation of the Pillars of Digital Leadership, a framework for all educators to initiate sustainable change to transform school cultures. As a result Eric has emerged as an innovative leader, best selling author, and sought after speaker. His main focus is purposeful integration of technology to facilitate student learning, improve communications with stakeholders, enhance public relations, create a positive brand presence, discover opportunity, transform learning spaces, and help educators grow professionally.Eric has received numerous awards and acknowledgements for his work. He is a CDE Top 30 award recipient, Bammy Award winner, NASSP Digital Principal Award winner, PDK Emerging Leader Award recipient, winner of Learning Forward’s Excellence in Professional Practice Award, Google Certified Innovator, Adobe Education Leader, and ASCD 2011 Conference Scholar. He has authored and co-authored the following:

Learning Transformed: 8 Keys for Designing Tomorrow’s Schools, Today
Uncommon Learning: Creating Schools That Work for Kids
Communicating and Connecting With Social Media: Essentials for Principals
BrandED: Tell Your Story, Build Relationships, and Empower Learning
Digital Leadership: Changing Paradigms for Changing Times
What Principals Need to Know About Teaching and Learning Science

 

Contact information

Email: Esheninger@gmail.com
Website: http://ericsheninger.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/E_Sheninger
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EricCSheninger