Urgency and innovation

Our school district was invited to take part in an innovation academy led by Dr. Scott McLeod. Dr. McLeod has led several innovation academies across the country. Members from our school district will take part in seven days of training over the course of this school year. The goal is to explore innovative practices, examine current practices, and reimagine them. I came away with many questions and a sense of urgency. The challenge is how quickly are we able to lead this type of change within a school district? Like most districts, we do not have a lack of things to do. Our teachers are working extremely hard and are engaged in all types of change initiatives. The type of change described by Dr. McLeod requires us to redesign professional learning for teachers. Our current school schedule/structure is a barrier to adult learning. Teachers speed from class to class with one period dedicated to preparation. At the end of the day their plate is full and learning something new is often put on the back burner. Learning Forward provides schools with some recommendations in regard to the amount of time needed for professional learning.

Learning Forward has recommended that professional learning occur “several times per week among established teams of teachers, principals, and other instructional staff members where the teams of educators engage in a continuous cycle of improvement” (NSDC, 2009, p. 2).

Does your school have this amount of time set aside for adult learning? Unfortunately, in most schools adult learning takes a backseat due to the school schedule/structure. Along with adult learning, McLeod challenged us to think about student engagement levels, higher order thinking, and 21st century skills.

Engagement vs. compliance

Students are engaged when they are able to work on problems that are important to them and their community. Engaging classrooms are less teacher centered and more student centered. Are our students engaged or are they compliant? There is a definite difference. Do lessons include a real world impacts? Are they displayed or presented publicly? Are they engaged in the learning process? To what level are students involved in the decision making process?

Higher order thinking

Higher order thinking is extremely important to our student’s future success. They will need to be able to think for themselves. Deeper learning schools are moving away from low level thinking tasks like factual recall and procedural regurgitation. They are more focused on the 4 C’s (Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication, and Collaboration) when designing instructional programming. We should all reflect deeply on this quote, what percentage of our students think this way?

When we teach in "mother robin" fashion — trying to mentally chew up everything for our students so we can put it into their intellectual beaks to swallow — students tend to become, if I can slightly mix my metaphor, "Polly parrot" learners: 

"I can't understand anything unless you tell me exactly how and what to say and think. I need you to figure out everything for me. I shouldn't have to do more than repeat what you or the textbook say." - Foundation for Critical Thinking

Content vs. Skills

Deeper learning schools are less focused on content and more focused on the skills needed to navigate complex content. According to McLeod, “innovative schools are moving from isolated, siloed academic work to environments that provide students more opportunities to engage with and contribute to relevant local, national, and international interdisciplinary communities.”

Relevancy

This really all comes down to relevance. How will we (public education) remain relevant? There are many choices for parents and students these days. These choices will only get better and more appealing for parents and students. How will we reimagine and redesign our educational systems to fit our students?

Find a few minutes to watch this video.

Check out What School Could Be by Ted Dintersmith.