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"The literature on educational leadership and school change recognizes clearly the role and influence of the campus administrator (the principal, and sometimes an assistant principal) on whether or not change will occur in the school. It seems clear that transforming the school organization into a learning community can be done only with the leaders' sanction and active nurturing of the entire staff's development as a community. Thus, a look at the principal of a school whose staff is a professional learning community seems a good starting point for describing what these learning communities look like and how they operate. "

"LEARNing Landscapes | Vol. 6, No. 2, Spring 2013 23 Michael Fullan , University of Toronto ABSTRACT There is currently a powerful push-pull factor in schooling. The push factor is that school is increasingly boring for students and alienating for teachers. The pull fac - tor is that the exploding and alluring digital world is irresistible, but not necessarily productive in its raw form. The push-pull dynamic makes it inevitable that disruptive changes will occur. I have been part of a group that has been developing innova - tive responses to the current challenges. This response consists of integrating three components: deep learning goals, new pedagogies, and technology. The result will be more radical change in the next five years than has occurred in the past 50 years. T here is currently a volatile push-pull dynamic intensifying in public schools. The push factor is that students are increasingly bored in school"

The best small town in America experiments with self-directed learning at its public high school. A group of students gets to create their own school-within-a-school and they learn only what they want to learn. Does it work? Charles Tsai finds out by spending a week with the Independent Project.

""We saw how the best practices we were witnessing could inform a really transformative school model," Healy said. Here are their 6 chief take-aways from what they saw and learned about schools that work.

"The growing access to knowledge, information, people, and tools that our students are getting demands a shift in how we think about the work they do in school."

Program to incorporate personal ownership and creating a middle school environment based on student ownership.

Abraham Lincoln inspired me, like so many others, to lead by relationships. Donald T. Phillips (Lincoln on Leadership) and Doris Kearns Goodwin (Team of Rivals) describe that president as a kind, gentle and genuinely personable man for whom many subordinates deeply cared. He got close to his cabinet, his personal secretaries and his generals, and wasn't afraid to let them into his personal world. But Lincoln never gave up his ideals. He made his vision clear to all and assertively redirected anyone he thought might take the country off his prescribed course. As a school administrator, it took me a while to lead in "the Lincoln way" (I have a very steep learning curve). I've been practicing educational leadership for 16 years in some of the highest performing schools in the country, but only recently recognized the importance of garnering the admiration of my faculty and administration team by developing deep personal and professional relationships with everyone. Like my favorite American president, I have tried hard to be nurturing, personable and caring while being clear and firm in the pursuit of my vision.

"BLCFeatureTopicIn this episode of the November Learning Podcast Series, Alan November speaks to Ian VanderSchee, an upper level mathematics teacher at Coppell High School, in Texas. The two discuss Ian's implementation of Alan's "First 5 Days" ideas at the start of this school year and how these ideas have positively impacted his students ever since. To learn more about these and other possible "First 5 Days" implementations, we encourage you to read Alan's book, Who Owns the Learning, and we invite you to attend the Building Learning Communities conference being held this summer in Boston. You can learn about both of these on our Web site at http://www.novemberlearning.com. You might also share your thoughts and stories about the "First 5 Days" on Twitter, using the hashtag #1st5days."

Over the years, many people have inquired about the mechanics of starting a school that emphasizes self-directed learning. I launch programs but have never started a school. ...

Busy, distracted, sleepless, anxious, stressed . . . overwhelmed. Sound familiar? Over the past few decades, we have moved from the industrial age of linear work to the dynamic multifaceted age of knowledge work -- with more information and stimuli than ever before.

TED Talk about Middle School Flipped Classroom

mistakes and failures are normal parts of learning - not reasons to quit

"It starts with the conversation you direct in schools and it starts with the examples you set for kids," Mahoney said. "The kids are watching and they're making note of that.

Mission: Club Academia strives to organize existing knowledge in ways that make learning easily accessible while simultaneously inspiring people to discover and innovate. Since its founding, Club Academia has provided supplemental instruction to students who are struggling with a particular concept and are looking for further explanation. We recognize that often fellow students can most easily help peers understand difficult classroom material. Starting with only four high schoolers uploading videos to a YouTube account, Club Academia has expanded nearly exponentially, currently with 17 video makers and over 500 videos on our website. With the help of the $20,000 Westly Prize grant, we are able to provide equipment for our video-makers and thus create a strong video base. As a result, we are able to expand into more schools and recruit more volunteers to make high-quality videos for our learners!

Lessons for Middle and High School Math Classes