Group items tagged

"How the structure and function of a learning culture lead to improvements in achievement and outcomes is where change efforts should be focused."

I'm an author, business leader and visual facilitator working at intersection of leadership, learning and change. Drawing on his business background Tanmay Vora blogs about individuals, teams and organizations delivering high-performance through process excellence, culture, capability building, coaching, consulting and leadership development interventions.

Article by Terri Hayes, 2014. Abstract: The old-fashioned library model is no longer healthy for teachers or students. Converting your school library to a learning commons is one of the best recipes for school success in the current climate of educational reform. The library-as-learning commons functions as the hub of the school, where teachers and students collaborate, inquiry-based learning is promoted, and teacher-librarians provide instructional support to every teacher in the school while fostering a thriving reading culture.

Today's organizations are faced with an increasing need to adapt to new realities that almost always result in some organizational change. The process of implementing change in organizations is often complex and challenging for most managers. To help managers successfully implement change, it is recommended that they use some version of a change model to increase their chances of successful implementation. While there are many models for change management, most of them originate from the work of John Kotter's eight-step change model. Specific steps in the model include: establish a sense of urgency, create the guiding coalition, develop a vision and strategy, communicate the change vision, empower broad-based action, generate short-term wins, consolidate gains to produce more change, and anchor change in the organization's culture.

"The Learning Futures programme was established in order to find out more about how best to make schools more engaging places to learn. Engaging learning involved good leadership in learning environments. This document is well worth exploring as it positions schooling within a culture of 21c learning

Education and political leaders in countries around the world have recognized the imperative to prepare their youth for the 21st century, a goal that many believe requires the fundamental transformation of educational opportunities together with the integration of technology into teaching and learning. But educational change is complex. It takes place within an ecosystem of influences that range from national policies, programs, and supports to local community contexts and school-specific professional cultures. Part of Microsoft's commitment to education, ITL Research is a multiyear global research program designed to investigate the factors that promote the transformation of teaching practices and the impact those changes have on students' learning outcomes across a broad range of country contexts.

A brief case study of leading by example of committing to personal professional development and evidence-based change in a high school.

Online book with 6 chapters covering inquiry culture, inquiry across disciplines, assessment, teaching and learning, scholarly practice and leadership. Available as PDF download

"Technology should therefore play an important role in education if we want to provide teachers with learning environments that support 21st century methods of teaching and, most important, if we want to provide students with the skills they need to succeed."

Fleming & Kurt. (2015). Practical implementation of an educational makerspace: Part 3. A culture of innovation in an educational makerspace arises from student ownership rather than from the presence of high-tech tools. Owning the learning experience opens unexplored horizons to students because independent thinkers have the uncanny ability to strike out into uncharted territory. Educational makerspaces are the ideal environment to foster such independent exploration, but the map for creating engaging educational makerspaces remains relatively sparse.

There are a number of different approaches, or 'styles' to leadership and management that are based on different assumptions and theories. The style that individuals use will be based on a combination of their beliefs, values and preferences, as well as the organizational culture and norms which will encourage some styles and discourage others. Under the menu find information about change and change management

"Empathetic leadership, born from an authentic understanding of teachers' needs, is an essential component of expert school leadership. It's a mindset that principals and teachers say should inform decision-making and help establish a schoolwide culture of purpose and respect."

"As we move deeper and deeper into the information age, more and more professional learning will occur digitally, and that professional learning will be more and more dedicated to digital learning for students. If a school leader is unable to create a digital culture, his or her school will struggle. While individual educators can develop the skills necessary to help students succeed in the new economy, if that capacity does not spread throughout the school, and if the school lacks the tools needed for teachers to effectively instruct in the digital world, ultimately, students will suffer."

Creativity: It's been maligned, neglected, and misunderstood. But it's finally coming into its own. Here, creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson makes the case for creativity as the crucial 21st century skill we'll need to solve today's pressing problems. Sir Ken led the British government's 1998 advisory committee on creative and cultural education and was knighted in 2003 for his achievements. His most recent book, The Element (Viking Adult, 2009), looks at human creativity and education. He is also the author of Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative (Capstone Publishing Limited, 2001).

Digital literacy refers to the skills, knowledge and understanding required to use new technology and media to create and share meaning. This week's article is adapted from the British report Digital participation, digital literacy, and school subjects: a review of the policies, literature and evidence , published by the Futurelab organisation . The article discusses students' current levels of digital literacy; literacy as it relates to information and the media; the relevance of multiliteracies and critical literacy; issues surrounding the use of technology in schools; and professional development requirements for educators.

A heartfelt letter to a new principal that expresses a number of effective leadership strategies that can be employed when starting at a new school.

Hi, just read an article in The Sunday Age "Digital natives or just digital labourers". 15/05/16. It is worth taking a look at. Some young people seem to be feeling the need to "switch off". I note that in my reading for Assignment 2 in FYI, vol 20 Number 1, Summer 2016 "Developoing a reading culture" one of the opportunities provided by libraries is "the chance to be still, to be quiet and to be absorbed in another story and another world." This is not a Luddite statement about the evils of social media, rather an acknowledgement that somehow school libraries need to accommodate and be so much to so many students. If we have makerspaces, games and gaming how can we also provide the space for quiet reflection, reading and private study? This challenge seems to consume much of our thinking in our library at the moment. Our library has three full time staff, and no separate, larger rooms. If we divide the space into rooms, then we limit its flexibility. I think this is called "being between a rock and a hard place"