Thinking about Leadership

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Being willing is not enough; we must do.” – Leonardo da vinci

Tony Wagner in his book The Global Achievement Gap (Basic Books, 2008) articulated Seven Survival Skills for students learning in the 21st Century. They include:
• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
• Collaboration Across Networks
• Agility and Adaptability
• Initiative and Entrepreneurialism
• Effective Oral and Written Communication
• Accessing and Analyzing Information
• Curiosity and Imagination
His list is similar to many reported in books, articles and frameworks. If we accept his, or develop our own framework our challenge becomes one of implementing instruction and assessment to support the framework.

Focusing teaching and learning on a thinking framework will involve a different professional approach. We will need less standardization of curriculum and assessment and more reliability on collaborative approaches to instructional pedagogy, active engagement of learners and better formative assessment.

Each school in our district is committed to improving the learning condition for each student. That is the basis for our Dream of “Learning Without Boundaries”. Annually we review and prepare our school Codes of Conduct designed to ensure safe environments for students. As we move forward with our Dream and the Ministry’s Education Plan is it time to review and make explicit our habits of learning or as in Reggio philosophy our image of learners and their abilities? We should actively commit to habits such as inquiry, collaboration, active involvement and self reflection as parts of our commitments to our students and ourselves. This commitment should be in reference to how we reflect on our practice and how we organize activities and interactions with learners.

What do classrooms committed to habits of learning look like?

Anne Reeves in her book Where Great Teaching begins (ASCD, 2011) provides some guidance and articulates a student and learning centered instructional design for classes, units and courses. She lists the following as questions to be answered as part of instructional design.
1. What will students learn?
2. To what degree will they learn? To what depth and breadth?
3. How will they acquire their learning?
4. How will they demonstrate this learning?
These questions are similar to many other frameworks.

She also suggests that our intentions or objectives need to be developed or evaluated with the following in mind. Objectives should be:
• Clear and specific
• Focused on thinking
• Measurable
• Aligned with standards
and
• Their mastery can be demonstrated

Reeves clearly articulates a need to shift our focus on teaching that is designed for learning in the 21st Century as we continue to grow as professionals and further enhance our skills in a 21st Century context. We would be wise to remember that as we reflect on and adopt new pedagogical approaches we are involved in a change process.

Michael Fullan in his book Motion Leadership: The Skinny on Becoming Change Savvy (Corwin Press, 2010) reminds us of the “Ready-Fire-Aim” metaphor with its change savvy ideas.

The elements of the strategy include:
• Relationships first
• Honour the implementation dip
• Beware of fat plans
• Behaviours before beliefs
• Communication during implementation is paramount
• Learn about implementation during implementation
• Excitement prior to implementation is fragile
• Take risks and learn
• It is okay to be assertive

The learned lessons for me continue to be that we need to focus our teaching on the development of learning and thinking skills. We do so by sharpening our pedagogy and implement collectively our approaches. Great teaching continues to support and develop great learning, no matter what century we teach in.

“The nature of relationships among the adults within a school has a greater influence on the character and quality of that school and on student accomplishment than anything else.” – Roland Barth

Read Full Post »