All Things Learning

The Idea: Both teachers and students are motivated by the same fundamental attributes: Competence, Relatedness, Purpose, and Autonomy. By establishing professional and learning environments that facilitate the growth of these core attributes, we can cultivate communities of motivated educators and students.

The Idea: Patient Optimism is important for anyone striving for Transformation in Education. Change in this complex context is more likely to be incremental, and brought about by the advancement of both - technology and thriving communities, together.

The idea: ‘What-Why-How’ - a structure to communicate any idea powerfully. This works well for Teacher Professional development, Classroom Lessons, Team communication on new initiatives or programs.  The What-Why-How structure has been my go-to structure for communicating important ideas to anyone. I have been using it for 5 years now and it has improved the quality of my communication tremendously.  Let me use the What-Why-How structure to describe the What-Why-How structure!

  The idea: The massive progress we have made as a society in the 21st century encourages us to re-evaluate our existing paradigms and redefine what we believe is possible. I believe social and technological advances today have readied us to embrace ‘Neurodiversity as the norm’ and thereafter ‘Universal Design’ Approaches. I spent 5 years working at a special education school. That wonderful experience and community has dramatically impacted my outlook on learning and life. This 3 Part blog is me taking stock of the important principles I have learned (1) About Beliefs (2) About Learning (3) About Teaching. Maybe some of them will be useful to others too!  This is Part 1 - On Beliefs Here is the link to Part 2 - On Learning   Here is the link to Part 3 - On Teaching (coming soon)

The idea: Distributed Leadership is a powerful tool for building learning organizations that continuously learn and innovate. But central to distributed leadership is also a balance of top-down and ground-up approaches : Shared vision driven by leaders but influenced by individuals; Autonomy balanced with individual responsibility; Psychologically safe environment for collaboration balanced with honest, open dialogue; Experimentation and risk-taking balanced with individual/ team competence and discipline. In my previous blogs I introduced the synergy of Distributed Leadership  and a Culture for Distributed leadership . In this blog, I will expand on key supporting features and the simple but important balancing forces needed to make Distributed Leadership approaches thrive. While I was discovering the importance of these balancing forces through my work, I came across an article in Harvard Business Review - The hard truth about innovative cultures that put words to my e...

The idea: Successfully launching new technology in schools involves four key steps: ‘ Setting up Systems ’ where leaders ensure the vision, culture and systemic supports for the innovation are in place; ‘ Getting the ball rolling ’ where high quality training on the tech is provided to introduce the team to it; ‘ Greasing the wheels ’ where the actions and impact of the early adopters are amplified; ‘ Letting it roll ’ where you consolidate and enable continuous improvement by supporting learning communities. As the horror of the pandemic took over our lives last year, I witnessed a miracle unfold in our schools. Our teachers, students and parents embraced the opportunity before them, leapfrogged over many barriers (inexperience, access, etc.) and emerged a digitally competent community. Before the pandemic hit, I had dreamed this would happen in 3 years. It took 6 months. This had a lot to do with the pandemic, but also a little to do with how we approached the challenge, I believe. H...

  The idea: A simple model that captures the essential capacities that make 'Great Teachers' - knowledge of & care for their STUDENTS; knowledge of and passion for the SUBJECTS they teach; knowledge of TEACHING practices and a desire to learn for life through inquiry, sharing and learning with their communities. I have always loved a good mental model. For 'What makes great teachers' I found it in the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) Five Propositions  a couple of years ago. This model is so good that it almost feels like common sense, but it is also profound and serves as a fantastic vision for teachers to aspire to. A quick note on how we arrived here. Until we discovered this, the Danielson Framework for Teaching  helped anchor our vision for teachers. The Danielson Framework is one of the most well-established teaching frameworks and provides educators with a fantastic tool for evaluating good teaching. We still use this tool today to u...

  Coaching Teachers: When is feedback most powerful? The idea : When is systematic feedback most useful for learners in their journey from Novice to Mastery? Feedback on practice is most useful for learners who are building mastery, not as much for novices and for learners who have achieved mastery. This thinking frame can help you plan a structured coaching/ feedback system more effectively. Let me start by acknowledging the powerful role of feedback in learning ANYTHING. Education literature tells us how good feedback can positively impact learning and I have seen first hand the immense impact of feedback on learning over the last decade - for myself, my students and my colleagues. Yet, I often found myself in situations where well intended, relevant feedback did not feel useful. When I reacted like this, I attributed my feelings to not being open-minded enough. Until I read Deep Learning by Stellan Ohlsson . In the book, I discovered one of the most useful thinking frames for so...