Friday, April 24, 2015

The Principal: Three Key Impacts

I attended the Building learning Communities Conference last year and found Michael Fullan's keynote intriguing. He suggests that we should look at research evidence to hone our leadership skills to be purposeful and strategic.

What do you think about Michael Fullan's three key impacts on deeper learning and learning outcomes? 

  • Teaching and pedagogy
  • Collaborative culture
  • Technology as an accelerator

What does that look like in your school and our district? 
How can we use technology as an 'accelerator'?

Teaching is simple.........




Good teachers strive everyday for the same thing: We want to challenge our students so each one is able to reach his or her full potential. So how do we do that?

Well one way would be to make the tests harder so fewer students get 20/20. You could teach to the highest level student in the class and hope the rest of the class rise to the challenge. That's great teaching, right?

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Preparing Students for Success in the Digital Age.



Who Owns the Learning?
This is the key question that Alan November, an internationally recognized leader in education technology, asks about 21st century learning. He argues that before we add more technology into the classrooms, we need to look at the culture of teaching and learning. 

Does this apply to school districts with a long and strong record of academic excellence I wonder? Given our MCAS and SAT results here in Westford, we must be providing high quality teaching to our students. So why do we need to change anything?