bill ferriter on teacher leadership

Well, there you go. Yesterday I mentioned Bill Ferriter as a thoughtful commentator on all things related to teacher leadership, and today he rewards us with reflections about what teacher leadership looks like in action.

His post is framed around a speech he'll be giving soon to a group of teachers who recently earned National Board certification. To help them chart their professional paths, Bill offers his own definition of what it means to be a teacher leader, a definition developed over "the better part of the past 12 years stumbling through the professional dark." The short version first:

Teacher leaders are practicing educators who are committed to driving
change.

And the expanded version (emphases mine):

For me, teacher leadership started by simply engaging my colleagues
in meaningful conversations about teaching and learning. I figured that it was impossible to drive change unless we had some real transparency around what it was that we were doing with students.

Teacher leadership probably also means supporting new colleagues, don't you
think? No matter how good university education programs are, nothing can really prepare you for this gig! Driving change means lending a hand to the teachers on
our hallway who need us the most.

And I reckon that driving change requires a deep and meaningful understanding of current practices, too. Teacher
leaders, then, are constantly researching and reading about effective
instruction. They've got an almost unsettling fear of stagnation!

Driving change also requires a willingness to raise your
voice a bit. Teacher leaders are always willing to speak up
in faculty and team meetings to lend guidance or expertise.
They're presenting at conferences and finding new ways to use
digital tools like blogs and wikis to share ideas and resources with the world.

But most importantly, driving change means having a steadfast
belief that reform rests in our hands. Teacher leaders don't stand around patiently waiting for others to take action. Instead, they're always acting.

You can take those points to the bank. Better yet, take them back to your school.

how teachers learn

The February 2009 issue of Educational Leadership focuses on the theme "How Teachers Learn." Hmmm. It's timely stuff as we shift from developing our own technology integration chops to sharing knowledge and supporting colleagues' exploration. As you think about the specific challenges and opportunities facing teachers in your setting, and how you plan to approach them as a teacher-leader, you may find some practical gems and immediately-usable ideas from this issue's articles. Many of the articles from the print version are also available online.

Moving Beyond Talk by Debra Smith, Bruce Wilson, and Dick Corbett discusses professional learning communities as a model for teacher learning, and poses the question:

But it's easy for learning communities to become stalled at the stage of
collegial discussions about improving teaching practice. What spurs
communities to progress beyond talk to collective action that brings change
to schools?

They identified six conditions that continually cropped up in their interviews with learning community participants and facilitators. When most or all of these conditions were in place, the quality of adult learning improved, and teachers moved from talk to action:

• a preexisting supportive culture
• time to meet
• satisfying processes
• voluntary participation
• support from principals
• a cadre of trained facilitators

As you work with teachers in your school, how might these six conditions guide your planning?

Also, be sure to give a close reading to Bill Ferriter's article, Learning with Blogs and Wikis. Three passages popped out from the first section as being useful to teacher leaders (the second section, devoted to practical advice on getting started with blogs and wikis, will feel like more familiar ground but definitely still worth a read). Bill opens with a quote from Richard Elmore, professor of educational leadership at Harvard, about how school structures straightjacket adult learning:

As expectations for increased student performance mount and the measurement and publication of evidence about performance becomes part of the public discourse
about schools, there are few portals through which new knowledge about teaching
and learning can enter schools; few structures or processes in which teachers
and administrators can assimilate, adapt, and polish new ideas and practices;
and few sources of assistance for those who are struggling to understand the
connection between the academic performance of their students and the practices
in which they engage.

Then he offers two counterpoints updating Elmore's view, two ways in which times and tools are changing. First this:

Times have changed in two significant ways, however, since Elmore began
describing the hostile learning environments that have often held schools back.
First, there's a new emphasis on the importance of collaborative learning among
members of close-knit teams in schools. School leaders are beginning to believe
in the human capacity of their faculties and are structuring opportunities for
teachers to reflect on instruction together. These joint efforts are targeted
and specific, increasing educators' motivation and engagement.

And this:

Second, digital tools now help fulfill Elmore's desire for fresh "portals
through which new knowledge about teaching and learning can enter schools."
Specifically, thousands of accomplished educators are now writing blogs about
teaching and learning, bringing transparency to both the art and the science of
their practice. In every content area and grade level and in schools of varying
sizes and from different geographic locations, educators are actively reflecting
on instruction, challenging assumptions, questioning policies, offering advice,
designing solutions, and learning together. And all this collective knowledge is
readily available for free.

Bill also reflects on teaching and leadership at his excellent blog, The Tempered Radical. Visit him there for more keen insights.

The Horizon Report 2009

The 2009 Horizon Report is out now! If you are not familiar with the Horizon Report, it is a detailed look at trends and innovations effecting technology and specifically how it will effect education. Each year a panel of industry leaders in the fields of technology and edtech convene to draft this report where they look out to the next five years and attempt to forecast what technologies will be most influential or impactful and to some degree describes how they think these technologies will be used.

This year's report identifies mobile computing devices, cloud computing, geo-tagging, the personal web, and semantic applications as technologies most likely to have a great impact in the coming years.

Do yourself a favor and take a few minutes and browse this and past Horizon Report documents:

The Horizon Report 2009
The Horizon Report 2008
The Horizon Report 2007
The Horizon Report 2006
The Horizon Report 2005
The Horizon Report 2004

educon 2.1: warm up your weekend with networked learning

As a mental warm-up for our session tomorrow, take a look at the goings-on this weekend at EduCon 2.1, an education conference held annually (this year's is the second conference) at Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia.

Pre-conference activities started yesterday. Formal sessions run throughout the day Saturday and Sunday; most will be streamed live, with additional notes and resources archived and accessible later through the conference wiki. Much in these presentations will be worth sinking your teeth into, whether you find them provocative, reinforcing, challenging, bewildering, or eureka-moment inspiring.

Our friend Michael Walker from Edina is at the conference. We're adopting him as our intrepid reporter on the ground. He's already been posting session notes and impressions on the Edina Technology Integration blog. He invites you to follow his EduCon progress and post any questions as a comment on the blog; he'll do his best to come up with the answer, or convene a group of EduCon attendees on the spot to give their thoughts. Who know's what's possible? We'll also follow his updates on Twitter tomorrow and see what develops. Thanks, Mike!

More about EduCon 2.1:

EduCon 2.1 is both a conversation and a conference.
And it is not a technology conference. It is an education conference. It is, hopefully, an innovation conference where we can come together, both in person and virtually, to discuss the future of schools. Every session will be an opportunity to discuss and debate ideas -- from the very practical to the big dreams.

The Axioms

Guiding Principles of EduCon 2.1
1) Our schools must be inquiry-driven, thoughtful and empowering for all members
2) Our schools must be about co-creating -- together with our students -- the 21st Century Citizen
3) Technology must serve pedagogy, not the other way around.
4) Technology must enable students to research, create, communicate and collaborate
5) Learning can -- and must -- be networked.

Disruptive Innovation

Today I found a version of Clayton Christen's talk about Disruptive Innovation slightly different from the one we watched as a group in November. Here it is (click on the "Video" link on the right):

ryan higbea on blogging and podcasting

At our November session, Ryan Higbea shared his experiences integrating blogging and podcasting into his classroom. Here's video of his presentation, shaky camera work and all. Oh, for a tripod! Enjoy.

atomic learning tech skills assessment

If you're fired up about assessment and technology (and really, who isn't?), this is your lucky day. Atomic Learning has developed a new assessment to gauge students' technology skills according to the NETS-S 2007 standards. They're offering it free with purchase of the Technology Skills Collection. More to the point, if your district is already an Atomic Learning subscriber, access to the assessment is gratis.

Atomic Learning's Tech Skills Assessment - Movies via kwout

Interesting. . . the multiple-choice sample questions are formatted as mini-vignettes: a problem is posed, followed by the ever-familiar a-b-c-d range of possible solutions or responses. For example:

Marisol created a presentation about recycling plants for her science class. She
showed it to her classmate Keith before she presented it to her class. In his
feedback, Keith noted that some parts of the presentation didn’t sound natural,
and Marisol showed him where she’d copied and pasted from various Web sites.
What should Keith do?

A "feedback" option can be switched on by the adminstrator which will provide a rationale for the correctness or incorrectness of each item as a way to add formative-assessment zing.

The scenario approach seems stronger for the ethics-driven digital citizenship kinds of questions---what would/should you do, rather than what can you do. But even so, the set-up necessarily forces a "correct" answer; and as we all know, ethical issues are seldom resolved so neatly. The updated NETS-S scrunches down the old focus on technology operations and concepts into a single standard. With the bold new emphasis on creativity and innovation, communication and collaboration, and the other 21st century skills that resist understanding in the old-school definition of "skills," I wonder how close to the mark a multiple choice assessment can really get.

I wonder, too, how Atomic Learning has factored in readability. Are different versions of the instrument available for kids reading at different grade levels?

Does your district use Atomic Learning? The Tech Skills Assessment could be a valuable tool for understanding students' progress toward NETS-S at the school or district level. At the very least, it could help start some good conversations. Check it out and let us know what you think.