On Sunday, I posted my musings on some of the books I have been reading lately. As I was writing that, I was inspired...
I think we’re at an interesting point with educational reads at the moment. There are vast swathes of accessible educational books coming on to the market. By accessible I mean they are pretty easy to read, have bright covers, funky titles and might even dedicate an entire page of the book to a buzzworthy phrase in a graphically eye catching font. I don’t have a problem with that, although if a book has 250 pages and 10% of those feature buzzy catchphrases in buzzy fonts, would it be too much to ask for the price to be lowered slightly? Their intent to inspire, to affirm to risk taking educators that there is another way, to share what has worked for them, in their classroom. I do have a problem with the back of the book, where the bibliography and citations would normally be. In essence, there’s a lack of them. I got in hot water when writing my dissertation because it was too anecdotal and I had to work my behind off to develop quantitative data that would support the qualitative information that I was writing about. It concerns me that this is how we’re trying to reinvigorate education, with educators who can tell a great story and tell you what they do well, but who can’t (don’t? won’t?) provide additional guidance that will help you transfer that good practice to your own classroom or even better, your own school by supporting it with reference to research. Give me more than an entertaining extended keynote, give me the enduring lessons, inspire and energize me, then point me in the right direction so I can see for myself how a truly transformative education can be achieved at scale. I have never been a data junky, far from it! I used to run from spreadsheets and then hide until they went away. That is slowly changing- more on that in another post sometime in the next 12 years. My current school is bringing in the Adaptive Schools practices and their 7 norms of collaboration cite providing data as something that should be common practice. If you go to the trouble of writing a book about teaching and aimed at teachers, help them step beyond a cool fun activity they can do in their classroom and provide them with the data needed to encourage wide scale educational change.
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The drive from where I live to where I work is about 35- 45 minutes each way. This is great time for napping (I normally catch the bus at 6.20am!), listening to Podcasts, and catching up on professional reading. It’s also good for catching up on not so professional reading so if I’m slouched down in my seat with a kindle glued to the end of my nose, chances are Sir. Dashing Rake is attempting to woo Lady Virtuous… and succeeding! Bodice rippers aside, here are some of my more recent reads: ![]() Currently reading: Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek I admit to a bit of a crush on Sinek, he would make a good Sir. Dashing. He also crafts a very accessible narrative on what leadership means and what it looks like. For schools, bringing about change can be like trying to turn an oil tanker and while Sinek ostensibly writes for business, his thoughts and research transfer to educational organizations too. His other book, ‘Start with the Why’ has been a touchstone for me as I work within schools to effect and implement change, making the point that we need to get our stakeholders on board and that doesn’t happen with action it starts with building understanding and buy in by explaining the why- there is no weakness in explaining the reasoning and the rationale, nor does it necessarily indicate that you are asking for permission. Rather, I believe it allows people to buy in to your world view, your vision and philosophy because it is those things that guide the actions and choices you make. Anyway, this book is a work in progress and I'll update here once I am complete. In the meantime, join me in adoring Sir. Dashing Rake... I mean Simon Sinek and his genius. Buy Leaders Eat Last here Quick Read: Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess Burgess comes across as the sort of teacher we all thought we wanted to be before we started teaching… and standardized tests, paperwork and quality time with social services stole all the joy. ‘Teach like a Pirate’ encourages teachers to recapture the joy of both teaching and learning, by harnessing creativity and encouraging student agency in the learning process. I appreciated the honesty with which Burgess wrote about how challenging it is to teach in this way and the fact that he too had his struggles. If Burgess’ goal was to inspire others, I think he succeeded, his hashtag has qite the twitter following and large numbers of my colleagues (both near and far) have read this volume and as a result, have started to make small changes in their classrooms- and isn’t that what it’s all about? Helping people make small steps towards something better? Also, it made me want to buy play-do and dress up, like a Pirate. ‘...one of the big secrets and shortcuts to engagement is to spend less time trying to get students interested in what you are presenting and more time making connections between what you are presenting and what they are already interested in.’ (Pg 38) Buy Teach Like a Pirate here The door stop: Blended- Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools- by Michael B Horn and Heather Staker As an Instructional Tech team we started a little book club last year- we’d all try to read the same book and then come back together to discuss it. Needless to say, the start of the school year got in the way but I persevered in my reading of this tome and this summer saw it traveling to from the UK to Italy and the USA, before making its way back to China with me. This book is heavily researched and pretty far reaching. At its heart, I think the authors are making the case for redesigning our traditional view of education and educational institutions through the development of more innovative mindsets, learning spaces and leveraging digital tools. While we read it as a Tech team, it’s just as applicable to school leaders as it walks its readership through how to bring about change in education through strategic leveraging of teams, culture, and elements of design thinking. Disruptive innovation is not limited to what can be plugged in, nor is it defined by flexible learning spaces and rolling tables with whiteboard surfaces (though I wouldn’t say no). Disruptive Innovation demands leaders willing to take risks, leaders who knows their community, their stakeholders, leaders willing to serve as vanguard, advocate, cheerleader, captain and rowing cox in order to bring about meaningful change that will make a difference to their community. It clearly got me as I took page after page of notes and there are certainly chapters that could be read in isolation, without reference to things that plug in or tables that could be written on (NB: any table with a plastic surface could be written on with a whiteboard pen, I was doing this back in 2000 when my inner city Manchester kids needed quick explanations of concepts and skills… or wanted to know how to draw a rabbit for their RE book).
‘Culture is a way of working together toward common goals that have been followed so frequently and so successfully that people don’t even think about trying to do things another way. If a culture has formed, people autonomously do what they need to do to be successful.’ Pg 249 Buy Blended here For the longest time, it seemed like Survey Monkey was THE go to tool for surveying a large number of people. It doesn’t really lend itself to live polling, nor is it particularly student (child) friendly- not ideally suited to the classroom. I’ve found live polling to be particularly popular with counselors and pastoral leaders when working with large groups of students and parents- getting their immediate input and feedback and providing discussion points, it allows them to very quickly take the temperature of the room. This was the request I received from one of my own counselors and there were 3 options that I felt met his needs, which included a need to survey more than 50 people and get immediate feedback:
Update: September 13, 2018
Well no sooner had I made my comments about my love/ hate relationship with Kahoot! and student fascination with botting the games, than an article came across my Twitter feed talking about exactly that thing! Read the article over at Buzzfeed (which has suddenly taken on a very broadsheet look!)
Back in the depths of time (Fall 2016), I was apparently reading 'The Innovator's Mindset' by George Couros. If you exist anywhere in the educational twitter-sphere, you can not fail to have noticed this book come across your feed and indeed, my own copy had made the journey from Atlanta to Shanghai.
In his book, Couros talks about learners can (and should) be empowered as leaders through the development of innovative educational opportunities. It's easy to digest but really does speak to the imperatives that exist in education today. Anyway, Chapter 3, where Couros talks about the role of technology apparently caught my eye. He says, 'Learning is the driver, technology is the accelerator.' I was inspired (Or so my Youtube 'mark as private' videos lead me to believe.) I made a connection between his comment and the role of 1:1 laptop programs in schools, specifically the way in which they're introduced. My former Head of Personal Counseling used to express concern that we gave 11 year olds a Lamborghini without teaching them to drive- which was not an unfair observation. My brain apparently blended all this together and I created a narrated slide-deck to share my thoughts on how Grade 6 students can be supported in learning how to 'use the accelerator.' It's flawed. The analogy makes perfect sense in my brain but may not make any sense whatsoever to anyone else and if I can find the original slide deck I am tempted to remake it, not least in an effort to sound marginally less pompous in my narration (seriously, am I giving The Queen's Speech?!) I do think there's something here though, something I want to keep coming back to and working on. Slide deck created in Keynote with images created in Piktochart. It's a work in progress... Hmmm, not much to say in response to the above apart to y'know... summarize.
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About the AuthorPassionate about learning, creativity, innovation and tech. Brit Abroad keen to work with others to make the world a little kinder. Archives
April 2019
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