Edu Change & Student Advocacy

In my last year of being a high school principal, I was reminded once again about the power of taking student work public. Then high school senior Destiny Anger – who later graduated from UC Santa Cruz and is now a Customer Relationship Manager and Marketing Specialist in the San Francisco Bay Area – used social media showcasing of her senior project to alter the trajectory of her career. As part of her senior project, Anger partnered with Helping Orphans Worldwide on a local awareness project. She was eventually connected to key organizational leaders in New York through a video she posted on her personal Facebook. The video had spread to her school’s Facebook page, and then onto Helping Orphans Worldwide Facebook page. Destiny’s story is not unique. However, it does depend on how much our schools use digital spaces and other public channels to showcase student work. Students need to have their work assessed, critiqued, evaluated, appreciated, and experienced by as many people as pos...

Conferences, Professional Development Changing Dramatically for 2021-22 As we are exiting this unprecedented time of lockdown, many people are beginning to think about what professional development is going to look like next year. People who know me know that I'm a little bit of a conference junkie and I've run a few events in my time, including one of the largest edtech events in the US. I would like to take a moment here to share what I think is coming in the coming year.  These may be changes that will become permanent. Conferences People are social animals, and we will still have many events where people get together to experience the buzz and excitement of seeing their friends and great presentations face to face.  But in a similar way that schools will change, with a new, permanent element of hybrid capacity and a comfortable sense of what's possible with online learning, I expect to see more events that have hybrid elements or a continuation of events that are 100% o...

     For those that are continually advocating for a complete redesign of our education system, there are many potential areas of focus. Some are now suggesting that standards - what many cling to as foundational - may be the last bastion of a dying educational ecosystem.  Voices of A Learning World      Earlier this year, there seemed to be a tipping point on the horizon that spelled something beyond standards and standardized assessments. Indeed, PBLGlobal’s Thom Markham - along with 17 other international educational thought leaders - launched Voices Of A Learning World . They advocate, among other things, that our standards are the problem. Their focus is to support project-based approaches and wellbeing as key elements of an emerging learning system that they foresee overtaking industrial models of teaching. And they think instead of institutional arms creating the standards, that rather students, families and community should ascertain the appro...

In the world of work, all of us have roles. We have formal ones (our job titles), but we also might function in informal ones (duties we assume). Either way, the roles we serve in communicate the value we add to any organization or effort. Our roles might imply responsibility, skill sets, expertise and even the expectations of others. But all of this represents our professional, and often even personal, identity. It informs us and others how we function within a larger group, company, organization or project. The What Throughout the history of modern education, we have created and utilized students’ roles. Teachers would assign, often in the elementary levels, students to perform certain tasks – such as attendance, cafeteria support, cleaning up or more. At the secondary level, we associated roles with leadership positions either in student government, clubs or groups such as athletic teams and performing groups. There is nothing wrong with any of this. So, in the pursuit of deeper lea...

     Successful project-based learning has many foundational elements. A few of these include student work going public, working to sustain the learners in deep inquiry, critique and revision, authenticity, and focusing on real-world challenges. And in a world that is rapidly becoming more tech-infused, globalized, and automated, there is one magic bullet that addresses the aforementioned PBL elements, as well as these evolutionary changes. It’s People: The Human Resources of Project-Based Learning. Here are seven types of potentially valuable partners that can increase the quality and reach of any project: Student Peers      Naturally, we need to begin with the most obvious and immediate people in any class or school. These are the learners’ peers. Student peers can serve as the first line of feedback in order to revise and improve work. What if older or more experienced students coached, advised, or were involved in student projects? Students can also ser...

     Students have always given presentations in class. What started one time as book reports in elementary school have grown to full blown defenses of learning, portfolio presentations and other types of academic presentations. And with the advent of more deeper learning and project-based environments, the importance of the student presentation has never been more apparent. And while students are giving and teachers are facilitating more presentations than ever, we often do not teach learners how to improve their presentation skills. We may assess basics like eye contact and audience interaction, but do not necessarily teach how to design and deliver a professional presentation. So, how can we not only continue to increase the implementation of student presentations, but also help them master this as a core 21st century professional skill? Here are four ways that could make an impact: Understand the WHY of Presentations      Sharing informatio...

     Educators, like everyone else, are trying to respond to the latest protests in our country due to police brutality. Black Lives Do Matter and many of us in education have long been disturbed by the policing issues in our country. The Talk      Years ago, I remember an African-American friend of mine, who grew up in Los Angeles, telling me that he was told by his father as a young man how to interact with the LAPD. He was advised early on, if ever pulled over for any reason, to get on the ground and assume the prone position. This was his dad’s version of ‘The Talk’ long before it had a name or I knew anything about it.      These stories, along with the countless cases captured on video since the Rodney King case, have long informed all of us that we have a national policing crisis. I have long argued that our policing problem, bad or unfit officers, won’t be fixed until it’s fixed from the inside. In other words, the good cops, the a...