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Archive for the ‘Personalized Learning’ Category

Has COVID Changed How Adults Learn in School?

Posted in Personalized Learning, Professional Development, tagged , , , on May 18, 2023| 5 Comments »

I have written numerous times about the impact of COVID on student learning. In 7 COVID Edu Trends That Will Stick I wrote about shifts from an increased focus on equity, to greater digitization of resources to permanent changes to how we think about time in secondary schools.

I have recently been thinking about the shifts we have seen (or not seen) with professional learning for the adults in our schools.  In preparing to be part of a panel for A Cross Canada Professional Learning Conversation, I reflected on The State of Professional Learning in Canada that was published in 2016.  One of the great challenges in education in often being precise when describing why jurisdictions are having excellent student learning outcomes.  British Columbia, and Canada more generally, is widely seen as a world leader in education.  Again, this is ground I have covered before, and don’t want to open debate on PISA or other measures, but it is safe to say, Canada is viewed well across the world for K-12 education.

Three areas of that 2016 report that I still think are crucial today to our collective success include:  our focus on diverse learners, the balance between individual and system professional learning, and the need for leaders to be fully engaged in the professional learning in a community.  I think if anything these three in particular (the report has a longer list) are more important.  The pandemic emphasized the learning differences within classes, schools and across systems.  The need to focus on the diversity of our classrooms is more urgent than ever.  And when it comes to who drives the professional learning, I think of it as a healthy tension between the individual, their school and the system – one needs a balance – to ensure teachers are more than independent contractors who share a parking lot, but also allow for personalization in their own learning.  And if it ever was acceptable to be a school or district leader and not be a learning leader – that time is now over.

So, what have I seen as COVID impacts on the specifics of adult learning?

Content – COVID and other social issues that took place simultaneously have accelerated shifts we saw pre-Pandemic.  We are seeing increased interest in Indigenous learning – particularly related to our local Squamish Nation. In addition, mental wellness and wellbeing, equity, diversity and inclusivity as well as early learning are all areas of greater emphasis.  

Format – I am not sure where the preferred format question will land.  We are seeing a lot of uptake of in-person learning opportunities.  It is hard to know if this is just still the novelty of not being able to do this for several years, or if it is a return to these events which were the cornerstone of professional learning pre-pandemic.  During COVID we saw a huge growth in digital skills for adults, and many are continuing to find professional learning online now.  There is a new balance that is not yet finalized between these formats.

Drivers – Just like with students, staff are looking for deeper personalization and more control over their own learning.  One of the larger societal shifts in COVID was the move to increased remote work.  Of course, teaching does not lend itself well to this.  It is largely an in-person profession with fairly standard hours.  That said, there are more options for remote or flexible professional learning.  And the use of technology (and the dabbling in AI recently) have staff wanting even more precise experiences.  Why go to a literacy workshop with 100 K-12 teachers when you can be connected digitally to a group of educators from across the province working at your grade with similar resources?

There is a digital expectation – just like there is with our students and it is one that we are still working on to support the adult learning.

When it comes to adult learning it is not a surprise their needs are similar to the student learning needs – they want a system that gives them some universal experiences, but also some deep personalization – that provides options for in-person and digital experiences.  It will be interesting to see where we are in 3 years – and if there is a snapback – will 2026 look like the National report of 2016, or will adult learning in schools have been permanently altered by the pandemic.

 

 

 

 

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Last 10, Today and Next 10

Posted in Change, Personalized Learning, Professional Development, tagged , , , , on January 14, 2021| 2 Comments »


I was recently part of an interesting national conversation “Future Proofing Education – The Past is a Prologue” with four other superintendents from across Canada. In 2011, early in my superintendency, I joined the C21 CEO Academy which is a national group of superintendents that meet virtually once a month and find other ways to collaborate on thought papers and make other connections. For those outside of Canada, this is always interesting, as education, unlike in most places in the world, is provincial in jurisdiction and not federal – though there are many linkages we have across the country.

At the bottom I share the video with thoughtful comments from my colleagues, Jordan Tinney, Pauline Clarke, Gregg Ingersoll and Elwin Leroux. Here is some of my thinking on the questions we were wrestling with:

What have been the most significant shifts over the last 10 years?

I think our school system has shifted far more than I would have imagined in 2011. If you walk into a classroom today, it very often looks quite different than a decade ago. I can’t be sure, but I am not sure we would have said that as boldly in the past. Did a classroom in 1995 look that different than a class in 1985? In 2011 we were immersed in the conversation of the WHY of change. We would show videos about the world changing around us and act as though we needed to convince those around us that shifts needed to happen. We felt stuck in a world where our system was regarded as one of the best in the world, but many saw the world changing. Flash ahead to today, and even without COVID, things have really changed. And it has not just been technology.

We all probably knew there would be new technology and students and staff would have access to modern gizmos, but beyond the technology, curriculum, assessment and pedagogies have really shifted. Of course this is never ending – we will never be done as the world is always changing. And I have been really struck that across Canada there is far more alignment among leaders. Yes, there are differences between BC, Manitoba, Quebec and the Maritimes but we have similar visions on the future of teaching and learning.

What do you notice about the pandemic shifts?

The first thing I notice is that the pandemic has been exhausting.

I haven’t necessarily worked more, but every day my work has been different than what worked looked like in the past. This is a great reminder for what our students, teachers, principals and other staff have been experiencing – doing new things is taxing. Of course, it is also incredibly exhilarating. We have also seen during this time that we can shift our school far quicker than we thought. We moved from in-person to remote learning over spring break, and since then have had multiple models. We redesigned secondary school timetables in August and we were ready for September. In the past we acted as though any of these changes would take years, but when there is a will and urgency to change shifts can happen.

We have also fully embraced new ways to connect.  Rather than superintendents being filtered by media and others, we have used videos and our written words to reach out to students, staff and families.  Full credit to my colleague from Surrey Jordan Tinney who has modeled the use of video to make a large school district feel like a tight community.  Everyone is thirsting for information, and school and district leaders are seen as honest brokers of information and many have used new platforms to build connections.  

It is also interesting to see the Federal Government now an active participant in education. With a billion dollars invested this past fall in schools, they too have been promoters of a national conversation. And then in classes we have really had to rethink time. With less in-person face-to-face time, what is really important to be done this way, and what can be done other ways. When in-person time is at a premium how does that change our system.

And a final change which I think has permanent ripples in our school system is we have become great partners with the health system. Because of COVID, I talk with, listen to, and share information with doctors, nurses and others in health every day. And I don’t think this should change post-pandemic. This could have lasting positive effects on topics from the overdose crisis to well being and mental health to physical literacy. Our new partnerships should be here to stay.


And what about the future?

My worry is that if we try to focus on everything coming out of the pandemic, we may focus on nothing and snapback to the system we had before. And as good as it was, nobody I talk with just wants to go back. I am curious about what do we need for a future world that is increasingly digitized and automated? If it is my magic wand, we will focus on 1) equity and our most vulnerable in our system and 2) the structures and delivery of secondary education.

And I often get asked what are the three things I think will stick post-pandemic. At least right now my list is:

• Digitization – we are not going to unplug our virtual classrooms – they are forever part of our experience
• Flexibility for students and staff – our kids and adults have had greater ownership over their learning and we have rethought time, this will continue
• Learning is often an outdoor activity – if it was the healthy thing to do to get outside during a pandemic, it certainly is as well after a pandemic


Interesting to see these three in combination as they may not seem to be aligned, but a future system with students outside more, owning their learning, and more digitally connected to the world is a pretty exciting system!

These are those kind of questions with no “right” answers, but are important to think about. We have one of the top education systems in the world, and we will need to keep pushing to keep it that way!

As I said with my last post – I am full of optimism.

Here is the video featuring my wonderful colleagues from across Canada (click on the photo to open the video):

 

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School on a Dial

Posted in Assessment, Change, Personalized Learning, tagged , , on June 3, 2020| 7 Comments »

I want to pick up on the idea of school on a dial that I introduced in my last blog post – The End of Snow Days?

School for a long time has been something you turn on or off.  School is turned off on the weekends, during Christmas, Spring Break and the summer.  And it is turned on from 9-3 Monday to Friday from September to June.  It is a switch.  The day after Labour Day we turn the switch on and across British Columbia hundreds of thousands of students arrive in buildings joined by tens of thousands of teachers and other staff.

Unlike most jurisdictions in the world, British Columbia did not turn off the switch for in-person schooling when the pandemic hit in the middle of March.  We changed this switch to a dial and introduced five different settings on this dial.  Here is one recent image describing the five stages:

Since spring break, and up until this week we had been in Stage 4.  There were a limited number of students attending school – these were largely the children of Essential Service Workers and vulnerable and special needs students.  The vast majority of students were learning remotely.  This week, we moved to Stage 3 and saw thousands of student returning to schools part-time and on a voluntary basis.

Of course, with it already being June, many are turning their attention to September.  We all would hope to be at Stage 1 – and stay in Stage 1 – but we also need to plan for other eventualities.   So, back to this notion of school as a dial and not a switch.  If we think of it as a dial, if there is a second-wave of Covid-19, we can dial-down the in-person instruction, and if BC continues to plank the curve, we can dial-up the in-person instruction.  The challenge for a school system is how do you design learning and schooling that lets you move between the various stages on a dial and not get caught thinking of it as a switch (models are for another post).

This also raises a larger question about the future of education and the idea of in-person instruction being on a dial. Right now, the dial is being controlled by the virus.  The virus threat is lower in BC, so the dial for in-person instruction goes up.  And this will be the pattern in the short term.

But I have heard from both staff and students that they have found more success with partial remote learning than they were finding in the traditional classroom, particularly at high school.  So post-virus, how might we let students control their own dial? Or staff?  How could we design structures that allowed some students and staff to attend in-person everyday, some only a few days a week, and maybe others vary rarely?  It makes my head hurt – but it is a conversation worth having. 

I think of Alan November’s question that has long inspired me when he speaks of the classroom, “Who owns the learning?”, the teacher or the student,  in the post virus world, I think as we look at structures, we may want to ask, “Who owns the dial?”

More to come . . .

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Can I Learn Anything from a Canadian?

Posted in Change, Personalized Learning, Professional Development, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 30, 2018| 13 Comments »

Interest in the education system in British Columbia and Canada generally seems to be at an all time high. Likely, in part driven by high PISA (International testing) results, edu-tourism is flourishing and the world is very curious about what is going on in Canada.  This week I am giving a talk to an audience of largely American Superintendents, which has forced me to try to crystallize exactly what it is in our part of the world that is so interesting.

When we look at structures, our Canadian system has a lot in common with our US counterparts.  We have locally elected Boards of Education throughout most of the country, we have local accountability, a mix of involvement of different levels of government, generally high community engagement in education and strong teacher associations.  We lack the Federal involvement in education present in the United States and seemingly most places in the world, and generally don’t have the ability to raise any funding locally for the school system.   Throughout North America you can find quite a bit in common with how we organize education.

Our system seems to strive for this highly sought after combination of strong equity and high quality.  We seem to have dismissed the idea that one needs to either have one or the other and instead we have committed ourselves to both.  And we also seem to have this unwavering belief that no matter how “good” our system is, we need to continue to change, grow and get better.  There is a sense that we can always improve.   Trying to tightly describe the BC or Canadian uniqueness is a challenge, but I see these as some of the areas that stand out:

We Are Doing What We Always Say We Should Do

The entire BC curriculum has been redesigned.  The prescriptive nature of the curriculum has been reduced with a greater focus on big ideas and the allowance of flexibility and choice in learning for teachers and students.  Interdisciplinary learning has been embraced allowing the teacher a greater opportunity to be creative and innovative in the design of their learning experiences.  Core competencies are the foundation of the curriculum with a focus on communication, thinking and personal and social competency.  Now these areas that we have always said are important, but often in the background have been pushed to the foreground.  And finally, the curriculum has been Indiginized and a focus on the First Peoples Principles of Learning has been emphasized throughout the province.

A former Superintendent colleague of mine, Mike McKay, would often say, “Will What We Know Change What We Do?” – with our system we are trying to make the answer now.

Curriculum

The shift in curriculum is as much about the how as the what.  The move to big ideas, has seen a move to more inquiry based learning.  The curriculum is seen as relevent and ever-changing.  Rather than being static as it has been in the past, it is seen now as nimble, being able to shift as the world shifts.

Assessment

BC does not have high stakes assessment.  Students in British Columbia write Foundation Skills Assessments in grades 4 and 7 in reading, writing and numeracy and then a literacy and numeracy assessment in grades 10-12.  These results are shared with students and families and inform practice but they do not appear on report cards, nor are they part of any school marks.  Teacher judgement is highly valued and they along with schools and districts design a range of assessments (more than just traditional tests) to support students. Increasingly passion projects, portfolios and capstone assignments are a large part of a student’s program

We Have Learned From Others

When I look at our system in BC now, I would describe it as a “mash-up” of what we are seeing around the world.   One can see elements of Finland, Singapore and New Zealand in our system.  International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement have also clearly been influential.  Teachers have looked locally – to schools in their district and our province, to Alberta and Ontario, to High Tech High in San Diego, and many other places and they have all influenced what we do.  BC has always prided itself on being a highly networked province and this extends around the globe, and our system reflects this.  We have taken good ideas and made them ours for our context

No Franchises

BC has this delicate balance of having a lot common with others but not sameness.  Schools and districts share some tenants but are not trying “scale” work to all be the same.  It is this idea of networks.  We are trying to connect and build networks, focusing on diffusion, not replication.

It is hard to pull the BC or Canadian story together.  I don’t think anyone can listen to someone speak about our system or visit our schools and say, we should be like them.  Just as we haven’t done that as we looked to evolve our system.  We are immensely proud of our school system, and it is wonderful to be somewhere that recognizes the world is rapidly changing, so as proud as we are of our past and present, our future needs to change to ensure we continue to have this pride.

Below are the slides I am using for this presentation this week.  It is a work in progress, so any thoughts to help make these ideas more clear are always appreciated (if you are viewing this via email you may need to go to the website to see the slides).

 

 

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Our Story Told in One Slide

Posted in Change, Personalized Learning, Professional Development, tagged , , , , , , , on March 27, 2017| 1 Comment »

Speaking recently in Edmonton, to Superintendents from across Alberta, I shared a slide from Pasi Sahlberg that he used this past December at the Learning Forward Conference in Vancouver:

This slide tells an incredibly powerful and important story – it speaks to our values in education in British Columbia and Canada, and to our aspirations for students.

I have written a number of times in the past about PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) results, most recently this past December – It is OK to Be Happy About PISA.   And I always do so with the “it is only one test” caveat, but that said, it is still a widely regarded international benchmark on some key education outcomes.

So, just why is this one slide so important?  It takes the 2015 results and plots jurisdiction based on their achievement in math, reading and science along the Y-axis and based on equity (the weakness of the relationship between family background and achievement) along the X-axis.  So those jurisdictions in the top right of the graph are those with the highest levels of excellence and equity.

The jurisdictions in this sweet-spot that Sahlberg referred to as the “Highway to Heaven”  include a cluster of Canadian provinces – BC, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec as well as Canada as a whole, along with just a couple other nations.  (Note:  Since education is under provincial not federal jurisdiction in Canada, individual provinces show up separately for PISA).

Strong equity and high quality – this is the story of our schools.  And this speaks directly to our values in our education system. Of course this does not negate the work we need to do – there are a lot of areas to focus, including the success of our Aboriginal learners.  In West Vancouver, we often look at how large the differences are between schools on any given measure – and see the lack of differences as just as much a mark of success as the high achievement.  We want these ideals to run in tandem.

So, if I could just share one slide about “how we are doing” and “who do we want to continue to be” going forward, it would be this one.

And finally, coming back to a notion I have shared before, and shared with our colleagues from Alberta, instead of always looking around the world, we should be looking across the country – the Canadian education story is a good story and one we should tell, and work together to strengthen.

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Beware the Simple Solution

Posted in Change, Personalized Learning, tagged , , , , on April 20, 2016| 2 Comments »

solutionThe shifts in the BC curriculum are coming fast. Next fall the “draft” stamp comes off of all curriculum in K-9 across all subject areas. And if the current timelines remain in place, the same will happen one year later for grades 10-12. As I have written here before, the changes have been overwhelmingly well received and the conversations that have come out of them not just about what is covered in school but how it is covered have been outstanding.

As we get close to the September full implementation date, I am nervous that I see some beginning to look for solutions to cover the curriculum.  And just what does that mean?

For many of us growing up, we saw the grade 8 Social Studies curriculum as the Patterns of Civilization textbook.  The Science 10 curriculum was the Science Probe textbook.  I talk to many parents now who believe the Math curriculum in our elementary school is really the Math Makes Sense textbook. The new curriculum does not only shift what we are teaching, and how we are teaching, but also forces us to think differently about resources.  The focus on big ideas, students constructing knowledge and core competencies require different kinds of support resources.  If the era of a single textbook being able to equal a course of study was not yet over, it is now.

We have our second of two days this year dedicated to the implementation of the curriculum this week.  The day will focus on the competencies (communication, thinking and personal and social).   It is a very rich day that schools have planned with teacher leaders at each site leading the work on their staff.  Along with Aboriginal education and resources, the competencies were the number one item that staff across the district have wanted to focus on.  The work in our schools has been exciting and inspiring.  Teachers and administrators are working together looking at all aspects of teaching and learning and what the shifts mean for them, and their students.

As we get closer to September, there will be anxiousness around resources. We need to look to avoid the easy solutions of books or programs that promise to ‘cover’ the curriculum.  There will absolutely need to be new resources over time to support the new content, competencies and inquiry-based focus of the curriculum.  Aboriginal education, in particular, is an area that has not been well covered in previous resources and is embedded across all areas in the refreshed curriculum.

Just as the curriculum has been a process rather than a proclamation over the last several years, so should the work to find resources to support the students, teacher and classroom.  I think we need to think carefully about format – how much digital and how much paper based?  We need to  think about consistency – which resources should be standard across classes and schools?  We need to think of local vs. broad – which resources should be centred on the local community?  We need to think of content vs. process – should the resources be big ideas / inquiry focused or focused on subject content?  And what about professionally produced vs. locally teacher-curated resources?  And do we always need new resources – what do we have now that still works or could be used differently to support student learning?

I see some problem-based experiences that students do to support their learning and I see some other “new”resources that look like the old resources with a fresh coat of paint and where words like inquiry and problem-based learning were sprinkled throughout but little else changed.

And all of this is just the start. The refreshed curriculum is a real chance to also think carefully and differently about the resources we use to support learning.  And we know there is something reassuring when our children bring home backpacks of books – each one representing an area of study.

In our urgency to get up-to-speed with the changes in curriculum we should be thoughtfully looking for resources that help bring learning to life for our students and not ones that cover the new stuff in the older, familiar ways.

As I have said before, exciting times!

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What Comes First?

Posted in Assessment, Change, Personalized Learning, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 5, 2015| 18 Comments »

shift

Clearly you can’t change one part of the education system in isolation.  This is one of the great challenges we face in British Columbia – we have new curriculum, but does the assessment still match?  We have been given greater permission from the provincial government to think differently, but have we fully engaged our community in what the “different” would look like?

While it is true one cannot do everything at once, we all need entry points for transformation. First with school and district leaders in our district, and then with Superintendents from across Canada I have recently worked through trying to rank and prioritize these six system drivers:  Shifting Curriculum, Shifting Pedagogies, Shifting Learning Environments, Shifting Assessment, Shifting Governance, Shifting Citizen and Stakeholder Engagement. (click on the graphic below to enlarge)

www.c21canada.org wp content uploads 2015 05 C21 ShiftingMinds 3.pdf

The six items come from Shifting Minds 3.0 – Redefining the Learning Landscape in Canada. I have previously written (Here) about the power and importance of having a national conversation around transformation in education.

I realize it is a bit of a false discussion – you can’t do any of these separate from each other.  In part from being influenced by my local and national colleagues, if we started with one – I would start with pedagogies.

At its core, learning is about the relationship between the teacher and students.  We can have the best curriculum, policies or assessment, but first we need the practices.  As our pedagogies change, our assessment will follow.  And new pedagogies and new assessment will beg for new curriculum and these changes force both shifts in policy and engagement.  And finally our learning environments should reflect our practice so as the practices change the learning environments will follow.

What do you think – if you could start with only one – which one would you select?

Our group of Superintendents from across the country is committed to our own learning starting with shifting pedagogies – it will be interesting to see what we can learn from each others successes and challenges from across the country.

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The Healthy Tension

Posted in Assessment, Change, Personalized Learning, tagged , on September 30, 2015| 3 Comments »

tensionI know the word tension is often viewed as a bad thing. I think there is a frequent healthy tension when it comes to change in education. And I am feeling it right now.

In a post-standardized and personalized learning world how do we decide which  structural decisions are at the class, school, district and system levels?

One area we are seeing this tension right now is around reporting.  Should reporting look the same across the board in a school?  Across a district? Across a province?  These are all good questions.  Traditionally reporting in British Columbia has generally looked the same across the province.  The Ministry of Education sets out the rules that see students have a certain number of formal and informal reports each year.  Across the province, letter grades and work habits are used in a fairly consistent manner.  And I get it, as students move from community to community or graduate into the world of post-secondary school or work, having some common elements of reporting help make the system run smoothly and clearly.  While those of us in the system have been openly questioning the current reporting structures, I appreciate the larger community often feels assured knowing that there is some sameness when it comes to assessment.

Recently, many districts (including West Vancouver) have been looking closely at different ways of reporting.  And thus the healthy tension within education.  We have some outstanding report card pilot projects in our district and we have decided that the work in different schools needs to inform a common district approach to reporting.  For this fall we are looking at a new common approach to reporting in both Kindergarten and Grade Four.  These new reports flow out of the work we are doing around the curriculum changes in BC.  Of course with diverse programs like IB and French Immersion, even our efforts to have a common approach to reporting will be nuanced.  I know other jurisdictions have held tightly to common reporting across the entire system, while others allow incredible autonomy at the teacher level.

My general view is that wherever we work really influences how collective we need to be.  As a teacher, I often didn’t feel what I did in the class needed to be connected to what was happening in other classes, I just needed consistency throughout my teaching.  As a principal I strived for consistency in the school but didn’t always feel we needed to be consistent with other schools.  As a Superintendent I feel the need to create some common structures across the district, and I see those at the Ministry of Education trying to ensure some common approaches across the province.

As I stated, it is a healthy tension between the class, school, district and system level on a variety of topics as the tension helps open up the conversation.  Whether it is determining what body of content all students in a school, district or province need to know; deciding if there should be a common set of digital tools for teachers and students; or identifying reporting structures that should be consistent in a system there are important conversations to have.  And continue to have.

I have said in presentations that “schools are not fast food franchises” each should have their own signature reflective of the community in which they exist.  I also often say those in schools, “are more than just a group of independent contractors who share a parking lot.”  It is a balancing act to see both these concepts at work.

As we continue to see change in our system, we need to be continually thoughtful and mindful of the parts that must to be consistent across schools, districts and the system.  There is not necessarily one right answer, but the rich conversations that come from these decisions should make our system better.

 

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Being Out There

Posted in Change, Personalized Learning, SD45, Social Media, tagged , , , , on September 10, 2015| 2 Comments »

out thereI am often told that in the type of job I hold, it is better to say nothing. I am told it is a no-win situation, if you communicate, no matter how positive the message there will be some who take issue to what you say, how you say it, or twist your words and use them against you. And I have experienced all of that.

I do think it is our job to be out there.  And while the most important messages that parents receive from the system are from their child’s teacher, and the next most important are usually from the school’s principal, it is also important for superintendents to communicate directly to families.

In the digital world, this message can take many forms and often needs to come in multiple forms to reach people.  I know this blog is just one way to connect to our community.

This past week, I sent out the following back-to-school email to all the parents in our school district:

Our schools were open last week, preparing classes, planning activities and taking some time to reflect on the past and the future of education. We enjoyed welcoming all our new and returning families today, and hope that you’ve had an enjoyable summer break.

Over the summer, I heard many remark on how good it will be to get back to a ‘normal’ school year. And while I understand where that’s coming from, in light of the challenges we faced a year ago, this year in West Vancouver Schools, I’m asking our teachers, students and parents to challenge the validity of normal. As I wrote about in my blog, The Culture of Yes, normal is about average, and as many who work, learn and teach in our district already know, West Vancouver Schools is an exceptional place.

On Thursday last week, as we do every year, we launched the new school year by inviting all staff to attend an Opening Day morning event, followed by an afternoon of professional development. We were so privileged this year to hear from one of the world’s foremost experts in education, Dr. Yong Zhao. His ideas are inspiring, especially in light of the move towards the new curriculum.

Dr. Zhao spoke passionately about the evidence that shows all schools need to move away from educating for the average, to educating the individual. Rather than fixing ‘deficits’, we need to help children become great, achieve their autonomy and enhance their potential.

Fortunately, this work has been underway for some time in the district, with our work on project-based learning, inquiry, self-regulation and digital literacy. The curriculum doesn’t teach – teachers do that. A litany of specific education outcomes does not guarantee success, student motivation, passion and talent contribute to that outcome.
We are, I am proud to say, making sure that our students not only understand the facts – which are widely available in the digital age – but also understand how to interpret them and use them creatively to solve the right problems.

We are teaching kids to take on a world that is far different than it is today. It is critical to instill the creativity, confidence, compassion and resilience that young people need to embrace those changes.

Along with the Board of Trustees and my colleagues at West Vancouver Schools, we wish you a successful and pleasant year ahead!

I never know how many people read these emails that I send out, but I know from those who respond that there is definitely some engagement.  I always get some very kind responses, appreciative of the information and always some that take issue with the topic – that is what happens when you put yourself out there.  Whether the concern is about the role of technology in schools and more broadly in society or whether personal experiences in schools are reflective of what I am saying – the engagement is encouraging.

This past time I was struck by two particular responses – one from a mother in Italy who wrote:

My son started just yesterday his school year and is absolutely thrilled about West Vancouver school, new friends and the programs that can be accessed.  I look forward to hearing about you and any news you will forward to me

and from a father from Germany who wrote in part:

I am very proud that my son is taking part in this terms school program to learn, how different countries estimate the importance of educational background in complete different ways. In Germany we have nowadays a huge discussion about inclusion on the one hand and reduction of school years. What we do not have, and it hurts me to say it this clear, is a discussion about elite in the most positive meaning of the word, about investment in the most precious „resource“ we have — our children and their education.

What a great reminder that we are really communicating for a global audience.  I sometimes get stuck in my thinking that my messages are going out to the people within a few mile radius, in my mind who have always been here, and with whom I already have a largely shared experience.  Of course this is not true.

In our schools which have students from around the world, coming from a range of systems and experiences, messaging with them is not only a nice thing, but the right thing.  The revised curriculum conversation in British Columbia may be covered on our local 6:00 news, but we need to reach all of our families and engage them in our conversation.  And whether one lives around the block or on the other side of the world, continually coming back to messages of what we are doing and where we are going are crucial.

Some good first week reminders for me.

I do think with the power of the tools we have, we need to take up the opportunity to communicate more than just when we are thinking about closing schools because of snow.

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Keeping a National View

Posted in Change, Personalized Learning, Professional Development, tagged , , , , , on May 5, 2015| 4 Comments »

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I was pleased to contribute to the recently published paper – Shifting Minds 3.0 – Redefining the Learning Landscape in Canada.  The paper is authored by Penny Milton, the former long serving  head of the Canadian Education Association, and had contributions from more than twenty superintendents across the country, among others.

I have written before about the value of a national conversation in education.  Despite falling under the mandate of provincial governments there is huge value in building a learning network across the country.  As we embrace a post-standardized world, learning from jurisdictions across the country is essential, as we want all students in our country to be well prepared for the rapidly changing world.

There have been a number of papers written in recent years on the shifts in learning that we are seeing, and that we need to see, and I have given a lot of blog space to the great work I see on a regular basis in West Vancouver.  What is particularly valuable about the Shifting Minds 3.0 document is that the same conversations, the same areas of attention, and the same urgency, are being seen and felt across the country.   The work is both exciting and daunting:

The challenge for school district leaders is to extend the transformation to all classrooms and schools. Whole-system reform requires conditions that support educators in examining and reshaping the foundations on which their practice is built (leadership and management, as well as teaching) . . . Because education is complex and the stakes for students are high, a dual strategy of both improvement and innovation can offer a reliable way to maintain stability while enabling forward momentum.

The dual strategy notion of innovation and improvement is one we often talk about in West Vancouver.  Yes, the world has changed and the skills our learners need are changing.  But this change is within a context of having one of the highest performing systems in the world.  We are moving from a place of strength so stability must be alongside momentum.

It is interesting to see the work in British Columbia in the context of the country.  In reading this document, I get the sense that we are ahead with much of what we are doing.  The document describes three governance models and management approaches and we see all three in BC:

Central direction involves stakeholders in an iterative relationship of policy design and local implementation. This approach has raised academic achievement across the majority of schools. Success depends on feedback loops, with leaders and practitioners learning from and adjusting strategies as needed. Central direction can promote improvement in schools, but it limits innovation.

Non-intervention approaches allow school districts to respond to local contexts without the pressure of specific school improvement policies. In these cases, the central authority encourages rather than mandates the change. Some districts have been able to innovate under these conditions; others less so.

Enabling or permissive approaches encourage or support experimentation and innovation at the district and school levels. Some may enable innovation by the simple absence of a prescribed regulatory framework; others may develop specific innovations—for example, in curriculum or assessment. The advantage of this approach is that it allows the province to learn and try out alternative policy designs before attempting to replace one significant policy with another.

We also see all three of these approaches at work locally in West Vancouver.  We have spent a lot of energy  trying to foster enabling and permissive approaches, but it is important to use all three depending on the initiative and the circumstances.

Finally, the shifting system drivers described in the document are very useful.  It is not that the shifts are new, but it is an important reminder of their interconnectedness.  We are definitely shifting learning environments and pedagogies and working hard on shifting governance.  We are getting strong leadership from the province on shifting curriculum.  I see shifting assessment and citizen and stakeholder engagement, of the six, as the two we have the most work to do.  Very important to see they all must work together (double-click to open graphic in a full-page):

www.c21canada.org wp content uploads 2015 05 C21 ShiftingMinds 3.pdf

I encourage you to read the full document.  There are many documents on the topic of the shifts in education, from many organizations with many intended audiences.  This one nicely describes the challenge needed by those of us at a systems level.  It is an important challenge for us to continue to take on.

As the paper concludes, “change is inevitable; transformation is possible. System leaders create the conditions for transformation by encouraging leadership at all levels, imbued with the very attributes we are aiming to develop in young people—creativity, inquiry, collaboration, calculated risk taking, reasoned problem solving, and the capacity to learn from experience and face the next challenge.”

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