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Posts Tagged ‘Michael Fullan’

Leaders Lending Their Calm

Posted in Change, Health, tagged , , , , on November 21, 2023| 2 Comments »

I love this notion that a leader can lend their calm.

I was recently listening to The Canadian-Ed Leadership Show hosted by Dean Shareski and his interview with the former  Director General of the Lester B School Board in Montreal, Michael Chechile.  He was relaying a story from Michael Fullan.  Chechile, quoting Fullan, said, “you don’t only show your calm as a leader but you lend your calm.”  This is such a wonderful extension to what we often say about modeling the calm we want in others.

Calmness is such an important quality in school leadership. As Chechile describes, it is one of the soft skills that you need to be a team player.   This notion of lending your calm is also referenced in the work of Stuart Shanker, someone who has greatly impacted my thinking – when their storm meets your calm, co-regulation occurs.  While it can be great in the classroom with students, the same principles apply in the interactions school and district leaders have with other adults in our work.

I really like this simple idea of lending your calm to someone else. It can mean offering a sense of tranquility, reassurance, or stability to another person during a stressful or challenging situation. It involves sharing a peaceful and composed presence to help someone feel more at ease or supported.   I am sure it is true in many professions, but I can speak with most authority in the school setting, that calmness from school and district leaders can be one of the most important qualities in times of heightened emotions.  

This idea of extending emotional support and helping others navigate difficult moments by sharing your own inner sense of peace or calmness is very powerful. This act can be particularly valuable in situations where someone is feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or stressed, as your quiet presence can have a calming effect on them.

When I think to the specific work of school and district leaders, lending our calm can:

  • exhibit leadership presence
  • manage a crisis
  • help in decision making
  • assist in communication
  • build support and confidence
  • model resilience
  • promote wellness

School and districts leaders seem to be faced with increased situations of heightened emotions.  This simple idea of lending one’s calm, can help reframe these situations, and help us slow down and react more thoughtfully.

Thanks Dean, Michael, Michael and Stuart for sharing this thinking.

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Targeting Technology for Maximum Student Benefit

Posted in Change, Professional Development, Social Media, Technology, tagged , , , , , , on January 22, 2012| 9 Comments »

My apologies up front if this comes across as part blog-post, part infomercial.

I am really looking forward to being part of the upcoming symposium: Targeting Technology for Maximum Student Benefit, to be presented by the Centre for the Study of Educational Leadership and Policy at Simon Fraser University.

While much has been bandied about around technology relating to the BC Education Plan, we’ve only just touched the surface. So far, much of the conversation and views expressed have taken quite a simplistic approach;  the conversation has fractured on the one side to notions of embracing personal devices as forward steps to a privatized or American-style public education system, and on the other of charging ahead noting that increased digitization of schooling is inevitable.

The SFU session on February 9th will (hopefully) allow for deeper discussions. Coquitlam Technology Leader, Brian Kuhn, and I have been each given an hour in the morning to respond to the following imagined scenario:

Imagine that you have a budget to support the educational use of technology in a school district that has previously constructed all the necessary technical infrastructure, but has not yet introduced a plan for the use of technology to support learning. Your budget is one-third of what you would require to do all that you feel would be effective given the rate at which staff and students can learn to effectively employ technology.

 Provide a way of thinking about the broad array of potential uses of technology in education, including a conceptual  overview of the options that you believe have been shown to be most important for improving student outcomes through ‘personalizing’ their learning in ways suggested by the BC Education Plan.

Describe how you would use the resources at your disposal over a 5-year period to initiate technology use in a way that would maximize both immediate and eventual benefit for students in a sustainable and generative fashion. Include a rationale for what you choose to do, and to defer.

It is an interesting and challenging scenario, and I am committed to pushing out some thinking, as well as to sharing some thoughts on the future (or perhaps, the lack thereof) of online learning, and a road-map embracing personally owned devices while ensuring equity, and how, using Michael’s Fullan’s words “We ensure we have the right drivers for this change”.

And, personally, as much as I think there is a list of things we could or should do, I also believe there is a list of things we need to stop doing, or not start doing, to keep our focus clear and on student learning as our goal. 

We need to commit our focus on Grades 4 – 10, to focus on a space for learning that allows for personalization, to have expectations for leadership from our administrators and librarians,  to have our learning leaders become our digital learning leaders and integrate, integrate, integrate with the arts, as well as throughout the curriculum.  

On the flip side, we need to take a critical look at the future of distributive learning, to not allow technology to solely report to the business side of our organizations, to be cautious and not go slate (iPad) crazy, and to be wary of digital ‘drill and kill’ or the ‘shiny new thing’ syndrome and, to  not get stuck in the endless loop of technology strategy planning sessions.

Following our responses and participant discussion, Kris Magnusson, SFU Dean of Education, will also have a chance to share his thinking on the above scenario, which will then lead into panel discussions.

I understand from Bruce Beairsto, who has organized the event, there are about 170 people who have signed-up including teachers, administrators, parents, trustees and other educators, leaving only space for about 10 more registrations.  You can find out more about the event from Bruce (here) or register directly (here).

Of course, you can also participate online via Twitter at #bcedsfu.

The simple idea of learning empowered by technology is not so simple.  The more opportunities we have to engage, challenge, press on, pushback, and move forward to some common thinking, the better it is for our system.

UPDATE – JANUARY 23RD – THIS EVENT IS NOW SOLD OUT!  MORE TO COME ON MY BLOG AND FOLLOW IT ON TWITTER AT #bcedsfu

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Michael Fullan and Advice on Moving Forward

Posted in Change, Personalized Learning, Professional Development, tagged , , , , , , on September 9, 2011| 2 Comments »

Michael Fullan is one of the architects of the current government of Ontario’s platform on education (here), and has recently written a widely cited paper Choosing the wrong drivers for whole system reform, which I have previously blogged about here.

While his most prominent work is with Ontario, Fullan has been working, on and off, with school districts and the Ministry of Education in British Columbia for more than twenty years as well.  This past week, along with two others very involved with innovation projects around the world, Valerie Hannon and Tony Mackay, Fullan spent a full day working with school superintendents highlighting several key concepts in the context of our work in BC.

From the 2010 McKinsey and Company Report, How the World’s Most Improved Systems Keep Getting Better, two findings were emphasized:

– When capacity is low, the source of new system ideas / action is the center

– When capacity is higher, the sources of system innovation is peers

These findings speak to our work in West Vancouver, and across BC.  We have very strong teachers, administrators and schools. We have already taken direction in finding formal and informal networks to improve and develop new practices.  In our district, we can point to a series of networks driving innovation.  While we have been focussed on enhancing our digital networks through blogs and Twitter, we do have other face-to-face networks supporting innovation.

Fullan also shared a list of key practices that district leaders need to focus on:

  • Change in district culture
  • Building district leadership
  • Small number of core priorities
  • Focus on assessment – instruction
  • Non-judgmental
  • Transparency of data
  • Principals as instructional leaders
  • Proactive re:  provincial agenda

While the list is not groundbreaking, it is a confirmation of the work so many of us are doing here.  To begin with, in West Vancouver, we have not been shy about encouraging our best teachers to take on principal and vice-principal roles, and to be our learning leaders — which is supported by Fullan’s list. The final point is also worth highlighting because so many schools and districts have taken up the challenge of personalized learning in BC.  Some have personalized the language around it, contextualizing it for their community, but have held to some of the core principles which I often summarize in 10 words when asked to describe the learning we are creating:  kids own it, teachers guide it, parents engage with it.

A final challenge that Fullan placed before superintendents was the need for us to engage in cross-district learning and thoughtful, district-government interface.  Again, this speaks to the work I have previously described to our principals and vice-principals as being co-petitive (competitive in a cooperative environment).  This is really what we want for teachers in schools, schools in districts, and districts in the province. Fullan described it as “mutual allegiance and collaborative competition”.

Over 700 people attended the BCSSA Fall Conference last November, and many more followed online.  The dialogue continued in many different ways throughout districts.  It is good to be challenged and supported by learning leaders like Fullan, who have track records in very strong jurisdictions. It is also a good reminder that BC is part of a global network trying to figure out where we need to go next with students and learning.

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Technology and Other Wrong System Reform Drivers

Posted in Assessment, Change, tagged , , , , on May 15, 2011| 22 Comments »

Michael Fullan is familiar to many in education (for those not familiar, here is a list of freely available articles).  He has long been an influential reformer in Canada and is currently  Special Advisor to the Premier and Minister of Education in Ontario.  Fullan’s May 2011 paper, Choosing the wrong drivers for whole system reform, tackles a topic many educators are looking at as we look beyond class, or even school reform. In his paper, Fullan lays out four criteria which, he argues, must be met by the drivers for change and reform at a district or system level:

  1. foster intrinsic motivation of teachers and students;
  2. engage educators and students in continuous improvement of instruction and learning;
  3. inspire collective or team work; and
  4. affect teachers and students — 100 per cent

His examination of the wrong drivers is compelling.  He suggests his list of the four wrong drivers of change have a lot of appeal and will be hard to dislodge:

  1. accountability (vs capacity building)
  2. individual teacher and leadership quality (vs group quality)
  3. technology (vs instruction)
  4.  fragmented strategies (vs systemic)

Fullan says, “The four wrong drivers are not forever wrong. They are just badly placed as lead drivers. The four right drivers — capacity building, group work, pedagogy, and systemness — are the anchors of whole system reform.”

All four of the ‘wrong’ and ‘right’ drivers are worthy of consideration, but I was particularly struck and reassured by his view of technology as a wrong driver, and rather instruction and smart pedagogy that must be the driver supported by technology.  Fullan says, “Technology as solution is the more seductive partner.”   He argues what we have been arguing in our district, “Teachers need to get grounded in instruction, so they can figure out with students how best to engage technology.”  Of course, it is often simpler to discuss who has what tools rather than the pedagogy.  Fullan, is clear that technology should not drive system change, but is also clear that we should “go all out to power new pedagogical innovations with technology.”

Key leaders can make a huge difference at this critical juncture. Jettison blatant merit pay, reduce excessive testing, don’t depend on teacher appraisal as a driver, and don’t treat world-class standards as a panacea. Instead, make the instruction-assessment nexus the core driver, and back this up with a system that mobilizes the masses to make the moral imperative a reality. Change the very culture of the teaching profession. Do so forcefully and you will find many allies. It is time to embrace, and relentlessly commit to the right drivers.

In a presentation last week, I discussed the changes we have seen in reform and focus in British Columbia.  We moved from a system of school accreditation, to district accountability, to where we are now, considering system-wide reform.  And this system-wide reform in British Columbia does not have us standing out there alone — there are similar conversations in other high-performing jurisdictions from Alberta and Ontario, to Finland.

Fullan’s list, while not breaking a lot of new ground for educators, is a good reminder of what should and shouldn’t drive our changes.  The challenge is making them, in appropriate combination, come to life.

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