In the short amount of time I’ve spent so far in the Westborough schools listening and observing, there is a theme to what I see and hear; opportunities and hard, rewarding work ahead.
Opportunities because throughout every school and every role our people dedicate their considerable talents and enthusiasm to helping kids develop into their best, world-ready selves.
Opportunities because technology amplifies our capabilities and accelerates our accomplishments by reducing barriers to information, people, ideas, means of action, and creative processes. As Jim Collins observed in Good to Great, technology amplifies and accelerates what organizations already do so we have the opportunity to amplify and accelerate our current successes and demonstrate student-centered, inquiry-driven, challenge-based learning that’s proudly shared with the world and contributes to the global knowledge-base. I see learning as a social activity, and technology that reduces the barriers to communication and collaboration can increase learning opportunities by enhancing existing social interactions and creating new ones.
Opportunities because we are so fortunate to have the community’s trust, backing, and encouragement to undertake challenges. We’ll be asking questions, taking risks, and trying new things. We’ll be reflecting on failure and learning in public, and we’ll be modeling to our students the skills and traits we hope to foster in them; perseverance and grit, a growth mindset, reflection and metacognition, creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration, inquiry and problem solving, digital citizenship and media literacy, leadership, and courage.
Technology amplifies our capabilities and accelerates our accomplishments but it is indiscriminate so it is up to us to make sure that it amplifies and accelerates the best of who we are and what we do. This is our chance to model to our students the skills and traits that turn our knowledge and experience into meaningful action. We’re already on the right track and as we see more and more learning and producing with technology and when technology is no longer an event but is woven seamlessly and invisibly into everyday practices and routines, we’ll know we’re making progress. When we all have the ability to quickly, easily, and reliably access the resources we need from where ever we are and when we’re including students in the process of recognizing and harnessing the technology opportunities to the service of learning, we’ll know we’re making progress. When all students are confidently choosing and using the most appropriate tools for them, both technology-based and traditional, for organizing their work, demonstrating their understandings, meeting their personal goals, connecting with the world, and accomplishing great things, we’ll know we’re making progress. When teachers and instructional leaders are working together across schools and grade levels and connecting and collaborating with educators across the state, the nation, and around the world to identify, implement, assess, and refine high-value practices that better meet our students’ learning goals, and when we are writing articles for respected publications and presenting our work at regional, state, and national conferences, we’ll know we’re making progress.
Getting there won’t be easy and will take lots of hard and rewarding work. Hard because we will all be challenged to step outside our comfort zone and to do so in public, and rewarding because we will grow and help our student grow. Hard because it will take a lot of sustained effort and energy to initiate and build momentum and it will seem to be slow going at first, and rewarding because we’ll start seeing returns as we invest our time and effort. Hard because as we learn there will be plenty of uncertainty, ambiguity, and challenges that don’t come with neat, simple answers, and rewarding because we’ll be proud of what we’re accomplishing.
The success of our efforts won’t be measured by narrow test results or calculated rankings. It will be seen in our individual and collective growth as we ask questions, identify challenges, expand our understandings and capabilities, and design, pilot, test, and improve new solutions and practices. It will be seen in what our students accomplish in the community and the world; during their school career and beyond. It will be felt in our pride and sense of accomplishment for what we’re creating and how we’re preparing our students, strengthening our community, and making our marks in the world.
I have a tremendous respect for the students, teachers, paraprofessionals, and administrators and I want us all to have the tools we need to do the work we know is important the way we think it should be done. That’s why our first goal is to create an infrastructure of empowerment focusing first on teachers, administrators, and staff and leveraging mobile devices for anytime, anyplace access and cloud services for communication and collaboration while working to design a user experience that’s smooth and seamless. Teachers should have the option to use laptops instead of desktops, the WiFi network needs to have the coverage to support them and the density to support the students, and the firewall/content filtering policies need to be able to recognize the users and allow access appropriate to their roles and developmental levels. It will mean making available to our faculty a range of inquiry-driven, challenge-based learning opportunities that will include sustained, graduate level professional development, teacher-led workshops, collaboration time, tech trainings, and self-directed research, all with opportunities to share what we’re learning with each other, our community, and the world. As we achieve these goals and deepen our understandings of the opportunities they offer, we’ll be able to include our students in the process of empowering their learning.
To get these done we must have both patience and urgency. Patience because it will take time to try new things, time to learn and grow, and time to be thoughtful and deliberate about how we examine and update our practices in the light of new opportunities rather than just jumping on a bandwagon. It will take patience with ourselves and each other as we work to continuously improve, iteration by iteration, by identifying issues and opportunities, prioritizing actions, and designing, testing, and implementing solutions. Urgency because we cannot delay. Time and opportunity are like a river flowing by, oblivious to our actions. We can sit on the bank and watch and wait or we can launch our boats and begin our journey. It is a learning journey of many years and we will need empathy as we support and challenge each other and work together through the research and development, design and testing, successes and failures, and disappointments and triumphs. We’re all experts on learning, we learn together, we take risks as we try new things, and we think in terms of growth and learning.
These are exciting times with so many opportunities and I’m honored that we’re on this journey together.
Additional reading & resources:
- Tony Wagner:
- The Global Achievement Gap
- Creating Innovators
- Daniel Pink
- Drive
- Angela Maiers - Connects David Weinberger’s networked learning, Yong Zhou’s entrepreneurial-making-your-own-job, and Tony Wagner’s Passion, Play, and Purpose with “Choose 2 Matter”, “world-worthy contributions”, “The Passion Driven Classroom”, and “Classroom Habitudes”.
Disagree? Agree? Not sure? Have questions or comments? Please join the conversation.
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