There is a world of infinite possibilities available to all of us on any given day at any given moment. As much as we would all like to believe that ideas are singular and spontaneous moments of insight and genius, that simply isn’t true. Ideas form in networks. This is the concept of the adjacent potential, which originated from Stuart Kauffman’s work with biological evolution. Without getting too technical and scientific, Kauffman, a theoretical biologists, is...
I just can’t wait anymore! There is such a sense of urgency when it comes to innovating public education. As an educator, I am charged with guiding students to their fullest potential. I am not a sage or an expert or even a guru. I am a teacher. And for me, that means stepping aside and letting the students shine; letting them discover their passions and play out their curiosities. It takes courage to admit...
I love this graphic by John Spencer and I have been using it heavily when explaining innovation to teachers and administrators. It’s simple, but not easy. In fact, no one ever said that innovating would be easy. When you look at the long list of innovators: Steve Jobs, Leonardo Da Vinci, Ada Lovelace, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, etc… not a single one of them innovated easily. They all struggled...
When was the last time you believed that you could change the world? I was ten years old. Fifth grade. I remember going out on the field for recess. It was an incredibly windy day that afternoon; the kind of wind where you could almost lean forward into the gusts and you didn’t fall down. Buster Keaton style. I got this crazy idea that I would attempt to stop the wind. I grabbed two sticks...
What is the purpose of a curriculum map? Let’s think about that for a minute. The academic definition: “Curriculum mapping is the process indexing or diagramming a curriculum to identify and address academic gaps, redundancies, and misalignments for purposes of improving the overall coherence of a course of study and, by extension, its effectiveness (Hidden curriculum, 2014). However, most teachers use a curriculum map in the same way we use Google Maps: finding...
Oftentimes, I hear teachers complain about how difficult it is to get through their prescribed curriculum. With only about 180 school days in the year, it is estimated that students spend on average between 20 and 25 hours every school year taking standardized tests (Strauss, 2015). That is about 2.5% of the school year sitting and taking a test. You also need to consider the amount of time teachers spend preparing students for standardized tests...
Improving student achievement begins with evidence-based leadership strategies for improving the quality of instruction. Successful leadership (a) reinvents leadership practices to use a distributed leadership style, (b) organizes school supports for school improvement, and (c) turns schools into equitable centers of high-quality education. In the following sections, I will describe leadership strategies that reflect current research on best practices for teachers and administrators. I will end with explaining how these interventions will produce significant gains...
When was the last time you believed that you could change the world? I was ten years old. Fifth grade. I remember going out on the field for recess. It was an incredibly windy day that afternoon; the kind of wind where you could almost lean forward into the gusts and you didn’t fall down. Buster Keaton style. I got this crazy idea that I would attempt to stop the wind. I grabbed two sticks...
Research indicates that very few students of color view themselves as STEM learners when investigating a question or problem in their community (Darling-Hammond, 2010). Because previous research indicates a lack of diversity in STEM education and careers and specific schools structures that support successful STEM integration, there is a greater need to research what elementary school structures support students of color in STEM curricular areas (Martin, 2008; McGee & Martin, 2011; Moore, 2008; Tate, 1994;...
