Intentional Leader: Catalysts for Change

Monthly Theme: Change

Week 2

Change.

It. Is. Not. Easy.

 

Education and Change.

It. Must. Be. Different. To. Engage. Inspire. (our current students)

 

For those educators who are interested in taking time out of their work to really question their ideas, values and belief systems should take some time to view this incredible playlist of Re-imagining school TED Talks.

 

These videos are powerful as they allow us to question:

–         How is this change affecting my daily work?

–         What kind of professional learning support do I require to move forward in my teaching practice?

–         How can I share my learning and network with other teachers in my school, in my division, in the province and around the world?

–         Are there things that I am doing now that I should be stopping?

 

The Playlist consists of:

1)      Ken Robinson: Schools Kill Creativity

2)     Salman Khan: Let’s use Video to Reinvent Education

3)     Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the Cloud

4)     Daphne Koller: What We’re Learning form online Education

5)     Geoff Mulgan: A Short Intro to the Studio School

6)     Sugata Mitra: How Kids Teach Themselves

7)     Peter Norvig: The 100,000 Student Classroom

8)    Dave Egger: Once Upon a School

9)     Liz Coleman: Reinvent Liberal Arts Education

10)  Arthur Benjamin: Teach Stats Before Calculus

11)   Kiran Bir Sethi: Kids Take Charge

12)  Patrick Awuah: Educating Leaders

 

Watch these individually or with colleagues, you are certain to have some great conversations surrounding each one!

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Intentional Leader: Embrace Change to Avoid Complacency

Monthly Theme: Change

Week 1

As I look at my educational rooted surroundings, I am amazed at how much has changed since I went to school as a student. Yes, I could be dating myself in saying that when I attended K-12 school, the following educational learning conditions were present:

–         All students did all the same work

–         Videos were shown via 16mm film, VHS and Beta

–         Individualized work, memorization and proper study skills were predominant

–         I did have teachers who were passionate and engaged my classmates and I but that varied from year to year

–         Lots of paper and pen work, reading from textbooks, writing notes from a chalkboard or projector

And now, as an educator myself and former Assistant Principal, attending a K-12 school in 2013 now showcases:

–         Differentiation for a variety of student learning styles and student needs

–         Opportunity for students to interact with their environment through various media, with other classrooms throughout the world

–         Collaborative, cooperative learning environments

–         Thinking about the thinking = metacognition and building criteria to set a target/make a judgement on the learning experience (ie. Critical thinking)

–         Learning from online sources, developing own learning artefacts

–         More opportunities for student exploring, creating, imagining and aspiring

Changes that have affected our educational norms have been divulged via Sir Ken Robinson’s infamous February 2006 TED Talk on Schools killing creativity. As well, other changes, due to the internet revolution have challenged us as well. See an updated version of the Social Media Video 2013 below as well as the Social Digital Media Revolution Statistics that will have your head spinning as to the vast expanse and reach social media has on each one of us.