building a new box to think in raymond j. mcnulty, president international center for leadership in...
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Building A New Box To Think In
Raymond J. McNulty, President
International Center for Leadership in Education
Waukesha, Wisconsin
Nov 15, 2010
The Boston Globe
Ray, reading the paper on your “Kindle” or online just
isn’t the same!
Almost everyone wants schools to be better,
but almost no one wants them to be different.
Teacher – Student Comparisons
T – I make learning exciting for my students.
86%
S – My teachers make learning fun.
41%
“The future is not some place we are going to, but one we (you) arecreating. The paths are not found,
but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the
maker and the destination.”--John Schaar
Henry Ford quote…
• “If I had asked the public what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.”
The Horse
The Automobile
Current System
Something Different
We have been the OBJECTS of change for
an extended period of time now.
Superman ?
Stop waiting for Superman! … EDUCATORS –Can and
must become the SUPER HEROS!!!
WE need to become the AGENTS of change.
School leadership is a disposition for taking action..
International Center’s Definition of Leadership
Why I do this work….
The work becomes more difficult.
• School improvement is a process of uncovering and solving progressively more difficult challenges around student learning
(low hanging fruit theory)
This requires new learning from the adults.
Detecting improvement
• Changes in student performance lag behind changes in the quality of instructional practices. Changes in the classrooms are visible before you see them in external measures.
• Leading and Lagging Indicators
First practice must change, then policy
will change.
So what’s stopping us?How do we get ahead?
THEMES• Strategic Plan and Strategy
• The Challenge We Face
• Why Is It So Hard To Change?
• Best Practices, Next Practices and Innovation
• Empowerment
• Closing Thoughts
THEME
• Strategic Plan and Strategy
Just because you have the word strategic in your plan, it doesn’t
mean you have a strategy.
Strategic Planning v. Strategy
• Strategic plans are designed around large numbers of goals and initiatives. (usually too many)
• Strategy is a set of actions an organization chooses to pursue in order to achieve its objectives.
Strategic Planning v. Strategy
• Strategic planning is intended to be the vehicle for developing strategy.
• Strategy is about filtering the noise in these complex systems and deciding what must be done on behalf of the students and learning.
Strategic Plan -- -- Strategy
• Takes a broad incremental approach
• Includes discrete, unrelated initiatives
• Addresses an external audience
• Focuses on doing a few things well
• Integrates a few key initiatives
• Addresses an internal audience
THEME
• The Challenge We Face
In many cases, our efforts to transform education look
much like the original system.
SHREDDIES
We have a flawed perspective of always listening to our best
customers… They tell us how good the system is working for
them!
BANKING
• Sears
• IBM
• Digital…. “In Search of Excellence”
• Xerox
Schools are Improving
School Improvement
Schools are Improving
School Improvement
Changing World
National Essential Skills Study
NESS StudySubgroup Rankings
ELA Skill: Write clear and concise directions or procedures.
Group Rank
Overall 9
Business/Industry 2
Other Non-educators 10
English Language Arts Teachers
Other Educators 8
NESS StudySubgroup Rankings
ELA Skill: Write clear and concise directions or procedures.
Group Rank
Overall 9
Business/Industry 2
Other Non-educators 10
English Language Arts Teachers 25
Other Educators 8
NESS StudySubgroup Rankings
ELA Skill: Give clear and concise oral directions.
Group Rank
Overall 7
Business/Industry 3
Other Non-educators 9
English Language Arts Teachers
Other Educators 7
NESS StudySubgroup Rankings
ELA Skill: Give clear and concise oral directions.
Group Rank
Overall 7
Business/Industry 3
Other Non-educators 9
English Language Arts Teachers 28
Other Educators 7
NESS StudySubgroup Rankings
Math Skill: Apply the Pythagorean Theorem to right triangles.
Group Rank
Overall 20
Business/Industry 29
Other Non-educators 31
Mathematics Teachers
Other Educators 24
NESS StudySubgroup Rankings
Math Skill: Apply the Pythagorean Theorem to right triangles.
Group Rank
Overall 20
Business/Industry 29
Other Non-educators 31
Mathematics Teachers 4
Other Educators 24
NESS StudySubgroup Rankings
Math Skill: Understand accuracy and precision of measurement, round off numbers according to the correct number of significant figures, and determine percent error.
Group Rank
Overall 12
Business/Industry 3
Other Non-educators 10
Mathematics Teachers
Other Educators 8
NESS StudySubgroup Rankings
Math Skill: Understand accuracy and precision of measurement, round off numbers according to the correct number of significant figures, and determine percent error.
Group Rank
Overall 12
Business/Industry 3
Other Non-educators 10
Mathematics Teachers 30
Other Educators 8
The primary aim of education is not to enable students to do well in school, but to help them do well in the lives they lead outside of school.
We’ve created false proxies for learning…
• Finishing a course or textbook has come to mean achievement
• Listening to lecture has come to mean understanding
• Getting a high score on a standardized test has come to mean proficiency
Learning should have its roots in..
• Meaning, not just memory
• Engagement, not simply transmission
• Inquiry, not only compliance
• Exploration, not just acquisition
• Personalization, not simply uniformity
• Collaboration, not only competition
• Trust, not fear
• Basic Knowledge/Skills
• English Language (spoken)
• Reading Comprehension • (in English)• Writing in English • (grammar, spelling, etc.)• Mathematics
• Science
• Government/Economics
• Humanities/Arts
• Foreign Languages
• History/Geography
“Are They Really Ready To Work?”
Applied Skills
•Critical Thinking/Problem Solving
•Oral Communication
•Written Communication
•Teamwork/Collaboration
•Diversity
•Information Technology Application
•Leadership
•Creativity/Innovation
•Lifelong Learning/Self Direction
•Professionalism/Work Ethic
•Ethics/Social Responsibility
We forget some of the most important issues when we try to
change (transform) our work.
We need more artists, so here’s our plan.
REQUIRE ALL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS TO TAKE MORE ART!
We need more scientists and mathematicians, so here’s our
plan.
REQUIRE ALL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
TO TAKE MORE MATH AND SCIENCE!
What Works Best?
• REQUIRE
• MANDATE
• FORCE
• EMPOWER
• CREATE PASSION
• MOTIVATE
Mullis
MOTIVATIONEMPOWERMENT
MOTIVATION
Motivation is a key ingredient for success in learning.
“Empowerment and Motivation” are soft words,
people often question their importance because we can’t
accurately measure them.
We live in a world obsessed with science, predictability and control.
Some people believe if we can’t measure something, it must not
count!
We must consider the possibility that if we can’t purely measure something, it might be the very
most important thing!
Talking with kids…
It’s not us against them!
THEME
• Why is it so hard to change?
Why is it so hard to change?
• The more successful a system is, the more difficult it is to recognize when it must change. By example, market leaders are the last ones to transform.
• The American Education System, “The market leader during the industrial era!”
Market Leader Thinking
• Dominant logic: “That’s the way we do things here.”
Mental Locks
• We don’t need to be creative for most of what we do (driving, shopping, business of living). So staying on routine thought paths enables us to do many things without having to think about it.
• Our training in school life has taught us that there is one right answer.
• The Right Answer
The Second Right Answer
• What is the answer?
• What are the answers?
• What is the meaning of this?
• What are the meanings?
• What is the result?
• What are the results?
• The Right Answer
• That’s not logical
• SOFT • HARD
• Logic• Metaphor• Dream• Reason• Precision• Humor• Consistency• Ambiguity• Play• Work• Exact• Approximate
• Direct• Focused• Fantasy• Reality• Paradox• Diffuse• Analysis• Hunch• Generalization• Specifics• Child• Adult
• SOFT• Metaphor• Dream• Humor• Ambiguity• Play• Approximate• Fantasy• Paradox• Diffuse• Hunch• Generalization• Child
• HARD• Logic• Reason• Precision• Consistency• Work• Exact• Reality• Direct• Focused• Analysis• Specific• Adult
• SOFT
• Shades of gray
• Hard to pick up
• Many answers
• Flood light, diffused
• HARD
• Black and white
• Easy to pick up
• Right answer
• Focused like a spot light
Cat - Refrigerator
THEME
• Best Practices, Next Practices and Innovation
AYP
Research Based Successful PracticesTight Tight
Critical PointRemain Tight TightEmpowerTight Loose
Best Practices to
Next Practices
Best practices allow you to do what you are currently doing
a little better,
while next practices increase your organization’s capability to do things that it has never done
before.
Best Practices• Research Based• Imitation• Copy• Replication• Successful Practices Network
Best Practices
• Read 180
• I Can Learn
• Learning Together
NEXT PRACTICES
Best practices allow you to do what you are currently doing
a little better,
while next practices increase your organization’s capability to do things that it has never
done before.
Expertise can sometimes be a road block to problem solving and
the development of “Next Practices”.
Experts see their points as critical to resolution, without sometimes
valuing the thinking of others.
System Innovation
Sustaining Innovation
Next Practice
Disruptive Innovation
Marshmallow Challenge
NEXT PRACTICE THINKING
• The Iterative Process
• Versions
• Create a disciplined, managed space for development of new ways to accomplish difficult tasks
It’s very tough to get people to work in a system that is transforming itself
because :
• not easy
• not linear
• not predictable
• requires deep commitment
• requires high levels of thinking
• requires high levels of collaboration
College and Career Readiness Defined
• Cognitive strategies: Intellectual openness; inquisitiveness; analysis; interpretation; precision and accuracy; problem solving; and reasoning, argumentation, and proof.
• Content knowledge: Understanding the structures and large organizing concepts of the academic disciplines, resting upon strong research and writing abilities.
• Academic behaviors: Self-management, time management, strategic study skills, accurate perceptions of one’s true performance, persistence, ability to utilize study groups, self-awareness, self-control, and intentionality.
• Contextual skills and knowledge: Facility with application and financial-aid processes and the ability to acculturate to college.
David Conley
Next Practices
• Penn Foster
• Princeton Review
• Expert Space
• Expert 21
The Learning Criteria to Support 21st Century Learners ©
More Next Practices
Multiple Reading Scaffolds
Lexile Level:Lexile Level:600-800600-800
Lexile Level:Lexile Level:800-1000800-1000
Lexile Level:Lexile Level:1000-12001000-1200
Spanish TranslationsSpanish Translations
THEME
• Empowerment
“Empowerment” is a soft word,people often question its
importance because we can’t accurately measure it.
The Candle Problem
Daniel Pink : Motivation
• Autonomy
• Mastery
• Purpose
Motivation and Empowerment
• Passion to work for reasons beyond money and status
• Strong drive to achieve
• Optimism, even in the face of failure
• Organizational commitment
1 2 3 4 5
456
321
Bloom’sBloom’s
ApplicationApplication
CC D D
AA B B
20th Century
21th Century
THEMES• Strategic Plan and Strategy
• The Challenge We Face
• Why Is It So Hard To Change?
• Best Practices, Next Practices and Innovation
• Empowerment
• Closing Thoughts
The system is not to blame, we are, for not adapting it to our ever
changing world.
I can’t imagine anything worse than looking back at the opportunity before us in
education and thinking we blew it!
Building A New Box To Think In
Raymond J. McNulty, President
International Center for Leadership in Education
Waukesha, Wisconsin
Nov 15, 2010