Brandon Busteed of Gallup made this interesting comment during a session at SXSWedu in Austin on Monday: “Apprenticeships double the odds that you end up engaged in your work over your lifetime.” This shouldn’t seem shocking to anyone in education, though it should give us pause. How many opportunities do we give kids to do
Learning From Masters Read More »
What’s required to build support for change in a diverse community? How do you tackle the big issues around change, when so many small ones are gathering momentum? What does it take to ensure that the day-to-day distractions that every school leader has to address don’t distract you from maintaining a focus on long-term sustainable
Diversity in a Complex World with Rafranz Davis Read More »
When you think about it, learning is a rather quaint, but deceptively powerful word which we continually use, abuse and misuse in our work almost every day. Yet we see it constantly trivialised and thrown about like confetti across so many different contexts it’s no wonder that it’s real meaning is then lost in so
The Only Skill That Really Matters Read More »
This week Will and Bruce dive into a deep conversation about literacy and confirmation bias. The conversation was triggered by the New Yorker article Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds by Elizabeth Kolbert. What Should Schools Be Doing? Will points out that he feels literacy is a moving target, and to some extent creators are
Confirmation Bias and Literacy – The ML Podcast Read More »
For those not yet totally overwhelmed by the information stacks and flows of the modern world, here’s a not so secret trick to pushing yourself over the edge. Login to your Google account. Go to Google Alerts Create an alert for “computers in education” Copy the RSS feed for that alert Paste into your favorite
How to Read “Tech in Schools” Stories Read More »
What does it take for a vision to become a reality, when you are able to build a change culture across a school or District? Specifically, what does it take for that culture to reflect a move away from the teaching toward learning and away from consuming to making. In this episode Will talks
Developing a Culture of Yes with Pam Moran Read More »
How often have you ever had to wait for a taxi that never seems to come, or in fact never does? And how do you respond to that prolonged wait? Frustration, anger? So, what was so different about Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp who, on a snowy Paris evening in 2008 also had trouble hailing
Dare to Re-imagine Read More »
Personal learning Will and Bruce talk deeply about one of the biggest buzz words in education: Personalized Learning. They riff on this article from Wired. Will is a long time advocate for personal learning and not personalized learning. You can read his blogs about it here and here. So, you might be wondering if there is
Learning is Personal not Personalized Read More »
Dr. Art Fessler on How Transparency Can Lead Change What’s one of the hardest moving targets for leaders to hit when it comes to change? Why would you want to create a branding guide for your district? Why is the common language so important when articulating what change means in your school? In this episode Will
How Transparency Can Lead Change Read More »
Remember 1849 when everyone seemed to be heading to California in search of gold? That’s the feeling I’m getting lately when it comes to change in education. Almost everyone seems to be trying to lay claim to “change” in schools these days. Chromebooks! Personalization! AI! It’s the new gold rush (though I doubt the football team
Raising the Bar on Change in Schools Read More »
Modern Learners Podcast Welcome to the Modern Learners podcast. We are excited to be launching this podcast as a way of connecting with our community. We’ll use this medium to give you a glimpse into the discussions we have at Modern Learners with each other and others in the education space doing interesting work We
Modern Learners Podcast Read More »
It’s time to raise the bar on our conversations around school change. For too long, we’ve been paying lip service to “transformation,” unwilling or unable to reimagine our work in schools in ways that are fully relevant for the realities of the modern world. And as we pursue half-measures to become “better,” we neglect the
10 Principles for Schools of Modern Learning Read More »
A snowy start to the year can certainly slow things down a lot in the North of our planet, and below the equator, a sharp dose of summer will mean lying on beaches to enjoy the end of the summer vacation. So maybe we all did need a wake-up call to get us going this
Who is Paying Attention? Read More »
From the outset, understand that I have no idea where this post is going to end up. It’s one of those posts that’s going to have to write itself, struggling from one sentence to the next, stepping down a path that’s not real visible to some unknown destination that may or may not be a place worth
Education’s “Alternative Facts” Read More »
Have you ever found yourself looking for something when you don’t know what it is that you’re looking for? It usually happens when you are looking for solutions to a problem and you find habits of your past distract you from thinking clearly, and the most obvious answers evade you. In many ways, I think this reflects
In Search of the Most Amazing Thing* Read More »
