All Things Learning

The Idea: Finding the right balance between "impossible" stretch goals and "possible" achievable goals is key to achieving success in complex systems such as education. Both types of goals serve important purposes, with stretch goals providing a bold vision and inspiration, while achievable goals provide practicality and encourage action. By combining the two, you can create a dynamic that inspires innovation while also ensuring that progress is sustainable and tangible!

The idea: The size of your School/ Organisation can offer unique advantages to your strategy for creating impact.  Smaller schools can leverage quick alignment on Vision and Culture and Organisational Agility. Larger schools can leverage Institutional knowledge, Diverse/ Specialised Teams and Centralised resources for scaling impact.

Here is a list of books that have influenced my thinking in different areas. They have been a very important source of guidance in my journey as a school leader. So I thought it would be a good idea to compile and share some of them for anyone who might benefit!

The Idea: Data-informed decision-making is very valuable, but the users must also ‘know their data’. This means that users should not just jump to drawing conclusions for data they have access to, but also know what specifically the data is measuring, and how the data was collected. Without this crucial aspect of data literacy, the user is susceptible to deception by data. Encouraging questions and conversations during the data analysis process can support the development of this ‘know your data’ aspect of data literacy.

The Idea: Patient Optimism is important for anyone striving for Transformation in Education. Change in this complex context is more likely to be incremental, and brought about by the advancement of both - technology and thriving communities, together.

  The idea: Emails are used frequently for communicating at work and a few small adjustments can go a long way in ensuring your message is received as you intended. These include 1) Setting context quickly before diving in 2) Asking Questions 3) Offering support or inviting clarification 4) Using emoticons to give your written voice a tone

The idea: Explore to discover the right content (what you want to read), purpose (why you want to read) and mode (how you want to read). Find a combination that is works for you. This can lead to sustained, enjoyable and impactful reading habits.

The idea: This quote from the paper summarizes the message: 'For parents and educators, we suggest that, “it is time to move beyond a heavy focus on risk with little exploration or recognition of opportunities ”, and instead leverage the strengths and benefits of ST in a purposeful way while mitigating any associated risks during these exceptional times'

  The Idea: Stay optimistic about Edtech but also think Long Term. Sustainable Change is most likely to be incremental, especially in complex educational systems. Edtech along with Learning Communities, has the best chance of bringing about positive sustainable change at scale, in education.

The Idea: Consider pursuing Win-Wins or Positive-Sum partnerships, they can be a high leverage path to team success.  Positive sum situations are those in which many people can gain, as opposed to zero-sum games in which if one person wins, someone else must lose.

  THE IDEA: Because educational challenges are complex, typically educators receive an ocean of well-meaning but unviable suggestions from ‘Backseat Drivers’. My personal opinion is that we educators find the ‘Passenger seat Pals’ more helpful. These contributors are curious and not cynical; they look to genuinely solve problems instead of complaining / protesting; they look to collaborate with educators rather than to ‘school the educators’; they ask questions to understand the challenges and learn together, rather than making dramatic statements or proclamations to disrupt or sway opinions.

The Idea: Be thoughtful about which math strategies you use or choose to equip students with. Use these 5 important questions (adapted from Adding it up ) to understand what each math purpose each math strategy serves: Transparency: Does the strategy help me understand the concept better?  Efficiency: How productive is the strategy? Does it reduce the time/effort?  Precision: Does the strategy give you a precise answer or an estimate? Clarity: How easy is the strategy to use? Is it easy enough to implement on my own? Generality: How transferable is the strategy? Can I apply it to many other situations or will it work just in this one context? You can use these key questions to help your students choose the most appropriate strategy based on the needs of their problem (for example, does our problem require a precise answer or an estimate? Do we need to break down the problem to understand it better? Do we just need to compute something quickly?) 

  The idea: Work that impacts student learning is the most important work. We need to to prioritize this work over less important tasks that fall on a teachers' plate. This can be done by (1) Prioritizing - knowing which tasks are most important and making time to do them first; (2) Optimizing - ensuring that productivity and collaboration are happening in the most optimal way possible; (3) Empowering the team to prioritize their work and optimize their time effectively.

The Idea: School Leaders need to look out for ‘Positive Outliers’ - the few team members that tend to be unconventional problem solvers in their workplaces, even with the same challenges and resources as their peers. Leaders must recognize the potential of their ideas and knowledge and leverage them for solving the many complex challenges that schools encounter.

The idea: ‘What-Why-How’ - a structure to communicate any idea powerfully. This works well for Teacher Professional development, Classroom Lessons, Team communication on new initiatives or programs.  The What-Why-How structure has been my go-to structure for communicating important ideas to anyone. I have been using it for 5 years now and it has improved the quality of my communication tremendously.  Let me use the What-Why-How structure to describe the What-Why-How structure!

  The Idea: A lot of Assistive Technology for students that was designed for specialized purposes is now becoming mainstream. This means it is easier to afford, acquire, integrate into existing systems and transfer to out-of-school contexts. This leads to longer-term gains and more empowered learners. For this reason, it is ideal for educators to first check if mainstream tech solutions meet their needs before choosing more specialized options. While working with teams to support inclusive education in schools over the last 7 years, we spent some time exploring assistive technology and accommodations to provide access to learners with specific needs like reading or writing difficulties. I had a major ‘aha’ moment along the way. Here it is in brief: The Challenge Many learners may need supports to learn optimally. For example let’s look at reading accommodations. The font in a textbook might be too light or small for a few students to read. So traditionally, we needed to find ways to en

The idea: An individual's learning experience is impacted by several environmental, physiological and socio-emotional factors. As educators, we must be aware of the impact that they can have on learning if we are to achieve 'Neurodiversity as the norm'.  I spent 5 years working at a special education school. That wonderful experience and community has dramatically impacted my outlook on learning and life. This 3 Part blog is me taking stock of the important principles I have learned (1) About Beliefs (2) About Learning (3) About Teaching. Maybe some of them will be useful to others too!  This is Part 2 - On Learning Here is the link to Part 1 - On Beliefs  Here is the link to Part 3 - On Teaching (coming soon) My experiences in Special Education brought to light some very important fundamentals about learning. We had few students but with very diverse learning profiles. I learned so much about things in the environment or brain that can impact learning. It is important for

  The idea: The massive progress we have made as a society in the 21st century encourages us to re-evaluate our existing paradigms and redefine what we believe is possible. I believe social and technological advances today have readied us to embrace ‘Neurodiversity as the norm’ and thereafter ‘Universal Design’ Approaches. I spent 5 years working at a special education school. That wonderful experience and community has dramatically impacted my outlook on learning and life. This 3 Part blog is me taking stock of the important principles I have learned (1) About Beliefs (2) About Learning (3) About Teaching. Maybe some of them will be useful to others too!  This is Part 1 - On Beliefs Here is the link to Part 2 - On Learning   Here is the link to Part 3 - On Teaching (coming soon)