All Things Learning

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. Over the last decade I have had the good fortune of working as a leader in educational organisations of very different sizes. For a reference point, the smallest organisation was approximately a team of 50 serving about 100 students at a single physical location, and the largest organisation is still growing with a team of 250+ serving 5000+ students (aiming to serve 20000+) across multiple locations.  In addition to this, my opinions have been influenced by journeys along growing schools - from starting up in its initial years to a full fledged large school. During this time, I realised that the size and scope of the organisation presents unique opportuni

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 deceptive data that almost made a nurse commit a fatal mistake A nurse, Mary, notices that a baby in the NICU is starting to turn blue. Her colleague, also a nurse, looks at the heart monitor - it shows a beating heart so she deduces that it is a respiratory issue and quickly prepares to support the baby's lungs. But Mary takes one look at him and says ‘It’s his heart!’. She knows it is pneumopericardium - where the sac around the heart gets filled with air and

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. Here are 5 ways to nourish Patient Optimism: Come back to your vision and purpose often - Use your long term vision to remind yourself and team WHY you do what you do everyday. Recognize the power of compounding in learning communities - it will help delay gratification and help you stay strategic and focused Stay consistent in action - important, lasting changes happen incrementally more often than dramatically/ disruptively Be realistic and reasonable about hassle - Be realistic about the context and develop some tolerance for hassle, it will help you continue steadfastly in the face of inevitable hinderance Make change visible - do your best to make both incremental and long term change visible to your team

  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 In the past 10 years I have seen far too many misunderstandings transpire between team members, and too often an innocent little email has been the culprit. ‘Assume that everyone reads email with an inner voice that is yelling it out to them’.  This sounds ridiculous but is one of the truest tips I have ever received and it has served me well. We tend to write an email that way we speak face to face, and we can hear all the smiles and voice modulations in our head. But the reader isn’t getting any of these very important cues and instead, is reading the words out with a completely different orchestra of emotions and tones playing in their heads. Here

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. I became a reader around age 31. This blog is for all the wannabe readers out there. Most of my 'avid reader friends' cannot relate to my experiences or learning because they have already found conventional ways to be very effective for them (much like my own positive experiences with math within our very traditional system). When it came to reading, I wasn't as fortunate when I was younger. Here are 5 principles that helped me become a purposeful, enthusiastic, consistent, engaged (but still slow to moderate) reader: Content: What do you want to read? 1. Find what you love to read. Everyone doesn’t enjoy the same content.  I love reading non-fiction, I do not enjoy reading fiction. I’d rather watch netflix. My go to genre is non-f

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' I finally made some time to review the screen time literature review published by our Acres Foundation Research team. Full disclosure - the 3 authors are my husband, a close colleague/ friend and an ex-student turned close colleague/ friend all of whom I have known and worked with for over 10 years now.  However, I do believe this is a very pertinent topic and I wanted to share my perspective as a parent, school leader and an Edtech optimist. 1. My big takeaways In Education today, with emergent and fast changing EdTech, it is more important than ever to study existing screen time research with a discerning eye .  If not, we r

  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. I just read ‘ Failure to Disrupt’ by Justin Reich . It was a wonderful book that offers a wonderful big-picture perspective on Ed Tech. It summarises the history and evidence-base for different Ed Tech initiatives and also provides many helpful Ed Tech mental models.  Here are some of the most important pieces from my reading notes!

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. I think I have recognized an obsession of mine - the pursuit of “win-wins”. I want to successfully achieve my personal goals, but not at the cost of other people around me. I want them to win too, or at the very least, not put them down in order to win myself. And the more I learn, the more I realize this may just be an achievable, sustainable, full-filing, life-long pursuit.   It all started with my hatred for being hated. I’ll admit that in my youth, a fairly uninspiring thought paved the way to this win-win obsession. I never wanted anyone I interacted with to leave with a negative feeling. If you are a fan of ‘The Office’ like me, you will remember Pam admitting to the camera, ‘I hate the idea that someone out there hates

  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)

The idea: Distributed Leadership is a powerful tool for building learning organizations that continuously learn and innovate. But central to distributed leadership is also a balance of top-down and ground-up approaches : Shared vision driven by leaders but influenced by individuals; Autonomy balanced with individual responsibility; Psychologically safe environment for collaboration balanced with honest, open dialogue; Experimentation and risk-taking balanced with individual/ team competence and discipline. In my previous blogs I introduced the synergy of Distributed Leadership  and a Culture for Distributed leadership . In this blog, I will expand on key supporting features and the simple but important balancing forces needed to make Distributed Leadership approaches thrive. While I was discovering the importance of these balancing forces through my work, I came across an article in Harvard Business Review - The hard truth about innovative cultures that put words to my experiences and