Professional Learning for Busy Educators

Selecting new initiatives is important for administrators and teachers—but so is refusing to take on too much.

I love this image created by David Carruthers during #IMMOOC because I truly subscribe to Global Teacher mindedness.

Using technology and social media to reach beyond our classroom walls is both a passion and an obsession of mine. It is also the very anchor of student Digital Leadership. But this week has really given me pause to think about not only the importance of global connectedness, but also the nature of Innovation.

Eleven years ago Chris Lehmann and a committed team of educators started Science Leadership Academy (SLA), a public magnet school in Philadelphia that focuses on student inquiry through projects in a community that cultivates a culture of care. The school has been so successful over the last decade that the district has tapped Lehmann to help other schools get started or transform themselves.

“We’ve learned a lot and it’s been fascinating for me thinking about what it was like to go through the SLA process and then working with people who have different missions, different visions,” Lehmann told a room full of educators at the school’s yearly conference, EduCon. SLA is now part of an Innovation Network of eight district schools that each have their own take on transforming the traditional model of education. Throughout the process of opening or transforming schools, training staff and sustaining the work, Lehmann and others working on the Innovative Schools Network have gained some clarity on five areas that leaders need to consider for change to be successful.

Eleven years ago Chris Lehmann and a committed team of educators started Science Leadership Academy (SLA), a public magnet school in Philadelphia that focuses on student inquiry through projects in a community that cultivates a culture of care. The school has been so successful over the last decade that the district has tapped Lehmann to help other schools get started or transform themselves.

“We’ve learned a lot and it’s been fascinating for me thinking about what it was like to go through the SLA process and then working with people who have different missions, different visions,” Lehmann told a room full of educators at the school’s yearly conference, EduCon. SLA is now part of an Innovation Network of eight district schools that each have their own take on transforming the traditional model of education. Throughout the process of opening or transforming schools, training staff and sustaining the work, Lehmann and others working on the Innovative Schools Network have gained some clarity on five areas that leaders need to consider for change to be successful.

In looking at leaders spearheading innovation, Harvard Business Professor Linda A. Hill has noted that while “all were visionaries capable of creating a vision and inspiring others to pursue it, none considered this their primary role. Instead, they saw themselves as ‘social architects’, whose role was to shape the context. They created communities in which others were willing and able to innovate.”

So how are school systems providing this space for teachers? In all sorts of ways. Here’s how two of them are spurring teacher innovation through new policies and programs, which may serve as a roadmap for others.

Here is a question I often get in workshops:

How do you focus on being innovative while still teaching the curriculum?

When I hear this, the viewpoint of “teaching the curriculum” and “innovation in education” is that the curriculum is on one side of the spectrum, and innovation is on the opposite side.

Working often as an outside consultant, I could tell teachers to not worry about the curriculum, “school is broken, and we need to fix it,” blah blah blah, but that would be irresponsible of me as someone who works with schools, but not employed directly.  While these teachers focus on “innovation,” they may also lose their job because they didn’t do what they were supposed to do.

What I try to get people to understand is that how we teach the curriculum, often, is the innovation.

I recently wrote about my journey toward empowering students through ownership. It began with a “throw away” week during state-wide testing when I felt the freedom to do something different. From there, I ultimately embraced this idea of student empowerment. However, I was afraid along the way.

So, let me share three ways to do innovative projects in the midst of standards and curriculum. Not because it is cool, or fun, or fancy. Because it is what works with our students, and has worked time and time again for retention.