Renegade Leadership

Creating Innovative Schools for Digital-Age Students

Brad R. Gustafson

• Publisher: Corwin
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781506334219
• eBook ISBN: 9781506334233
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Technology

Get ready to be a renegade with this how-to leadership guide.

We're all looking for the next best app and what's just beyond the tech horizon. But why don't we have the same progressive appetite for pedagogy that we have for technology? Renegade leadership may just be the answer we've been searching for.

Merging best practice with innovation, renegade leadership demands a call to action in the digital age by creating student-centered instructional leadership that connects equity, culture, and technology. After reading this book, you will learn how to:

• Apply transformational tenets of connected pedagogy to your work
• Increase your leadership capacity in curriculum, instruction, cultural proficiency, and school improvement
• Lead staff meetings, plan personalized professional development, and improve student learning through more responsive teaching practices

Using the latest research, vignettes from educational leaders, and profiles of inspiring renegades, this book challenges you to lead in the digital age. The only real question is…are you ready to become a renegade?


"Renegade Leadership is so crucial to the work that we do in education.  Why can't schools be the place that other organizations look to for innovation?"
George Couros, Innovative teaching, learning, and leadership consultant  and Author of The Innovator's Mindset; Alberta, Canada

"Dr. Brad Gustafson provides invigorating, concrete examples of strategic thinking and skills for educational leaders to fill the vacuum that exists in many educational settings. Gustafson asserts that leadership and change in education are irrevocably intertwined."
Jon Corippo, Director of Academic Innovation, CUE

"Renegade Leadership demonstrates what student-centered schools look like in the digital age. When we get relationships and pedagogy right, we can transform the very nature of learning. This is a book our students desperately need us all to read."
Erin Klein, Scholastic Top Teacher and Michigan Teacher of the Year

Chapter 1 Renegade Leadership Defined

Water-Cooler Questions

Whether you are having a dynamic discussion in a graduate class, coffee with a colleague, or sharing on social media, the following questions are designed to elicit reflection. You can also access the companion website’s forum at www.bradgustafson.com to see how other school leaders are responding.

Chapter 1. Renegade Leadership Defined: Guiding Questions

1. Why is pedagogical precision so important?
2. What practices do we need to pause or say “no” to in order to create space for innovative best practices?
3. How might the Renegade Leadership scale help inform our work?

Sometimes, I feel like there are two tracks running parallel to each other in education (see Figure 1.1). Both tracks are extremely important to our students and the future of their schools. One track is invaluable in that it represents best practice, timeless leadership truths, and what we know to be best for kids. The other track is lesser known and often misunderstood. It comprises innovative practices and unfamiliar opportunities for students, and it seems to be moving at a frenetic speed. Renegade Leadership is not about abandoning either one of these tracks.

Look-Fors

Pedagogical Precision

Renegade Leadership Traits

Moral Courage

Figure 1.1 Two Tracks

PHOTO CREDIT: Manfred Antranias Zimmer, Pixabay

Renegade Leadership is a convergence of best practice and innovation. It is about merging these two tracks to create a pathway that will lead to a promising future for our students. This book demonstrates how divergent thinking can help us create the digital-age schools students deserve—schools where learning is amplified. The book also reveals some of the lessons I’ve learned that can be attributed to my own leadership failures.

Failing publicly in front of staff is difficult enough, but writing a book that includes many of those failures takes transparency to a different level. Renegade Leadership will celebrate many of the breakthroughs our students and staff achieved, and it will not shy away from some of the mistakes I’ve made along the way. Regardless, the journey has been incredibly fulfilling because we’re seeing just what digital-age learners are actually capable of.

Renegade Leadership Defined

Renegade Leadership is instructional leadership for the digital age. It is child centered to the core. It is collaborative, connected, and combines the best of what we know with the best of what’s to come. The most distinguishing feature of Renegade Leadership is a blatant disregard for the impossible in pursuit of fulfilling our responsibility to prepare all students for their future.

Renegade Leadership is an approach to school leadership grounded in three core beliefs. Each of the beliefs is alone insufficient, but when wielded together, they become a powerful force for leading change in schools. The three core beliefs are as follows:

1. School leaders are instructional leaders who must also embrace the role of learner.
2. The world has become increasingly connected, and pedagogy must be responsive to these changes for schools to remain relevant.
3. It is our responsibility to prepare all students for their future. This will require connected school leaders who model ten Renegade Leadership traits.

Technology is changing at breakneck speeds, yet our beliefs about school leadership remain largely unchanged. Our schools remain eerily similar to those learning institutions established nearly one hundred years ago, especially when compared to the innovative environments around us. This book is for all school leaders who aspire to propel their schools into a modern learning paradigm through relevant leadership practices. These practices do not start with technology; they start with a pedagogy underpinned by relationships.

Epic Fail: Neglecting to Acknowledge Standard Work

Relationships require encouragement, nurturing, and recognizing the unique contributions each person makes in a school. I was reminded of this on Valentine’s Day, when my two youngest children shared a drawing and handwritten note with me. The note was adorned with hearts and gems created with different crayon colors. The thing that struck me most was the writing that my son (who was in kindergarten) had added to the card. I was so excited by his contribution that I completely neglected the lion’s share of the work my older daughter had invested into the card. This did not sit well with her.

She was devastated and rightfully so. Later that morning, she gave me a different note that simply stated, “My heart is broken right now.” So was mine, and if I’m being completely honest, I have inadvertently done the same thing to some amazing teachers I know. In my rush to celebrate new and innovative learning, I have, at times, neglected to celebrate some of the standard work our staff has worked very hard on.

Renegade Leadership is not exclusionary, nor is it a solo act. Renegade Leadership is for everyone. It honors the important work that’s currently being done while being mindful of a broader vision that celebrates risk-taking and child-centered innovation. As we’re exploring this new frontier in school leadership, it would be helpful if we had an explicit set of rules to guide our approach.

The Code of the West

Cowboys once lived with an adherence to an unwritten set of rules. As new frontiers were explored, and westward expansion continued, a cowboy code of conduct evolved. This “Code of the West” was a compilation of guiding beliefs that were generally accepted by cowboys, although not everybody followed them. Here are some examples:

• Cowboys agreed to never try on another man’s hat.
• They believed that a man’s word was his bond.
• A handshake was more binding than a contract.
• They drank their whiskey with their gun hand to show friendly intentions.
• The “Code of the West” called for saying “howdy” to anyone you’d pass on a trail.
• A nod was the proper greeting when a man was on a horse; waving could spook a horse. (Balmain, n.d.; Weiser & Legends of America, 2014)

Creating innovative schools requires more than unwritten rules. It requires a firm commitment to relationships and clear vision of what a connected pedagogy looks like. Renegade Leadership prioritizes relationships within a relevant and connected pedagogy.

The Renegade CODE

The Renegade CODE is a relevant and connected pedagogy that clearly establishes how relationships fuel four tenets in innovative schools. This book will expand on each of these tenets in subsequent chapters:

• Collaboration: Face-to-face collaboration and asynchronous collaboration enhance the student learning experience.
• Ownership: A commitment to student agency moves students from engaged pupils to empowered learners, creators, and contributors.
• Digital connectivity: Relevant learning means that modern technology is used in purposeful ways. This also means that there are times when technology may not be the best way to support learning.
• Experiential learning: We’re preparing all students for their future through immersive learning experiences.

Not every staff meeting or classroom lesson needs to include all four tenets. Great leaders exercise pedagogical discernment. For example, there are times when students are better served working independently and unplugged. The context in which the Renegade CODE is introduced also impacts the power of the pedagogy.

Best Practice and Innovation

When pedagogical discernment is exercised in an environment where best practice and innovation are present, learning is amplified. This book will feature inspiring stories from school leaders across the country who are amplifying learning. It will also provide practical advice to bring the same level of innovation to your school. As inspiring as some of the stories may be, a more theoretical foundation may be helpful as a starting place. The diagram in Figure 1.2 depicts the convergence of best practice and innovation.

Figure 1.2 Best Practice and Innovation Quadrants

One thing the diagram does not reveal is the role of resistance in the change process. Renegade School Leaders experience resistance because the higher we go on the innovation scale, the more change others experience. It’s also interesting to note that resistance can be a positive force when a school’s culture is healthy. For example, the longer a teacher and/or leader lingers in the diminished learning quadrant, the more resistance he or she will encounter. This typically translates to a rightward pressure toward the traditional learning quadrant, not an upward pressure toward innovation.

The traditional learning quadrant does tolerate minimal levels of innovation, and in some ways, it probably expects a scant amount. However, moving to the amplified learning quadrant will require innovation, best practice, and ten Renegade Leadership traits.

The Renegade Leadership Difference

The following Renegade Leadership traits will increase your leadership traction and ability to bring about amplified learning in your school. Some of the traits may be timeless, but when paired with a relevant pedagogy, they become digital-age difference makers. The difference between what’s best for kids and what used to be best is subtle yet profound. Taking today’s schools to the next level will require an understanding of how these traits can help drive change.

1. Pedagogical precision: We understand that pedagogy is like a steadfast conductor who keeps us on track. Against a torrent of change, pedagogy grounds us in methodology that is cohesive and student centered. By focusing on the Renegade CODE, our approach will be both relational and relevant to today’s learners.
2. Transparency: We make the vision clear, and our intent is known to all stakeholders. We use a diverse array of communication tools to authentically celebrate student and staff success. There is genuine humility in owning our failures, and true growth is the result. Transparency reveals our integrity and invites others into the mission.
3. Connectedness: We are connected in a genuine relational sense. Our connectedness flows from a spirit of collaboration and a learner’s mindset. The reality is that each of us alone is inadequate to do the complex work required of digital-age school leaders. Using face-to-face conversation and digital connectivity, our collaboration knows no bounds.
4. Inn...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Acknowledgements
• Half Title
• Acknowledgements
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Illustration List
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Introduction Renegades Needed
• Chapter 1 Renegade Leadership Defined
• Chapter 2 Relationships and Culture
• Chapter 3 The Renegade CODE
• Chapter 4 Collaboration for Digital-Age Students
• Chapter 5 Ownership Empowering Digital-Age Students
• Chapter 6 Digital Connectivity for Digital-Age Students
• Chapter 7 Experiential Learning Is Deeper Learning
• Chapter 8 Instructional Leadership for the Digital Age
• Chapter 9 Personalized PD to Empower Educators
• Chapter 10 Activate Your Renegade Leadership
• Resources
• References
• Index
• Publisher Note