Learning Leader, The

Reflecting, Modeling, and Sharing

Jacqueline Jacobs, Kevin O'Gorman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781138150997
• eBook ISBN: 9781317923473
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

With this book, principals, principals-in-training, and other school leaders get practical, easy-to-implement strategies for professional growth, strengthening relationships with faculty and staff, and making the necessary changes to improve K-12 learning environments.

Grounded in specific, real-world examples and personal experiences, The Learning Leader shows educators how to develop both as professional leaders and as learners.

Contents include...

• Using data to improve student learning
• Advice for applying twenty-first century learning
• Tips for strengthening communication and collaboration
• Self-reflection activities to hone leadership goals and skills

Learning in the Twenty-First Century: What Is the Literature Telling Us?

Over time, educators have created a lexicon of buzzwords that any etymologist would be proud to study. Similar to the dialect of a teenage clique, teacher jargon confuses the outsider (and often the insider) and changes so rapidly that those who do not use the language daily can get lost over time. Words like rigor and engaged, concepts like high expectations and disabled are thrown around by educators as if everyone had a clear and agreed-upon understanding of their exact meaning. Educators hear these terms being used by peers and, in order to remain part of the club and to sound as though we know what we are talking about, we sling the same terms around. Typically, the sad reality of the education world is that teachers easily use new vocabulary, but they are not talking about anything new.

The notion of twenty-first-century learning is not necessarily a breakthrough in the evolutionary process of K–12 education, but it does remind us of our philosophical roots in the art of teaching. The importance of this emerging concept is that it points out some foundational practices that appear to have escaped the education world over the past 2,400 years and applies those practices to the skills needed in the modern workplace.

Reflecting. . .

Critical thinking is one of the buzzwords (or phrases) associated with twenty-first-century learning. It has been defined as “self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking” (Critical Thinking Community, 2010). Collaboration with others in order to solve problems is also considered a twenty-first-century learning skill. Interestingly enough, Plato and Xenophon created examples of the Socratic method, obviously named for Socrates, in Socratic dialogues around 400 BCE.

Is twenty-first-century learning something new, or has it just taken educators until the year 2011 to realize that they failed to incorporate the foundational and fundamental practices for thinking and learning that Socrates and Plato tried to teach so long ago?

After many years in education, Kevin readily admits his father was right. Readers no doubt can empathize with how difficult that can be to say. His father, a longtime educator in public schools, used to lecture all his highschool-age children that “the problem with the education you are receiving is that it does not include classes in philosophy.” No one was teaching Kevin and his siblings how to think about the content they were learning. The Socratic method, for example, was not a strategy that they were taught in high school—and it is not being taught in most public schools currently. Today, we will take Kevin’s father’s concern about the lack of philosophy in the schools a step further. As educators, our initial charge should be that we are to teach our students how to think, and then we should use content (English, math, science, social studies, the arts, etc.) as a venue through which to teach thinking. In order to make that cultural shift, educators will have to retreat from an educational philosophy that shaped the current system more than 120 years ago and engage themselves in twenty-first-century learning.

Sharing Perspectives On Twenty-First-Century Learning

Think about trying twenty-first-century learning so you can model examples for teachers and colleagues:

Before reading any further, do some of your own research regarding twenty-first-century learning, call some colleagues and ask them about their understanding of the concept, develop your own conclusions, read our findings below with a critical eye, and then log your own definition. This process makes the definition yours—and you do not depend on anyone else to give you the answer.

There was a time when “one right answer” or a lockstep philosophy was appropriate, but twenty-first-century learning calls for more flexibility and imagination. Think about how your students might take ownership of their own learning when provided with this same type of opportunity in your classrooms. Think about how long they will remember that definition as opposed to memorizing one provided to them by the teacher or read in a textbook.

Then take these recommendations and turn them into a professional development activity for your teachers. Engage them in developing a definition for twenty-first-century learning in your own school.

Reflecting. . .

As you read through the rest of this chapter and learn more about the skills associated with twenty-first-century learning, think about the educators you know and ask yourself if they are using those twenty-first-century learning skills to develop lesson plans, create assessments, analyze student achievement data, choose curricula, and so on. If your answer is no, then think about how you can model those skills in order to have them replicated in your schools.

Defining Twenty-First-Century Learning

If schools aren’t teaching twenty-first-century learning skills now, then what century’s skills are they teaching? Heidi Jacobs (2010) discusses the ramifications of the National Education Association’s Committee of Ten. In 1892, it was appointed to study and make curriculum recommendations, taking into consideration the Industrial Revolution. The committee recommended that all students be taught the same curriculum, regardless of their academic prowess. In addition, the committee recommended that schools be developed like factories, where students attend school for eight hours a day, 180 days a year; that a student’s education would last twelve years; and that the purpose of elementary schools was to prepare students for the curriculum at the high-school level. Interestingly enough, various groups at this time debated whether students should memorize pertinent content information of the time, acquire critical thinking skills, and/or undertake Latin and Greek studies. If the reader is a current educator, then the answer to how this debate finished is clear. Please know that the authors are not suggesting that everything taught in public schools today based on the recommendations of the Committee of Ten is all bad or that the mandates enforced in 1892 were inappropriate for the time. Rather, we suggest that our public schools currently have only part of the equation right—and they are well past the due date for a change.

Much as the Industrial Revolution inspired awareness that the educational system needed a major overhaul in the late 1800s, there is a technological revolution today that calls for an equivalent change. Technology today has two characteristics that should create a sense of urgency in educators to call for change. First, and foremost, technology is shrinking the globe. Citizens of the United States and of almost every other country are interacting within virtual communities every day. Teachers must prepare their students to be ready to compete in a global market. The second characteristic of technology that calls for immediate attention is its ever-changing state. Because the transformations of technology shift both the speed at which people can communicate with each other and the mode in which they communicate with each other, future generations will have to be able to adapt to a rapidly changing world environment.

Tony Wagner’s The Global Achievement Gap (2008) communicates an inspiring vision for twenty-first-century learning. Wagner’s work is referenced numerous times on Internet sites and in books that pop up among the 23 million hits on a Google search for “twenty-first-century learning.” A video interview of Wagner, located at SchoolChange.org (Wagner, 2010), reveals valuable insight into the skills students will need in college and their careers and what educators need to do in order to meet those needs.

During the interview and in his book, Wagner focuses on the changes in work, learning, and citizenship in the United States. He discusses the changes in the workplace as factory positions move to other countries. His description of the change in the types of jobs prevalent in the United States clearly denotes that the findings of the Committee of Ten are obsolete. So, if schools shouldn’t operate like factories or prepare students to work in factories, then how should they operate, and what are students supposed to be learning?

Below are seven skills for twenty-first-century learning that Wagner references, with a short description or explanation of each, that K–12 students and adults need to acquire in order to be successful in the twenty-first century:

1. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

Reason effectively:

♦ Use various types of reasoning (inductive, deductive, etc.) as appropriate to the situation

Use systems thinking:

♦ Analyze how parts of a whole interact with each other to produce overall outcomes in complex systems

Make judgments and decisions:

♦ Effectively analyze and evaluate evidence, arguments, claims, and beliefs

♦ Analyze and evaluate major alternative points of view

♦ Synthesize and make connections between information and arguments

♦ Interpret information and draw conclusions based on the best analysis

♦ Reflect critically on learning experiences and processes

Solve problems:

♦ Solve different kinds of unfamiliar problems in both conventional and innovative ways

♦ Identify and ask significant questions that clarify various points of view and lead to better solutions (Partnership for 21st Century Learning Skills, 2010)

2. Collaboration Across Networks and Leading by Influence

In order to be effective citizens and to achieve common goals in a democracy, adults and students alike need to be able to exert their influence and leadership skills on diverse groups of people in their respective communities (Wagner, 2010).

3. Agility and Adaptability

Adults and students need to learn to adapt to an ever-changing work environment in order to be successful in the future.

4. Initiative and Entrepreneurialism

Manage goals and time:

♦ Set goals with tangible and intangible success criteria

♦ Balance tactical (short-term) and strategic (long-term) goals

♦ Utilize time and manage workload efficiently

♦ Work independently

♦ Monitor, define, prioritize, and complete tasks without direct oversight

Be self-directed learners:

♦ Go beyond basic mastery of skills and/or curriculum to explore and expand one’s own learning and opportunities to gain expertise

♦ Demonstrate initiative to advance skill levels toward a professional level

♦ Demonstrate commitment to learning as a lifelong process

♦ Reflect critically on past experiences in order to inform future progress (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2010)

5. Effective Oral and Written Communication

Students and teachers alike need to be able to communicate with diverse groups of people both orally and in written form. This includes the use of digital forms of communication such as e-mails, text messages, blogs, wikis, and so on.

6. Accessing and Analyzing Information

Students and teachers need to be able to understand how to access information, filter good information from bad through effective analysis practices, and synthesize information into something meaningful to achieve specific goals.

7. Curiosity and Imagination

“Think outside the box” has become an all-too-familiar phrase that only scratches the surface of what Wagner is trying to communicate about incorporating curiosity and imagination into what educators should try to accomplish. Part of the problem educators face, usually unknowingly, is that they aren’t even sure of the parameters of their own boxes—so thinking outside the box is a stab in the dark at best. Educators need to understand the current limitations of what they’re trying to accomplish before they can begin to expand those boundaries. Learning how to create completely fluid boundaries for student learning while maintaining a framework for making instructional decisions is the teacher’s ultimate goal. Educators need to give themselves permission to allow their imaginations to drive their classrooms—and in turn to allow curiosity and imagination to drive the learning of students as opposed to being anchored down by their preconceived notions of what “school” is supposed to be.

Which of these seven skills might you see in a factory line? How many of these skills are currently being taught in your classrooms? How many of these skills do you use or do your teachers use to develop lesson plans or school improvement plans?

Utilizing and implementing the seven skills listed previously into K–12 schools will not be accomplished for students if those same concepts are not applied to professional development for educators. Every educator needs to be able to work in a team in order to make the transition from traditional schooling to twenty-first-century learning. Wagner points out that educators, for the most part, are not ready to work on teams because they crave autonomy. Most teachers are familiar with colleagues who come to school every day, shut the door to their classrooms, teach their lessons, and then go home with little or no interaction with other adults. This kind of isolation is the enemy of modern schools. If your teachers are not willing to work in teams, then how can you expect them to teach students to work on teams?

Reflecting. . .

“Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless—like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend” (Bruce Lee, 1971).

In The Global Achievement Gap, Wagner also discusses testing as an area that needs to be drastically improved. In short, the problem with current assessments is that they do not assess what teachers are trying to accomplish! Current tests are not designed to provide information about how successful students will be in college or the workplace or if they will be able to compete in the global market. Much like a road test for a driver’s license, K–12 assessments should reflect real-life situations for students.

Think about the dilemma that the astronauts and flight administrators faced during the flight of Apollo 13. At one point during the mission, the astronauts were running out of oxygen and, because of an electrical malfunction, they did not have the right connection piece to get oxygen from the oxygen tank into their craft. The folks at Houston were charged with designing a connector using only the tools and materials that the astronauts had on board at the time. That was a real test—with many possible solutions! Most real-life problems don’t have just one right solution—but K-12 assessments usually do. The only way educators can know if students are prepared for college and the workplace is to assess them in real-life situations.

The mere introduction of the term twenty-first-century learning into the world of education acknowledges that current students are living in the twenty-first century, but today’s instructional practices are not in sync with the modern age or the real world. Educators should be ahead of the curve in understanding what their students need in order to be su...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• About the Authors
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1 Learning in the Twenty-First Century: What is the Literature Telling Us?
• 2 Building Trust
• 3 Change
• 4 Assessing the Need for Change
• 5 Developing Habits of Thinking
• 6 Professional Learning: Development of Self and Others
• 7 Personal Best
• Conclusion
• References