JJFBbennett

Notes and reflections  - Caldwell, Brian J., Professor. "System Leadership for Innovation in Education."Centre for Strategic Education Seminar Paper No 209 (2011): 3-14. Web. 28 Aug. 2013. My interest is in corporate education and its contextual influence on schools. This interest is in the change based mechanisms within schools. Most of the research information I have read does not study the relationships between corporate and schools (until I read Caldwell's seminar paper). Much of the reading concerning corporate change is based on business principles and not so much on public service (non for profit). A school is not a silo and impacting change should remove rather than build silos. Many of the contexts presented in blogs, conferences, and academic papers do not consider policy and guidelines despite the significant influence they have on the operations of schools. In general, many of the impacting change-based decisions and financial project money is distri...

eduTECH 2013:  Blog 1 reflection Disclosure This reflection is based on my personal opinions and learnings gained from attending a variety of keynotes and presentations at EduTECH 2013 Brisbane Australia. Key Notes and Presentations 3 - 4 June 2013 The conference contained an exceptional array of presentations and I was only able to attend  a fraction of what was offered. The array of presentations I was able to attend was titled   Corporate Government Learning Congress . I attended the following presentations; Drive: What the science of motivation can teach us about high performance - Daniel Pink Rethinking Education - Salman Khan Working and learning smarter with the 70:20:10 model - Charles Jennings It's in the "APP"lication: Technology + learning = capability - Peter Ferreira Shaping Australian Curriculum - Barry McGaw The creative technology revolution you cannot ignore -  Gary Stager Design thinking to create The Living Organisati...

21st-century student systems Are the Information Communication Technology (ICT) systems, software applications, and school-centered processes of your school purposed to support the instructional needs of the 21st-century student? In the essay ‘Do They Really Think Differently?’ (2001) Prensky defines Digital Immigrant and the Digital Native. Prensky proposes that one’s thinking patterns change depending on one’s experiences to the level that the Digital Native has a very different blend of cognitive skills than its predecessor the Digital Immigrant. Other commonly employed terms that describe pre and post 2000 students and learning frameworks are the Millennial Student, the Net Generation, and 21st Century Student. All classifications support Prensky supposition that the Digital Native student is required to and have acquired different thinking processes. Since the late 1980’s schools have adapted and integrated technologies to support instruction. Schools have connected to the i...

Education Drivers   (Fullan) personalised student centred capacity systemness System Needs & Change   (Clayton Christensen) efficiency (faster & cheaper) sustaining (improve current system needs), disruptive (make complicated solutions simpler) Enabler Technologies  internet ubiquitous mobile efficient (cost and HR support) rich content Purpose and Target Doing the same things the same way will not work Move from a centralised authority to a discreet and   targeted system focus on targeted client audiences (not at the system middle) view schools as interconnected cottage industries focus on teaching and learning work practices (Hattie) Why, then how then  what  Innovation and Culture innovation is as important for leaders as strategy and operational excellence Innovation to enable continuous improvement (not big bang) Disciplined, deliberate, relentless Developing business units cultur...

Culture eats strategy  Culture can be identified in a business unit's artifacts : vision,  norms,  symbols,  beliefs,  behaviors, and  traditions. Strategy - successful strategies need supportive cultures.   Issue Q : How does a business unit get the best out of strategy in periods of uncertainty and structural change. (How do you get buy-in to achieve what needs to be achieved?) ---------------------------------------------------   The Culture of a Business Unit   Business Unit Questions: How do our artifacts describe us? What artifacts actively attracts people to use our services? What artifacts actively discourage success? Immediate culture questions Vision and Mission  how is the vision made evident throughout all of our activities? is the vision and mission persuasive?  Collaboration  how do our projects cross support and benefit each other? Education  how do...

Purpose of this Blog To encourage professional workers to recognize their small achievements, celebrate the small achievements, and share the small achievements across the work unit. Project Management - the importance of celebrating small wins at work Managing projects can be a complex process involving time, risk, and priority management. Managing multiple projects that involves working with a multitude of clients and within a hierarchy of positions, over distance, and involves "wicked problems" requires strong hard and soft management skills. Soft management is more difficult to identify and yet it has a significant impact on the success of a project. This blog discusses soft management skills. It focusses on enabling achievement recognition to benefit the individual and the work unit. Recognizing achievements and failures affect the personal attachment to the project and in general the potential successful outcomes. Most importantly it affects the ...

PISA (Programme for International Student Assessments) results are aligned with 21st-century skills (critical thinking and problem solving) The future of learning will focus on problem-centered instruction and will dismiss the 20th-century methods and curricula that are based on basic skills. Teachers need to dismiss instruction that outputs master memorizers, regurgitation, and fact toters (testing for the correct answers). Teachers need to enable instruction that outputs problem solvers.   Teachers need the skills to manage “ill defined" problem-based learning programs. Students as problem-solvers need to have critical and creative skills. Students need to access technologies that support problem-solving. Technologies cannot be limited to a standardized "one size fits all". The present situation in schools is that instruction is largely 20th century based.  Most teachers prerequisite learning ...