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Showing posts with the label RTI

Humility > Expertise

I strongly believe in instructional visions that put the teachers on the sideline facilitating learning instead of leading it. Be it the flipped classroom or Clayton Christensen's vision of learning programs and games taking the lead in personalizing instruction, I think we need to embrace this developing role. The teacher is by no means marginalized with these models, simply more of a coach or counselor. In the world of easy access to information personal relationships development trumps content expertise. For those of us working in technology, we've known for a long time that its okay to tell someone "I don't know, but will look into it" (I think that's a Doug Johnson line...). All of us in education need to be okay with that, from the superintendent on down. Content expertise is great, but I think humility is more important. I get it that it's a tough pill to swallow for some, but I feel I've been both happier and more effective in my job since I...

How do you convince staff to keep the change?

It's funny that I started this rant on January 3rd, then on January 4th this post appears on All Things PLC - Creating Buy-In for PLCs ---------------------------------------------- "The OSEP (Office of Special Education Programs) Technical Assistance Center on the SWPIS website (www.pbis.org) suggests that before schools begin implementing any sort of system change, they achieve at least 80 percent buy-in from building staff" (Windram, Bollman & Johnson, 2012). 80%! Really? In the book How RTI Works in Secondary Schools:Building a Framework for Success  authors Holly Windram, Kerry Bollman and Sara Johnson cite reliable sources - Mike Schmoker ( Results Now ) and Anthony Muhammed ( Transforming School Culture )  on the importance of buy-in. I'm not questioning the importance of buy-in. After a great deal of reading and seeing change flounder in different settings, I'm just starting to wonder what kind of Herculean effort is needed to pull it off? Windr...