In 2011, Michael Fullan published a paper called “Choosing the Wrong Drivers for Whole System Success.” 10 years later, after the high-magnitude disruption of COVID-19 in education, he has published a new paper with the Centre for Strategic Education: “The Right Drivers for Whole System
Listen to co-author Dwight Carter talking about thriving through hyperchange on the Leaders Coaching Leaders podcast with Peter DeWitt: When schools began closing in March of 2020, it was the beginning of one of the most painful episodes in the history of American educators - and it was also one
For the past 10 months, many teens have been cut off from their key sources of social support. They, like all of us, have struggled to adapt to long hours at home with few interactions outside our immediate households, and many have lived with anxiety, sadness, anger, and depression. For
The negative effects from teaching during COVID-19 are a hot topic. While there have been positives resulting from the pandemic—especially the need to value and teach self-regulation and to have teachers engage in higher levels of release of responsibility (Hattie 2021)—there are many students who have failed to thrive, been denied access to technology, and been absent and not engaged. While these results occur also in regular schooling, too, COVID-19 spotlights the need to
Rigorous, sustained and job-embedded professional learning for teachers is critical; the research is clear that a rise in student outcomes is not possible without an investment in our teachers. But on the ground, enhancing teacher practice is hard. School terms move at a frenetic pace,
Along with the devastation of the coronavirus outbreak and widespread school closures come hopes for reimagining schools as they reopen. These hopes for the future, however, rest on making the concrete improvements in schools that we know we can make today. Despite the enormity of the challenges and
Talk, talk, talk. The importance of math talk continues to be emphasized because we know it is important to have students talk about mathematics if we want them to develop meaning for mathematical ideas. But how do we engage students in math talk when instruction has
“This year is a mulligan.” The analogy, a golf term to describe a do-over for a shot, is hard to hear from a colleague, and even harder to admit that there is a lot of truth in what they say. With the pandemic significantly impacting people’s
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a great deal of reflection in schools throughout the nation. As you are probably well aware, significant mental health, social, emotional, and behavioral needs existed before the pandemic, and social and emotional learning (SEL) has been part of education for decades. Although it isn’t a new topic, we
In March of 2020 life came to a SCREECHING halt. For a brief moment I think we all kind of looked at the “two-week quarantine” as an opportunity to slow down for a minute and count our blessings. That is, of course, only to quickly realize that