Scaling Out and Scaling Up Innovation

What do we, as leaders, need to do to scale innovation? From the C21 Canada ~ Shifting Minds 3.0 document, ‘Redefining the Learning Landscape in Canada’: As stated above, “The transformative view is that learning is a social process…” Later in the document, “There is no doubt that innovation is disruptive. But the disruption can […]

Faith in Humanity

One of the most beautiful quotes on religion, that resonates with me, comes from the movie ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’: “What do you think heaven’s like?” It’s like a wedding. God’s the bridegroom and man’s spirit’s the bride. The wedding takes place in heaven… …and everyone’s invited. God’s world is big enough for everyone. […]

Isolation vs Collaboration

“Educators who work in isolation improve incrementally, while educators who collaborate transform exponentially!” I said this in a Twitter Chat a few days ago in response to the question: “Why do you believe that a shared vision and belief system is important to transform education?” This was one of the Twitter Chat questions posed by […]

3 Injustices in Education

Last month I was honoured to be interviewed on Corey Engstrom’s Teacher Tech Trails. Near the end of the podcast, I mentioned the ‘greatest’ injustices that we tend to do in more traditional schools and classrooms to three different kinds of students. While I would question my choice of the word ‘greatest’, I think these […]

“Learn to live with ambiguity.”

am·bi·gu·i·ty noun • uncertainty or inexactness of meaning in language. synonyms: vagueness, obscurity, abstruseness, doubtfulness, uncertainty; • a lack of decisiveness or commitment resulting from a failure to make a choice between alternatives. Ambiguity has potential to be a catalyst to new learning. It can be the spark to kindle lateral thinking and creative solutions to huge problems […]

Creating the time and space for self-directed, personalized, inquiry learning.

Background (Part 1 – Purpose) The following image and description were created for an application for an award. ‘Assignments’ like this are great because they force us (teachers John Sarte, Alan Soiseth and myself) to think about what it is we value, and strive towards as we build our program at Inquiry Hub Secondary School. […]

The Unconference

I have to admit, that I’ve avoided edcamps and unconfernces for a while, because they have felt to me like group hugs… warm and cozy, but not a lot about moving my learning forward. However, I participated in the Institute for Innovation in Education (iiE) conference at Vancouver Island University this pass weekend and the afternoon of […]

3 Questions Before Supporting Innovation

1. Is this best for students and their learning? 2. Is this scalable? 3. Are you willing to share? In a conversation with my good friend, Dave Sands, we were talking about the challenge of investing in systematic change vs supporting the outliers (and the Lone Wolves). There will always be limited resources to work with, and […]