One Small Step for Students, One Giant Leap for our School (Part 2/3)

In my previous post I reflected on our changing world and shared an expert's take on exponential change in the next decade. In this post I want to review our schools' journey over the last four years in preparing students for the future. It's hard to believe, but we're now closer to 2040 than 1990. 

The Next Frontier
During the early years of my principalship I attended an EARCOS Leadership Conference where Greg Whitby (Australia's 2012 Innovative Educator) challenged school leaders to rethink education in a world immersed in technology, especially with the arrival of ubiquitous devices like SmartPhones. As superintendent of 80 Catholic schools his main concern was to not lose the God-given mandate to educate young people. His was a warning to stay relevant and to keep schools from becoming museum-like. Equally important was his pledge to never experiment with students' schooling in the quest to modernize the classroom. This resonated deeply with me and resulted in a resolve to always stay research-based in my approach.

2013-14
Soon after our faculty started to use a brain-friendly lesson/unit plan template based on how students learn best. The four components below not only gave us a common language, but also promoted effective teaching and laid the groundwork for future integration of educational technology: 

• Prepare learners with a captivating hook to engage students
• Pick instructional strategies carefully to accommodate learning needs
• Practice new learning through the use of regular assessments 
• 'Ply (apply) student feedback to consolidate long term memory. 

2014-15

Teachers then started to enhance the brain-friendly lesson/unit plan template through the use of educational apps. This led to the creation of our Instructional Tech site, which not only enabled teachers to benefit from each other's discoveries, but also served as an educational technology resource to other schools in Taiwan. Leaders in countries as far away as India have expressed appreciation for the work of our teachers. 

In February 2015 staff also participated in a professional learning event, an in-house mini-conference of sorts, to ponder the realities of our changing world. One of our new teachers who had returned to the teaching profession after a hiatus of fifteen years compared her adjustment to the classroom to that of Rip Van Winkle! 

We concluded that educational technology was here to stay. We made a set of iPad Minis available for teachers to apply technology more frequently to their brain-friendly lesson plans. This pilot was overwhelmingly successful in that it declared our independence from the traditional computer lab and demonstrated our teachers' comfort level with the use of educational technology. One middle school teacher commented that "the iPad Minis allowed students to share their work with the class more quickly. For example, my students were able to clearly share a concept map they made with the entire class through AirPlay versus something that was smaller and harder to read on chart paper." Our integration of educational technology was now clearly rooted in sound pedagogy and we recognized that we were no longer at risk of merely placing a $1,000 pencil in front of our students. 

2015-16

This year our strategy involved a much narrower and more practical focus as we seek to modernize our classrooms. Teachers formed collaborative action research groups to make recommendations on how to: 

Students posting a blog on Chomebooks

• facilitate classroom management in a 1:1 environment where each student has access to a device
• equip students/teachers with essential tech skills
• proactively teach digital citizenship 

In May 2016 we'll be compiling a list of agreed-upon recommendations from teachers' end-of-year presentations and hope to communicate these guidelines and expectations to all our stakeholders (teachers, students and parents). This will give us a common language to reinforce the same message. I am confident that our teachers have been equipped to find and maintain digital north in the classroom. More about that in the next post.