Teacher Education

We Should #ThankAPrincipal … and Ensure Principals Have Prep They Need

Eduflack accountability, higher ed, Teacher Education

It is National Principals Month. The good folks over at NAESP, NASSP, and AFSA have designated October the one month of the year when “we honor the hard work and dedication of America’s principals.” Over at www.principalsmonth.org, there is a virtual cornucopia of all things principal worth checking out.

Over at the Learning First Alliance, they have a blog post from Stephanie Hull, EVP and COO of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, on how we can truly celebrate principals by providing principal preparation programs that align with the needs of today’s schools and best position leaders for success. As Dr. Hull writes:

The research is equally clear, though, as to the importance of school principals. In fact, principals account for at least 25 percent of a school’s total impact on student achievement, according to research conducted by organizations such as ASCD and the Wallace Foundation. Principals create the necessary conditions for teachers to succeed—the individual support, the technology, the facilities, the interface with parents and policy leaders.

She then details the five key lessons the Woodrow Wilson Foundation has learned from its work to transform education leader preparation in states like Indiana, New Mexico, and Wisconsin. It’s well worth the read. Check it (and other many other interesting posts on the LFA blog) out.

History Can Be Fun and Games

Eduflack civics, Teacher Education, teachers, technology

While we may look to the history books to see the chronicling of the past, we don’t have to limit how we teach history (or civics or social studies, or any subject, for that matter) to those same books. New technologies, new instructional approaches, and even the embrace of the old role-playing styles, have opened up new doors when it comes to how we teach — and learn — history.

Over at Medium this week, I write on how history instruction can be transformed through a gaming approach to teaching. USA Today reporter Greg Toppo has literally written the book on the topic, with his The Game Believes In You telling some incredible stories of how educators are using games to better reach their students.

In my piece, I look at some of the specific efforts to use gaming to bring social studies instruction alive, everything from iCivics to the teacher-focused simulations at Ted Kennedy Institute to the new Woodrow Wilson HistoryQuest Fellowship program.

As I write:

Simply put, we cannot expect 21st-century students to truly learn from history — and civics and social studies in general — in the same way and through the same approaches that may have worked for Santayana, Winston Churchill, and others concerned about repeating history. The methods of old, those with experienced educators lecturing in front of a class of students all sitting at desks in straight rows, is quickly becoming a thing of the past. If the students of tomorrow are to truly “learn from history,” they require instructional approaches that better reflect their own interests, learning styles, and experiences.

And as I conclude:

And that is the role gaming now plays in my kids’ classroom. I want a teacher who has been part of the HistoryQuest program to make social studies come alive for my kids in a way a paper-and-ink textbook simply can’t. I want a music teacher that is channeling my son’s love of Minecraft to help him appreciate his grandfather’s love of opera. And I want an educator who can use the simulations of the Kennedy Institute to help my daughter better understand what I did all those years when I worked on Capitol Hill.

Give the piece a read. Think of it like a game …

The Teacher of the Future

Eduflack Teacher Education, teachers, Woodrow Wilson

The teacher of the future? That future might be now. It is an important discussion that policymakers and practitioners should be having. What are our expectations for teachers in the future? What should incoming educators know and be able to do? And what do we do when our expectations don’t match the realities in the classroom?

Earlier this month, KCUR public radio in Kansas City, MO dedicated an hour to the topic, offering up a wide range of perspectives. The segment included Arthur Levine, President of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation; Cristin Blunt, teacher at an alternative school in Shawnee Mission; Colleen Power, homeschool mom and teacher; Matthew Oates, involved with Friends of Hale Cook and candidate for Kansas City Public Schools board; Sylvia Maria Gross, Senior Producer of KCUR’s Central Standard and former teacher; Tony Kline, Superintendent, University Academy; and Kyle Palmer, KCUR reporter.

You can hear the full story here on the KCUR site. It’s definitely worth the listen.

Is the Time Right to Change Higher Ed?

Eduflack higher ed, Teacher Education, technology, Woodrow Wilson

For decades now, the media had proclaimed the “death” of higher education as we know it. Online ed was supposed to do it a generation ago. Just a few years ago, the MOOC was going to put all colleges and universities out of business. Yet the institutional model that has been around for a millennium still seems to be alive and kicking.

Over at The Chronicle of Higher Education, my colleague Arthur Levine (president emeritus of Teachers College, Columbia University and current president of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation) writes on how the time may finally be right for higher education to begin to transition from its assembly line, industrial age approach to one better suited for the information age we all current enjoy (or at least tolerate).

Levine offers three reasons why we may finally see higher education transform in the United States. Reason one: As a nation, we are transitioning from a national, analog, industrial economy to a global, digital, information one. So it only makes sense that higher ed would follow the nation. Reason two: the number of higher education providers is booming, and it such opportunities are no longer limited to the traditional, ivy-wall-covered universities we have grown used to. And reason three: research makes clear that people learn in different ways, and we may need multiple approaches to higher education to ensure all are receiving it.

Dr. Levine is a particular fan of competency-based education, which focuses on subject matter mastery rather than time spent in a classroom. At its core, CBE is about students demonstrating their knowledge, rather than being recognized for coming to X numbers of classes for X total hours. As he writes:

[Competency-based education]  experiments need to be watched, assessed, and supported so that institutions can create and expand the infrastructure for competency-based education, including an alternative to the time-based Carnegie unit. This is merely the most visible aspect of a revolution occurring in education at all levels: the shift to learning outcomes and learner-centered education.

Every institution of higher education will have to make this shift, and the time to plan for it is now. History shows that the future of institutions that fail to act will be determined for them by policy makers and by pioneering competitors — inside and outside traditional higher education.

The full commentary is worth the read. Change is coming to higher education. The only question is whether institutions and individuals will be leading that change, or just have the change happen to them.

Blowing Up Schools of Ed?

Eduflack higher ed, Teacher Education, teachers, Woodrow Wilson

Over at Education Post, I have a piece that talks about our need to transform education schools across the country. With everything we are putting on teachers today, and all we expect from them in the classroom and beyond, we just can’t expect that teacher preparation today would still look like it did 50 years ago. Yet at far too many colleges and universities, it just does. As I wrote:

We have been asking more and more from our teachers. A decade ago, the remark was delivered expecting teachers to be researchers and psychometricians. In the years since, we have looked to those same beginning teachers to also be social workers, assessment administrators, referees, moral compasses, and the ultimate criteria for whether school districts, schools and students were succeeding.

In the piece, I spotlight the work I am currently engaged in at the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, as we embark an on exciting new effort, in collaboration with MIT, to build the ed school of the future, one that is competency based and focused on outcomes. As I note, “We need a new teacher-education model focused on outcomes and one that requires recognition that learning, time and process are variables and that one size definitely does not fit all.”

You can check out the full piece here. And while you are at it, check out some of the other content at Education Post. The new platform is doing a great job spotlighting reforms and improvements across the country.

Happy reading!

Good Teaching Trumps All

Eduflack Achievement gap, Teacher Education, teachers, turnaround, Woodrow Wilson

It is impossible to seriously improve student achievement without focusing on how we prepare teachers for the classroom. Over at the American Youth Policy a Forum blog, I recently talked to AYPF about the new for effective teacher prep and the impact it can have on student achievement, particularly in high-need schools. 

“If you have a good teacher in charge of a classroom to do what is necessary to educate the kids, the kids learn. There’s no getting around that,” said Riccards. “As policies change, as instructional approaches change, we know that good teaching trumps all.”

Give it a read. You won’t be disappointed. 

“Broad”-ening Ed Leadership Opportunities

Eduflack higher ed, reform, Teacher Education, teachers, Woodrow Wilson

As Eduflack has written previously, some research shows that a good school principal can account for 25 percent of a school’s total impact on student achievement. In the education space, we talk a great deal about the importance of having top-notch principals and superintendents and central office personnel in place, but we do so with the same, sometimes lame ed leadership programs serving as their training grounds.

We know that many of these ed leadership graduate degree programs aren’t of the highest quality. We know that many enroll in them just to move up the salary scale and get a bump in pay. And we know that few of these programs are providing aspiring leaders with the skills, knowledge, and support they need to be both the managers and instructional leaders we seek and that so many of our kids need.

It’s one of the reasons I get so excited about the work I’m involved with at the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, where we are now working in three states, and with many more universities, to provide aspiring school and district leaders with a high-impact MBA program for education leaders. I know our model works because I witness the impact. I can see how an MBA path steeped in a strong academic program, an equally robust clinical experience, and multi-year mentoring can transform a great teacher into a tremendous ed leader.

And I get equally excited when I see announcements like I did this week from the Broad Center for the Management of School Systems. For those following from home, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges’ Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities granted Initial Accreditation to the Broad Center.

This is an important announcement because it demonstrates there is more than one path toward being an effective school leader. Through its Broad Residency in Urban Education, the Broad Center provides a two-year management development program for career-switchers looking to move into top levels of K-12 urban public education systems. They come out of the Broad program with a master’s of education in educational leadership, and now, thanks to WASC, they graduate with an accredited degree, ready to take on the world and help run an urban school system.

Yes, some of the haters will continue to crow about Broad and ask how this could happen. But let’s remember, WASC isn’t a “reform organization.” It is the quasi-governmental body that oversees higher education institution in California, Hawaii, Guam, and the Pacific Basin. It is the West Coast equivalent of NEASC, which oversees the likes of Harvard and MIT. in the Northeast. It is a long-standing, established institution embedded into the very fabric of American higher education.

In granting the Broad Center this important approval, the WASC Educational Effectiveness Review Team, according to Broad, commended The Broad Residency for “a very rich data-driven program of unusual depth,” “reflecting a pervasive spirit of inquiry and a commitment to continuous improvement” and for being “painstaking and comprehensive in its assessment of its programs, residents’ learning and satisfaction during the residency period, and through the residents’ career preparation.”

I get that accreditation decisions rarely grab the headlines and public attention. But let’s not overlook the significance of Broad joining the WASC accreditation club. It is a strong acknowledgement that there are different ways to effectively prepare school leaders, and it is an even stronger nod to the need for new, innovative approaches to educational leadership preparation.

No, this isn’t your grandpa’s ed leader prep program, and that’s a good thing. As our needs continue to change, as our demands continue to grow, and as our hunger for accountability and quality continues to expand, we need better prep mousetraps that truly develop a cadre of diverse, effective ed leaders. This is another step toward that.

STEM Priorities, STEM Teacher Ed Investments

Eduflack STEM, Teacher Education, teachers, Woodrow Wilson, Workforce

Earlier this week, President Obama celebrated the White House Science Fair. As part of an event celebrating all things science, he recognized recent investments in his administration’s STEM initiative, talking about jobs and the impact on the economy.

In its coverage, Tech News World went a little deeper than most, exploring recent STEM progress and where it is headed. In his story, Jack Germain endulged Eduflack, as I pushed a topic near and dear — STEM teacher education.

There is no question that STEM is important to our economic and societal success. But STEM success doesn’t come without a real investment in STEM education. And high-quality STEM education only comes when we have truly excellent STEM teachers leading our classrooms, particularly those classes in high-need schools.

As Germain wrote:

 The United States has experienced a shift from a national analog industrial economy to a global digital information economy.

U.S. social institutions — including education, finance, government, media and health — were created for the former, observed Patrick R. Riccards, director of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. That’s a problem, because Americans live in the latter, in a society that demands we transition from the models of the past to those needed today.

“This is particularly true in education,” he told TechNewsWorld.

“As a sector, we have been reluctant to embrace change, whether in the form of research findings, shifting demographics, technological advances, or similar triggers that demand change in other fields. Even as our methods of old work less and less well than they did previously, we have too often resisted the necessary transitions,” Riccards explained.

“Slowly, though, we are seeing a transformation in public education. This has been particularly true in the ways we prepare children with the science, technology, engineering, and math skills they will need to be college and career ready,” he pointed out.

If we truly see STEM as our future, the focus must be on developing a generation of excellent STEM educators for our schools — particularly our high-need schools, Riccards urged.

All the love in the world for STEM is meaningless, he said, if schools are staffed by ineffective teachers who are not truly versed in the STEM disciplines.

Couldn’t have said it better. The full article is definitely worth a read.

Building a New Principal Prep Moustrap

Eduflack higher ed, Teacher Education, teachers

Sadly, current school leader preparation programs — those that typically offer an M.Ed. to successful principal candidates — are generally poor. Admissions and graduation standards are often the lowest among programs offered by education schools, a reality detailed in my own research for the Education Schools Project. Coursework is largely unrelated to the positions prospective school leaders are preparing for, and the clinical portions of the program are often weak. These programs are thought of as the easiest route to a master’s degree, the quickest path to the salary bump they bring.

Both higher education and K-12 have known for far too long that the vast majority of school leadership preparation programs are inadequate. Yet they’ve done little about it because demand for such programs remains high.

Woodrow Wilson Foundation President Arthur Levine in Real Clear Education School Principals Should Be Trained Like MBAs