Musings from Mumbai: Fostering a climate of innovation in the middle and high schools
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ASB Unplugged is a 1:1nlaptop conference for international schools, hosted by the American School of Bombay and the Laptop Institute. These are notesnfrom a session I attended on technology-related change at the secondarynlevel…
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- Andrew Hoover, middle school principal
- Devin Pratt, high school principal
- Dianna Pratt, middle/high school tech coordinator
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[the educators in this room are from more countries than you probably cannplace on a map!]
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- Change is not linear
- Expect both bursts and delays
- Complacency and resistance come from…
- Being busy
- Maybe being risk adverse
- Perceived (and actual) threats to professional identity
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- DyKnow software really takes advantagenof the tablet PCs’ functionality, making it worth the tablets’ extra cost
- Key implementation stages (from John Kotter)
- Establish a sense of urgency
- Generate cognitive dissonance!
- Create a guiding coalition
- The leadership team has to be on board
- Develop a vision and strategy
- Communicate the change vision
- Repetition of message, vision, goals, etc. is key
- Lead by example
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- Empower educators for broad-based action
- Lots of just-in-time professional development
- Ongoing instrucational support
- Reliable technology and infrastructure
- Small, frequent, purposeful meetings
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- Generate short-term wins
- Teacher-sponsored demos and highlights, tied into concept of enduringnunderstandings
- Repetition of this gradually overcomes the resisters
- Teachers are asked to use DyKnow just once and have the lesson observed tonget feedback
- There is a curriculum to foster a sense of responsibility amongnstudents
- Students carry around eggs first; if an egg breaks, the student has to gonthrough a process before she gets another one
- Later students graduate to laptops but have to leave them at school
- Finally students get the laptops 247
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- Teacher-sponsored demos and highlights, tied into concept of enduringnunderstandings
- Consolidate gains and produce further changes
- “You don’t know how comfortable you are until you start moving on”
- Keep stressing ‘here’s where we were 2 years ago and look how much progressnwe’ve made’
- Andrew is using a blog to keep staff, students, and parents informed ofnprogress
- Work on facilitating dispersed leadership
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- Anchor new approaches in the culture of the school
- Recognize how culture already has changed and build upon it
- Foster a climate of continuous improvement (kaizen)
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- Establish a sense of urgency
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Scott’s trip to Mumbai:pics at Flickr, movies atnYouTube.
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