I know I ramble, but time is short, and we have the podcast tonight. Here are some thoughts about getting administrators onboard as we shift our schools. 

Jeff has been running workshops on reviewing one’s school mission, and I have been writing about integrating one’s mission and school-wide learning outcomes into everything you do in your school. So the first step is to work with one’s learning community to hire Jeff to come in and shake things up, clearing the table of outdated mission outcomes and opening up the discussion about what the community, including students, parents, and faculty, believes in and values. Start with the fundamental questions of “What is learning and understanding?” and “What do our students need to learn?” and “How can we prepare them to be citizens skilled to handle a very changing world?”. I also like the idea of writing mission outcomes in actions/skills/habits that are enduring and applicable to various situations. To say we want students to be “lifelong learners,” how about instead talking about the habits/skills of being critical thinkers and problem solvers that give students the tools to be lifelong learners? Hopefully, one’s school will see the value of the learning 2.0 constructs that folks are writing about and discussing in the edublogosphere to make them central to their vision statements.

Once the mission/vision is developed and action plans are created to integrate it into the school’s culture, the next step is to develop a curriculum, instruction, and assessments that will get one’s students to learn critical thinking, problem-solving, cooperative, and collaborative learning skills that are hopefully in the mission outcomes that also includes an inquiry-driven approach to learning that engages the students in discussions and learning with individuals outside the school walls.

The main focus is on Stage 1 of McTigue and Wiggin’s UbD process for all the curriculum units. It all comes down to the enduring understanding we are teaching. Administrators must collaborate in the curriculum review process. The conversations and unpacking of the standards into the EUs are where we bring the administrators on board to constructivist, inquiry, student-centered learning. We have to be ready to have critical conversations asking administrators how we can reach our schools’ mission statements dedicated to teaching students critical thinking, problem-solving, and cooperative learning skills so that they can be global, information-savvy citizens ready to adapt to the ever-changing world. If our administrators are charged with delivering the educational experience to reach the mission and habits for learning, get them to explain how we can do it in classrooms where the curriculum being taught needs to support the school’s new mission statement. As we move to Stage 2 to develop the assessments and Stage 3 to create the learning activities, the administrator in the curriculum meetings should start coming on board as we develop ways to use information literacy and technology to assess and teach the students.

How does all of this happen without the administrator being on board? It doesn’t. The hope is that by going through this process, the reluctant or simply not getting the picture administrator buys into the process to support the mission created by the community. We also must take items off our administrators’ plates to allow them to be the instructional leaders in our schools. Less is more, primarily when empowering administrators to focus on decisions supporting learning.