Shifting Our Schools episode 8: How to Shift?

Introductions

Brent Loken, the Director of Curriculum and Innovation at Hsinchu International School (HIS) joined Jeff and David for tonight’s show.

Brent has a Web site and a blog where you can read more about his ideas.

Essential Question

How to Shift?

David> See his blog post for his Top 10 list of steps to take to shift.

Jeff> We need to think about the effect of small, start up schools like HIS and how they might bypass the traditional schools to offer the 21st century learning that our international corporate parents are realizing their children need.

Take away from the discussion>

-It is usually an evolutionary approach in most schools for them to slowly make the shift to School 2.0.
-So much more difficult to shift schools with history and culture that won’t adapt. But we cannot stop our efforts!
-If you are fortunate to be at a small school or one just starting up, you have a much better chance of getting everyone of like minds and beliefs onboard to take a more radical approach.
-“Rethink everything”. “Needs to be a revolution”. “Be bold”.
-The curriculum is not fast enough to keep up with the learning community of a shifted school. Must be ready to adapt it as your school adapts to the learning needs of its students.
-Possibility of competition from start-up schools? Just like in the business world.
-Healthy competition in schools provides more choices for parents and to choose from.

Blog Posts of the Week

Jeff: New Literacy Leader Talk
The Learning 2.008 Conference in Shanghai!

Brent: Arts and Smarts article Whole Child article
A Mind at A Time by Mel Levine

David: Powerful Learning Practices
9 Principles for Implementation: The Big Shift
Leading the Shift in International Education

Sign Off

* Next show is Thursday April 18th at 7 PM Shanghai time.
* Our guest will be Michael Lambert of Concordia International School in Shanghai.
* Essential Question for the show: How to go deep in learning? Why go deep?
* Don’t forget to post Web sites/blogs to the SOS Del.icio.us bookmarking site that support our upcoming EQ.