"Are You Leading Change or Building a Platform for Change?," by Bruce Dixon

Please enjoy another Educating Modern Learners (EML) article below.

---

Co-founder of EML and edtech consultant, Bruce Dixon (@bruceadixon) published an article on EML entitled "Are You Leading Change or Building a Platform for Change" (March 26, 2015).  Within the piece, he reconceptualizes educational environments.  He assures us that school leaders and administrators are not responsible for - and should not take on the task of - implementing educational change unilaterally.  Instead, he argues, a leader must "build a change platform—one that allows anyone to initiate change, recruit confederates, suggest solutions, and launch experiments."

This approach is radically egalitarian.  As Dixon explains, "the essence is that you are letting the team work outside of the normal hierarchy with a direct reporting line to senior leadership for the change effort."  To nurture this fledgling framework, faculty and administrators must be willing to challenge more than just traditional communication networks.  They must also be willing to question the physical environment in which their students learn, the curricula guiding student learning, and the assumptions about learning that we have held dear for over a century and a half.

Is your school ready?

For Dixon's article, please click here.  Please post in the comments section to share your views.

"Why Curriculum Constrains Learning," by Harold Jarche

We in IP believe strongly not only in championing the conditions that allow authentic student-driven learning but also in connecting with like-minded individuals and organizations.  One of these is Educating Modern Learners (EML), an educator's portal created by longtime educator and technological expert Will Richardson (@willrich45) and Bruce Dixon (@bruceadixon), respectively.  This site offers insights into the new learning contexts that teachers, administrators, parents, and students themselves must confront in the 21st century.

International consultant, speaker, and educational "subversive" Harold Jarche (@hjarche) published an article on EML entitled "Why Curriculum Constrains Learning" (April 2, 2015).  Within, he questions one of education's benchmarks.  He posits that "Curriculum is a type of confinement: a confinement of learning experiences. Defined content, isolated classrooms, and fragmented schedules of time, coupled with impersonal testing, are institutional bullying."  Though some may consider Jarche too strident, he encourages all of us - the IP community, Kildonan, parents, students, administrators, and others - to evaluate educational practice using the questions, "Do our students need to know anything? If so, what?" Once we begin to posit answers, we must consider various factors - organic learning environments, educational trajectories (their content, their presence), and others - in order to achieve the results we seek.

For Jarche's article, please click here.  Please post in the comments section to share your views.