Innovative School Seeks Innovative Leader

Posted on by
Reply

HEAD OF UPPER SCHOOL
Position Description

Innovative school seeking innovative leader. Mount Vernon Presbyterian School is accepting applications for the position of Head of Upper School (Available June/July 2014). Head of Upper School reports directly to Head of School and collaborates with Chief Learning and Innovation Officer and School division leaders.

Mission and Vision

We are a school of inquiry, innovation, and impact. Grounded in Christian values, we prepare all students to be college ready, globally competitive, and engaged citizen leaders. Established in 1972, Mount Vernon Presbyterian School, serving 900 students in preschool through grade 12, is located in the heart of Sandy Springs, Georgia within the metropolitan Atlanta area. Located on the 30-acre Glenn Campus, the Upper School (grades 9-12) student body has more than doubled in size during the last five years and is projected to exceed 300 students in 2-3 years.

We are building something exceptional here. The School is in the midst of a new era of exploration and innovation, under the guidance of an energized staff, Board, and faculty leadership as well as committed and connected families. As an outward expression of our inward passion, the 2012-2017 Strategic Plan is driven by a fundamental MVPS question: How might we innovate school to meet the needs our students and our world? The School has been aggressive in launching key programs to position our students as realizers of our mission: Mount Vernon Institute for Innovation(MVIFI), Mount Vernon Mind, Council on Innovation, Center for Design Thinking, Innovation Diploma, Interim international travel opportunities, transdisciplinary education capstone project, College and Work Readiness Assessment, Write Now, and //fuse to name a few.

Roles and Responsibilities

Amplifying the mission and executing the vision of the School, Head of Upper School plays a creative and collaborative role:

  • cultivating and nurturing strong relationships within the School community–students, faculty, parents and other partners.
  • designing a vigorous, relevant, and innovative learning and assessment map for each Upper School learner–students, as well as faculty.
  • employing a variety of evidence-based and innovative approaches and methodologies in order to engage and motivate students of this generation.
  • exercising an innovator’s DNA–observing, questioning, experimenting, networking, and associating.
  • providing professional learning opportunities supporting individual staff needs/organizational goals.
  • co-chairing Research & Design (R&D) teams.
  • developing partnerships with corporate sector, non-profit community, and civic organizations.
  • researching, identifying, and advancing innovative programs.
  • retaining and attracting high performing teaching candidates.
  • overseeing the day-to-day operations–schedule, meetings, events, calendar, and facility spaces.

Interested candidates should send a cover letter, resume, and link to professional portfolio to employment@mountvernonschool.org.

Fear of “deep space” and exploring 10 expectations

Posted on by
2

As educators, what are we doing to confront our fears about school transformation? About those shifts that are making school feel different than the school we experienced… the school that the parents of our students experienced? In what ways are we responding to these fears versus hunkering down because of perceived “danger?”

How are we exploring our space? The “space” that is all around us in our schools, communities, real-world surroundings, etc. The less-well lit areas of differently designed curricular organizations, assessment strategies, and learner-directed “pathing.”

These two videos are strongly connected for me. One is “Chris Hadfield: What I learned from going blind in space?” It’s a rather beautiful investigation of fear vs. danger, and it puts our earthly “fears” in a different perspective – if you listen and empathize deeply enough.

The second video is “10 Expectations” from Leaving ToLearn (HT @SciTechyEdu). It details 10 expectations that students have for their school-learning experience. And yet not too many school cultures really shape up to meet such student expectations. Why is that? Who is school for? What is the purpose of school anyway?

Are our resistances to exploring and engaging transformation because of real danger? Fear? From the adults?

How might we venture out and explore, experiment, and exchange our fears for new adventures and deeper understandings of our own “deep space?”

#AK12DC – Briefing and Windows into Design Summit, March 21-22

Posted on by
2

#AK12DC = The Atlanta K-12 Design Challenge

The Atlanta K-12 Design Challenge lives as a collaboration among 11 Atlanta schools – half of them independent in governance structure and half of them part of the Fulton Co. public-charter system. The original grant proposal leapt from a jumping-off point of believing that public and private schools in Atlanta could partner as an innovation nucleus to amplify the trajectory of powerful educational transformation for ALL Atlanta schools.

Through generous funding from the Howard R. Dobbs Foundation and an operational collaboration precipitated by The Center for Teaching and bolstered by connections with Stanford University’s d.School, this inter-school workforce (read “dream team”) is employing design thinking to explore the needs of educational users and to expand the power of iterative prototyping to enhance learning for virtually countless people throughout Atlanta.

The Summit

On Friday and Saturday of this week (March 21-22), the 11 schools gathered as a whole cohort for a second time (the first time was January 14). This mid-stream design summit provided time and opportunity for schools to advance the empathy gathering they’ve been doing at their schools by defining their challenges, developing their POV (Point of View) statements, and iteratively prototyping solutions for the needs of a particular user they met during their initial discovery immersion.

Below are a few links that provide windows into the work accomplished on Friday and Saturday, March 21-22.

What’s Next?

The next stage (“Stage 2”) involves continuing the school-based work through further testing and iterating of prototypes, implementing emerging solutions, and transforming practices.

Stay tuned. It’s exciting times in Atlanta education!

Windows:

#MustRead Shares (weekly)

Posted on by
1

  • Letter Grades Deserve an ‘F’ – Jessica Lahey – The Atlantic

    A really good, quick piece on grading, assessment, and standards-based learning. Contains some worthwhile links and interesting comments to explore and dig deeper. HT @meghancureton

    tags: assessment grades standards sbg grading learning #MustRead commoncore Common_Core learningoutcomes

    • The goal in her classroom is no longer points or grades, but mastery. Students are held accountable not for the maximum points total assigned to a homework set, but for mastery of the concepts it contains.
    • Teaching and learning with an eye toward mastery of a defined list of competencies circumvents many of the pitfalls that points-based grading causes.

  • Playful learning: Where a rich curriculum meets a playful pedagogy | Preschool Matters… Today!

    “The Capulets and Montagues of early childhood have long battled over their vision for a perfect preschool education.  Should young children be immersed in a core curriculum replete with numbers and letters or in a playful context that stimulates creative discovery?  The ‘preschool war’ leaves educators torn and embattled politicians in deadlock.  Playful learning offers one way to reframe the debate by nesting a rich core curriculum within a playful pedagogy.”

    HT @kellyBKelly2001

    tags: preschool play play-based playful learning #MustRead

    • Playful learning is a whole-child approach to education that includes both free play and guided play.
    • It refers to play in a structured environment around a general curricular goal that is designed to stimulate children’s natural curiosity, exploration, and play with learning-oriented materials.[xxii]  In guided play, learning remains child-directed. This is a key point.  Children learn targeted information through exploration of a well-designed and structured environment (e.g. Montessori[xxiii]) and through the support of adults who ask open-ended questions to gently guide the child’s exploration.
    • Guided play allows children to become engaged; didactic instruction helps them memorize but not transfer what they have learned.
    • Guided play helps constrain what children should be focusing on; free play leaves the field too open and does not help children focus on the target outcomes.
    • It is possible to have a curriculum rich in learning goals that is delivered in a playful pedagogy.

  • Design Thinking: Tools to help make thinking visible \ The Lab

    “The British science, technology and arts research organisation Nesta, along with European social innovation experts, have pulled together their top 30 tools for social innovation. Many of them have immediate uses for helping plan and structure design thinking activities in the classroom. We explain some of those that have the most immediate value for learning.”

    HT @jbrettjacobsen

    tags: designthinking design thinking design_thinking innovation social entrepreneurship iDiploma #MustRead

  • The Disturbing Transformation of Kindergarten | TRUTH ABOUT EDUCATION

    “hey are hyper-focused on how students perform, but they ignore how students learn”

    tags: kindergarten play #MustRead

    • they are hyper-focused on how students perform, but they ignore how students learn
    • How can teachers hold all children to the same standards when they are not all the same?
    • Play is essential in kindergarten
    • There is a wide range of acceptable developmental levels in kindergarten; so a fluid classroom enables teachers to observe where each child is and adjust the curriculum accordingly.
    • if we want our youngest to actually learn, we will demand the return of developmentally appropriate kindergarten.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

#MustRead Shares (weekly)

Posted on by
Reply

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.