#MustRead Shares (weekly)

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

#MustRead Shares (weekly)

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

Updated: Quick resource pack for #NYSAISnow #NYSAISahdh

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What you’ll find here, in this post, is a quick resource pack for the fun work that @GrantLichtman and I were fortunate to do with NYSAIS – the New York State Association of Independent Schools. We were at Mohonk Mountain House for the annual Assistant Heads and Division Heads conference, and the group of educational leaders focused on Time, Space, and Curriculum in educational transformation and innovative schooling.

  • Bo & Grant’s facilitator scratchpad and switchboard (Google doc with intended learning arc and links to resources and slidedecks).
  • Jim Tiffin’s (@JimTiffinJr) Storify – in three parts – archiving some of the pre-conference buzz, ideas from the keynote address on Wednesday night, sessions on Thursday and Friday, etc. In the keynote, Grant and I focused on “priming the pump” for how schools can utilize and amplify human curiosity and lessons of innovation to (r)evolutionize time, space, and curriculum use in schools. Thursday and Friday, we dove deeper into those ideas with workshop formats and facilitation.
  • Jim Tiffin’s visual notes from the keynote Wednesday night. THANKS, Jim!
  • And Grant “signed me up” for an impromptu Twitter meet-up lesson at 2:45-ish on Thursday! Love that NYSAIS spontaneously used some “unconference” thinking to enlist what learners wanted and needed…and created a spontaneous session. I so enjoyed using a lot of “yes, and…” improvisational format to mine the experience among those who attended this flash-mob session when they could’ve been hiking and playing around Mohonk in different ways. It was a fun session sharing insights from one of the most powerful professional learning tools I use!
  • Jenny Kirsch’s blog-post reflection from NYSAISahdh. Thanks, @MsJennyKirsch!

Jim Tiffin Vis Notes NYSAIS ahdh13

“If you would like to help us design school…” #MVPSchool #MVIFI

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I love my school for so many reasons. Just this morning, I received an email that provided me with yet another reason. The email was sent to the entire Upper School student body, and I was copied. It was an email rich in design thinking. It was an email full of trust that honors the wisdom of the “student.” It was an email full of promise for the depths of design – at the intersection of creativity and functionality.

Design thinking is people-centered problem solving. It is fundamentally concerned with and connected to the users of the things being designed. It is full of empathy and creative, critical thinking applied to real-world issues and challenges.

The most ambitious school leaders are serious about the design of “school.” How could one not be in our current era – to continuously think, design, and act for the best learning experiences for our learners. To give anything less than such critical attention would be unthinkable. Even if one determined to leave school “as is,” it would be superb if such decision making stemmed from thoughtful research and design, rather than status quo or de facto operations.

So, here’s the email. What a glorious invitation. How grateful I am that such is commonplace where I work and learn!

All,

I hope you all had a great weekend.

If you would like to help us design school for the “Experiment” and “Produce” phases of the projects, we need your ideas and help.

I invite you to join me either for lunch Wednesday or for breakfast Friday (on me) to discuss how we might best design the school day to position you for success.

Click here to sign up. [active link in original email]

There are only 50 available slots this week, and there will [be] more opportunities in the near future.

Enjoy your day,

—

Tyler S. Thigpen

@tylerthigpen

Head of Upper School

Mount Vernon Presbyterian School

#MustRead Shares (weekly)

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  • The Digital Tool Landscape

    “As part of the 2013 Global Innovation 1000 study, Booz & Company surveyed executives at more than 350 companies around the world to learn more about the digital tools that are transforming innovation. Our results show that at the development phase, productivity tools have reached maturity—most are widely used and effective. In other phases, particularly the front end of the innovation process, companies are experimenting with new marketing and customer insight tools that have game-changing potential.”

    tags: innovation #MustRead

  • The Design WalkIn – Explore Create Repeat – by 4ormat

    COOL! “The Design WalkIn is a storefront design walk in clinic that helps to facilitate relationships between designers and the general public. Designers, just like any other professional, have to be the right fit. We realized we were really good at brokering these relationships. We also had extensive networks within several practices of design, so we set up this clinic called the Design WalkIn that popped up on King St W last year. It was open to the public to come and book an appointment with a specialist.”

    I can imagine MVPS learners creating such a service in Sandy Springs!

    tags: design #MustRead

  • We Can Do It: Learn New Things Effectively – Explore Create Repeat – by 4ormat

    A “lesson plan” for #deeperlearning. If I were to have a magic wand or be granted one wish for BIG change in education, it would be to infuse and integrate this kind of philosophy and practice into more of the foundational bedrock of schooling. For me, this connects to my two favorite statements by Sir Ken Robinson: 1) Schools should ask “How are you smart?” not “How smart are you?” and 2) The basics are purposes not subjects.

    tags: self-initiated self-directed 21C PBL #MustRead

    • If you want to learn something new, take it into your own hands.
    • Embarking on a path of innovation and self-initiation, the need for specific skills reveal themselves simply through necessity and process — you can plan ahead, but that can only take you so far.
    • The more you become invested in your idea, the more you’ll want to learn in order to refine it and make it better.
    • A sum of small accomplishments can ultimately pave the way towards bigger things,
      • Teresa Amabile’s work connected to small successes. Links to Growth Mindset and grit work with Angela Duckworth, Paul Tough.

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