Best Practices to Next Practices: A Different Kind of Thinking Ray McNulty, President To hear this webinar, please choose your audio mode: Go to the control panel in the upper right hand corner of your screen and click the button to select how you will be listening: –Use telephone OR Use microphone & speakers (If using microphone & speakers make sure your volume is turned up so you can hear) Technical difficulties? Contact (518) All participants are on mute If you are using the telephone: Dial: Access Code: Audio PIN: Unique PIN shown in audio control panel on screen

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Best Practices to Next Practices: A Different Kind of Thinking Raymond J. McNulty President International Center for Leadership in Education February, 2011

Setting the stage for the content of this webinar…..

The Boston Globe Ray, reading the paper on your Kindle or online just isnt the same!

Almost everyone wants schools to be better, but almost no one wants them to be different.

Teacher – Student Comparisons T – I make learning exciting for my students. 86% S – My teachers make learning fun. 41%

The future is not some place we are going to, but one we (you) are creating. The paths are not found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the maker and the destination. -John Schaar

WE all need to become the AGENTS of change.

The Horse The Automobile

First different then better.

Henry Ford quote… If I had asked the public what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.

Current System Something Different

Transformation # 1 Leadership today requires a balance of traditional skills mixed with innovation skills Stability, control and standardization mixed with uncertainty, ambiguity and disruptive thinking

Transformation # 2 Making a better 20 th Century School is not the answer It is about becoming different not just better Using researched based best practices important, but for true transformation you need a mixture of BEST and NEXT practices. 70 – 30 or

Transformation # 3 Collaboration is essential for success today Cooperation wont get you the results you need Collaboration is mutual engagement to solve the challenge (21 st Century) Cooperation is a division of labor approach (20 th Century)

So whats stopping us? How do we get ahead?

THEMES Change Strategic Plan and Strategy Empowerment Best Practices, Next Practices and Innovation Closing Thoughts

THEME Change

Why is it so hard to change?

Mental Locks We dont need to be creative for most of what we do (driving, shopping, business of living). So staying on routine thought paths enables us to do many things without having to think about it.

Why is it so hard to change? The more successful a system is, the more difficult it is to recognize when it must change. By example, market leaders are the last ones to transform. The American Education System, The market leader during the industrial era!

Market Leader Thinking Dominant logic: Thats the way we do things here.

The Right Answer

The Second Right Answer What is the answer? What are the answers?

The Right Answer Thats not logical

SOFTHARD

Logic Dream Reason Precision Humor Consistency Ambiguity Play Work Approximate Focused Fantasy Reality Diffuse Analysis Hunch Generalization Specifics Child Adult

SOFT Dream Humor Ambiguity Play Approximate Fantasy Diffuse Hunch Generalization Child HARD Logic Reason Precision Consistency Work Reality Focused Analysis Specific Adult

SOFT Shades of gray Hard to pick up Many answers Flood light, diffused HARD Black and white Easy to pick up Right answer Focused like a spot light

Cat - Refrigerator

THEME Strategic Plan and Strategy

Just because you have the word strategic in your plan, it doesnt mean you have a strategy.

The work becomes more difficult. Education improvement is a process of uncovering and solving progressively more difficult challenges around student learning (low hanging fruit theory) This requires new learning from the adults.

Detecting improvement Changes in student performance lag behind changes in the quality of instructional practices. Changes in the classrooms are visible before you see them in external measures.

Strategic Planning v. Strategy Strategic plans are designed around large numbers of goals and initiatives. (usually too many) Strategy is a set of actions an organization chooses to pursue in order to achieve its objectives.

Strategic Planning v. Strategy Strategic planning is intended to be the vehicle for developing strategy. Strategy is about filtering the noise in these complex systems and deciding what must be done on behalf of the students and learning.

Strategic Plan Strategy Takes a broad incremental approach Includes discrete, unrelated initiatives Addresses an external audience Focuses on doing a few things well Integrates a few key initiatives Addresses an internal audience

THEME Empowerment

We live in a world obsessed with science, predictability and control. Some people believe if we cant measure something, it must not count!

We must consider the possibility that if we cant purely measure something, it might be the very most important thing!

Talking with kids… Its not us against them!

CULTURE DRIVES STRATEGY

THEME Best Practices, Next Practices and Innovation

AYP Research Based Successful Practices Tight Critical PointRemain Tight Tight Empower Tight Loose

Best practices allow you to do what you are currently doing a little better.

Best Practices Research Based Replication 70 to 80 % of all activity should be Research Based Best Practice

NEXT PRACTICES

Best practices allow you to do what you are currently doing a little better, while next practices increase your organizations capability to do things that it has never done before.

AYP

College and Career Readiness Defined Cognitive strategies: Intellectual openness; inquisitiveness; analysis; interpretation; precision and accuracy; problem solving; and reasoning, argumentation, and proof. Content knowledge: Understanding the structures and large organizing concepts of the academic disciplines, resting upon strong research and writing abilities. Academic behaviors: Self-management, time management, strategic study skills, accurate perceptions of ones true performance, persistence, ability to utilize study groups, self- awareness, self-control, and intentionality. Contextual skills and knowledge: Facility with application and financial-aid processes and the ability to acculturate to college. David Conley

Common Core State Standards In ELA… literacy will be a shared responsibility In ELA… students will read more complex text In ELA… more informational text will be read In ELA… more writing and research In ELA… speaking and listening In Math… focus on conceptual understanding In Math… more modeling of math in real world

Expertise (the way we do things around here) can sometimes be a road block to problem solving and the development of Next Practices.

SystemInnovation

Sustaining Innovation Next Practice

Disruptive Innovation

Marshmallow Challenge

NEXT PRACTICE THINKING The Iterative Process Versions Create a disciplined, managed space for development of new ways to accomplish difficult tasks

THEME Closing Thoughts

ADULT LEARNING TEXAS STORY

We can rationalize the failures of the past -----

or we can learn from them.

We can complain about the troubling inadequacies of the present ----

or we can face them.

We can talk and dream about educating our children for the future ---

OR TOGETHER WE CAN DO IT!

That takes having educators developing next practices that will lead us to new and different best practices.

Q & A with Ray McNulty This is the end of the presentation portion. Submit questions at this time and stay on to hear the answers. If you are logging off, thank you for attending and we will you with follow- up information. For more information

19 th Annual Model Schools Conference From Theory to Reality: Creating the Schools We Need Now NASHVILLE June

International Center for Leadership in Education is honored to collaborate with NASSP to support and empower school leaders. Join Bill Daggett, Ray McNulty, ICLE senior consultants and other national education leaders at The NASSP Annual Conference February San Francisco Join NASSP executive leadership and Breaking Ranks® schools for the official launch of: Breaking Ranks® A Comprehensive Framework for School Improvement 19th Annual Model Schools Conference June 26-29, Nashville Breaking Ranks® is owned by NASSP

Best Practices to Next Practices: A Different Kind of Thinking Raymond J. McNulty President International Center for Leadership in Education February, 2011