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In Your Corner, Leadership and Change Management
Five Priorities for the Coming Months
The next few months will demand careful planning and attention amid a flurry of urgent activity and pressure to make a wide range of crucial decisions. In fact, decisions made in the next few months may have impacts and implications that could influence education and learning in your organization for at least the next decade.
An influx of federal funds may open opportunities to engage in projects, programs, and promising initiatives not seen in a generation, depending on the demographic make-up of the students you serve. Meanwhile, students and staff are finishing more than a year of disruption, uncertainty, and challenging circumstances for learning. Learning has lagged for a significant group of students. Sadly, for some students the past year has resulted in little academic learning at all. The combination of these factors offers a great opportunity and a monumental challenge.
We may feel pressure to deal with all of the issues and pursue multiple opportunities simultaneously. However, such an approach would likely be a mistake and could be very costly. Fortunately, there is an approach that can help us to sort and sequence the issues and challenges ahead in ways that allow us to deal with the most urgent issues while designing and preparing for what comes next. Let’s explore a sequence of five priorities for action and how they can help us to successfully navigate the next several months and beyond.
Our first and most urgent priority needs to be communication. Community members, staff, students, and other organizational stakeholders are likely hearing rumors, suppositions, and speculation about what will happen this summer to support students and learning in preparation for the next school year. Predictably, they are wondering what school might be like in the fall and what they should be prepared for. And, if the school district is receiving a significant allocation of federal funds, there is likely high interest in how they will be used. Of course, there are also requirements for sharing and gaining input on how portions of the funds will be spent. Now is the time to share as much information as you have with as wide an audience as practical. Obviously, some information will apply to subgroups and will need to be targeted. Communicating now is imperative to reduce anxiety and rumors. However, it can also help to build acceptance and support as people receive timely, credible, and relevant information. (See Use Summer Communication to Generate Credibility for a more detailed discussion.)
A second and equally urgent priority is to ensure that summer learning experiences meet the needs of students and engage them in environments that inspire and motivate them despite the experiences of the past year. General content and skill review and traditional remediation strategies will likely not generate the learning needed and may leave students even more disillusioned than they are now. Students need targeted assistance informed by their specific needs to accelerate progress while rebuilding confidence and commitment to learning. They also need to experience the support and caring of educators who believe in their potential and are committed to their success. (See Not All Learning is Equal in Summer Learning Catch-Up for a more detailed discussion.)
As the first two priorities are being addressed, a third priority, designing learning experiences and environments for next year and beyond needs to be underway. Now is the time to harvest learning about what works from the past year, glean what we know about nurturing rich, deep learning from research and experience, and design learning experiences that will help students to build robust learning skills. The combination of an influx of resources and a system already disrupted and experiencing change presents a unique opportunity to engage in redesign. If you have appropriate expertise on staff, you might charge and support them to develop a new design. If you are already on the journey toward learner-centered learning, now is a good time to accelerate the work. If outside expertise and support will be needed, choose carefully to ensure that the design will be consistent with your vision and deliver the outcomes you seek. (See Designing a New Normal for Learning for a more complete discussion and design criteria.)
The fourth priority is to provide your staff with the professional learning supports, experience, and time to implement the new design as intended. The history of educational change is littered with examples of well-designed models and strategies that failed due to lack of staff capacity and commitment to deliver on them. Start this process with a thoughtful and comprehensive discussion about why a change in design and delivery of learning experiences is necessary to prepare today’s students for the future they will live in. Gain clarity about what the change in design will mean for learners and learning outcomes. Once there is clarity about why the change is important and what it means for instruction and learning, you can likely offer flexibility and support creativity as staff members engage students in the new learning model. The investment in staff capacity and commitment to changing learning experiences for students will be your most important investment now and in the long term. Failure with this priority will likely compromise your vision and risk a significant waste of resources. (See What About Summer Learning for Adults? for a discussion of key elements of effective adult learning.)
The fifth and final priority is to provide the equipment, tools, and facilities that align with the learning experiences you are committed to offering to students. While it may be tempting to start purchasing, remodeling, and constructing new supports now, until the learning model is ready and staff and students have experience with the new approach, you risk spending funds and making commitments that will not align with new practices or support the outcomes you envision.
Admittedly, this is a confusing, pressure-filled time. However, by sorting what is most urgent and important and allocating careful attention and resources to the design for learning and the capacity of staff to deliver on the promise is your best bet. While pressure to act now to remodel facilities and purchase equipment may be high, delaying until needs are defined and clear is a must.
In Your Corner, Teacher Learning
What About Summer Learning for Adults?
This has been a year of learning, and not just for students. Learning was a key contributor to our surviving and thriving as educators. Our need to learn often outpaced the structures and approaches of traditional professional development. We had to flex, adjust, and even create new learning paths and experiences in response to the challenges we faced.
Importantly, what we experienced and the learning that resulted can offer important lessons about how we can engage in and support professional learning in ways that are timely and effective. In fact, these are lessons we need to apply as we plan for and engage in professional learning this summer. Let’s review five of the important lessons that can inform our summer planning and support professional learning experiences.
We learned that to meet the professional learning needs of educators at various stages of their careers and lives and who experience unique, varied schedules and pressures, professional learning needs to be flexible. We need to offer learning opportunities that respond to these needs. Sometimes learning needs to be on-demand. At other times, after school or non-school days may still work. Learning opportunities may be in person, or they may be remote. The key is to have learning opportunities flex in response to learning needs and readiness.
We also learned that professional learning that will translate into practice must be practical. Hearing about a new technique will typically not be as useful as learning practical actions educators can take to apply what they are learning. Also, having multiple action options can allow educators to decide which actions might best fit their circumstances and style. Theory and broad ideas can provide a foundation for action, but educators also need to know where to start and what to expect.
The pandemic also reminded us that effective learning often needs to be short and specific. Learning in smaller chunks can be digested and converted into action faster. Too much content at once can become overwhelming and result in only a small portion being retained and applied. Knowing what to do with one or two new techniques can be more impactful than exposure to many techniques that never find their way into practice.
We learned the power of collaborative learning. Often learning, applying, and reflecting with colleagues can add richness to the experience and lower the risks of trying something new. Further, when others are engaged in learning with us they often have insights from which we can benefit, generate ideas we might never have imagined, and design applications we can adopt or adapt. Learning is fundamentally a social process. Finding ways to learn together can enhance the experience and increase its impact.
Finally, professional learning that makes the greatest impact is connected to what we want to accomplish with our students. Professional learning that meets a current need, addresses an important goal, or shows the way through a difficult challenge can make a much greater impact than learning that might be useful in the future, but addresses no immediate need. Further, professional learning that is driven by purpose is more likely to be applied, improved, and fully integrated into our professional practice.
Clearly, the pandemic has created significant challenges and placed barriers in many aspects of our professional lives and practice over the past year. Yet, it has also taught us many important lessons from which we can draw as we enter the post-pandemic era. Professional learning is one place where pandemic lessons can make a key difference in how we plan, engage, and grow.
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Share your story and the tips you have for getting through this challenging time. It can remind a fellow school leader of something they forgot, or your example can make a difficult task much easier and allow them to get more done in less time. We may publish your comments.
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When students are learning something that will empower or enable them to apply what they learn, attention is much easier to sustain.
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