Tag: change
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The Response from Parents in October
School started at the end of July and by October students and parents were questioning our implementation of the new changes. A group of parents presented us with the following list of questions. Questions from Parents Why the implementation did not consider a pilot to test and debug the system before implementing it to the whole…
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Did we really expect to escape the critics?
By October, we started hearing grumblings from students and parents. Below is a copy of the petition from some members of the Class of 2015. In the midst of the college application season, our seniors were nervous. We immediately shared this information with our faculty and scheduled meetings with the seniors and then grade level groups…
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People Get Emotional When you Talk about Changing Grading Practices
Over the years I have followed newspaper articles from communities where grading and reporting changes have taken place and quite often the conversations lead to heated arguments, animosity, teachers getting suspended and/or fired, principals getting losing their jobs and court cases. Possibly the most controversial change that really gets tempers flaring is when schools decide to…
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What’s it like to change grading and reporting practices that have been around for over 100 years?
At Graded, In 2012 we started working on plans to redesign our assessment practices to better meet the needs of our students. The most difficult work happened during the 2014 – 15 school year and everyone in our community was on a steep learning journey.I am so proud of our faculty for taking the risks…
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Do parents really want schools with innovative learning environments?
Defining what it means to create a culture of innovation and especially a culture that cultivates innovators has been on my mind for some time now. I wrote, Jumping on the Innovation Bandwagon, Inspired by Passionate Students and The Minerva Project as a Disruptive Innovation Case Study which all included views of innovation. I know that innovation is…
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Inspired by Passionate Students
For the past two weeks I have had the pleasure of working with Gabi Campos and Nik Hildebrandt, two Graded students who are passionate about what the future of education can look like. So passionate that they took the initiative yesterday to present at the 2014 School Leadership Summit. Gabi and Nik are currently 11th graders who have developed…
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Organizational Inertia -Does it make you uncomfortable?
As we deeply think about innovation and what it takes to create an innovative culture we’re seeing the real challenges and barriers that organizations face. In February 2013 Graded hosted the Innovate 2013 Conference and Fabio Gandour, IBM Brasil Chief Scientist, was one of our panelists. He presented a wonderful metaphor for what inertia looks like.…
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Jumping on the Innovation in Education Bandwagon
Our school’s leadership team is reading Tony Wagner’s book “Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World” as we grapple with what innovation looks like in schools. (You can follow our discussion on Twitter – #gradedllt) I highly recommend Wagner’s book along with Suzie Boss’s book “Bringing Innovation to School: Empowering Students to Thrive in…
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Jumping Right into Design Thinking – Part 1
I have always been someone who likes using defined processes groups. Probably the most useful workshop that I ever attended was David Langford’s Quality Learning seminar. I have used his tools for problem solving as an individually and with groups for years. For several years now I have been wanting to learn more about design…
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What is the pace of work like in your school?
We’re having quite a few conversations about the rapid pace of life at Graded. It’s been a longstanding discussion at the school for teachers, students and parents and we have enlisted the support of Challenge Success to help us improve the quality of our lives at school and at home. We’re hopeful that change will…
Creative Tension 