"Design is the rendering of intent." What if education leaders approached their work with the perspective of a designer? This new perspective of seeing the world differently is desperately needed in schools and begins with school leadership. Alyssa Gallagher and Kami Thordarson, widely recognized experts on Design Thinking, educational leadership, and innovative strategies, call this new perspective design-inspired leadership—one of the most powerful ways to ignite positive change and address education challenges using the same design and innovation principles that have been so successful in private industry. Design Thinking for School Leaders explores the changing landscape of leadership and offers practical ways to reframe the role of school leader using Design Thinking, one step at a time. Leaders can shift from "accidental designers" to "design-inspired leaders," acting with greater intention and achieving greater impact. You’ll learn how viewing the world through a more empathetic lens—a critical first step on the path to becoming a design-inspired leader—can raise your awareness of the uniqueness of your teachers and students and prompt you to question the ways in which they experience your school. Gallagher and Thordarson detail five specific roles to help you identify opportunities for positively impacting students, teachers, districts, parents, and the community: * Opportunity Seeker. Shifts from problem solving to problem finding. * Experience Architect. Designs and curates learning experiences. * Rule Breaker. Challenges the way things are "always" done. * Producer. Gets things done and creates rapid learning cycles for teams. * Storyteller. Captures the hearts and minds of a community. Full of examples of Design Thinking in action in schools across the country, Design Thinking for School Leaders can help you guide your school to the forefront of the new design + education movement, one that will move traditional education into the modern world and drive the future of learning.
School innovation expert John B. Nash demonstrates how design thinking can be adapted successfully by busy school leaders seeking student-centered solutions to a range of challenges. Based on a decade of work teaching school leaders nationally and internationally, Design Thinking in Schools shows how leaders can adopt a design thinking mindset to uncover problems and harness the ideas and energy of students and other stakeholders to create unique, effective solutions within a single semester or school year. The book is a step-by-step guide that offers critical guidance and field‐tested tools for choosing design teams, developing prototypes, and selecting promising ideas to take to scale. It includes rich examples of educators at the elementary, middle, and high school level who have used design thinking to find creative solutions for improving student engagement, school climate, and parent-teacher conferences, among many other challenges. Nash illustrates how school leaders can use the design thinking process to access a range of student voices for a diversity of opinions and feedback on topics that better inform school change. Lively and inspiring, Design Thinking in Schools is a critical resource for school leaders seeking to leverage the untapped wealth of knowledge and experience contained within their own buildings to make schools innovative places of learning.
This book provides readers with insights into how Singapore school leaders are actively engaged in the transformation of the Singapore education system. It brings to attention crucial elucidations of the increasing demand and complexity placed on school leaders through the use of case studies. Each chapter in the book focuses on a particular issue which has become important or has gained renewed importance in the Singapore education system. The chapters first provide a background to the theme under examination and a theoretical basis for discussion. They then narrate the case that shows how school leaders interpret and implement policy initiatives in their respective schools or lead change in that area. The case studies span over a wide range of domains such as instructional leadership, assessment leadership, stakeholder engagement, professional learning communities, and school branding. The data collected from these case studies came primarily from interviews of educators in their respective school contexts, in addition to other sources of data such as artifacts. Each case study highlights descriptions, interpretations, and perspectives across school contexts, which is consistent with the proposition that school leadership is very much shaped by context. At the end of each chapter, there are guiding questions to help readers critically analyse and reflect on the main learning points of the case.
The Handbook of Research on the Education of School Leaders brings together empirical research on leadership preparation and development to provide a comprehensive overview and synthesis of what we know about preparing school leaders today. With contributions from the field’s foremost scholars, this new edition investigates the methodological foundations of leadership preparation research, reviews the pedagogical and curricular features of preparation programs, and presents valuable insights into the demographic, economic, and political factors affecting school leaders. This volume both mirrors the first edition’s macro-level approach to leadership preparation and presents the most up-to-date research in the field. Updates to this edition cover recent state and federal government efforts to improve leadership in education, new challenges for the field, and significant gaps and critical questions for framing, researching, evaluating, and improving the education of school leaders. Sponsored by the University Council of Educational Administration (UCEA), this handbook is an essential resource for students and scholars of educational leadership, as well as practitioners, policymakers, and other educators interested in professional leadership. .
Design thinking is a method of problem-solving that relies on a complex set of skills, processes and mindsets that help people generate novel solutions to problems. Taking Design Thinking to School: How the Technology of Design Can Transform Teachers, Learners, and Classrooms uses an action-oriented approach to reframing K-12 teaching and learning, examining interventions that open up dialogue about when and where learning, growth, and empowerment can be triggered. While design thinking projects make engineering, design, and technology fluency more tangible and personal for a broad range of young learners, their embrace of ambiguity and failure as growth opportunities often clash with institutional values and structures. Through a series of in-depth case studies that honor and explore such tensions, the authors demonstrate that design thinking provides students with the agency and compassion that is necessary for doing creative and collaborative work, both in and out of the classroom. A vital resource for education researchers, practitioners, and policymakers, Taking Design Thinking to School brings together some of the most innovative work in design pedagogy.
Design thinking is a human-centered problem-solving process that organizations can use to address wicked and complex problems of practice. Within the PK-12 space, design thinking has been employed to engage educators in an innovative approach to address challenges like curriculum redesign, instructional engagement, and designing physical spaces. The use of design thinking in the PK-12 space is a result of the evolution of an organizational improvement process that puts people at the center of problem-solving initiatives. Design thinking is seen as both a process and a mindset that enables people to look at problems in new ways and address these problems through creative approaches. In this book we share case studies of PK-12 schools and other educational organizations that have used design thinking, as well as research studies that have studied aspects of design thinking in the PK-12 space. We have brought together a variety of research-based and illustrative case studies around design thinking in PK-12 education that explore the development and implementation of design thinking in practice.
The creative strategies in Design for Transformative Learning offer a playful and practical approach to learning from and adapting to a rapidly changing world. Seeing continuous learning as more than the periodic acquisition of new skills this book presents a design-led approach to revising the stories we tell ourselves, unlearning old habits and embracing new practices. This book maps learning opportunities across the contemporary landscape, narrating global case studies from K12, higher education, design consultancies and researchers. It offers narrative context, best practices and emergent strategies for how designers can partner in the important work of advancing a lifetime of learning. Committed to driving sustained transformation this is a playbook of practical moves for designing memory-making, perspective-shifting, hands-on learning encounters. The book braids stories from design practice with theories of change, transformative learning literature, cognitive and social psychology research, affect theory and indigenous knowing. Positioning the COVID-19 pandemic as a moment to question what was previously normalised, the book proposes playful strategies for seeding transformational change. The relational practice at the core of Design for Transformative Learning argues that if learning is to be transformative the experience must be embodied, cognitive and social. This book is an essential read for design and social innovation researchers, facilitators of community engagement and co-design workshops, design and arts educators and professional learning designers. It is a useful primer for K12 teachers, organisational change practitioners and professional development facilitators curious to explore the intersection of design and learning.
It’s not what you do, it’s how you think about what you do. A must-have resource for any educator working toward student achievement at ever-higher levels, 10 Mindframes for Leaders: The VISIBLE LEARNING® Approach to School Success brings the mindframes of ten world-renowned educators to life. Each chapter, written by a different thought leader, details a mindframe at the heart of successful school leadership. It includes: · The most current, up-to-date findings from the Visible Learning research, including the factors from Visible Learning that support each mindframe · Practical ideas for leaders to implement high-impact strategies in classrooms and schools · Resources to help educators clarify and refine their own mindframes
"For students to be successful in school, they first have to be in school." With that simple statement, Jessica Sprick and Randy Sprick launch a compelling case for prioritizing student attendance. This comprehensive guide provides school and district-level administrators and teams with the background information, strategies, and tools needed to implement a multitiered approach to improving attendance and preventing chronic absence. The authors use the results of their work in schools throughout the United States to dispel the myth that educators have little control over student attendance and provide success stories from elementary and secondary schools that have reversed longstanding patterns of absenteeism. Citing extensive research, Sprick and Sprick share details about the shocking prevalence of chronic absence in U.S. schools and its effects on students, teachers, families, and the school community. They explain how to replace punitive approaches to absenteeism with effective methods that begin with universal supports and continue through Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions for students with more persistent problems. Specifically, they explain how to Build an effective school team to address absenteeism . Create systems to collect accurate data and set priorities. Develop an attendance initiative that generates student enthusiasm as well as staff, parent, and community support. Design and implement strategies that are tailored to specific schoolwide concerns and demographics that reach all students. Equipped with the information and tools presented in this book, educators can ensure wise use of staff and other resources—and create a culture of attendance that is the foundation of successful schools. This book is a copublication of ASCD and Ancora Publishing.
Develop and enhance Leadership Courage to exceed every expectation! Everyday Courage for School Leaders examines the inner strength, will power, and resilience with which principals and administrators can face the daily challenges and expectations of educating all students. Based on three foundational ideas at the core of courage, this thought-provoking guide includes: • How to Take Action: make specific plans to activate moral courage, intellectual courage, empathetic courage, and disciplined courage • Daily Practices: exercises in accountability, trust, and risk-taking maintain courageous leadership for equity, excellence, and inclusion • Courage Quotient: assess and consider your areas of strength and opportunities for growth
Education inevitably influences society and our future. As literature and experience tells, educational leaders impact not only their institutions, but ultimately the learning outcomes for a large portion of society’s members. Educational leaders are charged with more than creating a viable future for an institution; they are also charged with contributing to and creating a viable, positive human future—not an easy task amid the turbulence and disruption of our times. The Handbook of Research on Educational Leadership and Research Methodology discusses the evolution of educational leadership knowledge, thoughts, and practices by sharing the perspectives, experiences, theories, and philosophies related to educational leadership and research methodologies across all levels of education. Covering topics such as critical race design, toxic leadership, and adult learning, this major reference work is a critical resource for faculty and administrators of both K-12 and higher education, principals, superintendents, chancellors, directors, pre-service teachers, teaching instructors, government officials, librarians, researchers, and academicians.
