Moving on Down the Line

This blog has been dormant for some time and it is no one’s fault but mine. I think perhaps I was discouraged by the overall lack of interest and readership it did not generate. The word “it” is really unfair though since “it”, a blog idea and series of posts, does not write “it”-self. Rather “its” success insofar as how it informs and influences thinking and creates community, rests with the extent to which the author catalyzes like – minded readers to want to read more of what he is offering.

No one will read this post in order to find out the reasons for the blog’s failure and imminent demise. Sloth, distraction and other professional distractions, other chores, and other gods to serve, are certainly culprits, in addition to the discouragement noted above.

But what I want to do may be of interest to those with likeminded concerns and interests that I have discovered in a variety of ways in the past few months. In other words there are other would-be edufuturists out there who are very interested in each other’s thinking and who selflessly seek to magnify each other’s ideas for the sake of the leaders and teachers who shape students’ futures. I have found them through the help of social media and especially through the help of friends and former students who have steered me to these places.

I published a book two months ago: Futures Based Change Leadership: A Formula for Sustained Change Capacity; < that encodes much of my thinking about how to create school organizations grounded in the future and empowered with the skills and dispositions to sustain their successful continuance.

I am going to start a new blog with that book’s title and use the book as the basis for informing and advocating the principles it offers to help edufuturists recognize their preferable futures. More that I am hopeful too that I can use it to create a community who will actively activate each other to add to its principles so that we can co – create something better than we already have.

My only lament in closing this blog down is that there is some pretty good thinking in this present blog that I don’t want to throw out with the bath water. So from time to time I will retrieve a nugget from these entries and weave them back into the futures-based conversations I hope to have.

Thanks to those who read and followed this blog. Please follow me to the new blog! Futures Based Change Leader.

An Eighth Pillar to Scott McLeod’s Seven Pillars of a Future School

Having done my best to comment to Dr. McLeod’s seven pillars of a future school (MFS), I’d like to add one more:

Simulations and problem-based learning experiences that foster students’ ability to engage in authentic, real-world work. (hat tip: Trent Grundmeyer)

I spend much time speaking to the values of simulations and experiential learning in another blog; http://seriousgamesdotme.wordpress.com and refer you to that.

However it’s also likely that the premise of experiential learning is woven into most if not all, in one way or the other, of Dr. McLeod’s principles.

Here, I will make the case to emphasize this approach as a particularly vital cornerstone of what FMS should look like.

Perhaps Renzulli’s Triad best complements what I am talking about. Renzulli divides instructional components into three parts; content and basic skills, process thinking, and real world experiential learning.

Ideally the last segment, real world learning involves students in project based approaches that are translated and applied to real world – out-of-school needs, like ecology, social, and political issues.

Simulations, including single computer based, internet based, and classroom based are the ideal bases for the third leg of Renzulli’s triad, especially in those many instances when it is not practical to actually engage students in out of school problems.

An emphasis on using these strategies as a centerpiece of the instructional arsenal of a school would have systemic ripples across all targeted learning goals for students lucky enough to be in MFS.

It’s interesting to me that Renzulli’s triad has been a model for so called gifted programs around the country for a long time. It’s pleasing to me that his fundamental components are finally being recognized for their value for all students.

My last post about MFS will try to capture and synthesize all of what MFS can and should mean to students yet unborn.

Leadership for a Global Economy

If you’re looking for a textbook or want to read a book re Leadership. Check out book just published where I am co-editor and a co-author, “Leadership for a Global Economy”.

Available through Amazon and North American Business Press.