Dabble Babble
Stories abound of digital initiatives in schools that soon fade. Doing the “laptop thing” achieves little, except to tell students that schools are not the places to learn. Students know that mere knowledge acquisition is not learning, and that they can get the content answer to almost any problem with the push of a button. Too much focus on using technology to quickly get easy answers all but guarantees a superficial or inconsequential outcome and manifests among students and staff as a lack of long-term interest in real change.
You can often immediately tell the difference between a well-planned and implemented technology rollout from one that involves dabbling. We have heard these comments from education leaders indicating the dabbling problem.
• “We are focused on a smooth deployment.”
• “Choosing the right device is first and foremost.”
• “We have completed our plan.”
• “We are rolling out carts and can’t wait to see the change.”
• “We are focusing on innovation and fun.”
• “We don’t send the laptops home.”
• “This will make life easier for teachers.”
• “We have a six-year rollout plan.”
• “We are rolling out to everyone in the first year.”
• “We are debating bring your own device (BYOD) and other alternatives.”
These sorts of statements are indicative of reliance on jargon in place of a crafted implementation plan. For example, “We are focusing on innovation and fun” provides no concrete details for how a device rollout will benefit teachers or students. It’s a litany of nonspecific platitudes rather than a plan of concrete processes to achieve results. If your district often communicates in this manner, it is time to stop and consider how to address the dabble deficits in your technology rollout plan.
Dabble Deficits
Devices are essential to the change process but only one part of a long journey, and the other parts are often overlooked. Districts often buy a little bit of this software and a little bit of that, hoping that something good will happen. But dabbling—without commitment to and focus on pedagogy and the culture; without investing in a sense of team and family in the classrooms, schools, and district; and without attention to the following common deficits—will guarantee limited progress.
• Lack of short- and long-term learning goals
• Lack of alignment and coherence
• Leader turnover or lack of leadership
• Goal changes midstream
• Acceptance of mediocrity
• Politics and institutional resistance
• Financial and resource issues
• Lack of human capital
• Lack of social capital
• Lack of decisional capital
• State and federal mixed messages about priorities
• A poor or weak culture
• Lack of collective will
• Lack of momentum
• Lack of communication with stakeholders
• Lack of professional development for teachers and administrators
From the beginning, it is important to realize that, even with the most carefully laid plans, the change process is complex and messy; people will make mistakes. But a stream of unconnected initiatives, avoidance of problems, and fear of the unknown are hugely detrimental to any efforts to innovate and change.
A lack of coherent information and dialogue with students, teachers, administrators, school board members, parents, and community members usually means that bad information infects the culture. Issuing directives or presenting plans without formative dialogue leaves individuals and teams with a sense of helplessness when working through challenges. Worst of all, when bumps and turbulence occur, avoiding the work or becoming cynical has a hugely negative impact. It doesn’t have to be this way. It is time to put culture and technology together.
Culture and Technology Together
Digital content is loaded with great new functionality that can potentially benefit students, teachers, and administrators. Many times, however, schools build the professional development around the use of the technology without allowing for personal and collective growth. For example, supporting principals to grow in leading change, as well as inculcating teachers in leadership, are essential and vital to digital innovation work. The real digital energy comes from the opportunities to connect learners to their work and constructing collaborative projects that mirror real-world work.
Neglecting the important work of building human, social, and decisional capital is at the root of widespread mediocrity and dismal progress in many digital initiatives, as Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan (2012) so thoroughly document. The working conditions that support the new pedagogical dynamic we see on the horizon require a level of systemic alignment and leadership continuity that constantly lifts and reflects on classroom work. In the rest of the book we show how one district—Mooresville Graded School District in North Carolina—got it right, and how other districts are taking up the lessons it learned. There is nothing mysterious about implementing the strategies and processes leading to success. It requires a strong sense of moral purpose to serve all students, but more than that, it involves a clear and persistent approach to change and mobilize a collective culture devoted to adult and student learning linked to measurable impact.
chapter two
DEEP LEARNING
Achieving stratospheric success in implementing technology in education is like an iceberg. The technology is clearly visible, but below the surface is something much larger that really counts. This something is where we find deep learning, a melding of skills and attributes that range from critical thinking and problem solving to citizenship and creativity. The deep learning process also includes the necessary pedagogy transformation to develop these new competencies. In this chapter, we outline the effective deep learning programs in the Mooresville Graded School District, where Mark A. Edwards was superintendent.
Andy Hargreaves and his colleagues (2014) describe the lens through which to view a district’s success in Uplifting Leadership—successful systems learn from, but never imitate, other effective organizations. We explore how you can establish your district’s own cultural transformation, the driving factors that catalyze innovation, and the people and groups working to extend connections that advance knowledge across both district and country lines. We conclude with a threefold model for professional capital that sets up much of the rest of this book.
Mooresville Graded School District
Both Every Child, Every Day (Edwards, 2014) and Thank You for Your Leadership (Edwards, 2016) outline the MGSD transformational process. This district has approximately 6,200 students in seven schools and a technical education center affiliated with the high school. Free and reduced lunch eligibility has increased to about 40 percent of the student population since