Implementing a competency-based system in a public school is, to put it mildly, a high-stakes tightrope walk. Unlike private or charter schools, our families don’t always “opt-in” to our philosophy—they are a captive audience. This can make every shift feel contentious. There is a loud, persistent argument that we should ignore the “system” and just […]
Lessons Learned: Why Talking About School Transformation is a Minefield
Communicating about transformational changes to an education system is not for the faint of heart. This isn’t just swapping out a textbook; we’re talking about disrupting a system that carries a monumental weight of long-held beliefs, deeply ingrained traditions, and decades of personal expectations from every stakeholder. If you’re a transformational leader who doesn’t have […]
Can Schools Really Change? Why I Disappeared and What I Learned
It’s been a while. No excuses here—life got full, work got deep, and something had to give. Turns out, it was this blog. But here’s the thing: I wasn’t idle. We were building something. The Work That Pulled Me Away For the past several years, I’ve been immersed in one of the most challenging and […]
Making Personal Learning Plans Interactive
If you are like most people in Vermont, just mentioning the “PLP” can be a conversation stopper. The personal learning plan (PLP) has been consistently difficult to implement. It is always “something else” kids have to do and “something else” teachers have to do. It seems like a great idea but very few students are […]
What If There Were No Summative Assessments?
In his article Deforming The Formative, Arthur Chiaravalli argues that our “…testing mentality infects and distorts each of the three phases of formative assessment” and this got me thinking about something I have been struggling with for a long time: summative assessments. I just haven’t said out loud yet that there really isn’t any need […]
The Power Mini-Lesson
The mini-lesson is not a new idea. Mini-lessons are smaller lectures that provide a targeted skill or set of knowledge in a very short period of time. Learners can generally implement these skills or knowledge sets immediately following the mini-lesson. The power mini-lesson adds an element that requires some preparation for in the instructional design. […]
6 Ways to Become a Master Learner
Surviving as a teacher these days requires a special set of skills. I’ve written about the fact that my guidance counselor advised me not to learn how to type thinking I wouldn’t need that skill. Boy was she wrong. She had no clue what I would need to know with the advent of the internet […]
How Can Aliens Help Us With Instructional Design?
What can we learn from aliens about designing proficiency-based instruction? Imagine that you are an alien and have just landed on Earth. You come upon a bicycle that is leaning up against a tree. You are curious so you touch it. You intuitively put your hands on the handlebars and realize that it moves smoothly […]
The Time Constraint
By far the most common complaint in a school is that there is not enough time. While I don’t have a specific study to cite here, I am fairly certain that this would be identified as the number one constraint in education by most teachers. Time has become even more of a constraint since the […]
#futureready Brains
It can be sad that today’s learners have brains that are built to survive at a much faster pace. As someone who grew up without technology, I remember long days of playing outside or kicking a rock all the way to school. I would constantly lose track of time because I was engaged in something. […]