21st Century Fluency Skills

Technology and information are changing society and how we operate, yet schools have had little change in their pedagogy, structure, operation curriculum and assessment models. This is an issue, as our students are neurologically different than the generation of students before them. What needs to happen is to move from literacy to fluency. This is illustrated by a study performed by the Bertelsman Foundation in 1998. Two groups of grade 8 social studies students were taught using differing pedagogy; one with a traditional manner (primarily lecture & traditional testing), the other learned through a process-based approach using collaboration, technology, group activities and a blend of teacher and peer assessment. Both classes wrote the state exam for the grade level and the results were virtually the same. However, when the same test was given a year later, the traditional class scored significantly lower than the class who learned through collaboration and project and process learning.

Ian Jukes suggests five fluencies that are essential for today's students for functioning in life:

1. Solution fluency - requires the ability to problem-solve in real time using the 6D system (define the problem, discover a solution, dream up a process, design the process, deliver the plan, debrief and evaluate the process.
2. Information fluency - the ability to unconsciously interpret the avalanche of data in order to extract the essential and perceive its significance. 
3. Creativity fluency - requires both hemispheres of the brain to work together to add meaning through design, art and storytelling.
4. Media fluency - has two components, input (listen actively and decode the communication) and output (leverage the most appropriate media for your message)
5. Collaboration fluency - the ability to successfully work and interact with virtual and real partners.

To move our students from graduating as highly educated people, but we need them to be able to do much more than to recall facts and information on provincial or state exams. We need to work with them to develop these five fluencies so that they move beyond literacy to be adequately prepared for life, their life, not ours.

Download a pdf version of the presentation at http://www.fluency21.com/perspectives/LNE_perspective.pdf.


Based on the Literacy is Not Enough keynote presentation at Learning Forward 2011, presented by Ian Jukes - July 18, 2011 - Indianapolis, Indiana

Blogging as Teacher Leadership

How can blogging serve as a form of professional development? Does it have an impact on student learning?

Although it is not always viewed as professional development, or even professional reading, the regular reading of professional blogs by others in our profession is a great way to do some professional development. Whatever your role in education is, teacher, principal, librarian, superintendent, etc, you can find others in similar roles who are blogging on topics of interest to you. One of the benefits of reading blogs, is that it allows for dialogue between yourself and the blogger. This affordance is something that one does not get when doing other forms of professional reading. In addition, it builds your personal learning network (PLN).

Another aspect of blogging as professional development that is often overlooked is that of the blogger themself. No matter the size of your audience, blogging gives you the opportunity for reflection that is not usually afforded in our daily work. Ideally, dialogue is created to expand your reflection, but regardless of the number of comments or questions that your blog creates, the process is very valuable.

There are many different times and situations that work for blogging. One of the best times to write is when you are angry about an issue, but the worst time to publish can be when you are angry. Write when you are passionate but don't hit the publish button. Other opportunities exist when you are attending professional development or have an interesting conversation with a colleague.

Does it affect student learning? In my opinion, anything that makes a teacher think about their teaching has the potential for impact on student learning. This metacognition can occur as a result of reading someone's blog or writing your own blog posts. Blogging gives you the opportunity to take your thoughts further, in breadth and depth as well as in audience.

Based on the Blogging as Teacher Leadership session at Learning Forward 2011, presented by Terese Emry, Kathy Wiebke, Mike Lee, & Tom White - July 19, 2011 - Indianapolis, Indiana

Professional Learning Teams

Education is full of catch phrases and new models and programs come and go. Still in vogue are Professional Learning Communities (PLC) and more recently, Professional Learning Teams (PLT). These models of professional collaboration are very useful for schools, but too often, they are not done properly and as Dufour states, "the term has been used so ubiquitously that it is in danger of losing all meaning."

There are many misconceptions regarding PLTs and what they are and are not. To provide some clarity:

PLTs are Not

• a program to be implemented
• a meeting
• step-by-step recipe for change
• another thing added to a cluttered agenda

If you are familiar with flash mobs, you have probably seen this video of the T-Mobile flash mob at the Liverpool Street Station.

This is a metaphor for what can be accomplished when your school is a professional learning community or team. However, when you are in a situation where your school members are of the mentality that PLCs and PLTs are something that you do, your experience may be more like that of the guy from this AT&T commercial - doing your own thing and if you aren't careful, it may make you look foolish.

PLTs are a process that will change a school's culture, but it must be given time and importance in order for it to first become a part of the school culture and then it will begin to change the rest of the culture of the school.

Based on the Journey to Reflective Conversations session at Learning Forward 2011, presented by Alexis Holstead, Kim Wedman and Danielle Spencer - July 18, 2011 - Indianapolis, Indiana



Dufour, R. (2004). What is a “professional learning community”? Educational Leadership, 61(8), 6–11.

Base Every Decision on Your Superstars

Todd Whitaker describes the superstar teachers that we have in our schools as those that parents often request, would not be replaceable, are respected by peers and are remembered by former students as one of their best teachers. These are the top five to ten percent of our teaching staff, making for only a few superstars in a typical school. Whitaker writes about the importance of these people to effective principals. When making any decision, principals should be considering what their best teachers would think. His studied showed that effective principals routinely consulted informal teacher leaders for input. These teachers are usually happy to share their opinion, can keep conversations confidential (otherwise they would not have the respect of their peers) and have a school or district-wide vision that extends beyond the walls of their own classroom. This doesn’t mean that effective principals do not involve other teachers in decision-making; this is still important to do and gives them the feeling that they are part of the decision. What it means is that the superstars should always be considered or consulted in decision-making that impacts change on the whole school.

Whitaker makes a very interesting and valid point regarding the difference between effective and other principals regarding the confidence to seek input, both in advance and after the fact, from their best teachers. Less effective principals tend to be reluctant to have the superstar teachers in their schools, as they are more conscious of the fact that these teacher leaders are watching. If we don’t have confidence in ourselves, we are uncomfortable having outstanding colleagues around. This applies for teachers as well as principals. However, when we have confidence in ourselves, we relish opportunities to work with outstanding colleagues and use these chances to improve our skills and practice.

Whitaker, T. (2003). What great principals do differently: Fifteen things that matter most. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

It's People, Not Programs

In his book, What Great Principals Do Differently: Fifteen Things That Matter Most, Todd Whitaker outlines a number of things that make great principals stand out from others. One of these is the concept of focusing on the people within the school and not the programs that are running. He bluntly states the two ways that he feels a principal can make significant improvements to a school are to get better teachers and improve the teachers you have. He continues to discuss the fact that programs can make a difference, but it requires good teachers to be in place using those programs. Any teacher who has been teaching for ten years or more, especially if they have been at the same school, has seen programs come and go. Some of these programs are curriculum based, such as reading programs, while others may be encouraging good citizenship. Whitaker states, that effective principals, "see programs as solutions only when the programs bring out the best in their teachers."

In the same chapter, Whitaker also discusses the importance of principals to focus on individual staff development. In his studies, ineffective principals were much more focused of whole-school goals and issues and very little on individual teacher needs and growth. For me, this strengthens the need for individual teacher growth plans that are focused and empowering and supporting teachers to meet their goals that they set out in these documents. Whole school goals are important and we must continue to work on them, but if you have struggling teachers, this will probably not make much of a difference in their classroom. Regardless of the programs that we implement, the biggest difference made is through the quality of our teachers. This needs to be our overall focus if we want to make significant improvement in our schools.

Whitaker, T. (2003). What great principals do differently: Fifteen things that matter most. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

Mr. Bean on Educational Change

It's amazing the places that you can learn about educational change, especially if you look at things from a different perspective. At a recent conference, we were tasked with discussing how the clip of Mr. Bean at the swimming pool could be a metaphor for educational change.

At first, Mr. Bean attempts to use the small slide, scaffolding his 'learning' by starting small, only to be stymied by the lifeguard. Whitaker (2003) writes about how great principals influence change in their schools, "effective leaders don’t waste their time or energy trying to persuade everyone that the new system will work better than the old. Instead, they provide a scaffolding of procedures and techniques that helps the timid to feel secure. They structure the change so that the reluctant do not have the option to balk or turn back."The life guard would be an ineffective principal, for not allowing the scaffolding, or encouraging Bean to move to the smaller platform. After his lack of support, Bean feels that he is so far behind, that he must do something drastic such as the highest diving platform, in order to 'catch-up'. Sometimes we as teachers may feel this way, that the only way to make change is to do something fairly extreme. For some, it might look like an easy thing 'from the bottom of the ladder', which can be the cause for the drastic change.

As can be predicted by many of our own experiences and observations of educational change, Mr. Bean does not have much success with the diving platform. In fact, when the two boys reach the top behind him and he clearly is not capable of jumping on his own, he deals with it with bluff and bravado. The last thing he would want is for someone to think that he doesn't know what he is doing or is incapable of doing it. Too often, when educators are trying something new, they attempt it alone and are wary of letting anybody know that they are struggling and could use some help or support.

Another metaphor that was suggested is the fact that Bean continues to 'hang on', despite the fact that it clearly is not working. There are many educators who are 'hanging on' to something that needs to be released. For some, this is a certain text book or novel, for others it may be using an overhead projector or a certain reading program. Some of us teachers will 'let go' on our own, but others, like Bean, will need someone to push (or stomp) us to do it.

Finally, we all need to do a few belly flops along the way to making successful educational change.

There are many more metaphors that could be taken from this video clip and I encourage you to share any that you may make by commenting below.

Whitaker, T. (2003). What great principals do differently: Fifteen things that matter most. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

Based on the presentation "The Keys to Being a Successful Principal" by Del Litke and Kurt Sacher at Leading for Learning, July 8, 2011 (Olds, Alberta)

Learning on Display

Traditionally, in most classrooms, when a student completes an assignment, the audience is only one person - the teacher. If the finished product is something colourful and visually appealing, such as a poster, it may be displayed on the bulletin board. Occasionally, the assignment might include presenting to the class or even to another class across the hallway. Unfortunately, too often the illustration of learning by the student is only between the teacher and student.

Okay, these classes are different, as they are performing arts classes, right? “In my language arts, math or science class, this is not possible.” This might be the case if your mindset is fixed in that students are learning from a textbook or worksheets (Dweck, 2007). With some simple changes in your teaching, you can give your students an authentic audience to showcase their learning to, motivating them in the process. I recently had the opportunity to be a guest in a grade 3 science class. Rather than have their students do a report on an animal, where they researched and reported on a number of facts, they were given the assignment of presenting to the board of directors of the Calgary Zoo, who were looking for a new animal to put on display. Students needed to know many facts about their animal, design an appropriate enclosure and present this to

the board of directors (which I was one of, along with our Superintendent and a former science teacher from the local high school). The students met many different learning outcomes in language arts, science and math. Through their presentations, it was obvious that they had done the necessary research, but where they were able to showcase that they had truly internalized their learning was when we began asking them questions. They gave passionate answers and truly wanted their animal to be the one that we chose for the new exhibit. They were able to take the ‘facts’ that would typically be as deep as they got and expand on these using critical thinking skills.

There are a few areas where this is not the norm in schools. Band and drama teachers usually put their students' learning on display for a large audience. Concerts and plays are an integral part of these classes. What these teachers are doing, although they may not realize it, is giving their students a genuine audience to showcase their learning to.

There are a plethora of other ways, using both high-tech and low-tech methods,of creating authentic audiences for students to showcase their learning. If students use a blog to share their writing with friends, families or strangers from around the country or world, and receive feedback, they are almost always motivated to write more or to use the feedback to improve their work. They might be writing (and sending) an actual letter to someone to learn about the proper format of friendly or business letters (you should see how excited they are when they receive a reply!). They could be presenting to their municipal council on something of concern to them, such as a local issue. All of these put student learning on display for a larger audience.

If your students were to display their learning for an authentic audience, how would you ensure that they have mastered it?

Dweck, C. S. (2007). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Ballantine Books

Based on the presentation "A Blueprint to Increase Academic Achievement" by Scott Morrison at Leading for Learning, July 7, 2011 (Olds, Alberta)

A Shared Vision of Exemplary Teaching

In Alberta, the Teaching Quality Standard (TQS) is laid out by the provincial government as the knowledge, skills and attributes that all teachers are expected to meet in their practice throughout their careers. The intent of this is to ensure that students throughout the province can expect quality teaching regardless of what school they are enrolled in. I would agree that for the most part, this is true. Most teachers that hold a permanent teaching certificate in Alberta are meeting this standard and those that are not, are typically being given support to get them to this standard or are being addressed from an evaluation perspective.

What is lacking in the TQS is something that this majority of teacher can strive for. The TQS is a minimum standard that teachers must meet. The development of a document that expands on the TQS gives educators guidelines for areas that they can improve their craft in. A great way to develop these guidelines is the creation of a Shared Vision of Exemplary Teaching, which is developed collaboratively by a number of stakeholders. This is a process that we started in Wild Rose Public Schools two years ago and continue to use. Volunteers were gathered into a committee which included teachers, school administrators, central office administrators, trustees and a representative for the Alberta Teachers’ Association. The TQS was used as a starting point for the vision, with six non-negotiable core beliefs identified by the committee. Affirmations were developed that were consistent with the identified beliefs. These affirmations are not intended to be an expectation of where all teachers are at, but rather, they are goals that teachers should be striving for. When developing their professional growth plans (PGP), teachers are encouraged to examine this document and their own teaching and determine one or two areas that they feel that they should focus their improvement on. This shared vision gives us a non-threatening focal point for our growth plans that should improve the learning of our students.

Wild Rose Public Schools' Shared Vision of Exemplary Teaching is available here.

Based on the presentation "Developing a Sustainable Culture of Outstanding Leadership, Exemplary Teaching and Excellence in Learning" by Lyle Lorenz at Leading for Learning, July 6, 2011 (Olds, Alberta)