{"id":149,"date":"2018-09-30T01:43:21","date_gmt":"2018-09-30T01:43:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/?p=149"},"modified":"2018-10-12T02:59:03","modified_gmt":"2018-10-12T02:59:03","slug":"follow-the-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/2018\/09\/30\/follow-the-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"Follow the Leader"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been impacted by George Couros\u2019 work on Innovative learning. He is an author and educational speaker, and his book, The Innovator\u2019s Mindset; Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity<\/em> (2015) was compelling. \u00a0I attended one of his sessions and have since been following him on Facebook,<\/a> Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

George encourages teachers to break the mold of their instructional practices and walks them through what truly is innovative. George\u2019s definition of innovation is to take an idea and make it new and better. He challenges us all to look at what we are doing and why – we need to assess if what we are doing enables kids to think more critically or if we are doing it just because we have always done it a certain way. \u00a0We should be providing <\/span>new and better <\/span><\/i>learning experiences for our students. \u00a0He provides many inspiring examples of educators refreshing their lessons (sometimes in a few easy steps) to make them new and better.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the foundational pieces of being an innovative educator and\/or leader, is that relationship is a starting point. Teachers need to have a depth of authentic relationship with their students. School leaders need to have a caring relationship with staff members. Relationships are key in order to begin moving people forward in their learning. Through relationships, we know where people are at, what\u2019s important to them, and what they need in their growth journey. Through relationships, teachers create an environment in which students feel valued and can build confidence in a safe place. Lessons can flow out of a sense of <\/span>what does the learner need,<\/span> rather than <\/span>what does the curriculum say we need<\/span>? In a school setting, when an administrator fosters relationships with staff members, then leading is no longer about making teachers follow our specific direction through policies and procedures. Rather, it becomes about empowering teachers to take risks, supporting them in their endeavours, and highlighting to the community their successes. As we do that, as a community with individual flavours, we then move towards our overall goals.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another very strong and significant idea that George promotes, is that with the technology currently available, our students can have a wider audience for their learning and as a result, more voices to hone their thinking. He advocates that student learning should be visible and meaningful in a real life context and we have a global platform on which we can encourage them to participate. He gives examples of students using twitter and instagram to post their process on learning, and receiving feedback from students and adults around the world. For instance, one activity was students posting their response to classroom activities on a common story book. Within a day, the post had made its way to the author of the book who then responded to the student directly. This then became an impactful learning experience that was far more than a teacher could have provided herself.<\/span><\/p>\n

Along these lines, then, from a leadership perspective, George strongly advocates that school leaders and educators engage social media in world wide conversations regarding their educational and leadership practice. Twitter is one of the most powerful tools for this in that one can post a question, or a live comment and can get feedback very quickly. Social media, however, as an innovative practice, is more than just making posts. It is a tool for leaders to build community, connect with communities in different ways, collaborate locally and globally, learn from others in a wider audience, openly reflect, tell personal stories, develop personal learning opportunities and overall, drive change. As leaders, we can make our own learning visible, and learn from others in the industry. In doing so, we model to our staff and students habits of a lifelong learner and create a community culture in which we are all learners together.<\/span><\/p>\n

In terms of advice I would give, I feel hard pressed to find anything to suggest. I would typically think of things like creating space for followers to experiment with ideas. Or have follow through where people are accountable to practice what they are learning. Or providing practical resources or advice on how to implement these ideas in our personalized contexts. However, when I consider these, I see that George has already created an environment in which this can happen. He has created community through Instagram for teachers to engage in the content of his book, do practical and meaningful activities and to highlight their learning. He hosted an Instagram book study over the summer which was a powerful medium through which he could ask provocative questions and teachers could share their learning. The wide variety of responses and engagement was overwhelming. He provides many additional resources for teachers and administrators to take to use to make it their own. <\/span><\/p>\n

I really feel like George\u2019s values, ethics, and principles, strongly align with my own. For many years, as a teacher myself, I have continuously wrestled with the question of how to make learning meaningful for each student, and how there can be an authentic engagement with the content they are learning. I have always taken risks in my teaching practice, and have never taught the same thing twice. I recognize the unique characteristics of each student and class, and have tried to create meaningful learning experiences around them. In that, I see myself as having been an innovative educator for many years. From a leadership perspective, I have always encouraged, and often gently nudged (or pushed) my staff to expand their teaching practice, question how they are doing things, and try new approaches. My staff has always known that my motto is \u201cyes – go for it!\u201d – even when it has never been done or there are barriers to overcome. I get behind my teachers and support them with what they need to be innovative. They feel supported because I build strong relationships with them and create an environment in which they build confidence to try new things. <\/span><\/p>\n

Couros, G. (2015). <\/span>Innovator\u2019s mindset: Empower learning, unleash talent and lead a culture of creativity<\/span><\/i>. San Diego: Dave Burgess Consulting.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been impacted by George Couros\u2019 work on Innovative learning. He is an author and educational speaker, and his book, The Innovator\u2019s Mindset; Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity (2015) was compelling. \u00a0I attended one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":344,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,11,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-follow-the-leader","category-ldrs500","category-unit-1","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/344"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions\/178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}