In That Used to Be Us, Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum (2011) wrote, "In the span of a decade, people in Boston, Bangkok, and Bangalore, Mumbai, Manhattan, and Moscow, all became virtual next-door neighbors."

This influence of technology and globalization is something we are all experiencing, even though we may not realize it. For example, the iPhone was released in 2007, the iPad in 2010. In less than a decade, the expansion of these and similar technologies has significantly changed how we work and interact with people we can now "see" around the world.

What does this mean for education? Today's students will be working in the global marketplace. How are we preparing them for this ever-changing future? How are we learning from educators around the world? How are we preparing our educators?

Learning Forward has been purposefully expanding its global influence as an international association of learning educators. We have a growing membership of international educators, and our staff is working to get smarter about how education systems around the world are learning and growing, engaging with educators in Canada, Australia, and Singapore, just to name a few.

I experience this influence in many ways. As a participant in Learning Forward's Academy, a 2 1/2-year extended opportunity to grow as a learning leader, I saw up close the passion of educators from Northern Lights School Division in Alberta, Canada. How they view their work impacted how I view mine. This district is a learning community that aligns the work of educators around improving student learning.

The growing influence of international education is also present in the school district where I work. I recently spoke with a parent who is moving his children to our district in suburban Minneapolis from a school in Singapore. Our staff is planning the transition with the staff in Singapore just as they would if the student was moving from a community nearby. Like schools across the country, our classrooms have an international influence. Ten years ago, only 2% of our students spoke a home language other than English. Today, that number is 21%.

Last spring, I met five elementary students who had just spoken at a ceremony that recognized the school's progress with closing the achievement gap. Four of the five students have lived in another country, and they are each younger than 9.

This growing diversity is also apparent among our teachers. We have teachers who have taught in Europe, Asia, Canada, and South America. They bring a wealth of experience as well as knowledge of effective professional practice that benefits the whole staff.

In a world that grows smaller by the day due to the convergence of technology and globalization, Learning Forward is growing in influence, connecting educators around the world so the students we work with are prepared to thrive in a future in which Boston and Bangalore are neighbors.

This post also appears in the June issue of JSD, arriving soon in member mailboxes.

Jeff Ronneberg
Learning Forward president, Board of Trustees

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As leaders in education, we seek to transform thinking, systems, and organizations. Through modeling, coaching, and facilitating learning, we build capacity in others. In December, as part of the Learning Forward Annual Conference, we are launching a new type of pre-conference session, based on the unconference structure, titled Learn Now: Open and Connected Conversations.

The structure, or lack thereof, of an unconference allows the participants to shape and direct the learning for the day. According to edcamp.org, the format promotes "organic, participant-driven professional learning" — one of the most authentic developments of learning communities. After a brief opening, attendees can sign up to present during a 60-minute time block. Once the agenda is built from these time blocks, participants choose the sessions to attend. This model ensures that the day's agenda will be based on common goals. The day will wrap up with whole-group reflection and processing.

This type of meeting structure is ideal for attendees who desire to ask questions, share their expertise, and network with others who are seeking new and transformational strategies to facilitate learning.

Learn Now pre-conference attendees will be able to learn with Jim Knight, Marcia Tate, Lori Gracey, and Chris Yeager. These professional learning experts have all agreed to facilitate at least one session as well as learn alongside others.

We have modified the unconference model a bit to extend the learning beyond the physical face-to-face session. Beginning in September, there will be opportunities for registered participants to virtually build our community and share ideas. Through social media, we'll collaborate and engage in dialogue to better prepare in advance of the Learn Now session, and then continue the discussions of specific topics long after the session is over.

I'm excited to have the opportunity to lead the design and facilitation of the day. I look forward to connecting and learning!

Click here to register for the session (save $75 if you register before June 30) and invite others.

Michelle King
Director of Professional Learning, Coppell ISD
@mikingpd

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There are many ways to exert school system leadership, and one of the most powerful is to judiciously use the words "Stop" and "No." Invoking these words at the right times, in the right ways, for the right purposes, is essential to improving professional learning.

School system leaders are always under pressure to say "Yes." They are accountable to many entities: school boards, state education agencies and legislatures, and the federal government, not to mention local political and business leaders. Each of these entities has expectations or requirements that, in effect, drive leaders' daily work. No wonder leaders' agendas are often crowded with implementing, maintaining, or improving various procedures and practices that may or may not improve education. Some administrators are so busy they begin to believe their level of activity is a credible indicator of their professional effectiveness.

School systems and schools are more often victims rather than beneficiaries of more rules, programs, methodologies, and interventions. Because there are seldom effective evaluations of such activities, the focus and energies of educators frequently dissipate as the number of initiatives increase. Maintaining activities and piling on new ones can become the focus, rather than ensuring their impact.

In two important ways, this phenomenon has implications for developing a standards-based system of professional learning. Over time, many school systems have instituted a variety of staff development practices that continue from year to year with little or no scrutiny. However, now that there are national standards for professional learning, school systems must objectively and rigorously analyze their professional development policies, programs, and practices. Which ones authentically align with the standards? Which ones do not? What is the evidence of their effectiveness?

The answers may provide a need for school system leaders to say "Stop." That is, stop the practices that are clearly at odds with the standards. Such action is consistent with the Leadership standard that calls for leaders to "align policies and guidelines to ensure effective professional learning within their school systems or schools."

This alignment is an essential building block for leaders to establish, as the standard requires "organizational systems and structures that support effective professional learning and ongoing continuous improvement." As tempting as it may be for school system leaders to shave the square pegs of current practices so they fit in the round holes of the standards, that will not create the alignment necessary for professional learning that positively impacts the performance of educators.

Unfortunately, stopping practices that don't align with the standards is not the end of the challenge. School system leaders will continue to be subject to a barrage of proposals by policymakers, educators, and vendors who argue that their favored policy, program, or practice will increase professional learning's effectiveness. Some of the proposals may have potential, many will not. School system leaders must devote the time and effort necessary to critically assess such proposals and determine whether and how they can contribute to a standards-based system of professional learning. It will take a great deal of intestinal fortitude to say "No, " particularly when a proposed approach seductively glitters with false promise, or comes from powerful political or commercial interests.

The professional learning standards do not require adding more policies, programs, and practices. Instead, they call for creating a new system of professional learning built on the standards and the research that supports them. School system leaders can only do that if they have the courage to say "Stop" or "No" when necessary to set professional learning on a new path.

This post originally appeared in the Spring 2013 issue of The Learning System.

Hayes Mizell
Distinguished Senior Fellow, Learning Forward

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Across the nation, new state legislation is weaving together educator evaluation, student assessments, and continuous professional learning for educators. New evaluation systems for educators commonly define levels of effective performance, require preparation for those responsible for conducting the evaluations, and call for support systems for educators' continual professional growth and development. Too often these evaluation systems fail to include the essential policy components to support effective educator professional learning necessary for continuous growth, which reinforces an already deeply embedded practice of inequity in students' opportunity to learn.

Some educators are fortunate enough to work in school systems and states with sound professional learning policies that define effectiveness; hold school systems, third-party providers, and others accountable for effective professional learning practices; and make the necessary resources available for continuous learning. When other educators do not benefit from such policies, students' opportunities to learn are impacted.

Learning Forward and Council of Chief State Schools Officers joined together to recommend six essential components for statewide professional learning policies. These policy components establish the parameters and conditions that ensure that all educators experience effective professional learning as a part of an ongoing educator growth system:

• A vision and purpose for professional learning that links it with educator effectiveness and student success;
• A definition of professional learning that establishes a common understanding of research-based practice, including collaborative, job-embedded learning experiences aligned with student content standards and educator performance standards;
• Standards for professional learning that establish quality indicators;
• Ongoing assessment and evaluation of professional learning to measure its quality and results;
• Clearly defined roles and responsibilities for all stakeholders, including teachers, principals, central office staff, and state education agencies; and
• Adequate funding to support high-quality professional learning.

These professional learning policy components provide a check on inequity that exists across and within states and districts in regard to educator supports for effectiveness. The components establish a foundation for equity in professional learning, a primary support for educator effectiveness.

Without emphasis on professional learning, the policies for educator evaluation will fall short in meeting both students' and educators' needs.

Joellen Killion
Senior Advisor, Learning Forward

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Students require great teaching every day to master the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and dispositions needed to graduate ready for careers and college. I believe we can make this a reality when every educator shares the responsibility for the success of more students than are listed on their individual class rosters. This means third-grade teacher Allison Green is committed to the success of all third graders at Hill Elementary. This also means that high school world history teacher Fred Walker is committed to the success of all high school world history students at Washington High School.

This is where learning networks come in. I believe in their power to support individual and collective growth, and I believe there are three types of networks that can support educator learning and promote shared responsibility.

First and foremost, networking begins at the school where educators work. School systems must provide every educator the resources to engage actively in a network that pays attention to the adult and student needs of everyone participating in the network. Identifying learning priorities begins with an analysis of data on student performance and proceeds through the development of a learning agenda. Establishing and executing a learning agenda means that every member of the learning network commits to acquiring and implementing new knowledge and skills, supporting each other in improving practice, assessing the impact of the new practices on their students, and refining the learning and practice agenda when the results are not as intended. When educators learn with colleagues in their schools, new practices move from classroom to classroom and, when principals are involved in a systemwide network, from school to school. These networks promote systemic rather than fragmented change and make it possible for more students to benefit from their teachers' network participation.

Second, every educator benefits from participation in a network of educators who work in different schools or school systems and who are pursuing similar goals. These networks specialize in particular topics and offer opportunities for educators to dig deeper in areas of individual interest or need. For example, educators may find others who are interested in integrating technology more effectively in instruction. Or educators may seek others who are committed to the education policy landscape and want to build an action plan for influencing local and national policy. Some of these networks may exist within an educator's community and provide opportunities for face-to-face interactions; others may be available only virtually. Either way, they engage educators with other colleagues beyond their schools and, ideally, they challenge educators on a daily basis to see issues from multiple perspectives and offer new resources and opportunities for change and improvement.

Third, every educator benefits from participation in a professional association. Professional associations typically offer educators opportunities to meet like-minded colleagues, stay on the cutting edge in a field of study, and advance a shared vision and mission. Twenty-first century associations support virtual and face-to-face networks that address issues relevant to their field and to their members. These networks help educators to seek external perspectives and advise in addressing challenges and achieving results. Too often, educators are limited by the expertise of their learning team; turning to a network facilitated by a professional association should offer access to solutions and resources to address daily problems of practice. Educators don't need to spend time reinventing wheels; rather, they need to know how to access the depth of knowledge and resources available, and their professional associations should be a place they can turn.

As a professional association, we aspire to serve members this way -- by becoming one of their essential networks. I invite you to help us understand how to best meet your needs today and tomorrow.

Stephanie Hirsh
Executive Director, Learning Forward

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How exciting is it to be in the field of education right now? While I'm still in the first half of my career, never before can I think of a time where the possibilities and potential for amazing work exist like they do now. Some fear the change and turbulence swirling around the profession, but it's this type of atmosphere that allows innovation and creativity to flourish. It's not easy though. There will be false starts, dead-ends, and U-turns, but these are the side effects of innovation and designing a new set of educational experiences by teachers for students.

In order to create the innovative culture that our schools so desperately need, I would like to advocate for a tight-but-loose approach. By tight, I mean a culture that creates a framework for educators throughout the state, but loose in that educators have the flexibility to control and own their own learning.

For example, an approach can be tight in the sense that there are specific supports put in place by stakeholders to allow schools, administrators, and teachers to have a universal language. Without a universal language and a clear understanding of the conceptual shifts that must occur, the profession will resort to doing what it has always done. The expectations and experiences mandated by the rigidity of the universal language will be powerful in establishing this tight framework. Kentucky has achieved a step in this direction by the shift from "professional development" to "professional learning" as part of our statewide work to transform our professional learning system. While on the surface this seems like simple semantics, in reality it entails a cultural shift in the profession that could revolutionize how teachers and administrators work toward the goal of student achievement.

Paramount in creating an effective framework is the establishment of professional learning standards. These standards outline the types of experiences educators need in order to grow and refine their craft. The responsibility for professional learning rests not only with the individual educator to reflect about his or her own practice, but also the school and district administrators to create a culture and vision, and even more importantly, time and space for this type of professional learning.

An exciting avenue for exploring this tight-but-loose shift comes through the adoption of professional processes that work for other fields. My friends at Business Innovation Factory have begun research to create models for how the design concepts we often see in the business world can be used to improve education. This creative process utilizes the skills and talents of all team members and allows a group of teachers to open themselves up to the reflective work that must be done to really investigate improving our instruction. The Business Innovation Factory's approach is an innovation incubator for our schools. It will allow us to solve problems together and in ways that none of us could have done independently of each other. The looseness of this process will not always create immediate benefits, but the power of creating professional learners in collaboration is transformative.

By embracing the maelstrom that surrounds us and seeking the potential of the now, we can reinvigorate and rebuild a system that needs its best and brightest working on the work. Don't stick your head in the sand, waiting for the commotion to dissipate, but run out in front of it. Be the one who seeks out, adopts, implements, guides, and reflects on the path that we must trail blaze. The good news is that you are not alone. There are some of us already out in the rain.

Chris Crouch
Instructional Coach, Boone County (Ky.) Schools
@the_explicator

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During the last few weeks, I've had the opportunity to speak with several groups of educators around the country. In an attempt to focus my own thinking, I've asked each of these groups to consider the following four questions. These questions have enabled me to highlight the significance of professional learning and position it within a broader context in ways I hadn't done before.

1. What is it that we want our students to know and be able to do?
2. What do we want our teachers to know and be able to do to develop and sustain effective learning environments for students?
3. What do leaders need to know and be able to do to create optimum conditions for teaching and learning?
4. In what ways can we ensure teachers and leaders develop the skills they need to be consistently effective?

The first question about students, I believe, is one that should drive every other conversation in a school or district. If there isn't absolute agreement on this, how can the school or district operate? While Common Core has provided the field with a great deal of clarity here, teachers and leaders still must have a crystal clear picture of what they want their students to know and be able to do upon exiting their schools and systems.

The answer to the first question provides clarity on the second. The research is clear - the number one school-related factor that contributes to the success of students is the effectiveness of the classroom teacher. However, if districts don't have a crystal clear picture of what their teachers are expected to know and be able to do to support students, how can they make decisions about what teacher effectiveness is. Again, we have models to help us here. InTasc Model Core Teaching Standards, Charlotte Danielson's framework, and other models are helping districts reach a collective understanding of what effectiveness looks like in their contexts.

The third question focuses on leaders and what they need to know and be able to do in order to create the optimum conditions for teaching and learning. As a field, we are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of leadership. We know effective leaders attract strong teachers, especially where they are needed most. Research from The Wallace Foundation makes the point there are virtually no documented cases of successful school turnarounds without a strong leader at the helm. The Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium Standards and a host of other leadership frameworks and evaluation models provide districts with the tools necessary to answer this question with great clarity.

Being from Learning Forward, it shouldn't come as a surprise that I would emphasize, in answer to the fourth question, systems that help teachers and leaders to develop the skills they need to improve. In many places, the sole response to this question is evaluation. While I strongly believe in a fair and rigorous evaluation system, it's just one part of a larger system that has to include opportunities for individual growth, collective and team-based learning focused on continuous improvement, and a system of feedback and support facilitated by those who deeply understand effective teaching and leading practices.

Four simple questions? Perhaps. But extremely helpful in focusing difficult work!

Frederick Brown
Director of Strategy and Development, Learning Forward

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Last week I attended the Chief Learning Officers Breakfast Club conference sponsored by Chief Learning Officer magazine. This publication, and the learning sessions it sponsors, is designed for the workforce learning and development industry, primarily in the business world. It provides guidance and insight to global enterprise education executives who oversee, authorize, fund, and support learning and development programs.

As the only person in the room with a K-12 background, I was fascinated by how relevant the work of business learning leaders is to the work of learning leaders in the field of education. The morning-long interactive panel discussion included Raj Ramachandran, University of Phoenix; Eric Brunner, GP Strategies; and Bob Blondin, Xerox Learning Services. Lew Walker, head of AT&T Learning Services, moderated the session that revolved around three key questions: What is the changing nature of work? What is the changing nature of learning? What are the skills and competencies required for learning leaders today?

All three questions yielded rich discussions among panelists and attendees. Over the course of several blogs, I'll examine each question and how each relates to professional learning for educators.

What is the changing nature of work? The panel and audience interchange concluded that, today, helping workers master the ability to retrieve information is as important as teaching workers to retain information. Since only 10% of a worker's learning is through formal channels and 90% through informal, on-the-job-learning situations, it's critical for workers to know how and where to find the best information to support just-in-time learning. Consequently, mobile learning resources, gaming, video, and simulations will increasingly be the tools workers call upon to either provide or support their learning.

Because the nature of work is changing, learners want and need 24/7, on-demand access to learning resources. The wide array and immediate access to learning tools, however, presents a potential for data overload. This is where the learning leader can be most useful as a guide and coach to help the learner/worker navigate the learning terrain to choose the best and most useful learning supports.

The same concept applies when we consider how to support teachers in their learning pursuits. The education learning leader has the obligation to stay abreast of the tools, products, materials, and technologies that best support learning, both adult and student. Once armed with this knowledge, the learning leader in education can be the compass educators can rely on to point to learning's true north.

Next week, what is the nature of learning?

Carol V. Francois
Director of Learning, Learning Forward

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Raise your hand if you've been in a workshop that included either of the following movie clips to illustrate what it means to really collaborate: the barn-raising scene in Witness or the scene in Apollo 13 where Ed Harris dumps a box of miscellaneous parts on a table and tells a team to use those parts to solve a complex problem.

There's a reason many of you are familiar with these clips. Those are great scenes to lead into discussions about bringing together varied perspectives in high-stakes situations to solve pressing problems. Such clips help us understand why collaboration is absolutely critical and, at times, lifesaving. But I wonder what clips we'd use to illustrate how those teams got to that point. What made the scientists at NASA able to do that work together? Clearly, they had years of practice in communicating, challenging one another, listening, and making decisions quickly.

For groups to realize all of the benefits possible through collaboration, the people in those groups need to develop the knowledge and skills that support effective teamwork. That means that those who provide time and structures for group work also must provide support in developing these skills.

If time to collaborate were the only resource necessary to create high-performing teams, then countless schools would be achieving at the higher levels that effective collaboration facilitates. But time for collaboration isn't enough. Knowledge and skills in how to use that time are equally essential.

Many of the learning designs that advance the goals of teams and individuals rely on these skills and more, whether the learning is face-to-face or incorporates technology and blended approaches.

Educators need expertise in several areas, including:

• Group development: Teams go through stages of development, and it's important for all members to recognize that.

• Norms for working together: Effective groups agree in advance that they will work together in certain ways.

• Communication skills: Teams need knowledge about how to talk and listen in ways that honor all members' perspectives and facilitate discussion and dialogue.

• Conflict resolution: Any group that hopes to solve trenchant challenges will need expertise in openly addressing disagreements to reach common understandings and solutions.

• Decision making: Groups may be able to communicate well, but if they don't know what decisions to make and how to make them, they will not make progress toward goals.

• Determining shared goals and visions: When groups come together, their work can only be successful if they know what they hope to achieve.

• Establishing trust: Being open to frank discussion about individual beliefs and practices requires levels of relational trust that aren't necessarily typical in schools and school systems.

Effective teamwork is not something that comes naturally when people are given time to work together. If school and system leaders don't attend to this element of professional learning, their efforts to provide daily or weekly team time will be wasted, and stakeholders involved in supporting such time will justifiably lose faith in what we purport collaboration can achieve.

Tracy Crow
Director of Communications, Learning Forward

This column appears in the April issue of JSD on collaboration.

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Establishing more time for collaborative professional learning is only a first step. Using the time effectively and efficiently is also essential. Four simple processes can focus the interactions that occur in teams and connect what team members learn with student learning.

Establish a clear purpose for each meeting. At the beginning of each session or at the end of the previous session, team members commit to a clear purpose for the meeting that specifies the learning goals for educators and the outcomes they expect for students when their learning goals are implemented. Establishing a purpose also means being clear about what the non-purpose of the session will be. This trick of non-purpose is a powerful tool for maintaining a laser-like focus on the identified purpose and gaining maximum benefit. Too often team members think everyone on the team is on the same page, and too often the opposite is true.

Inform to reform. Teams come together to plan, assess, design, analyze, reflect, and engage. Yet if team members are not expanding what they know, believe, can do, are willing to do, and do when they are together, all their work will be modifications of what they have already done. Informing their thinking and decision making with new ideas, provocative text, examination of their own beliefs, and transparency about successes and challenges will result in authentic co-construction instead of slight modifications of existing practices.

Celebrate the unknown. Educators work from a platform of certainty. They want to feel competent. They worry that their experimentation will diminish results for students. Yet new standards require students to experiment, explore, inquire, hypothesize, predict, generalize, and synthesize. When educators engage in this level of learning as a part of their own practice, they will simultaneously learn how to facilitate this type of learning for their own students. With the rapid pace of information generation and access, educators can no longer be satisfied with what they know. They must learn to be comfortable with what is unknown and seek to generate knowledge rather than affirm it.

Test and retest. Each collaborative learning session ends with a hypothesis to test through application of new, refined, or expanded learning. Team members can create individual or collective hypotheses related to the team's learning, design the experiment to test the hypothesis, and return to the next meeting with data and a tentative conclusion in hand to share with others. Through this testing and retesting process, team members develop a deep, authentic understanding of their learning and appreciate the nuances of its application in different contexts with different students.

Learning Forward, with support from MetLife, Sandler, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations, developed four professional learning units designed for teacher leaders and school and district administrators to implement, refine, and support collaborative professional learning to increase student achievement. Explore the units here.

Joellen Killion
Senior Advisor, Learning Forward

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