Tim Wilson Blog ePortfolio

How Innovative Schools Are Finding Success Tim Wilson Endicott College Introduction             The need for truly transformational education reform has been continually building in my mind as my experiences in education grow.  I have always had the idea that there was a better way to learn than what in the industrialized method that nearly every school is modeled around, but I didn’t yet see a path to what that different system would look like.  In March of 2015, I was lucky enough to be in attendance at the Innovate conference at Graded School in Sao Paulo, Brazil.  The coordinators of the conference were careful to make sure that Innovate was not just another tech conference.  I was introduced to some of the techniques and practices that innovative teachers and administrators are utilizing that are the next stage on from just using technology because it’s ...

One of the most important ideas to consider from How to Innovate: The Essential Guide for Fearless School Leaders , is the constant asking of both "Why" and "What if".  We are far to often bound as teachers and school leaders to preconceived notions of what school should be, how we allocate our time, when and where learning should happen, who should be doing the teaching and who the learning.  Many times these notions come don't come from written policies but from our past experiences in other schools or when we were in school.  If we are to truly begin to change how our schools work we must continually ask "Why" and then creatively "What if". -Why can't a teacher who does not teach during the first 3 periods on Thursday come in at 10:00? -What if we included into our professional development expectations a personal wellness provision, and that teacher uses that morning time to go for a run in the park -Why do we separate new languag...