Have a Good Life

Susie Wise has had multiple incarnations at the d.school – teaching EX-Tools back in the trailer days, launching the K12 Lab in 2007 with the Nueva School Innovation Lab project, and jumpstarting Media Ops and Hootenanny design for the inauguration of Building 550 in 2008–2010. Back again in 2012 she is leading our efforts to support the movement bringing design thinking into K12 teaching and learning. Susie stumbled upon design thinking when she took a course with David Kelley in 2003 and the experience helped her make sense of the universe. Susie is motivated by the simple belief that humans are by nature designers. Recently a design strategist and innovation coach at Intuit, her practice centers on inspiring teams to use empathy to get to innovative outcomes. Susie has a PhD in Learning Sciences and Technology Design from Stanford’s School of Education and is a co-founder of Urban Montessori Charter School in Oakland. She lives there with her husband and daughter (yes, the one in the movie Babies).

• Shadow a Student is a practice that is out there, but we wanted to make it a movement.
• Original idea
• Hack your school toward something deeper. Small scrappy experiment.
• How can you hack to something that is important.
• It’s not about a 3–5 year plan. It’s about something small.
• Something you can do right away.
• The big load that it takes to move from class to class.
• Not enough processing space in the day.
• Is the organization of the day really working for the kids?
• Is there time for Social Emotional Learning?
• Hacktivity mini course - bigger ideas from deeper learn.
• Choose a big idea
• Select a hack
• Take Hack-tion
• Jethro’s shadow experience
• Attack advisory time.
• every day for 5 or 10 days, you have a 3 minute conversation with that student.
• All students on a board, everyone puts a dot by kids’ names that have good relationships.
• Unwall your office.

Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher. 

Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show.

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New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Jon Laffoon is the principal of Pea Ridge High School in Arkansas, where they are using a dynamic schedule called the flex mod schedule to allow time to serve students, rather than students serving time. It is pretty remarkable and impressive.

• Save $10,000 on paper because of 1:1
• Don’t hire substitutes
• Expectation is that teachers post everything to Google Classroom when they are absent.
• Subs are just babysitters
• Time serving students rather than students serving time.
• Redesign cafeteria to make it a modern space like a starbucks.
• Supervision of students.
• 3 Core Values: Leave no trace, be responsible, use time wisely
• Teach them personal responsibility.
• You have to take on a growth mindset to make changes.
• Students skipping a class still happens, but it has not increased, though the way to work with kids has helped.
• Phase Balance - can’t have every class meet 3 days (Phase 3) a week or every class meet 4 (Phase 4) days a week.
• Schools can come learn from PRHS. Conference in the summer.
• Office of Innovation for Education Summit
• 1:1 school, is that a requirement? No.
• No more textbooks.
• Google Classroom
• Schoology
• How to be a transformative Principal: Be student centered. Constantly assessing how we are doing. Build a team around you. Take ownership and pride in everything you do. Become connected. Find balance.
  jlaffoon@prhs.k12.ak.us @laffoon_jon

Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher. 

Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show.

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Download Paperless Principal.  

Sponsor: Sanebox

Web Site

Transformative Principal on Stitcher

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New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Jon Laffoon is the principal of Pea Ridge High School in Arkansas, where they are using a dynamic schedule called the flex mod schedule to allow time to serve students, rather than students serving time. It is pretty remarkable and impressive.

• Flex Mod schedule
• Form of a block schedule. Certain classes that might meet 4 days a week or 3 days a week.
• Videos explaining the schedule
• Empower the teachers - get them out of their silos
• The gray ILT times keep the classes from conflicting.
• The schedule to look at
• Independent learning time: with great power comes great responsibility.
• Designing a PE unit based on their fitness goals.
• 210 clock minutes whether you meet 3 days or 4 days a week.
• ILT time is class time.
• Many teachers have flipped their classes.
• 60% of students each year were going to a 2 year or 4 year institution. Only 25–30% of students were staying in school.
• SLT Structured Learning Time is some RTI time.
• 2000-student high school designed for the Flex Mod schedule.
• Teachers don’t teach in the same rooms every day.
• Teachers offices are moved to the big classrooms which have been converted to commons areas.
• Rotating schedule made it so we didn’t have to build more classrooms.
• River Bluff

Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher. 

Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show.

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New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

Ken Spero of @edleadershipsims

• Experience is the best teacher
• What simulations in a box look like.
• Engage one’s own imagination
• Experiences of those who go through it.
• This is an experience to be able to talk about what you could do.
• Valuable and engaging.
• Stories engage people.
• Running simulations as part of assistant principal training.
• Analyze the thinking of your team.
• Janice Case
• Become a Patron
• Focus is on critical thinking and judgment.
• Experience can be about getting things wrong.
• How he creates sims.
• Alternate Reality (sims) vs. Alternative Reality (games).
• How to be a transformative principal: what experience do you need to have to learn and grow?

Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher. 

Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show.

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Web Site

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New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal