{"id":431,"date":"2018-02-25T23:55:32","date_gmt":"2018-02-26T07:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0018\/?p=431"},"modified":"2018-02-27T19:22:22","modified_gmt":"2018-02-28T03:22:22","slug":"lrnt525-u2-a2-external-scan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0018\/lrnt525-u2-a2-external-scan\/","title":{"rendered":"LRNT525 U2 A2 – External Scan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Change is constantly occurring as the information from contacts in my network demonstrate.<\/p>\n

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Click below on the name of the graph to open the file, enable editing, and then run the presentation to display its animation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LRNT525 Leadership n Change Infographic<\/a><\/p>\n

Case 1.\u00a0 Change of curriculum & expansion of grade levels.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This is the case of an EC-9 school that had plans to expand to an EC-12 school.\u00a0 The identity of the school and the people involved shall remain undisclosed.\u00a0 Usually changes to the school’s curriculum even when mildly complex might require some adjustment in addition to teachers’ training.\u00a0 In this case the new curriculum represented a serious challenge: first, the content of all subjects would be organised differently; second, the\u00a0 classes would be oriented to be hands-on learning; and third, the teachers would act as coaches allowing the learners to be in the driver’s seat.<\/p>\n

The initiative for this change came from the school’s principal, and it took a great effort on every level to get it started.\u00a0 To begin with there was the school board to approve the project.\u00a0 Then administration and, most importantly, faculty had to adopt the idea because organisational readiness is fundamental for a change effort to be successful in any organisation (Weiner, 2009).\u00a0 Parents had to understand the project’s vision and the commitment needed to succeed.\u00a0 And last but not least, the student body had to be involved too due to each adolescent having their voice heard at home regarding where\u00a0 to study high school.\u00a0 Existing high schools increased the challenge of the project.<\/p>\n

Several factors were key for the success of the effort.\u00a0 Training teachers to perform in a maker-space setting helped them break paradigms to accept and experience innovation.\u00a0 Active involvement of students included them participating in the design of a new cafeteria which gave them sense of ownership towards the new high school.<\/p>\n

As Weiner asserted it: “The content of change matters as much as the context of change” (Weiner, 2009) could not have summarized the project better, and without the intense leadership exerted by the school’s principal the effort would have failed.<\/p>\n

Case 2.\u00a0 Gamification.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

As they enter the room, the students in Mr. Magallon’s 5th grade class ask the question right after greeting their teacher: “Do we get to play Kahoot! today?”\u00a0 Kahoot! is a free\u00a0game-based learning platform that makes it fun to learn \u2013 any subject, in any language, on any device, and for all ages (2018).<\/p>\n

Mr. Magallon regarded the gamification successful because oftentimes previously unengaged students ask him for a Kahoot! link to play at home.\u00a0 He then realised game-based made\u00a0a difference.\u00a0 Kahoot! got students plugged into learning, helped them improve mastery of complex science topics, fostered\u00a0social learning, unlocked learners\u2019 potential, and deepened pedagogical impact (2018).<\/span><\/p>\n

Leadership was modelled by Mr. Magallon when he played with the students for the first time.\u00a0 Kahoot! is played in teams rotating the leader role, who coordinates the team and voices their answers supported by the team-debated arguments for which the students practiced collaboration skills.\u00a0 By placing the learners in settings that make them think critically to solve problems or arrive to solutions, game-based learning becomes as effective as project-based learning (Farber, 2016).<\/p>\n

Case 3.\u00a0 New Learning Management System.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Although the need of a new Learning Management System (LMS) was obvious, the change took most teachers and staff by surprise because the system became operative a few days before the first day of classes which meant the old system to be gone.<\/p>\n

It took the principal, the assistant principal, and the computer lab teacher a lot of hours to provide in-classroom support to every teacher in campus in order to get the school running with the new LMS.\u00a0 Names not to be disclosed.<\/p>\n

Due to the sudden start the only training available was on the fly, and the difference people was having started as early as calling attendance, which now was done with the system.\u00a0 Pen-marked rosters sent to the office before 9:45 a.m. were a thing of the past.<\/p>\n

At some point during the daily support of teachers, the\u00a0 principal instructed his team to concentrate on aspects of the LMS that were essential to the school’s daily operation, and forget about other features not needed in the short term.\u00a0 The principal followed a strategy that resonates with Feldstein (2017) who described that any LMS is likely to be built as a series of add-ons to an original idea, which ends up saturated with added features that cause the core functionality to be hidden somewhere.\u00a0 \u00a0Miller (1982) postulated that an incremental approach can be a cost-effective manner of facing change that provides for stages of stabilization, and this resembles what the principal asked his team to do.<\/p>\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n

Farber, M., (2016). Gamify your classroom. The Education Digest 81<\/em>(5), 37-42.<\/p>\n

Feldstein, M., (2017, May 28).\u00a0A flexible, interoperable digital learning platform: Are we there yet?\u00a0[Blog post].<\/p>\n

Magallon, D., (2018). E-mail to Alfonso Mac Gregor, sent from Sam Houston Elementary at P.A.I.S.D., Port Arthur, TX.<\/p>\n

Miller, D., ( 1982 ). Evolution and revolution: a quantum view of structural change in organizations. Journal of Management Studies 19<\/i>(2): 131 – 151.<\/p>\n

Weiner, B. J., (2009).\u00a0A theory of organizational readiness for change.\u00a0Implementation Science<\/i>,\u00a0<\/em>4(67)<\/i>.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
What is Kahoot! (2018). Retrieved from https:\/\/kahoot.com\/what-is-kahoot\/<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Change is constantly occurring as the information from contacts in my network demonstrate. LRNT525 Leadership n Change Infographic Case 1.\u00a0 Change of curriculum & expansion of grade levels. This is the case of an EC-9 school that had plans to expand to an EC-12 school.\u00a0 The identity of the school and the people involved shall … Continue reading “LRNT525 U2 A2 – External Scan”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt525"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":448,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions\/448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}