Can Shared Leadership Really Work?

Note - this post was originally written back in June (over 6 months ago, so all references to dates are for the 2015-16 school year) but never was published for a variety of complex and personal reasons which I won't get into here . . . but I found the text in my notes and thought it needs to be published.  So here goes, with a few small tweaks and updates . . .

This year, I became a "director" for the first time in my career. Now that the school year is almost finished, I would have to say that this social experiment in shared school leadership is partially successful and partially a failure. Just to back up for a moment, the school director had no intent to explore shared leadership for educational technology - he wanted to either continue with the traditional leadership structure with a Tech Director, or split off educational technology from technology services and support.  In discussing this latter option and what that would look like, I was asked to draft a job description for an Ed Tech Director. Some of you reading this now will remember me asking for copies of your job descriptions and a structural breakdown of technology at your school (BTW - everything that I collected from you back in the fall was greatly appreciated).  As the job description started to take shape, it became apparent that out of our team of 4 tech coaches, more than one of us would be interested in the director of ed tech position. With the potential for terminal discord and a fracturing of our working relationship as a team, we jointly decided to propose a shared leadership model.

After about a month of planning how we would work together to co-lead educational technology across the school, the four of us (tech coaches) were appointed to be Co-Directors of Digital Learning. Our proposal separated ed tech from tech services, and a new person would be hired to manage and lead IT which includes hardware, infrastructure and tech support. The four tech coaches (2x ES, 1x MS and 1x HS) would have dual roles supporting tech integration in our school division (or assigned grades), plus collectively leading educational technology across the school.  

With shared leadership - is everyone looking/moving in the same direction?  Is there a clear, shared and articulated vision?

We have been working with this model since about November of this school year, and I have really mixed feelings about how successful it has been.  In general, we have been able to move forward with a number of initiatives and projects which probably would not have happened or have progressed as far in a short time if we had stuck with a traditional Tech Director model. As there are four of us Co-Directors, we could divide up the work and push forward with projects which interested us or were important to us. For example, some of the bigger projects that I led were:

• promoting and organizing the third annual Hour of Code, which featured events spread across the entire school
• formally adopting the ISTE Standards for Students (through embedding the standards in our PYP and MYP planners), Teachers (currently working on adding the standards into our new teacher appraisal process), Coaches (which we adopted as tech coaches a few years ago) and Administrators (which we adopted as Co-Directors of Digital Learning)
• writing and formalizing our job descriptions as tech coaches and as Co-Directors, to make them into usable documents which accurately describe both of these roles and what they truly entail
• bringing Learning2Europe to Warsaw, taking on the role of conference chair and forming a team of teachers and staff who will form the core of the organizing committee and support team 
• initiating an exploration and testing of Google Expeditions Beta along with Google Cardboard for use in the classroom
• proposing a new project to put iPad Pro's into the hands of teachers (as an interactive whiteboard replacement and to facilitate teachers being able to annotate, comment, sketch/draw/graph on the fly in class) through a two stage approval program

So what were the challenges and problematic areas?

1) With a group of four individuals who are given "carte blanche" to initiate new ed tech projects, there is no single decision maker to say whether it is the right time and/or place to start each project, or to oversee how it all fits into the overall vision for the school. As a result, what we end up with is a collection of projects all in various stages of development, which may be disjointed, out of alignment and sometimes even at odds with each other. Without a single decision maker, everything moves forward on their own pathways, but sometimes in different directions.  

With shared leadership - are everyone's views of a similar hue, or completely different colours?

2) How well the group functions together really depends on the different personalities involved, their individual styles, and how well they mesh together. Any friction or lack of trust creates disharmony in the group and the team breaks down immediately. We all know how hard it is to regain trust once it is lost, and how quickly trust can disappear entirely. Given #1 above, trust will always be eroded as friction builds from differing opinions on direction and vision. Conflict will also come from the simplest of things, like how the group interacts with each other, talks to one another, and is inclusive or exclusive. In fact, the team started off with a feeling is distrust due to how we came to even brooch the subject of shared leadership. As the school director favoured a business approach to leadership, he pitted the four of us "against" one another and was looking to appoint one of us to the director role. This approach forced us all into feeling distrust for one another, which we had to address as a team before anything productive could be done as a group. 

3) Following on from #2 above, I think that the current school organization with two coaches in the ES, but only one each in the MS and HS created an imbalance, as two of the Co-Directors work very closely together and tend to have a unified position on any issue. Not that this is a bad thing - having at least part of the group working closely together is better than not having any of the group at all.  However, this made making decisions about the whole school difficult with four "votes" in total, but an internal coalition of two in place. This last point is key if shared leadership is to work smoothly. Instead of having each member of the shared leadership team be all things to their constituency (their school division), they should all represent the entire community at all times. Or perhaps it could be divided up by school division, but in a more balanced way such as two for elementary and two for the secondary school.  

Epilogue on this last point - this re-organisation of the tech coaches has actually happened for this school year, but not for the co-directors role (I think the school just kept three co-directors now that I have moved on and changed schools).  I think shared leadership would have a better chance of succeeding with a smaller group than 4.  I can think of many dual partnerships which were spectacular (Lennon and McCartney, Jobs and Wozniak . . . you can add to the list), but it becomes harder to think of some great examples of groups of 3 or 4.  Too many chiefs or chefs in the kitchen perhaps? 

In retrospect, I am happy to have had the opportunity to work in a shared leadership environment as it provided a unique learning experience and collaborative work at the highest levels. If another shared leadership opportunity comes up in the future then I will be better prepared and so much wiser about what the pitfalls are and try to address them up front.  Can it work productively and smoothly?  I am sure that it can, and I wonder if it is happening anywhere out there?  Have you ever worked in a shared leadership role? Did it/Does it work? What was your experience like?  What were/are the challenges?

Redefining Search!

Note - this post was originally written back in May/June but never published for a variety of complex and personal reasons mainly having to do with my health . . . but all is good now!


May 2016 - I meant to write this posting about a month ago, but things have gotten a little bit away from me with moving back to Asia for next school year. Too much to do with so little time left in Poland before we move on from here. On a fast train heading south to Kraków gives me a bit of time to reflect, write and just think . . .


After attending Learning2 Africa in Johannesburg in the fall, I have been thinking how I needed to alter my approach in the HS towards teaching research skills to students.  For the last number of years we have taught and reviewed research skills with all G9 students as they entered the HS (through a series of projects, lessons and workshops culminating in a large, personal research project in their English class) and in G11 as students began the Extended Essay process. Changes this year in faculty, curriculum, and the approach to launching the EE have resulted in most of this work with research skills falling away. After attending Jeff Utech's extended session at L2Jo'burg on research skills, I knew I had to do something different right away.

Rather than continuing with the model of periodically working with whole grades of students, I shifted my focus to the faculty. My reining was simple - up-skill the entire faculty to give them the same toolbox of resources, techniques and strategies and they will in turn use, model and train all students in the same way, in every grade and every class. What I developed was a differentiated workshop targeted at individual departments/disciplines which worked through how research skills have changed with Internet-enabled mobile devices in the hands of every student. As teachers, if we are still asking questions which can easily be Googled, then we are asking the wrong kinds of questions of our students. Are your students trained in how to conduct a really deep and targeted search, or to cope with conducting effective research when they do not have any search terms?

To answer these questions, I put teachers into research scenarios which changed their thinking about research.  When you have no search terms to begin with, research ceases being a solitary act. It naturally evolves into a collaborative and creative process involving critical thinking and communication - the 4 C's of 21st Century Learning. For example, in the workshop I had teachers work in small groups and try to answer the following questions about this image: what is shown in the photo and where was it taken?

Do you know what this is?  And where was this photo taken?  [can you figure it out without using Image Search?]

Individually, most teachers had no idea where to start with such a task. In their small groups some started discussing what they thought it might be and what search terms they could use to describe the image. All sorts of search terms were tried ranging from "golden dog poo" to "swirls" and to "golden ratio spirals". Other groups tried to work around the task to find the actual photo on the web, or to use Google Image Search to find similar images, but I did not provide them a copy of the image to work with. The most successful groups spent a lot of time talking and collaborating about what they thought the image might be, before jumping into any searches. These groups hit upon really important search terms like "Buddha" and "statue" through their collective knowledge, which they used to quickly used to figure out that these are the top knots on the back of Buddha's head at Wat Pho (the reclining Buddha) in Bangkok. Every time I did this workshop with another department team, they all agreed that this exercise was not only fun and exciting, but very thought provoking. As we are now an MYP candidate school, this exercise placed teachers in an open inquiry process which was unfamiliar for some.

Some of the groups who started with an easier task wanted to try the more challenging images rather than finishing the rest of the workshop. Simple testimony of how much they enjoyed working on this. The remainder of the workshop focused on sets of resources and alternative sites for research, compiled by discipline.  If you are interested, you can use the following shared doc as a resource with your faculty or students.

Harder - Who are these women (what "people" are they)?  And what does "what they are doing" mean?

Following the ripples and impact of these workshops was really interesting. It was great to hear about how teachers took my materials back to use with their classes for ongoing research projects, and how students could immediately employ these techniques and resources for their projects. Other teachers still required more support  and booked me to work with their classes - even small steps forward are still making forward progress.  One tech-hesitant teacher took the initiative to present these skills and resources to their class who were engaged with an large-scale IB Diploma Internal Assessment involving deep research into a topic of the student's choice. This teacher still felt that they could not completely help all of the students in their class with their research so I was brought in to work with a few particular students. I ended up working with two students in particular who were truly "stuck" in their reach process and it was really gratifying to help them get unstuck, and then immediately pass on some more advanced techniques to their friends . . . Students teaching students . . . it doesn't get better than that!

Another teacher had an epiphany in the workshop, and took my exercise with open, collaborative inquiry revolving around an image, and adapted it directly into their lesson . . . the next day! This teacher had been struggling with a unit centered on the Renaissance and the rise of religious art and its symbolism. The lesson changed from a lecture and discussion about a few important pieces of art, to open inquiry process where small groups of students truly looked at and analyzed a piece art to discover its importance, symbolism, and hidden meaning. This teacher told me with great enthusiasm about how the class were looking and thinking deeply about art for the first time . . . in years . . . and how much they enjoyed the process of discovery.  Huge win, and a big step forward.

Epilogue (October 2016) - a number of months have passed by since I wrote this, plus I have changed schools and continents. At my new school in Singapore, not a whole lot is different and I have discovered that I need to take the same approach with faculty. So Redefining Search is being rebooted and recycled, and relaunched with both faculties that I work with (my new school has two separate systems/curricula under one roof).  It's interesting to think about how the "students are digital natives" thinking has really taken hold all over the world, and how teachers don't often consider how student's search skills (and their own) need upgrading.  Taking this approach of up-skilling the entire faculty in order to reach the most students (hopefully all of them ;-) has been a successful and necessary approach at my last two schools . . . so, how are your search skills and the skills of your faculty? 

When things unexpectedly come together . . .

Sometimes, magic happens all by itself . . . that's why it's magic I guess.  Sometimes, it's hard to see the magic even when it is right in front of you, which is why it is so important to work together, collaborate on projects, bounce ideas off of one another, and most of all, just be transparent as your colleagues will see things that you do not or have overlooked . . . and that's when the magic happens.

So why am I blathering on about magic?  No, I have not dusted off the old "Magic - The Gathering" cards, not that I have any of those anyways ;-)  The reason why I am thinking about all of this is a moment in a meeting last week where a number of fragmented projects/ideas/initiatives all came together and fell into place.  Just like magic!  Let me explain what went down . . .

One of my favourite "tech quotes" of all time

After coming back from the IB Computer Science curriculum review, I had a number of ideas about implementing a Computational Thinking curriculum at my school, which would be integrated into K-12 classes (I wrote about this in my previous posting here).  As we are in the process of applying for the PYP and MYP programs, we have an unique opportunity to put such a program in place from the beginning.  To facilitate a conversation about this, I called a meeting with the curriculum director, the two principals and one of the teachers who will be transitioning into offering MYP Design.

The meeting progressed nicely at first, where I introduced the group to the Teaching and Learning with Technology (in the IB Programmes Guide) that I worked on last year.  I am really excited about how we can use this guide and the AID lens as we think about technology as a literacy.  The Teaching and Learning with Technology guide provides us with the big umbrella for digital learning, under which all of our work as tech coaches and Co-Directors of Digital Learning (we refer to ourselves as the Digital Learning Team or DLT for short) will fall.  The first puzzle piece (shaped like an umbrella) fell into place.

I then brought the ISTE Standards for Students into the conversation.  As a school (since before I arrived here seven years ago), we have always said that we used/employed these standards for students, but we have never really documented the how/where/why of the standards nor have we truly adopted the corresponding standards for teachers.  All talk and no concrete action, which has been frustrating.  In talking about how the DLT would like to formalise the school-wide adoption of the ISTE Standards, a whole bunch of puzzle pieces got shaken loose in the conversation.

We first talked about how we would like to implement the standards for students by embedding them into the PYP and MYP planners.  This will provide us, in our roles as tech coaches, with an avenue to engage our faculty in planning for the integration of technology far beyond simply using technology in the classroom for teaching and learning, the creation of digital products, or conducting research online.  The 6 ISTE Standards for Students are:

1. Creativity and Innovation
2. Communication and Collaboration
3. Research and Information Fluency
4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and Decision Making
5. Digital Citizenship
6. Technology Operations and Concepts

By formally (and finally) adopting the ISTE Standards for Students, we would have a framework in place where we can address and integrate Digital Citizenship and Computational Thinking into the existing curriculum, and extend our students beyond using technology.  I also mentioned how we should look to the future as the student standards are being redrafted right now, so we should think about incorporating the new standards into our unit planners.  This proved to be the perfect timing to do this work, as there is a committee looking at our curriculum documentation and implementing the new planners - a big piece of the puzzle!

This immediately led to an expansion of the conversation to include the ISTE Standards for Teachers.  The teacher standards are currently in a similar state of implementation - talked about but never fully implemented in any way.  Where it has always fallen apart is that the school has said we use the teacher standards, but has never backed that up or tied it to teacher evaluation/appraisal.  With a reformulation and relaunch of our process/system for evaluation, unexpectedly another puzzle piece was on the table and "in play".  "Timing is everything" as the saying goes, and the timing was perfect to have the ISTE Standards for Teachers embedded in our evaluation/appraisal process.  Right now, we are a technology-rich school with lots of great things going on that are being facilitated or enabled by technology.  But without a connection between tech integration and teacher evaluation/appraisal, it can be "hit or miss" from one teacher to another.  The really reluctant tech teachers "just don't do technology" and have not been held accountable in any way.  This in turn has made our coaching role at times to be uncomfortable or awkward to say the least.  By including the standards, the DLT now has a formal avenue to work with all of the faculty to improve with their technology integration and to move their students forward to meet the student standards.  Tech integration standards are not meant to be something to hold over the teachers heads or to be used against them.  On the contrary, by having the standards in place, the DLT can use these to help teachers improve their pedagogy and teaching practice, with and through technology.  One big missing puzzle piece . . . found!

As our roles as Co-Directors of Digital Learning is new this year, and is adjunct to our roles as technology coaches, we are in the process of defining and writing our own job description.  The conversation now turned to the other ISTE Standards for Coaches and Administrators, naturally.  We formally adopted the coaches standards years ago and use it to define and evaluate our role as tech coaches.  With our new dual role, we have also decided to adopt the administrators standards for the co-director part of our new position.  We have taken these two sets of standards and have embedded them directly into our job description, to give us an accurate description of what we do, that can also be used for our evaluation.  Think of that?!?  A living job description which is actually usable, and devoid of edu-speak and HR jargon.  Writing our job description is/was an entirely separate project, but realising how it fits into place with these other pieces was serendipitous.  These "big picture" pieces make up the corner pieces of the puzzle and completed the rest of the outside frame.

Digital Yin and Yang

I then guided the conversation back to where it began - with integrating Computational Thinking concepts into K-12 classes.  I am particularly interested in the framework that is being developed by the K12CS.org consortium which includes the CSTA (Computer Science Teachers Association), ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) and Code.org (which is connected to industry and brought us the Hour of Code).  When this framework is finished (summer of 2016, so this is on a fast track), it will provide a framework which schools can use to guide the development of their own curriculum related to Computational Thinking, computer programming and computer science.  Embedding Computational Thinking (and digital citizenship while we are at it) into existing K-12 curriculum is directly connected to a number of the ISTE Student Standards (in both the current and draft versions) and would give us, as the tech coaches, another means to fully integrate technology into lessons/units/programs of inquiry/projects, start conversations with teachers when they are planning, and to guide teachers and students to meeting the ISTE standards.

Implementing Digital Citizenship and Computational Thinking curricula to complement what we are already doing to scaffold students to fulfil the ISTE standards completes the puzzle.  As we have a fully integrated model for technology across the school (meaning we no longer have specific technology classes that all students go to), we have been lacking a structure/framework for teaching students the skills/concepts/abilities to meet the ISTE standards.  With all of these puzzle pieces falling into place, I think we just might have just found what we have been missing in terms of the structure, time, place and buy-in from faculty, that has been absent for years.  Just like magic, all of these pieces came together through one very deep conversation.  I had not really thought about how these things all fit together before, but this conversation really sparked something . . . just one of those aha moments I guess to savour and reflect upon.