 One of the topics that we want to look at more deeply together has to do with Leadership roles each one of us as a teacher or teacher leader as administrator has a role related to the decision-making that occurs in our School, but what does this mean within the context of new information from neuroscience and from technology? You all remember good old Rip Van Winkle, right? He fell asleep a hundred years Well, what we're going to talk about when we're together has to do with a look at many different changes that have occurred in the educational Landscape different expectations that parents have of schools or that societies have of schools Different expectations of both students and teachers. So what do we think students are going to do in our classrooms? So what do we think that teachers do in our classrooms and how that has been modified by our changing society? The third thing we're going to look at is the big big hump here about what has changed about having advanced technology that now Let's us see a little bit better into making human brain What does that tell us and how does that shift what we understand? For example, how does the new knowledge about the brain sort of confirm that all these things that you see here are total myths and That they actually do harm cause teachers to treat students in different ways and so if we think that men and women's brains are different We treat them differently if we think that somebody's very right-brained and I'm a very left brain teacher We treat them differently, right? If we think that that learning is kind of compartmentalized in the brain We we choose different types of instructional modalities, right? So what we have to do is get rid of these neuro myths and then we have to understand What is the good information that exists about the brain and all this comes with a more sophisticated understanding about the brain but also with this idea that this is a teacher's job teachers now have to sort of integrate that into their Professional development the fourth big change has to do with understanding what really influences student learning outcomes And a lot of this has to do with the existence of more longitudinal studies Studies that are internationally comparative and also scales that are methodologically comparative You know thanks to the work of John Heady for example where we can mix and match Quantitative and qualitative information all of this comes down to looking at some things that consider teacher attitudes And what do we think our fundamental attitudes of great teachers in the 21st century? It's no longer just about professional development to learn a new activity or a new skill set but really Fundamentally what are those things that have to change based on the new information that we have about the brain and that we have coming out of technology? And all of this is going to force us to sort of rethink our roles as teachers I personally believe that teachers have the most important profession in society This sort of means the shift from the old-fashioned view of teaching to really appreciating the learning sciences and to have teachers Learn a lot more information that comes from evidence-based practices Especially from the different types of learning sciences Especially neuroscience and psychology and how does that nurture what we already know about education? My personal philosophy is really tied to what Leslie Hart said, you know designing educational experiences without understanding the brain It's like designing a glove without understanding the human hand But this makes us then question, you know Do teachers know enough about the brain and in general the findings of the research show that about 50% of teachers still Believe the majority of the neuromists that are still out there. So we've got to really get over that So this means that this new vision of teachers professional development over the life spans is really to number one Let's get rid of those neuromists And that's something that really sounds a lot easier than it is to do because a lot of neuromists are very much tied to our Personal beliefs well I've always been told that I'm a visual learner and then all of a sudden you realize that learning styles don't exist Somebody tells you that and sort of destroys your own personal perception of you know who you are So there's a reason that people have a hard time letting go of things that they believed in even if they're faced with the evidence So one of the first steps is getting rid of neuromists The second would be to understand these six principles things that we know are true for all human brains throughout the life span Your brain is plastic until you die you can learn all new learning passes through the filter of prior experience This is because your brain is very efficient and saves its energy No, it doesn't want to waste energy learning things that it might already know So there's a handful of things just six things that are the principles and then there are tenants tenants are things that are true for human brains But there's a big range of human variability for example motivation what motivates you might not motivate me right or Stress what stresses you doesn't necessarily stress me and vice versa or sleep We know that sleep is very powerful and very important for learning and dreaming consolidates memory systems But how much sleep can't be dictated between four and a half hours and 12 hours is normal So eight might be average But you can't say that a kid needs exactly whatever eight and a half hours of sleep because he's a certain age Right, so we have to be very careful of those things Then we have the context in which we live the cultural influence on learning All of those things have to be taken into account once we understand the information from neuroscience We have to really contextualize that what does that mean then within my own cultural context? There are things that are true about you about all human brains like the principles But then there are things that are also heavily colored by the cultural context in which they're learned Once we have all of those things in place then we can talk about okay What's the activity we should do or what kinds of things are most important to do with our classroom structures? So what we're looking forward to doing with you guys you all when we're together Is looking at some of the things that we already do as far as good instructional practices and understanding? Well, what are the neural scientific foundations that really support what you do and that has what has worked in the past And then also considering some new ideas What are other things that we could possibly do that would enhance student learning outcomes in our classrooms and a big part of Bold decisions or leadership roles here are to also question the way schools are structured now Some of you are gonna be more comfortable with this than others But for example, you know, we have some big paradigm shift questions coming up You know, why do we have summer vacations? Because most of the people used to work in the harvest, you know But we don't have that many people who work on the farm these days So this means that the continuing to have summer vacations might not be the most efficient way to go about learning because The length of time between learning moments is is too long So what would happen if you had year-round schooling and has that been implemented in your own context? And what would it take to do that? Another big question has to do with standardized tests. We spend a lot of time wondering how can we get our test scores up? When maybe the bigger questions we should ask as leaders is why do we use standardized tests as a measure of learning at all? To sort of think about those things. What is it that tests can measure? What are the other tools that are available? Might we change the way we teach and learn if we were to have different types of evaluation tools which were much more Longitudinal for example e-portfolios that followed a student throughout the lifespan Would that be a bit more reflective of what a kid really knows rather than a three hour multiple choice test? The other question related to testing has to do with what we can test So, you know, we have tests about math or reading or writing and science and things like that But we don't really know how to measure very well Soft skills, you know, whether a kid is very empathetic or he knows how to communicate well with others or Or he has good collaborating skills or those types of things So we'll look at these big paradigm shift questions that are on the table for teacher leaders And we'll consider the other things that might just have Equal or more importance within our school context these days and how do you actually measure those things? And a big question attached to these soft skills is are we out to measure achievement, you know, in academic courses? Or perseverance, resilience, other types of characteristics We know actually serve people very well Throughout the lifespan. Is it more important to know certain formulas or is it better to have these Attitudinal shifts? So how do we go about doing that and how do we go about cultivating that in schools? I guess one of the bigger questions then that we'll end up looking at is if we know all of these things and Many of those things seem pretty intuitive to a lot of us. We have strong opinions about them Maybe but why do we continue to perfect a broken system? There was a wonderful conference of the American Educational Research Association back in 2012 The theme of which was to know is not enough So knowing all these things is really cool But unless we actually do something within our own context, um, it doesn't really make a big difference, right? So how do we get from, you know, the act of just a perfecting an old system that maybe is broken To now having that mind shift that we are going to do things that are going to shake things up a little bit But that would be better off for our students in the long run So i'm going to be asking you, I'll ask you right now to think about this You know, what do you do as a as a teacher as a leader and do you have the courage to change some of those things? Can you change the way that we physically see kids and schools to be more conducive to how the brain learns? Are you willing to think about changing your school schedule or change the modality to do certain things online? for example In ways that might create more or greater differentiation for individual students or more inclusive techniques And what things do you do at an individual level in your own personal classroom structure? That create types of accommodations for students We'll look at this idea of universal design for learning How is it that we can create all of the options possible so that most kids can find success within the structure that we have created for them within our school day? Are we willing to look at these big questions of like summer vacation schedules? And I know many of you have come back just come back from summer vacation and are thinking, you know, are you crazy? We can't let go of the summer vacation mode But we'll talk about the benefits and the drawbacks to student learning outcomes and think about that a little more detail together I'm sure there's many other things that that'll come up But the idea would be to look a little bit at this and to question ourselves, you know What is it that creates a fear of change? Are there things that are really within our power to to modify that would actually improve the education that our students receive? So I invite you to reflect on these ideas about, you know What it is that you're willing to change or what are you not willing to change? And if you're not willing to change anything, why, you know, where does that? Where is that born of? And is that something that we could modify with within the school structure so that we can actually be a bit braver In the choices we make for the education of our children So I invite you as always, you know, think about some things and if you have any questions before we meet face to face Go ahead and write me if you have any questions after we meet go ahead and write me I really look forward to working with you. Thanks