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by Scott McLeod | Jun 15, 2009 | CASTLE, News and Events, Pre-Service Preparation, Professional Development |
Whew! It’s consumed a lot of my time the past week but I am pleased to say that the 2009 CASTLE Summer Book Club is off and running! [Okay, more accurately, I should say that it has consumed a lot of the valuable time of Laura Bestler, CASTLE’s technology coordinator. Thank you, Laura!]
How to participate
Thanks to a few last-minute folks, our grand total is 246. Participants are busy introducing themselves (and learning how to comment on a blog!). If you want to follow the action, here are our four discussion groups:
Even if you’re not an ‘official’ participant and thus can’t post to the group blogs, you still can play along at home by leaving comments (be sure to read the copyright notice in the initial Getting Started post). If you’re interested, each discussion group also has RSS feeds and e-mail subscription options for both the posts and the comments.
Social media
The book club has a Twitter and Technorati hashtag (#castlebc) and a Twibe.
Hope you’ll join us for our live podcast with Dr. Daniel Willingham, the author of Why Don’t Students Like School?, at 12pm Central on July 13!
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by Scott McLeod | Jun 12, 2009 | CASTLE, News and Events, Pre-Service Preparation, Professional Development |
[Update: If you registered, please check your junk mail / spam folders. Many of you who thought you had not received an e-mail from me later found my message in there…]
Registration for the 2009 CASTLE Summer Book Club has closed. We have 238 participants this year, including myself. Whew! Participants come from the following countries:
- Canada (6)
- Malaysia (1)
- Singapore (1)
- United Kingdom (1)
- United States (229)
I have divided us into four discussion groups. Last night I sent an e-mail to all participants that confirmed their registration and notified them of their group number. They will receive another e-mail this weekend that includes the URL of their online discussion area. The links to the four discussion areas will be posted here as well. Our conversations will be public and anyone can join us on an ad hoc basis as desired.
We start on Monday!
Mark your calendars
Dr. Daniel Willingham, author of the book that we’re reading, Why Don’t Students Like School?, has graciously agreed to do a live podcast with me on July 13 from 1pm to 2pm Eastern. Questions will be generated from our book club participants.
Related posts
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by Scott McLeod | Jun 8, 2009 | CASTLE, News and Events, Pre-Service Preparation, Professional Development |
Registration for the 2009 CASTLE Summer Book Club closes this Wednesday at midnight. To date we have 159 participants, which blows the doors off of last year’s total of 125. A week ago we had 81 participants, so we’ve effectively doubled the size of the group in the last seven days. Awesome!
We’re reading Why Don’t Students Like School? by Dr. Daniel Willingham, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Virginia. I selected this book despite the fact that my alma mater, The College of William & Mary, is a fierce in-state academic rival of UVA so you know the book has to be pretty good! Sorry, those of you who have asked for a Kindle version…
Stay in touch as you have questions. I’ll see some of you online starting next week!
by Scott McLeod | Jun 8, 2009 | CASTLE, Leadership and Vision |
This is a quick round-up of what happened on the CASTLE blogs last week…
Edjurist
Scott Bauries discussed how the No Child Left Behind Act has introduced some new angles into school finance equity lawsuits. Scott also shared some initial thoughts about the burgeoning movement toward national curriculum standards.
Justin Bathon highlighted some issues related to a parent’s request to read the Bible in her son’s kindergarten class.
LeaderTalk
Kimberly Moritz wants to know: Why do we do it this way? She answers: Fear of reproach is how we end up closing the doors to our classrooms and offices and doing the same things year after year.
Mark Stock also asked a question: What does school reform look like when the National Education Association agrees with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce?
Ryan Bretag said, “In this day and age when content is available anytime, anywhere, and to anyone, classrooms can no longer be tethered to the content-driven, physical spaces defined by 20th Century methodologies.”
Jayson Richardson highlighted some generational differences. Apparently I’m part of the Nike Generation.
Dennis Richards noted that 98% of kindergarteners were classified as geniuses when it came to divergent thinking (which is what you do when you are not forced to conform…).
Dangerously Irrelevant
I gave an update on the CASTLE Summer Book Club and I posted three quotes from Richard Longworth’s absolutely brilliant book, Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism:
I also wrapped up my series of quotes from Michael Port's The Think Big Manifesto:
Finally, I reinstated the Not So Irrelevant feature of this blog, which I use to highlight various links of interest from around the Web. School administrators are busy. Hopefully I can steer them toward some online resources that will be informative and helpful. This time I’m limiting my selections to just 5 links per day. Last week I posted 25 links:
Happy reading!
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by Scott McLeod | Jun 2, 2009 | CASTLE, News and Events, Pre-Service Preparation |
We’re down to two weeks before the 2009 CASTLE Summer Book Club starts and we’ve got 81 participants signed up already. That’s great!
We will be reading Why Don't Students Like School? by Dr. Daniel Willingham. I'm still deciding what online platform we’re going to use to facilitate our discussions. Last year we used Lefora. It worked pretty well but so far I’m leaning toward something different this year.
Here are some answers to a few questions that people have asked me:
- Will our conversations occur on specific dates or at specific times? No, our discussion will be completely asynchronous. We don’t care when you participate. Whatever’s most convenient for you.
- What are the expectations regarding participation? We ask that you don’t sign up if you’re not committed to being fully engaged in the entire 5 weeks of discussion. That means that you’re keeping up with the reading (no more than 40 pages each week), visiting our discussion space at least several times a week, and participating rather than lurking.
- What happens if I change my mind or need to drop out? Well, this is all self-organized and voluntary so there’s not much we can do about it. We lost participants last year because they didn’t like the book, their summer schedule changed, they couldn’t get into the online discussion format, etc. No worries. It’s your life! That said, we hope most of you will make it to the end (it’s only 5 weeks!).
- Should I participate if I’m not a K-12 educator? Maybe. We’re surely not going to kick you out and probably will benefit from your different perspective. It depends on how much you’re interested in how people learn and what that means for cognitively-appropriate teaching practice in K-12 classrooms.
- Will our discussions be private? Nope. So be thoughtful as you write, particularly if you’re discussing people you know or the organization in which you work.
- What’s our reading schedule again? You can find that and other information (including how to sign up!) at my original post announcing the book club.
Got other questions that aren’t answered here? Leave a comment below or drop me a note; I’ll do my best to answer them quickly.
by Scott McLeod | Jun 1, 2009 | CASTLE, Leadership and Vision |
This is a quick round-up of what happened on the CASTLE blogs last week…
LeaderTalk
James Yap discussed how a highly-acclaimed deaf education program actually treats deafness as a pathology.
Reggie Engebritson celebrated Graduation Day with the seven graduates of her alternative school.
Edjurist
Justin Bathon highlighted his new article on free legal research resources and discussed the intersections of school district student residency requirements and child support payments.
Justin also concluded his series on search, seizure, and school resource officers and asked why there are no education law professors on the Law Profs Blog Network.
Dangerously Irrelevant
I kicked off the second annual CASTLE Summer (Online) Book Club and asked for help identifying blogs and web sites where parents were writing about their local school districts. I also stirred up some controversy by calling two faculty members ‘stupid.’
I tried to wrap my head around some American workforce data and discussed two key questions for organizations with an online presence:
- Why should I come at all?
- Why should I come back?
I highlighted the upcoming Constructing Modern Knowledge conference, created a Kindle version of this blog, and reviewed the award-winning book, The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy.
We also wrapped Episode 6 of the 4 Guys Talking podcast, which was one of the best we’ve had to date.
Happy reading (and listening)!
by Scott McLeod | May 28, 2009 | CASTLE, Learning and Teaching, News and Events, Pre-Service Preparation, Professional Development, Reading |
After much deliberation, I’ve decided to do another online summer book club. I’m supposed to be taking the summer off but last year’s discussion of Influencer: The Power to Change Anything was so much fun that I can’t resist doing it again…
This year’s reading for the CASTLE summer book club will be Why Don’t Students Like School? A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for Your Classroom. The author is Dr. Daniel Willingham, Professor of Psychology at The University of Virginia.
Getting started
- Complete the online participation form by midnight, June 10 (Central time).
- Buy the book!
Commitments
- We start June 15. Be ready.
- Keep up with the reading. No excuses.
- Be an active participant in our online discussion area.
- Dissect ideas vigorously but also be nice to other discussants.
- Help foster interesting dialogue and connected community.
Schedule
- 6/15 to 6/21 – Introduction, Chapter 1, and Chapter 2 (40 pages)
- 6/22 to 6/28 – Chapters 3 and 4 (40 pages)
- 6/29 to 7/5 – Chapters 5 and 6 (32 pages)
- 7/6 to 7/12 – Chapters 7 and 8 (34 pages)
- 7/13 to 7/19 – Chapter 9, Conclusion, and Wrap-Up (20 pages)
This offer is open to all leaders and change agents, at whatever level they’re operating (hint: this might be a good summer activity for some of your local principals or superintendents!).
I’m looking forward to some interesting discussions. Hope some of you will join me this summer!
Related posts
by Scott McLeod | May 26, 2009 | CASTLE, Leadership and Vision, News and Events, Podcasts |
If you’d like to know what a good statewide 21st century school leadership development program looks like, have we got a podcast for you!
This morning we had Episode 6 of 4 Guys Talking, the ‘talk radio’ podcast series from CASTLE. We spent the first 40 minutes talking with Chuck Heinlein, Director of the Leadership Center for 21st Century Schools at the West Virginia Department of Education.
I think this was one of our best podcasts to date. Chuck shared a wealth of information about the statewide principal institutes that he’s running, and we learned a ton about the legislative supports, Department of Education commitments, funding and policy mechanisms, and other supports that are in place in the state. I have the sense that West Virginia really is trying very hard to move its schools (and its school leaders) forward in a thoughtful, progressive, sustainable manner.
You can download the podcast or listen to a Web-streamed version here:
You also can subscribe to the 4 Guys Talking feed using iTunes or a RSS reader.
Thanks to those of you who joined us live. I’m not sure when our next episodes will be but I will blog about them when I know. Happy listening!
Update: I deleted the embedded BlogTalkRadio player that used to be in this post. Since it started playing automatically, I thought it was too annoying!
by Scott McLeod | May 26, 2009 | Blogging, CASTLE, Leadership and Vision |
This is a quick round-up of what happened on the CASTLE blogs last week…
EdJurist
Over at CASTLE’s education law blog, Justin Bathon noted that eventually we need to ‘get over’ the visceral emotions associated with the Columbine school shooting and stop overreacting to student behavior. Justin also wrote about the federal stimulus funds imbroglio in South Carolina that has resulted in the governor suing the state legislature.
Occasional guest blogger Scott Bauries shared his thoughts on restraint and seclusion to control the behavior of special education students. He also threw up some initial thoughts about cyberbullying and the First Amendment.
LeaderTalk
Cyberbullying also was on the mind of LeaderTalk contributor Nancy Flynn. She shared some of her perspectives on the issue as an elementary school principal.
Kevin Riley wrote about ‘spinning heel kicks’ and mapping the Taekwondo ideas of mastery and ability grouping to schools and standardized testing.
Dangerously Irrelevant
Here at Dangerously Irrelevant, I put up what may be one of my favorite posts ever, Are educational leadership faculty seen as ‘leaders’ by the leaders that they serve?
I also posted two lists that have gotten some attention on Twitter:
Other posts last week included some of my own thoughts about an elementary school cyberbullying incident, a notification about our upcoming Episode 6 of the 4 Guys Talking podcast and my quest to find out a little bit about my readers. Additionally, I explored the idea of how to get the Twitter feeds of all Iowa educators (and, also, all schools, districts, or universities) in one place.
Happy reading!
by Scott McLeod | May 25, 2009 | CASTLE, Leadership and Vision, News and Events, Podcasts |
Chuck Heinlein, Director of the Leadership Center for 21st Century Schools at the West Virginia Department of Education, will be our guest tomorrow on the 4 Guys Talking podcast. Chuck has an incredible job. Over the past few years he has run hundreds of administrators in his state through year-long institutes on 21st century schooling. As far as I can tell, West Virginia is far ahead of other states when it comes to investing in a statewide model for 21st century leadership development.
You can join us and Chuck on May 26, 1pm Central, for the live podcast. Feel free to call in and join the conversation yourself and/or help us brainstorm some questions for Chuck beforehand. The podcast also will be available for download afterward. Thanks!
