Blog 2 Fullan's Model

Michael Fullan’s Model 6 secrets to change

In Michael Fullan’s model, I am immediately drawn to the leadership of any school administration. First, and foremost, if the leadership does not value those that deliver education, the employees, and recognize the gifts and interest of those employees, they will be less productive, less innovative, and more likely to burn out from the lack of support.

           Michael Fullan’s presents two models that I personally believe go hand in hand.   Love your employees and connect peers with purpose.

First, we must love our employees. When teachers are eager life-long learners, they better foster the students in their learning journey. Let your employees take risks and be innovative in their instructional approaches. Personal satisfaction and purpose drive us to excellence and those contributions lead to student academic fulfillment as well (Shenninger, 2014, p. 55). The best way to lead is to love and support your employees unconditionally, thus, following Jesus commandments. John 13:34-35 says, “a new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (NIV).

            Second: Connect peers with Purpose: There is great value in connection, especially when we can connect and gain valuable insight and perspective from outside influences and hobbies. We can encourage change  by allowing the creative influences to aid in the decision making process of curriculum, and connect interpersonally with related goals. Romans 12:10 “be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves” (NIV). Furthermore, when teachers link content and instruction to resources outside the classroom, we help students build concept knowledge they can use in daily life, first, through creativity. “The ability to apply creative thought processes to create something of value, and innovation, the capacity to create and apply new knowledge in innovative and entrepreneurial ways to create new products to solve complex problem” (Whitehead, Jensen & Boschee, 2013, p. 83). On the learning pyramid, we strive as educators to move past the passive teaching methods and allow our students to be active learners using participatory teaching methods (Leaning Pyramid, n.d.).

Michael Fullan’s model gives us a starting point in order to develop, implement instruction, improve school culture, and forecast future changes. The roadblocks to Fullan’s model include time, difficulty with implementation, lack of collaboration, modeling as a direct approach, hierarchy’s lack of support, and unwillingness to change and again, lack of support to staff. The biggest roadblock, fear of failure, because change is difficult and unpredictable. To address this fear, we must look to influential educational leaders entrenched in the 21^st century digital world, that can target specific technology outcomes and rationales that demand higher order thinking of our students and our administrations. As current and future educators we must evaluate our resources, our skills gap, our mode of communication, and consistently evaluate the competencies of the 21^st century learner  (Whitehead et al., 2013).

 References

Learning Pyramid. (n.d.). Retrieved January 24, 2017,                                                                  from http://thepeakperformancecenter.com/educational-learning/learning/principles-of-       learning/learning-pyramid/

Sheninger, E., & Zhao, Y. (2014). Digital leadership: changing paradigms for changing times.              Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, A SAGE Company.

Whitehead, B. M., Jensen, D. F., & Boschee, F. (2013). Planning for technology: a guide for                 school administrators, technology coordinators, and curriculum leaders (2nd ed.). Corwin Press.