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| - An inspirational Quote by Steve Jobs |
Think about a significant change for the better in your life. What or who provoked the change? What was the result of that change? Was it easy? Was it worth it?
If you often question the status quo, see the need for change. If you rise above your day-to-day responsibilities, if you act, encourage, or inspire people around you to make a change, or if you actively follow someone who advocates a change for the better, you are a change agent.
As a teacher, you will be a part of a larger institution with a set of rules and customs. Sometimes, you will have to advocate or even fight for change to create the best learning opportunities for your diverse students. Much like in your private life, change at work may come with challenges. The following three videos, along with this week's lecture, will prompt you to think about your future as an educator and change agent:
1. In the thought-provoking TED Talk below, Todd Rose, the author of The End of Average, describes the historical reasons for using average (an average student, an average time for a test, the average age for marriage...) and how it has influenced many decisions we make as educators. He argues that the average is a myth!
1. In the thought-provoking TED Talk below, Todd Rose, the author of The End of Average, describes the historical reasons for using average (an average student, an average time for a test, the average age for marriage...) and how it has influenced many decisions we make as educators. He argues that the average is a myth!
Watch this 18-minute TED talk and find a parallel between a cockpit's design and a new learning environment to nurture every individual's potential. What formula for success could we take from the Air Force?
2. As a teacher in the information age, you have access to endless information, technology, and tools that can make life better or worse. Your decisions regarding using everything available to you lead to good or bad changes.
In our last lecture of the semester, Becoming Change Agent lecture, Dr. Maryam Rod Szabo asked her Professional Learning Network to share their idea of change agents, the challenges that they have faced as change agents, and the reasons that they hire change agents. Listen to what they had to say (as usual, link in a lecture folder).
2. As a teacher in the information age, you have access to endless information, technology, and tools that can make life better or worse. Your decisions regarding using everything available to you lead to good or bad changes.
Watch Alan Atkisson's TEDx Talk (18 minutes) below. He uses some great examples/songs to explain how you can be an effective agent of change. He discusses the importance of different roles that you can play in your organization to advocate for a good idea, whether it is your or your colleagues’ idea, which could lead to a change. He also shares the personalities who try to shut down the change for different reasons. Knowing about these different reactions and personalities, you can choose which one you would like to be, and how to manage working with those different roles and still advocate for change:
3. Finally, listen to this short but mighty inspirational advice of the late Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple and Pixar. The quality of this historical recording is not the greatest, but the message is timeless:
In our last lecture of the semester, Becoming Change Agent lecture, Dr. Maryam Rod Szabo asked her Professional Learning Network to share their idea of change agents, the challenges that they have faced as change agents, and the reasons that they hire change agents. Listen to what they had to say (as usual, link in a lecture folder).
Additional Resources (not required)
If you are interested in introverted vs. extroverted dynamics, read (or audiobook) Susan Cain's book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking.
