I need to begin a Writing Journal for my research writing course in the Ed. D program. I may use this blog or a wiki, depending on the expectations for the coursework.
At this point in my journey, I have completed 42 credits and have only 3 quarters of course work remaining. There are 3 more Superintedent intership quarters, and I must complete the research project. We will defend our proposals in the Fall. I have been surprised how much the program spirals as we process and refine our learning. At times, I am impatient to move into a position that takes advantage of the exciting leadership skills I have learned. I have never been a person who is comfortable being told what to do, so one of my goals is to reach a higher level of autonomy in my career. During most of the program, I have been pleased that the courses are aggressive and fast-moving, leading to realization of my goals before I get too old to appreciate the experience.
It will be interesting to see how this summer quarter progresses since it includes three courses. It may be a challenge to complete all of the assignments if they are not well coordinated. I am a little concerned because I know I will devote important time this summer to my daughter and her July wedding. I will depend on strategies of planning ahead and prioritizing tasks this quarter. The internship focus of HRD will draw connections to the work I have done in professional development for educators and will help me to fill in gaps in my understanding of the HR process.
My dissertation topic of resilience is standing firm, although I have refined and narrowed the approach through identifying my paradigm, worldview, and interpretive lens. I believe there are multiple perspectives of reality, and I would like to follow the social constuctivist view for this research project. I am working to build a mixed methods approach, blending comparative case study naturalistic research with a survey style of quantitative research. It seems we have worked a long time on revising our research proposals and I am looking forward to the day when we can begin this great task.
I have particularly enjoyed the interactions we have had within our cohort. We have truly blended our talents to support each other on this journey. I cannot imagine taking this journey as a solo flight. I am looking forward to our next steps.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Continuing the Journey
I can hardly believe it has only been one year since I started this journey! I have learned so much. I have changed so much. I have read amazingly transformative books and journal articles and watched/listened to a great variety of speakers on TedTalks, You Tube, Podcasts, Conferences, and Webinars. What I have found is that I have more questions than answers, but knowing more makes me ask these questions. I hope, if you are reading my blog, you will comment on my questions and ask questions of your own.
My passion for education, literacy, and children has been fueled by all I have learned. During this year I was told I was "too passionate and too hard-working" but I have become convinced that passion is what makes us human. I believe authentic passion is a key ingredient in the development of empathetic innovators, artists, leaders, and entrepreneurs.
This is an exciting time in education and a critical time for educators and leaders to collaborate to make informed and thoughtful decisions. There is wisdom in diversity and in global perspectives. There are lessons to learned in reflecting upon the trends and patterns seen in years gone by. Problems and challenges of the future need creative thinkers who are flexible and open-minded. The time has passed for dictator style leaders; the most successful leadership models are collaborative and multi-faceted. Today's leader must be a listener, a critical thinker, and a problem solver. I have read about many effective leaders who are humble, who value the words of others highly, and who can change lenses and see other perspectives.
One of the subjects I have researched during this year is poverty and the shocking inequality in the lives of people on this planet. Why must some struggle to put food on the table in a world where others are filling landfills with leftover food? Why do some communities suffer from devastating floods when others, not so far away, lose acres of food to drought? I can't help thinking we must learn how to move water. Our modern society must be able to think of something beyond rain dances by now.
My dissertation topic is resilience. This motivation to understand resilience has come from own challenging life experiences, yet my desire to investigate this characteristic connects to my concerns about others, especially children. How do some people rise up and escape generations of poverty or other terrible hardship, while others seem destined to a life filled with defeat. It makes me think of one of my favorite verses from Macbeth, "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty deaths. Out, out brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
We have but one life and this one life signifies everything to each and every one of us. Do we accept the hand that has been dealt to us, or do we gather all of our hopes and aspirations, assemble our talents, and fire up the drive within to reach beyond our boundaries? Are we going to sit back and accept the decisions others make that govern our lives, or will we think of more possibilities? Will we muster our courage to challenge what seems to be? This is what must be living in the heart of today's leaders, from the day they are born.
In my heart, I am not satisfied with influencing only my own inner circle of self and family. We must step 'to the balcony' to watch the interaction between peoples all around the world. We cannot limit our goals to tomorrow; we must 'telescope the years' to think about sustainability and value. What are the long-term effects of the decisions we make today? How will our choices change the lives of our grandchildren, and their grandchildren? Do we want to be responsible for the end of humanity? What if we think of ourselves as one person in a long chain of a water brigade? If I decide to pass less water in my bucket, perhaps because I was a little less invested in the process, how will this affect the last bucket in the water brigade? Will it put out the fire? Will it quench a child's thirst?
In our current competitive model of education, why must we be so concentrated on the selfish goals of ensuring that American students are positioned and prepared to take all of the best jobs? Can't we think more globally, more humanely, and aim for a diversity of people around the world who can ALL achieve, who can completment each other, and who can all obtain gainful and prosperous employment? What if we thought about the well-being of every child born today? Every child deserves this chance! Why does any single person in our modern and connected world today die of starvation or thirst? Why is there even ONE child in this world who dies from measles or is inflicted with polio? This is what I am passionate about!
Thank you for reading my blog, and I hope you are nurturing your passions and following your dreams.
My passion for education, literacy, and children has been fueled by all I have learned. During this year I was told I was "too passionate and too hard-working" but I have become convinced that passion is what makes us human. I believe authentic passion is a key ingredient in the development of empathetic innovators, artists, leaders, and entrepreneurs.
This is an exciting time in education and a critical time for educators and leaders to collaborate to make informed and thoughtful decisions. There is wisdom in diversity and in global perspectives. There are lessons to learned in reflecting upon the trends and patterns seen in years gone by. Problems and challenges of the future need creative thinkers who are flexible and open-minded. The time has passed for dictator style leaders; the most successful leadership models are collaborative and multi-faceted. Today's leader must be a listener, a critical thinker, and a problem solver. I have read about many effective leaders who are humble, who value the words of others highly, and who can change lenses and see other perspectives.
One of the subjects I have researched during this year is poverty and the shocking inequality in the lives of people on this planet. Why must some struggle to put food on the table in a world where others are filling landfills with leftover food? Why do some communities suffer from devastating floods when others, not so far away, lose acres of food to drought? I can't help thinking we must learn how to move water. Our modern society must be able to think of something beyond rain dances by now.
My dissertation topic is resilience. This motivation to understand resilience has come from own challenging life experiences, yet my desire to investigate this characteristic connects to my concerns about others, especially children. How do some people rise up and escape generations of poverty or other terrible hardship, while others seem destined to a life filled with defeat. It makes me think of one of my favorite verses from Macbeth, "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty deaths. Out, out brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
We have but one life and this one life signifies everything to each and every one of us. Do we accept the hand that has been dealt to us, or do we gather all of our hopes and aspirations, assemble our talents, and fire up the drive within to reach beyond our boundaries? Are we going to sit back and accept the decisions others make that govern our lives, or will we think of more possibilities? Will we muster our courage to challenge what seems to be? This is what must be living in the heart of today's leaders, from the day they are born.
In my heart, I am not satisfied with influencing only my own inner circle of self and family. We must step 'to the balcony' to watch the interaction between peoples all around the world. We cannot limit our goals to tomorrow; we must 'telescope the years' to think about sustainability and value. What are the long-term effects of the decisions we make today? How will our choices change the lives of our grandchildren, and their grandchildren? Do we want to be responsible for the end of humanity? What if we think of ourselves as one person in a long chain of a water brigade? If I decide to pass less water in my bucket, perhaps because I was a little less invested in the process, how will this affect the last bucket in the water brigade? Will it put out the fire? Will it quench a child's thirst?
In our current competitive model of education, why must we be so concentrated on the selfish goals of ensuring that American students are positioned and prepared to take all of the best jobs? Can't we think more globally, more humanely, and aim for a diversity of people around the world who can ALL achieve, who can completment each other, and who can all obtain gainful and prosperous employment? What if we thought about the well-being of every child born today? Every child deserves this chance! Why does any single person in our modern and connected world today die of starvation or thirst? Why is there even ONE child in this world who dies from measles or is inflicted with polio? This is what I am passionate about!
Thank you for reading my blog, and I hope you are nurturing your passions and following your dreams.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Working with one arm
It has been 2 weeks since my surgery for my torn rotator cuff. I got the staples out yesterday, and can finally take the immobilizer off for part of each day. I will start physical therapy on Thursday. I usually am not the type of person who likes to sit around on the couch, so it has been challenging. However, I have found this time at home to be a great opportunity to read and to learn more about my graduate class topics. I am grateful for my husband and my friends who have gotten me out of the house. I am surprised, and a bit frustrated, that the recovery for this little surgery seems that it will take much longer than I expected. It is hard to imagine how long it will take to get back to where I was in 2009.
We have been reading a lot of articles and books about the characteristics of leaders, and about the leader-follower-situation dynamic. It is clear to me through the readings as well as the panel discussion and our interview assignment that effective leadership is complex. I see many of these characteristics of leadership in myself, but I also see areas in which I could improve. I would like to be able to be more decisive, to be more assertive, and to continue to build self-confidence. I wish the articles we were reading would tell us more about how to build the skills we lack instead of listing these skills again and again. I do see value though in knowing what makes an effective leader, even though there are so many different opinions on this.
For our graduate class we are working on designing a charter school. This is a fascinating project, and it is quite challenging. It is hard to imagine that we will finish it on time.
I still feel as if beginning the journey at Drexel is one of the best decisions I have every made.
We have been reading a lot of articles and books about the characteristics of leaders, and about the leader-follower-situation dynamic. It is clear to me through the readings as well as the panel discussion and our interview assignment that effective leadership is complex. I see many of these characteristics of leadership in myself, but I also see areas in which I could improve. I would like to be able to be more decisive, to be more assertive, and to continue to build self-confidence. I wish the articles we were reading would tell us more about how to build the skills we lack instead of listing these skills again and again. I do see value though in knowing what makes an effective leader, even though there are so many different opinions on this.
For our graduate class we are working on designing a charter school. This is a fascinating project, and it is quite challenging. It is hard to imagine that we will finish it on time.
I still feel as if beginning the journey at Drexel is one of the best decisions I have every made.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Up and Down.....
I knew there would be some ups and downs, and this week is a downer. The path that I thought was stretched out in front of me has suddenly sprouted great, seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Now I must blaze a new path, which I will do, but it is a quite challenging to pick myself up and try again. sigh That which does not kill you will make you stronger.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Learning Ecology
Just moving into Week 4 of the 2nd quarter, and the readings, videos and podcasts are amazing. The 2009 Horizon Report lists the upcoming technology advances we will see in the next several years - mobile, cloud computing, geo-everything, the personal web, semantic-aware applications and smart objects. Wow! How many of those do you know about?
John Seely Brown, in his Seminal Paper, talks about the changes that need to happen in education to meet the needs of kids growing up in the digital age. These are not simple changes, but entire shifts in thinking, and they are all possible with the versatility of the Web. He describes the Web as transformative, interactive, rapidly developing, focused on social learning, and responsive to multiple intelligences. It is a tool that has the potential to leverage learning. The Web allows a region to combine knowledge and “augment the dynamics of a region.” The Web is so important for education because today’s kids are multi-processors and today’s new literacy is Information Navigation. The Web facilitates informal learning from experts to anyone who wants to learn, as well as from students to teachers.
In the Jossey-Bass reader, I learned about political aspects of leadership. According to Wikipedia, ploitics is “social relations involving authority or power”. I had never really thought of politics as anything other than government, so this surprised me a little. The key to political skill is in building relationships. One can only do this by caring about people. We show we care by listening, being sincere, thinking before speaking, and getting to know the people in our organization. I loved reading about this, because caring about people is central to my philosophy and my mission. I am getting caught up on the readings nicely this weekend, and am looking forward to this new week.
John Seely Brown, in his Seminal Paper, talks about the changes that need to happen in education to meet the needs of kids growing up in the digital age. These are not simple changes, but entire shifts in thinking, and they are all possible with the versatility of the Web. He describes the Web as transformative, interactive, rapidly developing, focused on social learning, and responsive to multiple intelligences. It is a tool that has the potential to leverage learning. The Web allows a region to combine knowledge and “augment the dynamics of a region.” The Web is so important for education because today’s kids are multi-processors and today’s new literacy is Information Navigation. The Web facilitates informal learning from experts to anyone who wants to learn, as well as from students to teachers.
In the Jossey-Bass reader, I learned about political aspects of leadership. According to Wikipedia, ploitics is “social relations involving authority or power”. I had never really thought of politics as anything other than government, so this surprised me a little. The key to political skill is in building relationships. One can only do this by caring about people. We show we care by listening, being sincere, thinking before speaking, and getting to know the people in our organization. I loved reading about this, because caring about people is central to my philosophy and my mission. I am getting caught up on the readings nicely this weekend, and am looking forward to this new week.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Reading Bonk
Read Chapter 4 Bonk tonight, The World is Open. Fascinating stuff, and it makes me realize how much there is out there to learn. I am a little overwhelmed right now with the tremendous volume of reading I need to complete this week. I am hoping our grad class can work together to share the load. Blackboard is down tonight, hope it is working tomorrow.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Getting Started
Sometimes it takes a while to get dreams started. I knew for a long time that I had big and evolving dreams, but it wasn't until recently that a friend helped me to put my dreams into words. What I yearn for every day of my life, past - present - and future, is to help people. I want to make a difference especially in the lives of children. That is my passion! It is what drives me to do more.
I graduated with high honors from high school (1974), cum laude from college BS El Ed (1977), 4.0 from grad school with M. Ed. T&C and Reading Specialist (1991) but still I wanted more. I started a doctorate at PSU (2004) and an instructional coaching certificate (2008) at Wilkes, but my path finally solidified in the doctoral program (Ed D) through Drexel, in a cutting-edge blended program. I am just now begining the second quarter of the program, and I am immersed in my passion as I discover the new realities of this exciting time of innovation and rapid change in education. This is an exhilarating time to be an educator! I find myself wishing I could turn my biological clock back twenty years so I could realize more of these changes in my lifetime!
In any case, on with the journey. I will add posts as I continue this journey. Please join me.
I graduated with high honors from high school (1974), cum laude from college BS El Ed (1977), 4.0 from grad school with M. Ed. T&C and Reading Specialist (1991) but still I wanted more. I started a doctorate at PSU (2004) and an instructional coaching certificate (2008) at Wilkes, but my path finally solidified in the doctoral program (Ed D) through Drexel, in a cutting-edge blended program. I am just now begining the second quarter of the program, and I am immersed in my passion as I discover the new realities of this exciting time of innovation and rapid change in education. This is an exhilarating time to be an educator! I find myself wishing I could turn my biological clock back twenty years so I could realize more of these changes in my lifetime!
In any case, on with the journey. I will add posts as I continue this journey. Please join me.
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