|
Note from the Association: Alison Easterling, Head of Upper School at Noble and Greenough School, and Association for Academic Leaders member, posted a query about summer reading on the Academic-Leaders’ listserv. She got generous feedback from other Association members about what they were reading and then did some research about the titles suggested and posted back to the community. We were so impressed that we asked her to write a blog post for our community and Alison graciously agreed.
Here are some of the most frequently recommended books that stood out across multiple lists:
Other contributions I wanted to include in this post:
As you plan your summer reading, consider picking up one (or more) of these insightful books. They offer valuable perspectives and practical strategies that can enhance your professional growth and positively impact your school community. Happy reading!
0 Comments
At the Association for Academic Leaders, our goal is to provide members the community, learning, and resources for them to be successful in your current and future roles. This report delivers on that goal. Association Members, please visit the Portal to download the complete Insight Report.  
In 2023-2024, Academic Leaders consistently identified three issues as top-of-mind: workforce development, student mental health, and Generative AI. As you’ve started to look forward to 2024-2025, you’ve added community polarization to that list.
On the surface, many see these concerns as four discrete domains. Our 2024 Insight Report provides a different perspective: The seemingly separate challenges you’ve been wrestling all year are all manifestations of larger shifts in how humans work, think, and interact. When these larger forces affect independent schools, the impact is felt in workforce development, student mental health, community polarization, and adoption of Generative AI. When Academic Leaders think bigger, turn away from managing the impact of the shifts, and turn towards identifying and responding to these large-scale forces, they can develop more effective approaches to their challenges. These issues are all real and persistent dilemmas for independent schools and Academic Leaders. They’re becoming more pressing because the solutions Academic Leaders have used in the past don't fit today's world. The old ways of doing things don't address the new realities, so traditional strategies become less effective. As the educational landscape evolves rapidly, Academic Leaders need to recognize and respond effectively. By doing so, leaders can develop innovative strategies that will allow them to thrive. These four top-of-mind challenges stem from three major cultural shifts that are transforming the educational landscape. Technological Change When Generative AI made a splashy entrance in November 2022 the technology felt like a surprise to many.Technological innovation follows an exponential curve, but humans don't adapt to change that quickly. It’s no longer possible to “keep up” with technology, and new developments emerge before the majority of humans have fully adapted to the current landscape. Generative AIs that use large language models have been especially challenging to adapt to because they capably (and to many, disconcertingly) mimic so many behaviors we believed were solely human. Pandemic-Accelerated Transformation The COVID-19 pandemic catalyzed the pace of various social, technological, and economic transformations that previously would have unfolded at a more measured rate. Shifts that were expected to take years or decades, like remote work, distance learning, digitized commerce, were completed in days or weeks. When acute pandemic restrictions eased, many people didn’t return to pre-pandemic behaviors. Instead, they continued to opt out of large and small communal experiences like office work, movie theater attendance, traditional schooling and volunteering. Erosion of Social Cohesion and Social Capital Social cohesion is the feeling of belonging to a group; social capital is the value of those group connections. As wealth inequality in the United States continues to expand, the sense of shared prosperity has diminished. Traditional institutions, like religious communities and local social clubs, used to be places where people of different backgrounds met and built trust, but membership in these organizations has steadily declined. In this piece of writing, our goal is to look at four top-of-mind challenges Academic Leaders face, and connect them to big ideas beyond the education sphere like economics, technology, psychology, and sociology. When we have a wider perspective on our challenges, new strategies and opportunities can emerge. No one report could cover the manifold forces that impact Academic Leaders and their schools. We chose to focus on these areas because they take time and produce tension. Since our beginning two years ago, the Association for Academic Leaders has brought educators big ideas, real-world expertise and pragmatic strategies for growth and change. The 2024 Insight Report, our flagship publication, is designed to be a springboard for exactly this kind of exploration. We invite you to delve deeper into these interconnected issues and discover how a broader lens can illuminate new paths forward for your school. The Association for Academic Leaders was designed to create the community, learning, and resources you need to be successful in your role, so that you can make an impact at your school. As part of our commitment to helping you to think through the issues that matter most, we are excited to introduce our flagship publication, the 2024 Insight Report. Association Members, please visit the Portal to download the report. For the last two years, we've created a report every May called Marking the Moment. This report was designed to give Academic Leaders resources, research, and insights on a number of top of mind topics. Academic Leaders found Marking the Moment helpful as a starting place for leadership team discussions or division/department deep dives. Feedback from our members inspired us to evaluate both the number of topics we included and the depth of our supporting research. All year, we’ve heard from our members that there were four topics that were consistently on the top of their mind: Workforce Development, Generative AI, Student Mental Health, and, more recently, Community Polarization.
To address these needs, we have decided to revamp Marking the Moment, and birth it anew as the 2024 Insight Report. Our goal with the 2024 Insight Report is to provide timely and relevant information for Academic Leaders, so that you can navigate the ever-changing landscape of independent education. This new report provides a much deeper dive into the forces at play and the resources Academic Leaders need along with supporting research, and insights. Like Marking the Moment, the Insight Report can be used as a jumping off point for leadership discussions; we’ve provided discussion questions and scenarios for each topic. And, you’ll see even more resources based on this work throughout the 2024-2025 academic year. We do everything at the Association for Academic Leaders and One Schoolhouse, as a whole, with an iterative approach and growth mindset. So, we want to hear from you. Like this report better? Great, let us know. Did we fall short? Let us know that too. Have an idea for how we can expand it? Tell us. Thank you for your continued partnership and support, Sarah Hanawald, Senior Director, Association for Academic Leaders Brad Rathgeber, President & CEO, One Schoolhouse One of our Academic Program’s school-wide competencies is building academic maturity. When Academic Leaders enroll students in our online courses, students don’t just get the course content–they learn a suite of skills and strategies that they’ll use in high school, college, and beyond. It's not just about equipping students with the ability to navigate complex environments, manage their time effectively, and become self-directed learners–it's about giving them the preparation they need for the autonomy that college demands.
College preparedness is one of the essential promises that independent schools make to students and families. We see that in the vast majority of our students, who are high achievers who often “do school” very well. However, the strategies they’ve learned to use are often inefficient. Dr. Lisa Damour describes students who “relentlessly grind, determined to leave no room for error. [They] don’t stop until they’ve polished each assignment to a high shine and rewritten their notes with color-coded precision.” When students see filling their time as the only way to boost achievement, they’ll fill their time relentlessly, often at the expense of balance and wellness. The Academic Program teaches students a different way to work. We want our students to manage their time efficiently and nimbly, so we encourage them to schedule work in advance and prioritize tasks, tackling the most important or challenging tasks first. We ask them to build in slack time each week. At first, this seems counterintuitive to students, but it’s a source of relief when that extra hour on Thursday afternoon becomes a lifesaver for completing assignments or consulting with their online teacher. Teaching students to anticipate challenges, whether they are skills-induced or schedule-induced, and building in time that allows them to seek help before it’s too late is essential. We give students their work plan at the start of each week to help students build in that slack time. When students encounter a challenging concept, we teach them help-seeking behaviors and communication skills. We often have the same advice that teachers on campus do: a well-crafted question and a ten-minute conversation can be an extremely efficient use of time. The teacher can pinpoint the problem and guide the student to a solution, resolving the issue at hand and teaching students to use their resources effectively to solve problems. Year after year, Academic Program students tell us that the autonomy they build in their online course has a positive impact on their academic performance in on-campus courses. How do we know? We survey our students four times a year so we can measure what we value. Because building academic maturity is at the core of our pedagogy, we ask questions about goal-setting, organization, resilience, and help-seeking. What we learn by comparing robust data across time is that 90% of our students tell us they’ve built academic maturity skills in our courses over the course of the academic year. That’s why independent schools across the country and around the world partner with the Academic Program at One Schoolhouse: we challenge students to build their academic maturity, and we support them in reaching that goal. Students come to their Academic Program courses at all levels of academic maturity. We’ve designed our systems to support students no matter where they are in their process. Our Student Success Team checks in with our teachers every week to gather information about students who need additional support. We proactively communicate with the student and their face-to-face school to ensure that students are engaged in their coursework and progressing appropriately, have the appropriate on-campus resources, and know the steps they need to take if they need to improve their performance. As an Academic Leader, you witness what Dr. Damour and other researchers have described as the "stress Olympics" of today's adolescents. Building academic maturity within an online course equips high-achieving students to better navigate these pressures and offers a valuable perspective: stress doesn't have to be an all-consuming competition.The Academic Program at One Schoolhouse is your essential partner in giving students the perspective and the skills they need to succeed: in high school, in college, and beyond. Academic Leaders know that when students are pushed beyond their comfort zone, they develop critical thinking skills, problem-solving abilities, and a deep understanding of the subject matter. This isn't about grades; it's about the way students grow. That's why independent schools strive to create a challenging and enriching academic environment that fosters intellectual curiosity and empowers students to excel.
The Academic Program at One Schoolhouse is your partner for online learning because we share this same commitment. We understand the unique challenges faced by independent schools in offering a robust and ever-evolving curriculum. Our online courses are designed to complement your existing programs, providing a rich and engaging learning experience that expands your course offerings and keeps your students excited about academics. How do we know we're meeting our goal? The Academic Program surveys students four times a year about the things we value most, like connecting to their teacher, developing academic maturity, or yes – feeling challenged. We're proud to say that 96% of our students report that their Academic Program course is challenging. Our promise to your school is that when a student finishes one of our courses, either during the academic year or the summer session, they’re ready to rise up to the next level on your campus. Our partnerships are effective because schools trust us to challenge their students online in the same way they’re challenged in the classroom. We’re an organization that’s all about growth, and we know that people grow the most when they’re challenged. At the Academic Program, we challenge our teachers, too, so they’re always creating new opportunities for students to connect and engage in their courses. We refresh or rebuild every one of our courses each summer because the field of online learning is constantly evolving. New technologies emerge, best practices shift, and student needs continue to develop. We know how important it is for students to be challenged and grow. By partnering with the Academic Program at One Schoolhouse, you can open doors to new subjects and experiences for your students. They'll develop the critical thinking and problem-solving skills they need to succeed in our ever-changing world, all while feeling supported and engaged. Together, we can help your students reach their full potential. |
Don't miss our weekly blog posts by joining our newsletter mailing list below:AuthorsBrad Rathgeber (he/him/his) Archives
August 2024
Categories |
||||
RSS Feed