Tag Archives: TEDxABQ

Here’s an Online Library Selection of Our Favorite TED Talks

Most everyone associated with Eagle Rock — and in particular those who work within our School and Professional Development Center (PDC) — have always been big fans of TED talks. Run by a nonprofit organization devoted to what it calls “Ideas Worth Spreading,” TED talks have been delivered at conferences around the globe since 1990.

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In fact, PDC staffers and students recently shared a TED connection at TEDxABQ2015 in Albuquerque, N.M. — an event that focused specifically on education (see: Eagle Rock PDC Lends an Experienced Hand at TEDxABQ Education). And while merely attending a TED event may appear on the surface to be a passive act, the listening aspect is huge to our PDC’s theory of action.

That theory begins with the edict that we don’t just drop in on an educational institution and impose our process on that entity. Instead, we begin by listening — embedding ourselves in the context, conducting interviews and most important, observing and hearing from students and educators local alike. We get a better understanding of what’s going on by listening to what local school leaders value and observing those values in the school setting.

Our recent attendance at TEDxABQEducation reflects this first step. We had already been engaged to help Albuquerque schools better document and scale their approach to personalized learning (see: New Metrics Initiative Taking Shape in New Mexico). So we sent our Director of Professional Development, Michael Soguero, along with a PDC Fellow Kelsey Baun and four Eagle Rock students to Albuquerque where they embedded themselves in four local schools to conduct focus group interviews.

As a result, we are currently developing processes that support local wisdom to solve local problems. We take advantage of the best local thinking rather than impose a generic framework that may be completely foreign to the local school district.

So whenever the topic of TED talks surfaces, we’re all in. If you’ve never experienced what TED offers educators, click on one of the videos below — just for a taste. We’re thinking you’ll probably end up watching each of them.

When 13 year-old Logan LaPlante grows up, he wants to be happy and healthy. This talented teen discusses how hacking his own education is helping him achieve this goal. From Feb. 2013:

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures — rather than undermines — the creative process. From Feb. 2006: Continue reading…

Eagle Rock PDC Lends an Experienced Hand at TEDxABQ Education

We have been deeply engaged in public education reform in Albuquerque, N.M., since 2007. In particular, Eagle Rock has been working with Tony Monfiletto since his tenure as principal of Amy Biehl High School and now as executive director of the New Mexico Center for School Leadership (NMCSL).

NMCSL is an incubator for local charter schools that serve communities in greatest need. In apparent contradiction to this long and healthy relationship, Albuquerque and New Mexico in general are well known for distrusting solutions imposed by outsiders. In fact, Gov. Lew Wallace — the former territorial governor — famously claimed in the late 1870s that, “All calculations based on experiences elsewhere fail in New Mexico.”

Fortunately, Eagle Rock’s facilitative processes are effective at surfacing local wisdom to solve local problems. We have a clear advantage as an outsider, because we demonstrate over time that we come to nurture and foster the best local thinking rather than impose a turnkey framework.

We have supported schools in Vermont and Iowa to foster competency-based systems, facilitated professional development in Detroit to enhance project-based learning, and launched Mid-Atlantic critical friends groups for Big Picture Learning principals to convene and learn from their collective experiences. In all cases, the center of our work is to identify what is most important to the local educators and systematically support them in what they care about. (To learn more about this approach and the thinking behind it, please read my April 22, 2013 blog post, Experience With Professional Development Influences Eagle Rock’s Approach.)

As a result of our ongoing work in New Mexico, I was invited to attend TEDxABQ Education held on Friday, March 27, 2015, at the African American Performing Arts Center in Albuquerque, where 17 educators offered up visions of reform rooted in their experience in that central New Mexico community. Presentations ranged from Continue reading…

Eagle Rock’s PDC Has a Busy Calendar for the Cold Winter Months

If you know anything about the goings-on at Eagle Rock, you’re probably aware that our Professional Development Center (PDC) works hand-in-hand with educators from across the nation.

Educators and others come to us for insights on how to successfully re-engage, retain and graduate students. They come to us because we’re experienced and really good at what we do. There’s a bit of a boast in that statement, but it’s the truth.

And what we don’t do is tout ourselves as the only solution available. In fact, solutions aren’t what we offer. What our PDC offers is a process that enables schools to re-engage with their students within their own particular campus environment based on what resources are available to them and how the educators and students themselves define success in such endeavors.

As a result of our efforts, we continue to attract schools from all corners of the country. Take educators in Iowa, for example. Sometime early next year, we’ll be conducting observations of competency-based systems for the Iowa State Department of Education. We’ll be visiting a pair of school districts in Collins-Maxwell and Van Meter — both situated near Des Moines.

Also, you might recall back in September we told you about how we were helping six schools in New Mexico develop metrics for success. Come next month, we’ll also be conducting observations at those six schools. They include ACE Leadership, Health Leadership, Amy Biehl High School, South Valley Academy, Native American Community Academy and American Sign Language Academy. Our plan is to follow up our observations by meeting up with leaders of these schools — along with Tony Monfiletto, executive director of the New Mexico Center for School Leadership (NMCSL) — and the good folks at the McCune Charitable Foundation.

Also in New Mexico, the NMCSL will soon be launching the chartering process for a new Entrepreneurship-focused school. As we have with their previous three charters (ACE, Health, Tech), we will facilitate the initial curriculum vision for the school, which involves engaging industry partners.

Eagle Rock Professional Development Center WorkingAbout four years ago we assisted in the launch of the Mid-Atlantic Critical Friends Group (CFG) for Big Picture Learning. In 2015, those CFG gatherings will continue in Philadelphia, Pa. (Wed, Jan 14 at El Centro), Newark, N.J. (Fri Mar 13 at Big Picture Academy), and in March and April (dates TBD) at Fannie Lou Hamer High School in Bronx, N.Y.

Speaking of Fannie Lou Hamer, we have two visits in the pipeline to continue supporting the Bronx school. Previously, we’ve helped them launch their peer observation system, which is built around Fred Newmann’s Authentic Intellectual Work framework.

And we plan to continue our support of transforming public education in the state of Washington to better meet the learning needs of all students — particularly those least effectively served by existing programs — by supporting the work of the Puget Sound Consortium for School Innovation (a Big Picture Learning initiative).

Below is a listing of our Professional Development Center’s activities scheduled from now through the end of March. If you would like to know more about our work or how your school or community program can work with our Professional Development Center, please contact our associate director of professional development, Dan Condon, by emailing DCondon at EagleRockSchool dot org.

Jan 7 and Mar 11, 2015

We’ll be in Winooski, Vt., where PDC Associate Sarah Bertucci continues consulting with the Winooski School District as they move toward proficiency-based graduation systems.

Jan 8, 2015

We return to Albuquerque, N.M., where Dan Condon, associate director of professional development, will be Continue reading…