It’s that time of year again! It’s August and “Back to School” is in full effect.
I’ve been reflecting over the past week on all the “new” that a new school year brings. The nervous excitement and anticipation of:
New relationships and collaborations with and between students, faculty/staff and school leadership
New priorities and initiatives for learning design, curriculum, program, pedagogy, and assessment
New challenges posed by new conditions -- both internal and external
All the “new” is enough to daunt even the most seasoned of educators!
So how to make sense of it all? How might school leadership, faculty/staff, and students collectively organize around a shared “North Star” that brings all of the important and urgent work of schools together under a cohesive and more manageable throughline?
I was thinking all these thoughts when the podcast and article“Apprenticeship Gets a Makeover” (McKinsey & Company, July 28, 2022) came into my inbox. Although written for/from a business perspective, the insights therein immediately resonated, suggesting a powerful approach – with supporting and specific tactics/skills – to help make all of the complicated work of schools feel both simpler and more integrated.
So here’s my “Back to School” wondering and challenge:
What if we reframed our understanding of ALL that schools do – and every relationship through which work gets done – as a powerful apprenticeship opportunity through which “everybody learns and everybody teaches”?
For example, professional development, priorities/goals, and reflection/evaluation processes for instructional faculty could adopt an apprenticeship stance – forging collaborative teams of teachers who learn with and from each other through peer-to-peer modeling, coaching, iteration, and reflection. At the same time, instructional faculty across all grades and subject areas could emphasize the same approaches in learning design – curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment – with their students. Similar peer-to-peer apprenticeship could support leadership teams in making coordinated progress across school-wide priorities and initiatives.
If we collectively commit to the mindset that every task and relationship is an opportunity to “learn by doing” -- through the intentional and consistent practice of modeling, scaffolding, coaching, fading, and reflection -- we promote positive and collaborative culture, and create conditions for more powerful learning by both students and adults.
For more about apprenticeship frameworks and how they can be leveraged to foster a culture of continuous learning, see also:
“What Is Cognitive Apprenticeship And How Does it Make Thinking Visible?” (Tomsett, John. Teaching Times. 2021
“Reviving the art of apprenticeship to unlock continuous skill development” (McKinsey & Company, October 21, 2021)
“Cognitive Apprenticeship in Classroom Instruction: Implications for Industrial and Technical Teacher Education” (Duncan, Sarah. JITE v33n3. 1996)