The Self-Organizing School provides ground-breaking insights and guidance about how schools can fulfill their aspirations for quality and productivity in learning and teaching. The book describes a comprehensive decade long school design process and effort that improves teaching quality and student outcomes. The practical guidance and examples employed throughout the book are supported by one of the most extensive longitudinal studies of a school reform process, including data from over 1600 classroom observations, 12,000 student evaluations and research studies of school change, technology use, student achievement, collaboration, and teacher effectiveness.
Alan Bain is associate professor of inclusive education at Charles Sturt University, Australia and an international consultant to schools, education systems and industry on technology integration and school reform and improvement.
Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1 - A Reset for School Reform and Improvement Chapter 2 - Theory Chapter 3 - Simple Rules: Committing to Quality Chapter 4 - Embedded Design Chapter 5 - Emergent Feedback Chapter 6 - Similarity at Scale: Students in the SOS Chapter 7 - Dispersed Control Through Collaboration Chapter 8 - Educational Technology for Reform and Improvement Chapter 9 - Organizational Design, Leadership, and Agency Chapter 10 - Implementation: The Harsh Realities of Getting to Scale Chapter 11 - Takeaways and Conclusions References
The Self-Organizing School shows what it takes to sustain and scale technology-driven school reform. This book captures the scope and the process from theory to practice and includes essential understandings for anyone interested in large-scale change in education. -- Angus King, United States Senator and former Governor of Maine The Self-Organizing School places technology where it belongs in school reform-at the heart of what students and teachers do in the classroom every day. I highly recommend it to everyone interested in school change and the role technology can play in making educational reform deep, meaningful, and sustainable. -- Mark Weston, PhD, former Global Education Strategist at Dell Inc. and Director of Strategic Initiatives Group at Apple Inc. The Self-Organizing School is unique providing a comprehensive research-driven approach to site-based school reform that successfully melds the theoretical and the practical. Bain understands the realities and challenges from a leadership perspective and embeds his study in real-world examples drawn from a longitudinal school reform process. The Self-Organizing School is a must for all school leaders committed to effecting real, transformational change in today's demanding educational context. -- Simon Gipson, principal, St. Michael's Grammar School, Melbourne, Australia, Chair of School Council Trinity Grammar School and Senior Education Associate, Hutton Consulting
