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Redefining Student Success
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Redefining Student Success
Building a New Vision to Transform Leading, Teaching, and Learning

First Edition

Foreword by Tony Wagner

Additional resources:

August 2021 | 248 pages | Corwin

Be the leader of a fresh, bold, enduring vision of education for your district or school. 

The future of learning has arrived, and it requires bold educational leadership and a dramatic redefinition of what it means to be a successful student today. 

Redefining Student Success invites you to lead this transformation with audacity. It engages leaders with the concepts and actions needed to reimagine schools, address inequities, and help today’s students develop the skills they need for personal, economic, and civic success. This vital guide supports transformative leadership with 

  • Concrete guidance on how to create a Portrait of a Graduate and Portrait of an Educator which will help ensure teachers have a unified vision for professional growth and student success.
  • Reflection prompts that help you recognize your strengths, spark discussion among stakeholders, and identify next steps for inspired action.
  • Compelling examples of students already engaged in creative, self-directed problem-solving around issues that matter to them and their communities, together with stories that illustrate how districts and schools have arrived at their own vision of what education must become. 
  • Companion guides to 21st century learning for parents and students available online. 

The time is now to reset educational outcomes, sync schools with the demands of 21st century society, and meet the needs of every learner, in every community. 

 

 
Foreword by Tony Wagner
 
Preface
 
Gratitudes
 
About the Authors
 
INTRODUCTION
Preparing for Challenges and Opportunities

 
How We Got Here

 
Redefining Student Success to Address Equity

 
The Time Is Now

 
 
PART I: EMBRACING YOUR VISION
 
CHAPTER 1: BE THE LEADER OF A BOLD VISION
To Construct a Bold Vision, Focus on the Readiness Gap

 
Adopting Your Portrait of a Graduate

 
Embrace a Broad and Bold Conversation

 
Focus on Equity

 
Resources for Your Equity Work

 
Final Reflections

 
Resources for Implementation

 
Action Steps

 
 
CHAPTER 2: BE THE LEADER OF A GREEN LIGHT CULTURE
Culture During Crisis

 
Know When to Reset Your Organization’s Culture

 
Final Reflections

 
Resources for Implementation

 
Action Steps

 
 
PART II: VISITING YOUR VISION
 
CHAPTER 3: BE THE LEADER OF CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVERS
Recognize Opportunities for Creative Problem Solving

 
Sustainability in Action

 
Innovation, Invention, and Entrepreneurship in Action

 
The Creativity, Innovation, Invention, and Entrepreneurship Challenge

 
Creative Problem Solving and Your POG

 
Final Reflections

 
Action Steps

 
 
CHAPTER 4: BE THE LEADER OF ENGAGED CITIZENS
Ending the Civics Slide

 
Get Your Community on Board

 
Commit to Tackling Society’s Biggest Challenges

 
Set a Bold Civics Challenge

 
Final Reflections

 
Resources for Implementation

 
Action Steps

 
 
CHAPTER 5: BE THE LEADER OF SELF-DIRECTED YOUNG PEOPLE
Take It Seriously

 
Take It Deep

 
Take It Wide

 
Students as Change Agents

 
Final Reflections

 
Resources for Implementation

 
Action Steps

 
 
PART III: BUILDING YOUR VISION
 
CHAPTER 6: BE THE LEADER OF BOLD LEARNING
Design Backward From Your POG

 
Set an Instructional Challenge

 
Focus on Assessment

 
Competency-Based Learning

 
Final Reflections

 
Resources for Implementation

 
Action Steps

 
 
CHAPTER 7: BE THE LEADER OF STRONG PARTNERSHIPS
Partner With Families

 
Enlist Business and Community Allies

 
Leverage Networks

 
Final Reflections

 
Resources for Implementation

 
Action Steps

 
 
CHAPTER 8: YOUR NEXT STEPS AS A BOLD LEADER
Focus on Your Students

 
Focus on Your Community

 
Focus on Your Green Light Culture

 
Your Six Next Steps as a Bold Leader

 
Momentum Is Growing

 
Final Reflections

 
 
Appendix A: Discussion Guide
 
Appendix B: Help Students Develop Their Competencies
 
Appendix C: Engage Parents as Partners
 
Appendix D: List of Interviewees
 
References

Supplements

Ken Kay and Suzie Boss have created a practical path that has the potential to transform American education. It includes an inspiring vision, vital components of change, and a realistic path forward. It is the long, overdue bridge from ideas to implementation. Redefining Student Success supports teachers and leaders in their journeys to create modern, personalized education for all students.

Elizabeth Fagen
Superintendent, Humble ISD, Texas

When two authorities on 21st century skills and project-based learning join forces, the whole can be greater than the parts—and that is the case with this book. Ken Kay and Suzie Boss bring their exceptional expertise together to offer a synthesized vision that can truly transform schooling. If you’re ready to embark on the journey toward ‘future proof’ learning, this book is for you!

Jay McTighe
Co-author, Understanding by Design® framework and Leading Modern Learning

The vision of education needs to change and to make that happen, it must engage the community in a robust conversation about what our students really need for college, life, and career. Ken Kay and Suzie Boss’s book takes the premise that our new vision of education needs to be rooted in our communities and shows us what is possible as we build that vision and allow it to take root deeply in every phase of education. It turns out when the community is engaged in developing the vision, they become co-owners and help light the path for students to obtain the skills, mindsets, and dispositions they need to be successful.

Cheryl Carrier
Executive Director, Ford Next Generation Learning

Redefining Student Success is an inspirational reminder that education is only limited by our vision, and teaching is first and foremost an act of leadership.

John Wright,
Senior Director for Strategy, National Education Association

Ken Kay and Suzie Boss have both made so many helpful contributions to innovative learning and teaching. I love that they have teamed up. The strengths of this book are the specific strategies that help educators translate their visions for learning into concrete, actionable structures. The ‘field trip’ examples from schools across the country and the Portrait of a Graduate connections are fantastic!”

Scott McLeod
Associate Professor of Educational Leadership, University of Colorado, Denver, Founding Director, CASTLE

For 20 years, Ken Kay has been the leading advocate for 21st century skills. Two decades into the century, Kay and Suzie Boss offer a timely update on what young people need to know and be able to do to thrive with a focus on creative problem solving and the addition of self-direction and civic engagement. This bold vision is a must read for any school or system reconsidering learning goals. We appreciate how the authors have incorporated sustainability, innovation, and entrepreneurship into a call for community-connected project-based learning.

Tom Vander Ark
CEO, Getting Smart, Author, Difference-Making at the Heart of Learning

Ken Kay and Suzie Boss are veteran edu-leaders in our march to transform K–12 learning. In Redefining Student Success, they give school leaders a powerful, detailed, and ready-to-use set of tools to move beyond the ‘why’ and on to the ‘how’ of school change. The book provides a cornucopia of examples from schools, leaders, and teams that are already well on the way.

Grant Lichtman
Chief Provocateur, Author, Thrive
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