This open access book addresses the evasive problem of why truly effective educational innovation on a wide scale is so difficult to achieve, and what leaders may do about this. Examining the case of system-wide reform processes centering on teaching a thinking-rich curriculum, it discusses general issues pertaining to implementing deep, large-scale changes in the core of learning and instruction. The book emphasizes challenges related to professional development, assessment, achievement gaps, and the tension between knowledge and skills in 21st century curricula. It summarizes insights the author has gained from approximately 25 years of engaging with these topics both as an academic and as a practitioner who led a national change process. With a Forward by David Perkins
Wall Street Journal Bestseller "The pick of 2014's management books." –Andrew Hill, Financial Times "One of the top business books of the year." –Harvey Schacter, The Globe and Mail Bestselling author, Robert Sutton and Stanford colleague, Huggy Rao tackle a challenge that determines every organization’s success: how to scale up farther, faster, and more effectively as an organization grows. Sutton and Rao have devoted much of the last decade to uncovering what it takes to build and uncover pockets of exemplary performance, to help spread them, and to keep recharging organizations with ever better work practices. Drawing on inside accounts and case studies and academic research from a wealth of industries-- including start-ups, pharmaceuticals, airlines, retail, financial services, high-tech, education, non-profits, government, and healthcare-- Sutton and Rao identify the key scaling challenges that confront every organization. They tackle the difficult trade-offs that organizations must make between whether to encourage individualized approaches tailored to local needs or to replicate the same practices and customs as an organization or program expands. They reveal how the best leaders and teams develop, spread, and instill the right mindsets in their people-- rather than ruining or watering down the very things that have fueled successful growth in the past. They unpack the principles that help to cascade excellence throughout an organization, as well as show how to eliminate destructive beliefs and behaviors that will hold them back. Scaling Up Excellence is the first major business book devoted to this universal and vexing challenge and it is destined to become the standard bearer in the field.
In this guide, Harnish and his co-authors share practical tools and techniques to help entrepreneurs grow an industry -- dominating business without it killing them -- and actually have fun. Many growth company leaders reach a point where they actually dread adding another customer, employee, or location. It feels like they are just adding more weight to an ever-heavier anchor they are dragging through the sand. To make matters worse, the increased revenues have not turned into more profitability, so at some point they wonder if the journey is worth the effort. This book focuses on the four major decisions every company must get right: People, Strategy, Execution and Cash. The book includes a series of One-Page tools including the One-Page Strategic Plan and the Rockefeller Habits Execution Checklist, which more than 40,000 firms around the globe have used to scale their companies successfully.
A critical issue in higher education is the effective implementation of assessment with the core purpose of promoting productive student learning. This edited collection provides a state-of-the-art discussion of recent, cutting-edge work into assessment for learning in higher education. It introduces a new theme of scaling up, which will be welcomed by theorists, researchers, curriculum leaders and university teachers, and showcases the work of leading figures from Australia, England, continental Europe and Hong Kong. The work illuminates four key elements: (1) Enabling assessment change; (2) Assessment for learning strategies and implementation; (3) Feedback for learning; (4) Using technology to facilitate assessment for learning. Solidly research-based and carrying important implications for enhanced practice in assessment for learning at the university level, it is a must read for academic developers, researchers, university teachers, academic leaders and all those interested in assessment matters.
Scale-Up in Education, Volume 2: Issues in Practice explores the challenges of implementing and assessing educational interventions in varied classroom contexts. Included are reflections on the challenges of designing studies for improving the instructional core of schools, guidelines for establishing evidence of interventions' impacts across a wide range of settings, and an assessment of national efforts to bring reform to scale in high-poverty schools. This volume also includes findings and insights from several federally funded research projects charged with bringing conceptual and analytic rigor to studies of successful scale-up. All of the chapters address the challenges of conducting scientific research in schools and provide insights for obtaining the support of teachers and school administrators. The result is a highly readable volume ideally suited for educators interested in the issues that inform intervention research, researchers concerned with designing practical studies that are methodologically sound, and policymakers engaged in evidence-based school reform.
A Detailed Roadmap for Companies at Various Stages of Development on How to Get to the Next Level. Leaders and employees of growing firms want ideas and tools they can implement immediately to improve some aspect of their business. Verne Harnish, serial entrepreneur, advisor, and venture investor, brings to business leaders the fundamentals that produce real wealth—the same habits that typified American business magnate John D. Rockefeller’s disciplined approach to business. Harnish masterfully intertwines the legendary business philosophy of Rockefeller with lessons to be learned from ten extraordinary organizations. Aiming to empower present-day business leaders, this remarkably successful book includes invaluable lessons from real-world case studies. A treasure trove of practical situations teeming with insights and actionable recommendations, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits will help you unlock the secrets to scaling up your enterprise while simultaneously sidestepping the pitfalls that plague new ventures. From seasoned industry titans to ambitious start-up founders, anyone can swiftly implement these teachings for immediate impact.
Scale-Up in Education, Volume 2: Issues in Practice explores the challenges of implementing and assessing educational interventions in varied classroom contexts. Included are reflections on the challenges of designing studies for improving the instructional core of schools, guidelines for establishing evidence of interventions' impacts across a wide range of settings, and an assessment of national efforts to bring reform to scale in high-poverty schools. This volume also includes findings and insights from several federally funded research projects charged with bringing conceptual and analytic rigor to studies of successful scale-up. All of the chapters address the challenges of conducting scientific research in schools and provide insights for obtaining the support of teachers and school administrators. The result is a highly readable volume ideally suited for educators interested in the issues that inform intervention research, researchers concerned with designing practical studies that are methodologically sound, and policymakers engaged in evidence-based school reform.
Today, more than ever, entrepreneurs create new start-ups based on original ideas or technical and scientific developments that often have their origins in an academic environment. Very often these entrepreneurs are also young people with little to no business experience, coming with their technical or scientific breakthrough ideas out of an academic environment. This fact makes it challenging for these start-ups to succeed. When one is used to an academic environment, one finds it challenging to adapt to a business environment. And having little to no real business experience only makes the process of adapting more difficult. While passion and drive are certainly present in start-ups, they can be counterproductive if not used in the right way. Even the large multinational companies were once small start-ups and scale-ups. That they are big and important today can only be explained by the fact that as start-ups and scale-ups they did the right things. For many years, the author has been very close to such situations and has been in charge of leading the growth of new business initiatives. His experience shows that business failure is more often the result of lacking the business skills to bring new products to market than a matter of the quality of the new products and developments. Growing Start-Up and Scale-Up Activities into a Successful Business is useful for every entrepreneur-founder-CEO of a start-up or a scale-up and, by extension, every person who has as part of his or her role the task of growing a new business into a successful business. This book is even for venture capitalists who want to help the companies in which they have invested. Unlike the many books that give advice on how to grow a start-up or scale-up into a successful business, which are very often written by people coming from an academic background or by people who have not themselves experienced the challenges of having to do this on a daily basis, Growing Start-Up and Scale-Up Activities into a Successful Business is based on forty-three years of experience with the author actively working on a daily basis to face the challenge of growing new businesses into success. What also makes Growing Start-Up and Scale-Up Activities into a Successful Business unique is that the principles put forward are illustrated by more than forty-five (anonymized) real-life cases. If you would like consulting advice with a hands-on approach from an author who has always had both feet planted firmly in everyday management at the international level for growing new business initiatives into successful enterprises, then Growing Start-Up and Scale-Up Activities into a Successful Business is the right choice for you.
This energetic and thought-provoking book encourages a reflexive, non-nationalistic approach to doing world research and sets out how to understand, plan, do and use this research. Williams introduces a range of frameworks, from desk-based studies and traditional ethnography to the use of internet, satellites, robots, drones and ‘big data’, and provides exciting, interdisciplinary examples. This book is presented in a clear international style and uses creative approaches to researching peoples, places and world systems. It explains: desk-based research using international data including documentaries, museum objects, archives, data-sets and working with groups such as refugees, tourists and migrants distance research using online videos, surveys and remote methods such as video conferencing and crowdsourcing fieldwork abroad, including ethnography, street observation and mapping. The book is also accompanied by a website, with the following features: For Students Weblinks for each chapter Examples/summaries/templates related to text marked with Additional thinking zones An overview of data capture technologies For Lecturers Copies of all the figures and thinking zones for use in teaching material PowerPoint slides for each chapter Built upon the foundations of the author’s 30 years of research experience, and including original case studies from international students, this is an essential guide for anyone in the social sciences using or doing international and global research.
This book presents a comprehensive overview of children’s transitions to kindergarten as well as proven strategies that promote their readiness. It presents theories and research to help understand children’s development during the early childhood years. It describes evidence-based interventions that support children in developmental areas essential to school success, including cognitive, social-emotional, and self-regulatory skills. Chapters review prekindergarten readiness programs designed to promote continuity of learning in anticipation of the higher grades and discuss transitional concerns of special populations, such as non-native speakers, children with visual and other disabilities, and children with common temperamental issues. The volume concludes with examples of larger-scale systemic approaches to supporting children’s development during the transition to kindergarten, describing a coherent system of early childhood education that promotes long-term development. Featured topics include: Consistency in children’s classroom experiences and implications for early childhood development. Changes in school readiness in U.S. kindergarteners. Effective transitions to kindergarten for low-income children. The transition into kindergarten for English language learners. The role of close teacher-child relationships during the transition into kindergarten. Children’s temperament and its effect on their kindergarten transitions. Kindergarten Transition and Readiness is a must-have resource for researchers, clinicians and related professionals, and graduate students in child and school psychology, educational psychology, social work, special education, and early childhood education.
