Full Description
Don't sink your school's creativity—encourage it to set sail!
Do today's schools stifle creativity? Some think so. Whether or not that assessment is fair, educational leaders need to innovate, implement creative leadership and cultivate possibility thinking.
This book is the definitive resource for making creativity a schoolwide core value. Introducing the groundbreaking Small Steps Approach to Instructional Leadership (SAIL) framework, Ronald A. Beghetto shows how big wins come from small, completely doable steps, and all creativity needs is a little nudge from you, the instructional leader. Content includes:
"Creative leader checklists" summarizing actionable points in each chapter.
The keys to removing the most difficult creative barriers
How to sit with uncertainty instead of letting it derail innovation efforts
When to "flow like water", and when to "stand like a mountain" as you re-focus your school towards creativity
Implementing these principles will produce positive effects that resonate in every aspect of your school.
"Ron Beghetto's engaging work on creativity has profound implications for schools, and for the staff and students within them."
Larry Rosenstock, CEO
High Tech High
"Creativity has become the holy-grail in education. Beghetto presents an authoritative, accessible, and unpretentious pathway toward creative leadership. Insightful, practical, and based on solid research, not popular myth."
Yong Zhao, Author of World Class Learners
"Creativity is needed to negotiate a complex world. Big Wins, Small Steps invites educators to teach creativity by first practicing deliberate creativity one small step at a time."
Beth Miller, Executive Director
Creative Education Foundation
Contents
Preface
Chapter 1. Respond Creatively: A Small-Steps Approach
Rethinking Creative Leadership
Responding to Uncertainty
Introducing the SAIL Framework
Chapter 2. Sit With Uncertainty
The Creative Potential of Uncertainty
Sit With Uncertainty: Principles of Practice
Putting the Principles in Practice
Chapter 3. Engage in Possibility Thinking
Possibility Thinking: A Different Way of Reasoning
Engage in Possibility Thinking: Principles of Practice
Putting the Principles in Practice
Chapter 4. Prune Possibilities
The Power of Pruning Possibilities
Creativity and Criticism
Prune Possibilities: Principles of Practice
Putting the Principles in Practice
Chapter 5. Take Measured Action
The Power of Small Data
The Progress Principle
Take Measured Action: Principles of Practice
Putting the Principles in Practice
Chapter 6. Reclaiming Your Creativity as an Instructional Leader
A Dozen Action Items for Instructional Leaders
Creativity Resources
Appendix A: Creative Leader Checklists
Appendix B: Ground Rules
Appendix C: Heuristics for Possibility Thinking
Appendix D: Action Items for Instructional Leaders
