36 Tools For Building Spirit In Learning Communities

Through inspiring, yet practical concepts and interactive, step-by-step processes, Williams provides the tools educators need to revitalize and transform the culture of their schools.

Revitalize the spirit of your school community and strengthen your common vision and purpose! Many of today s schools suffer from stress fractures as they struggle with challenges of achievement gaps, class sizes, differentiating instruction for diverse students, and responding to ever greater demands for accountability. Longtime facilitator R. Bruce Williams gets to the heart of the matter, emphasizing that change is not just external but also comes from within through revitalized individuals and strong culture. Williams provides administrators with essential tools to nurture the spirits of hard-working professionals and raise morale in their school communities. Each chapter ends with step-by-step activities that build on featured concepts and speed the transition from theory to practice, from struggle to success. The book focuses on seven important aspects of underlying structure that can leverage new patterns of confidence and achievement. Participative processes such as mentoring Visible achievements Common understandings Guided reflections Inspiring success stories Community-building rituals Powerful symbols In powerful, well-formed cultures, common spirit is strong. This book provides everything educators need to work together to transform their learning community into a culture of vitality, energy, vision, and purpose.

With over thirty-five years of international consulting experience, Bruce Williams is noted for his expert group facilitation and his skills in planning and team building methodologies. His specialty is facilitating participative, interactive group workshops whether these are focused on strategic planning and consensus building or instructional methodologies for the classroom. Recently, his workshops on Brain Compatible Learning and School Change Facilitation have been popular. In addition, he frequently presents in the areas of cooperative learning, higher order thinking skills, and authentic assessment.

Bruce brings exceptional skills at dealing with diverse populations aided by his seven years of experience in Japan and Korea teaching English as a second language. His thirty-six years of experience in adult training have enabled him to be an invaluable resource in facilitating school change.

In addition to conference workshops in 2002 in Australia and New Zealand, he has been invited three times in the last two years to present workshops for teachers in Singapore. In April of 2004, Bruce was the keynote speaker for 400 principals and teachers in Beijing, People's Republic of China.