Aporia DEFINITION

Dr. Steven Katz is a professor in Applied Psychology & Human Development at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) of the University of Toronto (UT), where he teaches in the Child Study and Education graduate program. He is the recipient of the OISE/UT-wide award for teaching excellence. In addition, he is the Director of the research, evaluation, and capacity-building firm, Aporia Consulting Ltd.

Dr. Katz has a Ph.D. in human development and applied psychology, with a specialization in applied cognitive science. His areas of expertise include cognition and learning, teacher education, networked learning communities, leading professional learning, evidence-informed decision-making for school improvement, and leadership for system change. He has received the Governor General’s medal for excellence in his field, and has been involved in research and evaluation, professional development, and consulting with a host of educational organizations around the world. 

He is an author of several best-selling books, including: Leading Schools in a Data-Rich World; Building and Connecting Learning Communities; Intentional Interruption; The Intelligent, Responsive Leader; and Quality Implementation.

Harness the power of collective efficacy to achieve quality implementation!
Designed to overcome a common barrier to successful implementation of school improvement efforts--entrenched belief systems--this book digs deeper into the power of collective efficacy. Teams with a strong sense of collective efficacy devise ways to make “what’s supposed to work” actually work, and find ways to exercise control over challenges that surround them. In addition to the examples from both inside and outside of education, readers will find
• Ways to create environments that tap into mastery as the number one source of collective efficacy
• Methods to strengthen vicarious experiences through observational learning
• Examination of social persuasion and affective states as additional sources of collective efficacy
Expanding on this critically-important topic, this book accentuates the importance of collective efficacy as the single most important driver of student achievement and the key to successful implementation. This book is the spark you need to look at implementation in a completely new light. 

We interrupt this program to bring meaningful, conceptual change to your team's professional learning!

If you're involved in professional learning, you know that big ideas can sometimes get stuck on the way to becoming real change. Steven Katz and Lisa Ain Dack explain the secret to getting unstuck: interrupting the status quo of traditional activity-based professional development to help educators embrace permanent changes in thinking and behavior. They outline a process—grounded in psychological research—for real professional learning that ultimately leads to improved student achievement.

You can enable true learning by

• Building a focus on learning, collaborative inquiry, and formal and informal instructional leadership in schools
• Recognizing the psychological processes involved in adult learning, and overcoming the psychological biases and barriers to change
• Using tools and strategies such as critical friend relationships, learning conversations, task sheets, and protocols

Illustrated with concrete, school-based examples drawn from real practice, Intentional Interruption shows how rethinking professional learning can lead to the development of a real and sustainable learning culture in your school.

Turn skepticism about data into knowledge for true educational reform!

More versatile than mere number crunching and statistics, data can be an effective tool—or even a powerful catalyst—for change within a school. By replacing cynicism with conviction, learning to harness data's power, and becoming good users of data to positively impact student achievement, school leaders can develop three crucial capacities: an inquiry habit of mind, data literacy, and a culture of inquiry.

Lorna M. Earl and Steven Katz show educators how to become comfortable with data, and provide valuable tools for school improvement teams to use in their work, including:

• Vignettes to support group discussion
• Activities for practicing the ideas and concepts in the book
• Task sheets
• Short case studies with actual school data that show how the full process works in a school

To improve schools, data can and should be a vital force in the change process. Using this essential resource, school leaders, school teams, study groups, and students of education can all make sense of data to plan and reform for maximum benefit.

Train educators on using the power of data to positively impact student achievement!

Based on the best-selling book Leading Schools in a Data-Rich World, this guide gives staff developers and workshop leaders the tools to facilitate book study groups, seminars, and professional development events to help school leaders integrate data as a catalyst for school change and enhanced student performance.

This easy-to-use guidebook offers step-by-step instructions to support training sessions that can help educators gain:

• An understanding of data analysis and data interpretation
• An inquiry "habit of mind" to view the use of data as an integral part of the school improvement process
• Leadership capacity that supports an inquiry process

Each chapter features:

• Facilitator's notes
• Discussion questions
• Timed activities

The Facilitator's Guide to Leading Schools in a Data-Rich World is ideal for staff developers or anyone leading professional training for groups of any size—pairs, small workshops, or large seminars.

 Jump start your roles as “learning leader” and “lead learner!”

Designed for leaders to learn and lead within the “middle space” between the seemingly opposing dynamics of district expectations and practitioner experience, this book advances the concept of the school as a learning organization. This innovative perspective guides leaders through an intentional, deliberate learning process to develop intelligent, responsive leadership practice. Using stories, strategies, and tools, the authors

• Explain the power of “purposeful practice” as a methodology for getting better
• Show how to build the requisite capacities to lead effectively via “influence”
• Describe how to turn adaptive challenges into leadership inquiries for growth

Networked learning communities: A powerful school improvement strategy for school leaders!

Ideal for school leaders and superintendents leading change efforts, this book describes how separate professional learning communities can be linked across schools by common instructional and learning issues to create dynamic networked learning communities (NLCs). Drawing on their work with schools throughout North America and England, Steven Katz, Lorna M. Earl, and Sonia Ben Jaafar show how participants in NLCs can share professional knowledge that ultimately improves performance at the school and district level.

Through a sample school narrative, the book illustrates how NLCs can significantly enhance instruction, increase student performance, and empower local professional learning communities. This resource examines:

• Collaborative inquiry as a process that challenges teachers' thinking, generates new learning, and fosters trusting relationships
• The development of formal and informal leadership roles in NLCs
• How NLCs support systematic data analysis and accountability

Demonstrating how NLCs—small or large, local or statewide—can promote critical reforms while strengthening the work of individual professional learning communities, this invaluable resource reveals how educators can join forces across school and district boundaries to generate deep, meaningful, and sustainable change.

• Details a process for cultivating the conditions for knowledge creation and sharing in relation to an identified needs-based focus
• Identifies a set of key enablers at both the school and network levels that have been found to be influential in enhancing classroom practice and improving student learning and achievement
• Illustrates how these key enablers can be intentionally developed at both the school and network levels, and how both units—school and network—can be strengthened through their relationship to one another
• Develops a running narrative of a single school's place and interactions within a networked learning community to illustrate the inner-workings of NLC development