Episode #11

Randy Ziegenfuss, Ed.D. is Superintendent at Salisbury Township School District and Clinical Adjunct Professor at Moravian College in Pennsylvania. Randy is a blogger, speaker, and podcast host at TLTalk Radio and Shift Your Paradigm.

 

I have known Randy for several years on social media and have been fortunate to be on his podcast show twice. When I met him in person at Educon last January, we had a great talk about the future of learning. I knew then he was going to keep pushing the edge with his co-host Lynn Fuini-Hetten, especially now with their new show, Shift the Paradigm. I was so excited that Randy agreed to join me on my podcast and below are excerpts from our conversation on learning.

 

Can you share about you, your background, and your journey as superintendent of Salisbury Township School District?

Yes, I am currently Superintendent of Salisbury Township School District in Pennsylvania. It was fun meeting you at Educon in Philadelphia last year. In fact, we’re located about an hour north of Philadelphia and 90 minutes to New York city. It’s a great place geographically being so close to cultural events. This is my 32nd year in education. My first 12 years I taught middle school music, general music, and musical theater. I was a music major in college. About 8 or 9 years into my teaching, this thing called a computer landed in my classroom. I got very curious about what I could do using computers for kids learning music. We were sequencing music and making all sorts of sounds. If you walked by my room, it was like a three-ring circus. Kids were doing all sorts of things connected to their interests and passions around music. During that time, I became interested in not only musical things but learning about technology.

After 19 years in the school district next door, I moved to a more formal leadership position as the Director of Technology here at Salisbury Township and did that for six years. I have the pleasure of working with an amazing team of teachers, students, and parents. We accomplished a lot of things during that time. Back around 2006, there was one desktop PC for each instructional area. It was a pretty traditional school. Now we are a K-12 school district where every student has their own learning device which took a lot of planning, thinking, collaborating, and work to get there. One thing I shared with Lynn Fuinehetten, my podcast collaborator and assistant superintendent here is that it has been an interesting journey to see how the conversations and the transformation really moved away from the technology to really focus on learning. Learning has changed and can change as a result of having access.

Mission: Salisbury…Inspire, Think, Learn, Grow… Together!

Can you share how you and your administration created a culture of learning?

All that I learned about leadership, I can trace back to the roots of being a musician. The way that musicians learn mirrors the way we believe powerful learning happens. As a music teacher, much of what I did involve leading groups which helped me shape what I believe is leadership. One of the things we embrace around here is that everyone is a learner and everyone is a leader. That culture of learning is exemplified in the profile of a graduate. We had a lot of conversations on what learning looks like. A few years ago we embarked on this process where we asked two basic questions to help shape our culture of learning:

What knowledge, skills, and dispositions do our current learners need to have to be successful once they leave us? We call that life; not just focusing on a career, not just making money, not just being a good citizen, but just living a good life.

What kinds of learning environments are going to help us to help them best get there? What do we believe about learning not only for our ch...