Michael Fullan is an international expert on educational change who has written extensively on the topic. According to Fullan, successful change involves improving relationships, using professional learning communities to spread best practices, and developing teacher and principal leadership. At the district level, focused professional development, supportive policies for low-performing schools, and addressing workload and pressure on principals can improve student achievement outcomes. Fullan's work provides a framework for understanding the different levels involved in creating and managing educational change.

1. Changing the Future
-Michael Fullan
Gary Bates
EDUL 7043 (PhD Course) by
William Allan Kritsonis, PhD
Fall 2005
PhD Program in Educational Leadership
PVAMU – The Texas A&M University System

2. Michael Fullan
www.michaelfullan.com
• Michael Fullan is the former Dean of the
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
of the University of Toronto.
• Known as an international specialist on educational
change. Mr. Fullan is involved in training,
consulting, and evaluating change projects around
the world. His ideas for managing change are used
in many countries, and his books have been
published in many languages.
• Michael Fullan led the evaluation team which
conducted the four-year assessment of the National
Literacy and Numeracy Strategy in England from
1998-2003.
• In April 2004 he was appointed Special Advisor to
the Premier and Minister of Education in Ontario.

3. His widely acclaimed books
include:
• What’s Worth Fighting For Trilogy (with Andy
Hargreaves)
• Change Forces trilogy
• The New Meaning of Educational Change, 3rd
Edition
• Leading in a Culture of Change which was
awarded the 2002 Book of the Year Award by the
National Staff Development Council
• The Moral Imperative of School Leadership,
March 2003
• Leadership and Sustainability: System Thinkers
in Action, 2005

4. What creates change?
“The single factor common to successful
change is that relationships improve.
If relationships improve, schools get
better. If relationships remain the
same or get worse, ground is lost.”
(Fullan, 2002)
• According to Fullan, 2005, currently
the school system has structural
barriers which make it difficult for
people to have time to get together.

5. Professional Learning Communities
“Professional Learning Communities are
powerful cultures for bringing about
improvement in learning at the school level.”
(Fullan, 2002)
“A powerful way to improve the quality of
teaching in schools is to spread the
practices of “positive deviant teachers”
(Fullan, 2002).
Professional learning communities are the
most efficient way to do this.

6. Change in mindset is
needed:
• Respect those you want to silence.
• Move toward the danger in forming new
alliances.
• Manage emotionally as well as rationally.
• Fight for lost causes.
“Reform often misfires because we fail to
learn from those who disagree with us.
Conflict and differences can make a
constructive contribution in dealing with
complex problems.” -Michael Fullan

7. Leadership Improvement
“Creating and sharing knowledge is
central to effective leadership.”
(Fullan, 2001)
When schools or districts adopt external
models, which in itself is not always a
bad thing, they fail to focus on
changing the culture of the school, and
consequently the models fail to
become embedded or cause overall
change.

8. Successful leaders combine
5 “core mind action sets”:
(Leading a Culture in Change M. Fullan, 2002)
• Moral purpose
• Understanding change
• Developing relationships
• Knowledge sharing
• Coherence making

9. Teacher Leadership
Strong teacher leadership was apparent in each successful sample
school. Teacher leadership appeared to develop when three
conditions were present.
• First, the teachers had ample opportunities to make decisions about
teaching and learning. Successful schools provided teachers with
time to meet as grade-level or subject-matter teams. Moreover,
teachers at successful schools reported that they regularly used this
collaborative time to review student work and to discuss how to
strengthen their classroom instruction.
• Second, teachers engaged in various forms of informal action
research. They used the results of their students‘ assessments to
compare different instructional strategies and different classroom
environments to see which strategies and environments encouraged
student learning. Working together in this way enabled them to create
a continual improvement cycle for their instruction.
• Third, teachers developed their own internal leadership structures
such as team teaching, mentoring new teachers, and collaborating to
share lesson designs to support one another's resolve to improve
student achievement.

10. Principal Leadership
• The successful schools in the study had the same principal for the
last three years.
• Principals at the successful schools were more likely to create time
for teachers to collaborate and to provide them with structured
support. This included the principal's frequent attendance at grade-
level or department meetings and the expectation that teachers
provide feedback on the meetings and let the principal know what he
or she could do to help them.
• When asked what they did to improve student achievement at their
schools, principals produced lists of programs, interventions, and
professional development opportunities that contributed to this goal.
• These successful principals were comfortable using data and making
changes when the data demonstrated that student achievement had
not risen.

11. District Leadership
When asked to list three factors that were most likely to improve test
scores, districts would:
• The successful schools benefited from focused district wide professional
development on pedagogy. Professional development for new hires is
provided so that all teachers would have the opportunity to learn the same
teaching strategies.
• Usually new principals are placed in schools in which parent demands and
conflicts are expected to be fewer. These schools tended to be in the lowest
socioeconomic areas of the district. This practice contributed to a belief that
ultimately became part of the culture—that assignment to low socioeconomic
schools was either an entry-level position for new principals or a way of
penalizing them for being unable to effectively handle parent conflicts.
Transferring from lower to higher socioeconomic areas naturally represented
a promotion. A few districts changed this negative perception by placing
principals alternately at high-achieving schools and at state improvement
program schools. Experience at both types of schools helped principals
develop high expectations for their students' academic achievement and
increased the number of principals who had firsthand knowledge of both types
of schools. The practice also fostered a new belief that both kinds of schools
offer opportunities for professional growth.

12. District Leadership (cont.)
• Workload and pressure is greater for principals at low-performing
schools. Principals from the successful schools said that their
districts scheduled monthly cohort meetings with all the district's state
improvement program schools. The principals so valued these
meetings that they have continued to meet two years after leaving the
state improvement program.
• Some districts implemented a policy for state improvement program
schools to receive additional district services. These services
included additional professional development, additional visitations
and support in curriculum and instruction from district personnel,
district-provided grant writers, more comprehensive data analysis,
and greater on-site visibility of the district superintendent.

13. Fullan’s Change Puzzle

14. References
• Barber, M. & Fullan, M. (2005). ‘Tri-Level Development: It’s
the System’. Education Week. V. 24, No.25.
• Fullan, M. (1994). Coordinating top-down and bottom-up
strategies for educational reform. Systemic Reform:
Perspectives on Personalizing Education- September 1994.
www.ed.gov/pubs/EdReformStudies/SysReforms/fullan1.html.
• Fullan, M. Leading in a culture of change. Ontario Institute for
Studies in Education. University of Toronto.
www.michaelfullan.ca.
• Fullan, M. (1997). What’s worth fighting for in the
principalship? 2nd
ed. New York: Teachers College Press.
• Fullan, M. (1996). What’s worth fighting for in your school.
New York: Teachers College Press.
• Fullan, M. Leadership for the 21st
century.
www.pa.ash.org.au/pecnsw/Leadership_-_Fullan.html.
• Sparks, D. (2003). Interview with Michael Fullan:
Change Agent. Journal of Staff Development, Winter
2003 (Vol. 24, No. 1).
www.nsdc.org/library/publications/jsd/fullan241.cfm.