Presenter Page – Bill Daggett – Successful Practices Network

Dr. Bill Daggett

Founder - Successful Practices Network and the International Center for Leadership in Education.

Focus Points: AI Integration in Education, Rigor/Relevance Framework, Instructional Transformation, System Transformation, Future-Focused Skills, Personalized Learning, Teaching Principles,

About Dr. Daggett Topics Book Dr. Daggett

Dr. Bill Daggett

Founder of both the Successful Practices Network and the International Center for Leadership in Education.

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About Dr. Daggett

Dr. Daggett’s ability to move education systems towards more rigorous and relevant skills and knowledge for ALL students has led to collaborations with state-level and local district initiatives in all 50 states, as well as in Europe and Asia.

While an avid supporter of public schools, he also challenges educators to focus more on the children’s future than on maintaining the classrooms of our youth. His insights and leadership have led nearly every major education association in the U.S., hundreds of school districts and colleges, numerous political and business leaders, publishers, and others to seek his insight and guidance.

Dr. Daggett began his career as a teacher, became a local administrator, and then the Director of the New York State Education Department. Today, he provides leadership and guidance to the National Dropout Prevention Center and the Career and Technical Education Technical Assistance Center, both part of the Successful Practices Network.

He created the Rigor/Relevance Framework and the Rigor-Relevance-Resilience Learning Model, which has become a pillar of many of the nation’s school reform efforts. Dr. Daggett has authored 26 books on student learning and instruction, as well as textbooks, research reports, and journal articles.

Dr. Daggett has been recognized as a distinguished alumnus by both Temple University and the State University at Albany.

Dr. Daggett has a special commitment to individuals with disabilities. He and his wife, Bonnie, volunteer their time and lend their support to Wildwood Programs in upstate New York. Wildwood serves the needs of people of all ages who, like their daughter Audrey, have neurological impairments/learning disabilities or autism, by enabling them to become the best that they can be.

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Featured Presentation Topics

Using AI To Reduce Stress Felt by Teachers, Administrators, and Staff

When introduced properly, AI can be a powerful tool that positively impacts a school system, from the classroom to the boardroom. In this presentation, Dr. Daggett will share how some of the nation’s most rapidly improving school districts have leveraged the power of AI to operate more efficiently and effectively, which has given teachers, staff, and administrators more of their time back on nights and weekends.

He will share how AI can assist teachers in connecting with students who are increasingly disengaged in class.

The New Basics: Preparing Students for Their Future and NOT Our Past — Relevant Skills and Knowledge for the Changing Workplace and Society

Rapid advancements in technology are fundamentally redefining what students need to know and be able to do to succeed in today’s workplace and society. Many of the nation’s most successful school systems are responding by redesigning their instructional programs to adopt an emerging set of “New Basics” to engage and educate their students. In this session, Dr. Daggett will share the innovative practices and strategies these cutting-edge districts are implementing to address—and even embrace—the growing influence of technology in all aspects of work and life.

Shifting the Focus of Instruction to Prepare Students for Future Success

The rapidly expanding power of AI and other advanced technologies has redefined what the average person will need to know and be able to do to succeed in the workplace and society of the future. These new skills and abilities no longer align with the focus of traditional instructional programs, which prioritized the skills and knowledge that state assessments measured. Many school systems are unaware of this misalignment, many more are aware but don’t know how to shift their focus, and only a few have successfully transformed their instructional practices to properly prepare students for the jobs and society of the future.

McKinsey & Company, Deloitte, and the World Economic Forum have independently released studies reporting the increasing frustration among business leaders with a labor market that is highly deficient in workers who have the skills and aptitudes to do the jobs that the modern workplace requires. AI and other advanced technologies can do many tasks that humans traditionally have done. The role of humans in today’s workplace is that of facilitator, collaborator, and developer, which, as these recent studies document, requires high school seniors to graduate with a blend of higher-level cognitive, interpersonal, self-leadership, and digital skills and abilities. These competencies transcend traditional academic knowledge, emphasizing problem-solving, decision-making, creativity, communication, teamwork, and adaptability.

Not only is the world changing, but so are the kids. Students today have grown up in a screen-based environment that has caused their brains to develop differently from previous generations. By necessity, older generations had to communicate differently as kids, not having grown up with smartphones. For younger people, text messages and emojis have been the primary mode of communication, which removes the face-to-face interactions that bolster a sense of belonging and collaboration.

Academic content is still important, but the gap between traditional skill development (the “basics”) and the broader, new set of interpersonal, self-leadership, and digital skills is widening constantly. With the multiple challenges schools face, including staff who are physically and emotionally drained, implementing transformative instructional change will seem impossible. In this session, Dr. Daggett will provide specific examples of HOW the nation’s most successful and innovative districts have created a culture that supports change while alleviating the stress felt by all. He will share specific examples of instructional designs and strategies (including how AI can help get back more personal time), student assessments, and student support services that lead to greater achievement in school and success in the workplace and the society they will be entering.

System Transformation — Where Are You Now and Where Do You Want To Be In Two Years?

Many districts nationwide have developed, or soon will be, new Strategic Plans. Some others have created Portraits of a Graduate. Both typically provide a list of skills, knowledge, and attributes that differ from what their existing instructional programs and assessments are designed to do. Too often, these Plans and Portraits end up as a poster on the wall. In most cases, these Strategic Plans and Portraits are consistent with some of the world’s biggest consulting firms and organizations, such as McKinsey & Company, Deloitte, and the World Economic Forum, have produced similar reports about the skills, knowledge, and attributes that students will need in the immediate future to thrive in jobs and a society increasingly reliant on technology and information. Their implementation requires districts to break out of the confines of traditional classrooms, instructional designs, instructional resources, instructional strategies, and student assessments, which can be problematic and easily put off.

How, from the classroom teacher to the district superintendent—and everyone in between—can the necessary changes be made when their days are filled with more tasks and distractions than there are hours to tend to them? How can anyone find the time, energy, and resources to implement the most valuable, innovative practices the nation’s most rapidly improving schools are modeling for us? How can you take your vision and break it down into focused, actionable steps?

In this session, Dr. Daggett will guide you through a series of action steps that the nation’s pacesetting districts have taken that enable them to implement change in their classrooms, schools, and central office to better prepare students for success in the world in which they will work and live. Participants will leave the session with an action plan tailored to their DNA that outlines the steps they can take to implement it.

Preparing ALL Students to be Career and College Ready — Lessons Learned From the Nation’s Most Successful School Systems

Today’s workforce is in the midst of fundamental structural changes that are a result of varying circumstances, including how:

Students in school today have grown up in a screen-based environment, transforming how students think and learn. As such, their attitudes and skills present challenges that our existing instructional programs and support services were not designed to address.
There is a shortage of workers in the county that will continue to worsen in the next few years, resulting in career-ready graduates being increasingly in demand.
AI is progressing from a tool used to assist with specific tasks to becoming a foundation upon which nearly everything we do will rest, much like the internet and electricity did for society.
There is a growing concern over colleges’ low graduation rates, the cost of attending, graduates not possessing the skills the workplace increasingly demands, and challenges to their overall focus.

The collective impact of these trends has created a growing interest for schools to focus more on producing career-ready graduates. One logical and effective strategy is to encourage more participation in CTE programs, but that is only a partial solution. Cutting-edge districts recognize that the first step in making a real impact is to carefully define what a career-ready graduate is. They referred to the research studies by McKinsey & Company, Deloitte, and Jobs of the Future, which have identified and defined the skills, knowledge, and attributes that workers will need to thrive in the changing workplace of the future. The successful districts realized that their instructional programs were not designed to develop those skills and attributes in students.

All students need to learn the core basics, and some will need job- or industry-specific skills, which CTE can offer. In many districts, CTE is becoming a capstone experience for some students, much like the Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs were the capstone experience for college-ready graduates. Districts that focus on the future have transformed their instructional programs and support services so that ALL students develop career-ready skills through more Problem-Based Learning in Prek-12 and the basic skill development needed to be both career- and college-ready.

Dr. Daggett will share how these districts have successfully transformed their instructional program. He will describe instructional designs and practices that any district can adopt so that they can move immediately to ensure that every student leaves school with the foundational skills to be both career and college ready.

Additional Topics

The Future of Artificial Intelligence and Its Implications for Education
Artificial Intelligence—from classroom teacher to Principal to Superintendent—can pose as an unwanted challenge OR it can be an ally that relieves you of some of the tasks and responsibilities that consume your time and energy. Dr. Daggett will offer strategies that will allow you to employ AI as your co-pilot, freeing you from many of your time-consuming tasks and allowing you to focus your attention on other important matters. AI does require careful oversight, however, and Dr. Daggett will describe ways to use it responsibly and with caution. Dr. Daggett will then describe how AI will increasingly impact the workplace, home and society, which will cause a major shift in the skills, knowledge and attributes students will need to be successful in the world beyond school

Preparing Students for Their Future—NOT our Past
The COVID pandemic alongside the drive for social justice have consumed education leaders, teachers, students, and communities nationwide. Couple that with the accelerating impact of advancing technologies and the changing values and aspirations of young people and you will find is a tipping point in both the need for, and opportunity to address, meaningful change in and around the U.S. education system.

Dr. Daggett will lay out how the nation’s most rapidly improving schools have created a culture that is first, supportive of change and second, able to make the necessary fundamental shifts in how instruction is organized and delivered and how learners are assessed.

Lessons Learned from Learning 2025: National Commission on Student-Centered, Equity-Focused Education
Equity, social justice, Social-Emotional Learning, mental health, and a rigorous and relevant instructional program for all students are recent but critical issues that schools today are required to address. Meanwhile, the demands of the past have not gone away. The brick-and-mortar school model of the last century with the bell schedule, boundaries, rules, regulations, certifications, tenures, contracts, and a hyper-focus on meeting proficiency on high-stakes tests continue to demand attention. While the demands continue to compound, a silver lining is emerging through the hardships brought on by COVID. It has created a tipping point for many educators, policy makers, business leaders, and parents around the immediate need to transform our education system. The pandemic has also taught us that change is possible in the ways we had not imagined even one year ago.

Dr. Bill Daggett will share emerging solutions to these challenges. He is co-chairing a National Commission named “Learning 2025: National Commission on Student-centered, Equity-focused Education” with AASA, in cooperation with several other national organizations. The National Commission was charged with identifying and documenting the cognitive and non-cognitive skills, knowledge, behaviors, and dispositions that high school graduates will need to master to prepare for the digital age workplace as citizens of a global community. They then set in motion a national search for the most successful practices at developing these skills, knowledge, behaviors, and dispositions in all students.

Dr. Daggett will share the evidence-based practices that the Commission identified to be most effective and provide suggestions on how school districts can implement these practices from classroom to boardroom.

Beyond COVID-19: The Academic and SEL Needs of Our Students
The COVID-19 interruption brought unparalleled challenges to every school district in the country. Using the lessons we have learned from those experiences, coupled with the dramatic changes in the workplace, home, and society, Dr. Daggett will focus attention on what now needs to be done for the 2021/22 school year and beyond to prepare our students and our schools for future success – a future that will be dramatically different than the past in terms of what, how, when, and where students will learn, interact, and work.

Career Ready Trumps College Ready
So long as we keep our focus on preparing students for the next test, the next grade, and the next level of education, we will continue to focus on skills that have little relevance in the dramatically changing world. In today’s world – where lifelong learning and adaptability will define long, successful lives and careers – career ready trumps college ready, period. Taking some focus off of the test and primarily academic skills requires courage and a strategic shift in systems and instruction. Having studied those schools who have taken such decisive action, Dr. Daggett will share how you, too, can define and then close the gap between what your students need for tomorrow and what your school is providing today. It can be done.

HOW Instructional Delivery is Going to Change
How we organize and deliver instruction in PreK-12 education will change more in the next five years than is has in the last hundred. Driven by the need to move toward more rigorous and application-based skills and knowledge, the delivery system will be deeply impacted by advances in the movement from text to digital; increased use of automation technologies; gaming concepts; and the combination of augmented and mixed realities. In this session Dr. Daggett will describe and showcase how these changing technologies will change both how we organize and deliver instruction. The impact will be dramatic from student to teacher to administrator.

Rigor and Relevance for ALL Students

Highly successful schools have academically rigorous curricula that also incorporate real-world relevance. These schools understand that rigor, while essential, is not adequate to lead all students to high levels of achievement. Dr. Daggett will provide an in-depth look at the Rigor/Relevance Framework®, created by the International Center for Leadership in Education, a cornerstone of curriculum and instruction throughout the country and abroad. Two additional Rs, which are also critical to maximizing student success, will be described: relationships between student and teacher, student and student, and teacher and teacher, and opportunities for reflective thought on what is being taught and learned.

Creating Future-Focused Schools
Today’s students need to be prepared for their future. Living in a rapidly evolving global economy, students need to be able to think at higher levels, employ strong literacy and analytical skills, and solve problems in unpredictable situations. There is currently a gap between what students need and what our schools provide. To be prepared for success in today’s increasingly technology-focused and information-based society, ALL students need a rigorous and relevant learning experience. Dr. Daggett will describe how the nation’s most rapidly improving schools have created a culture to support, define, and implement innovative, rigorous learning experiences for ALL students to better prepare them for the ever-changing world.

Moving Vision to Action
From classroom teacher to principal to superintendent—and everyone in between—our school days are filled with more tasks and challenges than there are hours in a day. How can you find the time, energy, and resources to implement the most valuable, innovative practices our nation’s most rapidly improving schools are teaching us? How can you take your vision and break it down into actionable steps? Dr. Daggett will guide you through a series of action steps that will enable you to implement in your classroom, school, and district to better prepare students for success in the world in which they will work, learn, and interact.

Booking Availability

Dr. Daggett is available for keynotes, workshops, and professional development sessions tailored to your specific needs. Fill out and submit the form below, and our staff will connect with you to discuss scheduling, availability, and presentation details. You can also send an email to Dlight@spnetwork.org.

Dr. Bill Daggett

Founder - Successful Practices Network and the International Center for Leadership in Education.

Dr. Bill Daggett

Organizational Affiliations

About Dr. Daggett

Featured Presentation Topics

Using AI To Reduce Stress Felt by Teachers, Administrators, and Staff

The New Basics: Preparing Students for Their Future and NOT Our Past — Relevant Skills and Knowledge for the Changing Workplace and Society

Shifting the Focus of Instruction to Prepare Students for Future Success

System Transformation — Where Are You Now and Where Do You Want To Be In Two Years?

Preparing ALL Students to be Career and College Ready — Lessons Learned From the Nation’s Most Successful School Systems

Additional Topics

Booking Availability

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