Reach the Highest Standard in Professional Learning: Implementation

Michael Fullan, Order of Canada, is the former Dean of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, and Professor Emeritus of the University of Toronto. He is co-leader of the New Pedagogies for Deep Learning global initiative. Michael served as Premier Dalton McGuinty's Special Policy Adviser in Ontario from 2003-2013. He received the Order of Canada (OC) in December 2012 and holds five honorary doctorates from universities around the world. His 'interim autobiography,' Surreal Change, covers his pre-Covid-19 era to 2018. Michael and his colleagues are now working diligently on field-based comprehensive system change in several countries. Under the umbrella of what they call the 'humanity paradigm' -equitable-equal deep change that integrates local (school and community), middle (district/regional), and centre (policy) entities. Michael's latest books are: Spirit Work and the Science of Collaboration (with Mark Edwards, 2022), The Principal 2.0 (2023), The Drivers (with Joanne Quinn, 2023), and The New Meaning of Educational Change, 6th Edition (2025).

For more information on books, articles, videos, podcasts please go to: www.michaelfullan.ca



Shirley M. Hord, PhD, is the scholar laureate of Learning Forward (previously National Staff Development Council), following her retirement as Scholar Emerita at the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory in Austin, Texas. There she directed the Strategies for Increasing Student Success Program. She continues to design and coordinate professional development activities related to educational change and improvement, school leadership, and the creation of professional learning communities.

Her early roles as elementary school classroom teacher and university science education faculty at The University of Texas at Austin were followed by her appointment as co-director of Research on the Improvement Process at the Research and Development Center for Teacher Education at The University of Texas at Austin. There she administered and conducted research on school improvement and the role of school leaders in school change.

She served as a fellow of the National Center for Effective Schools Research and Development and was U.S. representative to the Foundation for the International School Improvement Project, an international effort that develops research, training, and policy initiatives to support local school improvement practices.

In addition to working with educators at all levels across the U.S. and Canada, Hord makes presentations and consults in Asia, Europe, Australia, Africa, and Mexico.

Her current interests focus on the creation and functioning of educational organizations as learning communities and the role of leaders who serve such organizations. Dr. Hord is the author of numerous articles and books, of which a selection of the most recent are: Implementing Change: Patterns, Principles, and Potholes, 3rd ed (with Gene E. Hall, 2011); Reclaiming Our Teaching Profession: The Power of Educators Learning in Community (with Edward F. Tobia, 2012); A Playbook for Professional Learning: Putting the Standards Into Action (with Stephanie Hirsh, 2012). Valerie von Frank has written extensively about education over several decades as a daily newspaper reporter in multiple states covering public schools and, over the last decade, for NSDC publications, including JSD, Tools for Schools, The Learning System, The Learning Principal, and T3. She is a former editor of JSD, worked as a daily newspaper editor, served as communications director in an urban public school district, and was communications director for a Michigan nonprofit school reform organization. She is co-author with Ann Delehant of Making Meetings Work: How to Get Started, Get Going, and Get It Done (Corwin Press, 2007). She is currently NSDC's book editor and a freelance writer and editor.