Worth Reading...

Sharing a few posts from the past couple of weeks.

1. Turning the Tide: Inspiring Concern for Others and the Common Good Through College Admissions- Report making the case that the college admission process can promote that ethical and intellectual engagement are both highly important

How might we construct an admissions process that sends compelling messages that both academic achievement and commitment to others and the common good are highly important? How might we construct a process that motivates young people to contribute to others and their communities in ways that are more authentic and meaningful and that promote in them greater appreciation of and commitment to others, especially those different from them in background and character? How might we increase young people’s understanding of and commitment to the public good? Just as important, how might the admissions process assess young people’s contributions to others and their communities in ways that are more valid and meaningful, especially students varying widely by race, culture and class?

2. Using Snapchat to Develop Empathy in a Technology Driven World (Holland)- using snapchat to tell stories as a way to develop empathy as part of the problem-solving process

Imagine asking students  to watch the Snapchat story featuring the city of the day and respond to the visible thinking routine, "I used to think.... But now I think..." Consider the discussions that could take place as we come to a self-realization about the depth of people around the world and what it means to be a global citizen. That moment of self-assessment, where you realize what you used to think and what you now have learned, truly leaves you feeling more cautious about the biases you develop towards people and places with which you are not familiar.

3. Why Coding is the Vanguard for Modern Learning (Olsen)- learning to code isn’t acquiring skills but rather how coding enables development that is not possible without coding

Code enables us to experiment. To imagine solutions or creations, and then see if we can in fact make them. Code enables us to solve problems that would otherwise be beyond our capacity because they would take far too long, or be difficult not to introduce mistakes. The computer language provides precision and consistency to a level beyond what we can usually do by hand.

4. Welcome to the Postnormal Paradox (Boyd)- thoughts on the changing economy and how what people are investing in is evolving

Through the 20th century, as we shifted from a horse-and-sun-powered agrarian economy to an electricity-and-motor-powered industrial economy to a silicon-based information economy, it was clear that every company had to invest in the new thing that was coming. These were big, expensive investments in buildings and machinery and computer technology. Today, though, value is created far more through new ideas and new ways of interaction. Ideas appear and spread much more quickly, and their worth is much harder to estimate.

5. The Math Class Paradox (Boaler)- how the growth mindset can save math class

Educators know that the most productive math-learning environments are those in which students receive positive messages about their unlimited potential and work on interesting and complex problems; in which they feel free to try ideas, fail, and revise their thinking. Students with a “growth” mindset are those who believe that their ability is not “fixed” and that failure is a natural part of learning. These are the students who perform at higher levels in math and in life. But students don’t get the opportunity to see math as a growth subject if they mainly work on short, closed questions accompanied by frequent tests that communicate to them that math is all about performance and there is no room for failure. When students inevitably struggle, most decide they are not a “math person.” The last decade has seen a nation of children emerge from our schools terrified of failing in math and believing that only some students can be good at it—those who can effortlessly achieve on narrow tests.

6. How Frustration Can Make Us More Creative

7. Team 19: Rapid Innovation in Public Schools

Team 19: Rapid Innovation in Public School from Ian Midgley on Vimeo.

Creativity Inc.

Sharing a few highlights from Ed Catmull's Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration .

What makes Pixar special is that we acknowledge we will always have problems, many of them hidden from our view; that we work hard to uncover these problems, even if doing so means making ourselves uncomfortable; and that, when we come across a problem, we marshal all of our energies to solve it.

Always take a chance on better, even if it seems threatening.

Several phrases would later be coined to describe these revolutionary approaches—phrases like “just-in-time manufacturing” or “total quality control”—but the essence was this: The responsibility for finding and fixing problems should be assigned to every employee, from the most senior manager to the lowliest person on the production line. If anyone at any level spotted a problem in the manufacturing process, Deming believed, they should be encouraged (and expected) to stop the assembly line. Japanese companies that implemented Deming’s ideas made it easy for workers to do so: They installed a cord that anyone could pull in order to bring production to a halt. Before long, Japanese companies were enjoying unheard-of levels of quality, productivity, and market share.

We realized that our purpose was not merely to build a studio that made hit films but to foster a creative culture that would continually ask questions.

Figuring out how to build a sustainable creative culture—one that didn’t just pay lip service to the importance of things like honesty, excellence, communication, originality, and self-assessment but really committed to them, no matter how uncomfortable that became—wasn’t a singular assignment.

Because too many of us think of ideas as being singular, as if they float in the ether, fully formed and independent of the people who wrestle with them. Ideas, though, are not singular. They are forged through tens of thousands of decisions, often made by dozens of people.

Find, develop, and support good people, and they in turn will find, develop, and own good ideas

We dare to attempt these stories, but we don’t get them right on the first pass. And this is as it should be. Creativity has to start somewhere, and we are true believers in the power of bracing, candid feedback and the iterative process—reworking, reworking, and reworking again, until a flawed story finds its throughline or a hollow character finds its soul.

Mistakes aren’t a necessary evil. They aren’t evil at all. They are an inevitable consequence of doing something new (and, as such, should be seen as valuable; without them, we’d have no originality). And yet, even as I say that embracing failure is an important part of learning, I also acknowledge that acknowledging this truth is not enough. That’s because failure is painful, and our feelings about this pain tend to screw up our understanding of its worth. To disentangle the good and the bad parts of failure, we have to recognize both the reality of the pain and the benefit of the resulting growth

Experiments are fact-finding missions that, over time, inch scientists toward greater understanding. That means any outcome is a good outcome, because it yields new information. If your experiment proved your initial theory wrong, better to know it sooner rather than later. Armed with new facts, you can then reframe whatever question you’re asking

While experimentation is scary to many, I would argue that we should be far more terrified of the opposite approach. Being too risk-averse causes many companies to stop innovating and to reject new ideas, which is the first step on the path to irrelevance.

Worth Reading..

Sharing highlights from the past week.

1. Creativity Becomes An Academic Discipline (Pappano)- growing number of degrees undergraduate and graduate in creativity

Traditional academic disciplines still matter, but as content knowledge evolves at lightning speed, educators are talking more and more about “process skills,” strategies to reframe challenges and extrapolate and transform information, and to accept and deal with ambiguity.

2. Forget Coding, Let's Change Up How We Teach Math (Burt)- leveraging Math (as a space) to teach code and to eternally address questions of will I ever use this outside of school...

One of the most common obstacles we hear about why schools don’t teach computer science is that there aren’t enough qualified educators out there to meet the demands.  But there’s a trained army of math teachers out there willing to find new and better ways of delivering their content, that with a small amount of preparation could no doubt be leading the way.  So, how can we make time in their curricula and schedule to make it happen?

3. Passion-Based Learning, Day 1: Probing Minecraft's Appeal (Renwick)- thoughts about why Minecraft appeals to students and what lessons to learn from why there is an intense interest in Minecraft.

When someone enters Minecraft, the world is their’s to create. They are in control of their destiny. What a stark contrast to our students’ lives in school. The standards are set, the assessments are pre-determined, and the plans have been prepared. All without the students’ input. If this is their learning to own, we don’t always do a very good job of including them in the process.

4. Making Ourselves Vulnerable (Richardson)

Walk down the vendor floor of any big edu-conference and you’ll see our obsession with making learning less messy and less “vulnerable.” Struggle, patience, courage, persistence, failure, passion…none of these are quantifiable to the degree that reformers or most edupreneurs need them to be to “count.” Yet schools will spend time and money (lots of it) on stuff that organizes, compartmentalizes, personalizes, standardizes, and captures “learning” in order to be compared “successfully” to other districts down the road.

5. Rethinking Education With Design Thinking (Pfau)-highlights schools in the Bay area where design thinking influences work with kids

Students not only master the concepts embedded within each project, they also exercise their skills of collaborating with teammates, investigating their topic thoroughly, using empathy to generate ideas for solutions, prototyping, testing and most importantly, they learn that failure is not a setback. As Gever explained in his talk, the retention of information that kids have as a result of this process is significantly higher. More significantly, learning to identify the need for and acquire skills in response to problem solving situations is a life long skill set that will better shape these kids to confront productive careers that address real world problems.

6. School In the Cloud Report- A brief introduction to the School In the Cloud project

7. Art, made with coding: calling future interactive artisits- In between creating masterpieces like the Sistine Chapel and “Madonna and Child,” Michelangelo dissected cadavers in the hopes of understanding how the human body worked so he could paint it accurately. He’s not the only one: there has long been a connection between science and art. And it’s true today more than ever, as modern artists use technology for inspiration, inventing ways to give life to code, letting it spill from the screen and onto the canvas.

City Modern Trip

On Thursday several teachers traveled to New York City with 15 11th and 12th graders to participate in City Modern, a week-long festival celebrating design in New York.  This is the second year in a row we took students in to NYC for the event.  In both cases students were part of a small theme based academy.  As part of the academy students work on a capstone project and take courses in which they explore the concept of design and delve into the creative process.  

What's great about the trip (the itinerary is provided below) is that students are exposed to a broad spectrum of design.  As the day evolved students were naturally compelled to reflect on distinct design elements.  Additionally, students are afforded the chance to interact with professional designers.  In particular during the last stop of the day students spent time in a working studio reviewing products and projects as well as listening to professionals present an unfiltered view of the design process.  

The unique ways students are exposed to design makes the day worthwhile.  Whether it is observing artifacts in a gallery or the A & D building or listening to designers passionately talk about their craft, students are engaged in truly authentic learning experiences.

Furthermore, we asked students to take as many photos throughout the day.  Looking at an object through the lens of a camera often presents a different perspective.

We wanted students to examine a product or larger installation from varying vantage points.  The hope is that we can compile all of the stills into a rough slideshow.  Collaboratively, we could move through the slideshow commenting on and discussing what the cohort experienced during our trip to NYC.

City Modern Trip Itinerary

• Stop #1- Paula Cooper Gallery to view the Sol LeWitt exhibit
• Stop #2- walk on the High Line exploring the transformation of the old west side rail lines
• Stop #3- apprentice talk moderated by Dwell magazine:
• Built in Maine, Thos. Moser furniture is 100% American-designed, engineered and built. Each piece celebrates the natural beauty of wood with unembellished, graceful lines that echo numerous historic antecedents including traditional and modern forms. This year, Thos. Moser invited two aspiring furniture designers to Maine where they experienced first-hand, the techniques and philosophy that has defined the Moser aesthetic for 40 years. The panel discussion on Oct 3 featuring Thos. Moser designer Adam Rogers, the emerging designers, and a Dwell editor will examine the importance of melding craftsmanship into the age of high-tech design. The “apprentices” will share their experiences, and using their own pieces, describe their appreciation for the Thos. Moser approach.
• Stop #4- self-guided exploration through the A&D building
• Stop #5- travel to Brooklyn to spend time at Snarkitecture 

InGenius: A Crash Course on Creativity

Sharing some highlights from Tina Seelig's book InGenius: A Crash Course on Creativity.

With enhanced creativity, instead of problems you see potential, instead of obstacles you see opportunities, and instead of challenges you see a chance to create breakthrough solutions

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” We are all inventors of our own future. And creativity is at the heart of invention

Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, “If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first fifty-five minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”

When you empathize, you are, essentially, changing your frame of reference by shifting your perspective to that of the other person

In the new “Reading like a Historian” project, led by Abby Reisman and Sam Wineburg, the students get to study the information from all different points of view and come up with their own opinion about what really happened during that period. They discuss and debate the issues with their classmates. Not only does this approach provide a much deeper understanding of the material, but the students also make insightful connections and discoveries, which propels them to discover even more... They viewed themselves as historical investigators and gained critical-thinking skills that they would never have learned had they merely memorized a list of facts

Being able to connect and combine nonobvious ideas and objects is essential for innovation and a key part of the creative-thinking process

Connecting unexpected people, places, objects, and ideas provides a huge boost to your imagination. You can practice this skill by using provocative metaphors, interacting with those outside your normal circles, building on existing ideas, and finding inspiration in unlikely places. These approaches enhance creative thinking and are terrific tools for generating fresh ideas 

Focused observation is a powerful way to acquire valuable knowledge about the world. That knowledge is the starting point for all your creative endeavors because it provides rich fuel for your imagination

We are all social animals, and the opportunity to be actively involved with others in a meaningful way inspires us to do remarkable things, pushing beyond what we would do on our own

Experimentation is both a personal mind-set and a value in all organizations and communities. Individuals who want to increase their creativity need to be open to trying things they haven’t done before, even when the results are completely uncertain       

Worth Sharing...

Sharing a few thought-provoking posts I came across in recent weeks.

1. Creation Requires Your Influence (Couros)- comments on the importance of working side-by-side with students and taking part in the learning as well.

Having a dad work side-by-side with his daughter to help her learn and do something that she is interested in while helping her develop skills that she will need in her life.  She might not know how to make and edit a video right now, but she will be able to sooner than many kids because of an adult (her dad) taking the time by not only modelling his learning, but, as Chris Kennedy has said, going “elbows deep into learning” with his daughter.

2. What Will the Ed Tech Revolution Look Like (Brady/Fast Company)- prediction for what will transpire in the Ed Tech Revolution over the next 5-15 years.  I jsut wonder if we can wait 15 years for some of these changes to occur.

After a decade more of fiscal pressure at school and many of the changes discussed above, we will finally see widespread changes to our public school model. Schools will move toward one of a handful of models that better support the needs of individual students and reflect the fiscal realities of today.

3. A To-Be List (Maiers)-  what kind of leader do you want to be?

Be A Question Asker.  I have been teaching and writing about the importance of asking great questions for a long time.  Great questions are the best way to have a meaningful conversation, the best way to rope in a mentor AND the best way to look like a star performer.  Make it a priority to listen to people asking great questions. Be in charge of the questions you ask and keep a list of the best questions you hear.  Use this to create a question toolbox you use and can apply to every conversation and interaction you have.

4. A Passion For Learning Is Hard to Quantify-  9th grade student questions how mandatory one size fits all testing is a true measurement of growth and learning.

Tests are important, but are not the only way to find out what kids can do. I know I am not the best test taker, so multiple choice tests aren’t always the best way to show my abilities. And I wouldn't want to just learn how to score better on them.

5.  The Global Transformation in Education- The Global Transformation in Education" addresses the forces of change that are causing educators globally to rethink what education for today's students should involve. Teaching kids how to learn and what it means to be a life long learner.

6. Nike Find Your Greatness- what can we do to create spaces for greatness to occur?

Creativity and Time

It has been a good week of conversation.  I have been working with teachers to develop an introductory experience for a new 9th grade program starting in September.  The conversation was instigated by the Sol Lewitt exhibit at MASS MoCA a few of us had the chance to see.  Also, as prior posts revealed, I have spent a considerable amount of time this summer reading about Design Thinking and the creative process.  In my last post I shared several resources related to design.  Personally, exchanges this week have been inspiring with the promise of what could be achieved come September.

 There is one resource I failed to include in my last post that has influenced our discussions.  It is a short two minute video on Youtube about the relationship between creativity and time.  In the video, a classroom of students are given the task of drawing an image.  Each student is provided with a semi-constructed image (sort of resembles a clock) before they start.  They have to work of the semi-constructed image to create their own piece.  In the first set kids are provided ten seconds to create an image.  In the second set students are granted ten minutes to complete the task.  The difference between what was produced in ten seconds and the images displayed after ten minutes is stark.  It was apparent that students, when provided with more time to think, reflect and work, produced images that were more detailed and precise.  Additionally, at the end of the ten minute segment, there was greater diversity between the finished products.  The ten second set resulted in artistic outcomes that were strikingly similar, but a wider range of interpretations existed at the conclusion of the ten minute period.  The task assigned to students was simple, but outcomes from the experiment captured in this short video highlights how time is a significant factor in fostering creativity energies.

Creativity and inventive thinking is not something that could be rushed or boxed into a specific time frame.  Yes, to an extent the professional world operates under a set of deadlines, but deadlines in schools are compressed and often rush a finished product to the table.  One could wonder how this video would be interpreted or compared against commentary about the need to "get through the curriculum" or the pressure to finish a certain unit by Winter Break.  In a larger context,  I see that this video pushes back against standardized testing and the onset of the Common Core.  Is there going to be more stress and anxiety over preparing students for standardized exams?  Will this result in restricting the amount of time students have to engage in the design loop?  Further, it does not make sense to rush the creative process.  Solving problems through creative and inventive thinking takes time.  I can't see anyone arguing against this reality.  Is this a skill we want to rush? Considering the current and potential complex problems the global community faces, we will need to rely on generations of innovative thinkers.

I embedded the video below.  Again, it is only two minutes of your time.  I would recommend watching the video and reflect upon the message revealed through the experiment and what it means for students and in regards to instructional design.

Worth Reading

Wanted to share some interesting articles, posts and videos I came across.  All are welcomed to comment.

1. Teacher As Travel Agent (21st Century Collaborative)

Learning is personal knowledge construction fueled socially where we schematically connect ideas and concepts as we do things and discuss them with others. Just like we shouldn’t eat until we are hungry, I believe learning should be natural and likewise fueled. Give children a rich, interesting environment or scenario filled with beautiful literature, authentic problems to solve, and places to explore or create a journey and you will have kids who are motivated to learn and engaged. A steady diet of force fed content with no authentic application goes against the natural way were designed to learn. The way we learned in Kindergarten.

2. The Six Myths of Creativity (Fast Company)- A new study (2004) will change how you generate ideas and decide who's really creative in your company. 

The fact is, almost all of the research in this field shows that anyone with normal intelligence is capable of doing some degree of creative work. Creativity depends on a number of things: experience, including knowledge and technical skills; talent; an ability to think in new ways; and the capacity to push through uncreative dry spells. Intrinsic motivation -- people who are turned on by their work often work creatively -- is especially critical.

3.  Young at Heart: How to be an innovator for life (Stanford d. School)- Tom Kelley, general manager at the world-renowned design firm, IDEO, presents five core practices that enhance creativity.

4. Olin College SCOPE Program (Olin College)-

SCOPE is the culmination of Olin’s project-based curriculum.  Seniors work in multidisciplinary teams of 5-7 students on challenging, full-year engineering projects for partnering corporate sponsors.  Olin works closely with companies and technology clients to develop SCOPE projects that provide exceptional value to the sponsors while providing an important educational experience for our students.

  

5. JR: One year of turning the world inside out (Ted Talk)- Street artist JR made a wish in 2011: Join me in a worldwide photo project to show the world its true face. Now, a year after his TED Prize wish, he shows how giant posters of human faces, pasted in public, are connecting communities, making change, and turning the world inside out.

6. Make It Count- two guys, one camera and a bunch of airline food

 

Worth Reading...

Sharing materials I came across this week.  Feel free to comment on any of the links provided below.


1. The Creativity Crisis (Bronson and Merryman)- discusses the current creativity crisis in America

With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect—each generation, scores go up about 10 points. Enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are falling.

2.  Leveraging Learning by Organizing Technology Use: A Modest Framework (Reilly)- structuring curriculum to privilege connections, critical consumptions and creativity.  Brings up crucial points to consider and in particular, the importance of creating an environment where students are building a network or participating in a learning community.

Facilitating learners' cross-cultural collaboration is an important aspect of our work as teachers.  Finding and framing questions, solving problems, creating works, and sharing resources, insights, ideas, and dreams represent important 'content'. Technologies allow for this to happen in unprecedented ways.  What we make of this is of course in our hands and our students.

3. The Next Book Must Be... (Warlick)- attempts to bring clarity and a sense of direction to the future of textbooks and digital resources

Be Provocative (fueled by questions) – The textbook should tactically and strategically leave things out.  It provokes questions, the answers of which provide mortar for the personal and participatory construction and reconstruction of the book.  It is always broken and always fixable, and the rules belong to the reader.

4.  The Transformative School (Lehman)- striving for more than being a "good" school

But there's another level that schools can achieve. Schools can transform. They can eclipse content and skills and become about something more. They can be about realizing the best versions of ourselves. 

5. What Tech Wants: A People Agenda (Hardy)- thoughts about how we should look at technology and what tech allows us to accomplish.  If you are not familiar with Monika Hardy please check out Lab Connections and the concept of "Detox" to better understand the changing conversation.

Tech wants us to change the conversation. It wants to free us up for more pausing, and listening, and breathing. In a sense, tech is giving us an incredible mic and mirror, to talk to ourselves about whether what we are doing matters. It’s giving us an incredible kitchen table, (AI-infused conversation so we can hear each others’ hearts) to talk to others about whether or not our gatherings in a space or room, matter.

6. Deb Roy: birth of a word- (Link found in What Tech Wants) MIT researcher Deb Roy wanted to understand how his infant son learned language -- so he wired up his house with videocameras to catch every moment (with exceptions) of his son's life, then parsed 90,000 hours of home video to watch "gaaaa" slowly turn into "water." Astonishing, data-rich research with deep implications for how we learn.

 

Author in Residence

Last night I attended a special program at my daughters' school.  For the past 6 weeks, 3rd graders at the Marshall School  have been working with their teachers and also with the children's author Peter Catalanotto to publish their own  stories.  During a publishing party held last night, students presented their stories to parents, family members and fellow classmates.


Before the girls (twin daughters) and other students read their stories, Mr. Catalanotto shared with parents his experience working with the third grade and also talked about his journey as an artist.  Mr. Catalanotto graduated from Pratt Institute and worked as a painter and cartoonist.  At one time he was hired to illustrate for a children's book.  An editor from the publishing company was struck by Mr. Catalanotto's images for the story and expressed that the illustrations and not the text, moved the tale forward.  The editor encouraged Mr. Catalanotto to write his own children's book.  From this initial exchange, Mr. Catalanotto has gone on to write dozens of children's books.

Mr. Catalanotto shared this story because in elementary school he was diagnosed with dysgraphia.  However, in the third grade, Mr. Catalanotto had a special teacher.  His third grade teacher (I forget her name) realized his struggles with writing and instead encouraged Mr. Catalanotto to express understandings through his artwork.  His passion for drawing and talent was evident.  As other students worked to construct a narrative, Mr. Catalanotto created a visual representation.  Eventually, his third grade teacher  asked him to include text beneath his drawings.  Subtly, a bridge was formed between his love of drawing and struggles to express thoughts through writing. 

I believe Mr. Catalanotto shared the story to further highlight the work accomplished these young publishers.  For 6 weeks creativity was valued as well as the unique interests of each third grader.  Students were empowered by the opportunity to create a story that was personal.  Just as important, the Author in Residence program connected students to expertise.  This is not offered to criticize teachers.  My daughters love their teachers and are excited to attend school everyday.  Instead, third graders were allowed to interact with a professional who has deep and intimate knowledge of what it means to be an artist.  As a result of this interaction and by privileging time for students to craft what turned out to be unique and personal tales, true inspiration occurred.

My opinion stems from the author's and principal's presentation, talking to my kids through the process and ultimately listening to them read their stories.  The pride exhibited by the twins and their classmates in sharing their stories was impossible to miss.  However, I was also struck by a conversation that happened hours before the publishing party.

On the way home from work I picked up one of my daughters and two other third graders who live on our block from and after school program.  I was picking everyone up early so families could have  eat dinner before attending the publishing party.  In the car the three of them talked about their experience in the Author in Residence program. Outside of asking whether they were excited about reading their stories, they talked about their efforts until we turned onto our street.  At a point during the ride home, one boy shared how he used to hate writing, but now loves it.   As both a parent and educator I'm not sure if there is anything you would rather hear.

Last night was a great event.  I was proud of my daughters' work and grateful they had this experience.  It also served as a reminder of what education can be about if we value creativity and personal passions and support structures that allow for exploration and promote personal connections.

Worth Reading

Just wanted to share links to articles and resources I came across this week.

1. Entrepreneurial Learners (Richardson)- Will Richardson shares his thoughts about a recent keynote address delivered by John Seely Brown.  A link to the keynote is included in the Richardson post.

What I especially like in this description is the idea that it conveys a real sense of the flexibility our kids are going to have to have to succeed. They will need to adapt to many different opportunities, be self-directed and creative, and transparent in the ways they share their work

2. You Don't Think All Kids Can Learn (Sanders)- speaking out against those who feel you can only teach "motivated" students.  Posting raises a point that it is the responsibility of teachers to inspire all. 

As educators, it is our job to light the fires underneath our students and show them that the world is a place that can be changed. We must encourage curiosity, critical thinking, and embrace mistakes our students make. 

3.  Viral Video, Vicious Warlord (Kristof)- thoughtful take on the "Kony 2012 Video by time columnist Nicholas Kristof. 

The video doesn’t contain errors, but it does simplify things greatly to hold attention. Complexity is, er, complicated: It has been a leading excuse for inaction during atrocities — during the Armenian genocide, during the Holocaust, during Rwanda, during the Bosnian slaughter. Each episode truly was complicated, but, in retrospect, we let nuance paralyze us. 

4.  Crisis Commons- leveraging volunteerism and technology to take an innovative approach to crisis management.  

Crisis Commons is a global community of volunteers from technology, crisis response organizations, government agencies, and citizens that are working together to build and use technology tools to help respond to disasters and improve resiliency and response before a crisis.

5.  Q&A: Frank Rose on digital storytelling and media immersion- Frank Rose explains how the digital generation is changing the way we tell stories.  Article worth sharing and discussing with students.  How do we foster the ability to tell stories?

Digital turns that on its ear, because suddenly the need to stamp out products mechanically gives way to the ability to customize them in response to customer feedback. This is as true of stories as it is of T-shirts. Movies are still a powerful storytelling mechanism, but now they can be augmented by shared storytelling experiences that can play out both online and in the real world.

6.  The World Question Center- access the link to explore individual responses to the question of How Does the Internet Change the Way You Think?

This year's Question is "How is the Internet changing the way YOU think?" Not "How is the Internet changing the way WE think?" We spent a lot of time going back on forth on "YOU" vs. "WE" and came to the conclusion to go with "YOU", the reason being that Edge is a conversation. "WE" responses tend to come across like expert papers, public pronouncements, or talks delivered from stage.

Worth Reading...

Wanted to share articles, resource and videos that I came across this week.


1. What School Can Leanr From Google, IDEO and Pixar (McIntosh)- article to stimulate thinking about the way school is structured and whether the current physical environment is conducive to creative and innovative endeavors.

A community about to build or rehab a school often creates checklists of best practices, looks for furniture that matches its mascot, and orders shiny new lockers to line its corridors. These are all fine steps, but the process of planning and designing a new school requires both looking outward (to the future, to the community, to innovative corporate powerhouses) as well as inward (to the playfulness and creativity that are at the core of learning)

 2.  The Smithsonian's EdLab-

The EdLab is a place for educators to explore and establish new media practices for their classrooms. We provide workshops that put teacher in the creative role, solving missions, working in teams, and exploring digital and analog (non-digital) tools. We emphasize learning from failure, using the right tool for the job, building 21st century skills, and empowering teachers and students to make a difference in the world.

 3. Failing to Notice What We Fail to Notice (Connected Principals)- lesson for both teachers and students

I think that it is vital to ensure we take the time to actively put the ego aside, let the defences down, and do some self-reflection. Maybe time for my own reflective “inquiry?” 

4. Making the Case For Student Control of Devices (Gliksman)-  I wanted to share primarily because of the excerpt provided below.

Our desire for con­trol­ling the use of tech­nol­ogy is emblem­atic of a deeper prob­lem. Top-down insti­tu­tional con­trol isn’t a work­able model in an era where the mar­ket­place requires grad­u­ates to have skills for learn­ing any­thing, any­where and at any time. Fol­low­ing instruc­tion is impor­tant but there’s also an urgent need to develop per­sonal inno­va­tion — the sort of flex­i­ble, cre­ative thought and action that’s required to deal with a world of tumul­tuous change. Inno­va­tion requires that we open the metaphor­i­cal class­room win­dows and doors. Instead we still feel more com­fort­able keep­ing them closed. Is it about con­trol or are we more con­cerned with effi­ciency? Are we mak­ing deci­sions based on their needs or ours?

5. Design Thinking: not just for Design and Technology Class (McIntosh)-Design Thinking father Tim Brown blogged a while ago this great pleading from some of Britain's best designers and design educators for Government and schools to heighten the importance of design, technology, design thinking and prototyping skills through the vehicle of engineering subjects such as design and technology.

6. Is the skatepark a Professional Learning Community (Dr. Tae)

Worth Reading

Passing along some articles worht a few minutes of your time

1. Preparing Students to Learn Without Us (Richardson)- furthers the argument to personalize learning and build around passions and interests.

But now more than ever, Tucker (along with the rest of us) lives in a moment when personalizing the learning experience is not just a possibility—it's almost an expectation. We personalize our playlists through Rhapsody and iTunes, our reading through Amazon and Twitter, and our search results on Google and Bing.

But in the midst of this culture of customization, what about education? Are we personalizing learning for our students in ways that make school more relevant and inspiring? Largely, the answer is no.

2.  How to Predict a Student's SAT Score:  Look at the Parents Tax Return (Pink)- suggested evidence that socioeconomic status is a driving force behind educational attainment and performance

My hypothesis about that something — a guess rather than an assertion — is that the households in the top tier often have two parents with graduate degrees. That is, they’re rich and they’re well-educated and that’s a hard combo to beat. If that turns out to be true, it suggests that one of the most influential, but least remarked upon, social forces in America is assortative mating by education level.

3.  Instructional Segregation (Reilly)- thoughts about sorting students into tracks based on "ability

When we position students as being 'low ability'--a practice that often is used to explain instructional segregation--we also tend to believe that these students' 'inner resources' are not robust enough to warrant independent learning and instead these learners are given some 'proven' program designed to make up what is perceived as missing.

4. Engaging With Criticism (Godin)- considerations about designing a system for feedback

If you need to find out how your audience is receiving your work, it's worth considering how you've structured the interactions around criticism. Sometimes a customer has a one-off problem, a situation that is unique and a concern that has to be extinguished on the spot. More often, though, that feedback you're getting represents the way a hundred or a thousand other customers are also judging you.

5. What Does Teaching Creativity Look Like? (Dwyer)- do you see yourself as a creative person?

Schools are places where students are supposed to acquire knowledge—but to create, a person must "forget the knowledge." If you're not able to leave what you think you know behind, you can't approach problems with a fresh perspective. Students must also be taught to "desire success but embrace failure," and to "listen to experts but know how to disregard them."

Thinking About Design

I was struck by the following excerpt from Walter Isaacson's biography about Steve Jobs.  The remarks are from Jonathan Ive, Chief Designer at Apple and close confidant to Jobs.  In discussing the design of the iMac launched in May 1998, Ive shared the following about why a handle was nestled into the iMac:

Back then, people weren't comfortable with technology.  If you're scared of something, then you won't touch it.  I could see my mum being scared to touch it.  So I thought, if there's this handle on it, it makes a relationship possible.  It's approachable.  It's intuitive.  it gives you permission to touch.  It gives a sense of its deference to you.

Again, I was struck by Ive's commentary about the design process. In designing the iMac significant consideration was paid to the personal relationship between the device and its user.  This excerpt highlights complexities inherent to the design process and serves as a valuable prompt to stimulate discussions with students about creative design initiatives.

Wondering what you think about this excerpt...

Change is Essential

“Change is not merely necessary to life – it is life.”

I came across this quote by Alvin Toffler via a post on Twitter and it captured the week I have had. It seems as if this week I have been engaged in discussions about traditional aspects of schooling. I have been part of conversations about grades, homework, summer reading... Within each conversation there have been elements of educators holding on to or protecting the traditional high school structure/system.

Just as an example, we had a discussion about homework policy and in particular, the amount of homework assigned to high school students. I wonder why we assign homework and why is it often true that a particular grade or weight is delineated for work completed outside of class. The focus should be on learning and not the amount of work a student completes in a defined period of time. I also wonder if we should remove homework from the vocabulary of schools. Is it counterproductive to discern work completed outside of the classroom or specifically, tasks finished at home. How do you separate and quantify thinking done in class to thinking done outside of class?

In part the conversation about homework stemmed from the showing of Race to Nowhere. The film was shown and has since instigated concern about the rising stress level students endure. Exchanges have transpired regarding requirements placed on students that extend beyond the school day. I agree with this argument if the work students are doing has no value and disregards individual passions and interests. Can you blame some kids for choosing not to answer questions 1-20 or complete a text book chapter review section? However, learning cannot be relegated to a scheduled instructional block. Learning is fluid and can happen anywhere and at any time and moreover, from anyone. This is not a policy, but rather a healthy recognition of how critical understandings are developed.

Homework, in the way it has been defined, is reminiscent of a time that no longer has a place in a progressive and innovative learning environment. In my mind it comes back to entertaining the idea of fixing a system that quite frankly, requires far greater measures. As opposed to repackaging a homework policy or summer reading schedule, an opportunity is presented to engage stakeholders in a serious examination about the types of experiences we value for students.

I juxtapose these conversations with a classroom experience I observed today. I spent a couple of hours with Mr. Gutkowksi (@mylatinteacher) and our Classics Academy students. We started a small theme-based senior academy this year built around the study of Classical Civilizations and how a study of these ancient cultures informs students about today. Symposium is the wheel class for this Academy and serves as a central space where students can make connections between the four additional classes that make-up the Classics Academy schedule. However, Mr. Gutkowski has taken a progressive philosophical approach guides the Symposium class.

“The Symposium for the Classics Academy is an exploratory, full-year class that will delve deeply into the concept of creativity. The class will actively implement whole-mind strategies and activities in order to break down traditional modes of learning and to expand students’ views of themselves, as well as their personal concepts of creativity.”- Symposium Curriculum

The year has been full of amazing experiences for both the kids and teacher involved with the Classics Symposium. Today was another meaningful moment. Akemi Tanaka, a respected designer came in to speak. For over two hours students engaged a professional in discussions about the creative design process. In the end, students were allowed to present their ideas to Ms. Tanaka, educators and classmates.

During today, time and space were redefined. Bells sounded to signal the end of classes and beginning of lunch. Students barely recognized these symbols of start and stop times. The conversation continued beyond a scheduled block of time and as a result, was allowed to grow and provided space for individual inquiries to be heard. Yes, students sit for presentations during the school year, but this was more intimate and represented an exchange between equals who shared a similar passion. Deep learning occurred in powerful and meaningful ways.

It was a week of contrast and this brings me back to the quote. I wonder, deep down, why in education, change is difficult. Change is who we are and as Toffler states, is necessary for life. On one hand we have a system where learning is compartmentalized to what is done inside and outside of class and on the other hand, learning is fluid, organic and shaped by a broad set of experiences and personal connections. How much longer can we exist where this philosophical dichotomy has a place in schools?

*To follow today's discussion check out the following hashtag- #mhsclassics

Fostering Creativity

A recent Newsweek article, "The Creativity Crisis" shared a poll taken by IBM. 1500 CEOs were surveyed and the responses identified creativity as the number one leadership competency that will be valued in the future.

The same article also presented a research study conducted by a professor at William and Mary

"Kyung Hee Kim at the College of William & Mary discovered this in May, after analyzing almost 300,000 Torrance scores of children and adults. Kim found creativity scores had been steadily rising, just like IQ scores, until 1990. Since then, creativity scores have consistently inched downward. “It’s very clear, and the decrease is very significant,” Kim says. It is the scores of younger children in America—from kindergarten through sixth grade—for whom the decline is “most serious.”

Professor Kim's study is alarming and compromises the beliefs of current CEOs. This divide also presents a challenge to educators. Considering how much time children spend engaged in activities related to school, what is our responsibility to foster creativity amongst students?

Educators have to seriously consider experiences constructed for students. As cited in the article other countries have made it a priority to privilege creativity through engaging students in authentic problem solving scenarios. "The European Union designated 2009 as the European Year of Creativity and Innovation, holding conferences on the neuroscience of creativity, financing teacher training, and instituting problem-based learning programs—curricula driven by real-world inquiry—for both children and adults." Countries such as Finland, South Korea and Singapore out-class American students on a wide range of assessments.

Further studies have shown that creativity can be a skill that is developed in classrooms. The challenge is to see that students are consistently engaged in creative problem solving endeavors. While content or foundational information is critical, it ceases to be relevant if students are not able to apply, reflect, make connections and continue the process of constructing meaning. Consider each classroom as a think tank where ideas and perspectives can be accessed and freely expressed by engaged participants. Empower students with the freedom to tackle challenging problems and to develop strategies/process for determining possible responses. Encourage learners to consider a broad range of possible solutions and welcome productive friction in the classroom.

While mentioned in response to current obstacles such as the BP Oil Spill, the following sure applies to classrooms and what students could experience.

"Such solutions emerge from a healthy marketplace of ideas, sustained by a populace constantly contributing original ideas and receptive to the ideas of others."

To sustain a "martketplace of ideas" we have to see classrooms as a place of innovative and creative thought and see that students are actively seeking solutions to complex problems.