Practical Theory

I spent today with about 150 administrators from the Winston-Salem, NC school district. It was a really wonderful day, as we spent six hours looking at what innovation can look like and how administrators can look at the systems and structures of their schools. (The slideshare is at the bottom of the post.)

And what struck me was how quickly the conversation is evolving. Yes, people still are nervous about using the tools and still want to know about how they are going to make this all work, but days like today, when a superintendent sits with his administrators for six hours and does the work right along with them, when Moodle comes up as part of the conversation, and over half the room has heard of it, a significant number has used it as part of a pilot project with the district, and when I demo it for ten minutes, several principals start imagining what's possible, and a district technology administrator calls two members of her team, and suddenly, there's an impromptu meeting about how to get schools up and running on Moodle if they want it, and ways we trained folks, etc...

I've been feeling this for a while, lately... that the conversation at the local level is moving in the right direction in a lot of places. The tools are new anymore, and many places have pockets of innovation and now many folks are asking how to do it systemically. And more and more administrators are looking at school change beyond just the test scores. We're not ignoring them, but I'm hearing principals and superintendents say things like, "Yes, we need to do well on the test, but we also need to do what's right for kids."

There are days when I am greatly pessimistic about the growing education-industrial complex and the "monitization" of education. But then there are days when I get to work with teachers and administrators who work hard and believe in their schools and their teachers, and who see a need to innovate in their buildings and their districts and who have been listening for the past several years, and who (I believe) will be engaged in some truly innovative practice as we move forward.

And to that end, I'm now in Maine, spending the next three days at MaineLearns as Maine extends its state-wide 1:1 initiative to the high school level. I can't wait to talk to the folks here and see what lessons we can learn from one of the most truly innovative state-wide initiatives we've got going. (Does a state-wide middle- and high-school 1:1 initiative count toward "Race to the Top" funding? And if it doesn't what does that say about the Race to the Top? But I digress. Today is for feeling hopeful.)

I'm about 80% of the way through Disrupting Class by Clayton Christensen and Michael Horn. (Yeah, I know... I'm the last one to read it.) There's a lot that's very interesting about the book, and while we should critically examine the book, it is still a fascinating read.

If nothing else, it is continuing to make me think about how much more could happen in our classrooms if we created more opportunities for students to learn basic skills and content outside of class, rather than inside class. I've been thinking a lot about math class. How many students would learn math more efficiently if they could watch math videos, narrated by a teacher with problems done "on the board" as they watched with multiple examples of concepts (think geometry here, as an example) that speak to different learning modalities.

So what of class, then?

Then, class, rather than being a time when all kids sat and received the instruction, could be the time when they reinforce skills by doing problem sets, worked on real-world application projects, collaborated with teachers to reinforce concepts, etc... in some ways, it's an inversion of what we traditionally think of as a math class. Right now, in traditional classrooms, class is where the teacher demonstrates concepts (often with some time for individual reinforcement and work), but the bulk of application / practice / etc... is done at home where there isn't much chance for help.

If we use technology to invert that idea, so that kids could watch the teacher's demonstration of the skills and concepts at home (and with the ability to rewind when necessary,) we could allow kids the opportunity to apply and practice their knowledge in the space where they can get help, collaborate, etc... doesn't that make more sense?

(Interestingly, I was trying to imagine what that would look like in an English classroom, and I realized that is, in many respects, similar to what we do already when we ask kids to read the book at home, and then come in and interact with the community to uncover the deeper aspects of the text. Hm.)

Tags: disruptingclass, learning

ISTEVision has published my presentation at NECC -- Progressive Pedagogy and 21st Century Tools. And here's the the wiki that accompanies the session. Enjoy!

[Couldn't resist Scott McLeod's call for Leadership Day posts...]

So... I'm going to come at this from a strange place. I think most folks in the edu-blog world would agree that trying to affect meaningful change is frustrating, and at one time or another, we've been incredibly frustrated by the pace of chance -- or even convincing others of the need for change.

But let's assume one is in a situation where the obstacles to change have been overcome, and the need for change has been understood -- then what?

I think one of the most important things we can do at that moment is to be very deliberate -- and even dare I say slow -- in how we manifest that change.

Be it technological reform, pedagogical reform, policy reform, I think the road is littered with too many failures because leaders did not allow most people to follow them.

I had the opportunity to meet Ron Sofo - Superintendent of the Freedom Area School District near Pittsburgh. He's been there for decades, and he and I spoke at length about how he took an initiative and rolled it out over several years... about building teacher buy-in, parent buy-in... about building a broad coalition... about listening and changing. And ultimately, about success.

Granted, most of us don't have years to make change happen, but we also don't have the ability to make mistakes because we rushed.

So some thoughts on how to affect change in a timely, and yet, deliberate fashion.

• Know why you are changing... and know what you are giving up by making this change. Every change creates winners and losers, so be sure to think through what you gain and what you lose (thanks to Neil Postman for that framework.) which leads to...
  
• Always ask "What is the worst consequence of your best idea?" Do it for two reasons - one, because if you can't live with that consequence, don't do what you planned, but two, because the process of thinking this through will help you (and your team) mitigate the problems and you won't be as surprised when the thing you didn't think of comes up.
• Research like crazy. Who has tried what you are doing? Who has tried something close to what you're doing? Who is talking about it? Who is writing about it? Who says the idea is already crazy? There aren't many truly new ideas in education, so figure out the history of your idea and learn from who has come before you.
  
• Get lots of opinions - Come up with a smart, sensible, honest way to explain your idea and then listen. Listen a lot. Listen to the folks who don't like the idea, and ask them why.
  
• Be honest - Don't oversell, don't overpromise, and don't pretend that the idea is perfect.
  
• Build consensus - If only a few people are on-board with the idea, it won't work. But consensus doesn't mean taking something from everyone and sticking it onto the original idea until what you have is the worst of committee-based decisions. It means listening for the truths in what other people are telling you and being willing to make substantive change when it makes sense.
• Know when to move forward. Don't let ideas die in committee because the team gets hung up on the final 5% of an idea. 
• Set realistic expectations for initial success, and then set up a plan to get there. If it's a tech idea -- get the tech right. (Nothing worse than getting everyone excited about a new innovation and then getting everything but the tech side of it right. It took us a year to get our website even close to where we wanted it at SLA, fortunately, we got enough right that folks kept at it.)
  
• Finally, keep communicating throughout the process.
  

There are too many reasons effective innovation seems so hard in education. We should make sure that we, as change agents, are thoughtful and deliberate enough to make sure that we aren't one of them.

Tags: leadershipday09

I've been neglecting the blog lately. I'm still here, and I'm still trying to write... but I'm finding myself with a good old-fashioned case of stuckness lately.

There are a ton of things I want to be writing about, but I'm finding that I'm not all that coherent lately. (Yeah, I know, that's the case when I am writing, too.)

What I am hoping is that I'm in a gestation period. I'm talking to a lot of people. I'm reading a lot. I'm listening a lot. And where I hope I'm going is to a place where I can articulate new questions, new answers and new thoughts. But right now, I feel like I've still in that place where I'm either writing posts I've already written or the posts that I want to write are so long and daunting that I'm not sure where to start.

But I'm at the beach this week, and -- going to Philly today for a summit at Penn notwithstanding -- I'm trying to use this time to get my head around some ideas I'm playing with. And I think I'm going to start writing a lot of the kinds of posts I've gotten away from lately -- asking a lot of questions and seeing what answers come out... but I miss blogging, which tells me it is time to start writing again.

And maybe this meta-writing post is just a way to force myself back into that habit of writing.

Anyway... that's the most coherent idea on my mind tonight.