Igniting Innovation

Below is my recipe for my new (new to me but not new to many of you) classroom model which builds on the idea of the classroom as a learning studio.

Take one part Vygotsky, two parts Dan Pink’s Drive and mix gently. Fold in Shirky, Richardson, Ted McCain – you can substitute Ian Jukes if you don’t have any McCain. Wrap mixture firmly around your curriculum. I prefer some Shakespeare especially Romeo and Juliet. Sprinkle a liberal amount patience and exploratory spirit on top. Serve warm to Middle Schoolers. Be prepared this is a messy meal best eaten with your hands.

The reality is that students are passive in many learning environments. They are told what to learn, when to learn, how to learn, when to switch topics; not to mention when to eat. When we’re done with them they move on to coaches, parents, tutors who lovingly continue to them what to do, when to do it,  and how to do it. We all mean well. We all want what’s best for the students in our care. Part of the problem is that we are products of similar learning environments. All of that to say I felt it was worth a try to let them have some control, some choices by building a space where they can explore.

Now despite the rumors, I am not a complete idiot. Our classroom is not a modern version of The Lord of the Flies. My students are now collaborators but not equal partners. The goals of the units – content and skills –  are still determined by me. The methods of reaching our goals are where most of the collaboration happens.

For example, we are working our way through Romeo and Juliet. The final project is a paper – written in google documents or posted to their blog- that either argues that Romeo and Juliet are a shining example of true love or merely an example of infatuation gone wrong. I created this final assessment to measure their ability to use several sources including the original text to support an argument. The idea is that you cannot complete this assignment without knowing Romeo and Juliet. We quickly realized you also need to know what true love is and this is where things got messy.

My 8th graders had some interesting theories on true love. Some pretty good and some really bad. As a class we struggled to define true love. So at our weekly board meeting – a meeting where students and I discuss activities and goals for the week - I said “How are we going to determine the definition of true love?” Below is a list of the activities the students designed and are implementing.

• Look for examples in movies.
• Examine the lyrics of Love songs for common themes.
• Invite guest speakers to share their definitions – everyone from the Head of School, Biology Teacher, History Teacher, Coaches, Manager of the Cafeteria, Head of the Visual Arts Department, Upper School Counselor, my Wife, and more.
• Compare examples in books that they have already read.
• Use definitions from dictionary.com, wikipedia, and other sources to build and online survey to be sent out to the entire school.

Students are videotaping the speakers to be able to review their answers and we are taking notes using the smartboard. Both the video and the notes are posted on our wiki.

Student also decided that they would rather watch scenes from the play in class and read for homework. They were cautioned that this sounded like the easy way out so they said that the reading at home had to be active reading – highlighting where love was discussed, taking notes in the margins, posting questions on the wiki that could be used a reading quizzes, searching for literary devices. Despite my misgivings, I agreed. So far, the level of engagement has been extraordinary. Students are making connections between guest speakers and events in the play. The level of discussion in class has been of a higher quality exhibited by students supporting their comments with evidence which is one of the desire outcomes of this unit.

So what’s next? I really don’t know. At least, I am not aware of the details. I do know that I won’t be spending any class time lecturing on what I know about Romeo and Juliet. Instead, I answer questions posed by individual students or the groups working to define love. There are some activities that I will steer the students toward including:

• building a rubric to assess the quality of the final projects
• sharing information about the definition of love collected by the groups
• class time spent peer reviewing final projects before they are final

Beyond these activities, I have no specific plans, but my lack of detailed planning seems to be in direct relation to the increase in student engagement, student productivity, and student excitement about learning. I will post more as I learn more about the successes and failures on this “new to me” classroom model.

Close your eyes. Imagine a classroom where every student comes through the door wanting to be there and wanting to learn. What does it look like? What is happening? Now for the more important question… Could you create this classroom? I am willing to bet that many of us immediately jump to listing the obstacles that would prevent us from creating this type of learning space. The students would have to change. The administration would need to be more supportive. I don’t have enough time in the class period, prep time, etc.

Wait… slow down. Ignore the obstacles for a few minutes and consider what we can do. Most of us are after all the Supreme Ruler in our classroom and can do most anything in that space. So if we start by asking what motivates our students and then start changing the things that fall within our scope of influence… maybe we could build a different learning environment that engages our students to do more than collect points and score well on quizzes.

So what motivates our students? Consider for a minute that our students are typically being acted upon instead of being decision makers. Most of the time there is some adult who is laying out for them what to do and how to do it. What if they could exercise some control? Being in control even in a heavily scaffolded environment could provide the students with an internal drive. Control could be shared by setting the final outcomes of the unit and letting the students explore how to obtain the skills and content necessary to successfully complete the final outcome/assessment. You could also create opportunities for students to build the assessments. They could write the quiz questions, build the rubric, design the project, etc. Weekly or biweekly class meetings where as a class decisions are made about the schedule, homework, etc. could be a powerful tool for sharing control and in turn creating intrinsic motivation for learning.

Sharing control is just one way to get students more engaged in our classrooms. Motivation is a tricky thing. What motivates us often depends on the type of task so maybe it is so not much about what we could do but more about what we shouldn’t do. For example, providing extrinsic rewards like extra credit points, no homework nights, class treats, etc. can actually have the opposite effect. *see Daniel Pink’s Drive So the goal would be to create activities that have their own inherent reward. This is where the zone for proximal developement (Vygotsky) and flow (Csikszentmihalyi) apply. Students can find intrinsic reward in completing an activity is there is the right balance between challenge and ability.

So I propose that we bring together Lev Vygotsky’s ideas about scaffolding and the zone of proximal development, Daniel Pink’s study on motivation in his book Drive, and Dan Ariely’s book Predictably Irrational to better understand our students needs and motivations. If you are interested in examining these ideas further and looking at one model of these ideas in practice, come to NCAIS Innovate on March 11th and 12th at Cary Academy in Cary, NC.

A recent report from the North Carolina Cultural Resources highlights the importance of the creative industry to the state’s economy.   The big picture  findings:

• Overall, North Carolina’s creative economy is 5.86 percent of the state’s total production.
• The Creative Industry accounts for more than $10 billion dollars in employee compensation annually.
• Nearly 5 percent of the state’s total wages and benefits comes from the Creative Industry.

Still wondering about how to conceptualize the Creative Industry. The report provides rich details about the types of jobs and workers that constitute this growing segment of the economy. The creative workforce profiles are worth checking out;  including some great bluegrass playing.

Here is the line that made me sit up in my seat (I’m prone to have bad posture).

Librarians, archivists, educators, service professionals, and administrators facilitate the development of the creative economy.

How often do you read a report like this and find no mention of educators or librarians?  Teachers of creativity have helped to build a vibrant and growing part of the economy in North Carolina. What words from the National Art Educators Standards jump out at you?

Wordle of National Art Education Standards

Is visual learning, teaching, and creative expression a central part of the school experience in your institution? Classes that include words like “visual”, “artistic”, “aesthetic” and “demonstrate” are often labeled as enrichment, specials, and electives.  The Creative Industry report shows that these classes are essential.  Fostering creativity on a school wide basis should be a strategic goal of any learning institution.  Notice the presence of those 21st Century Learning words we’re all concerned about – “understanding”, “community”, “assessment”, “social development”, and “knowledgeable”.  Educators need to understand what it takes to be creative and how to scale these conditions school-wide.

Teresa Amabile can provide some guidance. She is the head of the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School and has done extensive research about innovation and creativity in the workplace (I’m not advocating for the school as business model.  That is another post).

A few years ago Fast Company asked Amabile to address 6 myths about creativity.  Here are her findings and the related challenges that I see for educators. I get right to the point here and don’t spend time on the myths she debunks.  Consult the article for her take on that angle.

1.) Most people are  “laboring in environments that impede intrinsic motivation”. This is bad news because creativity isn’t confined to creative types.  Anyone can be creative if given the right set 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.”  and intrinsic motivation.

Challenge – Does your school enable creativity by providing this set of  things to all students? In particular, is intrinsic motivation to learn built into the curriculum?

2.) It is not about money with creative folks – it’s experience, purpose, engagement, progress, recognition, and appreciation that are prized above all else. “If the challenge is far beyond their skill level, they tend to get frustrated; if it’s far below their skill level, they tend to get bored. Leaders need to strike the right balance.”

Challenge: long standing issue of tailoring teaching and learning to each child.

3.) “People were the least creative when they were fighting the clock.”  Schools are framed by schedules.

Challenge: Does your school provide students with opportunities to deeply explore projects with few distractions? Are students offered extended periods (beyond 45-60 minutes) to tinker with problems and questions?

4.)  “People are happiest when they come up with a creative idea, but they’re more likely to have a breakthrough if they were happy the day before. There’s a kind of virtuous cycle.”

Challenge: Student happiness swings widely depending on the latest test result, classroom interaction, and project demands. How do educators create the “virtuous cycle” in which students can  develop creativity as a result of engaging and interesting circumstances?

5.) COLLABORATION is key to creativity.

Challenge: How to make real collaborative enterprises in schools? Getting past the “group work” of old to collaborations around mutually interesting topics.

6.) More the merrier. Amabile found that organizations in a downsizing mode experienced declines in all areas of creativity.

Challenge: Protecting teachers of creativity. Expanding the scope of potential collaborators beyond the traditional school building.

Many businesses have had trouble responding to the needs of creativity. Schools fight  ingrained habits, schedules, and responsibilities.  How is your school addressing these challenges? Does technology help? Have new teaching models been helpful?

Posted by Ernie Cox
School Librarian
St. Timothy’s School
Raleigh, NC
twitter: erniec

Welcome to the conversation! Below is a post from my personal blog “Raventech Reveals” which I originally posted shortly after the inauguration of President Obama. I offer it here merely as a means to spark conversation around the phrase, “when imagination is joined to common purpose,” as I believe that is the key to the success of our schools moving forward. I hope this post will be the first of many conversations surrounding learning in the digital age.

We, and by we I mean any administrator, faculty member or student committed to 21st Century Learning, should rally around those seven words. We should use them in our schools. We should use them in our conversations with our Heads and principals, our faculty and students, our parents and boards.

Those seven words are the quintessential point, the one true arrow aimed at the heart of reform. For me, they hold the key to this country’s education system achieving its goal of strengthening the system….one public school at a time; one private school at a time; one university at a time.

In the weeks and months ahead I am certain that President Obama’s inaugural address will be reviewed, dissected, and analyzed. However, as the days from inauguration to Presidency are defined let us not forget what we can accomplish in our lives and schools “when imagination is joined to common purpose.”

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Originally posted January 9, 2009 @ www.jasonramsden.com
http://www.jasonramsden.com/home/index.php/myblog/39-imagination

Dear Learners, Leaders, and Innovators,

Welcome to Igniting Innovation! Here, you will find the intersection of conversation court and innovation avenue for the benefit of NCAIS member schools as well as all interested educators. The members of the North Carolina Association of Independent School’s Commission on Technology are eager to share their thoughts, ideas, and dreams for teaching and learning with you.

The North Carolina Association of Independent Schools also hosts NCAIS Innovate. Born from the annual NCAIS TECH conference of years past, NCAIS Innovate is the conference for independent school educators in North Carolina desiring to spark conversation surrounding teaching and learning in the digital age.

We hope that you’ll find this a valuable resource and one that you will check back to often.

Sincerely,

Jason T. Ramsden
Chair, NCAIS Commission on Technology
Chief Technology Officer @ Ravenscroft School