Synergy 8 is an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized, non-graded, community-issues, problem-solving course for 8th graders at The Westminster Schools. Jill Gough and I co-created the course, and we co-facilitate it, as well. This morning, I posted a summary of our engagement in the “KP Challenge.” Today, we initiated the process of Game Planning – creating game plans to frame and scaffold just about any project work. Ms. Gough and I captured the beginnings of the game plans in a short, one-minute video:
Interestingly, we are using the same “Game Plan” framework with our adult teacher-leaders in our Junior High School PLCs (professional learning communities).[See an example here.]
The Synergy team is utilizing tools that are employed by the pedagogical leaders in our middle school. I find that parallelism so exciting!
Last week in Synergy 8, our team of 26 established and integrated our triad of foundational course-communication tools – Schoology, Posterous, and WordPress. After all, a learnopolis needs an infrastructure for advanced communication. Additionally, we began utilizing and practicing our #1 tool in Synergy – the observation journal. In the upcoming weeks, our team observations will allow us to develop projects of our choosing that address community needs about which we are curious…and about which we care.
This week, on Monday, August 29, we began Synergy with this short piece:
We wanted to use a compelling hook for enlisting the students in a prototypical project. By engaging this project as an “alpha project” for this semester’s Synergy 8 team, we could “learn by doing” within the context of a project – a project started by last year’s Synergy 8 crew. After watching the video, we coached the team through a process of determining methods and action steps for researching the perceived problem of keeping Malone Dining Hall clean. Based on the team’s gamestorming, we focused on four possible methods: 1) direct observation of Malone, 2) interviews with homerooms regarding KP, 3) interviews with Malone staff and director Robert Nash, 4) student body survey.
On Tuesday, we used Poll Everywhere to explore how we might operationalize our teams. Based on the results, we decided to jump into a “spontaneous lesson plan shift.” If we were playing football…we called an audible. We used the results to walk through eight mediated journal prompts created on the fly. We explored graphical analysis and numeracy, and we examined some misconceptions about what the Poll Everywhere data were telling us. The data revealed some teamwork issues, too, and the team members proposed solutions to the issues. We then implemented a solution and retook the Poll Everywhere survey.
Now, the Synergy 8 team is distributed in sub-teams, and we are working to develop the action steps needed to implement our community problem-solving. Before jumping in too deep, though, we paused to read Dan and Chip Heath’s Switch chapter on “Finding the Bright Spots.” We believe there is so much to learn from the example of Dr. Sternin and the Vietnamese-nutrition project. Now we plan to:
1. Enlist the community as partners in the problem-solving process, instead of swooping in and acting like we have all the answers.
2. Study the bright spots of what’s working and strategize how we can do more of that good stuff.
3. Empower the community to sustain the change needed to improve the situation.
Through this alpha project – the KP Challenge – we are addressing a serious community issue, we are bridging the work begun in Synergy 8 2010-11, and we are modeling a project process that can frame future projects that we undertake in Synergy 8. All the while, we are integrating content and skills that are typically distributed and segregated among various “departments.” We are engaged in a scientific process, we are collecting and analyzing data, we are discussing human psychology and sociology, we are drafting persuasive pieces and developing interview questions and protocols.
At the opening Junior High School faculty meeting, I shared that I would be referring to us (internally) as “JH 2.11.” Like version software, such as OS 10.6 or Windows 7, the Junior High School is adopting an internal nomenclature that will help us remember that we are striving to improve and grow. The “former version” was a strong product, but we can make it better. We can learn from our experience, we can enhance features and programs, we can grow and get better.
I first played with this “JH 2.11” idea during my spring 2011 sabbatical. While I served my sabbatical, I interned at Unboundary, a strategic design studio here in Atlanta, GA. At the company, they were deliberately working to move from Unboundary 6.0 to Unboundary 6.5. They talked about the business in this manner. Consequently, the culture was dynamic, not static. There was a fundamental understanding that the company would grow and improve to the next version of itself. Unboundary would learn from experience and get better. Simply being “Unboundary” was not good enough, and simply being the “Junior High School” is not good enough. A static name can unintentionally imply that the work of the company is static. A dynamic name generates a creative tension that can motivate a team to strive for closing a gap by walking a path of kaizen – continuous improvement.
What are the keys to embarking on such a walk of kaizen? In brief, the critical key is living in the growth mindset. More specifically, though, I recently read two blog posts from colleagues spread across the country – linked with me primarily through open social media. In these two posts, I think @L_Hilt and @jonathanemartin have hit upon some superb specifics about growing in our versions in an Education 2.0 world.
In our Westminster school motto, from Luke 2:52, we read, “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” May we strive to grow similarly.
The Junior High School administration, teachers, and students GENUINELY APPRECIATE how supportive and attentive our parents are! However, we also realize that not everyone can attend Parents Night. So…below you can find the presentation materials that I am using at JHS Parents Night 2011. While access to mere materials does not equate to being at the event, I hope that you can, at the least, get a taste of what’s being said, if you cannot attend in person. And you can always ask a friend who was there to “fill in the details.” Also, even for those who could attend – I tend to load a few slides in my deck that I know I will not cover in person, but I think the notes and resources might be helpful for people to access online.
My Parents Night slide deck is embedded below as a PDF on Scribd (if the web does strange things to the document, you can also access the PDF here). If you have the application “Keynote,” you can download the actual slides by clicking here. Other back-to-school information for Junior High School parents can be accessed on the Westminster website by clicking on the “Back-to-School” button and clicking in the “Junior High School” section (a PDF of my slide deck from the JHS Parents Tech Night on 8-18-11 can be found there, at the bottom of the page, and a direct link to the Tech Night PDF is here).
A few years ago, the Westminster Junior High School added “Monday Morning Meetings” as a regular community occurrence for our approximately 560 middle-school students and 80 faculty. The 15-minute, weekly assembly is lead by middle schoolers – at this time, the leadership team is composed of our student Honor Council. Much of our thinking involves this simple principle – if you want to teach leadership, students need an authentic thing to lead.
On Monday, August 22, one of our students provided a superb devotional about “Learning from Mistakes.” With great fortune, I had my Flip camera, and I had pressed the record button!
Thanks to the Honor Council and to “K” for a superb beginning to this year’s student-led Monday Morning Meetings. K’s opening message provided the ideal sentiment for starting a year that should be full of exciting learning – the real-life learning that is full of mistakes from which to learn and grow.
it's about learning 