Author Archives: boadams1

Unknown's avatar

About boadams1

Learner. Husband. Dad. Mountaineer. Head of School at Mackintosh Academy - Boulder, in Boulder, Colorado. Have worked in transformation design, educational innovation, and school leadership for 30+ years.

What if schools learned from tourist spots, museums, and other sightseeing locations? #WhatIfWeekly #GroundedCampus

Posted on by
Reply

Schools could learn from tourist spots, museums, and other sightseeing locations
(a 3:02 podcast by Bo Adams)

[The link above will take you to a podcast that I created on Garageband. A transcript of the podcast is pasted below (please excuse conventions errors, as I only made the script to record the podcast!). This marks my first foray into recording a podcast on Garageband, which I have been wanting to learn for quite some time. Today, I learned by doing, and I spent about 90 minutes crafting the podcast. Interestingly, I spent about three times that long trying to figure out how to embed the podcast with a media player directly into this blog. Still haven’t discovered how to do that. Any and all feedback and commentary is welcome – on the content of the podcast, as well as on the production of the podcast. I am learning, and you might be my best teacher for how to do all of this better…from the thinking about schools to the creating of a multimedia podcast that can be embedded in WordPress. Thanks for reading, listening, and viewing.]

Schools could learn and integrate a lot from tourist spots, museums, and sightseeing locations. For example, just take those multi-media, information boards that aquariums, historical sites, and zoos use. I can imagine student-generated information boards – full of pictures and narrative descriptions – in several locations on a campus…explaining the history of a building, the flora and fauna counts of a nearby woods or stream, the recent sports news highlighting the athletics teams of the school. These information boards could possess some static information, but they could also utilize QR codes so that different classes from year to year could update the more dynamic information. They could include short podcasts like the QR codes at Rock City – one at each of about 50 stops along the enchanted trail.

Students could label shrubs and trees on campus with botanical descriptor signs. These could include QR codes, too. Can’t you imagine a video pieced together by a collaborative of students in which various teams trace and track the seasonal lives of adopted flora. Through something like a time-elapse video, viewers could see the maturing of a tree compressed from years into just seconds. Student could narrate the short mini-features and update the QR codes at the signs from year to year.

On a weekend trip to Chattanooga, TN, I was also impressed by the sidewalks at the North Shore, just across the Walnut Street pedestrian bridge. Dance steps had been included in the concrete pours, and our vacation group enjoyed frequent stops during our stroll to learn the Cha Cha, the Waltz, and the Foxtrot. What if student groups designed the walkways at a school with such similar action-generating artifacts? I can imagine a student committee ideating, designing, and processing through how to make such a concept reality on the pathways that crisscross a school’s campus.

Other student committees could curate special exhibits based on their research and creations. At the Tennessee Aquarium, we marveled at a small exhibit comparing various turtle shells to a host of architectural designs and features. Students are perfectly capable of doing this typically-adult work. Through the projects, students could integrate learning and understanding that traditionally gets siloed and subdivided into departmentalized subjects. What’s more, the student committees would learn invaluable design, communication, and curatorial skills as they readied their public displays and exhibition details.

Tourist spots, museums, zoos, and other sightseeing spots seem expert at getting us to interact with what we are seeing and learning. School campuses could be such interactive destinations, and students could create, design, and implement the possibilities.

Also, @occam98 sent me this fabulous and closely related article:

The Grounded Curriculum
How can our courses and teaching capitalize on the benefits of a physical campus?

By James M. Lang

Walking Myself and My Dog to School, or Braiding NPR and a Cup of Joe

Posted on by
1

I’ve gone back to school. Well, at the very least, you might say that I am enrolled in a course. In some places, one might see the class title listed as “Multitasking 101.” In other catalogs, one might discover the course name as “Mornings with Lucy.” Or, it might make the board as “Mix-alot Podcasts and a Cup o’ Joe.” You see, I’m not sure what to call the class – I am designing it myself. Here’s the backbone of the offering:

  • Task #1: In the early morning, I take my pointer-hound mix on a walk. Her name is Lucy, and her whole body wags in anticipation. If I weren’t fearful of pulling some infrequently used muscle, I might wag my whole body, too. I love our walks, and we modulate between a stroll and a mild cantor for 30-90 minutes.
  • Task #2: I enjoy a travel mug of house-brewed coffee. Leash in one hand, mug in the other.
  • Task #3: Listen to a podcast on my iPhone. I have this great set of comfortable ear phones. Beats they are not. I think they cost $9.99 at Target, but they wrap ergonomically around my ear and provide some extraordinary listening pleasure.

All three task-strands weave together to make quite a braid. A bit of cardio in the pre-sunrise hours, a socially-accepted stimulant that thrills the tastebuds, time with my beloved, four-legged companion, and a chance to listen and think. Shear bliss. And not the ignorance is bliss kind, either. Real bliss.

A few weeks ago, at a workshop, a co-participant alluded to some research that claims that multitasking damages our IQs. I think my month long experiment could do some damage to this claim. I believe my IQ has increased during this morning line-braiding. I haven’t even tripped or mis-stepped, but, mind you, I haven’t added chewing gum to the equation. That would be the honors level course, I feel certain.

What am I listening to? What’s on the ear-syllabi? Here’s a smattering:

TED Radio Hour on NPR

Planet Money

This American Life

While enjoying this morning syllabus of self-directed learning for the past month, I am also re-reading Michael Michalko’s Creative Thinkering, which tackles as its thesis the nature of creativity to be the combining and integrating of seemingly unrelated things. So, as I walk Lucy, drink my coffee, and listen to the chosen podcast(s) of the day, I play some of the games and thought experiments listed in Michalko’s work – I try to find and create connections among what I am listening to and what I have listened to in the past. I try to think of Education and Schooling through the lenses of the morning listening. For instance, I have wondered lately how School is like the health care issue, I have wondered how School is like the economic crises in Europe, and I have re-imagined Education through the lenses of many of the interwoven TED talks on the TED Radio Hour.

I am having a blast, and I am learning a ton. I wonder…What if we built in such self-directed discovery into the typical school week or school day? Minus the coffee of course. I just don’t know how I feel about kids drinking coffee. Do we allow for, support, and create enough space and time for young learners to decide on their own paths of schooling? Do we empower them to weave in these lessons with what they are directed to learn in school? How can self-directed learning methods inform the ways we think about and structure schools of the future? How are we hybridizing what school has been and what school could be? Are we rotating our crops and fields so that we continue producing good (brain)food? [Okay, that metaphor just jumped in from nowhere, but Michalko has encouraged me not to backspace out those thoughts while I am thinking.]

Have a good “walk” today! Where are you going to school? What are you learning? How are you multitasking and thinking creatively? I would love to read or listen to what you have to share!

Back in the saddle again…and thinking about activators

Posted on by
3

I’m back in the saddle again. This morning, after a long hiatus (too long!), I returned to spin class at the YMCA for some group cycling. While I love this activity, some metaphorical contemplations came to mind while I was riding.

  • I was reminded of Rick and Becky DuFour’s definition of professional learning communities, and I was particularly struck thinking about the importance of the interdependence of the team. Often, I have heard Rick compare typical school to a marathon – people all striving toward a common goal, working hard, but not really interdependent…one person’s success does not really depend on other, multiple persons’ successes. Encouragement happens, of course, and there is an energy and advantage to the group, but a group does not really function interdependently. This morning in spin class I was energized and supported by the group dynamic, but our efforts were not truly interdependent. My legs only powered my pedals and gears. I wonder when school work might become more interdependent – truly interdependent. I think we have so much to learn in the schoolhouse from team athletics and performing arts – truly interdependent endeavors with amazing synergies when the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
  • Interestingly, the spin room was organized like a typical, quintessential classroom – rows and columns of students facing the front and one instructor facing the group. Why in the world is the spin class organized like this? What possible advantage could this formation have for this group, indoor cycling? What if we organized in a circle? What if the teacher integrated with us and shouted her directions? What if we grouped like a peloton on the open road? Wow, traditional classroom setup really has an influence that places form over function. Perhaps our form should depend on our function?
  • The teacher and the students were co-engaged. The teacher was participating with us – herself spinning on a stationary bike. How often do we classroom teachers genuinely participate with our students? Does the nature of a typical classroom prevent us from doing so? If the teacher already knows all of the content to be delivered, are we too focused on filling the relatively empty vessels? Do we see ourselves as the pitchers to the students’ glasses? What if the activities and learning endeavors were more “authentic” (for lack of a better, more accepted word in education to cover such domain)? Would we then participate more with our young learners? Would we feel more like co-learners? Co-riders? Co-solvers of problems? Co-creators?
  • My assessment in the spin class was well-aligned with the nature of the activity. I am glad that I didn’t have a written test at the conclusion of the class to confirm my understanding of spin and cardiovascular activity. Are our assessments in school well-aligned to the tasks and demands of our learning? Are our assessments too narrowly clumped on one portion of the learning spectrum? Again, seems we could learn so much from team sports and performing arts in this area. Performance-based assessment exists as such a more genuine method of ascertaining the level of progress and stage of process.

Well, this may seem an awkward transition and unrelated paragraph, but I am re-reading and studying Michael Michalko’s Creative Thinkering, which is about the critical importance of relating seemingly unrelated things to advance creativity, so I feel justified in making this jump – I am wondering about the relationships among the above thinking and a recent, excellent blog post by Shira Leibowitz, “From Facilitator to Activator.” For several years, I have been advocating for teachers being more akin to facilitators. But I am changing course, with Shira, and moving to a higher level of advocacy – for us educators to be activators of synergistic learning and doing among teams and ensembles. We have a lot of good, important work to do. We need to do more than pedal like mad on our own stationary bikes. We need to yoke and harness those gears and chains into a collective whole of activator-ness. We could go so much further…we could go so much faster…we could expend so much less wasted energy.

We should pedal together on the open road.

Murmurations on Schools of the Future #WhatIfWeekly

Posted on by
Reply

Openness. Schools that embrace it and welcome it will thrive. Schools that resist it or imagine that they can control it will struggle significantly.

In sequel to yesterday’s post, I offer this #MustWatch TED Talk by Don Tapscott. Brilliant! In 17 minutes, Tapscott summarizes the essential path points to thriving as a school of the future:

  1. Collaboration
  2. Transparency
  3. Sharing
  4. Empowerment

From the admin to the teachers, from the students to the parents…from the interior to the exterior, from the past to the future – the four principles above will define the schools of the future and the future of schools.

If you are serious about enhancing and improving education and school, watch Don Tapscott’s TED. Be a part of, not apart from, the murmuration.

What if our schools adopted and engaged with open source, makers, etc.? #WhatIfWeekly

Posted on by
1

The thing we call “School” is in a state of change. Not too long ago, school was pretty much the “campfire” around which a community would gather to spread knowledge and know-how. Of course, school continues to serve as such a community campfire. However, the monopoly that schools essentially had on such a central gathering place for knowledge transfer and generational training is evaporating. People can access learning “anytime – anywhere” with minimal effort, as countless “teachers” share in myriad ways what they know and know how to do.

Are you inviting those teachers into your learning spaces? Or are you locking them out of the places we continue to call school? Young learners – those we call children, students, etc. – can and do access the myriad teachers who reside in virtual time and space. As for me, I would prefer that our students access these amazing teachers with the face-to-face teachers with whom they interact at that place called school. While I worry a bit about online safety, I think I worry even more about dis-empowering our students to learn responsible and respectful wisdom gathering. I worry about those schools that try to shut out the outside world because I think that they risk driving our students to explore that world without much, if any, adult guidance and shepherding. Students will engage the outside-school-walls community. We should try to accompany them and serve as wise Sherpas and co-pilots.

Have you seen this TED talk yet?

I watch a TED talk everyday, and this one by Massimo Banzi is one of the most thought-provoking that I have seen. It is well worth the watch…ESPECIALLY by school-based educators. Did I know of open-sourcing before? Yes. Did I know of the Maker Movement before? Yes. What struck me at this viewing was the disruptive nature that such open-sourcing and maker-ness can have on the places we call school. Banzi shares SO MANY examples of open-source development of the Arduino. Our students are doing this amazing stuff – with or without us. How cool would school be if we would embrace this disruption and integrate such innovative thinking with the schedules and structures of school? Our students should be building those earthquake detectors, pet feeders, and satellite experiments – and they should be doing these things as part of that thing we call school.

I imagine a hybrid – a new place called school blending the invaluable community campfire that demands that we share time and space with each other face-to-face with the invaluable open-source community that understands that expertise and passion exist in geographically dispersed settings that can be connected virtually.

Are you opening your students’ minds to the world and its amazing wonder, or are you shutting out the world…a world that they will access without us if we don’t go with them?