Embracing the Struggle – Students Wrestling with Real-World Issues

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Late last spring, a team of Writing Workshop faculty took a very deliberate plunge into the commitment to “Do Different” (see last few blog posts for reference…if you need to). As a team, they redesigned the 8th grade course called Writing Workshop. In brief, they created a suite of courses from which students could choose – Environmental Studies, Screenwriting, Journalism, etc. All sub-categorized writing workshops would build on the common ground of strong writing. However, students would now possess a more powerful voice in choosing the theme or topic about which they would problem find, problem solve, and…write.

About 30-40 students chose to focus on Environmental Studies. More specifically, they decided to explore global climate change. The teacher-facilitators combined sections so that they could team teach and collaborate more efficiently. The entire cohort utilizes multiple lenses through which to study the issue, and they remain committed to the particulars of writing about global climate change – how we use writing and complex communication to build understanding and/or persuasion around the issue.

In Linda Darling-Hammond’s book Powerful Learning: What We Know About Teaching for Understanding, she explains five core characteristics of project-based learning. Among other traits, PBL is “authentic, by posing problems that occur in the real world and that people care about” (35). Global climate change is such a problem. Public misunderstanding and controversy surrounding global climate change is such an problem.

So…the student learners take on these problems and struggle with understanding them. Kudos to them for DOING so. As a team, the teacher learners and student learners are contributing to and maintaining a class blog. Through this tool, the teacher-facilitators have expanded the teacher roster – those people who can participate in the learning progressions of the student learners and the team. Last week, from an authentic blog trail of responses and reactions, the class established a Skype session with James Hrynyshyn. On Tuesday, Hyrnyshyn wrote about the Skype session on his own blog.

I think this is SO COOL! For these students, the learning they are doing about the environment is integrated – science, math, history, writing, etc. are blended disciplines, mixed together in the genuine stew of real life. Technology is not the topic of discussion, rather it is merely a tool through which access to conversations and information is made possible and pursue-able. The learners are not limited by the people in the physical room. Walls are torn down in the name of leveraging tech tools to learn from those who know and participate in the problems in the world outside of school.

The pedagogy and content used in “Writing Workshop: Environmental Studies” is NOT a substitute for the pedagogy and content that used to be “covered” in the course. To think of it as such would make us worry about “what is not being covered” that used to be. This is new and it is important. Critical content, essential skills, and requisite knowledge is being constructed for these learners – in the wonderful messiness of real life. The teacher-facilitators are leading from an emerging future, not from past experience. After twenty years of being a professional educator, I imagine this course is something that the student learners will more deeply remember and call on when they are older. Our future depends on such transformation in schools.

The students could be writing process papers detailing the directions necessary to build a PB&J. Or they could be wrestling with real-world issues and embracing the struggle of finding the “truth” and building upon that solid foundation of learning. I appreciate the choice they have made…a choice to Do Different.

RECOMMENDED: Related post at Wright’s Room blog by Shelley Wright

Kindezi – PBL – CFT

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Today, Jill Gough and I are partnering with The Kindezi School to forward PBL (project-based learning, problem-based learning, place-based learning, passion-based learning,…). Bob Ryshke, the executive director of The Center for Teaching, matched-up Jill and me with Dean Leeper and Kindezi. While Jill and I technically are providing the facilitated professional learning around the area of PBL, we really view the opportunity as a mutual-learning possibility. Just to peruse Kindezi’s website makes me excited for the partnership.

On Friday of last week, Jill and I ventured to Kindezi for a scouting session. We met with Dr. Leeper, and we toured the facilities and classrooms. Students and teachers were highly engaged, and there was a hum of intentional, active learning. We learned of endangered turtle projects, school protests over a cancelled recycling program (the students won back recycling!), and fund-raising efforts to support service men and women whom a class had adopted as pen pals.

Today, we are using a modified “Show-and-Tell” gamestorm session to 1) communicate about current practice, 2) calibrate current practice with research, 3) coordinate current practice, and 4) collaborate on future practice. Post-it notes and lesson study will be whirling and swirling!

To bridge today’s session with an upcoming follow-up session, we will be using this video provocation:

We are very excited about what we can build together!

Jill Gough’s follow-up blog post at Experiments in Learning by Doing

Geoff Mulgan: A short intro to the Studio School

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In my regular and continuous search to locate schools that are implementing deep project-based learning, I came across this recently released TED talk by Geoff Mulgan. In just eight, short minutes, Mulgan demonstrates the set up and the success of the Studio School movement in England.

Couldn’t we establish such a studio school here – even as a school within a school? I can imagine an “innovation strategist” working within a school that is serious about transforming education. Such an innovation strategist could work with a cohort of teachers, a collection of willing parents, and an enthusiastic team of students to build such a studio school within one of our existing schools. Or such a studio school could hub together the spokes of a few willing institutions. Can you imagine all that we would learn…by doing?!

Geoff Mulgan and the Studio School are leading from the emerging future. This past week, I began my deep read of C. Otto Scharmer’s Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges. I have read the book once through on a quick read. Now, I am meandering and studying the work. It is mesmerizing and compelling. Near the opening, Scharmer explains, “leaders cannot meet their existing challenges by operating only on the basis of past experience, for various reasons. Sometimes the experiences of the past aren’t very helpful in dealing with the current issues. Sometimes you work with teams in which the experiences of the past are actually the biggest problem with and obstacle to coming up with a creative response to the challenge at hand” (Kindle location 256 of 5811). Scharmer devises Theory U to address “the core question that underlies the book: What is required in order to learn and act from the future as it emerges?” (Kindle location 325 of 5811).

I believe Geoff Mulgan leads from the future as it emerged. He established Studio School as a doorway into the future. A few could argue that Studio School looks a lot like education of hundreds of years past. Few could argue that many, if any, formalized schools of the industrial age and information age have looked like Studio School. No, Geoff Mulgan is showing us the future and leading from the future. He is leading in such a way as to help the future emerge.

Geoff Mulgan is committed to “Do Different.” Bless him.

Rethinking and Re-doing…the School House Hallway #nxtchp2011

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On early Friday morning, October 7, I met with architect Paul Van Slyke. Paul is a partner of Goode Van Slyke Architecture. Much of the firm’s portfolio exists in K-12 architecture and re-imagining educational design – program and space. Among many inspiring drawings, drafts, and conversations, I was impressed with the ways that Paul was rethinking school-house details – all the way to pieces as mundane-seeming as hallways. Hallways are not just transport tubes, but learning commons. Amen.

Talking to Paul, I was reminded of a Trung Le article in Fast Company that I had read a few months ago. Additionally, I zoomed mentally to the incredible experience of RE:ED Next Chapter 2011 – a design intensive several weeks ago in which we re-imagined the libraries of the future. In one of Paul’s drawings, he essentially transformed the library/media center from “lake” (fixed location) to “river” (flowing location). The function of the media center – library as verb – meandered meaningfully through the school house. It fed and enriched the river banks, and it teamed with life.

Much of my thinking resides at the intersection of education, innovation, design, and professional learning. I am most thankful for the travelers I meet at these crossroads!

Think Different…but DO Different, Too

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This week, I have seen a bunch of folks share and send this YouTube video:

Without a doubt, the message, the visual biographies, and the voice are inspiring. But these examples of inspiration are not – were not – mere thinkers. They were doers. They are doers. They not only inspired, they perspired. They tinkered, implemented, experimented, and built difference – for the good of us all.

Yes, it is important to think different – the world needs more of this. But, we should promote DOING different, too.

Do Different!