Bringing into Focus: Work at Unboundary

Posted on February 24, 2011 by boadams1

This week, through some email exchange and a face-to-face meeting, I was able to adjust the focus ring and sharpen my view on my sabbatical work at Unboundary. By splicing together a few of the email threads, I explain here a bit more about my intentions and excitements regarding this amazing sabbatical opportunity I am afforded.

Thank you. And thanks to all of the team that is helping this happen. The re:purposed plan sounds ideal! Here is my bullet summary/restatement to make sure I am on same page…

* my primary “internship” will be around Unboundary’s evolution work. [Tod: The modification would be that, as appropriate and possible, I’d like to involve you in the work going on around the evolution of Unboundary itself. I think engaging with that work, combined with what you’ll observe of our work with clients, you’ll get a sense of how Unboundary is harnessing design thinking to help companies and organizations rethink their purpose and pursue higher trajectories.]

* my secondary work will be around TEDxAtlanta – Creativity. [Tod: Jenn Graham will know to pull you in on TEDxAtlanta, as will Dawn Gahan. I think you know Jenn well from your time on the TEDx stage; Dawn is our central nervous system — Traffic Director — and knows everything that is happening in the office at all times. Three people will share the lead on “immersing” you: those people are David Cannon, who is executive director of creative intelligence; Chuck Reece, who is creative director of content; and Jamey Aiken, who is creative director of design.]

* the one other variable in the mix is Logan Smalley’s work on TED ED.

In three short weeks (my other sabbatical time will be spent researching and visiting other schools), I think this is a great portion size on my plate. Further, I think the learning in these two domains may prove perfect for what I hope to exchange among Unboundary, education and Westminster.

[Screenshot of Unboundary website:]

Embracing Differences

Posted on February 8, 2011 by boadams1

Today, a culminating event occurred in the Junior High School – an event that is an important part of a bigger effort and critical project. Today, we experienced the “Embracing Differences” culmination. Yet, it feels wrong to call it a culmination. It is more like a new beginning, a new start, a new chance to move beyond tolerance…to move beyond acceptance…to move to embracing our differences.

For months, students in Mrs. Woods’ and Mrs. Curtis’ art classes have been engaged in producing works of art that expose student feelings about drawing the line against prejudice. Other students participated in the “Power Over Prejudice” workshops. Together, they helped open a student exhibit at Oglethorpe University.

After an advisement session last Friday, today students participated in the “Dots” activity. The advisors used the following resource to facilitate the activity.

View this document on Scribd

Then, we moved into an assembly with a special visitor. I hope you can find 20 minutes to watch the video below, which captures two advisement groups during the Dots, as well as key pieces of the assembly. I am so proud of our students, our advisors, our diversity coordinators (Lalley, Reina, and Jones), our art teachers, our Glenn Institute and Ms. Schoen. What a fine example of project-based learning. More importantly, though, what a fine example of Embracing Differences!

Achievement-Action: #20minwms

Posted on January 8, 2011 by boadams1

When I logged into iGoogle this Saturday morning, I was greeted by this image:

Achievement is certainly preceded by action. Yesterday, on Friday, I was inspired by the ACTION a sizeable handfull of teachers took when they embarked on the “20 minute experiment.” Explained more fully in the permalink above, Jill Gough encouraged a number of us to engage in an experiment that would synthesize: 1) some of David Souza’s brain research on primacy and recency, 2) formative assessment, and 3) tweeting as a means of forum discussion. Among several others, a ninth-grade physics teacher agreed to participate and became immediately involved. He provides a summary of how he implemented the experiment at Quantum Progress. Throughout the day, participating teachers would take a brief “commercial break” 20 minutes into class and ask students to summarize what they had learned so far. Together the class would craft a 140-character tweet to summarize their learning, and they would post to the teacher’s Twitter account with the hashtag #20minwms. As the tweets appeared, we could all see what was being learned in the participating classes. We even received a spirited and curious inquiry about what we were doing from a Director of Teaching and Learning at a neighboring school. As the day progressed, the number of involved teachers grew – a snow ball was born!

Can you imagine the potential of this process to serve as formative assessment for teachers and students? To connect the learning that occurs between and among classes? To break down the walls that exist between classes? To serve as a window into learning for parents? To archive an essence of what was happening during a day of school? To…

It is about learning, isn’t it?! It takes action, it requires some risk taking, and it certainly is fun when we do it together!

GOOGLE and the JHS

Posted on January 1, 2011 by boadams1

Recently, I have been struck by the number of people who are talking about Google’s “philosophy” of encouraging engineers to take up to 20% of their at-work time to pursue projects of their own. Here are a few of the hits produced if one Googles the topic:

Google’s “20Percent Time” in Action (blog)
Thoughts on Google’s 20% Time (blog)
The Google Way: Give Engineers Room (NYT)

According to many of the stories, some of Google’s greatest innovations have been born from this 20% time. Rather than assuming the typical hierarchy of organization would provide vision and mission to “require” a workplace of innovation, the admin and management merely provide encouragement for an attitude of “bottom-up” leadership (I hate that term and what it implies). The admin and management simply encourage the professionals to pursue personal interests and they provide time for that pursuit to happen at work. As I read the blogs and article linked above, I became intrigued by the idea of “grouplets.” Rather than individuals pursuing personal projects, engineers were banding together to work collaboratively with this 20% time.

At Westminster, in the Junior High School (JHS) in particular, we have been on a multi-year journey to restructure professional development. We are using the professional learning community (PLC) model and principles to create a new infrastructure for teachers (our “learning engineers”) having the opportunity to work collaboratively together. We have taken a bit of an aggressive approach, and we believe that job-embedded time must be created for such collaboration.

Typically, teachers carry a five-class student course load. For example, a math teacher, in the past, would have five sections of student classes. In the more recent history, we have transitioned one of those periods to be a PLC period. In essence, we have created something akin to Google’s 20% time. One of five sections, transitioned to serve as a PLC period for teacher collaboration, equates to “20% time.”

Through the PLCs, teachers are innovating! Just having a guaranteed time to discuss all of the complexities of teaching and learning is such a positive development. However, much more than discussion is happening. With these four hours per week (we have a rotating schedule and every period meets four times per week), teacher teams are re-exploring writing as thinking, formative assessment ideas, second-chance testing, four-point rubric development, technology integration, content understanding in various fields, and the list goes on.

But I wonder if the 42 (of 74) teachers currently involved in formalized PLCs (we plan to work toward 100% integration for ALL teachers) see their PLC period as this Google-esque 20% time. I believe some do, for sure. But do all of them? Have I exercised my leadership in such a way that it is obvious and communicated clearly that PLC time can be for assessing student learning and creating innovations for enhancing that learning?

So many opportunities, so many possibilities! By striving to “democratize” the work day for careful study of student learning and possible educational innovations, don’t we increase the likelihood for better teaching and learning? In fact, without the 20% time in schools for the commited, motivated teachers who strive for their own continued learning and that of their students, will we really improve education, in any considerable ways, during this second decade of the 21st century?

Here’s to a New Year’s resolution for “20% time” in our schools…for the countless, dedicated teachers who simply need time to collaboratively explore, discover, innovate, and educate!

Figure 1: Formalized PLC Growth at Westminster, 2007-2011

Play! Tinker!

Posted on December 31, 2010 by boadams1

An important reminder from Lee Burns about the importance of PLAY in learning. As for me, I may have learned more about problem solving by finishing the basement of a house than I have learned about problem solving in any other way. And it all felt like play…well, most days!

Take some time and check out Gever Tulley’s Tinkering School, and watch his TED talks, too.