Tag Archives: reflection

Not until I am ready!

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This morning, I watched a MacSparky screencast, from David Sparks, called “OmniFocus Ninja Tricks (Part 2 of 3).” OmniFocus is a high-powered project-management app that synchronizes among my Mac, my iPad, and my iPhone. I am a low-powered user, and I want to get better with this tool. (Since I was a middle schooler myself, I also always wanted to be a ninja. I had throwing stars, nun-chucks, etc.) A colleague referred me to the screencasts, and they are great.

Here is what makes this mundane news “post-worthy,” in my opinion, on a blog about learning. This morning was the second time I had watched the 52 minute screencast. I saw things that I had not even noticed were there the first time. Huge chunks of 8-12 minutes of features, and I missed them. What made the difference this time? In the interim between viewing-one and viewing-two, I had been using OmniFocus, so my scaffolding and “need to know” was better this time around. From using the app as a novice user, though, I was at a boundary of learning, and I was experiencing some frustrations. So I returned to a resource to learn more. As Vygotsky might say, I had reached a different ZPD (zone of proximal development). I needed some support to get to the next level, but now I wanted to get to the next level – I knew there was more to know, I wanted to know it, and I could not know it without help. Now, I have climbed the next rung of the user ladder for OmniFocus. “So what?,” you might say. Or “Why is Bo writing about OmniFocus?”

How many times are our students in such a situation? We teach something, but they are not really ready to learn it yet. Their scaffolding or “need to know” is not primed for learning yet, like a dry pump that cannot pull water. Yet the typical, traditional routine is to “teach, test, hope for the best.” We assign a grade and move on to the next unit or chapter. Time has been the constant, and learning has been the variable. Just look at the variation of grades as evidence (assuming grades are really measures of learning). Support has been a relative constant, too.

I am not disparaging any particular teaching method or assessment practice. I am merely realizing, from being a learner myself, what my students must feel almost everyday. I am glad that I have developed the sense of self-assessing my current ability with a tool like OmniFocus and seeking help, and I am glad that nobody tested me for a permanent grade after my first viewing of the show and my early forays into using the app. I am glad I got a second chance.

Our faculty is switching from Toshiba Tablets (PCs) to MacBook Pros and Airs. How many of them are experiencing this cycle of:

introduced to new –>

overwhelmed –>

try new thing –>

experience some success, some frustration –>

want to know more –>

seek help and support –>

learn it better after practice and a different “need to know” –>

realize that the lessons were there from the start, but I was not ready then.

Learning is the constant…time and support are the variables. It’s been the other way around for far too long. It’s about learning!

Can you spare 27 minutes for learning and world peace?

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Do you have 27 minutes to devote to both educational reform and world peace? Do you? Just 27 minutes of your life. Twenty minutes is for watching the TED talk below –  John Hunter on the World Peace Game. Two minutes is for reading my words here, which I try to make brief and get out of the way. Five minutes is to share the talk with another person or other people via whatever means you want. I would be willing to guarantee you that you will find value in the 27 minutes you spend doing so. Make it in the video to…

7:20 and you will see a teacher show an artifact of a simple game board that he designed so that he could avoid lecture, avoid dry textbook methods, and engage students in something we all love to do – play games.

8:00 and you will be wanting to build the enhanced prototype yourself…I do!

16:30 and you will see profound learning from a child that cannot be easily tested, but demonstrates self-evident assessment.

18:45 and you will contemplate the power of “spontaneous compassion” and a realistic hope for when these students earn the leadership positions of the world.

John Hunter shows the power of story, the power of dealing in questions rather than answers, the power of project- and problem-based learning, the power of 21st century skills leading the efforts of a classroom, and the power of a teacher who innovates and keeps learning. These are ideas worth spreading.

Many thanks to the colleague who shared this talk with me and our Junior High History PLC.

This post is cross-listed at Connected Principals

Unslumping Myself

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For the first time in my life (hyperbole, but it seemed like a good intro), I disagree with Dr. Seuss. In Oh, the Places You’ll Go, he wrote, “unslumping yourself is not easily done.” I think it can be easily done. Just do something. This post is my “something.” And…I tweeted a few “somethings” this morning (early!).

I have felt that I am in a “blog/twitter slump” for a couple of weeks. Here are some of my excuses. Do any resonate with you about something you feel slumped about?

  • I am too busy. I can’t prioritize blogging and tweeting right now.
  • I don’t have time to write. I need to work on all the close-of-school and 2011-12 opening-of-school stuff.
  • I can’t think of anything good to write. I don’t want people to be disappointed in my posts or tweets. I want to say something profound.

Then, it hit me. I was slumped, at least partly, by a fixed mindset. If even a fraction of why I did not feel like writing was because I was worried what other people might think, then I had slipped into a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset [see Carol Dweck’s Mindset]. Hey, it happens to all of us. So…what to do? Just tweet. Just write. Don’t do it for any recognition, and don’t not do it for fear of failing. To quote the famous Nike adage, “Just do it.” So…this is my swing at the ball for this morning. I might miss. So what. I am writing. I am unslumping myself. Is there something you need to unslump yourself about? Pick one actionable item, and try. Ignore all the reasons not to try, and just do something. 

Some folks might say, “Bo, it’s just blogging and tweeting. What’s the big deal?” (Of course, few if any of those folks probably read any of this.) The big deal is this (for me) – blogging is a great way for me to think out loud. I get to see what I am thinking by reading what I am writing. And if that’s all that happens, it’s worth it. But sometimes, someone reacts or responds to something I have written. Then, a conversation can happen. And I can do this for others on their posts and tweets. A seed can grow roots and stems. For me, blogging and tweeting (tweeting is just blogging in shorter bursts)
has connected me to a community, a network, of learners for which I am very thankful. I have felt disconnected from this network for two weeks. I want to reconnect. This will help me get started. This may just unslump me. It’s worth a try. Excuses got nothing on the screen. Taking 10 minutes and a risk produced something so that I could see what I am thinking. And, who knows…maybe a conversation can start.

Update on TEDxKids@BC Excitement!

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On May 13, I posted about the excitement that a couple of eighth graders expressed about the possibility of engaging with TEDxKids@BC. One person commented on that post – Goran Kimovski, who is with TEDxKids@BC. THANK YOU, Mr. Kimovski. If nothing else even happens, I appreciate you taking time to comment, communicate, and excite! Such is a bedrock of learning, isn’t it?
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Over the past weekend, a veritable flurry of communication exchanges occurred among the two eighth-grade learners, Ms. Gough, and me (Ms. Gough and I are part of the Synergy 8 team with these two eighth graders). After about 13 prototypes of a formal communication to Mr. Kimovski, here is what the eighth graders sent…
Dear Mr. Kimovski,
    We would first like to thank you for responding to Mr. Adams’s blog post in such a quick and inviting manner. Secondly, we would like to submit a proposal for the TEDxKids conference. Please let us know what would be the best way to do that, whether it be sending our thoughts to you via email or submitting some sort of application. We’d love to talk to you via skype; anytime from 2:40 to 3:30 EST is fine on our end, what time works for you? Below is a summary of our ideas and thoughts for this conference.
    School that cultivates a love of learning:
– increased student discussion less teacher lecture
– improvement and retention rather than  learning for test and grades
– incorporating technology to reach all learners
    Over this academic year, we believe that we have grown as students and in our beliefs of what makes up good schooling and what school ideally should look like. Also, as participants of a prototype course, called Synergy, we had the opportunity to explore the concept of “ideal school” further. We would like the opportunity to let others know about what we, as students, feel about this important issue of education, and the evolution that’s necessary to better serve the needs of learners.
Thanks once again,
T. S. and S. Z.
If for no other reason (and there are many!), I am thankful for social networking media used for educational purposes. Connecting learners with passionate, critical topics for exploration and discovery and possibility…that’s what is required for innovation and improvement.
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What are you excited about? With whom are you connecting? With whom are you exchanging ideas and possibilities? Who is on your team to help push the change and improvement we desire in the world? How are you spreading ideas? What ideas are you catching that others are spreading?
Get connected. It’s about learning!

Reflecting from aFAAR

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In the Junior High, tis the season of conducting Student Course Feedback and, for some, it seems, completing Peer Visits – two of the five components of our Faculty Assessment and Annual Review (FAAR) process. Additionally, a third component of our formative assessment plan – Admin Observation – has been occurring all year. After seeing the note “re-review and process Synergy 8 SCF” on our respective to-do lists for months, Jill Gough and I have finally spent five meetings of second period reviewing and reflecting on our Synergy 8 student course feedback (SCF). Not only did we re-review the feedback to reconsider how things went during the first-semester course, but we also revisited the data in May so that we could pre-plan more effectively for the next iteration of Synergy 8. As we returned to the SCF and discussed the results, we remembered connections in the data that linked to things we read in our peer visit summaries and admin observation notes. We were reminded that student course feedback does not exist by itself. The components of our FAAR process are not intended to be isolated, siloed pieces of professional learning. They can be wonderfully integrated and whole. Also, they are not intended to be summative or evaluative – they are not judgmental pieces of professional evaluation. They are meant to be formative…lenses through which we can view our teaching and learning so as to grow and develop as educators…so that we can adjust our course.

What’s more, by reviewing and reflecting together, we enhanced our field of view and gained richer understanding from the blend of each other’s varied perspectives and reactions. During each of the five periods that we engaged in this collaborative work, we would independently review the data and write to the prompts on the narrative summary tool (“option #2”) for reflecting on one’s SCF – one reflective prompt at a time. Then, we would read and discuss each other’s responses. While this took more time than working through the reflection alone, we both believe we benefitted immensely from the writing, sharing, and dialoguing. We missed things in our individual reflections, but very little fell through any cracks by canvassing the feedback as a team of critical friends.

To share our system of feedback, we decided to use an online, cloud-storage, sharing tool called “Box.” By using Box, we could design some simple webdocs that literally show and archive the connections among the feedback and reflections. Box has a number of great features, including the ability to tag documents post comments. To view our Box-stored system of feedback, please visit the “Synergy 8 – FAAR” folder.

Soon, our next collective endeavor will be to prepare our 2011-12 Goals and Self-Assessment (a fourth component of FAAR). Because we co-facilitate Synergy 8, we intend to employ the critical friends process again as we continue to prepare for our next team of Synergy learners. The manner in which we reviewed and reflected on our system of feedback has set up and primed our ability and enthusiasm to enhance the Synergy experience for the upcoming school year.

In addition to our course-specific questions, we are also engaged in thinking about some critical learning questions for ourselves and our FAAR process (and they may be good questions for you, too):

  • Can you learn more deeply reviewing feedback with a colleague? How can we assist each other in learning more deeply?
  • Have can we build a common understanding of the needs of our learners?  How can we find a richer understanding of ourselves as teammates and co-facilitators?
  • Do you have a team of critical friends? What feedback are you collecting and considering so that you can grow?
  • Would you learn more by sharing the results of your feedback with another for reflection and co-interpretation?  How will we grow and learn together if we are not sharing our struggles and our successes?
  • What have we learned from this process that we can facilitate for our younger learners next semester? How can we model and implement a richer reflection and critical friends system as part of the course?
NOTE: This post is cross-posted at Jill Gough’s Experiments in Learning by Doing.