Tag Archives: TED

Murmurations on Schools of the Future #WhatIfWeekly

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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

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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?

Synergy-PBL: Questions are waypoints on the path of wisdom #CFTSI12 (2 of 3) The First Course: “School Tools” – PBL for the Adult Palette

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[On Monday, June 25, as part of the Center for Teaching’s annual Summer Institutes, Bo Adams and Jill Gough are facilitating day 1 of a two-day workshop on PBL (project-based learning, problem-based learning, place-based learning, passion-based learning, etc.). The online course description is linked below, and the outline for day 1 follows. The pre-institute assignment (the “appetizers”) and a short description of the “flights” structure can be found here.]

Synergy-PBL: Questions are waypoints on the path of wisdom #CFTSI12 (2 of 3)
The First Course: “School Tools” – PBL for the Adult Palette
(Day 1 – Monday, June 25, 8:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.)

EL #1: I can share my deep understanding of PBL through PBL methods and pedagogies, as well as with direct-instruction and conversation.

EL #2: I can commit to PBL with student learners by working through stages of rapid-prototype planning, implementing, and assessing.

CHALLENGE: Because you are attending this Center for Teaching Summer Institute on PBL, the CFT intends to use you as PBL leaders in 2012-13 (and beyond!). Westminster is furthering its Learning for Life vision, and Drew Charter is envisioning a PBL high school, so PBL leaders are high in demand! We want to help you prepare your PBL-leadership tool belt. By the end of this CFT-SI, you will build and present a multi-media resource about PBL that you can use to support a host of adult and student learners engaging in the complex wonder of PBL! Consider it a crucial deposit in the bank of visionary work! [We may even go Pecha-Kucha or Ignite style!]

Resources to consider including in PBL multi-media tool:

  • PBL Framework(s)
  • PBL “Expert Voices” from research and practice
  • PBL as “place-based,” “problem-based,” “passion-based,” as well as “project-based” [ideas around campus, Atlanta, etc.]
  • PBL Video Resources – pictures are worth 1000s of words!
  • Examples of PBL being tried and attempted/implemented
  • Interviews – voices from students and adults about how and what we want to learn
  • Ideas for PBL you intend to implement yourself

8:45 – 9:45 a.m.
Questions, Connections, & Empathy Flight

  1. POST-UP: What questions do you have about PBL and “the Challenge”, as well as questions about related opportunities such as integrated studies, teachers working in teams, etc.?
  2. AFFINITY MAP: What connections do we see in our questions and ideas?
  3. EMPATHY MAP: What’s it like to be a student? + provocations from “Writing-Is-Thinking” Flight of Pre-Assignments (How to Create an Empathy Map using Google Docs)

9:45 – 11:15 a.m.
School IS Real Life – From Simulations to Social Justice Flight

  1. World Peace and Other Fourth Grade Achievements – morning movie & popcorn!
  2. “Kiran Bir Sethi teaches kids to take charge” – and candy!
  3. Synergy 8 Ignite – and a Coke!

11:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Knowing Places and People Flights – Diners’ Choice

  • Learning Walk Flight – Armed with an iPad, laptop, or other smart device, explore, inquire, and record by…
  1. Capturing at least 3 pictures of people, places, or things that could spur PBL;
  2. Archiving at least 2 video interviews of people discussing a possible learning project, problem, or passion;
  3. Brainstorming at least 1 idea for a community project. [BONUS: Base it on a synergy of the above!]
  1. locally,
  2. nationally,
  3. globally.

12:00 p.m.
Lunch…PBL really stirs an appetite!

 12:30 – 1:30 p.m.
Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail Flight

  1. UNDERSTANDING CHAIN or GRAPHIC GAMEPLAN: With a partner, craft a storyboard of your PBL multi-media tool concept. With one or the other of these two Gamestorms, we will be able to co-post our “slides” or “path points” on a common game board so that we can share across groups.
  2. Begin building assets, as time permits!
  3. Rapid-prototype presentations of storyboards before we adjourn for the day.

_________

Coming Soon…

Synergy-PBL: Questions are waypoints on the path of wisdom #CFTSI12 (3 of 3)
The Second Course: “School’s Cool” – PBL for the Student-Learner
(Day 2 – Tuesday, June 26, 8:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.)

Synergy-PBL: Questions are waypoints on the path of wisdom #CFTSI12 (After 3)
Coffee and Dessert: What Will Sweeten Your Teaching After #CFTSI12?
(180 Days of Possibility in 2012-13 – Keeping the Conversation Going)

 

[Cross-posted at Experiments in Learning by Doing and at Synergy2Learn.]

Synergy-PBL: Questions are waypoints on the path of wisdom #CFTSI12 (1 of 3) Appetizer Flights: Pre-Institute Assignment

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Synergy-PBL: Questions are waypoints on the path of wisdom #CFTSI12 (1 of 3)
Appetizer Flights: Pre-Institute Assignment

On Monday and Tuesday, June 25-26, Bo Adams and Jill Gough are facilitating a ten-hour workshop at The Center for Teaching Summer Institute (#CFTSI12 on Twitter). With this post and two more (coming soon), institute participants and blog readers alike can find a three-part outline of our session (at least as we intend it before we start!), complete with links to many of the resources we plan to use.

Appetizer Flights: Pre-Institute Assignment
Choose a Flight or Mix-N-Match to Make Your Own Three-Part Assignment

Inspired by Flights, a restaurant in Memphis, TN (dined at during #MICON12), that expands the idea of a “flight of wine” into a full-restaurant delight, our pre-institute assignment and CFT-SI 2012 structure come to you in Flights – “dining triples” that can be enjoyed as presented or mixed and matched to design your own tasty, three-part experiences. Before the CFT-SI begins, please partake in one of the three flights below, or create your own from the nine selections. For instance, one learning-diner may decide to immerse herself in the “Cozy-Chair Reading” Flight and consume all three reading selections. Another nibbler might decide to combine “Peak Learning” + “7 Essentials” + “Geoff Mulgan” for a diner-designed flight. We want your dining learning experience to be a culinary-cognitive delight! Bon-appetite!

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The “Writing-Is-Thinking” Flight

  1. Peak Learning Experience – “Think about your own life and the times when you were really learning, so much and so deeply, that you would call these the “peak learning experiences” of your life. Tell a story (you may include pictures, symbols, or other icons, too) about this peak learning experience, and respond to the question, “What were the conditions that made your high-level experience so powerful and engaging?” If you have already engaged this prompt in an earlier workshop, please describe another peak learning experience in your life, or “copy and paste” a previous story/response. (adapted from 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times, Trilling and Fadel, 2009). 
  2. How We Hobby – Describe a hobby, interest, or passion that you WISH you had. How would you go about learning and developing this hobby, interest, or passion? Be specific and try to tell a story.
  3. Walking & Talking – Some would argue that walking and talking are two of the most complex human learning endeavors. Reflect on how your child or a relative’s child learned to walk and talk. Describe the experiences in some kind of recounting or storytelling.

The “Cozy-Chair Reading” Flight

  1. Reading from The Falconer re: Questions book excerpt
  2. “7 Essentials for Project-Based Learning” article 
  3. “What PBL Isn’t, and What it Is: 2 Videos from High Tech High” blog post

The “TED School Design” Flight

  1. Geoff Mulgan: A short intro to the Studio School (6:16)
    “Some kids learn by listening; others learn by doing. Geoff Mulgan gives a short introduction to the Studio School, a new kind of school in the UK where small teams of kids learn by working on projects that are, as Mulgan puts it, ‘for real.'”
  2. John Hardy: My green school dream (6:16)
    “Join John Hardy on a tour of the Green School, his off-the-grid school in Bali that teaches kids how to build, garden, create (and get into college). The centerpiece of campus is the spiraling Heart of School, perhaps the world’s largest freestanding bamboo building.”
  3. Gever Tulley teaches life lessons through tinkering (4:08)
    “Gever Tulley uses engaging photos and footage to demonstrate the valuable lessons kids learn at his Tinkering School. When given tools, materials and guidance, these young imaginations run wild and creative problem-solving takes over to build unique boats, bridges and even a roller coaster!”

_________

Coming Soon…

Synergy-PBL: Questions are waypoints on the path of wisdom #CFTSI12 (2 of 3)
The First Course: “School Tools” – PBL for the Adult Palette
(Day 1 – Monday, June 25, 8:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.)

Synergy-PBL: Questions are waypoints on the path of wisdom #CFTSI12 (3 of 3)
The Second Course: “School’s Cool” – PBL for the Student-Learner
(Day 2 – Tuesday, June 26, 8:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.)

Synergy-PBL: Questions are waypoints on the path of wisdom #CFTSI12 (After 3)
Coffee and Dessert: What Will Sweeten Your Teaching After #CFTSI12?
(180 Days of Possibility in 2012-13 – Keeping the Conversation Going)

[Cross-posted at Experiments in Learning by Doing]
[Cross-posted at Synergy2Learn]

Intent. Design. Creative Process. Teachers as artists of school change. #ASI2012 #MICON12

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INTENT.

Last week and the week before, I communed with artists and designers. They invited me into their galleries and studios. At the time, I thought I was attending educational conferences – first Lovett’s American Studies Institute and then The Martin Institute’s 2012 Summer Conference. However, after watching and studying “John Hockenberry: We are all designers,” and after listening to NPR’s TED Radio Hour on “The Creative Process,” I realize that I communed with artists and designers at these phantasmagoria .

In the large-group sessions, I explored galleries of thinking – both from the featured speaker who held stage at that moment and from the co-participants “thinking and designing out loud” on Twitter (#ASI2012 & #MICON12). Through tweets, we talked about art and artists…designs and designers. During the break-out sessions, I literally traversed the museum of art and design in education as I chose to saunter past some works of art so that I could stop and peruse in-depth a particular frame and painting – like Bob Dillon’s “Picture This: How Images Impact the Momentum of Change.”

Our INTENT as educators and teachers is to design moments and experiences, while capitalizing on relationship and curiosity, that light fires in learners’ hearts and minds. We INTEND to stir emotions and motivations, not by filling vessels, but by lighting passions. We paint and sculpt. “We who cut mere stone must always be envisioning cathedrals.” Our lesson plans are blue prints and schematics. Our classes unfolding are jazz riffs and improvisations that can never be experienced again as they were played that day and period.

We are artists and designers.

And we are crowd sourcing. We are gathering as tribes to share our designs and our sketches and our framed pieces. For we intend to change the world – one student at a time, if need be. Our INTENT is to compare palettes and prototypes and to borrow from the masters and apprentices who gather around our conference fires to tell stories and share tales.

Please don’t think me dramatic or histrionic. I believe what I have written above, especially upon re-reading. I am moved by the artists and designers with whom I co-designed and co-created at Lovett and Presbyterian Day School. I see our paints mixing and intermingling as we contemplate and prepare for Teaching for Tomorrow and Connecting Across Disciplines.

Such is why I fear the silo-ing of subjects, disciplines, and departments. What if we don’t design with INTENT so that the colors might mix and re-mix? For we do not teach subjects. We teach people. And our people deserve the richness of infinite colors – mixed and complex.

What do you see as the INTENT of schools and teaching in the next decade and century? “What is school for?” Are you designing and creating such that our works are beautiful pieces of art WHO can inspire the world in the years to come?

Discipline and creativity must synergize, and we should check our INTENT so that we know we are using our limitations to enlighten that which can be possible next (from Abigail Washburn in the TED Radio Hour linked above).

What do you do?

I teach.

Oh, what do you teach?

I teach children.

No, I mean what do you teach?

I teach the curious to paint and design in this world with grand INTENTIONS.

Oh, so you teach art?

Yes, and math, and history, and science, and English, and… I use all the paints because my canvas deserves the infinite possibilities, and I refuse to limit what could be possible. I teach children and adults and learners of all ages. I teach people, and I learn from them far more than I could ever teach them. For they, too, are artists and designers. And I will not steal their dreams.

And what do you do?