TED Talks Education [<— click]
As a country, how can we better inspire our students — and support our educators? To explore ideas, TED, WNET, PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have teamed up for a brand-new one-hour special, funded by CPB’s “American Graduate: Let’s Make It Happen.” TED Talks Education is an exhilarating night of talks hosted by John Legend.
Rethinking our identity…
But if we as educators leave behind this simple role as disseminators of content and embrace a new paradigm as cultivators of curiosity and inquiry, we just might bring a little bit more meaning to their school day, and spark their imagination.
Ramsey Musallam: 3 rules to spark learning, TED.com
You see, the first wave of managers simply replaced their steam engines with electric motors, but they didn’t redesign the factories to take advantage of electricity’s flexibility. It fell to the next generation to invent new work processes, and then productivity soared, often doubling or even tripling in those factories.
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General purpose technologies drive most economic growth, because they unleash cascades of complementary innovations, like lightbulbs and, yes, factory redesign. Is there a general purpose technology of our era? Sure. It’s the computer. But technology alone is not enough. Technology is not destiny.We shape our destiny, and just as the earlier generations of managers needed to redesign their factories, we’re going to need to reinvent our organizations….
Erik Brynjolfsson: The key to growth? Race with the machines, #TED
An adjacent possibility and a prediction of some future history-book paragraphs…
“You see the first wave of educators simply replaced their lectures with flipped classrooms and notebooks with iPads (etc.), but they didn’t redesign the curriculum or schools to take advantage of what we know is critical for innovation, engagement, and internally-motivated purpose. It fell to the next generation to invent new school processes, and then engagement and learning soared, often doubling or even tripling in those schools.
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General purpose pedagogies drive most learning growth, because they unleash cascades of complementary innovations, like community-based challenges and integrated-discipline problem-solving. Is there a general purpose pedagogy of our era? Sure. It’s PBL. But PBL alone is not enough. PBL is not destiny.We shape our destiny, and just as the earlier generations of educators needed to redesign their schools, we’re going to need to reinvent our organizations….”
A wonderful story of the Growth Mindset and the power of making room to pursue passion through play…
When I was 14 years old, I had low self-esteem. I felt I was not talented at anything.
One day, I bought a yo-yo. When I tried my first trick, it looked like this. I couldn’t even do the simplest trick, but it was very natural for me, because I was not dextrous, and hated all sports. But after one week of practicing, my throws became more like this. A bit better. I thought, the yo-yo is something for me to be good at, for the first time in my life. I found my passion. I was spending all my time practicing. It took me hours and hours a day to build my skills up to the next level.
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As a result of these efforts, and the help of many others,it happened.I won the World Yo-Yo Contest againin the artistic performance division.I passed an audition for Cirque du Soleil.Today, I am standing on the TED stagewith the yo-yo in front of you.
(Applause)
What I learned from the yo-yo is,if I make enough effort with huge passion,there is no impossible.
A major aspect of Pedagogical Master Planning involves generating an “as-built set of blueprints” for a school’s pedagogical ecosystem, so that a school can see itself in ways it likely never has before. The pedagogical ecosystem is comprised of the interconnected sub-systems of 1) purpose, 2) leadership, 3) professional learning, 4) instruction, 5) curriculum, 6) assessment, and 7) learning environments.
One way we are conceptualizing the as-built blueprints involves the use of “infrastructure polygons,” inspired originally by Candy Chang’s work.
In this example, in which Chang visualizes the contrasted city infrastructures in Nairobi and Dakar, one can quickly see that Dakar possesses a much higher density of piped water, electricity, and toilets than Nairobi. For example, about 19% of Nairobi’s population has access to piped water, compared to 84% of Dakar’s residents.
Recently, TED uploaded Jessica Green’s TED2013 talk, “We’re covered in germs. Let’s design for that.”
As another great example of using info-graphic polygons, Green employs these visualized data tools to compare and contrast the microbes in various rooms in a building. (You should watch the talk, just to see how this method of data visualization works. It’s fascinating.) The information polygons make it easy to see how classrooms compare with offices in terms of microbial “footprints” or profiles. [Stick with me if that last sentence made you want to click to the next post in your feed reader or email!]
With Pedagogical Master Planning, a dimension of the Discover phase involves capturing information about instructional methodology. Through classroom observation, interviews, self-reporting, etc., we collect data about instructional modes like lecture, lecture and discussion, demonstration, simulation, case study, PBL, role play, graphical creation, etc. After aggregating the data, we can visualize the information using polygons similar to those used by Chang and Green.
Imagine a polygon put to use as an info-graphic that summarizes the instructional methodologies used throughout the school. In a very oversimplified example, one might show that 78% of instructional time is spent in lecture, 11% in demonstration, 5% in case study, and 6% in graphical creation. What invaluable information for a school that is working strategically to become more student-centered and student-directed in its pedagogical approach.
And imagine the power of such visualization in an actual school situation. We could potentially visualize the following:
Such ideation around information polygons and “as-built blueprints” are only one piece of the potential for Pedagogical Master Planning. By being able to see more clearly what is happening in the actual pedagogical ecosystem, a school can be more strategic in developing it’s integrated sub-systems for the learning that can happen. Being able to see provides clarity from which to plan for innovation and development. Being able to see can help reduce resistance as people are able to gain greater understanding about the current reality of instructional methods used compared to the desired learning outcomes for students. It’s a bit like turning on the lights in a darkened room. The light shed on the situation helps us navigate more agilely and purposefully. We’re less likely to need to shuffle our feet slowly and wave our arms in from of us to keep from running into something unexpectedly.
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