Month: October 2016

Sunday Reading: Wired to Create

~ Terry Whitmell ~ Leave a comment

wired-to-createA rainy Sunday and a good book; what could be better?  And even better when it can be read in a few hours, and generates the thought “yes” at every page!

This Sunday it’s “Wired to Create:  Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind” by Scott Barry Kaufman (@sbkaufman) and Carolyn Gregoire (@carolyn_greg).  Inspired by Gregoire’s 2014 article for the Huffington Post, “18 Things Highly Creative People do Differently“, and building upon Kaufman’s research, this book provides a wonderful framework to compare with my most recent reading, (See #IMMOOC – Tradition vs Innovation, Laying the Foundation for Innovation – #IMMOOC Weeks 3 & 4, Prensky’s #21stC Model – #IMMOOC), and with my current view of education and schooling.

As a start, I’ve pulled out some of the ideas for consideration:

Quote Response
Introduction: Messy Minds “To build these skills, we must encourage risk taking and orginality, and give people the autonomy to decide how they learn and create” (p xxxii) Our educational structures are designed NOT to allow learners the autonomy to decide how they learn and create. The introduction of “choice” is a step in the right direction, but we need to get out of the learners way, and remove the roadblocks.
1 Imaginative Play “The science shows that hybrid forms of work and play may actually provide the most optimal context for learning and creativity, both for children and for adults” (p 11) And “direct instruction” is “work” but rarely is it “play”.
2 Passion “..we must not only fall in love with a dream of our future self… but also love the process of becoming that person” (p 27) As teachers, we need to facilitate the process, but not prescribe.   Opportunity and feedback will nurture the love of the process.
3 Daydreaming “We should allow ourselves to balance the focused mind with the wandering mind, and skilled daydreamers do this naturally”. (p 43) I don’t recall anyone talking to me about my daydreaming as a child, though I do believe it lead to an ability to focus, as I developed thinking skills to organize what I was thinking.
4 Solitude “the act of creating requires us to find time to ourselves and slow down enough to hear our own ideas – both the good and the bad ones”. (p 48) I’m not certain that our students have any solitude: they are accompanied by their devices, music, and continual input.
5 Intuition “Intuition arises from unconscious, or spontaneous, information-processing systems, and it plays an important role in how we think, reason, create, and behave socially”. (p 64) Allowing students to express their thoughts, and to explore those that arise spontaneously, seems absent from our classrooms.
6 Openness to Experience “We need new and unusual experiences to think differently”. (p 82) We need to facilitate these experiences through field trips, clubs, and events, and to bring them into our classroom with a deliberate plan for novelty.
7 Mindfulness “The capacity to deeply observe is not only a key attentional skills, it’s also a distinct creative advantage”. (p 105) Our teachers often take the more efficient action of “telling” or “showing” rather than allowing students to see at their own pace.
8 Sensitive “If we think of creativity as ‘connecting the dots’ in some way, then sensitive people experience a world in which there are both more dots and more opportunities for connection”. (p 126) For sensitive learners, filtering out the irrelevant “dots” can be a challenge in our classrooms. And at the same time, we need to bring some of the “dots” to the attention of others, who aren’t even aware that they are there.
9 Turning Adversity into Advantage “Experiences of extreme adversity show us our own strength”. (p 146 We’ve done a lot of talking about resilience and how we can nurture it in our students. Our “lawnmower” parents ensure that their children never face adversity, and our educational accountability structures cause teachers to do the same with their students.  Those of us who grew up in the 60’s and 70’s have often spoken of the value of not really knowing what the teacher wanted, nor how she was coming up with a mark.
10 Thinking Differently “The suppression of free thinking and imagination often starts in the educational system”. (p 174) There are so many “don’t”s in the world of our children, both at home and at school. My students believe that there is a “formula” to life, and that if they merely find the first step on the path, they will succeed.  We know that isn’t how life works, but we persist with the fantasy in the school system.

I’ll certainly be returning back to this book, and revisiting these concepts, over the next little while!

 

 

Dealing with Disappointment

~ Terry Whitmell ~ Leave a comment

We talk a lot about student engagement and motivation, but a whole lot less about what de-motivates, or disengages learners.

My personal “aha” this week is that one of the best ways to shut someone down is to have them experience a failure that they don’t understand.  Set up criteria, have them provide evidence of having met it, and then tell them they didn’t succeed, but without any explanation.

In my case, I know I’ll get the feedback eventually, and I’m sure it will make sense and I’ll eventually feel fine about it.  However, in the meantime, I’m investing all sorts of negative energy into trying to figure out where I went wrong.  This is wasted, unproductive energy that would be much better put to use moving forward, rather than wallowing in disappointment.

So, as teachers, working with students, we need to:

  1. Set, or even better co-construct, clear criteria for success.
  2. Assess and evaluate
  3. Provide both the pass/fail AND the detailed feedback, as close to simultaneously as possible.
  4. Determine next steps, and begin the cycle again.

As administrators, when hiring, we need to:

  1. Set clear criteria
  2. Assess and evaluate
  3. Provide both the decision AND the detailed feedback as close to simultaneously as possible.
  4. And if we are mentoring this teacher/TA/office-assistant then we need to set them back on the path with hope and optimism.

If we don’t, then we run the risk of shutting down the very initiative, enthusiasm and energy that we are trying to nurture.

Prensky’s #21stC Model – #IMMOOC

~ Terry Whitmell ~ 1 Comment

51zgjter2vl__sx338_bo1204203200_Last night my School Council arrived “pumped”, many of them having just viewed “Most Likely to Succeed“.  We, of course, began talking about what resonated with them, and what they would like to see for their children at our school.

I shared with them my most recent reading:  Marc Prensky’s “Education to Better Their World”.  His framework of:

  • Effective Thinking
  • Effective Action
  • Effective Relationships
  • Effective Accomplishment

aligns with the vision of Tony Wagner and Ted Dintersmith.  But the genuine action, relationships and accomplishment presented by Prensky (@marcprensky ) has the potential to change the world!

Prensky states that “today, applying passion comes too late in education”.  In order for students to actually use effective thinking, effective action, and effective relationships, we need to:

  1. Create an effective system for enabling kids to do real-world projects and for evaluating them;
  2. Share a full sense of what the subjects, breadth, and goals of these projects would and could be; and
  3. Connect students with appropriate projects that they will be passionate about.

Prensky’s consideration of the difference between ACHIEVEMENT and ACCOMPLISHMENT provided me with a useful framework to examine our curriculum and instructional practices, and the role that technology can play to empower our students.  It has been fifteen years since Prensky coined the term “digital native”, and it is clear that he is continuing to examine our world, and reframe it in a way to help drive innovation.

(For a summary of Marc Prensky’s thinking, check out this summary article or video)

 

 

#IMMOOC – Tradition vs Innovation

~ Terry Whitmell ~ 1 Comment

renegadeLast week I enjoyed the final #IMMOOC conversation online with Brad Gustafson, Katie Martin and George Couros.  I was mid-way through Brad’s book, and have now finished reading it.

The strongest “take-away” for me was Brad’s discussion of our frequent focus on the innovators in our schools, often at the expense of those who are continuing to do great work.  My school has a strong tradition, and is proud of that fact.  Some of my teachers are offended by our efforts to innovate, seeing this as a challenge to their experience and expertise.

As a leader, my job is to celebrate our excellence, and then coach our teachers to work for incremental improvement based upon this strong foundation.  One strength in our school is the work we do with our students in preparation for the annual Literacy Test.

This fall our literacy team made use of a Google Classroom with our 425 students preparing for the online Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test, to be written this past week.  Though the test was an “epic fail” (in the words of our students), we now have an environment in which our students can continue to develop their literacy skills, and be even better prepared when they write in March.

(In case you missed it, the Ontario Education Quality and Accountability Office provided an opportunity to write the annual OSSLT this fall, to test out the new online version ahead of the scheduled test next March.  It resulted in 100,000 plus students sitting looking at white screens for more than two hours before the test was cancelled.)

The use of Google Classroom has leveraged the excellent work done by our teachers over the past years with individual students, and provided students and parents with the resources and support to improve their skills and be successful on this graduation requirement.

We need to continue to look for ways to connect excellent teacher practice with the tools to reach beyond their individual classrooms.  As I see it, why not start with those already near the top?

 

Laying the Foundation for Innovation – #IMMOOC Weeks 3 & 4

~ Terry Whitmell ~ 1 Comment

courosleadership

It’s been a couple of busy weeks for me, mostly because I have been involved in George Couros’ fourth foundational activity:  “Create meaningful learning experiences for educators”.  It was the first week of the month, so it began on Monday with a staff meeting.

We looked at the theories of action that we framed at our September meeting, and placed them in context within the Ontario Ministry of Education goals, the School Board Goals, and our existing School Success goals.  Our department teams then worked to craft this year’s department theories of action, and begin the work of a six-week Professional Learning Cycle. Department teams continued this work during our Professional Learning Day on Friday, will collaborate throughout the next six weeks, and will conclude the cycle at our November 18th Professional Learning Day.

During this time we will meet one more time, at our November staff meeting.  And since we’ll be in the middle of this learning cycle, we’re going to plan for sharing of best practices using technology, to support our teaching and assessment.  Our colleagues will present best practices within our Student Information System (particularly our use of notes to share information among our teams), how to access historical student data to inform practice, the new Read/Write functionality in Google docs, the support we can access via our ITRT (Instructional Technology Resource Teacher), and how to use  Google sheets for assessment.

So, I’ve been reflecting, and considering how well both these learning opportunities will support us to develop the 21st century skills our students need.  In the spring, I reflected on how we might achieve this in a paper, implementation-of-21st-century-competencies, I wrote for one of my courses relating to educational policy.  In my role as a Principal, I am continually making the connections from learner, to curriculum, to teacher, and to policy.  And I love that technology is making it easier to connect, communicate, share, and grow.  Your feedback would be greatly appreciated!

George Couros is modeling for us, by starting his YouTube channel with his #LeadMoment clips to share his leadership pointers.  There’s something about seeing a face, and hearing a voice, that brings ideas to life.  So perhaps my next challenge is to shift my weekly “From the Oak Office” section of our newsletter, to a video format.

Am I ready to move from the relative anonymity of a blog post, to the much more vulnerable video format?  Well, if I want my students and teachers to do so, guess I have to lead the way.

Keep posted!