Move fast and break things

This post on Mark Zuckerberg's vision at Facebook came through my twitter feed last week and it really resonated with me.  One of Facebook's core beliefs is that "moving fast" inspires innovation and empowers employees to try new things to better the product for the consumer.  Zuckerberg admits though, that moving fast also creates a lot of headaches and a constant need to go back and "fix" things that were broken as a result.  Along with "Move Fast and Break Things" the post also highlights some other key motivational posters and core beliefs such as "Fail Harder", "People over pixels" and "Done is better than perfect".

I wonder if we are preparing our students to work at a place like Facebook?

I would imagine that moving fast and breaking things can be a lot of fun and also incredibly scary. Every time Facebook changes even a minor privacy setting or enhances the view, one just needs to go to social media to see the hailstorm of criticism. Yet it remains the most popular social media tool on the planet. The most recent numbers indicate there are over 1.1 BILLION users and over 650 million active users a DAY! So if one of the most successful companies on earth with mind-blowingly active daily "consumers" are willing to move fast and break things, to endure criticism in the face of creating a better product,  why are we often so unwilling to allow our STUDENTS to move fast and break things?

There are a ton of things we struggle and grapple with when our classroom is not living up to our own expectations. They run the gamut from peer pressures ( I can't do something different because colleague x will be upset with me), administrative pressures (I need to make sure I am on pace or I will get in trouble.) , standardized testing pressures (If it's not on the state test, I don't have time to teach it) , parental pressures (As soon as I try something new, I might need to explain it to parents)  , student pressures (Some of my students can't handle this kind of work), and personal pressures ( I just don't have time to try something different today/this week/this month/this year) .  But those perceptions or worries, whether real or imagined, are not at the root of why our classrooms don't provide more room to move fast and break things.

Control is.

Our students are naturally inclined to work fast and break things, yet because we are uncomfortable with this, we slow them down and often praise them for doing things right the first time.  As teachers, we are incredibly reluctant to work fast and break things, especially when it comes to technology.  Innovation and inspiration often go hand in hand with failure and how we learn from those failures.  As educators, we sometimes struggle with new mediums, new pedagogy, and new ways of learning that are different than our own. Disruptions such as cyber learning, 1:1 initiatives, learning on demand through Khan Academy and MOOC's (for example), and the proliferation of web based social platforms (that can also be used to collaborate and communicate)  such as Twitter and Facebook create a greater divide between students who are chomping at the bit to move fast and break things, and teachers who often want to move slowly and keep things in order.

In the end,we must PLAY. When handed new devices, and/or access to new software or web-platforms, we must change our paradigm and see it an opportunity to learn from and alongside our students. Their willingness to work fast and break things is an asset, not a liability.  Giving up some control and permitting ourselves to be a learner with our students can be scary, but also invigorating. It's what makes us human to them. It empowers students to be seen as young adults who have value not just in their world, but in life itself. It creates a bond and a connection through learning together. It creates an opportunity to fail safely together and to learn from our mistakes too.

Work fast and break things. Together.

Differentiation is not enough.

One of my favorite posts of 2013 (and the chart  that accompanies it ) was written by Barbara Bray entitled “Personalized Learning is Not Differentiating Instruction”.  While I didn’t write about it at the time, I had a copy of the chart on my desk for several months. Several times a week I would see it out of the corner of my eye and I would reflect on what it meant to me as a teacher. Spending just a few minutes with the chart and the post itself would seemingly present a vision of what classrooms should look like presently as well as some clear cut goals for educators.

Many years ago, differentiation became an educational buzzword that myself and many in education loathed to hear.  When something wasn’t working in your classroom, the rallying cry became “Just differentiate!”  None of us knew what differentiation looked like or how we would even do it for our students. I often “taught” from a textbook, with desks in straight rows, and any learning that occurred was by luck and sheer happenstance. I began experimenting with offering different types of assessments as well as offering different ways for students to access content. It was as if offering kids...gasp...CHOICES for how they wanted to learn and how they wanted to show what they knew and could do became a gateway to a different type of classroom.

Along the way I picked up a lot of tricks from colleagues in my physical location as well as in the communities I was learning alongside online. For example, differentiating homework, taking  time in class to involve students in decision making, co-creating rubrics, brainstorming and creative problem solving, individual conferencing as often as possible. But all of these ideas required massive shifts in how I thought about teaching and learning. Mostly, it forced me to accept that teaching is NOT learning. I had spent a bulk of my career so consumed with the role that I needed to play, I had completely disregarded the learners themselves.

As teachers begin to play with many of these ideas, they realize how much effort and energy it takes to create a classroom environment that places trust and responsibility on the learners. They also realize how little our current systems are set up to truly support these kinds of classrooms.  Educators realize they are limited by bell schedules, pre-conceived notions of what teaching should look like from parents and administrators, and a game of chicken with students who are used to just sitting in their seat and collecting A’s for being awake. I have long been a proponent and believer in computers and  technology as a great equalizer. When used well, it can provide opportunities for differentiation, individualization, and/or personalization. It can open up lines of communication and create transparency. It can provide more choices and learning paths than ever before. But none of this matters without the vision or commitment to putting the learners first. It’s easy to say we are kid-centered. It’s much more difficult to live it.

When I reflect on this chart, it both humbles and angers me. On one hand, it reminds me that I failed countless learners because I made my classroom about me the teacher, instead of them: the learners. When we as educators are unable to check our ego’s at the door, we are about teaching, not learning. When we fail to fully integrate students in their individual learning processes, we are about teaching, not learning. When we claim the attitude “My job is to teach, their job is to learn.” we are about teaching, not learning. When we verbalize to our colleagues  “ Hey, I taught it, they should have learned  it”, we are about teaching, not learning.  

On the other hand, it provides me a solid vision of the kind of learning experience I want to create for my students each and every day. Phrases like “career and college ready” get thrown around often without enough discussion or agreement on what that truly means for our students. Is it my job to prepare kids for the current world? Or is it my job to prepare them to be mature learners for a world that hasn’t yet materialized. Statistics abound that support the fact that we are indeed preparing our students for jobs that do not currently exist and a world we as adults can hardly envision. It’s not enough to differentiate or even individualize.

There is one universal truth, all learning is personal.

Anything less is just teaching.

Make your classroom more like Wawa

Those of us who live in eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey love our Wawa. For those of you who have never been to a Wawa, it’s like a 7-eleven, Sheetz or any convenience store/gas station... only better (in my opinion).  For more about Wawa’s business model, read here.  Although you can get just about anything you want to eat at a Wawa, they are especially known for their hoagies. If you don’t know what a hoagie is, check out this map, as you probably call it something else.

After returning from a recent trip to Florida where they only have a handful of Wawa’s, we stopped and got a hoagie for lunch. The process for ordering a hoagie at Wawa (or just about anything else made fresh) involves walking up to a touch screen and selecting a multitude of options. Do you want your whole hoagie toasted or just the roll?  How big of a hoagie do you want?  What kind of meat? What kind of cheese(s) do you want to add?  Do you want to add bacon? (ummm, yeah) What kind of condiments do you want on your hoagie (there are about 50)?   Do you want vegetables (there are about 30)? You get the point. Each hoagie is customizable and individualized as the customer wants it.

When Wawa first started using the touch screen technology years ago, no one taught me how to use the touch-screen. I walked right up and started to hit buttons. Occasionally, I would make a mistake and have to go back and make a change to my order. I learned how to use the technology to get exactly what I wanted in a hoagie. For those who are uncomfortable using the touch screen, there are pre-made hoagies and sandwiches that are not as fresh and created based on the desire of the sandwich maker, not the customer. The hoagie makers probably do their best to guess what customers might want to buy, but when you walk into most Wawa’s, few customers buy these pre-made hoagies. They would rather order a hoagie their way and wait a few extra minutes to get it exactly they way they want it.

So why does a customer at a convenience store get more customization, choice, and individualization than the students in our classrooms and schools? Why are many of our students left with the “choice” of  a pre-made, one-size-fits-all education in which we,  the sandwich makers, determine the best type of hoagie for our students to eat.  One doesn’t need touch screen technology, laptops, or other “technologies” (although it helps to give more choices and options) to individualize learning. The truth is, learning should ALWAYS be about the learner, not the teacher.  Learning by nature,  is an individual act.  Our classrooms need to provide more choices, options, and decisions so that our students can make the best decisions for THEIR learning.

The yin and yang of connecting and dis-connecting.

I've been thinking a lot recently about how we communicate. Since the dawn of man, the role of the story and storytelling has been a key ingredient in communicating ideas, purposes, and events. And as man evolved from cave paintings to hand-written symbols to written language, technology has always amplified the ability of man to communicate. Whether it was the printing press, email, and now social media, mankind has always been driven by a will to tell their story.

So in this age of youtube, vine, twitter, facebook, and blogging, (along with a multitude of other social networks and web based platforms for storytelling)  are we considering whether the stories we tell have value? Are we considering the purpose of the stories we are unintentionally telling on a minute to minute basis?  Whenever we hit "post" or "tweet", we are creating new threads in our own personal story quilt. Whenever we send that video to youtube or respond to a blog post, we are adding to a socially constructed story as well. And I'm certainly not advocating that we stop doing any of this. I'm just wondering whether we are as morally and consciously aware that with each keystroke, we are not only adding content, we are adding new chapters to a book that has no end in sight.

As a connected adult who is constantly checking social media,email, and reading posts online, I am wondering whether this hyper-connectivity comes at a cost.  Recent studies like this and this have forced me to acknowledge my addictions. (They say the first step is admitting you have a problem).  Have we forsaken relationships in our physical location for relationships in the "cloud"?  If the answer to the ills of public education and learning comes down to relationships, we need to ensure that we are watering and fertilizing both kinds simultaneously.  And obviously, this has tremendous impact on our students personal and academic lives. Not only do we need to model connectivity and dis-connectivity, we need to have conversations about it as well.

I guess my internal struggle right now is about finding balance. It's about living and breathing in a world that increasingly demands us to be connected to learn and grow, while seeking moderation and bringing that learning back to deepen the relationships in our physical location. It's about picking up a good old fashioned book while also flipping through twitter and an rss feed to read the opinions of those I respect and admire (even when I disagree).  It's about putting the phone, tablet, and laptop away during a meeting. Not because the notes one can take from the meeting aren't important, but because the eye contact and deep conversation creates a  connection that is essential to change in our schools and classrooms.

Ironically, this blog post is being published while I lay on a beach in Maui. I'm not telling you that to make you jealous (ok, maybe a little bit), but I didn't write it while in Maui. I wrote it two weeks ago and set it to publish on its due date. I turned off my work email, left twitter (for the most part) behind, and disconnected my digital life to spend my honeymoon connecting with my wife.   Just as much as using technology to connect can reap great relationship rewards, disconnecting every once in awhile affords many amazing ones as well.

Aloha.

We must eternally press forward for what is yet to get.

In a letter to a Charles Clay in 1790, Thomas Jefferson wrote:

 "The ground of liberty is to be gained by inches, and we must be contented to secure what we can get from time to time and eternally press forward for what is yet to get. It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good."

If we interpret "liberty" as educational or academic liberty, and if we can agree on the definition of the word "persuade" as : to Cause (someone) to do something through reasoning or argument this quote resonates deeply with me on several levels.

As an educator, we must be more conscious of the "eternal" struggle our students engage in when it comes to learning about things that are meaningful, engaging, and relevant to them. We must also recognize that it takes time to persuade students to do even what is for their own good.

As an educator, we must be more conscious of the "eternal" struggle our colleagues engage in when it comes to learning about best practices, new initiatives and philosophical shifts that most likely conflict with their own ideals, beliefs, and opinions. We must recognize that it takes time to persuade colleagues to do even what is for their own good.

As an educator, we must be more conscious of the "eternal" struggle our administrators engage in when it comes to implementing initiatives that are beyond their control.  We must recognize that it takes time to persuade educators to do even what is for their own good.

As an educator, we must be more conscious of the "eternal" struggle our parents engage in when it comes to teaching and learning in the 21st century.  We must recognize that it takes time to persuade parents to do even what is for their own good.

As an educator, we must be more conscious of the "eternal" struggles our community and school board members engage in when it comes to balancing budgets and supporting our schools in cost effective and educationally principled ways. We must recognize that it takes time to persuade community members to do even what is for their own good.

As an educator, we must be MOST conscious of the "eternal" struggles we engage in surrounding our own belief systems about teaching and learning and being an educator in this time and age. We must recognize that it takes time to persuade ourselves to do even what is for our own good.

Conversations, discussions, arguments, and passionate discourse should always be a part of the educational process.  It should be happening everywhere from the classroom to the board room. While we must come to a consistent agreement on the end goal (student learning) , the road map will always be changing and evolving. As we complete another year in the life of a classroom, a school, or a district, the end will always represent an opportunity. The beginning is the end and the end is the beginning. If we acknowledge that positive change happens inch by inch, it is much easier to  "eternally press forward for what is yet to get".

As the hypothesis of  Joseph Ellis' biography of Thomas Jefferson "American Sphinx", Jefferson exhibited a duality that squarely placed him as both an idealist and a realist. Often,  this incongruity makes looking to him for wisdom a complicated endeavor. I believe classrooms, schools, and districts must live in this similar incongruity, at constant odds with the reality and ideal.  We must be content to "secure what we can be from time to time, gaining inch by inch, yet eternally pressing forward to what is yet to come." In other words, we must  accept our realities while steadfastly focused on what we must become for all learners.

What is your definition of technology (in education)?

When exploring strand 8 (Science and Technology) in the National Council for the Social Studies Framework for teaching and learning, I came across this definition of technology.

Science is the result of empirical study of the natural world, and technology is the application of knowledge to accomplish tasks. (NCSS)

It got me thinking about what other traditional definitions of technology might be. From merriam webster:

the practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area (merriam webster)

And from wikipedia:

The word technology refers to the making, modification, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems, and methods of organization, in order to solve a problem, improve a preexisting solution to a problem, achieve a goal, handle an applied input/output relation or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, including machinery, modifications, arrangements and procedures. Technologies significantly affect human as well as other animal species' ability to control and adapt to their natural environments. The term can either be applied generally or to specific areas: examples include construction technology, medical technology, and information technology. (Wikipedia)

       For those of us who live and learn from and with technology, this common theme of “application” should come as no surprise. For many of us, where technology usage is ubiquitous, we often use technology to make meaning and show what we know to be true. While there are many excuses as to why we each don’t embrace certain technologies (ie. I prefer Diigo to Delicious or I don’t really “get” pinterest?), I wonder if not learning from and with technology at all makes someone an effective learner in the modern world? I’m not saying that we can’t and don’t learn in other non-digital ways because obviously we do. What I’m wondering about, is whether we are fully developed learners if at least part of our personal learning and growing is not with and through modern technologies. And what does this question mean for our students?

        Although we often dismissively chuckle at the luddite colleague who refuses to learn how to text message or the technophobe who thinks email is about advanced as it can get, we need to question whether those teachers are fully preparing students for a world that has rapidly and will continue to rapidly evolve in technologically driven ways. The factory model schools of the 20th Century are even less relevant to the knowledge economy that exists today . Perhaps it should have always been this way, but no one really cares what you know or how you know it. It’s about what you do with that knowledge. Schools and teachers who do not embrace learning through and with the modern technologies available to them are failing their students.

         Technology today affords global connectivity, an audience greater than the classroom, access to information faster than our brains can process it, and the ability to apply knowledge in creative, authentic, and meaningful ways. And yet what some teachers qualify as using technology in their classroom is limited to firing up the shiny new digital projector, moving a few items with the smart board, and having kids word process when it’s time to write. When technologies are available, it should not just be to check off a spot on a lesson plan or evaluation. It should not be a once a month or a once a year “thing”, it should be ubiquitous.

       My argument is not a new one and it is not easy to digest if you are a teacher who “dislikes” technology or “can’t learn from a computer”. The reality is, it’s not about YOU. It’s about the kids who sit in our classroom each day and the mission we have been employed with: to provide a quality individualized education to each and every child who walks through our door. And ALL of them need to learn and show what they know and can do in ways that are very different from the ways we might have learned. There is enough blame to go around. As a nation we have wasted a ton of money on laptops, interactive technologies, and ineffective training and professional development. Bad pedagogy is bad pedagogy and it has had disastrous impact on student engagement, motivation, and learning. There is simply no excuse for an educator (ie teachers AND administrators) to reject the necessity and learning potential of technology in today’s school and classroom. At the same time poorly teaching with technology might be just as detrimental.

       Our students need to make meaning, to create, to communicate, to connect, and to apply their knowledge critically. Is it possible to do all of this without technology? Yes. If every classroom and curriculum could guarantee every student this opportunity, we wouldn't be facing the challenges we are today. Those schools and classrooms would also be adaptable, flexible, and personalized learning spaces that were full of the tools that each and every student would need to show what they know and can do. Maybe that's my definition of technology in the classroom: Whatever is needed to learn and make meaning. What's yours?


(This post is cross posted at the Digital Learning Environments blog found here.

Living and growing in the classrooms we aspire to have.

As part of a  teacher driven PLC to improve instructional practices through peer coaching, several of us engaged in a book study of "Evocative Coaching" by Bob and Megan Tschannen Moran.  Although our task was to read the book through the lens of peer coaching, there are massive implications for our work with students.

 The overall premise of the book is that the best coaches are the ones who "evoke" understanding through empathy, trust, and deep questioning. One of the shifts in evocative coaching is appreciative inquiry in which we focus on what our strengths are and build upon them. It is a powerful book and I highly recommend several deep readings of it. I am on my third.

In Evocative Coaching, Barbara Frederickson's research  is referenced (see Frederickson's book: Positivity) as a gateway to being transformational in our relationships with others.

"Research points to four ways to build high-quality connections. The first is respectful engagement. Be present, attentive, and affirming. The second is to support what the other person is doing. Do what you can to help her succeed. The third is trust. Believe you can depend on this person to meet your expectations,and let it show. The fourth way is play. Allow time simply to goof off, with no particular outcomes in mind"

Now, re-read that again. This time, think about what this says about your classroom. 

When I think about the classroom environment I want to create with my students, I have to ask myself if the opportunities I create are respectful of ALL of my students as individuals.

Am I present at all times? Do I truly listen to what my students need from me as learners? Do I affirm their needs? Do I truly understand what their strengths are as a person and learner? Do I differentiate for learning styles and assessments? Do I engage students in the process of determining their own learning path? Do I support my students, doing everything I can to help EACH of them to succeed in ways that works for them? Have I established fair and reasonable expectations that ALL of my students can learn and make those expectations transparent and visible? Do I take the time to get to know them as individuals? Do I conference with them? Do I show them I care, each day? Do I create opportunities for learning to be messy, fun,  and unstructured, to learn from the unintended outcomes which can ultimately be more powerful than the intentional ones? Do we take time to PLAY?

In the standards driven, high stakes testing environment in which  focus is often on knowledge acquisition and curriculum has been interpreted as mostly about coverage (as opposed to un-coverage), many of us are struggling with classrooms that look and feel nothing like what we want them to be. I'm not proud of the fact that at times,  I have participated in many conversations  that  have placed blame for a lack of student learning at the feet of  parents not doing their jobs, administration not providing the right supports, and sadly, that students just don't care.  The truth is, it's not about what I teach. It's about what they learn. 

What I have realized is that while I have been busy blaming everyone else, I haven't been a good enough teacher (or colleague for that matter).  It has been very convenient and easy blaming the world because admitting that what I was doing  (or not doing) was not good enough would mean that I would have to change. It would mean admitting that I have failed at times. It would mean that I would  have to work harder. It would mean that I would have to learn and grow.  This doesn't mean that I am not a good teacher or colleague. But it does reflect a choice, that I'm not done. That I'm never done. That I will never be done. 

Next year, I want to build an emotionally rewarding, intellectually stimulating, and individually respectful learning environment for students and teachers. 

At some point in the 4th Century BCE, Socrates stated: "I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing". He also stated "Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel".  Admitting that we don't know as much as we think we do, and recognizing that our job is not  to teach, but to create personal connections and opportunities for our students to learn and grow would be a start.  Establishing high quality relationships with every one of our students and "coaching" them in their own pursuits of deeper understanding would go a long way to living and growing alongside our students inside the classrooms we all aspire to have. The same is true of our relationships with our colleagues.

In the fading moments of this school year, I have my goal for next year. What is yours?