In today's episode, Will and Bruce reflect on six of their two hundred Shifting Conversations posts that they have written over the last three years. Some things have changed, and some have not. Often times, educators feel powerless to change their current conditions in ways that deeply impact learning. That was the focus of this post, Are You Powerless?, but Will reiterated in the conversation that we can all start with our personal practice. We can all work to make sure our personal practices match our personal beliefs about learning, and in that, there is power. Bruce really believes that people are starting to get beyond shiny objects syndrome. People are starting to ask what extent technology impacts learning, and for that he is relieved. Back when he wrote Road to Nowhere, schools were spending millions of dollars on devices, but that money was not changing practices. There is hope. The technology underwhelm is discussed in Everything You Think is Disruptive Isn't. Often … [Read more...]
So Many Questions…
Last month, we missed a bit of an anniversary here at Modern Learners, three years of writing and making that total over 330 posts, 199 newsletters, a slew of whitepapers, podcasts, masterclasses and goodness knows what else. Add to that the recent addition of Change School to the Modern Learners "portfolio" and even I have to admit that what started as 30-minute conversation between me and Bruce on the way to the Melbourne airport back in 2013 has evolved into a pretty impressive body of work, most of it successful, but with an appreciable number of learnable moments along the way. For however long you've been a part of our journey, sincere thanks for reading, watching, listening, and/or participating. One thing that always has struck me about our work here is how driven it is by questions. How can we help parents become better informed about the world as it relates to education? That was our attempt with Raising Modern Learners, now dormant, but still a good idea, we think. (If … [Read more...]
Getting Parents Ready for New Context of School
Bruce and Will talk about the challenge of helping parents understand the new context for school and work. After debating for a bit about how much responsibility the school should take for this work, they agree that school's must play a role in educating parents and communities about the changing contexts. Parents need reference points for the new context: This show starts out discussing three articles from Pew Research, The New Yorker, and The New York Times that help us to see and define the modern context and the importance of understanding it. At one point Will points out the gap between the cost of college and the cost of information, and because the gap is so large, people are opting for alternative paths to acquiring skills. More people are acquiring micro-credentials and badges to signal they have a set of skills. Check out the links to better understand what they were discussing. Future of Jobs and Jobs Training Is the Gig Economy Working How to Prepare for an … [Read more...]
Learning’s Lousy Adoption Curve
A couple of weeks ago, EdSurge ran a post that asked "Is Your EdTech Product a Refrigerator or a Washing Machine?" The premise was simple. If your product is like a refrigerator, the pace of it's adoption in schools will probably be pretty fast since you can just "plug it in" to the existing infrastructure and culture. Washing machine type products, however, have much longer (or slower) adoption curves because they require additional plumbing and construction. In other words, they don't fit into the current operation or narratives of school as easily. But while the article makes a semi-interesting point about tools, I think it misses the bigger, deeper question about adoption curves around learning in the larger sense. To be blunt, our adoption curve for productive learning (learning that sticks and leaves kids wanting to learn more) in schools in general pretty much stinks. And we know this (even though we don't like to admit it.) I mean, how many of us would be willing to … [Read more...]
Beware of Proxies
As we work through our busy lives, I’m intrigued by how readily we seem to accept so many of the assumptions that impact on that work. I don’t think for a minute that this is something we do consciously, but when you have so much going on in your life, you simply don’t have the time or inclination to reflect or test the veracity of what we assume to be correct. Take our use of proxies. As Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame outlined recently in his annual newsletter, a common example is process as proxy. Good process serves you so you can be more effective or efficient in what you are seeking to achieve. But if you’re not watchful, the process can become the thing. It’s the sort of language and double-speak that clumsy bureaucracies thrive on, and the education sector is certainly no exception. It can happen very easily in large companies, public sector organizations or schools. The process becomes the proxy for the result you want. You stop looking at outcomes and just make sure you’re … [Read more...]
Yoga Balls in Rows
I came across an apt metaphor for change in schools a few months ago. An administrator told me excitedly that they had been giving students some say in ways in which their classrooms were outfitted, and that one class had chosen to use yoga balls to sit on instead of the traditional hard plastic (or even wood) chairs that you normally see. It was all about creating innovative classroom environments were kids would enjoy learning more and be more engaged. When I turned the corner into the classroom, sure enough, smiling kids all peered up at me from their brightly colored yoga balls. Behind desks. In rows. Not quite what I had imagined I would see. Ever since then I've been looking for the YBIR (Yoga Balls in Rows) approach to classroom innovation, and it's depressingly not hard to find. Most instances of Chromebooks, Google Classroom, iPads, smartphones suffer the same fate of taking potentially interesting technologies and "schoolifying" them. It's window dressing that … [Read more...]
A Tale of Two Planets
There are two planets in the Universe of Today, Planet Earth and Planet School. Planet Earth can seem a little crazy at times, but it's connected, complex and in a constant state of change. It’s a cultural melting pot, and people are continuously communicating across more countries, more often in more mediums that we might have ever imagined. Working on Planet Earth is very different to what it used to be. Everything seems interconnected, interrelated and most critically, interdependent. The traditional rules of order have changed, where many of the assumptions about business that were previously valid, are no longer relevant. Risk-aversion is not an option, rather it is now about the pursuit of opportunity when the context seems much more uncertain. People work when they need to, as they have to, often from a variety of venues including their home, and more frequently, not for long with one company. Their employment is no longer dependent on what they know, but rather on what … [Read more...]
A Common Sense Argument
Fourteen people in a room. All of them educators. 12 of them parents. How many of those 12 do you think told a similar story of learning for their kids in schools? If you said all 12, you’d be correct. And if I asked you to guess what that story was? You’d probably get than one correct as well. Boredom. Irrelevance. Disconnected. Pressured. Chasing after grades. Doing school. And the feelings of the teacher parents to tell share those stories? Sadness. Frustration. Helplessness. In some cases, despair. I continually find it amazing that there exists such a gap between what we know is best for kids and the experiences we create for them in schools. I’ve written about these “Elephants in the Classroom” before, but in recent days I’ve been reminded just how harmful it can be for kids when we ignore common sense. Case in point, the article this week in the New York Times documenting the difficulties of high school kids in Lexington, MA, a Boston … [Read more...]
Voice, Choice and Mastery with Rodney Bowler
In this episode, Will Richardson talks with Rodney Bowler and Aaryn Schmuhl from Henry County Schools in Atlanta, Georgia. Rodney is District Superintendent for Henry County Schools, while Aaryn is Assistant Superintendent for Learning and Leadership. Highlights of their conversation include: Why being intentional by being courageous at the same time are really important dispositions for the leadership of a change movement. Why we have to change our metrics of success and start thinking differently about what makes the kids life ready. How do you measure the immeasurable? Why sometimes a hard reboot is what a school or District really needs. What does giving students voice really mean, and what are the implications for their learning? Why it’s not about tailoring content to kids, but rather it’s about giving kids the power to learn how to tailor content to themselves. How do you do that? How do you get teachers to be authentic project based learners as well? … [Read more...]
If Only…
In a week when we have had more conversations with more changeleaders than Will and I might ever have imagined possible, it has given me cause to reflect. While the amount of interest we’ve had from leaders across the world who wanted to be part of Change.School has been a little overwhelming, it has, on the other hand also only highlighted the level of caution and timidity that still dominates the education sector. We heard from many school leaders who loved the concept of Change School, but... “If only...” And sure, plenty of the ‘if onlys’ were tough stories from leaders who knew their schools should change, but struggled to do so. What the past week did tell us very clearly, however, is that there is now evidence of growing worldwide passion for change in our schools. So what happens if we drop 'only' and stick with ‘if”. If must be one of the most powerful words in the English language because those two letters can convey so much about opportunity and possibility, but when … [Read more...]