Learner-Centered Innovation: The Reflection

Sadly, my class on Learner-Centered Innovation is coming to a close! I am happy to have finished the book since I tend to buy lots of professional books with the hope and desire of reading them all and improving my teaching, but many of them end up just being skimmed. It takes more concentration for me to read a book that I'm thinking of putting to use instead of one that I'm reading just to learn about something (or just as an escape!), but it is always worth it.

This course was taught by one of my colleagues and friends: Emily Keeter, the science teacher on my team. If you have not checked out her blog yet, you're missing out! It's definitely not just for science teachers - it's for everyone who wants to learn and grow in the classroom.

Last summer, Emily also taught a course where I read The Innovator's Mindset, which piqued my interest in shifting my planning and instruction. I took this course as a follow-up to that one because I think I could have done better during the last school year, and I want to improve this upcoming year with a concrete plan for how to help students discover their strengths and work toward their goals.

This book is full of specific ideas about innovation for both students and teachers. One main thread of the text deals with school culture and the growth mindset. We cannot say that we value innovation if we also punish mistakes (on any level). When we take risks, there are bound to be mistakes or failures because that is an important part of the road to change. However, as Katie Martin writes, "We can change policies and implement new programs, but if we don't empower teachers and create school cultures where people feel valued and free to take risks, we will miss out on our greatest opportunity to change how students learn...We know that kids and adults learn better when learning has an authentic purpose, subjects are integrated, and the learner has agency and choice in the process" (75). In other words, the risks that we will take will allow our students to create for an authentic purpose that deals with multiple subjects in a way THEY decide. This will hopefully lead to more engaged and interested students!

While I enjoyed reading the book (although it is not without its flaws), the best part of this course was, hands-down, the interaction with my colleagues. I think Emily did an incredible job of differentiating the options for responding to the three books from which we could choose, and her faith in our ability to select the ways that worked best (and NOT just the easiest way!) for us made me want to try new things. This is exactly what is discussed in Learner-Centered Innovation. For example, I decided to do a video blog and create a graphic for two different weeks instead of writing a traditional blog. I am much more comfortable writing, but I knew that if I didn't try something new, I wouldn't know how my students felt when I asked them to take risks. The process of doing something that was challenging for me was eye-opening; I had to ask for help from other colleagues (hi Katie!), try different ways of saving and uploading, work with different templates, and pare down my ideas about the book to the basics. I ended up being very proud of what I did and happy that I had the experience of struggling and failing before succeeding so as to have empathy for my students.

I learned an incredible amount from my colleagues in this course. I have taken classes with several of them in the past, and I am always so impressed and excited by what they bring to our discussions. I don't think we get enough time to collaborate with our colleagues who are not part of our department, and I barely know who teaches at the elementary schools (unless they have taken other courses with me in the past). Hearing how teachers in every subject and grade would apply the same ideas in different ways was very eye-opening for me, and every time I posted an idea about how I would do something in my classroom, their comments made my idea much better. I cannot overstate the importance of continued discussion and time for working together in order to put these innovative ideas into action.

Thanks to canva.com and Katie Nelson for making me look like I know anything about creating graphics!

Relationships and Education

This week, I am trying video reflecting! The question I am answering is:

Why are relationships so important in innovation and education?

True to form, this video is longer than I intended it to be because I just really have a lot of thoughts about things, so I can't embed it here. Here is a link!

Additionally, I did not directly address innovation in the video, but I did talk about feedback and growth. In my mind, innovation cannot exist without those things: if you are not receptive to feedback, you will not be able to push yourself out of your comfort zone to innovate and you certainly will not be able to improve your efforts. Similarly, you will not grow if you are not receptive to feedback, and growth is essential to innovation. 

Image from http://ixd.prattsi.org/2017/04/what-are-you-really-hearing-effectively-processing-feedback/

The Innovator's Mindset Part 1 (Chapters 1-3)

If I liked The Innovator's Mindset before, I LOVE it now. The first three chapters are useful, reflective, and show that George Couros understands what it's like to be on the receiving end of change, not just an innovator. One of the main problems that I have with educational consultants and other people who try to push their programs on schools is that they start from a place that assumes there are major flaws in the organization and that people don't really want to change. This book doesn't assume that; in fact, it assumes the opposite. I love that. It makes me WANT to change. And, with the idea that "...innovation is not about changing everything; sometimes you only need to change one thing. That experience can lead to new and better learning opportunities" (60), it makes me hopeful that I CAN and WILL change.

One thing that really resonated with me at the beginning of this book was the idea linked to Simon Sinek's "Start with Why" idea (his TED Talk is one that I have been shown by several administrators, and it's actually pretty good). I have often said that we have complicated teaching beyond all reason, and to see this idea echoed in a book that I think is very practical and important is affirming. Couros writes that "...it scares [him] to think that we have taken the most human profession, teaching, and have reduced it to simply letters and numbers" (18). Grading, standardized tests, data meetings - these have their place, but I would argue that we have elevated them beyond that place. Instead of focusing on these things, Couros says that we need to empower our students and inspire innovation instead of demanding compliance. As Katie brought up a while ago, there is a time for learning the rules and following them (as a society, we agree to rules and consequences if those rules are broken, and they have their place in school as well), but there is also a time for making sure that learners can come up with their own paths.

I like the "learner/leader" instead of "student/teacher" dichotomy because it reminds me that teachers are also learners and students are also leaders. This is something that I will try to remember as I continue to teach. Sometimes, I need to give my students information quickly and efficiently so they can do something with that information, and I have no problems with lecturing at those times. But what this section of the book made me think about was if there are times when I can change that to let them discover the information on their own. Ideas like "...translating knowledge into action is perhaps even more important than acquiring information" (34) and "Innovation starts not by providing answers, but by asking questions" (38) make it clear that the students are missing out on crucial opportunities for learning when I am the one who is posing the questions (even if I DO have them look for answers on their own). The example of the mitosis lesson that Lisa changed in chapter three was a great example of how this can be done simply but effectively. I sometimes think that "Would I want to be a learner in this classroom?" is a difficult question for me to ask myself because I'm usually the happiest in what we would call a "traditional" classroom. I like to listen, I like to take notes, and I generally don't like to be asked to work in groups or be creative with showing my learning. But I do have to be responsive to my learners, and although I'm sure there are learners like me in my room, I am equally sure that there are learners totally unlike me who need me rethink some of my techniques.  

Finally, the inclusion of empathy and reflection in this section, especially the third chapter, gave me hope and made me very happy. I think these are two essential qualities for all humans, regardless of age, career, background, etc., and the importance that is placed on them for innovation makes me think that perhaps, becoming better innovators can make us better people.