Starting with Education Futures

This is a week late but better late than never, right?

I am starting the Open Course in Education Futures with George Siemens and Dave Cormier because I am not content with the status quo in education. While I consider myself to be ahead of the curve regarding implementing new practices or technologies in my classroom, I am only one person. In the past, I have worked to help my colleagues to understand current trends but I hope that this course will help improve my impact as an educational futurist.

Based upon our first reading, this course will be dedicated to understanding how to anticipate trends, plan for different scenarios, map out a vision and mission, create goals and implement strategies to ensure schools will be prepared for future challenges and changes.

Learning about and preparing for our educational futures is something that EVERY school must do. My hope is that this course will help me understand how to prepare for the massive changes we will continue to face. I want to be able to help a school prepare for the changes, draft a vision that a whole school can support  and help a school adjust to those changes while still embracing their particular culture.

Change is inevitable and if we are not properly prepared for it our schools will struggle to adapt. As I begin this course, my hope is that once I finish I will be able to extend my understanding of future trends and be better prepared to help a school adjust and be prepared for those potential futures.

If you feel the same way, you should join the class. We are only two weeks in.

Photo Credit: Pink Sherbet Photography

Driven to Distraction?

Today's Class

I am teaching a unit on "The Impact of New Media". This week our guiding question is "has the evolution of new media been a detriment?"

We watched "Distracted by Everything" a section from Digital Nation, a PBS documentary on how technology is impacting our lives.



My Questions

After watching the video, I asked my students:

"Would you be able to give up Facebook, gChat or BBM if you KNEW it would make you at least 2 times more productive with your work?"

100% of my students declined and said they would not give up their technologies even if they knew they could produce higher quality work in less time.

I then followed with:

"If the work was more engaging, would you give up your distractions?"

This time I got a resounding "Yes!"

This made me think.

My Reaction

The technologies that are available enrich our lives. This will only become increasingly more apparent.

That being said, in my mind, our challenge lies in the fact that the technologies that are currently distracting our students are doing so because our teaching has not evolved with our students.

I do not believe that the content we teach is necessarily wrong or that we should change to keep up with a technology but if our students are willing to be distracted, should we not reconsider how we teach that content?

My goal is to find that happy medium. Create curriculum that meets the benchmarks of a particular school while investigating the use of technology and differentiated learning to engage our students and ensure that they don't feel inclined to be distracted.

I have a challenge for everyone reading:

As we near the end of the year and begin planning your curriculum for next year.  Create learning opportunities that are more individualized, more authentic and that support student involvement and inquiry.

If we can do that, I think we'll be well on our way to pushing aside these distractions.

Posted via web from Dave Bill's Posterous

NUMMI and School Change

I was listening to This American Life last night. It was the show from two weeks ago. The episode focuses on a collaboration between GM and Toyota that began in 1984.

Decades leading up to the collaboration, a GM plant in Fremont, CA had been overrun by labor unions. Quantity took precedence over quality and there was no incentive for good work.  Employees at the plant did not like their job nor did they work hard.

The show focused on how NUMMI, the new collaborative plant in Fremont, CA, implemented a new culture and how its new employees struggled to spread the ideas started at the plant throughout the rest of GM.

The Start of NUMMI

To begin with, all employees were fired when the plant changed. Employees who wanted to be apart of the new plant, were sent to Japan and introduced to the Toyota Production System.  That system was based upon teamwork and quality over quantity.

While it took some time, the unions bought into the system and in turn NUMMI became the most successful plant in GM.

Despite the fact that NUMMI had been successful, the production model that Toyota had introduced had not been embraced by the rest of GM. This problem plagued GM up until early this decade but by then it was too late. GM was on the road to bankruptcy.

NUMMI and Education

I tell this story because I believe our schools are very similar to this story.  There are great school models out there. Many of them are moving away from that "industrial" model of teaching and implementing approaches that put the students at the center of the learning. Using models like the ones I refer to in my previous post, these schools have changed the culture and have created their own NUMMI.  The problem we face is very similar to that of GM.

The models are out there. There are "commandos" on the ground, ready to see schools change. Our challenge is to ensure these model are implemented more widely.

What can we do to ensure we do not become GM? I sure hope so.

Listen to the podcast, which is linked below and let me know what you think.

The Podcast

Episode 403 - NUMMI

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Learners - In all shapes and sizes

Learners come in all shapes and sizes and there are opportunities for every student to access a learning style that suits his or her individual needs.  Whether it's restructuring curriculum , redesigning classrooms or utilizing online learning there are options that can help reach all learners.  It should be our goal to build models that provide options.  Schools now have the ability to create flexible learning spaces based upon the needs of its students.

Providing opportunities for each student is our goal.  Schools must recognize that to reach that goal we must look beyond our current model.  We must evaluate space, time, location, and approach when examining potential learning.  There are viable options right now that schools can incorporate into their culture.

Models

To obtain this goal of learning that suits the needs of all students there are options that can be implemented.

Kahn Academy

Online learning is nothing new but creating an option where students can learn on their own pace is something that can be easily incorporated into a school.  Allowing students to learn a subject, like Math, through a program like Kahn Academy has long term benefits for kids who "don't get it".  There needs to be face to face time to support that learning but online individualized learning has a big upside.

Generation Schools

Sometimes the model of the school can be improved to suit the needs of the community.  Generation Schools in New York, NY take an approach that challenges the traditional schedule and structure of the curriculum.

Classroom Design

Redesigning how and where we work is as important to the content itself.  Flexible learning spaces are essential to ensuring that learning is not confined to desks in row but rather a little bit of chaos.

Design Thinking

Speaking of chaos.  One of the ideas that has the most potential to provide opportunities for all learners is to follow the idea of Design Thinking.  A process made famous by IDEO and that focuses on groups working together, has a great deal of potential to solve problems and make learning authentic.  The book Change by Design has helped a great deal in shaping my thinking on this topic.  Here is an article by GOOD magazine on the importance of failure.  This whole idea will be a post for another day.

These models all have potential to help improve our schools we we move further into this new century.  And it will be classes like "Open Course in Education Futures", being taught by George Siemens and Dave Cormier, that can help schools understand these shifts.  Classes like that and reports that examine the "Impact of the Internet on Institutions of the Future" will help us move towards schools shifting and addressing the needs of all learners.

Technology is no longer the focus, it is the learning.  So forget about teaching blogging, let's focus on new models of teaching.

Posted via email from Dave Bill's Posterous