An Old Dude Gets Whyze

INTRO

In my personal life rarely do I have a plan.

GIVING UP CONTROL MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE UNTIL IT DIDN'T

A basic tenet of EdCamp is to vote with your feet. Not getting what you came for? Vote with your feet: Let them take you where you might.

Almost 40 years ago I gave up control of my life for six years. At 20 I enlisted in the US military. In the Navy to be precise. I made choices, sure. But for the most part others made the decisions. Except they were really my choices. Confused? So was I. At least until I read a blog post by @davidtedu on a writing technique known as The Three Whys. The way I figure it asking why three times takes one deeper into a subject. This allows one to glean insights that might have been missed during a more conventional process of analysis.

Why did I join the Navy? To have an adventure. To have a chance at living a life beyond the commute here and there existence I'd known for far too long. Why did I want adventure? Because I felt my life to that point resembled a connect-the-dots puzzle where predefined forms reveal themselves after a period of focused effort. The point is the forms were there all the time. It was live by the numbers 28-29-30 and there you are hello Mr. Easter Bunny. Why do I have a problem with numbers? Because life isn't about counting. Life is more about formulating. And there I got brought up short. Because I don't like to plan. If I really believe in formulating, in thinking deep thoughts and applying, them isn't that planning, which I have mentioned I'm not a big fan of?

AN IDYLLIC YEAR LIVING IN A JUNGLE

Diego Garcia. I spent one of the best years of my life there. Located a little off the equator in the Indian Ocean it's a coral atoll and jungle. The thing about jungles is they smell. Jungles smell bad. It's because jungles are in continual renewal. Old stuff falls to the jungle floor where decomposes. It feeds new life. I had to travel something like 11,000 miles from home to learn that lesson.

I got there after a week riding a C-141 transport plane all the way from Norton AFB (Air Force Base), to Travis AFB, to Hickam AFB, to Anderson AFB, to Clark AFB, to.. Trust me on this point: It took a whole lot of tos to get me where I wanted to be.

Which brings me back to choices. Diego Garcia in 1978 was isolated duty. I volunteered to go there so the Navy obliged and sent me. I learned that I could usually get what I wanted by asking for stuff few wanted. It wasn't a plan. It was a formula.

UP UP AND HEY

I've voted with my feet twice in the last couple weeks. At Design Camp San Diego and EdCampPerris I listened for a time then got up and moved on. What got me moving was a static message, a conversation where one person was doing most of the talking. I know this as teaching. What I'm much more into these days is learning. It's like traveling by air. You can get there slowly by balloon. To go the distance, to make the big leaps, takes oomph, the sort of thing a rocket is good for. The great thing about EdCamp are conversations, where everyone speaks up and shares. It's a kind of design thinking. Everyone speaks up. Different things resonate with different people. Bonds of empathy bring people together for deeper collaboration.

OUTRO

So I asked why a few times and I got whyze. With this whyzdom came the realization that I don't much like being told how something works. I'd much rather listen to a multitude of others share how they think something works and then try it on for size so I can figure out how it works. Thank you David for why assist.

 

Learning is motion

INTRO

Initial meetings with clients can be illuminating.

LEARNING ENABLES HEARTS AND MINDS TO GET MOVING

The other day I met with a new client. Their team and I are in the "getting to know you" stage. They showed me a number of slides with data on how many courses were in production, how many were live on their LMS and how many courses were taken by their employees.

When I asked about results, what we refer to in the business as return on investment, they drew a blank. Sadly, this is typical. Their data tell a story about butts-in-seats: developing and completing training. But learning is so much more than that.

Don Wettrick teaches a course on innovation at his high school in Indiana. In a Periscope video this morning he talked about how he's considering moving away from traditional grading to PASS/FAIL.

Reflecting on his thoughts I got to thinking that the methods my client and Don use to assess learning misses on efficacy. How well did they achieve their planned result?

One (among many) things I've learned after two years of professional development (PD) alongside K-12 teachers is that mistakes matter. They're a significant part of the learning process. My client, tracking the data they do, don't have visibility on the number of mistakes their organization is making. They don't know if the training they've developed has moved the organization towards its planned result.

OUTRO

I would suggest to Don that grades are important. PASS/FAIL doesn't capture the mistakes learners make along the way. I don't believe grades are a carrot to entice learners to do better for the sake of a higher grade. In Don's Pure Genius he writes how learners say what they're going to do, how much their ultimate work will be worth and then assess along the way and at the end. I believe learning is much more than butts-in-seats. It's about enabling learners to get their hearts and minds in motion doing stuff. Honor the mistakes learners make along the way. Keep the grades.

 

Write This Down

PROLOGUE

“Write this down."

BACKSTORY

A month from now it will be two years that my PD (Professional Development) has taken place primarily through interactions with K-12 educators. I started participating at EdCamp in September 2013. I became a card-carrying member of TCEA (Texas Computer Education Association) around the same time. My learning through CUE conferences and CUERockstar happened this year. It's time and effort well spent.

A few days ago I attended an Explore Teaching session at Rio Salado College. The experience was designed to give pre-teacher students a glimpse of what being a teacher is like. It was quite different from what I expected: the application of pedagogy and technology and engagement. No. It was basic stuff, some of which I had missed during my own K-12 educational experience. Though I had heard that “Being a student doesn’t qualify one to be a teacher." the deeper meaning of the phrase had escaped me until now.

BASICS

My K-12 experience took place in the nineteen sixties and early seventies. I would have liked to have learned about Cornell Notes back then. That’s one cool way of note-taking. I liked learning how to use them as a study-aide too. It’s a more structured way of taking notes but I can see its value.

Beyond learning about note-taking tools I was a little surprised to find that not much else had changed. Teachers still stand at the front of a room pointing and talking. I was a little shocked when the presenter would say, “Write this down.” That was my first aha moment.

ROCKSTAR

The EdCamps and CUE conferences I’ve attended have been dynamic learning experiences. They are heavily focused on educational technology. But the presenters always share how to apply technology to facilitate learning and enable student success. CUERockstar, the most recent K-12 learning experience I completed, was in many ways a capstone where everything came together: creativity, innovation, technology, learning experience. But what about the basics? The teachers I learn from have the basics down. Even the new teachers have student teaching and observation experience.

This was my second aha. Funny to think that it took me almost two years to figure it out. I don’t think I would have gotten it otherwise.

ENGAGEMENT

Since CUERockstar Las Vegas, it ended a couple weeks ago, I’ve tried two things. The first was creating an infographic and using it as a talking point with a subject matter expert (SME). It was amazing. It took my usual design thinking approach to interviewing, something I learned via EdCamp, to a whole new level. The ideas flowed. The SME ended up doing the initial workshop outline for me. This is a big deal because usually I create the outline and the SME reviews and approves it or kicks it back for edits. This saved us a LOT of time.

The other thing I tried was the Breakout Box experience. We, the SME and I, didn’t actually have a box. I explained how it was a box with several locks that needed to be opened and how problems had to be solved to unlock to locks. The SME and I were together for 90 minutes. It was at about the 25 minute mark I mentioned Breakout Box. We hit flow-state a little after.

PROBLEMS

The learning experiences I design are meant to enable learners to be better at solving problems. But what’s a problem? When the SME heard about the Breakout Box the problems all of a sudden seemed to become simpler. They weren’t problems at all. They were puzzles to solve. We could make the workshop a game. I learned from a podcast, I think it was with Jon Corippo, that rigor doesn’t mean harder. It can mean challenging. The SME said it before I did. “How about if we make it so the first activity is easy. They (learners) will have lots of time to solve the puzzle.” Yes. Each iteration of the activity learners have less time to solve the puzzle.

EPILOGUE

A week and a day after CUERockstar Las Vegas ended I earned the Rockstar Badge. Going forwards I have to approach projects using a simpler frame. I can already imagine how to make learning more engaging while consuming fewer resources by getting back to basics. I think I’ll enroll in the teacher program at Rio Salado College. Not to necessarily become a teacher, but to enrich my understanding of how instructional design can teach.

 

Cache Shoes

PROLOGUE

I spend a lot of time in the country. Silos dot this landscape. Though I have no direct knowledge of their operation, the sort of hard-won experience earned through sweat and toil, I'm pretty sure they're used to store stuff like grain and whatnot. When I thought about what to blog on AprilBlogADay Day 5 silos immediately popped into my head.

CACHE

Silos are full of stuff. What stuff? No idea. That is to say, you have to be in the silo to know what's inside.

 

When I think about ways to move education forwards the first constraint I come up with is silos. I do instructional design. I've produced learning experiences for learners in academia, in the corporate realm (financial services and high technology manufacturing), K-12, and government. I've been able to glimpse inside some of the silos, K-12s mostly; however my deepest dive has been in the corporate realm. There's some cool stuff in there. It makes me wonder what caches of know-how are in the silos of other educators.

Through my participation in EdCamp unconferences and events put on by CUE and TCEA I've been able to skim the surface of K-12 teaching and learning strategies. There's some awesome stuff there, by the way. I like the learning and reflecting and, sometimes, figuring out ways of applying it to my craft.

 

SHOES

 

One of the major topics of discussion in corporate L&D (Learning and Development) centers on engagement. How do we, as designers, create training that engages learners so that the messages we try to impart stick more easily. But, and this is sure to upset some, the strategies and tools available to us haven't changed all that much over the years. I dread the NEXT (screen) button in elearing for example. Ditto with compliance courses that require learners to sit in front of a computer for a specific amount of time to be able to get credit.

 

EdCamp has taught me that there are things we can do to get adult learners moving and making. But to make real progress we, educators of all stripes, have to open up our silos to other educators. How's that expression go: Walk a mile in my shoes or something like that.

 

EPILOGUE

 

Sometimes when I suggest a learning strategy to a customer that's a little out there, teaching like a pirate for example, I get raised eyebrows. I immediately say that they need to suspend their disbelief for a moment. Sometimes a leap of faith is required to make real progress. I know the stuff in your silo is the result of years of sweat and toil. All I'm saying is engage educators serving learners other than yours and share what you know.

 

 

 

 

Ed-Pa-Camp

PROLOGUE

I'm a John Wayne fan. Maybe it's because he looks like papa? There's this line he has In Harms Way where The Duke says, "She's a good ship headed in harms way." It's an allusion to a U.S. Navy warship headed out to sea during the opening days following Pearl Harbor. Thinking about raising children and helping them along the way so they're successful in school reminded me of the harm we can do to our children if we don't get it right.

ED

My youngest is about grown. There is so much about her that's new. It scary, in a very good way, when I marvel at what she will do in her life. Though Mrs. and I raised her from a seed there is much about her that is unknown. I think this is wonderful. Realizing this while my daugther and I chatted over breakfast a few minutes ago reminded me there is always at least one more thing that can be learned.

PA

I was lucky to be out of work here and there during the first few years of parenthood. I got to know each of my three girls in a very fundamental way. It's a wonder that I can still see in each one snippets of what they were like when they were little. Along the way being parents Mrs and I made difficult choices regarding where to live, who stays home with the kids because child care can be so expensive, and so on. You've probably made similar decisions, too. Anyway, reflecting on raising my daughters reminded me there is always room for improvement.

CAMP

A few days ago someone asked for my perspective on how the curriculum night experience could be improved. Curriculum night is a rite of passage sort of event in Arizona (maybe everywhere) where parents meet their children's teachers a week or two after the new school year has begun. Topics of discussion include school and teacher policies along with a brief overview of what teachers will teach and students will learn. I replied, foolishly it occurred to me later, that I'd blog about it the next day. Only I didn't. I reflected on what I might say for most of a week.

I thought about the many constraints all those involved in the process face: children, teachers, parents. Time and distance were my main concerns. I usually worked far from home. With curriculum night happening on one night for all grades, classes, and students you can imagine what just getting there in front of a teacher requires.

A year and a half ago I encountered the EdCamp model of professional development courtesy of EdCampWestTexas. The unconference experience, where there is no preset agenda and participants make it up based on the interests of participants and know-how of those in the room, has had a profound effect on my personal and professional life. The EdCamps I participated in were always held on Saturdays; most were on site at a school; several were online via a Google Hangout.

So, after much reflection I think shifting curriculum night from its current model, where it's held for several hours after school on a weeknight, to an EdCamp model is worth a try. Making it an all day, say over six hours, on a Saturday might make it easier for parents to attend. Curriculum night could include all it had before plus a crash-immersion in what teaching strategies teachers use. This is a big deal. Until I started going to EdCamp I had no idea what teaching and learning was really like in my kids' schools.

EPILOGUE

So there it is Jeremy. Remake curriculum night so it looks more like an EdCamp.Take your time with it. Open it up so it's about more than policy. Curriculum night is not something you want to scale: Where, like Christmas, it happens over the span of two or three hours one night.

It'd be cool if the children could come, too. It's in everyone's best interest that we get this education thing right.

 

Empathy Scales

PROLOGUE

"How high?"

EMPATHY

In her latest Learning Rebels blogs post @stipton writes Look up! How high? Up to the blue sky? Or is it enough to look around me, into the tired eyes of the other zombie workers? I think she's talking about the tendency many of us have to be so immersed in our work that our days rush by without us. There are at least two reasons for this. One, we fear falling behind and getting replaced by someone who can keep up. Two, our jobs are so satisfying we're in flow from that first sip of coffee until.. when? I don't believe it's flow. I think it has something to do with empathy and the systems we work in.

SCALES

Simon Bernard-Cohen, explaining Empathizing-Systemizing (E-S) Theory describes five brain types. Two of these, E (Empathizing) and S (Systemizing), are of interest to me as I learn more about designing transformational learning experiences. Empathizing is the ability to feel what others are feeling. Systemizing is the ability to analyze and construct systems. I wonder if when we construct learning systems and training, particularly in online modalities, we give enough consideration of learners' feelings about that learning?

I learned that empathy has two scales: affective and cognitive. Cognitive empathy leans towards systemizing. In a recent Google Hangout I tried, I think unsuccessfully, to make the point that it's possible for instructional designers to scale empathy by producing learning experiences that:

• Have learners spending less time sitting in front of a computer
• Use story as hooks to engage learners more deeply
• Encourage learners to make artifacts that visually evidence they "get it"

Empathy Scales

In a traditional face-to-face classroom I think most teachers can sense what their students are feeling. I have met a number of teachers recently who leverage empathy to get students moving.

Kinesthetics are the missing piece in online learning, especially when that learning takes place 1:1 (computer:learner). There's so much more to learn and prototype about that.

EPILOGUE

Getting back to @stipton's Look Up! While you're up there, ask yourself: What has you working long and hard: worry or flow? The cartoon in Look Up! has someone observing two others pushing a cart with square wheels. To the observer the problem is the wheels. They could expend much less effort if the cart had round wheels, like the one the observer is holding. But from my perspective it's the two pushing who are in flow. Maybe if the observer made the effort to empathize with them the cart would have round wheels sooner rather than later.

 

 

 

 

It's People: PD Is People (and the connections and things they make)

Prologue

I've been known to go way off the beaten path to learn new stuff. Though I own a GoPro camera I'm not too into extreme things to do. Extreme for me means going the (usually long) distance to connect with people and their ideas and ways of doing.

PD Is People

The past year or so my professional development (PD) has come from sharing ideas and ways of doing with other educators far from my home.

Yesterday, for example, I participated in EdCampUCLACenterX in Pico Rivera, California. The school where it took place was an hour's drive from the town where I grew up. The school's architecture and layout reminded me a lot of good 'ol Colton High. Someday I'd like to participate in an EdCamp there. Who knows?

That's why I go the distance for PD: lots and lots of diverse perspectives in safe and familiar environments. Yesterday during the Technology and other checking for understanding session I was asked how different the EdCamps I've been to are from each other. I replied that the focus of the sessions changes. Or maybe because it's the times that are changing. Certainly the district and state environment affect what teachers are interested in learning.

I love meeting new people. I worry sometimes that I might be a little annoying, as I like taking a lot of pictures. I generally ask permission, at least of those nearby.

One thing I think that most everyone I've met at the PD events I've gone to in the last year (DevLearn, EdCamps, COMPILE) share is the need to keep the conversations going. "How do we maintain the relationship?.

Connections

This guy: Jed Butler knows Twitter PD.

In the space of about 20 minutes he spun the most amazing series of short stories about how Twitter PD changed his life and how it can change ours. He took us step by step from starting, to sharing, while pointing out some awesome resources like Cybraryman1's site along the way

Epilogue

I'm hoping to be able to visit Austin, TX next week for EdCampATX and Los Angeles early next year for EdcampLA. Then there's the San Diego CUE but it's the same day as EdCampATX. Try and go out and meet some people: learn something new whilst growing your personal learning network (PLN).

 

 

 

 

It's a small world after all

Prologue

I got back home Halloween night. I'd spent the back half of last week attending the eLearning Guild's DevLearn Conference 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada. I had a few minutes to unload and unwind before Mrs got home from work. So I started in on The Empathy Era by Belinda Parmer, CEO of Lady Geek, a creative agency in the UK.

I'd barely opend it when an infographic caught my eye: There is a direct link between emotional intelligence and salaries (Bradberry and Greaves, 2009). Thinking about this made me want to know more, so I googled emotional intelligence. Which led me to a recent article in The Atlantic about its dark side. Which, after I'd read the article, was a good thing. There are shades of gray in everything. This is why teaching critical thinking is vital.

This train of thought made me wonder where learning critical thinking should happen: at school, at home, or on the job? For me the answer was everywhere, because as I'd learned at DevLearn context is crucial. In school the responsibility for teaching critical thinking to students falls squarely on teachers' shoulders; or does it? Students have a responsibility to own their learning, too. Teaching it to workers on the job falls on, well, the people who design learning experiences: instructional designers like me who work in L&D (Learning and Development). As in K-12, learners have to own their development, too.

Some time later I ended up on Connie Malamed's website reading an article about 10 ideal qualities instructional designers should possess.

K-12 and L&D

I thought, when I began a #madwriting session early this afternoon that this Connect the Dots blog post would be simple. Only it's not. It's nuanced, in this case, because I think instructional designers are educators in the way that teachers are educators.

As I read Malamed's post and the 10 ideal qualities instructional designers should possess the thought, more than once, crossed my mind that the list reminded me of the teachers I met at every EdCamp I've ever been to.

I was a little let-down then when I googled 10 qualities for an ideal teacher. It's not that I didn't find many qualities that both designers and teachers shared. The instructional design qualities seemed to reflect mostly technical intelligence. Teacher qualities appeared to be grounded in emotional intelligence.

One of the teacher better lists came from the Queensland, Australia Department of Education. Being the sort of person I am, a recent convert to the Teach (Design) Like A Pirate discipline, the quality that leapt off the screen to land in my lap was enthusiasm. This felt like the passion I've come to understand makes me want to be better at my job.

Then I went off on a tangent and googled a third time: qualities of an ideal student. I was surprised to find this EdTech Review article from last year about 21st century classrooms. It screams instructional design.

Where does this rhizomatic excursion leave me? Are instructional designers educators like teachers? It depends. If the designer is passionate about what they do and pushes their holistic selves to create an environment where learners can take on more of the responsibility for their education then yes, they are educators. The emotional intelligence, empathy for learners, is what really matters. It's the teachers' context.

Epilogue

Here and there as I wrote this I kept going back to The Empathy Era. It was a good thing, too. Because at the end of Chapter One, at the end of the last paragraph was a sentence that made me shiver with excitement. It was about putting yourself in another's shoes, seeing the world through their eyes, and providing them with something that they didn't know they needed.

I had the good fortune to have been selected to present Applying K-12 Strategies and Technology in Corporate Learnng at DevLearn. What I learned there validated my decision to participate in EdCamp professional development. We share a passion for learning.

And you know what? It's a small world after all. At DevLearn I met Belinda Parmar, author of The Empathy Era. Whilst waiting to meet her I got to speak with Kristen, another DevLearn attendee. She said that a previous DevLearn event had changed her life. I know the feeling. This one changed mine.

References

Bradberry, T. and Greaves, J. (2009). Emotional Intelligence. San Diego: Talent Smart.