Education Innovation

The Builder- Designing The Future of Educational Leadership

2009-12-21T15:33:48-08:00

If we are to create "tomorrow's" educational organization and model, are the leaders of "yesterday's" model the leaders we will need to build "tomorrow's" model?

If education is to be transformed, should we not transform its leaders? If we are to create a new educational organization, then does it follow, we would need a new style of educational leader?

Current educational leaders are skilled at leading in yesterday's model. Today's educational leaders are attempting to fit the needs of "tomorrow" into the organization and model of "yesterday." The educational organization has created leaders who are skilled at operating within that model. But as the model becomes outdated, misaligned with current needs, and in some cases broken, current leaders can only continue to adjust, repair, and re-align the old model the best they can. What they are not able to do is build a new organization. For, according to Umair Haque, author of a post on the Harvard Business Review blog entitled "The Builders' Manifesto" it is not leaders that we need, but "builders."

"What leaders 'lead' are yesterday's organizations. But yesterday's organizations... are broken."

"Today's biggest human challenge isn't leading broken organizations slightly better. It's building better organizations in the first place. It isn't about leadership: it's about "buildership", or what I often refer to as Constructivism.

"Leadership is the art of becoming, well, a leader. Constructivism, in contrast, is the art of becoming a builder — of new institutions. Like artistic Constructivism rejected "art for art's sake," so economic Constructivism rejects leadership for the organization's sake — instead of for society's."

Educational leaders are formed by the needs of the organization of the past. They were developed within a broken organization, to meet the leadership needs of a broken organization, and are skilled at leading a broken organization. But, if what is desired is to build a new organization, what will be needed are educational builders.

Umaik Haque contrasts the boss, the leader, and the builder in piece on

The Boss	The Leader	The Builder
drives group members	coaches them	learns from them
depends upon authority	depends on good will	depends on good
inspires fear	inspires enthusiasm	is inspired — by changing the world
says "I"	says "we"	says "all" — people, communities, and society
assigns the task	leader sets the pace	sees the outcome
says, "Get there on time."	gets there ahead of time	makes sure "getting there" matters.
fixes the blame for the breakdown	fixes the breakdown	prevents the breakdown.
knows how	shows how	shows why
makes work a drudgery	makes work a game	organizes love, not work.
says, "Go."	says, "Let's go."	says: "come."

For it is the "builder" that includes us all, student, teacher, parent, communities, and society, in the design. The builder watches and learns from both teacher and student. Most importantly, the builder harnesses the love. For it is the love, the love of learning, the love of students, and the love of teaching that drives us all forward to build the education organization of tomorrow. The builder harnesses that love.

Philosopher Emile Chartier said, "Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one we have." Might it be time to build a new idea of what educational leadership should be for the future?

Catalytic Questions:

When was the last time you revisited your view of leadership in education? Would you benefit from a fresh look at what education leadership is or needs to be?

Can we continue to rearrange our existing resources, methods, and strategies or is it time that we build an entirely new model of what education is?

Should construction start with demolition before building?

In what ways can you become a builder? How might that impact your school?

Suggested Reading:

What if your school blew up?: The Little Becky approach to school reform

How Good Is Your Educational Sales Force and Their Products?

2009-12-17T00:00:00-08:00

I have been read and enjoyed a great book called Death To All Sacred Cows by David Bernstein, Beau Fraser, and Bill Schwab of The Gate Worldwide. It has nothing to do with education, so, of course, I was instantly attracted to it.

In their chapter titled The Sales Force Makes The Sale, they write about the "sacred cow" that it is a great sales force that sells the product.

The authors butcher this sacred cow.

“When great ideas get turned into great products, a strong Sales Force is essential. They can make the difference between never quite catching on and mega-success. But when lousy ideas get turned into lousy products, even the greatest Sales Force on Earth can’t help you.”

What’s this got to do with education you ask? I am glad you asked?

When great lesson planning gets translated into great lessons, a strong teacher is essential. They can make the difference between the student never quite getting it and the lesson being a great success. But when lousy lessons planning gets translated into lousy lessons, even the greatest teacher can’t help you. The lesson is the product, and a great product needs a great sales person, in this case a teacher, to make it a huge success. It's a partnership of well crafted lessons and instructional sequences, and the sales force, the teacher that makes it all go.

But, they also include the other famous "sacred cow" that the product should sell itself.

How does this sad cow meet its end?

“In most instances, consumers do not buy products. They buy benefits. A product is more than the sum of its parts. It needs to solve problems, create opportunities, makes us feel better about ourselves and the world around us. These benefits are not usually obvious to the naked eye.”

In most instances student do not just accept they need to learn what the teacher is teaching. They learn because of the benefits to them. A great lesson is more than the sum of its parts. It needs to investigate, innovate, imagine, explore, experiment, examine, collaborate, create, and connect to the students’ lives. These benefits are not usually obvious to the naked eye, but it is up to the teacher to demonstrate these benefits. You need a great product and a great sales force.

“…the customer still needs to know why they should want what you’re selling. They need to be told what it will do for them.”

Students still need to know why they should want to learn what your teaching. They need to be told, explained, and demonstrated what it will do for them.

“Charles Revson [Founder of Revlon cosmetics] once said, “In the factory, we make cosmetics. In the drugstore, we sell hope”

Education Innovation once said, “At our desks we make standards based data driven lessons. In front of the students, we ‘sell’ hope.” That is Education Innovation

How good is your sales force? How good is your product?

Blending Education and Design

2009-12-16T00:00:00-08:00

Allow me to dream and muse for a moment. Allow me to dream of a blending, a fusion of education and design. Allow me to imagine, just for a moment, a new design all together different from what we know.

A Design that enhances learning. A Design that creates a learning environment.

An environment that makes learning easier, effective, comfortable, memorable, and attainable.

A design that leverages the beneficial natural behaviors and tendencies of learner while influencing the development of new and necessary behaviors and tendencies.

A design that is learner centric.

A design that grasps the needs, desires, and dreams of those we teach and serve.

A design that creates an experience.
Harness sight, sound, feel, and emotion.
Aesthetically pleasing.

A design that is as memorable as it is functional.A design that is customizable, personalized, mashable, networked, and communal.

A design that allows for inspiration to come from outside of what we know. The Medici Effect. Borrowing Brilliance.

So let us begin. Begin in a less obvious place. Address the less obvious problem first. Let us begin with the knowledge that there is no "One best way" no "Best practice" to follow. Let us begin with the knowledge that there are overlapping spaces of focus...not a sequence of steps to be followed.

Let us begin with what the learner needs. Let us not force design into the existing structure or organization. Let us not begin with, "Will it fit?"

An educational design that addresses the system and the future of learning; not the isolated little pieces of textbooks, computers, data, staff development, and buildings. Design that is a learning experience.

An educational design will embrace boundaries and constraints. We will not fear them. For it is within our boundaries and constraints that we realize what is desirable, viable, and feasible. For once we know our medium, or the limits of our canvass, we are free to make discoveries, recognize patterns, and to as IDEO designer say, "Fail early to succeed sooner."

An educational design pored over and filtered through ice. Not that kind of ice, but the ice that if formed from the application of Lateral Wisdom.

(ICE4)
Imagination, Innovation, Ideation, Improvisation,
Creativity, Curiosity, Collaboration, Crossing
Exploration, Entrepreneurship, Experimentation, Examination

So let us pour our dream over ICE4 and see what sort of educational design we arrive at.

Education Innovation: Nominated For The 2009 Edublog Awards

2009-12-14T19:17:03-08:00

There are thousands of excellent blogs about education and I enjoy reading many of them. That is why it is so humbling for me to have this blog, Education Innovation nominated for the 2009 Edublog Awards in the Best Individual Edublog category.

It is an honor to be included among the other nominees, many of whose thinking I have read and enjoyed for years.

So thanks to you who read my blog and share it with others. It means a lot. I have tried to carve out a unique space here at Education Innovation. It’s a space with different ideas, unconventional ideas, and an approach that attempts to blend and link with what is happening outside education with what is happening inside (or what should be happening) education. Thanks for coming along for the ride over these past few years.

Education Needs To Take A Trip

2009-12-14T00:00:00-08:00

Trust. We all want it, but do we all give it? It is a crucial issue for teachers and administrators.

Chapter 3 of the book The Collaborative Administrator is titled “Trust: The Secret Ingredient to Successful Shared Leadership.”

Trust is a key to school success.
“What then should a principal do to lay a foundation of trust in a school?”

DWYSYWD- Do What You Say You Will Do

Further the authors believe the administrator should…

Operate with honesty and integrity
Make yourself available
Demonstrate a caring attitude
Listen
Encourage risk-taking
Share decision-making
Value dissent
Don’t allow accountability to consume teachers
Make certain that teachers have what they need to teach
Be prepared to confront ineffective teachers

Trust is the first step on a journey to successful schools, the first step of a TRIP that all schools and Professional Learning Communities must make.

Dov Seidman, author of HOW: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything...in Business (and in Life) came up with the acronym T.R.I.P.

Trust
“Trusting in a sense, means giving something away and ceding power to others, an essential step in achieving the outward focus needed in a hyperconnected world. Trust empowers others, but because it is a virtue.”

In the classroom that means taking the first step to give away our perception of control and to trust the students and teachers. As an administrator, you must give power away to others to develop trust in them and their trust in you.

Risk
If there is no trust, “We drive slower, act cautiously, shrink our circle of friends and associates, and generally default more conservative impulses. When there is trust in the room, however, all of these tendencies are reversed. We are secure and so can act boldly. We feel free to invent new process…”

We experiment and try new things. Imagine how a student would feel if he or she was secure enough to try new things, stretch themselves, and take a risk without fear of failure. Imagine if your teachers felt they could take risks that might need to new ways of better meeting the needs of students. Teachers who feel trusted will be more likely to innovate and create and share better ideas and practices.

Innovation
“In a trusting environment, everyone feels emboldened to take more risks. They challenge the system more, they solve problems, and they don’t stay in small boxes afraid to venture into new territory for fear of criticism (by bosses or colleagues). Innovation flows from this creative spirit.”

In a trusting environment teachers would be more open to teaching a new grade or teaching a new class. With trust, a teacher will be more open to sharing new ideas and insight with colleagues. Administrators, if you felt more trust, you would be more willing to experiment with bold programs. Teachers and administrators innovating new ideas without fear of criticism could generate great benefits for students.

Progress
“What happens when you innovate? You create progress.”

Progress is not just limited to higher test scores. Progress extends to personal progress.

“We go on TRIPs because we want to accomplish big things. We go on TRIPs because we want to solve real problems and because we want to create lasting value.”

We go on TRIPs because helping build minds and making a difference is why we got into education in the first place. We go on TRIPs to make an impact.
But there is more to TRIP

T “The T stands for transparency, which creates trust. Interpersonal transparency is a necessary power to thrive in a connected world, and not coincidentally, it creates trust."

When the teachers you work with can see that you are being open and transparent with your ideas, lessons, plans, etc. then they develop trust in you. For a department or grade level to be successful, a condition of transparency must exist. If others think you are hiding something, then they are not going to share what they know. We have all seen or know teachers who are hoarders of ideas. We have all seen and know teachers who are territorial about ideas, or committees, or duties, etc. When these teachers are not transparent, then the others they work begin to feel they need to close up and keep their ideas or territories. We become little islands or silos, each trying to keep their ideas to themselves in hope that they will be perceived as a, “great teacher.” Meanwhile all the kids at the school suffer from this lack of transparency. We must open up and share our best practices and ideas. All of the students deserve the best, not just the ones in my class.

R The R stands for Reputation

Do you know what your reputation is? It may not be what you think. Perception is reality, as they say, so your reputation is largely going to be determined by the perception of those you teach and work with. It may not be what you intended it to be, but it is what others think it is.

I The I stands for Instinct
When there is trust, this can unleash you instinct. “When you are in a trust-filled situation, these synapses are strong. The various centers of your brain communicate seamlessly and rapidly, and you can then make split-second decisions that often pay off.”

Wouldn’t it be easier if you worked and taught in a situation that allowed you to make quick decision without second-guessing yourself due to lack of trust in your students, your co-workers, or your principal. To work in an environment of trust will allow you to make decision in the best interest of the students each and every time without going through all the machinations that those who work where there is no trust will likely go through.

However, I took the liberty of adding another meaning to the I. I The I can also stand for Individual.

We in education are being told exactly what to teach, when to teach, and how to teach. There must be room for the individual talents and ideas of each teacher or administrator. In an environment of trust, each individual teacher or administrator can offer his or her unique ideas and viewpoints.

P The P stands for perennial prosperity.

Prosperity can mean performance. Prosperity can be translated to mean results. Trust brings results. Results from the teachers and administrators, which, in the end, translates to results from the students and the school. Performance increases steadily in the direction of great results.

Trust is key. We need to have trust. I get so tired of people who want to just talk about what has to be done without ever spending to reflect on the HOW it will be done. If we don’t figure out the HOWs then the “whats” won’t be accomplished. Is it worth our time as teachers and administrators to take some time to get our HOWs right?

So how do we get a TRIP going? You figure out where you are, where you want to go, and most importantly, you listen to each other. Our students are counting on us to get going on this TRIP.

New 21st Century Skills- Plagiarism and Piracy?

2009-12-12T00:00:00-08:00

So, what do you get when you combine a book on youth culture, a futurist, Thomas Edision, Disco, pharmaceuticals, Hollywood, the iPod, and school research reports? Let put in them in the Education Innovation Blender a take a look.
Is it piracy and plagiarism, or is it creativity and innovation? Which do you suppose we should be teaching our students to do? Two previous posts have inspired this discussion.
Plagiarism and Pirates
Plagiarism Is A Good Thing?

We live in an age where anybody can produce, mix, or re-purpose information and ideas.
When we pirate information and ideas, we may just be innovating new ideas and creating new ways of doing things.
Thomas Edison invented the phonograph and musicians viewed it as piracy. He was pirating their music, recording it, and selling it. They feared the end of live performances, instead an entire industry was born, the music industry.
MP3 players existed prior to the iPod, but the iPod pirated that technology and created it’s own phenomena. Music lovers, wanting to share music with each other without paying, created digital music sites like Napster. They were pirating their way around and outside of what the music industry existed to do. Steve Jobs figured out that to beat the pirates he had to compete with them and built iTunes. The pirates ideas had become mainstream and put old music sellers out of business. It is piracy or innovation? Is it plagiarism or creativity?
The iPod itself is just a combination of pre-existing ideas; the battery, operating system, hard drive, screen, MP3 technology, etc.
Reggae, Disco, and Hip-hop music demonstrate that we can repurpose music into something new. The pirate old songs and create new and innovative versions. These versions become so popular that they create entirely new music genres. It is piracy or creativity?
Moviemakers, not wanting to pay high fees in New York pirates their way around the system by setting up studios in California. Today we call it Hollywood.
India reverse engineers drugs for the poor pirating what they themselves could not afford to do. Drug companies, sensing the good public relations they can benefit from, begin selling their drugs at huge discounts an in some cases giving them away. They respond to the pirates by creating an entirely new approach of serving the poor of the world. Piracy or creativity?
Teachers pirate great lesson plans and instructional ideas from other teacher all the time. It helps them to be more effective and learn new ways of instructing their students.
So, is piracy and plagiarism just another way of being creative and innovative? Are they a source of new ideas, methods, and models? Are there links to each other or are they mutually exclusive?
A senior business executive needing the most current research on a company or economic trend asks his junior executive to find the best and most current information. The junior executive doesn’t start his or her own research project, rather he or she Googles the information looking for the most current research on the topic that has already been done by the most respected and knowledgeable experts. He or she copies it, rips it, digitizes it, scans it, re-purposes it, integrates it, synthesizes it, and puts into a usable document to give the senior executive. This is what we call good research.
In the classroom we call plagiarism. So, it is plagiarism or creativity?
Most of the examples I shared, which come from Matt Mason, would be examples of plagiarism and cheating if they happened inside a classroom.
Doesn't there seem to be a disconnect from what we do in the classroom and what the real world expects of them? I know most of you are saying it's about the process. But if that is true, then why do we spend so much time evaluating and grading the result?
If it really is about process then Pat Dixon has an idea;

Give the students a question they know nothing about.

Give them 30 minutes to put together a 3000 word report on that question.

Grade for Correctness in the answer

Authoritativeness of sources used

Uniqueness of of the pieced together report.

Catalytic Questions:
In what ways could you re-purpose your research report assignments to develop real world skills that focus on the process, the correctness, the authoritativeness, and uniqueness of synthesis?
What might that look like in your classroom or school?
How does your current understanding of technology, business, and innovation impact your thoughts?
How might your students be better served with the assignments they work on?
In what ways have you been successful in the past in adjusting assignments to meet the changing needs of the students and the world they live in? How might you draw upon that experience?
In what ways does the discussion of plagiarism and pirating vs. creativity and innovation force you to think in new ways?
What are the underlying principles at work in this discussion and how does it/they impact your approach to education?
What if you were to reverse the process and have students examine existing reports and determine how well they meet the criteria for a good research report?
Which assignments could you substitute with these new ideas?
Recommended Reading:
Where's the Respect? A 21st Century Learning Question
The Dangers and Benefits of Piracy and The Pirate's Dilemma

Linking Creativity And Inquiry

2009-12-11T21:14:55-08:00

Linking Creativity And Inquiry

View more presentations from ArtsSmarts.

Do Your Educational Assumptions Provide Educational Alternatives?

2009-12-10T00:00:00-08:00

Do your assumptions about what education should be leave you with a lack of alternatives?
One of the reasons why many people, including myself, love books like Freakonomics, Super Freakonomics, Predictably Irrational, or The Economic Naturalist is that is takes our assumptions about the world around us and stands them on their head. When what we assumed about our world is discovered to be incorrect, we must develop alternatives in our thinking and our approach to the world around us.
We have created a model of education based on our assumptions about what education is. So let's consider our educational model.
As part of the book The Organization Of The Future, James O’ Toole contributed an essay titled “Free To Choose: How American Managers Can Create Globally Competitive Workplaces” In his essay he describes 3 “Emerging Employer Models.” He describes them as follows:
Low-Cost Companies

They are paid at (or close to) the minimum wage.

They receive few if any benefits

They have no job security

They are given only the amount of training needed to do jobs that have been designed to be simple and easy to learn.

Global-Competitor Companies

Increasingly hire people on a contractual basis and, where possible, outsource and offshore work.

Offer their “contingent” workers no security beyond the time limits of their contracts, and no promises of a continuing employment relationship.

Often look outside to hire even permanent and top-level employees, carefully limiting how much they respond on developing managers and professionals, let alone on the training of workers.

Frequently offer “then new employment contract,” in which they commit to telling employees what their strategy is and where they think future jobs in the organization will be, and workers then are told that their continual employment depends on their performance and the fit between their skills and the needs of the business.

Are constantly searching for workers with the skills needed for today’s challenges. And although they pay top dollar for that talent, they expect employees to work long hours and, especially, to be productive.

High-Involvement Companies

Challenging and enriched jobs

A say in the management of their own tasks

A commitment to low turnover and few layoffs

A relatively egalitarian workplace, with few class distinctions between managers and workers and relatively small ratios between the salaries of the CEO and the average worker

Jobs organized in self-managing teams

A strong sense that every employee is a member of a supportive community

Extensive, ongoing training and education to all

Salaries rather than hourly wages

Employee participation in company stock ownership and a high share in company profits

O’ Toole advocates for the High-Involvement Company as the model of the future.
According to James O’ Toole, the most successful companies now and of the future will be those that choose to address the deepest needs of their employees.
•    Financial resources and security
•    Meaningful work that offers the opportunity for human development
•    Supportive social relationships
So, to which model would the current system of education belong?
Does the current education model meet the 3 deepest needs of it's employees?
Is education, as a governmental organization, so unique that none of the models described above apply? Is it a hybrid of one, two, or all of them?
It is our assumptions about what education is, where and when learning and teaching takes place, and how education, school districts, and school sites should be organized that control the current organizational face of education. We have built what we assumed is the best organization and model for delivery of instruction to a population.
What, however, if those assumptions are wrong?
Have you ever considered the fact that the assumptions you make about what education is and what is should be are wrong?
As O’Toole puts it, “Remember, it was once widely assumed that no airline could trust its employees to decide how best to serve customers—until Southwest did. It one was assumed that no company in the discount retail industry could succeed while paying its employees decent salaries and offering them full benefits—until Costco did. It was assumed that poorly educated blue-collar workers in old-line manufacturing firms could not be taught managerial accounting and then left to be self-managing—until SRC Holdings did. Once the conventional wisdom was that employees must be closely supervised and governed by rules—until W.L. Gore proved otherwise. And it was assumed that the first thing a company must do in a financial crisis is to lay off workers—until Xilinx discovered alternatives.”
Are there alternatives to our current model?
Does education have alternatives? Are educational leaders willing to honestly explore them? Will teachers, union leaders, parents, and politicians allow for different assumptions to be pursued? William A. Foster said, “Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.” Is what we have built the "wise choice of many alternatives", or is it simply what we have ended up with?
Archibald MacLeish once said, "What is freedom? Freedom is the right to choose: the right to create for oneself the alternatives of choice." Wil education and those in it ever have the freedom to develop and create alternatives to the current model. Will we be free to pursue the The High-Involvement Company or the Global-Competitor Company, as described by O' Toole, or a hybrid of the two, or even something not yet discovered?

As O’ Toole says, “The statement ‘I have no alternative’ is one of the surest indicators of leadership failure.”

9 Signs of a Losing School

2009-12-08T00:00:00-08:00

From the Idea Management Systems blog comes this post The 9 Signs of a Losing Organisation

Fuzzy Vision

Lack of Leadership Skills

Discouraging Culture

High Bureaucracy

Lack of Initiative

Poor Vertical Communication

Poor Cross-functional Collaboration

Poor Teamwork

Idea and Knowledge Management

Do any of these jump out at you? One of the least obvious for education is number 9, Idea and Knowledge Management. Too many teachers are spending too much time in their rooms and not enough time sharing their ideas, knowledge, and wisdom. Too many principals and educational managers are not encouraging or putting in place systems for formal sharing of ideas and knowledge.
Technology allows teams to connect to islands of expertise located in any geographic location. Technology allows teams to archive their learning and share with others. Knowing what others know and sharing what you have learned is what I refer to as Wisdom Stewardship. Technology makes it easy for educators and schools to be good stewards of available wisdom and to know what others know. This is the where I see PLCs transitioning to Professional Networked Learning Collaboratives, designed with knowledge management in mind. The sum result is that technology allows the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative to “Know What Others Know” (K.W.O.K.).
No school staff knows how much they know until they know what each other knows. (Read it again!)
Catalytic Questions:
What places are you failing to look for ideas or answers to problems?
In what ways could you get curious about what your staff knows?
How might your assumptions about knowledge and ideas be getting in the way of learning from your staff?
What if you were able to know everything your staff knows. How might that change instruction at your school?
What might you have done in the past that could be applied to Idea and Knowledge Management at your school site?
What resources or solutions are available to you that you may have overlooked?

Professional Learning Community- Harness The Power of "Q"

2009-12-03T00:00:00-08:00

Research has proven that Professional Learning Communities are one of the most powerful educational paradigms. The Professional Learning Community takes the individual teacher and hooks them into a network of their grade level or department level peers. This network in turn makes it possible for teacher to leverage the power of those present at the table to do more for students.

I have advocated that technology and other key drivers have created an environment in which individual Professional Learning Communities can be networked with, not only other Professional Learning Communities, but useful individuals such as specialists, district personnel, researchers, etc. I call this model the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative. The essence of the PNLC is that the “who” of potential members and collaborators is increased exponentially because of individual members networking through collaborative technology platforms, the “what.” Educators working together in the ongoing purpose of increasing student learning and achievement while sharing physical space, virtual space, or both simultaneously.

The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative makes use of what network researchers call a “small world network.” Keith Sawyer, author of Group Genius, explains that small world networks consist of, “…many densely connected small groups with less strong connections.”

Brian Uzzi of Northwestern University and Jarrett Spiro of Stanford University studied the 20the century Broadway musical industry, an industry in which many teams of people created projects, and then moved on to new projects, but maintained varying levels of interconnectedness. The Broadway musical industry was a network. From their research the derive a single number, which they called “Q.” Q is a measure of how densely interconnected the entire community is.

As Keith Sawyer points out, “When Q is low, there aren’t many links among teams, and those links aren’t very strong. When Q is high, the teams are connected by more and more people who know people on the other teams. If Q is very high, then teams are connected by many members and everyone has worked with everyone else multiple times.”

The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative attempts to harness they power of Q by creating connections with many more people than the team members sitting at the table. As these connections increase and are frequently re-visited, the level of Q increases.

Connections are the key. More connections increase the surface area of the typical PLC and exposes them to many more people who can contribute in meaningful ways to the work of the PLC.

“Connections expose a team to new sources of creative material. But if the network is totally connected, there is less diversity of ideas and the web risks falling into a rut of conventional styles. Recall the research showing that brainstorming groups often fall into groupthink and become less innovative than solitary workers. The most creative web is the one in which good connections exist among the teams, but the teams still enjoy independence and autonomy.”

Professional Networked Learning Collaboratives leverage the INDIVIDUAL networks of each member. No two networks look the same; therefore the PNLC is leveraging multiple unique networks. This uniqueness helps to offset the problem of groupthink and allows the PNLC the autonomy and professional discretion that Professional Learning Communities enjoy.

Want to raise the IQ of your teacher collaboration, then create your own Professional Networked Learning Collabortive and harness the power of Q. More Q equals more IQ.

Essential Education: “Awesomely Simple” by John Spence

2009-12-02T00:00:00-08:00
Robert Jacobs

Turning Your School Into A "Skunk Works" of Lateral Innovation

2009-12-01T00:00:00-08:00

Innovation should not be linear. Most of us are familiar with examples of the great innovation teams from the business and engineering world. Examples such as Xerox- PARC’s group, to Apple’s Macintosh group, to Lockheed Martin’s famous “Skunk Works” have lead many of us to believe that innovative ideas should be developed by groups of “creative people” somewhere outside of school and then be brought into the school for teachers and administrators to execute. That is linear innovation and linear innovation should not be the goal of schools and school districts. Innovation should not be separated from schools and the district.
Group Genius author Keith Sawyer puts is this way..
“If innovation is linear, the idea stage can be separated out and placed in a more creative unit of the organization, and the execution can still take place in a more traditional bureaucratic structure.”

Many of us have been conditioned to believe this is the way is should work in our schools. Let the experts come up with the ideas and then tell us what to do. But if we allow that mindset to continue then the schools or school districts never develop the capacity to bring their creativity, knowledge, and ideas to bear. Simply sitting back and waiting for other to think it up for us does nothing to develop innovation abilities.
Sawyer points out that,"... although separation can be good for short-term creativity, it interferes with long term innovation: An isolated “skunk works” usually has trouble communicating with the rest of the organization because innovation requires collaboration across the company.”
In other words, for the long-term benefit of the school or district, the best innovation is not linear, but lateral. We need to innovation and create together because everyone at the school or in the district is needed to collaborate on the new idea of innovation to effectively implement it and embed it. Collaborating laterally, across the team, the grade level, the department, the school, and the district.

Different cultures, different styles of communication, and different perspectives are natural barriers to those on the outside of the school or district. It makes it difficult to interface with the school or district, which are being asked to execute their innovations.

“The skunk works model places all its hope on one big flash of inspiration that must come from a select group of special people. But we’ve seen that even the most transformative new products and systems emerge from many small sparks of insight. Successful innovative companies keep these small sparks inspiring the next one.”

Lateral innovation occurs when teacher and administrators working next to each other day-in and day-out collaborate on these “small sparks” of insight and inspiration to produce innovation from within. These innovations are more likely to overcome the barriers that innovation from outside faces. Lateral innovation has more buy-in, is more contextual, and more focused.

If you want to make innovation a strength and capacity of your school or district, don’t look outside for linear innovation, but look inside for lateral innovation.

Essential Education: Lawrence Lessig on Institutional Corruption

2009-11-29T18:14:58-08:00
Robert Jacobs

Essential Education: Charles Leadbeater on Collaborative Creativity

2009-11-23T08:36:00-08:00
Robert Jacobs

Be More Than A School Administrator...Be An Innovation Coach

2009-11-18T00:00:00-08:00

I have an idea…

"It will never work."
"We don’t have the budget to do it."
"It will take to much time and we just don’t have any to waste."
"The district won’t like it."
"Teachers won’t want to do that."
"That isn’t the way we do things at this school."
"What does that have to do with test scores?"

These are just a sample of the typical answers we in education hear when we have an idea. Don’t scoff to easily, think about it a second. After a few perfunctory, “That’s great” or “Sounds interesting” we generally work our way to some of those responses.

What we need is some principals, directors, managers, and superintendents who encourage and support innovation. If change or improvement is what we seek, then changing what we do or how we do it should be encouraged not discouraged.

Mitch Ditkoff writes at The Heart Innovation, the weblog of Idea Champions, that we need managers who are Innovation Coaches. We need managers and leaders who can encourage and develop ideas.
“Most managers, unfortunately, perceive new ideas as problems -- especially if the ideas are not their own. Bottom line, they don't pay enough attention to the ideas of the people around them. They say they want to innovate. They say they want "their people" to do something different. But they do precious little to support their subordinates in their efforts to do so. They foist their ideas on others and can't figure out why things aren't happening faster.

“That's not how change happens. If people are only acting out somebody else's ideas, it's only a matter of time before they feel discounted, disempowered and... well...just plain dissed. People are more than hired hands; they are hired minds and hearts, as well.”
Coaches empower others to reach within themselves and pull out their best, their best ideas and innovations. We need managers who will coach their people to pull out their best ideas and support them in the endeavor of finding, creating, and developing these ideas into innovative practices that impact their schools and their students. We need school administrators who can become Innovation Coaches.
“If you want to empower people, honor their ideas. Give them room to challenge the status quo. Give them room to move -- and, by extension, move mountains. Why? Because people identify most with their ideas. "I think therefore, I am" is their motto. People feel good when they're encouraged to originate and develop ideas. It gives their work meaning, makes it their own, and intrinsically motivates.

“Who has the power in an organization? The people who are allowed to think for themselves and then act on their ideas! Who doesn't have power? The people who have to continually check-in with others.

“Think about it. The arrival of a new idea is typically accompanied by a wonderful feeling of upliftment and excitement -- even intoxication. It's inspiring to have a new idea, to intuit a new way of getting the job done. Not only does this new idea have the potential to bring value to the company, it temporarily frees the idea originator from their normal habits of thinking. A sixth sense takes over, releasing the individual from the gravity of status quo thinking.”
Nothing is more powerful and unstoppable than empowered and excited teachers. Those are the teachers who can change the world. So we need to be open to and encourage our teachers to bring ideas to us.

“You, as a manager, want to increase the number of new ideas being pitched to you. It's that simple. You want to create an environment where new ideas are popping all the time. If you do, old problems and ineffective ways of doing things will begin dissolving. This is the hallmark of an empowered organization -- a place where everyone is encouraged and empowered to think creatively. Within this kind of environment managers become coaches, not gatekeepers.”

Innovation and change doesn’t happen because you have some catchy vision statement printed on a poster and posted in all the classrooms. That is leadership through lamination. What is needed is leadership through co-creation and co-innovation.

“Creativity cannot be legislated. It cannot be sustained by mission statements and pep talks. What needs to happen is you, as a manager, need to change the way you relate to people. Each encounter you have with another in the workplace needs to quicken the likelihood that their unexpressed ideas will get a fair hearing -- enabling a far greater percentage of them to eventually take root.”

So the next time one of your people comes to you with an idea, be a Innovation Coach and help them develop the idea into something truly innovative.

Mitch suggests…
* "That sounds interesting. Can you tell me more?"
* "What excites you the most about this idea?"
* "What is the essence of your idea - the core principle?"
* "How do you imagine your idea will benefit others?"
* "In what ways does your idea fit with our strategic vision?"
* "What information do you still need?"
* "Who are your likely collaborators?"
* "Is there anything similar to your idea on the market?
* "What support do you need from me?"
* "What is your next step?"

What Would Peter Drucker Say About Education Leadership?

2009-11-16T00:00:00-08:00

What follows is a quote from Peter Drucker, but with an Education Innovation twist. I have removed words like business, company, executive, and economics; and replaced them with school(s), education, and principal.
“Schools prefer not to abandon the old, the obsolescent, the no-longer-productive; they’d rather hang on to it and keep on pouring money into it. Worse still, they then assign their most capable people ‘defending’ the outworn in a massive misallocation of the scarcest and most valuable resource—the human resource that needs to be allocated to making tomorrow, if the school is to have a tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow always arrives…It is always different. And then even the mightiest school is in trouble if it has not worked on the future. It will have lost distinction and leadership—all that will remain is big-education overhead…Not having dared to take of making the new happen, it perforce took the much greater risk of being surprised by what did happen…And this is a risk that even the largest and richest school cannot afford and that even the smallest school need not run.”
“The principal has to accept responsibility for making the future happen…It is the willingness to tackle purposefully this, the last of the educational tasks in education that distinguishes the great schools from the merely competent one, and education builder from school principal’s office occupant.”

Essential Education: "Myths and Opportunities: Technology in the Classroom" by Alan November

2009-11-15T19:00:36-08:00

Find more videos like this on NL Connect

Literacy Challenges of The Social Technographic Ladder

2009-11-10T00:00:00-08:00

The ladder. Charlene Li and Josh Bernofff have written a great book titled Groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social technologies. In their book they describe The Social Technographics ladder.

“Each step on the ladder represents a group of consumers more involved in the groundswell than the previous steps. To join the group on a step, a consumer need only participate in one of the listed activities at least monthly.”
I believe that each rung of the Social Technographic ladder presents a unique literacy challenge for our students.
As an educator you know the standards, the curriculum, and the methods to bring about literacy. If technology is not part of that you are missing a major component of what our students will need in the coming years. Our students need to be able to climb the "ladder" and it is your job to make sure they get those opportunities.

Top Rung: Creators
These are the people who, at least once a month, publish a blog, put an article online, maintain a website, or upload music or videos. In the United States, about 18% of us on are the top rung or creators.
The percentage is only going to go up. So, what are you doing to prepare your students to be creators? How are you preparing your students to occupy the “top rung” of the Social Technographics ladder?
If you think about it, this is a question of literacy. For example, here are the writing standards for 6th grade in California:
Narrative
^{write narratives, that(1) establish and develop plot and setting, and choose a point of view that is appropriate to stories
(2) include sensory details and concrete language to develop plot and character
(3) use a range of narrative strategies (e.g., dialogue, suspense)
Expository
Write expository compositions (e.g., description, explanation, comparison and contrast, and/or problem/solution) that
(1) state the thesis or purpose
(2) explain the situation
(3) follow an organizational pattern appropriate to the type of composition (e.g., if problem/solution, then paired)
(4) offer persuasive evidence for the validity of the description, proposed solutions, etc.
Research Reports
Write research reports that
(1) pose relevant questions narrow enough to be thoroughly covered
(2)
support the main idea(s) with facts, details, examples, and
explanations from multiple authoritative sources (e.g., speakers,
periodicals, on-line information searches)
(3) use a bibliography
Persuasive
2.5. write persuasive compositions (or letters for grade 5) that
(1) state a clear position in support of a proposition or proposal
(2)
support the position with organized and relevant evidence; and (3)
anticipate and address reader concerns and counter-arguments}
The standards seem to say that we want students to be creators. The question I have is; are we preparing our students to occupy the top rung in the groundswell. Remember, the groundswell is: “A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations.”
In other words, the groundswell is what is taking place in this new ecosystem called the web where any person, in any place, can be a producer of media. Or, as Clay Shirky says, every person is a one-man media outlet.
So why only 18% participation? Obviously this is an optional activity. Nobody has to be a creator. In our classrooms we require that our students be creators. We want all of our students on the top rung. We ask that our students create stories, research reports, projects, and narratives. We are teaching the next generation to succeed in this new online ecosystem. The standards seem to suggest we have the right intentions, but do those standards prepare our students for life in the groundswell? I think it depends on the teacher. The greater the teacher's understanding of the power of the groundswell in the online ecosystem, the better the assignments will utilize technology as part of learning and mastering the standards.
The next rung down: Critics
Critics react to what has been created. This is similar to the responding to literature standard.
_{Response to Literature
Write responses to literature that
(1) develop an interpretation which exhibits careful reading, understanding and insight
(2) organize the interpretation around several clear ideas, premises, or images
(3) develop and justify the interpretation through sustained use of examples and textual evidence}
Again, the question becomes, are we properly preparing our students for being a critic in the groundswell?
When I was a student, I was never allowed to comment on what other students wrote. Even in college, my job was to create. The only opportunities I had to be a critic was in writing a book report. Most of us are simply not used to commenting on blogs. We were not trained to do it as students and we had so few opportunities in our academic lives to practice it. But, our students are growing up in the online ecosystem that allows them to comment and critique nearly everything. They can comment on a song, a picture, a video, place a comment on a blog, put a book review on Amazon, or review a product on CNET.
Their world is the world of the critic. Are we as educators equipping them to succeed in this world? Are we preparing them for life on the second rung? What opportunities do your students have to critique what others have created?
The next rung down: Collectors
Collector collect RSS feeds, save website to Del.icio.us, vote for sites on Digg, and accumulate all forms of created digital media from the online world.
So, what standards address that? How are we preparing our students to be effective collectors of information? What opportunities do our students get to practice the art of selective information collection? How do our students learn to filter information for their select needs? How are we preparing our students to be literate collectors?
The next rung down: Joiners
Members of Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Orcut, etc. are all joiners. These are the people who maintain profiles on social networking sites. My guess is that most of our students are far ahead of most of their teachers in this aspect. But, how can we teach our students the skills necessary to properly maintain these sites for optimal effect and leverage their power to further themselves via networking?
Our students are natural collaborators and net-workers, but how are we making them literate in the power of networks?
The next rung down: Spectators
Spectators consume what the rest produce. This is the largest part of the groundswell. This is about making choices. What they choose to consume can enhance our students’ education. So, our students need to make choices that will enhance them as people, as students, as informed citizens, etc. Of course kids will always choose the strange and offbeat, but we can equip them to understand what sorts of media are important for them to consume. What opportunities are your students getting to be selective literate spectators?
The bottom rung: Inactives
These are the people who are not impacted by the groundswell at all. For our students, it might those students who have no access to technology and the web. I still meet students and parents who have no web access. If the school isn’t providing it, and they have no access at home, when are these students given chances to move from inactive to spectator, to joiner, to collector, to critic, or to creator? We need to think about how we can provide opportunities and resources for them to climb the Social Technographic ladder. It is a literacy issue for life in the 21st century.
Catalytic Questions
In what way is your leadership preparing your school and your students for the literacy of technology?
Is your personal leadership and catalyst or hurdle in the implementation of technologies that will provide opportunities for technology literacy?
In what ways do our current literacy standards meet or fall short of the issues and challenges faced by our students at each rung of the Social Technographic ladder?
In what way can we better prepare our students to be literate creators of information?
How might this look in a classroom?
In what ways can we provide opportunities for our students to be literate critics of created information?
In what ways can we prepare our students to be literate collectors of information?
What might this look like in the classroom?
How might we prepare our students to leverage the power of networks?
In what ways could we prepare our students to make literate choices about the networks they join and the information they place on those networks?
In what was are we preparing our students to be literate spectators of information?
How might we better equip our students to make excellent choices in the information they consume each day?
In what ways can we provide resources or tools to move the non-participating Inactive up the Social Technographic ladder?

Dumber Together? Brainstorming in a Professional Learning Community

2009-11-09T00:00:00-08:00

You have seen it before. The PLC agenda says, “Brainstorm ideas for…” You look around and see the chart paper, pens, and Post-It notes lying on the table, and you think to yourself, “Why do we waste the time.”
You know the rules of brainstorming in PLCs…
1. No criticism
2. Wild ideas are welcome
3. Quantity is the goal, the more the better.
4. Look for combinations of previous ideas and improvements on previous ideas.
You also know that it helps if your PLCs…
1. Stay focused
2. Stick to one conversation at a time
3. Get visual and physical
4. Use chart paper, white boards, Post-It notes, etc.
You know all these things. But does it work the way you hope it would. Are your PLC brainstorming sessions effective? Are they creative? Do they produce quality ideas to drive instruction and increase student achievement?
According to Keith Sawyer, author of Group Genius, “In many organizations, the group ends up being dumber than the individual members.”
Why you ask?
Because, according to Sawyer, “…decades of research have consistently shown that brainstorming groups think of far fewer ideas than the same number of people who work alone and later pool their ideas.”
In other words, instead of brainstorming, you should brain assemble. Put the ideas generated by individual teachers alone into an “idea pool” an assemblage of ideas.
It not that these rules of common brainstorming don’t work, it just that they work best when done by one’s self. “These studies just show that the rules work better when people use them alone than when they use them in groups.”
A lot of bad ideas are of no use to a PLC. What is needed is a lot of good ideas, or at least as many good ideas as the team is capable of generating.
But what makes an idea “good?”
According to Sawyer, we often judge ideas based on the wrong criteria. “Most people use the wrong criteria to evaluate their ideas; they think about what will work, about what worked before, or about what is familiar to them.”

What if you judged ideas based on how creative, how original, how unique, or how valuable they are? If you knew this is how ideas generated by PLC team members would be measured, chances are the teams would generate more creative ideas. You should give directions to your PLC teams that explain this.
Sawyer refers to this as “critical instructions.”
Telling your PLC that we want well thought out ideas that meet the instructional needs of students, ideas that are practical, unique, valuable, and high quality; no silly or impossible ideas.
Establishing an evaluation criterion for ideas sounds counter-intuitive, but Sawyer cites studies that show brainstorming sessions are more productive when participants are told their ideas will be evaluated for creativity and that, in fact, participants are more creative than with no criteria at all.
So instead of just telling your PLC teams to fill up a piece of chart paper with ideas, give them “critical directions” and judge them according to your pre-established criteria. You will turn brainstorming into an effective PLC tool, instead of a time wasting activity that fills ups chart paper but does nothing to improve quality of ideas developed using "critical instructions" and "idea criterion." Use the "new rules" of brainstorming.

The Power Of Impossible

2009-11-06T21:57:55-08:00

The Power Of Impossible By Mark Raison Yellow Ideas Eaci Ecci Creativity Congress 29 10 09

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