Education Innovation

7 Ways Leaders Maximize Learning With Books

1. Analyze Learning Habits
    Is your learning planned? 
    How many books do I read in a year? 

2. Schedule Time for Learning
    Establish a reading goal
    Prioritize and schedule time to read
    Use empty time

3. Balance Your Learning
    Read people you disagree with
    Read broadly

4. Don't Just Read a Book 
    Wrestle with it
    Respond to what you read
    Mark up your books and take notes

5. Read Critically
    Author- who wrote it? 
    Testimonials- who recommends it? 
    Contents- what's in it? 
    Research- what are it's sources? 
    Reviews- what do the critics say? 
    Publisher- who sponsored it? 
    Audience- who is it written for? 
    Time- how long has it been around? 
    Red flags- are there problems with it? 

6. Do A Monthly Web Tour
    Find new books on the web and social media. 

7. Build Your Own Library
    Virtual or physical 

Conventional Leadership vs. Lateral Leadership

Is this the sort of leadership that your school or district needs? More from from Paul Sloane’s list of Conventional Leaders vs. Lateral Leaders found in his book The Leader’s Guide To Lateral Thinking Skills.

and

See more of these traits here (Do You Need Better or Different? )

Howard Gardner calls for "indirect leadership."

"A leader is an individual (or, rarely, a set of individuals) who significantly affects the thoughts, feelings, and/or behaviors of a significant number of individuals. Most acknowledged leaders are "direct." They address their public face-to-face. But I have called attention to an unrecognized phenomenon: indirect leadership. In this variety of leading, individuals exert impact through the works that they create.

Whether direct or indirect, leaders fashion stories: principally stories of identity. It is important that a leader be a good storyteller, but equally crucial that the leader embody that story in his or her life. When a leader tells stories to experts, the stories can be quite sophisticated; but when the leader is dealing with a diverse, heterogeneous group, the story must be sufficiently elemental to be understood by the untutored, or 'unschooled,' mind."

Which does your school or district need?

Catalytic Questions:

In what ways is your communication style growing to meet the needs of your school or district?  Will the way you communicate change in the future or remain the same?

What problems are you working on that would benefit from empowering someone else to solve it?

Are you current hiring practices bringing in the most talented candidates? Are there alternatives to you current hiring practices that might improve your results?

How might you look to the past to find new approaches to your current issues?

In what ways might you combine ideas from outside of education to develop new and innovative ideas in education?

How might you encourage and empower your staff to share their ideas?

Which sort of leadership will help you reach your goals, more of the same or lateral or indirect leadership?

The Contradictions of Student Creativity

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Professor of Psychology and Management at Claremont College and author of the book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, said

“Of all human activities, creativity comes closest to providing the fulfillment we all hope to get in our lives. Call it full-blast living.”

Full blast living, embracing our creativity and that of our students, if often filled with contradictions.

From Psychology Today via Write Before Thinking blog

“Creative individuals are remarkable for their ability to adapt to almost any situation and to make do with whatever is at hand to reach their goals. If I had to express in one word what makes their personalities different from others, it's complexity. They show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated. They contain contradictory extremes; instead of being an "individual," each of them is a "multitude."”

1. Creative people have a great deal of physical energy, but they're also often quiet and at rest.

2. Creative people tend to be smart yet naive at the same time.

3. Creative people combine playfulness and discipline, or responsibility and irresponsibility.

4. Creative people alternate between imagination and fantasy, and a rooted sense of reality.

5. Creative people trend to be both extroverted and introverted.

6. Creative people are humble and proud at the same time.

7. Creative people, to an extent, escape rigid gender role stereotyping.

8. Creative people are both rebellious and conservative.

9. Most creative people are very passionate about their work, yet they can be extremely objective about it as well.

10. Creative people's openness and sensitivity often exposes them to suffering and pain, yet also to a great deal of enjoyment.

Does this sound like any of your students or educators you know?

So many of our students and teachers are filled with these apparent contradictions. We should avoid looking at one behavior or another and make assumptions about creativity or lack of creativity.

Similarly, we as educators, if we are to truly nurture creativity in our students, will need to become comfortable with results that do not meet our expectations, but are, none the less, creative.

As Clay Shirky points out in his book Cognitive Surplus, "The stupidest possible creative act is still a creative act."

Think of it. No matter how silly or feeble the result, the attempt is still creative. Students need to be encouraged to engage in the creative act, and not worry about judgment.

Shirky continues, "On the spectrum of creative work, the difference between the mediocre and the good is vast. Mediocrity is, however, still on the spectrum; you can move from mediocre to good in increments. The real gap is between doing nothing and doing something..."

So this begs a few questions.

Are we as educators willing to accept and even embrace the seeming contradictions in creatives and even encourage these contradictions by moving students along the spectrum of creative work?

Are we as educators willing to push a student to bridge the gap between doing nothing and something?

Are we as educators willing to accept the contradictions of creativity, the spectrum of creative work, help students bridge the gaps between action and inaction, and push students into pursuing "full blast living?" 

Are we as educators comfortable with the messiness and fuzziness that is creativity? We must.

Educational Edgecraft

What do you get when you combine the ideas of John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, Lang Davison, Seth Godin, and Michael Michalko? Into the Education Innovation blender they go. The result-- Educational Edgecraft

Let's talk about edges.

John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison, authors of The Power of Pull, defines edges this way.

“Edges are places that become fertile ground for innovation because they spawn new unmet needs and unexploited capabilities and attract people who are risk takers. Edges therefore become significant drivers or knowledge create and economic growth, challenging and ultimately transforming traditional arrangements and approaches.”

Seth Godin, author of Free Prize Inside, defines edgecraft this way.

“Edgecraft is a methodical, measurable process that allows individuals and teams to inexorably identify the soft innovation that live on the edges of what already exists.”

So in one sense the “edge” is that place where what you do in education meets ideas, knowledge, and needs of what others do outside education transforming the core of your school or classroom.  In another sense, the “edge” is an innovation of what you are already doing in your school or classroom that is so far from the current reality that it becomes remarkable.

Ideas from outside and or remarkable innovations from inside can be, as the author of ThinkerToys creativity expert Michael Michalko would advise, “SCAMPERed” (Substituted, Combined, Adapted, Modified, Put to other purpose, Eliminated, or Rearranged) into powerful ideas and innovations.

 Chart inspired from Seth Godin

Edge
Network	KWOK- Know What Others Know Share what you know with others. Learn what you can from others. Get outside of education and bring back ideas that will work in education. Understand the power of the network to bring new ideas from outside in. Become the Twitter of schools.
Ergonomics and Design	Change the look of the school and or classroom. Put couches or bean bags in your lounge. Use special paint so students and teachers can write on the walls. Change your office to better suit parents. Rearrange the desks in the classroom to create more collaboration. Think about the ergonomics and design of your school. Be the Herman Miller or IDEO of schools.
Make It Noticeable	Make everything a work of art the tells the world who you are. Show off the learning. Put it online, podcast it, videocast it, or SlideShare it. Make the learning noticeable and people will notice you. Become the Etsy of schools.
The Senses	Display something beautiful or thought provoking, make the school smell good, bring food that tastes good, put on some great music, use some furniture that feels good. Hook into the senses. Become the Starbucks of schools.
Time	Manipulate time. Add time here and take it away from there. Give the gift of time to a teacher. Turn your staff meeting into a speed dating meeting for ideas. Find some creative ways to "waste time." Give teachers an entire staff meeting to choose a problem of their choice and work on it. Become the Google of schools.
Emotion	Hook emotion into your work. Make someone laugh. Surprise and thrill someone. Make them angry to take action. Empathize. Inspire someone. Just do it. Become the Nike of schools.
Technology	Use technology that makes work easier to share, collaborate, and communicate with others. Prepare for and begin discussing the technology that will be, not what is. It's about the user not the hardware. Make technology simple. Become the Apple of schools.
Marketing	Learn how to "sell" ideas by making them memorable. Learn how to connect through ideas. Make your ideas "stick." Become the Chip and Dan Heath of schools.
Safety	Make things safer than people would expect. Become the Qantas Airlines of schools.
Differentiate	Give student, teacher, and parent just what they need in the way they need it. Customize the school. Become the "Amazon Recommends" of schools.
The System	Change the system, modify the system, or adapt new ideas and technologies to the system. You can change how you deliver instruction in a way that people will demand and expect from then on. Become the Netflix of schools.
Interactive	Involve parents in ways they never expected. Involve students in ways they never expected. Give them immediate feedback so changes can be made immediately. Give them a say. Become the Threadless of schools.
Do Less	Do more by doing less. Let parents and students do more. Let the district do more. Let volunteers do more. Empower others to do for themselves and the school. Become the Salvation Army of schools.
Change the "Who"	Bring the office manager into the classroom to work with the students. Have a teacher run the school for a day. Let the student teach the lesson. Involve others in new ways. Change who does what and you will change their perspectives. Become the Wikipedia of schools
Fix What Is Broken	Don't ignore it, fix it. Be willing to spend time on fixing even the little things. Little things can make a big difference. Believe you can do it. Use soft innovation. Become the Seth Godin of schools.
Make It Cheaper	Drive down the "costs" by becoming uber-recyclers. Reuse- adapt it. Think of better ways to use what already exists. Become the First Solar of schools.
Focus On The Tough Problems	Create a school culture that loves the challenge of solving the tough problems. Let the other schools do the easy stuff. Work on the things that no one is doing because they think it is to hard. Become the Novartis of schools.

The mash-up of these three concepts provides Lateral Wisdom and Lateral Wisdom is Education Innovation.

The Power of Attraction- Attracting What You Need Into Your Learning Community

Have you ever run into the right person at just the right time? Have you meet a person who has the knowledge to help you solve a problem, or who provides the right information to help you with an issue you are trying to tackle at school. You may have not been looking for the person, but you just stumbled upon them. That is serendipity.

Attracting What We Were Not Looking For

Serendipity- The simple definition of serendipity is finding what we didn’t know what we were looking for. It is unexpected encounters with people and they knowledge they posses.

But what if, instead of accidentally stumbling into a serendipitous encounter, you could attract or draw these people to you--a form of purposeful serendipity? We would be able to attract whom we need to learn from—and attraction is a powerful force.

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, consultants, etc., physically and virtually.  I call this model the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative. 

Authors John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison explain why attraction, or purposefully shaping serendipitous encounters is so important in their book The Power of Pull. The reason that the PNLC is so powerful is because is seeks to attract the people with the knowledge we need to meet our student’s needs. 

A PNLC attracts those people who know what we need, who have wrestled with our current learning issues, and who have the tacit knowledge we need to meet the needs of our students.

The PNLC attracts the people who posses the tacit knowledge we need.

Attraction- “…techniques focused for drawing people or resources to us that we were not even aware existed but that prove to be relevant and valuable.”

The Super Node

Each member of a PNLC becomes a super node. The person is the portal to the network. The person is an autonomous communication and collaboration node. Each member can potentially leverage not only their network, but also the network of others who are in their network. This principle is known as Metcalfe’s Law. The number of potential connections between nodes grows more quickly than the number of nodes. The total value of the network where each node can reach every other node in the network grows with the square of the number of nodes. In other words, when PNLC members connect their networks, it creates more value than the sum of networks independently.

Our networks can help us attract serendipity.

Why Serendipity

“We need serendipitous encounters with people because of the importance of the ideas these people carry with them and the connections they have. People carry tacit knowledge. You can’t learn brain surgery just from a text…you need to stand next to someone who already knows and learn by doing. Tacit knowledge exists only in people’s heads.”

Serendipitous encounters become a rich flow of tacit knowledge.

“…serendipitous encounters with people prove to be more fruitful that an isolated encounter with new objects or data. We not only have the opportunity to access the tacit knowledge other people have gained from their experiences—and to share our own—but can begin to create relationships that may themselves spawn new tacit knowledge as we begin to collaborate on areas of shared interest.”

Think about the number of educational articles you have read about literacy, mathematics, technology, RtI, common assessments, educational leadership, or Professional Learning Communities. Think about how many times you have attended a staff development session and left thinking, “Okay, but what do I do next.” You need the tacit knowledge of someone who has been there and done that. You need someone to show you how, share his or her experience, and put it in real life context for you.

PNLCs help attract people who have knowledge in the educational challenges, problems, or situation you face. They are fellow travelers down these educational avenues. And, as the authors state, fellow travelers amplify us.

“If you are exploring a new territory—an edge—it’s very helpful to learn from the experience of others in similar contexts. Serendipitous encounters thus help amplify our efforts by connecting us with our fellow explorers—exactly the people who can help us in our own explorations.”

One of the benefits of tacit knowledge flows from our fellow travelers is that it cuts down on the time we might waste. We know that every moment is precious. There is not a moment to waste when it comes to meeting the needs of our students in the school day. Attracting tacit knowledge through our network creates a high rate of return on our attention.

Return On Attention- ROA

“In a world where attraction and return on attention—defined as the value gained relative to the time and attention invested—are becoming increasingly important, those who master the techniques required to shape serendipity will likely profit far more than those who simply wait for it to surface.”

Shaping serendipity involves the blending of three elements: environments, practices, and preparedness. We will look at those in a coming post.

Ongoing Connections- Building Relationships

The other benefit to attracting people through our PNLCs is that we create more than just one time encounters, but mutual reinforcing and benefiting relationships. While you may learn something today, you may have something to teach tomorrow.

 “Serendipity becomes much more than a one-time encounter or an end in itself: It becomes the crucial means of access to rich flows of tacit knowledge both now and in the future.”

The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative attracts serendipitous connections through our super nodes of multiple connections to provide the tacit, real world contextual knowledge we need to meet the needs of students. 

See also: 

Edge Perspectives With John Hagel

John Seely Brown

The Edgerati

Thinking with Alligators

Why is creativity so difficult?

Today I was sharing some ideas with a few colleagues about how to increase attendance. No sooner had I shared a portion of my idea then it was attacked. “It can’t be tracked.” “Who will monitor it?”  “Why would we do it this way, it won’t work.”

My idea was just spouting and was stomped. It is a natural reaction. It brought to mind something I just read about in a great book called Think Better by Tim Hurson.

Tim calls this Gator Brain. Gator Brain is a strategy used to avoid having to think about an idea. You see, alligators don’t have much choice about how to react to new stimuli or sensory input.

“If a new creature comes into it’s territory, a gator can flee, it can try to feed on intruder, it may try to mate with the intruder, or it can freeze.” So depending on the size or nature of the intruder the gator is limited to those reactions.

My idea was the intruder!

“When encountering a new idea, your gator brain will see it either as a threat and therefore fight it or flee from it or as prey and therefore destroy it by devouring it. If your gator brain recognizes the invading idea as an old idea (like an alligator of the opposite sex), it may try to mate it, simply reproducing and reinforcing the old idea. Finally, if the invading idea just doesn’t fit at all, your gator brain’s response is to freeze.”

My idea caused some to attack and some to freeze. Most of us can relate. Gators are all around us. The shame is, education is in dire need of fresh ideas, but there is no telling how many great ideas ended up a victim of gator brain.

I can’t recommend Tim’s book enough.

Education's Idea Killing Virus and The Miracle Cure

Satisfice: A virus that results from the combination of satisfying and sufficing. Known to frequently infect educators who are being asked to develop ideas and plans of action for schools and school districts.

It is a deadly virus that infects grade level, department, PLC, school leadership, and district decision and planning meetings. The virus does not harm the host educator, but rather kills potential creative innovative ideas that might arise from the host by creating an urge to hastily accept the first idea or decision that satisfies the members and suffices as an acceptable outcome.

Matthew May, author of In Pursuit of Elegance: Why The Best Ideas Have Something missing explains the virus.

“In 1957, economics Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon published a book called Models of Man. In it, he examined the default human decision-making process in which we tend to go with the fist option that offers an acceptable payoff. Simon said that by nature we ‘satisfice’—his term, combining satisfy and suffice. In other words, we have a tendency to settle for ‘good enough,’ opting for whatever seems to expeditiously meet the minimum requirement needed to move us closer to achieving a given goal. We then stop looking for other ways, including the best way, to solve the problem. We rationalize that the optimal solution is too difficult, not worth the effort involved, or simply unnecessary.”

“We mistakenly pose the question “What should we do?” before asking “What is possible?” We want a solution, but we don’t have the patience to wait for the optimal one, favoring implementation over incubation. We throw some resources at the problem and move on, or tweak a previous solution and fit it to the current situation. We fail to look more holistically at the challenge. The result is we simply don’t see the best, most elegant solution.”

While the prognosis may seem grim, there is a cure, a miracle cure that can save thousands of educators from falling victim to satisfice.

Tim Hurson, author of one of my all time favorite books, Think Better: An Innovator's Guide To Productive Thinking calls this “The Miracle of the Third Third.”

“Studies have shown that in Osborn’s kind of good brainstorming, the first third of the session tends to produce mundane, every-one-has thought-of-them-before ideas.”

“Generally the second third of a good brainstorming session produces ideas that begin to stretch boundaries.”

“The third third is where the diamonds lie. These are the potential breakthrough ideas that often lead to innovative solutions. These are the unexpected connections. Whereas bad brainstorming tends to stop at the first reasonable idea and judge all others out of existence, good brainstorming encourages the generation of long lists of ideas by separating creative thinking and critical thinking.”

In other words, education has for too long been suffering from the satisfice virus and ignoring the cure. The cure is great ideas. Creative ideas. Innovative ideas. The satisfice virus has confused our brains into accepting the first idea that seems to move the agenda along. And all of education has paid the price.

“Bad brainstorming is binary; ideas are either good or bad. Good brainstorming is full of maybes. In bad brainstorming, we never get to the third third. In good brainstorming getting to the third third is the point”

Imagine the impact for students, teachers, parents, schools, school districts, and communities if more educators used “The Miracle of the Third Third” in their planning and decision making meetings to defeat the satisfice virus. You might not believe in miracles now, but just wait until you feel the healing effects of the third third in your next planning or decision-making meeting.

My Final Lesson From "Three Cups of Tea"

Greg Mortenson failed in his attempt to climb K2, the second highest mountain on earth. Yet a lesson was gained from that experience that we can all learn from. With K2 in sight, he began building schools that would change the lives of hundreds of children and his own.

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Originally uploaded by Karrar Haidri}

Within sight of a great failure, at the base of your greatest disappointment you might find your greatest success, your calling, your purpose, and the most meaningful accomplishments of your life.

We and our students should never forget that.

Lessons From "Three Cups of Tea"

I have been reflecting on the book Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.

These are the lessons I have learned.

Take the time to have three cups of tea- It’s all about relationships. It’s the relationships we create with our students, our parents, our peers, and the community that make the difference. As John C. Maxwell says, Everyone Communicates, Few Connect. Take the time to do more than communicate, take the time to connect.

You might have to build the bridge first- Just because you are ready to teach, doesn’t mean that the students are ready to learn. There are other needs that may have to be addressed first. Take the time to listen to the community, the parents, and the student. Hungry students won’t learn. Scared students won’t learn. Students without the necessary background knowledge will struggle to learn. You might have to build a bridge first if you want the learning to be successful.

Let others help- There is too much to do alone. Let others pitch in. It helps you and empowers them.

Nothing ever lasts- Change is constant. Adapt, modify, innovate, problem solve, and refocus.

"Think always of them."- Focus on the students. The kids are the mission.

Peace and hope one child at a time. That is a movement. That is Education Innovation.

Essential Education: Linchpin