To complete your Essential Education take a few minutes to watch friend Steve Cunnigham's great video summary of the book A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink
Insight
July 12, 2009
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May 22, 2009
April 18, 2009
April 15, 2009
21st Century Education Technology Skills Utilize 20th Century Lateral Thinking
In his fantastic book Everything Is Miscellaneous, David Weinberger takes the reader through a tour of the digital order that is changing how we approach, knowledge and information. This new digital order, built on bits, not atoms allows students to think about information and knowledge in different ways. In a way, it is very similar to what Edward de Bono spoke of in his book Lateral Thinking, which was first published 38 years ago, in 1970.
by rutty
Edward de Bono compared vertical thinking with lateral thinking.
“Vertical thinking is analytical, lateral thinking is provocative.”
The
physical world requires that we spend a great deal of time developing a
very structured set of codes, rules, and organization so information
can be found. The digital world make is possible to organize
information any way that makes sense to us. We are not limited to the
space on a card catalog or a label. We can put as much information into
a digital bit of information as we can imagine.
“With vertical thinking one has to be correct at every step, with lateral thinking one does not have to be.” Make a mistake in the card catalog or reading a label and you are not going to be successful in your search. But, as we know, there are multiple ways to search for something in search engines. Make a mistake, and you simply change your approach. You are never out of the game in the digital world because other people like you may have thought about your subject in the very same way.
“Vertical thinking is sequential, lateral thinking can make jumps.” The physical world of information is very sequential because of the limits of physical space. The digital world allows us to jump around to look at subjects loosely related to the information one is seeking or to quickly jump to tried and true resources or resources that have never been viewed before. It just takes a click.
“With vertical thinking one uses the negative in order to block of certainty. With lateral thinking there is no negative.” The physical world of atoms allows very few ways to organize information, while the digital world allows virtually unlimited ways to organize it.
“With vertical thinking on concentrates and excludes what is irrelevant, with lateral thinking one welcomes chance intrusions” The digital world welcomes more information, even it seems irrelevant to most. It may be very relevant to a few. Therefore as Weinberger says, “… solution to the overabundance of information is more information.”
“With vertical thinking categories, classifications and labels are fixed, with lateral thinking they are not.” For example, a type of dog, say a Rhodesian Ridgeback can be classified only so many ways in the physical world or card catalogs, charts, and shelves. Usually, following biology terms such as vertebrate, mammal, etc. Space limits what you can do. But without the limits of space, such as in the digital world, the same dog could be tagged as things with four legs, things that chase cars, things that eat dog food, things that have a tail, things that have paws, or things that bark. The choices are almost limitless. It all depends on how one chooses think about the subject, which allows one to be very creative in their approach.
“Vertical thinking follows the most likely path, lateral thinking explores the least likely.”
Anyone
who has spent anytime on the web can tell you they reached some cool
website or found a great book, but they have no idea how they got
there. Click after click after click we follow our thinking down “the
rabbit hole” and discover what we might be looking for in very odd
ways. This isn’t true for a library. It will be very predictable. It
will be the “most likely path.”
“Vertical thinking is a finite process, lateral thinking is a probablistic one.”
I want to find a book, I look on the shelf and there it is. In the
digital world though, I find the book I am looking for and 5 others
that are related to the first. I then investigate one of those and
discover pictures, video, and music all because someone else thinks it
relates. As I continue probing I gain even more information and
resources which to use.
Quite possibly, Edward de Bono wrote 37 years ago about the type of thinking that would actually allow our students to be even more effective in the digital world of bits described so wonderfully by David Weinberger.
Recommended Reading:
Everything is Miscellaneous in Education: Part 1
December 15, 2008
Is Your School a Hospital or a Courthouse?
What does the current criminal justice system, the future health care system, school discipline, and education have in common? Blend them up in the Education Innovation blender and take a look.
Today I was thinking about the school wide behavior plan I have been working on as part my school improvement program I call the Victory Project. The past behavior system could be compared to the Criminal Justice System. I wondered if there is a better model. Then it hit me; we need to model the ideas of health care.
I previously wrote about how education should model the ideas set forth for improving health care. (4 Ps For Innovation in Education) Education should be Predictive, Preventive, Participatory, and Personalized. If you add two more Ps such as Positive and Progressive then you have the makings of a new behavior plan that better influences positive behavior and deals with negative behavior on an individual basis.
The health care model is a better comparison for what we should be seeking in school behavior plans. Which would you rather have to go through? When you are in the Criminal Justice system, there are no relationships developed, it happens to you, releasing the student from participating and reflecting on their behavior.
The health care model is much better at being predictive, preventive, participatory, personalized, positive, and progressive. Schools, teachers, administrators, parents, and even students should be thinking about these traits.
Predictive:
What sorts of issues and behaviors are likely to occur? Think ahead and plan for a response or prevention.
Preventive:
What
steps can be taken to prevent negative behavior from happening. For
example, engaging students, or giving students the attention they need
and crave, or moving a student's seat, reminding students of what is
expected are all examples of being preventive. Be pro-active not
re-active.
Participatory:
Teachers,
administrators, staff, parents, and students need to participate in the
system. Students, especially, need to participate in reflecting on
their own behavior and even choosing the appropriate consequence or
developing prevention ideas for future negative behavior.
Personalized:
Consequences
should be matched to the individual student. Just as student have
individual learning needs and teacher differentiate their instruction,
so too do students have differing needs when it comes to influencing
positive behavior and giving consequences for negative behavior. This
is not always possible (ie; drugs, weapons, sexual harassment, etc.)
but to the extent possible prevention and consequences should be
personalized.
Positive:
Discipline
with dignity. We must not make the situation personal. School staff
does itself a disservice when they give up the power of their position
and get personal with a student in reaction to their behavior. Students
need to know we care even when they make mistakes and bad decisions.
Progressive:
Common
sense needs to be a priority when it comes to dealing with negative
student behavior. Jumping to most extreme consequence forces you give
an even greater consequence when if the behavior occurs again. Where is
one to go? There must be a menu or continuum of consequences that
allow flexibility from one end of the scale to another in dealing with
negative behavior. If a student doesn't do their homework and they
receive detention, what happens when they do it again? Do you suspend
them? No, you need room to move and a progressive system of low to high
severity provides this.
School discipline meets the health care system. That is Education Innovation.
October 21, 2008
The Belief and Faith Equation For School Change
Sometimes you have a breakthrough, a moment of clarity where you see what you have been missing. I have had one about my school. It is not easy to share, but it is important.
As many of you who follow my blog, I have been working on a school improvement and change project I call the Victory Project. I have previously blogged about it here.
My school has a belief problem.
Teachers do not believe in the students and the parents.
Administrators do not believe in the teachers and the parents.
Students do not believe in themselves.
Our belief equation does not add up to success. I shared this thought with the Twitterverse today and people were generally surprised. It is hard to imagine that there is so little faith. I struggled with it myself. I am questioning whether I believe in the staff and if I believe in myself.
This belief problem must be corrected. There must be a solution, a key, a missing piece to the puzzle. Victory depends on it.
Seth Godin writes in Tribes that all it takes is faith.
“The first thing you need to know is that individuals have far more power than ever before in history. One person can change an industry.”
I will be happy with changing just one school.
“The second thing you need to know is that the only thing holding you back from becoming the kind who changes things is this: lack of faith. Faith that you can do it. Faith that it’s worth doing. Faith that failure won’t destroy you.”
That’s it. I must have faith. I must have faith in the staff to change their belief. I must have faith in the students to change their beliefs. My faith in them is key to their belief in each other.
Seth says the secret is…
“It is merely about developing faith that it’ll work.”
“Faith is critical to all innovation.”
“Faith, as we’ve seen is the cornerstone that keeps our organizations together. Faith is the cornerstone of our humanity; we can’t live without it.”
If I want them to change their beliefs, I need to keep the faith.
Recommended Reading:
October 13, 2008
Education's Sacred Cows
Is there anything wrong with Sacred Cows? Well it depends. Maybe yes and maybe no. We need to question if our Sacred Cows are useful, relevant, and correct for the needs of the educational system. If they have outlived their usefulness then those “cows” need to be questioned. According to the authors of Death To All Sacred Cows: How successful business people put the old rules out to pasture, if education only looks to the past, it is putting itself at risk because schools or districts that, “...only look to the past to guide their futures can be doomed to failure. In a rapidly changing world, anything dated tends to be dangerous.”
“If the world was a stagnant, predictable place, then steadfast rules would be okay. They would guide us and keep everyone honest. But the world in which we live changes constantly.”
Change is the new normal.
“If we don’t question why we do things the way we do, we’ll never be able to do them better. If we resist new approaches, we’ll be stuck with more of the same all the time.”
When was the last time you questioned why you were doing what you were doing?
by TerData
So here is the Education Innovation list of Sacred Cows.
Sacred Cows Of Education
• All students can learn at high levels of achievement
• Teaching takes place at a school
• Teaching takes place in the classroom
• Students should sit at a desk
• Students learn from teachers
• Students need to learn what teachers are teaching
• The government knows what students should know
• The government knows best what teachers need to know
• The best way to measure learning is to give a test
• The best way to show what you know is to take a test
• Books are necessary
• Paper is necessary
• Homework is necessary
• Students should not have cell phones
• Always do what is best for students
• Research based instructional practices
• Data based decision making
• Principals should be “instructional leaders”
• Private schools, charter schools, and home-schools are competition.
• Schools don’t have enough money
• Unions are good for teachers
• Unions are good for students
• Smaller class sizes are better
• Howard Gardner is always right
• Robert Marzano is always right
• The DuFours are always right
• There is nothing you can do about bad teachers
• Standardized test scores matter, and they matter a lot
• Teachers are better when they work as team or a Professional Learning Community
• The more experience a teacher has the better they are at teaching
• Teachers should not be compared to other teachers
• Schools should not be compared to other schools
• Mistakes are bad.
• Parents are always right
• Parents don’t understand
• Put the most resources toward the lowest students
• Technology is not important for learning
Some of these "cows" should stay "sacred" and some of these "cows" need to be put out to pasture.
What Sacred Cows would you add?
October 10, 2008
Robert Jacobs
Creator and Developer of E.I--EducatationInnovation
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