Education Innovation

Pursuing “Elegant Solutions” in Education

What is better than a solution to a problem? The answer is an elegant solution.

Matthew E. May, author of the Change This Manifesto titled Elegant Solutions: Breakthrough Thinking The Toyota Way explains that, “An elegant solution is one in which the optimal outcome is achieved with the minimal expenditure of effort and expense.”

Each day educators confront a myriad of problems. The increasing complexity of the world around seems to create ever increasingly complex problems, be it problems of teaching, learning, curriculum, pedagogy, behavior, finances, collaboration, technology, etc., educators must create solutions to complicated problems every day.

Clearly, we need and want solutions. According to Matthew, “And when it comes to solutions, simple is better. Elegant is better still.”

“Elegant solutions embrace the overarching philosophy of doing far more with much less.” Education certainly has been called upon to do far more with less in recent years. The elegant solution is about finding that wonderful solution within the restrictions of our resources.

The problem, as Matthew points out is, “…elegant solutions aren’t obvious, except, of course, in retrospect.”

So what to do then? The answer is to make your classroom, your Professional Learning Community, your school, and your district more innovative.

Now innovation is a powerful word that elicits all sorts of ideas and reactions. Many believe that innovation is the realm of inventors, research and development departments, technology companies, or lone geniuses. While that may be the image, it is not the reality.

David Neeleman, founde of Jet Blue says, “Innovation is trying to figure out a way to do something better than it’s ever been done before.”

Read that carefully. He didn’t say we must do it better, but that we must try to do it better. Innovation in this way is a process, not a destination. Every educator I know is capable of trying to figure out how to do something better than its ever been done before. Most educators are constantly tinkering with their instruction methods, plans, etc. They are innovating. Professional Learning Communities try to do things better. Schools try to do things better. Doing things better provides solutions to problems.

Matthew says, “…when I refer to innovation, I mean solving the problem of how to something better than ever.”

It is important to remind ourselves that innovation, doing something better than its ever been done before, is susceptible to a few “big traps.”

According to Matthew there are 3 big traps to avoid on our way to finding elegant solutions.

1. Swinging for fences
“This is the ‘homerun or bust’ trap, which invariably destroys a strong batting average over time. It carries with it huge risk, usually accompanied by high cost.”

Education has seen this trap time and time again. Instead of changing how we deliver curriculum, we scrap the entire curriculum and buy new curriculum, spending thousands of dollars and causing a ton of frustration in the process. Instead of figuring out who is actually using technology, we buy dozens of laptops and LCD projectors. We keep swinging for the fences.

2. Getting too clever
“This is the ‘bells and whistles’ trap, which can easily get out of control in an effort to outdo competitors. It carries with it the danger of complexity and customer alienation.”
Teachers are notorious for trying to come up with the next great project, the one that outdoes the teacher next door and gets their picture in the paper. Too often, what happens is parents get upset at all the work they end up doing, students are confused, and administrators get frustrated.

Administrators love to create the next big “program” that is going to take learning to the next level. Schedules are created, new curriculum purchased, complicated plans and procedures developed, meetings are scheduled, etc. They get so clever, they outwit themselves, and the students don’t benefit.

3. Solving problems frivolously
“This is the ‘brainstorm’ trap, which is misguided creativity far afield from company direction. It’s a symptom of poorly defined work, and fraught with waste. There’s a reason we call it an organization.”

Sounds like the ultra-new behavior management and tracking program, which includes staff development, new forms, and a computer database to solve a student behavior problem that doesn’t really exist. Solving a problem that doesn’t exist.

Maybe it’s the new 8-step purchasing request process, when the teachers could simply just shoot an email or ask the principal in person. What problem did we solve?

So now that we know what traps to avoid, what are the key principles for creating or discovering and elegant solution?

Matthew explains there are 3: ingenuity in craft, pursuit of perfection, and fit with society.

1. Ingenuity in craft
Ingenuity in craft means that we accept limitations. Education is filled with limitations, rules, regulations, laws, bureaucratic thinking, corrosive or inflexible cultures, limited resources, etc.  We use limitations to our advantage by viewing it as a challenge to overcome and a problem to solve. “No challenge, no creativity.” Limitations challenge our minds to find the elegant solution, without challenges what motivation would we have?

It also means we, “…pursue the simple question that drives the thinking behind every breakthrough, big or small: Is there a better way?”

2. The pursuit of perfection
“If ingenuity is the starting point, perfection is the vector. Approached as a process, it can drive breakthroughs. Approached as a goal, it can actually block innovation.”

It’s all about the chase. The mantra should be, “No best, only better.”

We need to embrace the twin wins of ideate and initiate.

3. Fit with society
The goal of innovation and the pursuit of the elegant solution is meaningless if it doesn’t fit with what your school needs. The solutions need to fit within the larger system of the school’s needs and function.

Does the innovation solve a problem in the context of the classroom, the professional learning community, or the school? A great idea that doesn’t fit within the context of the school is going nowhere.

These three principles are the signposts that guide creative and innovative thinking and energy toward the pursuit of elegant solutions. Being careful to avoid the 3 big traps, educators can discover solutions to problems that are optimal for the context with minimal expenditures of valuable effort, time, and expense. Any solution that can do that in education is definitely elegant.

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.

Professional Learning Communities DRIVE Toward Success

When Professional Learning Communities or Professional Networked Learning Collaboratives develop plans and ideas to deal with the multifaceted issues of student learning and achievement, having a clear definition and picture of what success looks like is key. Teams need to know what success looks like so they can recognize if they have achieved the results in student learning and achievement they set out to attain. If you don’t know your destination, how will you know if you have arrived? Developing an observable measure of success is key.

Tim Hurson, author of the book Think Better, offers this useful tool for helping you recognize once you have achieved it. He calls it DRIVE.

 

Do: What do you want your eventual solution to do? What must it achieve?

 

What outcome is the PLC or PNLC looking for? What do you want for the students? What should your students be able to do? The key here is to develop as many ideas as possible without judging them. Create a list of all the things your teams solution should achieve for the students. For example your list might include statements like: increase time on task, help student develop their own questions, include technology, or students should be able to explain the learning goals clearly.

 

Restrictions: What changes or impacts must you avoid?

 

What outcomes should not happen as a result of your plan? What must be prevented so as not to interfere with the student achievement? For example your list might include statements like: don’t confuse students, don’t ignore the high achieving students, don’t talk to much during the lesson, or don’t confuse students with too many strategies.

 

Investment: What resources are you willing to allocate? What are your “not-to-exceeds”?

 

What are the investments of time, materials, etc., that your PLC or PNLC is willing to commit to achieve your goal? Create a list of maximum investments that your PLC or PNLC, those you can’t exceed, that your team is wiling to put into the solution. The list might include things like: 30 minutes of instruction daily, one instructional aide per classroom, science materials for each pair of students, computer lab time, once weekly common assessments, etc.

 

Values: What values must you live by in achieving your solutions?

 

List the values of the school and the team that cannot be compromised in working toward the solution. What can you tolerate? What can you not tolerate? The list might includes things like: standards over curriculum, student need over teacher need, differentiation, must value teacher time, student engagement, etc.

 

Essential Outcomes: What are the nonnegotiable elements of success? What measurable targets must be met?

 

What are all the things that must happen for the PLC or the PNLC to consider the solution a success for students? What specific student achievement outcomes must be reached? What are the non-negotiable student results that must be achieved? Examples might include statement like: all students will master the standard, the student learning will be measurable through a common formative assessment, students will be given multiple opportunities to achieve, etc.

 

When PLCs or PNLCs use the DRIVE tool to create a clear picture and an observable criterion for defining success, they have a greater chance of ensuring that their solution will produce the desired result for student learning and teaching.

Borrowing Brillance

3 Brainstorming Problems Faced By Professional Learning Communities

In my last post (The New Rules of Brainstorming For Professional Learning Communities) I discussed the “New Rules” or brainstorming for PLCs. There are however problems that are common to PLCs that can interfere with powerful brainstorming.

According to Keith Sawyer, there are 3 possible reasons brainstorming groups are less creative than individual brainstorming on their own and bringing their ideas to the group to be assembled later.

Problem 1: Production Blocking
“Group members have to listen closely to other people’s ideas, which leaves individual members with less mental energy to think of new ideas. Also, individuals might be distracted from their own ideas by the flurry of idea generation around them. This is why productivity loss is greater with larger groups: Each person has less time to talk as the number of members goes up.”

One cause of Production Blocking is Topic Fixation. “…groups become fixated faster and stay in the same category for longer. The way to prevent topic fixation is by giving group members time periods to work alone, alternating with group interaction.” 

I often ask PLC members, prior to PLC meetings, to develop their ideas, write them down, and bring the ideas with them to the meeting. We then go around the table sharing the ideas they wrote down. Instead of having to think of ideas while at the same time listening to others sharing their ideas, PLC members can devote their energy to listening and considering the value of the ideas.

The other advantage to this is that PLC members share their ideas regardless of what they have already heard. This avoids Topic Fixation. Ideas developed alone or outside of the PLC meeting are not subject to being influenced by the discussion in the PLC. Of course this doesn't mean that ideas can be added to or improved, it just means that the first person to speak doesn't drive the topic in a certain direction.

Sawyer provides two ideas. Electronic Brainstorming and Brainwriting.

Electronic Brainstorming—“…where ideas are typed by each group member into a shared computer screen like a chat room—results in more creativity because topic fixation is reduced.”

Many PLC teams I have worked frequently with Google Docs, but I have also used bubbl.us, Vyew.com, WiziQ.com.

Brainwriting–“…in which each member of the group takes five minutes to write out his or her ideas alone and then passes the list to the next person..."

Problem 2: Social Inhibition
“This is when a group member holds back an idea for fear of what the others will think.”

There are many reason for social inhibition with a PLC. Differences length of teaching experience, types of experiences, training, etc.

Sawyer points out that to reduce the negative effects of social inhibition PLC teams must first, “make sure that the team members or the group feel truly equal and that no authoritarian figure is present.” 

This is one reason that principals sitting in PLC meetings can be an issue. If principals inject themselves in an authoritarian evaluative role, social inhibition is likely. If you feel the need to be in PLC meetings, then it need to be clear that you will not act the part of the “boss” and will not be using the meeting in an evaluative nature for teachers.

I sit in PLCs 2-3 times a week, but it took a year of building a culture of trust to the point where this is possible without social inhibition.

Second, “is to use a trained facilitator to draw people out and to note who is holding back.” This is a great idea if you have someone who can play this role. In most cases, this is the grade level or department chair, but as I mentioned above, if the principal is going to play this role, then trust is paramount.

Problem 3: Social Loafing
“When people are in a group they don’t feel as accountable for the outcomes as they do when they’re working alone; the responsibility is distributed among the group members, so individuals relax a little and perhaps don’t work as hard.”

It is essential that a culture of accountability be developed within your PLCs. One of the very reasons that I ask PLC members to bring their ideas to meetings is to ensure that all members participate. The manner in which meetings are facilitated is also important. If all members are to participate, then meetings need to be facilitated in such a way as to ensure that all members are required to participate.

These 3 problems are common to all PLCs, but if you address Production Blocking, Social Inhibition and Social Loafing, then your PLC teams will be more productive and PLC members are bound to feel that their contributions are being valued, they are safe to share, and that all are being held accountable to the same standard.

Organizing For Improvisation: Creating Collaborative PLCs, Schools and Districts

As someone once said, “In any bureaucracy, paper work increases as you spend more and more time reporting on the less and less you are doing”

_{Photo by Durotriges}

According to Keith Sawyer, author of Group Genius, “In most companies, bureaucracy prevents innovation from emerging.”

Education is not immune to the damaging effects of bureaucracy, and in many ways suffers even more due to the number of government agencies adding to the layers of bureaucracy. Federal, state, county, district, and site level rules, regulations, processes, procedures, and mandates have created a maddening level of inefficiency.

Albert Einstein once said, “Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work”

Educators are faced with the task of creating an environment that can harness the wisdom, creativity, and intellect of their teachers and staff as a means of mitigating the harmful creep of bureaucracy. The key is to create schools and districts that are built on collaboration. Collaborative teams that can be assembled to harness their combined talents into innovations and solutions for schools and districts.

As detailed in his book Group Genius, Keith Sawyer describes collaborative organizations. Collaborative organizations are made up of teams who, “…form and reform, their structure emerging improvisationally from the bottom up, and membership is largely self-selected.”

Imagine a school site in which staff members from all grade levels, or department, or other areas volunteer to use the collaborative leverage of the group to innovate ideas and solutions to improve instruction, management, and the operation of the school. Teachers, janitors, counselors, psychologists, coaches, instructional aides, parents, and managers collaborating together from the bottom up to meet the needs of the school site.

Keith Sawyer calls these Innovation Labs.

Education is an ever-changing bureaucracy and districts and school sites must not just deal with change, they must come to expect and even welcome change. It must be embedded into the culture of a school and a district. “Innovation today is a continuous process of small and constant change, and it’s built into the culture of successful companies.”

Three characteristics would be the basis of the collaborative organization and an Innovation Lab. “The culture of the collaborative organization is based on flexibility, connection, and conversation.”

In his book The Social Psychology of Organizing, Karl Weick suggested what he called “loosely coupled” organizations. Bringing staff members together when needed into loosely coupled teams that innovate, create, and develop solutions for the school or the district. Like Lego blocks that can be brought together, disconnected, or re-formed easily without much disruption to the school or district. The benefit is a loosely coupled organization is much more innovative than carefully planned organizations.

According to Sawyer the, “University of Maryland reviewed the previous ten years of studies of organizational design; their conclusion was that team-based companies performed better than traditional bureaucratic firms.” Team-based schools and districts are better.

The Innovation Lab which is, “made up of people from different corporate functions representing all stages of product development, including purchasing, manufacturing, marketing, engineering, service, and finance—result in quicker product development times.”

The Innovation Lab is faster at solving problems and innovating because of the combined cross functions represented on the team. Breaking people out of their department, district office, or grade level silos allow the Innovation Lab to leverage the various knowledge, wisdom, experience, and insight to the team.

These sorts of teams have also been referred to as cross-functional teams. Regardless the label, imagine the speed and efficiency these teams could bring to solving problems, issues, and innovating ideas at the district or site level. All too often great ideas fail to work because some other concern or issue was not considered and anticipated because all the people that would be required to work together to implement the idea are not at the table at the moment it is conceived and developed.

Instead of running an idea by various departments or concerned persons after the fact, why not include them in the development of the idea. Innovation Labs can experiment with a high number of ideas and innovations because those required to work together to implement the innovations are communicating in real-time. Not in their silos after the fact.

“We’re really collaborating and building ideas together as opposed to the old model where everyone works in silos.”

How can you build a culture that is comfortable with change in your district or at your school? Think about issues and problems that have arisen in the past. How would an Innovation Lab or a collaborative organization have changed the outcomes of those issues and problems? Creating a culture of collaboration could be the key to taking a PLC, a school, or a district to the next level.

None of us is a smart as all of us.

The Great 8: Catalytic Questions For Your Thinking

1.    What is a stake for your school or district? Can you afford not to create a collaborative organization?

2.    What kinds of questions should you be asking yourself about your collaborative models?

3.    What other organizations can you look to as a model of a good collaborative culture?

4.    What assumptions are you making about the level of collaboration and the ability of your teams? 

5.    What is one step you can take right now to increase the collaboration taking place in your school or district? What might it look like?

6.    Reframe the issue. Is it an issue of flexibility among staff, connection, or conversation? Is it a problem of communication, access, or time?

7.    What criticisms will people have when you begin to create Innovation Labs or great collaboration? Anticipate and plan for solutions. Choose the idea that is easiest to implement.

8.    Can you substitute one process, procedure, and regulation with one that will increase collaboration?

The Power of FAILURE In Learning

This great 8 minute video from Honda Racing is on the power of failure in learning and innovation. It reminds us that to learn and improve we need to:

• Take risks
• See failure as means to move forward and succeed.
• You can fail many times, but you only have to succeed once.

It is worth your time and it would be a great thing to show to those you teach and to those you work with.

Can You Help Me Put This Genie Back In The Bottle?

by elvis_payne

While I sat in my health class today pondering if I had a greater chance of getting Lime disease or the West Nile virus, a discussion broke out among my classmates on the problem with kids using technology to share tests, test questions, and answers with their fellow students. Also indicted was the Internet. Seems the Internet has allowed students to share test question or even find all the versions of tests that the textbook publishers create for teachers. Apparently, some teacher on the other side of the country posted all the versions and the answers on the Internet and these kids found it. How dare they!

I chuckled inside as I listened to teachers from all over the spectrum bemoan how easy technology has allowed this to happen and how much info students were able to find on then Internet these days. They were arguing about how best to put the genie back in the bottle.

Finally, after it looked like the Internet and technology were headed for a guilty verdict, I added a though or two to the conversation.

I pointed out that test questions and test answers are simply pieces of information. A question or an answer is simply a piece of information; a piece of data that can be discovered and shared like any other piece of information and data. They may not want it discovered or shared, but because it is digital or can be converted into digital pieces of data, the information can and will be shared. I simply asked if anyone thought if finding and sharing of data and information would become easier or less easy in the coming years.

I could see the gears turning and then a bit of fear began to wash over them.

Frustration, Aggravation, and Sheer Annoyance...
Originally uploaded by Vashtia

Then I approached it from the creativity and innovation angle. What the students were engaged in was cheating, piracy, and plagiarism. (Teach Students to be Pirates and Plagiarists) There is a great deal of creative thought and innovation in there somewhere. While educators now frown on what these pirate students do, their future employers will value these same students for being able to quickly, creatively, and innovatively find, remix, and share information and data.

I suggested that they focus on using assessments that required the students to generate new and meaningful ideas, connections, and insights with their knowledge and not just true/false or multiple-choice. I explained to them that we know live in an era where technology has made the discovery, sharing, and re-purposing of data and information, and that assessments that rely on data or information only questions are going to be subject this effect.

Assessments must change to require original thinking or use of the data or information, not simply recalling the information. Technology has made to need to memorize facts and information less important. If you can look it up on the Internet anytime you like, why memorize the data? If you are relying on tests that assess a student’s recall of data, don’t be amazed if they use technology to treat your test and it’s answers like data too.

A silent hush fell across the room, and I thought I heard a fear tears falling. Then, slowly, the group considered its options and rose together in one voice to say that they just didn’t want kids to use technology or the Internet anymore in their classroom, and maybe they should just hand write their tests or ban student cell phones.

Together, they determined, that maybe, just maybe, they could put the genie back in the bottle.

I smiled and went back to considering my odds of a sucking chest wound.

4 Catalysts To Personal Brillance

Personal Brilliance An Introduction Slide Show

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: ideas initiative)

The Victory Project

I don’t often write about my personal experiences at my school, but this year I have decided to share with you the challenges, frustrations, and joys of working at Title 1, Program Improvement Year 4, and the lowest performing school in the district.

Urgency. Change. Influence. Focus

This is my mantra this school year. The data is coming in on last year’s results and things look a bit bleak for the school I work at. I have approached the principal and the literacy coaches at my site with the idea of a Victory Project. I don’t wont to focus on scores, focus on getting a little better, or focus on all the problems and challenges of our population. I am done approaching change and improvement as an intellectual endeavor. No, I want to win, and so do these hard working teachers and staff members. So, I invite my readers to come along as I seek to create urgency, implement change, influence behavior, and focus on what matters. I invite you to follow my Victory Project.

The Victory Project is composed of four focus areas. They are: Professional Learning Communities, Response to Intervention, Direct Instruction, and School Climate & Culture.  I am going to personally try to leverage my knowledge of technology and my love for creative thinking and problem solving techniques to myself and those I work with in this goal.

One thing about taking a trip, it helps to know where you are going. Very important, but can’t get directions to your destination unless you know where you are. So, with that in mind I have developed a road map of sorts. It points out where we are leaving from and what our destination is for each of our four focus areas.

As the Yogi Berra once said…

“If you don’t know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.”

This is the road map for our Professional Learning Community focus.

So join me on this adventure. Please share your thoughts, ideas, comments, or insights. On to Victory!