Creative and Critical thinking: Creating space for innovation

Ewan McIntosh's session on Monday was so inspirational we rocked up 45 minutes early to ensure we have a seat for his second session today. The room is completely packed with people sitting on every available floor space, propping up the room at the back and around the sides, and standing outside the double doors craning their necks to see in. The place is a sea of mobile devices, and the wireless is groaning as the Tweets flow. Great stuff. (But maybe a bigger venue...?)
The last Ewan did this session was with 6 people in Texas...and if it fails it's our fault :-). Some of the reasons innovations tend to get blocked are those folk who have leader in their title tend not to be the innovators, and (along with many other things), there is negativity around and dismissal of ideas. On the other hand for innovation to happen it is important for active listening, people who will join in, assume valuable implications, deal with you as an equal, and support ambiguity.

>>>Click here to read the rest of the post.
Images:

• 'arne jacobsen, aarhus town hall 1937-1942' - Found on flickrcc.net

Teacher's metacognition

Alejarndra Martinez is a psychologist has been working with teachers, initially in rural Chile. She is interested in how teachers view themselves as learners. Currently working on her PhD at the University of Melbourne  Alejandra has been working in professional learning teams, to investigate links between courses and students' outcomes.

One of the focus was to move thinking about my student to our student. The key aspect to inform our teaching from this perspective is the skill level of the students. The variables that are collected around numeracy, literacy, student outcomes, classroom practices, PLT functioning, beliefs and attitudes, and metacognition. Further research on teachers'  professional learning is required in order to understand the characteristics and development of their metacognition (Dinsmore, 2008). The key focus, therefore is how teachers see themselves as learners, and how this impacts their own practice.

The main aim is to analyse the extent to which the shift from a deficit to a developmental approach to assessment and learning influences teacher metacognitive awareness of their professional practice. The study uses a teacher metacognition framework that has 5 elements, which are part of a cyclical process: Comprehension of differentiated teaching practice; self evaluation of current competence; planning professional learning; monitoring professional learning; and evaluation of the progress made.
The Metacognitive Awareness Inventory was adapted (16 questions), and other new questions were added. Two forms were developed (A and B) with 14 common questions to enable comparison. After a calibration process using Item Response Modelling 7 questions were removed, as they were discriminating less the the expected model.

The data was analysed using an item/person map with level descriptions. Teachers were then given the results that indicated that the level they were at, rather than a specific 'score'. The initial findings were based on 359 teachers. There was a large number of teachers at Level A, Level D, and Level F. A learning readiness report on metacognition, which has individual feedback which is linked to the 5 stage cyclical model.

The students who grow the most who are at the lower level, whereas the top level the students do not grow the most. We need to connect differentiated teaching, not only to student needs, but also to teacher needs. Some of the challenges are the links with student performance. There are some aspects of metacognition that needs to be captured with qualitative data; so the next step is to conduct some interviews with the teachers. This is longitudinal research, and data has been collected in year 1 and this year data will be collected to illustrate changes.

Image: '_繁華燃燼，那一面斑駁｡' - Found on flickrcc.net

Think before it's too late (Edward de Bono)

It is really different to convince people that thinking is important. Thinking needs to be practical rather than political, and focussed on 'what's next' rather than what has been. According to Edward de Bono (keynote at the final day of ICOT 2013), "world thinking cannot solve world problems because world thinking is itself the problem. And this is only getting worse" (source).

"Our existing thinking is EBNE – excellent but not enough. Our minds function like trying to drive a car using only one wheel. There’s nothing wrong with that one wheel – conventional thinking – but we could all get a lot further if we used all four…"  (source).

Our usual thinking is very similar to that of early humans - in other words, most of our thinking is recognition thinking. And that is why we place so much emphasis on critical and analysis thinking to find out 'what is going on here'.

Perception - 90% of errors in thinking are errors in perception and only 10% were errors in logic. As a species we have done little to change our perception of the world. The points of the compass enable us to direct our gaze. So what we need in every day life is a compass to help us look at things differently. PMI is one such tool - plus, minus, interesting. These are very simple but they make a big difference and can make the difference of between 30 and 100%. It gives youngsters a confidence in their thinking. Thinking needs to be taught. Teaching thinking can have a positive effect on students who are underachieving and undeserved.

The Church in the Middle ages was interested in thinking to find the 'truth', rather than in thinking to create value. The provocation, problem connection can be a powerful way to re-frame ways of thinking about specific issues...to develop a new concept and a new attitude. The 'random word' can be a great way to also generate alternative ideas. It opens up new tracks and therefore enables new paths of thinking to be opened up in the mind. Argument on the other hand is very negative, there is no design element, and there is way too much ego. It is from this point that the six hats were developed.

We have done so little about thinking for the last 2000 years. We have had philosophers and psychologists, who are more interested in measuring. In his presentation, de Bono asserts that when we change the way we think and strengthen our ability to raise our thinking level, other areas of our life – both personal and business – will improve.

Image:

• 'Thoughtful, 黄昏てる' - Found on flickrcc.net
• Image: 'The Beach VI'  - Found on flickrcc.net

One thought to rule them all: The most powerful force in the world

This was the keynote presentation on day 4 of ICOT.  Kerry Spackman, opened by saying that you can work really hard but if nothing changes you are wasting your time. And making a small difference, even if you don't know about it is more important than winning a gold medal. What is the biggest dent you could possibly make in the world? Changes can be from the bottom up, or from top down.

"Thoughts, beliefs, and ideas are the most powerful forces in the world. The champion often wins because the thoughts they run through their mind, whether during training or competition, are better than the loser’s thoughts. At the lowest level, it is our thoughts that separate us from the apes, and give us dominion over the world—a truly remarkable transformation given we share so much physiology in common"(source).

Thoughts can be both positive and negative, but are always powerful. We care very much about who controls for example, nuclear weapons, but do not seem to care about the thoughts that run through our society.

"The power of an idea operates on both a personal and a social scale as we saw when Germany was divided into East and West by opposing political ideologies and the implications of those ideas were allowed to play out—one produced the Trabant and the other the S-Class Mercedes. Indeed, beliefs are probably more powerful than nuclear weapons, and yet, while we take great care to protect access to atomic weapons, we play fast and loose with the thoughts that permeate society. Everyone is “entitled to their own beliefs”—whether they match reality or not—often with catastrophic consequences" (source).

One in every 9 Americans over the age of 12 are on Prozac. Something is wrong here. Thoughts are not matching reality. Beliefs have consequences, especially if they don't match 'reality'. The messages that are portrayed by, for example the media, have consequences. The impact that the legislation around the tobacco industry and smoking has been pretty effective, for instance. Images of celebrities doing certain things shape behaviour - these are thoughts that are being put in people's minds.

The 5 levels - me, people important to me, people I know, people I don't know, and society as an institution. Violence, and hatred are both human. What are we going to do about it? Kerry announced the Knights' Institute. The Knights are influential people who have the clout to help support key initiatives that can change society. There are knights, knights' associates, and knights' agents (and the latter anyone can join). He is always working with Mai Chen.
Often we do things and we don't know the consequences. Do we see beauty any more, or are we constantly running to feed the machine of money and personal gain? Kindness is, now, possibly a path less travelled.

Some of the questions that Kerry poses are:

• How do we find the very best thoughts, both for individuals and society?
• What practical tools and techniques can we employ?

Images

• 'Let the boy earn his spurs!' - Found on flickrcc.net
• Image: 'Un cop de mà'  - Found on flickrcc.net

The Most Powerful Force in the World from EDtalks on Vimeo.

 

The four vision principles are building learning capacity, collaborating, making meaning, and breaking through, and the vision for the school acts as a filter for anything that happens there.  As a team. the next part of the journey was to voice a graduate profile, and this is a touchstone to see if the students are working towards their aspirational vision. To realise the vision they needed to develop the mindsets and norms that would help the students develop. Two of the main significant points of differences are the learning spaces at the school (on the site there are several images and a couple of videos you can watch to see the learning spaces). And Breakthrough day is another big point of difference, and this is the day where students can work on their own projects and to develop their talents within areas that interest them.

There are many milestones along the way that have been reached as part of the development of the school, but they wanted to pose the question - what learning matters?  And to help answer the question - why a concept curriculum? A curriculum that is just based on content no longer cuts the mustard. Dealing with the complex issues now needs to be a focus, and students need to be supported in their development of the necessary skills to rise to the challenges.

Peter Newell believes that 90% of what we teach is a "waste of time" - so 90% of what we teach - the nuggets of knowledge - will never be used. As such, we need to teach in a way where students look for wide scope...the areas outside of a topic or discipline that inform it in a sometimes tenuous,  but very important way. This will enable students to develop large understandings to cope with the unexpected. The idea of a concept curriculum is not a new one. 

One of the things did was as a team (and the process included the students) they looked into the macro areas that underpin many of the curriculum micro concepts. They also asked questions such as what are the major concepts emerging? What micro concepts sit beneath the macro concepts that had been identified? And finally they started back-mapping the key concepts (a process that took a number of terms to complete).  The process was one of creating and re-creating, imagining and re-imagining. Then there was a 'so what? What next?' moment.

To evaluate they started by gathering baseline data of student understanding (and used video as part of this process). Using a 'shift happens' bridge, and the middle bit seems to be most tricky, when the try and tried seems not to be working. The learning process is conceptualised as a framework for students to use around building knowledge, making meaning, and applying understandings. The model includes verbs that pop out and help the students actualise and verbalise the process. 

The presenters then provided a glimpse into how the teachers plan when provided with this conceptual understanding input. The audience was split into groups, and each teacher provided an example of the process. Planning is split into 2. The first half of the term is planned up front, and then the team meet halfway through the term to plan for the second half (this is done collaboratively in Google Docs). Videos were taken at the beginning of the term (and captured on video) - the example provided was 3 students talking about the macro concept of collaboration, with an example from the very beginning of the term (very sketchy understanding), which was compared with one from after 3 weeks of engaging with the concept (where the students were a lot more confident, and had the vocabulary and personal / general examples to talk about the concept of collaboration). The teachers were rapt as this was a concrete example of the students developing an understanding of collaboration. The evaluative data that is collected is used to inform reporting, and achievement data. One of the aims is to change the mental models around assessment and the learning that matters (so for example, the report back to the BOT often takes the form of video clips showing significant shifts in understanding). 

 This is gold dust! I can imagine that collecting the data, collating it, and crunching the numbers is quite a big job, but the results - especially the personalising of the curriculum and learning experience in response to shifts - are heartening. 

Image: 'Into the light (Explored)' - Found on flickrcc.net

Radical Innovation for Learning (Simon Breakspear)

Simon Breakspear opened by saying that "that there is something about learning that is deeply personal". The challenges we face are worthy of our brightest minds and leadership. It has to be radical change, with a global perspective, that will enable us to explore the pressures and opportunities for systemic innovation in education systems in order to provide different, better, and cheaper learning for all.

"Skills have become the currency of 21st century economies" (Andreas Schieicher), and the ability to change and learn new skills will be a fundamental influence on global change. Some of the global drivers of disruption in education include a realisation "that incremental change in education systems is not sufficient to meet the needs and demand for learning in the 21st Century. Economic globalisation, demographic changes, environmental challenges, and new technologies are all exerting pressure on our 20th Century models of education. We now need all people to develop high-level literacies, and have the ability and motivation to learn throughout life" (source).

In Singapore and Hong Kong (countries that perform really well in PISA), are now focussing on skills that are beyond the cognitive. The narrow measures of tests are actually holding back progress and capability. People who do well in the test taking often struggle to solve problems in novel situations. The skills for learning in the future are therefore in 3 domains: cognitive, interpersonal, and intrapersonal.
The diversity of learners is growing. But, in many western countries there is a decreasing motivation to be part of education, meaning that there are empty seats in say, the UK, while there are students in India who cannot find a place to study.

"Fundamentally, trying to get something out of a broken system won't work". We need a radical new version for learning and teaching, in particular around physical learning spaces, assessment, technology and pedagogy, roles, identities, capabilities of the teacher, and lesson time and sequence. Re-framing these will help us re-imagine learning.

Four big ideas are necessary, Simon believes, for radical innovation. The first is the need to design for learning. At the moment we have the current paradigm of learning + technology. What we needed to do, Simon stresses that we need to cultivate an ecosystem for systemic innovation.  "Innovation for learning will require diverse players in the learning game: government, practitioners, entrepreneurs, research institutions, foundations, social enterprises, technologists, and developers.  We will explore the opportunities to cultivate disruptive innovation and scale up powerful new approaches, which will assure high quality and equitable learning for all" (source).

The second is a rapid prototyping approach, where there is an iterative process of re-working, launching, tweaking, and re-launching. We need to learn the art and discipline of innovation. One of the problems is that many institutions have not put in place an agile process for change. It is necessary to re-frame failure. Success and failure are not polar opposites. "What is the minimum set of features that you need in order to begin the process of feedback and discovery?" (Gomez, & Bryk)...it's smaller than you think.

The third idea is to unashamedly seek out disruptive innovations, and harness game-changing ideas, to enhance quality, equity, and at a cheaper rate than before. "When we are doing well we often ask delivery questions rather than disruption questions".

This new learning will be collaborative, social, deep, challenging and stretching. Sometimes learning is sometimes hard. It will involve free content, learning platforms, mobile, be social (platform enabled), and informed by data and learning analytics. These have the potential to re-define learning, especially for those people who have challenges with access. Neil D'Souza (Zaya) is working on solutions that helps address the problems of access across the world, especially in remote places.

The fourth part of the puzzle is the creation of an ecosystem of diverse players, and seeing government as a platform. This will bring real diversity to the greatest challenges of learning.
Simon poses a couple of questions:

• How might we harness the learning potential of game-changing new ideas in education?
• What lessons can we learn from the educational pioneers and disruptive innovators?

I was really impressed with the way that Simon (and Warren Hall...and the neat tech assistant) coped with technology that kept throwing the toys out of its cot! It was well worth overcoming the issues (a great example of persistance and problem solving!). Some useful challenges. And while Simon's suggestions are 'on a theme' (that seems to have been under discussion for the last 10++ years), it was useful to find out about his suggestions, and also to hear about some concrete examples (even though they tend, at the moment to be relatively small scale).

Image

• 'Avalanche' - Found on flickrcc.net
•  "Reservoir Dogs" debate, 3 in the morning' - Found on flickrcc.net

The life of PII (Public Interest Index) – Harnessing the Tiger (Government)

Mai Chen, the keynote for day 3 of the ICOT conference, is an energetic, provocative professional, who, again, I have seen only on video previously.
Today she is speaking about thinking keeps you ahead of the wave, which includes

• Nobel prize winner thinking
• The power of being discriminated against
• Throwing a rock at a tiger
• Changing direction and “leaving home” – often
• Darwinian adaptation
• Creating your own wave

Mai opened suggested that one of the greatest influences on thinking is...government. They have a large amount of funding, they shape policy, and so they help shape thinking. In particular they encourage thinking that will help solve problems. Government in all its guises influences thinking.
Over Mai's summer holidays a lot happened. She referred in particular to Kerry Spackman, and his thinking about moral functioning, in particular 'level 5', which is about caring about society as a whole. She has also been to see the 'Life of Pi' - 'without that tiger I would have died', whereby the tiger is a part of the main character. If NZ is to survive the tiger, we need Government to be a part of the solution for civil society.

Can individuals be led by Government to be happy? An interesting question. Can passing anti-discrimination laws impact individual happiness, for example? What does this say about how we frame and think of Government? How can we ensure that Governments act positively for public interest?

What we measure affects what we do - you have got to measure to see if initiatives are having an effect. Which is why it was unfathomable that the financial crisis took us so much by surprise. Mai mentioned that there is an old Chinese proverb that "If you do not want to end up where you are going, change your direction". Metrics of sustainability are therefore important.

The NZ treasury has been working hard, and have come up with the Living Standards Framework, which brings together a lot of thinking about aspects that are often not considered together. The framework build on earlier research and pulls it together, in part to provide a vision of sustainability for the future. However, it is no good having a framework if no one uses it.

Mai Chen's presentation raised some interesting question, and definitely saw Government as part of a sustainable future, supported by a framework that everyone supports. Part of this is having a population who understand how the system works. There is a lot to mull over, and I think I need to sit down with a strong coffee and a group of friends to have a chat about the issues....anyone ready for a coffee? :-p

Image:

• 'tiger close up' - Found on flickrcc.net
•  'Café con leche - Milchkaffee (CC)' - Found on flickrcc.net

The life of PII (Public Interest Index) – Harnessing the Tiger (Government) from EDtalks on Vimeo.