C86 (Challenge): Evolving our Practice with POWR

​I’m so excited to record this episode on the 2nd birthday of this podcast!  What a journey.  I never thought I would ever record a podcast, let alone 86 episodes of my meandering thoughts about the PYP.  It has been truly a passion project as I share with you my love of learning and I hope it’s helped you as well. 

As we have gone through this Design Thinking Challenge together, it has been my pleasure to connect to two books that have really touched my practice this year.  The Four Agreements and Pop-Up Studio have left the greatest imprint on how I think and craft my workshops for others. 

At the close of this challenge, I consider the POWR of connecting thinking as we try to evolve as educators and learners.  According to Misty Paterson, “The POWR Coaching Cycle is a metacognitive process to power up learning designs and conversations.  It’s all about activating a “marveller’s mindset” to hold learning up to the light.  The cycle consists of four moves: prepare, observe, wonder, and respond.”  Let’s take that in for a moment.  

The way we evolve as human beings is by interacting with others and receiving critical feedback and feedforward.  This process of continual interaction shapes our understanding while making us better bit by bit.  I love the notion that the goal of this process is to highlight the “marveller’s mindset.”  We actively engage in self-assessment practice, so we can increase our curiosity and marvel.  Doesn’t that sound delicious? ​

Misty continues, “Activating POWR feels like a feedback loop or a thinking routine.  We use it when we want to put learners and learning front and center, when we want to cradle and cherish the learning experience.”  When I read this, it reinforces my ideas about reflective practice on a daily basis.  As an educator, I want my learners to know their strengths and areas of growth, so they can evolve in their practice, so they can cradle and cherish their learning.  I’m doing a happy dance right about now; you just can’t see it. 

Misty continues, “Activating POWR feels like a feedback loop or a thinking routine.  We use it when we want to put learners and learning front and center, when we want to cradle and cherish the learning experience.”  When I read this, it reinforces my ideas about reflective practice on a daily basis.  As an educator, I want my learners to know their strengths and areas of growth, so they can evolve in their practice, so they can cradle and cherish their learning.  I’m doing a happy dance right about now; you just can’t see it. 

How does POWR work?

There are four moves that guide the process that we will unpack.  They are deeply connected with the 4A’s 


Prepare:  we set our intention as professional marvellers.  We choose a 4A to nudge the thinking to “WOW”!
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Observe:  we gather evidence.  We notice the tools that learners use to guide their thinking.  
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Wonder:   we consider optional and optimal responses to nudge thinking.  We ask ourselves clarifying questions so we can scaffold our mini-conferences with learners with a clear purpose.
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Respond: we engage in real-time.  We initiate purposeful conversations by asking intentional questions that deepen thinking and connections. 
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This dynamic process really is intuitive to the coaching process, but it puts it into a model that is user-friendly and easy to implement.  One thing that Misty does in her book, she provides concrete examples of how to go through the POWR cycle using the 4A’s as a lens.  I’m obsessed, because it’s so easy!  To be honest, my favorite is centered on Abundance.  Want to take a peek? 

To generate abundant ideas, we generally start with an interesting guiding question that can be explored from different perspectives.

​Here’s the abundant question:

Where is the learner’s interest located in the broader world? 

This question reminded me of a male student who was very interested in playing sports, but decided to learn about embroidery as a personal inquiry.  Here are some other questions that were sparked by this guiding question. 
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• What is embroidery? 
• How do we make embroidery stitches? 
• What are the materials needed to make an embroidery piece?
• What are the purposes of each stitch?
• How can we use embroidery in a variety of ways, such as on sports jerseys or shoes?
• Why should we care about the art of embroidery?

This process gets our abundant ideas flowing, so we can prepare for the POWR coaching cycle.  

Challenge

Your challenge is to answer the guiding question about a topic that comes to mind instead of embroidery.  Try to stretch your thinking by asking other questions.  Then, you are ready to show your POWR with Misty’s model. 
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Prepare  
Choose an object that seems ordinary at first glance, such as a chair, jar, or pen.

Observe
What happens when you observe the object through different disciplinary lenses: scientist, artist, designer, mathematician? 

Wonder
What happens when you view this object through a variety of conceptual lenses: perspective, system, play, change, texture?

Respond
What role might Abundance play in your educational context? 


Are you getting goosebumps too?  I can’t believe how amazing POWR is and how it can revolutionize our teaching and coaching.  Instead of an ordinary object, imagine looking at Prepare from the lens of an educator.  We input our content, such as the water cycle, as our object.  Now, it helps us in a new way to nudge learners to think about this topic from a more abundant lens.  This can help our planning process as well!  Ack, the possibilities are literally endless. 

I want to formally thank Misty Paterson for allowing me to generously use examples from her book, Pop-Up Studio: Responsive Teaching for Today’s Learners.  I will put a link into this podcast description, so you can get a copy of your own. 

Please share your ideas, wonderings, connections on social media by #thinkchat2020 on Twitter and LinkedIn.