Learning transfer is our greatest gift. It helps us to better understand ideas that we are toying with during our learning. What better way to transfer all of these ideas in our design thinking challenge, but to teach them to our learners? Agency at its finest. Now, let’s circle back to the big ideas from Pop-Up Studio: Responsive Teaching for Today’s Learners that resonate and guide our thinking. Think about how you will model them for your learners and make them a vital part of your planning process. Remember, their purpose is to add depth and complexity to your learner’s thinking and understanding. Isn’t this what we want for all of our learners? The 4A’sCME: Concepts, Materials, ExperiencesCME is more than using a combination of concepts, materials, and experiences together. It considers how the learner with use the combination to show their thinking so you can truly "see" their level of understanding. To accomplish this task, we consider:
POWRNow, let’s pivot towards the design thinking process. To make this come alive, I pose an abundance of questions to stretch your thinking during your planning sessions. Remember, more is more. We want to go beyond where we have been in the past, so true inquiry, agency, and conceptual understanding can thrive. Now that we know better, we must act better. At the same time, keep in mind that this is part of our journey. Try to stretch yourself, but don’t take on everything at once. Take it a bit at a time. How will you connect Misty’s models with the questions from the design thinking process? Empathy
Define
Ideate
Prototype
Evolve
All of these questions have sparked my curiosity within my own practice and I can’t wait to hear how they help to deepen your planning process. Be sure to connect on social media at #thinkchat2020. I’d love to learn from you!
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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”! Observe: we gather evidence. We notice the tools that learners use to guide their thinking. 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. Respond: we engage in real-time. We initiate purposeful conversations by asking intentional questions that deepen thinking and connections. 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.
This process gets our abundant ideas flowing, so we can prepare for the POWR coaching cycle. ChallengeYour 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.
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. The meaning of evolve is to develop gradually. This captures the heart of our PYP journey. We are developing gradually into educators that we want to be, so we can help to shape young humans into how they want to be. When you take a step back and pause, it truly is a beautiful thing. Evolution means that even with our past mistakes, we can continue to develop gradually into who we want to become. As I think of how I have evolved as an educator over the past 18 years, an experience instantly pops into my mind. I’ve shared so many stories in this podcast over the past two years that they blend together. Please excuse me if you have heard this before. My evolutionary journeyIn 2015, I looped from fourth to fifth grade at my school in Dubai. Our grade level was known for having quite a few behavior kids, particularly one child who had been sent to the office every day. Upon returning to school, I discovered that I had 18 boys and 10 girls in my new class and the majority of the “naughty” kids were in my class. Because I had a special education background, I was always given extra kids that needed support, but this was too much. What did I do? I called my momma. As a retired teacher, my momma had seen it all. When I called her, I thought she was going to soothe my soul, but instead I received a lecture. In her calm way, she told me to put on my big girl panties and deal with it. Verbatim. She reminded me that these children were going to have a new year with me and my only choice was to love them. They weren’t the same children that they were last year, because they had an entire summer to mature and to change. I had to throw out all of the negative comments that I’ve heard about these children and just love them. Since I’m a good girl, I listened to my momma. Not surprising, it was one of the best years in my teaching career. What was the secret ingredient? I let my learners evolve into the humans they were always meant to be. Bright, capable, self-initiated, and passionate. I gave them freedom to choose how they learned, I built true relationships with them, and I recognized their various talents. In short, I got out of their way and allowed my learners to demonstrate agency. As a result, I didn’t have a major behavior issue all year long. The boy who had been sent to the office everyday in fourth grade went to the office once in fifth. He made a silly mistake and he knew it. Because we had built such a solid relationship, he was more disappointed that he let me down than worried about receiving a punishment. He did everything to repair the trust that was slightly broken. The naughtiest pack of boys begged me to allow them to work together during the PYP exhibition. At first, I completely rejected the idea. They came prepared with a plan on how they would manage their time, allocate responsibilities, and demonstrate their thinking in their final product. I was impressed with their forethought that I released the control to allow them to work together. It was the best decision I made that year. The team truly lived up to their promises and it was an absolute delight to see their confidence and preparation shine forth on the day of exhibition. How do we evolve our learners?How do we get learners to this point? We explicitly teach them how to reflect deeply on their actions and their learning. Reflective practice is more than providing a prompt for learners to respond to in your writing journals. True reflection is looking back on our prior behavior, learning, and connections. It’s a metacognitive process that reflects on how and what we know. It examines what we will need to know in order to move forward and evolve. This cannot happen if we engage learners into reflective practice once a week on Friday afternoon. It has to be part of daily practice in order to become a disposition. What are the benefits of reflecting regularly? I once heard Simon Sinek state that it’s those quiet moments when we are alone with ourselves that innovation occurs. This stuck with me. It’s in those small moments where your best friend leaves you alone for a few minutes in a café that you have time to think. By grabbing your phone, you are blocking the process of having an aha moment, reflecting on ideas, or finding an answer to a problem that has been nagging you all week long. If this is the case, why are we not doing this with our learners? Reflection is a vital process of the PYP planning process. Why? It’s through the reflective practice that we are able to openly assess what worked well with our learners, what stank to high heaven, and we can pose suggestions for next time. This helps us to evolve our unit construction and learn from past mistakes. Also, it helps us to look at teaching through varied lenses, so we can support a variety of learning styles and interests.
WIth every evolution process, it happens gradually. The PYP journey is not a race. It’s a slow winding road towards self-discovery. At times, it feels like the hills you must climb seem endless. Then, you get to the peak and you must start all over again. As you become more familiar with the process, the peaks and valleys will regulate and you will find a rhythm in the planning process. I promise that it does get easier with time, but it took me about 10 years to really understand it fully. Remember, you didn’t master everything as a new teacher and it took time to develop your routines and practices. The main thing to remember is that the PYP is a continuous cycle of evolution. You will never reach a point where you think you made it, because something will always change. You might feel more confident in your process, but we get new learners each year that shake things up. At the same time, we are not the same as we were the previous year. We have matured, gained some confidence and have some new skills we didn’t before. With this said, let’s move on over to the challenge. It’s time to POWR up! As I was considering this challenge, I reflected on the CME model from Pop-Up Studio: Responsive Teaching for Today’s Learners by Misty Paterson. This has been my latest book club read, but more importantly my aha text. Going through the book club experience with this text opened up so many possibilities of how to use these ideas in a variety of ways. Isn’t that the purpose of a prototype? It’s a tool we use to try out our ideas, so we can evolve our practice. The CME model was designed with “see me” in mind, so “we intentionally see the person within the learning engagement…We can see personal interests, understandings, wonderings, creativity, thinking, and agency surface.” (Paterson, 2021) So what exactly is the CME model? It’s a construct that helps learners to look at the interplay of using concepts to connect learning experiences with materials. That sounds very simple, but it’s quite powerful. There are multiple entry points to the CME model, but I like the Pop-Up Studio Experience Making model that explores inspiring materials, compelling contexts, and concepts that help to build understanding. One possibility of interpreting this model is to begin with some inspirational materials that spark curiosity. Have learners design their own experience using the materials. Then, have learners connect to the bigger ideas using concepts to bridge the pieces together. This was a big aha for me in my book club experience. Where you begin will create a different experience for the learner. Isn’t that magical? I kind of connect it to CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE books from my youth. You decide where you begin, but the outcome will look differently for each person based on the choices you make. Love this, because it builds up learner agency and ownership of the process. Pop-Up Studio within the context of our content.Here are the CME Makers: Sam, parent, and Sasha, grade 7 child Context: Sam and Sasha are grappling with Sasha’s homework. To build a 3D clay model showing how ancient civilizations and modern day civilizations adapt to changing geographic conditions. Concepts: civilization, adaptation, innovation Materials: sketch pad, pencil, clay Experience: How have humans responded to changes in climate or challenges with natural resources (e.g. floods or famine) throughout time? What patterns or commonalities do you notice? Generalization: Humans adapt to geographic changes and challenges by innovating. Whoa, can you see how this could revolutionize the thinking in your classrooms? Imagine planning a unit of inquiry with this model in mind. There will be times your learners get off track and the CME model is a way to redirect their path towards your bigger understanding. ChallengeThink of your next unit of inquiry and use the CME model to build a deeper conceptual understanding. Remember, the purpose is to “see” our learner’s understandings, misconceptions, and connections.
Don’t be shy to post your ideas on social media. We learn better together. If you want share you ideas on Twitter and LinkedIn, be sure to #thinkchat2020. When I think of a prototype, my mind does not go to something printed by 3D technology or a miniature building created by an architecture firm. Instead, it goes back to the 30th anniversary of Disneyland when I was 12 years old. I remember sharing the day with my family, in particular my grandfather, who worked his entire life for the Southern Pacific Railroad as a train conductor to an executive in the San Francisco office. He was naturally curious about how things worked and this extended to the Happiest Place on Earth, but from a different lens. We didn’t go on the wild rides, but rather explored the history and functionality of the park. One of the highlights of our trip to Disneyland was a model of the entire park in 3D miniature. I remember being mesmerized at the intricate detail of each part of the model and how it created something beautiful as a whole. It was a work of art. My grandfather pointed out all of the elements that were needed to make the park function: architecture, aesthetics, public services, shopping, food, transportation, engineering, and human resources. I remember marveling at all of these elements and how they shaped Disney magic from someone dressed as Cinderella to the floral displays shaped like Mickey Mouse. This same magic can happen in our teaching. Similar to Walt Disney, we have a passion to create learning that’s going to create a happy memory for learners. Instead of a 3D model, our prototype is our unit of inquiry planner. Instead of physically creating a model, we are curating learning engagements throughout a unit that will provoke, challenge, and connect thinking. We do this by looking at all of the elements of the PYP as a vehicle towards a transdisciplinary approach to learning. Creating a unit prototypeThis same magic can happen in our teaching. Similar to Walt Disney, we have a passion to create learning that’s going to create a happy memory for learners. Instead of a 3D model, our prototype is our unit of inquiry planner. Instead of physically creating a model, we are curating learning engagements throughout a unit that will provoke, challenge, and connect thinking. We do this by looking at all of the elements of the PYP as a vehicle towards a transdisciplinary approach to learning. Consider the story of your unit of inquiry planner. What does it tell you? What does it tell your learners? Does it tell the story of unified ideas that lead to a deep understanding of the transdisciplinary theme descriptor, central idea, and lines of inquiry? Is the learning and teaching aligned to make these the focus of everything we do and we leverage our content standards to be examples, rather than an isolated focus? It took me a long time to recognize that all of the different parts of the unit planner were designed to support the central idea. When I finally had this aha moment, it changed how and what I planned. I no longer created activities that taught my standards or guidelines. Instead, I create learning that engaged thinking and helped my learners to make connections between the different content areas. This is a vast difference. So how do we break this down into bite-size pieces? It’s all about modeling best practice. This is another layer to establishing a prototype of learning within the design thinking process. How are you modeling best practice to your learners? Are you teaching a discrete skill and having learners mirror you exactly? If so, how is this developing critical and creative thinking within your learners? I’ll never forget the moment I realized that my teaching needed to be overhauled. It wasn't a big event. I just remember giving directions to my learners with an expectation that they “get” a process on their own without modeling it. Most of my learners began to flail, because they were unsure how to execute the task. I noticed that behavior issues began to rise and less accountable talk was happening. During our debrief, my most independent learners shared their frustration in not completing the task and provided feedback and feedforward to me. At this moment, I realized that I had failed my learners, because I had not modeled the desired outcome. From that day, I actively modeled processes before each independent or small group task. Modeling doesn’t have to be big or take a lot of time. Sometimes, I simply think aloud while going through a task in front of my learners. I put myself into their shoes and provide a possible way of solving an open-ended task. By thinking aloud through the process, I model the desired outcome, but I also elicit student ideas along the way. Once I have finished, we generally have a list of possible entry points for their independent practice. As I’ve grown in my understanding of think alouds, I have tried to incorporate the ATLs and the MYP Command Terms Think Aloud with ATLsThe Approaches to Learning (ATLs) are skills learners need in order to become independent. They are open-ended skills that can be applied in a variety of ways with all content areas. When I use the ATL as part of the think aloud, I usually go through this process: Choose an ATL sub-skill (bullet point) that I want to focus on for the week or duration of time “In our Sharing the Planet unit of inquiry, we are focusing on sharing finite resources. One possible way is conservation and recycling. To help me learn about these ideas, we have decided to focus on the ATL sub-skill of generating novel ideas. To help us focus, we will look at how we can make unexpected or unusual connections between objects and/or ideas. ”PYP: Principles into Practice/ Learning and Teaching/ Thinking Skills/ Generating Novel Ideas/ Sub-Skill/ Make unexpected or unusual connections between objects and/or ideas. Break down the sub-skill down into words that learners will understand. “What does it mean to generate new ideas? I think it means to make or come up with new ideas. How can I do this? I am going to look at objects (things) and ideas (thoughts) and try to come up with new ways of thinking about them. This means I can’t put down the normal ideas I would come up with. I’m going to have to use my creativity. How can I possibly do this?” Present a possible situation where we can put the ATL into action. “I need to come up with a better way to recycle at our school. I know that we already have blue tubs to collect used paper and scraps. There are tubs to collect plastic water bottles too.” “I wonder what I can do about single-use plastic water bottles. I have visited some other schools and they have a water filter system at some water fountains where you can fill up your reusable water bottle. I wonder what I can do to get one at our school? I wonder what impact it will have on our use of single-use plastic? Think Aloud with the MYP Command TermsChoose a MYP Command Term that I want to focus on for the week or duration of time.
“In our Sharing the Planet unit of inquiry, we are focusing on sharing finite resources. One possible way is conservation and recycling. To help me learn about these ideas, we have decided to focus on the MYP Command Terms. We have chosen FORMULATE, which means to express precisely and systematically the relevant concept(s) and arguments.” Break down the command term down into words that learners will understand. “What does express precisely look and feel like? I think precisely means using strong and clear words, so people can understand my ideas. This means I need to really consider my word choice, so others understand the ideas in my mind.” “When I think of systems, I think of a bike. I see lots of parts working together to make the bike move forward. So, I think systematically means using my words in an order that makes sense, so other people understand me. I can do this by using concepts to make connections between ideas and maybe create an argument.” Present a possible situation where we can put the command term into action. “When we want to change someone’s opinion and actions, we have to come up with an argument that touches their hearts and minds. I can do this through a story, image, or video. One possible way to get people to care about recycling is to show how plastic bags impact living things in the ocean. I can show images of bags and their impact to fish, seals, and other organisms. This can be used in a message of how to take more responsibility in sharing our planet with other living things.” My brain is on overload now. To be honest, I stared at the page for a long time trying to find ways to prototype. Big thanks to my friend Vidhya who listened, acted as a cheerleader, and provided a variety of ideas. Now, let’s scoot over to the challenge! In our last episode, we defined what it means to ideate and stretched our thinking with the Question Formulation Technique (QFT). This lays the foundation of asking a variety of questions to and with our learners, so they are able to generate, revise, prioritize, and plan with their questions in mind. As we create this culture of thinking, we are ready to think more outside of the box to ideate real solutions to issues within our organization. As previously mentioned, we must do this process entirely with empathy. We are asking others to change their viewpoints and alter their ways of operating within the organization. It’s huge, so tread carefully and kindly. Over the past five weeks, I’ve been participating in the #CITLreads book club on Misty Paterson’s book, Pop-Up Studio: Responsive Teaching for Today’s Learners. While going through this five week process, my eyes were opened to new strategies on how to leverage inquiry and conceptual connections with our learners and peers. In particular, the 4A’s Guiding Principles stood out as a scaffold in the inquiry process. After all, isn’t coming up with new and innovative ideas part of the inquiry process? Misty Paterson came up with a simple system to help you take a look at your curriculum in a fresh new viewpoint. We will apply this concept to problem-solving. You can use one or all of all of the 4A’s to spark your ideation process. We will have a challenge for each to help you stretch and grow. AbundanceMisty suggests, “Abundance evokes the spirit of generosity and respect. We honor and contribute to the multitude of ways we can come to know and respond to the world through our senses.” When we engage in abundance, we are trying to expand our thinking beyond what we “see” and make connections beyond our imagination. This is where true out-of-the-box thinking starts. It’s looking at everyday objects and going beyond. For example, you may see a house key as just a thing that unlocks a door.
The teaching goal: “Turn the seemingly trivial into the transformative.” The learning goal: “There are so many ways to think about this!”
Challenge Take a look at a topic within your unit of inquiry. Go beyond the surface features of the topic and try to ideate numerous ways of looking at it that you may have not considered before. AuthenticityMisty purports, “Authenticity is about being vigilant in helping learners connect their passions to the broader community. In other words, it's about appreciating that the concepts we explore together are relevant and significant to the world at large.” The first thing that comes to my mind is making personal connections to the learning by applying it to my real-world context. Then, it’s about seeing how my view of this context is shaped within my local community, my country, and the world beyond. In this way, we make generalizations about issues and how it impacts humanity. The teaching goal: “Realize relevancy through real-life relationships and applications.” The learning goal: “This is important to me, and it’s important to others working with this too.”
ChallengeTake a look at the same topic within your unit of inquiry from abundance. Now, stretch your thinking to find ways to connect it to your student’s everyday lives, your local community, your regional community, and other places around the world. AwarenessMisty states, “Awareness sparks new ideas and insights; it is the essence of the aha moment. Aha moments happen when we connect conceptual dots, whom we see relationships and patterns between ideas.” We all have aha moments, but do we teach our learners how to spot them when they happen? This is a huge part of metacognitive thinking. To be honest, I don’t know how explicit I was with my learners when I was teaching. It’s so necessary for learners, because it aids in the process of making conclusions. The teaching goal: “Activate Ahas.” The learning goal: “Aha! Yes! It’s like…”
ChallengeTo continuously stretch our thinking, we will build upon prior learning by using the same unit of inquiry. Now, you will examine what strategies have been planned or added to the unit to facilitate aha moments. What reflection tools will be used to spark these aha moments? How will learners self-regulate the process? AnewMisty remarks, “Anew fosters deeper learning of concepts over time through recursive inquiry. Creating opportunities to return to ideas, to connect and meet ideas again and again as they grow in sophistication, fosters complexity within a study and enhances conceptual thinking.” I love how you can “see” something new in the same reading materials, videos, interactions with others after some time and experience. This is why I re-read texts every 1-2 years. I have grown in my understanding and truly transformative text will provide me with opportunities to start anew. The teaching goal: “Spark new ideas and share what’s swirling.” The learning goal: “I never thought of it in that way before!”
ChallengeWith your unit of inquiry, what are some things you have done previously that transform learning experiences of your learners? Which ones can be stretched to incorporate “what if” or “how about” thinking? How can it incorporate more learner agency to show their process rather than a product? As you can see, I absolutely love the framework of the 4A’s in guiding my ideation process. It requires us to examine our practice and find new ways of stretching our thinking. Thank you Misty Paterson for making this process easy, yet meaningful at the same time. My creative journeyWhen I think of coming up with creative and new ideas, I am instantly transported back to my Uni days. At the age of 26 years old, I was able to get into a “mature” adult program at a university in Sacramento, California. My bachelor’s degree was focused on Organizational Communications, which opened up a lot of doors for me. At the time, you could not major in education and to be honest that was the farthest thing from my mind. Being a child of an educator, I had a fixed mindset of what my life would look like in a small town for 30+ years. Little did I know at that time that I would not only follow in my mother’s footsteps, but I’d do most of it abroad. One of the courses in my degree program that stuck with me was creative problem-solving. From the lens of business organizations, this course examined all of the sacred cows (rules that are so successful that they become immune to criticism). They are accepted as fact and no matter how we try to present evidence otherwise, wider society does not accept it. The sacred cow is entrenched within the culture and underlying belief system. A tangible example is Hallmark movies. I love a good holiday romance that is light, frivolous, and takes less than two hours for the couple to get together. Each movie is predictable with the same outcome…the main characters fall in love. We know logically that real love takes hard work, isn’t always full of big romantic gestures, and requires a lot of compromise. Yet, we continue to watch these movies, because they are part of the construct of who we are. They are a sacred cow. To slay a sacred cow metaphorically, it requires a lot of empathy. We need to choose our words wisely, because you are unraveling an idea that means alot to many people within your organization. When we define the problem or issue to be solved, it must be clear how the sacred cow is stopping the organization from moving forward. Once the team recognizes and concedes to this fact, it’s at this point that we can move forward to ideate. It’s really important that we do this process slowly and full of empathy. You may be asking a group of educators and school leaders to give up practices that are at the heart of who they are. In the design thinking process, we recognize that the issue we have defined has not been previously dealt with correctly. We may have tried to solve the problem by examining the superficial symptoms, rather than getting to the root issue. When we ideate, we have to think out-of-the-box, so we can find alternative solutions that may seem farfetched in order to move our organization forward. An influential text from my university course was, A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative by Robert von Oech. This book examines how we can be more creative in our decision making, which is a huge part of ideate. Twenty years later, I still have a copy of the book, because it’s timeless message of creative problem-solving still resonates with me today. Why be creative?Von Oech asks, “Why be creative? Why challenge the rules? Why run the risk of falling and looking foolish? I can think of two good reasons. The first is change. When things change and new information comes into existence, it’s no longer possible to solve current problems with yesterday’s solutions…A second reason for generating ideas is that it’s a lot of fun.” When was the last time you cleared time in your schedule to come up with new ideas just for the heck of it? Carl Ally, an advertising legend once stated, ”The creative person wants to be a know-it-all. He/She wants to know about all kinds of things: ancient history, nineteenth century mathematics, current manufacturing techniques, flower arranging, and hog futures. He/She never knows when these ideas might come together to form a new idea. It may happen six minutes later or six years down the road. But a creative person has faith it will happen.” With this in mind, we ideate to creatively solve problems and do not limit our ideas, because they sound silly, improbable, or impractical. I’m sure the creators of Airbnb faced resistance to their ideas about renting out a portion or entire living spaces for a profit, rather than renting a hotel. Meanwhile, we get into a stranger’s car everyday as we catch an Uber or Lyft to get to the airport without thinking about it. These innovators were probably scared when they pitched their revolutionary ideas to business partners, but they knew it would fill a niche. We must think like these innovators to creatively solve our problems or we will never truly ideate. Many of us will face “mental locks” as we begin this process. Van Oech purports, “Most of us have certain attitudes that lock our thinking into the status quo and keep us thinking “more of the same.” Here are some mental locks that we face everyday.
What does it mean to ideate?To ideate, we need to get past these mental locks, so we can truly see ourselves as problem-solvers. It’s at this moment, you are free to ideate and innovate. So how do we open these mental locks? We must forget what we know, give up the ready-made answers of the status quo, and begin asking open-ended questions. The Question Formulation Technique (QFT)One way that I begin the process of ideate is using the Question Formulation Technique or QFT by the Right Question Institute. Kimberly L. Mitchell, the author of Experience Inquiry: 5 Powerful Strategies, 50 Practical Experiences frequently uses the QFT to get educators to ask a variety of open and closed questions. You can see the process in action from this blog post by Harvard University.
Ultimately, the QFT goes through this process in response to a prompt or solving a problem. This may help you to ideate some unique solutions. Teachers design a question focus (statement, visual, auditory, etc.) Students produce questions Students improve their questions Students prioritize their questions Students and teachers decide on the next steps Students reflect on what they have learned Now that we have delved into what it means to ideate, go over to episode 82 to participate in the challenge using Misty Paterson’s 4A’s from her book Pop-Up Studio: Responsive Teaching for Today’s Learners. As a podcaster, you never quite know your reach. Most of the work is done independently and then you cast it out into the world. When you receive heartfelt and meaningful feedback from a peer that you admire, it reaffirms that you are on the right track. Here is a reflection by Yuni Santosa, a highly experienced and thoughtful PYP educator that I greatly admire. I'm truly touched and honored by her feedback. Albert Einstein once said, “If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” One of the hardest things to do is to define the problem we want to solve. This requires us to dig deep into the underlying root causes, not the symptoms, which can open us to vulnerability. Most organizations don’t like to admit there is a problem, even if it is staring them in the face. No one likes to have to admit they are wrong or part of a system that is malfunctioning. It’s our nature as human beings to strive for perfection, whatever that may be. Yet, imagine what our world would look like if we just admitted our fallibility. Truth would be the hallmark of all organizations and people would never fear the provocation of war, poverty, or perfectionism. Our best would be best enough. At the root of every problem is a cause. Do you know what is the cause of your problem? Many do not. They often think the symptom is the root, but you need to dig deeper to discover it. Once you do, the organization must acknowledge that it exists. From there, they can decide which instructional strategies to employ, organize the necessary resources, and develop the staff so they feel confident. All of this takes time, but it’s imperative if we want to move forward. To help us define our root problem, we will use the Four Agreements. Consider which agreement lies at the root of an issue at your campus and create a possible solution to present to school leadership. This is bold, but oftentimes the leadership team doesn’t have all the answers. They value specific, targeted feedback with possible next steps towards a resolution. Even still, there are no guarantees that your ideas will be accepted, but you did your best to advocate for sustainable change. This is taking ownership of your own learning process and taking meaningful action. ChallengeLet's take a moment to be reflective of how the Four Agreements is being demonstrated at your campus and classroom. 1. Be impeccable with your wordWhen I am thinking of this agreement, I think about what is being said and unsaid. Here are some possible things to consider with being impeccable with your word at a PYP campus:
Why this matters When we use the language of the learner profile regularly, it becomes a way of life rather than terms to be memorized. We begin to take them into our daily practice as a code of behavior and our interactions with others are altered. We think, speak, write, and reflect with these terms in mind. When presented with undesirable behavior, such as gossiping about leadership, other teachers, or students, we will not engage, because we understand what it means to be principled in thought and deed. 2. Don't take it personallyThis is one of the hardest things to do, especially when we feel we must defend our honor as teachers. But, it’s one that will greatly change our outlook on ourselves and our profession.
Why this matters As teachers, we often take our performance appraisals to heart more than other professionals. To us, it means the difference between if I am a “good” teacher or a “bad” one. We often make goals based on current interests or areas of study, but are they grounded on actionable items? I’ve made plenty of goals that were a bit flimsy, so it was very difficult to monitor and document progress. The approaches to learning may be areas that develop learner independence, but they can also be used to guide teaching. I have often felt at times that I didn’t explicitly teach many ATLs, because I didn’t have time or know how to unravel them completely. This is the opportunity for the teacher and the learners to grow together. 3. Don't make assumptionsThis is the hardest agreement to follow dutifully. We are taught as children to continuously read between the lines in a reading text. This has led to a life of inferring what may or may not be present in a situation. Yet, we get into the most trouble with this one, because we make poor judgment by taking things personally as well. Double Whammy!
Why this matters As human beings, we are naturally curious about the world and we are continuously asking questions to make sense of it. The reason we are using leveled questioning is so we can unravel hidden truths within the curriculum. By teaching with a variety of questions, we are accessing creative and critical thinking on a regular basis. Just like the learner profile, we want it to become part of our language and disposition as an educator. I have my Weiderhold’s question matrix posted across from the point of instruction as a continual reminder of the types of questions I should be asking, instead of the lower levels ones found in basal readers. A school that knows how to ask deeper questions will find it easier to explore issues that are at the root of systemic problems. 4. Always do your bestHuman beings are fallible creatures, so we are always going to make a mistake. It’s guaranteed. In times of error, we simply let it go and try again. We don’t judge ourselves for past mistakes and try to make better choices in the future. It’s that simple. Why this matters A functioning system continues to evolve when its members take risks and try out new ideas. This requires a tremendous amount of courage and trust within the team. But, it helps the organization to look at old problems with new eyes in hopes that it evolves. This is how people take authentic action based on their learning. It’s not for a project or a unit of inquiry. It’s for life. A community where authentic action is happening has a place within the school that celebrates risk-taking. Learners of all ages share the meaningful and sustainable actions they have taken to support themselves, the community and world beyond. This sets a tone that action within ourselves is as equally important as taking action that is showcased for the world to see. Also, if the action doesn’t work out, no worries, you can always try your best next time. It’s the process, not the final product that matters in life. As you can see, the choices are rather complex. You may only want to pick one. On the surface, they might seem low-level, but they unravel the deeper issues of school culture, agency, inquiry, conceptual understanding, and action on a campus. Now comes the hard part of deciding which one to choose. Welcome to the design thinking challenge!I am excited to explore the design thinking challenge through different lenses that you may have not considered before. This is how my brain works. I make connections between unrelated texts and somehow it works. Let’s do this! The four agreementsRecently, I stumbled on a video on LinkedIn about Cognitive Behavioral Theory by Joe Amabile, a seasoned IB educator. This video highlighted the idea that everyone responds to things that happen in the world based on their beliefs and identity. This demonstrated the connection between our reactions during a typical school day to our deep rooted beliefs and identity that has been developed over a lifetime.
After some time with the Four Agreements, I realized that empathy is the foundation of it all. We cannot move forward as a human being, let alone an organization, without assessing where we are in employing empathy regularly in our practice. With that in mind, read the summary of each of the Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. The ChallengeAs educators, we are always trying to improve ourselves, so we will begin with a deep reflection of our daily practice by answering some questions. There will be several choices for each agreement and you only need to answer the ones that resonate at this time. Be impeccable with your word
Don’t Take Anything Personally
Don’t Make Assumptions
Always Do Your Best
![]() Notice, these questions did not focus on school specific topics, because we are trying to get to the root beliefs, feelings, experiences that shape our identity. Usually, they have happened outside of school, but they greatly impact how we operate within them on a daily basis. This is very deep, but it has certainly made me stop to think about how I am contributing to the school culture and building empathy.
If you have any questions or thoughts, please post on Twitter @thinkchat2020 or LinkedIn at Lu Gerlach. I look forward to learning from you. This episode will focus on building empathy. If you feel like you have a solid understanding of what this looks and feels like in the school context, consider popping over to episode 79 to participate in the empathy challenge. Empathy 101To empathize means different things to different people. It’s not a one size fits all, which is a huge lesson I learned being a PYP Coordinator. The things that resonated with me did not for the majority of my staff due to cultural differences, learning experiences, and background knowledge. So how do we build a culture of empathy within our schools, so we can move the work forward? As you can see, empathy and sympathy are quite different, although many people mix them quite regularly. When we empathize, we put ourselves into the experience by trying to understand the other person’s feelings and point of view. We are doing it to lend support in times of struggle, but also success. It teaches us how to operate within society with feeling and care. While sympathy is all about feeling sorry for someone else’s feelings and sorrows. This paints a different picture entirely, because we only offer sympathy when something negative happens in someone else’s life. We may feel bad, but it doesn’t permanently imprint on our behavior and thinking. To be honest, I didn’t realize the difference until I was a mature adult, emphasis on mature. It takes great maturity, self-efficacy, and understanding to show true empathy. We are letting go of our egos and focusing 100% of our energy on supporting another person who is going through their struggle. We may have not experienced the same thing, but we can imagine how they are feeling. We are present in our minds and hearts. How does this apply to school? You hear a lot about being more empathetic in schools, but what does that look like? I found a great resource from Harvard University called How to Build Empathy and Strengthen Your School Community that really helped to shape my mindset. Empathy helps learners to build the social skills required for life: how to appropriately engage and work with others, build lasting relationships, problem-solve, and see situations from multiple perspectives. Imagine if all of our learners knew how to empathize, there would be no bullying, cliques, or categories (popular, jocks, nerds, etc.) Instead, we would be just people who all have different ways to express themselves, which have similar struggles in life. Imagine teaching a 5th grade class with that mindset. Actually, there are schools with this particular model in place, because they have placed the value of building quality and sustainable relationships through empathy. So, how do we do it? Model empathyThis sounds intuitive, but many teachers think emphatically, but it may not always be shared with their learners. Consider it another way of thinking aloud. When instances occur naturally during the day, consider pausing to think aloud about the situation and how a learner dealt with it appropriately. As you continue to do this, learners will see it’s a natural way of being and not something that needs to be added to our day. Explicitly teaching empathyAs we model empathy, we explicitly show what empathy looks like through the language of the PYP. To do this authentically, we need to understand what empathy looks and feels like in everyday life and how it can be demonstrated through the language of the PYP. With time, you will be able to speak naturally about approaches to learning and learner profile attributes in connection to building empathy. This is going to be more meaningful than a stand alone lesson on being “knowledgeable” and “resilient.” Example A class is discussing the current conflict in the Ukraine and they want to understand the motivation for war in our modern world. One learner connects to how all conflicts throughout history have been derived from the same causes: power, money, or control. Possible responses
Explicitly teaching empathy within context to our units of inquiry supports so many aspects of the PYP. Even more important, it helps to create good humans who care about others within this world. PlanningThe number one thing that teachers complain about is time. So, how can we practice empathy within the context of our teaching time? To be honest, I think an experienced teacher can weave in building empathy into the curriculum through relevant and significant connections. This is building a unit planner that focuses on the whole child and not just the academics. This also requires a team that is open-minded to looking at how to build empathy and character development as an aspect of the unit planning process. For some ideas, you can look at relevant and significant inquiry thinking strategies. School cultureYou can determine the feeling of a school’s culture when you walk through the front door, which is shaped by how adults engage with each other, their learners, and other learners on the campus. It’s also reflected on the walls. The walls tell you what is valued, expressed, and shared within the community. We cannot make lasting changes within a school without empathy. We need to look through the lens of great things that are already happening, the people who give their hearts and souls to educate the next generation, and how learners of all ages are engaging with the process. Through this lens, we can take stock of what is in place and co-create a plan of things that need to be developed further to make the school an even better place to learn. Re-shaping school culture is a multi-year project, but it begins with the school leader and how they engage with everyone on the campus, because the rest of the community will follow. An empathetic leader sets a tone that all are welcome and valued. Egotistical leaders take umbrage when others succeed. What are some strategies we can employ to support and grow our school leaders, so they set a tone of empathy? Learners struggling with empathyWhen people are raised in environments that are always fight or flight, the brain develops differently. These learners are continuously navigating uncertain situations in order to survive. How do we support the traumatized learners who have difficulty feeling empathy for others? What conditions do we need to create to make them feel safe?
Now that your brain is full, be sure to participate in our empathy challenge based on The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Be sure to post your reflections on Twitter @thinkchat2020 or Linkedin at Lu Gerlach. As I think of the power of the conceptual lesson cycle, I naturally connect to the Design Thinking Process, which looks at conceptual ideas from the big picture. If you haven’t heard about it, no worries, I didn’t until a year ago. For those who have been engaging with design thinking for some time, we are going to explore some possibilities that will strengthen your usage of it. I’m as giddy as an early years child on their first time bringing in a show and tell artifact. For those rubbing their hands together thinking this series is about design, I’m sad to tell you it's not the case. We will not be going through the process to create prototypes in the traditional sense. For those ideas, consider listening to Design Cast: A Podcast about Design and Steam Education by Jason Reagin. He’s super talented and passionate about all things Design and STEAM. He has a lot of guests that are just as nerdy as he is about design and I always walk about with new perspectives. We are taking a journey on the Design Thinking Process. It’s the same process of design, but applying it towards organizational structures. What does that mean? Well, it means we are going to look at Design Thinking from the lens of education and how it impacts lasting change within our school system. I know it’s quite deep, but we need this type of thinking as we emerge into a new educational landscape post pandemic. Now is the time to make lasting changes, rather than sliding back into how it’s always been. We are not the same educators that we were two years ago, so why should we teach the same way? Why should our learners be forced to learn in the old model? OverviewI’ll be honest, Design Thinking has been around from quite some time and I was completely unaware of its genius. In 2021, I was researching a new PYP workshop, Creating a Curriculum for Transdisciplinary Learning. I noticed that the design thinking process was the structure for making lasting change. FYI, the workshop I just mentioned is my favorite, because it really pulls back the layers of transdisciplinarity and what it looks like and what it does not. Genius! The Designing Thinking Process just made sense to me. It codified everything I believe needs to take place in order to make changes that are sustainable. Like everyone else, I went to the most reliable source on the internet to learn more: YouTube. To be honest, I was overwhelmed with the amount of content, because it ranged from anywhere from Design to Design Thinking. The one that really resonated was a video by Tim Brown, who is known as the father of Design Thinking. You can watch the video here. As a nerd, I started to dig deeper into this concept of design thinking, I made so many connections to our school structures. It explained why some schools function better than others. The school leadership team understood the basic principles of design thinking and continuously revisited them throughout the year, not just on professional development days. Design think in the PYPThinking back to my first year as a coordinator, I wish I had the design thinking process to guide me at that time. I can remember if I shared my story, so please excuse me if you’ve heard it before. In the fall of 2018, I started my new position as a PYP Coordinator at Foster Elementary in Houston, Texas. The Superintendent noticed that most IB schools were found in affluent areas or areas with a strong parent-teacher community. My school was one of nine campuses granted the opportunity to begin their IB journey in traditionally underserved areas. Looking back, here are the mistakes that I made during my first year that could have been fixed by the design thinking process. Step 1: EmpathyAlthough I was a new staff member and a pedagogical leader, I was encouraged to begin building the program of inquiry right away. Being new to the role of coordinator, I tried to inspire through inquiry-based learning engagements. The teachers thought they were “cute” but didn’t see how they would apply them to their practice. While others wanted to see the correlation from the state standards and the PYP curriculum framework. I felt such pressure to lead in the work that I failed to see what was right in front of me. If I were to do it all over again, I would have kept my mouth closed for 3-4 months and just observed the best practices currently happening within the school. I would have become a master note-taker and captured evidence of the PYP already in action. Then, I would have shared possible next steps to make it better and allowed my staff to choose their own pathway/ This is what it means to empathize and garner buy-in to systemic change. Instead, I ignored the empathize phase and polarized the staff. Many took umbrage that I wanted to come into the school to make big changes. They had the right to question my tactics, because I did not take stock of what was already in place and to build relationships with my team. Big mistake. Step 2: DefineWhen we roll out the PYP program, we need to be clear to define our focus at different points in time. We can’t do everything instantly, which is a major misconception by many campuses. For existing schools, we need to be mindful that we can’t make tons of big changes to our program all at once. What do we do instead? One suggestion is to identify the root issue that we need to solve to move forward. Going back to my experience as a new coordinator, I had to ask tons of questions to get to the root issue that was troubling my teachers. Many were afraid to make tons of changes quickly as they had just come out of being a school that needed improvement by the state and didn’t want to slide back. The question to define: How do we implement the PYP with the current system in mind? Step 3: IdeateWhen we ideate, we are considering the question we have defined and try to consider alternative, out-of-the-box solutions to solve the problem. We recognize that previous steps were a stepping stone, but they did not solve the problem because we would be at a different place on our journey. My team had to come up with ways to implement the PYP while ensuring the Foster Way of doing things was left intact. This is a huge undertaking, so we broke it down to bite-size pieces. For my staff to move forward with inquiry and conceptual understanding, they first needed to see how the state standards married with the PYP curriculum framework. We spent an entire year completing this process. The result was a comprehensive plan where teachers were clearly able to see the foundation of the standards, but how the elements of the PYP enhanced the thinking and learning. Step 4: PrototypeAt some point, we have to launch our product and test it out. This was our unit of inquiry. It’s one thing to have the standards mapped out and it’s something else to create units of inquiry. We had to dig deep to create unit planners that were rich and full of practical strategies that could be easily implemented by novice PYP educators. This took time, regular collaboration sessions, and reflection. Step 5: EvolveA big part of the PYP is reflection. I think this drives the evolutionary process. We dig deep to reflect on what worked, what didn’t, and what we would suggest doing differently next time. Since we began writing unit planners right after the PYP enhancements, our unit planners look differently than current iterations. This is okay.
The importance of this step is to evolve. How are we going to take what we have learned in the design thinking process to move the work forward? If we don’t evolve our practice, what is the point of the process? I recognize that change is difficult, but it’s worth it if we want our school to become more agentic and aligned with the IB philosophy towards learning and teaching. In this series, we are going to take a deep dive into each phase of the design thinking process and apply it with a challenge. You heard me, it’s time for another challenge. It’s time to put on your thinking hat. |
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