Design Thinking or PBL, A Chicken/Egg Scenario? My journey.

http://www.science20.com/gerhard_adam/chicken_and_egg_problem_view_evolution-107927

Last night I missed a great conversation during a Twitter chat hosted by #MeritKCI and involving my friends who frequent the #dtk12chat. As I was scrolling through the tweets from the chat I noticed some discussion of PBL and how different Design Thinking (DT) is from PBL. A blog post that was referenced (and also one of my favorites) was written back in 2012 by Ewan Mcintosh of Notosh.com.

What's missing in these 140 character exchanges is some historical perspective and some grounding in where classroom teachers are in 2016. Before going further though, it's important to understand where my belief system lies and where I come from. I love student exploration - fueling inquiry and that innate desire to learn about things. I am against grades and, instead, am for student assessment through creativity, self analysis, and reflection. I believe in backward design but also in problem creation. I am also grounded in where the education world is today.

Parents, and I'm one, want their kids to be able to "be a kid," to explore, and (at the same time) get into great schools that will introduce them to unique learning opportunities. These school should then provide a foot into the door of a company that will help the students pay off their college debt. Many (most?) of these "great" colleges require a certain score on a standardized test (SAT/ACT) and a certain class rank based upon a 4.0 grade point average.

High schools are charged with getting students college and, lately, "career ready." Students must learn certain things mandated by their community, their state, and by the national government. The national government creates a list of "standards" that must be met. The state government creates a list of standards that must be met. And then school districts create standards that their students must meet to be labeled a high school graduate. More and more of these standards include the words "Explore" and "Hands On" but it really is up to the the teachers to bring in the "how" to do that exploration.

At some point years ago teachers started finding ways to engage students in their learning through an idea of centering the learning around a specific task or problem.  Although the idea of teaching in a mode that was focused upon a project had been around for about a century, it was a couple of dozen years ago that this was labeled (as we know it today) as Project Based Learning or Problem Based Learning - PBL. Schools/Companies/Corporations in Northern California jumped into this and we suddenly had the Buck Institute for Education (BIE) and the New Tech Network (NTN).  As these entities trained teachers and/or opened PBL schools the popularity of this PBL-thing increased and more groups started training teachers in their version of PBL.

http://www.peertutoringresource.org/2014/07/a-quick-start-guide-to-using-project-based-learning-pbl-in-the-classroom/

Around the same time this was happening schools were rapidly removing "Shop" classes and other hands-on classes for students because schools wanted to focus on courses that were academically rich. But this wasn't happening everywhere. In Upstate New York a company was created that focused on engineering principles - Project Lead the Way (PLTW).  In 2010, as I finished my 2nd year as a math teacher in a New Tech Network school, I was given the opportunity to teach a PLTW class, Introduction to Engineering Design (IED), and I went to my first PLTW course. That same year I saw for the first time a Nightline piece about a company called IDEO.

I started thinking about the marriage of the design process and the pbl process. And, coincidently, I found out about and read a new book called Make Just One Change from the Right Question Institute.  If we could get students to ask more questions at the start of each project might we improve the student inquiry process? And, in turn, might we not help teachers see that we can allow students the opportunity to explore the content and not just follow a road map that we (the teacher) created?

From PLTW

In 2012 as I was about to "finally" figure out this PBL-thing that I was floundering in, I was promoted to an Instructional Coach position with the charge of helping a middle school bring in PBL as the primary mode of instruction. So, before I was able to perfect my own teaching practices I was asked to help a staff of nearly 50 learn and perfect the art of being PBL teachers. That's when I started to really see the push back from teachers who felt that they were in a no-win scenario: state test scores must improve and they must be doing PBL in their classrooms. We were a NTN middle school with a NTN coach but we weren't doing PBL the "right" way. After two years we all decided that the school and NTN needed a break from each other. And I felt like a completely incompetent instructional coach. Why didn't PBL succeed in this school?

Later that year I started the training to become a National Faculty member of BIE so that I could reflect on my own PBL knowledge while facilitating training for teachers in school districts who were looking for a way to bring this PBL-thing into their schools. While immersing myself in all things PBL I came across a group of teachers who were talking about using a design thinking approach (DT) in their classrooms. In discussions with some of the folks I considered to be PBL guru's I was told that these DT teachers weren't going deep enough with the content and that PBL was what really got students going deeper. "Wait," I thought, "wasn't the big push back to PBL the notion that in projects students didn't go deep enough - it was just bells and whistles?"

DT was undergoing the same scrutiny that PBL had when I first was exposed to it years earlier. And, I should add, I was still hearing that push back from teachers in PBL trainings - "How do we know that the students will understand the content to do well on standardized tests?" -and- "This will never fly with our parents/school board/students."  In 2015/2016 BIE and the National Faculty members took a hard look at what PBL should look like for all students and in all classrooms. Because every classroom is different we wanted to create a "standard" that all teachers should be striving for in their schools. We came up with what we now are calling Gold Standard PBL.

In introducing this new Gold Standard to teachers one aspect jumped out to me: we now want teachers getting their students to ask questions through the use of the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) from the Right Question Institute. I had first learned about the QFT when I read Make Just One Change. BIE was now specifically stating what I had thought about way back in 2012.

Now let's overlay the flow of design thinking. Here are two representations (with notations) of this:

Empathy is the obvious thing not mentioned in the Gold Standard. So, in my mind, a good PBL teacher must get their students looking at why we are doing this project. Who are we doing it for and why should the student care about doing it? Along with empathy at the start is building what I call empathic inquiry throughout the project. Are students getting feedback from those whom they are creating for throughout the project? 

And so, again from my perspective, doing gold standard PBL while following a DT path is the best of both worlds. These are not (and should not be considered) separate entities. What are we looking for in all of this? We want students who are aware of their surroundings; are aware of the needs of others; are inquisitive about how and why things are the way they are; and, who are given the chance to experience the creative process of imagining a result, attempting to create the result, reacting to feedback for improvement on this initial result, and persevering to complete their final result. 

I am now back in the classroom in an International Baccalaureate (IB) charter school in Texas. I am creating projects in coordination with my fellow teachers. I organize my project ideas using Project Based Teaching Practices from BIE and I use the DT flow shown above. I have found that it doesn't matter whether you think DT is better/different than PBL or that PBL is better/different than DT. What matters is that you are creating a classroom where students feel safe to take chances, make mistakes, and build resiliency. 

Thoughts About This Coding Craze

In 1976 I set off to the University of South Carolina on a Navy ROTC scholarship to major in Math and Computer Science. In 1986 I was taking courses in computer architecture and the language ADA as I worked on my master's degree in Engineering. In 1992 I helped teach a computer class to teachers while being a graduate assistant and getting my master's degree in Education. I hope you believe that I get the importance of using computers as a tool.

Now, everywhere it seems, I keep reading how important it is for students to learn coding. I know the value of understanding the set up of code and algorithms. I can still remember my first assignment in the Fall of 1976 using PL1/PLC. It was to write a program to determine how many cars went through an intersection. The cars approached from each of the four cardinal points at different rates. The length of time the red, yellow, and green lights stayed on also varied. I may have loved math but this was a new animal and it hurt my brain.

But do we need to have every student take a coding course? And where, please tell me, do we get people qualified to teach these courses? I fear that the "Teacher as student" idea will trickle down here and will waste a lot of student time. Without proper guidance I see students going to places like Code.org and playing games. Oh they are being exposed to coding but are they learning the code or just the shape of the icon representing the code? And how many of the English, Math, Science, Social Studies teachers are going to really figure out how to work coding into their curricula?

Will administrators jump on board this coding train, having no understanding of coding themselves, requiring their teachers  to embrace this "coding stuff?" You bet they will. If there is funding and parent demand there will be administrators turning this demand on its head and requiring teachers to figure coding out.

I saw (and am still seeing) this with the topics of PBL, Inquiry, and (lately) Design. These are ideas that, when done well, are incredibly valuable and help students go deeper in their understanding of content. Because of publicity superintendents and principals get excited about things that will make their students be the best students. Suddenly they say things like, "This PBL stuff is good for our kids so lets get some training in it!" Grants get written and training begins. But soon the funding for the training dries up. And then we hear them say, "Now that we've trained some teachers, we need PBL to be done in EVERY classroom!"

But the schools/districts rarely get to the level where instructional coaches, assistant principals, and principals understand what they are seeing in the classroom.  It follows that these same academic leaders can't help their teachers grow in this new "PBL world" that they have created.

Will this happen in the world of Coding? Sadly, I'm leaning towards, "yes." Why? I'm willing to use myself as an example.

At my school parents and students demanded a computer science course. I was hired to teach Design Thinking, but I had a computer science background. So I was asked if I would teach a section of computer science. With very little time to come up with a plan, the school year started.  I decided that I would see what these students wanted in their computer science course. When I asked them I got the following: App Design, Web Page Design, Game Design, Coding, and Movie Creation. I let the students self-select into each of these areas and we spent the first semester exploring these topics with me as "facilitator of learning" and "calendar enforcer."

There was some good news from the semester.  Many of the students went way further than I thought they would go and learned more than I could ever have helped them learn. And, most of the students learned about what I expected they would learn in a self paced course. And, of course, there were some students who "also participated" in class. It was a pretty normal breakdown for students for any class and in any content. Nothing surprising there.

Still, I can't help but wonder what these same students could have done with a teacher who was at the school to teach students all about computers and coding. We're a small, academically oriented school with great parents and staff.  Hopefully, we will have a certified computer science teacher - or, at least, a person who loves to immerse themselves in all things computers. I'm not that guy. And, because I HAD to teach computers, I haven't put forth the effort required to make the course be truly awesome.

I find myself wondering: "how many teachers are going to be required to 'put coding into their course?'" If you aren't into computers, you aren't into computers. I love working with them and I want the latest app to use on my mobile device. But I'm not a person who spends hours coding. And I'm not a "maker." It isn't fair to my students to have me be their computer science teacher. They deserve better.

Schools and school districts are jumping on the coding band wagon. But do we suggest that all students learn coding when there aren't teachers in place to make it happen? It's hard enough to get a quality math teacher; or science teacher; or English teacher; or social studies teacher.  We need teachers who are passionate about their subject. Let's build capacity with computer science teachers before we suggest our students all take a class in coding.

Building Empathy Through Interviews

www.floridamemory.com/items/show/32039

7th graders are all over the map when it comes to emotions. So, on one level, you might think that it isn't hard to get them to develop empathy. But how many of your students, at any grade level, have conducted interviews to gain knowledge of their interviewee?

My first semester at Meridian school is winding up and I am still getting used to the timing of projects. That led to a two week period between the Thanksgiving break and final exams.

I knew that I wanted to introduce an interview process soon. I also wanted to include either the 7th grade ELA teacher or the PE Coach with a project early in the next semester. And then it hit me - 6 Word Memoirs.

As the name implies, students write about themselves by using only 6 words. After checking with the ELA teacher I found that she had just completed a unit on memoirs. And, after talking with a few students only a handful had done a 6 Word Memoir (6WM) in the past. And so it began...

On the first day I gave the students a post on interviewing like a pro. It doesn't exactly apply but I wanted them to think about what the pros think about before, during, and after an interview. To minimize time on the article I had them do a jigsaw and we discussed things they learned about what to do before you go to an interview; what you do during an interview; and what things to think about after the interview.

Then I paired them up (key word there, "I" paired them up).  Many were with people they don't normal hang out with so getting to know them became a harder task. I gave them 10 minutes to come up with a set of questions to use as openers. And, I instructed them to go down any path that became an obvious interesting topic that might be used to write a 6WM.

To help them think, I gave them a list of topics that might be good places to draw from for questions.
The trouble is I forgot about how the 7th grade brain works. Because I put a list in front of them, they couldn't come up with imaginative questions or question sequences to go deeper on any other topics than the ones I presented to them. I actually heard one boy ask another "Have you ever been married?" When I heard that question I asked why he had asked it. He said "because I had included "marriage" on my list of possible topics." Silly me; I was thinking that maybe there might have been an interesting wedding that they might have attended.

By the end of class I actually was pleased with the results from most of my students. They had asked good questions and had made good recommendations to their interviewees on what they should write their 6WM about.  Very few ended up needing help in understanding the process and how to make a relevant recommendation.

Before the next project starts I will be able to draw from this experience as we discuss interviewing to gain empathy. Because when the next semester starts (after our holiday break) I will be having my students interview clients or other pertinent people before they start brainstorming ideas. I feel better about their interviewing skills and I believe they will be better at identifying the needs and desires from those that they interview.

To finish the 6WM, I am having them go through a critique rotation today. They are writing their 1st draft and are presenting it to their small group. The small group is tasked with recommending at least one word to be changed to make the 6WM stronger. Then the students rotate to different groups and go through the process a second time.

They will be turning in an 8.5 in. by 11 in. paper with their 6WM on it, that has been decorated to help tell the story. These will be placed on our classroom wall so all of my classes can see what the others have written.

Sometimes a quick 2 week assignment can bring out a lot of learning. In this case my students have learned about how to be a good interviewer. My students have also learned more about their classmates. And, I have learned more about all of my students. Sounds like success.

Early Forays Into Empathy (7th Grade)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/apelad/

Today my 7th graders created questions about "Empathy." This was their first week of school and today was the second day of class for them (they are on an A/B Block schedule). As a Design class I want them understanding the idea of Empathy. As an International Baccalaureate (IB) school the students are expected to understand empathy as well. So here's what I did and the results of their work:

Step One - I gave them a quote about empathy from Seth Godin - -->

Empathy doesn't involve feeling sorry for someone. It is our honest answer to the question, "why did they do what they did?"

The useful answer is rarely, "because they're stupid." Or even, "because they're evil." In fact, most of the time, people with similar information, similar beliefs and similar apparent choices will choose similar actions. So if you want to know why someone does what they do, start with what they know, what they believe and where they came from.

Dismissing actions we don't admire merely because we don't care enough to have empathy is rarely going to help us make the change we seek. It doesn't help us understand, and it creates a gulf that drives us apart.  

Step Two - I asked them to experience the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) to create questions about the quote that we will explore in the future. The one problem? They had never experienced the QFT either. So we walked through the process - slowly. 

The result (from two of my classes) follows. Considering they are 7th graders and it is early in the year, I'm pretty happy with their questions. See for yourself (the categories are mine and were done after I collected them):

  DEFINING EMPATHY:

1. What is empathy?

2.How was the term “empathy” created?

3.Where did empathy originate?

4.Why do humans feel empathy?

5.Why is empathy so important?

6.Do a LOT of people show empathy?

7.Does this mean that empathy makes you a better person, or not?

8.Is it easy to express empathy?

9.Why is empathy often described as “feeling sorry?”

10.How do we know if someone is expressing empathy?

11. What are the reasons we show empathy?

12.Do animals show empathy?

13.Why do we as human species feel empathy at all?

14.What is the difference between empathy and reason?

15.What is the difference between empathy and pity?

16.Why is empathy so complicated?

17.Why does empathy make a big difference in who we are?

18.Why is it important for people to have empathy?

19.How is empathy different from person to person?

20When does empathy between two people fracture?

21.When does empathy hinder someone?

22.Why is empathy an IB Learner Profile Trait?

B. DIRECTLY TOWARDS THE QUOTE:

1. Who is Seth Godin?

2. What caused Seth Godin to write this?

3. What did Seth Godin want us to learn from this?

4. Why should we be empathetic towards people who are “stupid” or “evil.”

5. Is violence ever the answer?

6. What should the “useful answer” be?

7. Why do people hate people?

8. Why is accusing someone rarely the answer?

9. Why can’t everyone be honest?

C. SYMPATHY VS. EMPATHY:

1. Why is sympathy easier to show than empathy?

2. Is empathy worse or better than sympathy?

3. How many people don’t know the difference between empathy and sympathy?

4. What happens when you combine empathy and sympathy?

 
Many of these questions are closed and can be answered quickly with a little help from Google. But there are some very open questions as well. I like several of them.  For example, the one about whether empathy makes you a better person.

We will be exploring these questions over the next few weeks. Some of the questions may never get totally answered. But I have a feeling these students are on the path to becoming great design thinkers. And that gives them a swinging chance at being a great person. That's my personal goal in every class I teach -> Have I helped my students become better citizens of the world? I'll keep you posted. 

Putting Together a Design Class in a IB World School (Part 2)

Screen Capture from - https://goo.gl/VoUfRT

[NOTE: Originally written a week ago]
"So much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it. Thank you." Willy Wonka.

 Right now I'm feeling like a cross between the Scarecrow ( giving directions in OZ) and Willy Wonka these days. One minute I'm heading one direction and the next I'm heading in a completely opposite direction. But, the bottom line is that, wherever I end up heading needs to be a direction that helps our students and our school. I can live with that.

A long time ago (yesterday) I wrote the first part of this group of posts. At that time (yesterday) I felt like I was starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel - the tunnel of planning what my class would look like this year. Evidently the light I was seeing was a warning sign that said "Detour Ahead."

https://www.flickr.com/photos/shannonmary/

It now looks like my focus needs to be around the word Community. What does it mean to be a part of a community:   The classroom community, Our school community, Our "local community," and the world community?

The first project, that I will be doing with my science teacher neighbor, will now focus on my helping my teaching community. We will do the Rube Goldberg Machine because of the teacher's needs to teach certain concepts like momentum and speed.  We will build because of the need to have visual representations of the science concepts they will be learning. We will be doing all of the other components of the project so that everyone in my classroom community understands the parts of the design process.

For the school community I will be making sure that my students are learning the IB concepts at the MYP level. This will build on their years of learning these concepts at the PYP level. And throughout this unit, and the rest of the year, I will be referencing how our learning impacts (and is impacted by) the local and international communities.

It will be a time for me to join the Meridian World School community as well.  Let the school year begin!

[END NOTE: Stopping here. This was to have gone out last week. It's time to start writing the next post. School started today. And we are rolling! Come join my community. ]

Putting Together a Design Class in an IB World School (Part 1)

http://goo.gl/Tgxu4X

Well, that title should get some good SEO Google Juice. But I didn't write it for SEO reasons - it's what I've been doing today, and yesterday...and the day before that....

In an earlier post I stated that I would be updating my preparations for the school year. Well, that didn't happen. But now that I'm only a few days away from students in the classroom I thought I'd give an update about where I am in the process.

 I may be a 20+ year veteran of the classroom, but I am feeling like a  newb again because this is a new school, new subject matter, and I have to learn the IB specific items. For example, we had a PD day this week and the lingo, acronyms, and other words were flying by me at mach speed.  But I have now completed 3 days of planning and things are feeling a bit better.

On Monday morning I really had NO idea where I was going to start with my design class.  On Tuesday I met my hall-neighbor who teaches science. She told me "I want to do a project with Design this year!" (exclamation because she was very excited and animated). After some discussion it came out that she wanted to start the project in the first week of September! (exclamation because of my internal reaction to this news).

My PBL training/experience took over at that point.  No panic. It was time to do some backward designing. Of course this will be a project in two content areas, so I will need to have her thoughts and input on this. The science will be handled within her science classroom and I will handle the planning, building, and marketing of their design.  I drew an initial mind map:

The project will be the standard "Rube Goldberg Machine"  (not my choice - but there's always NEXT year, right?) that has been done by every science and/or engineering teacher over the years. Heck, the kids might have even done it in their elementary years. The spin I will take on it is purposefully looking at the design cycle. I will use this Design Thinking Cheat Sheet from a post by Guido Kovalsky:

Post test (where the line comes back over to the left and says "start all over...") is where we will go deeper with each of these parts of the design process before we get into our next design challenge. The key is that students will be building empathy, asking questions, reflecting on their work, and creating something. 

Design in the IB World is the KEY subject in the program. My early years of being a Math teacher taught me that math is the KEY subject that my students have to be good at because every year builds on the previous year.  My later years, especially my years as an Instructional Coach, taught me that reading is the KEY subject that we need all students to be good at. And these last 6 months have taught me that questioning, reflecting, and perseverance are the KEY traits we want our students to possess. Design, and in particular the design thinking process, is the one subject that teaches students to ask question, reflect and persevere.  

So, using my very poor knowledge of logic, it follows that Design is the KEY subject in the International Baccalaureate Program.  My job will be to teach my fellow teachers (like those math teachers) that Design is an important class and NOT just some elective. 

In the next post I'll talk about how I am putting together a computer science class for 20 10th and 11th graders who requested that the school have the subject - Gee, I wonder if any of these kids might know a LOT more than I do about computers?  Stay tuned.