Influencer

In my current grad class through Winona State University, Innovative Instructional Leadership, my students having been studying the diffusion of innovation, discussing/reflecting on leadership traits and applying design thinking strategies to create solutions to identified problems.

Influencer: The new science of leading changeAn activity we are working on right now – is a jigsaw of the book Influencer: The new science of leading change.  While I am writing this post -first for my students – I also felt it was worthy to post to my blog for my own reflection and opportunity for feedback from my PLN.

This book provides leaders, established or emerging (this means you students!), insight on how lead successful change.  This is not change for the sake of change.  Remember, our last face to face IDEATION session indicated nearly half a whiteboard of challenges from the perspective of students, teachers, and administrators.

Design thinking defining/ideation with #wsucohort1 – Feb 22, 2017

Chapter 2 highlights that there are 3 keys to influence:

  1. Focus and Measure
  2. Find Vital Behaviors
  3. Engage all 6 sources of influence – Personal, Social, and Structural Motivation and abilities.

Focus and measurement is crucial.  You have to have measures of where you are – and goals of where you are going.  Then measure again. What were the results?

Side Thought:
For many districts, the big measures tend to be test scores and as districts transition to personalized/project-based environments, I do believe, that we can give students great learning experiences (authentic/relevant) and still increase test scores.  It has been so fun to see classrooms that are actively applying these new pedagogies.

From Michael Fullan’s, A Rich Seam

One mistake that I have seen (that I have also been guilty of) is focusing and getting so excited about the innovation – that the original learning goals get lost. We need to make sure we focus on our standards and continually assess our students meeting and exceeding those standards. This will help determine when we may need to provide extra support for our struggling learners.

But…. I see the need for other measures beyond test scores.  Of course, there are surveys and observations (as seen in a report http://bit.ly/531Snapshot) But I am not sure this is enough.  I would really love to understand the district/school measures that go beyond test scores and are extremely effective.

Vital Behaviors. What are the behaviors in an organization that drive results? What are the vital actions that drive change?  What are the vital actions that are “culture busters”?

Side thought: Once we have clear and compelling goals – how often do we find and share those stories of change and success?  Stories can have an amazing impact on an organization/culture.  On the other hand, how often are we willing to address those culture busters? Often, we let behaviors continue because of the fear of confrontation.

The 6 sources of influence.  How do we motivate or enable a vital behavior to reach our desired goals?  Motivation – one’s desire to make the change.  Ability – one’s talent, skill, knowledge to do so.  How often have our students not “reached their potential” due to motivation?  Or how often have we seen students create great strides due to a huge increase of motivation?  How do WE react to change when a change is imminent? Can I do it?  Will I do it? Why should I do it?

These domains are further divided into 3 subgroups – personal, social and structural.  “These three sources of influence reflect and separate highly developed literatures: psychology, social psychology, and organization theory.” (p 69).

It is these 3 sources of influences that are jigsawed and will be shared upon our next f2f day as teams of students will be delivering short but quality PD to their peers (not sit and get PD!).

It’s important to think and reflect on these influences as both a leader within your classroom and a leader within your school or community.  Not all will be equivocally useful -but will offer ideas to support revisions to solution prototypes!  When reading this book it’s important consider our role as an influencers and our role to influence other influencers!

 

As Real World Learning Design comes to a close…

This semester,  I designed and facilitated a graduate level course called Real World Learning Design.  It is course 4 in a series of 5 in WSU’s Innovative Instructional Leadership Certificate program.

Lets get real.

Last night, my students presented their findings from the semester.    I have streamed our final presentations  online before, but frankly, that has not been good enough.  We might be lucky to get 1 maybe 2 viewers at any given time.  Just randomly tweeting out YouTube Live links does not automatically equate to an audience.  (and an audience that will remain with you for over 2+ hours)

Picture of presentation

@Mrs_Ausman4 and her students on Digital Citizenship

We discussed, as a class, that “audience” is an important characteristic of  “Real World Learning” design.   I decided, in efforts to model this, to find an authentic audience for our teachers’ presentations. We needed people who cared (beyond our classroom) about what our educators were doing. While we still were streaming this event via YouTube live (for both a digital audience AND to capture and archive the learning artifact) we also had a live f2f audience that included our superintendent, director of curriculum instruction and assessment, our high school principal, instructional coaches, our school board chair, and representatives from higher ed (graduate level prof and teacher prep prof).  These are people who are curious about the work we are doing and genuinely care about what is happening in our classrooms. Presenting work to an authentic audience has a tendency to improve the student’s quality of work (from the elementary student to the grad student).

I will admit, as the RSVPs of attendance started coming in… I also became nervous.The audience also included my peers, my superintendent, my board chair.    Did I do a good enough job to support these educators? What if the presentations do not go well, what does that say about me? About my course design? My facilitation?  That lasted a while… and then I came back to my senses.  I know these teachers. I know the quality of their work. I know the passion for their kids and their profession.  They got this.

Below is the video of their presentations.  It’s over 2 hours long but is so worth the watch.  It is a great artifact for me as well.  It is something I can refer back to later, it is something I can potentially show future students.  It is will serve as an ePortfolio artifact for me.

It’s hard to tell from the video, but as the stories and journeys were unfolding,  there was a certain level of excitement in the room — Both from the other teachers  (this was the first time they heard their classmates present) and the audience.  Now, imagine how you would feel if your superintendent was live tweeting your presentations with comments like below?  I appreciated it immensely!

 

What will be the impact of having the right people in the room, hearing the story of our educators? Time will tell.  But the buzz did not stop last night and the conversation continued today.  Regardless of what happens next, I am very proud of the work of these educators and more importantly the learning experiences they created for our students.  WTG!

My reflections on the course design/facilitation

It sucked.  Yes, I said it.  While my students produced some excellent work  – the course needs some significant improvement.  Below are my reflections for the next go around:

  • Problem 1.  Course design is completely flexible and totally open on day 1 of class.  That means, I have to have all resources, activities, assignments, and proHouston we have a problemgress report templates done before day 1. While there are due dates there still is quite a bit of flexibility for students to do as much or as little as they want, and revise accordingly. (my students love this kind of flexibility) There are flaws to this.  #1 being how do you fix problems of the course, while in the course live and your students are all over the place within the content?  The added online component also makes it difficult to revise in a completely open course.
  • Problem 2. This course lacked s:s collaboration and communication.  While my face to face sessions was some of my best designed so far (One of my personal goals is creating engaging f2f PD) the online collaboration was missing.  There were no discussions between our 3 face to face meetings. As this can be a very complex topic for some educators, there was a need to discuss with others and come to a mutual understanding of RWL.  And with the problem of #1…Trying to schedule a discussion (that was not previously scheduled in an OLL course) was not going to work.
  • Problem 3.  I introduced design thinking in this course.  I LOVE IT.  It was fun to see an activity I did in one of my F2F sessions, tried, applied and tweeted out by my students in MS and HS classes the next week!  However, there was a clear disconnect btw the design thinking activities and the RWL work.  I think it all has to do with timing and  deadlines within the course.  On a positive note, I know what needs fixing and I loved facilitating this work. Could be applicable in multiple areas in my job as prof and dir. of technology!
  • Problem 4. We need a good book. And discuss it.  I have lots of resources but in the course – but I think a book study could be very beneficial.  Right now – I am thinking either Tony Wagners – Most Likely to Succeed or Yong Zhao’s World Class Learners.  If you are aware of any good reads… I would appreciate it!
  • Problem 5. I need to re-evaluate course objectives and make sure course resources/activities are aligned.  Focus on specifically on objective 1 and 3.
    1. Connect students and core content to organizations, professionals, and community members and provide rigorous authentic learning and career/life oriented experiences
    2. Evaluate roles in education where teachers become activators and co-learners who model “learning to learn”
    3. Explore and unpack 21st-century skills and habits of mind to model and foster with today’s learners
    4. Assess the impact of real world design on student learning and motivation
  • IDEA –   Continue to re-evaluate the Mindset, motivation, and self-directed learning course and continue to promote in future courses. We need to come back to that language and discussion often.
  • IDEA – Last night one of my students presented her project which was a series of mini projects.  I actually am wondering if the idea of sprints, could be a great way to take small steps to RWL or even a great way to try something small before going a little deeper with it.  Or be an entirely different path for a user?
  • IDEA – How about streaming the presentation on the districts FB page?  Or maybe even inviting the entire community…. Hmmm.
  • IDEA – Build in a feedback loop for teachers designing their lessons.  Might be beneficial if they have a draft, and they actually pitch the idea to the cohort for feedback.
  • IDEA – I need a PLC.  I have  a PLN, but I am so jealous of educators that have a good support group to discuss learning and strategies around courses.  Now, I am not saying  members of my PLN could not become my PLC but I need to create a support group specific to course design.  You interested? I would be happy to give you feedback on your designs as well.  Let’s not work in silos! Reply to this post or DM me via twitter (@jenhegna). My next course (and FINAL) is Innovative Instructional Leadership…Starts January.
  • Disclaimer – This was attempt #1 of this course so I do have to cut myself a little slack. The first version of anything is not as good as subsequent versions.  With one son’s graduation and my other son’s wedding, bringing on a new building in my district and being short 1 tech at the start of the school year… I was drowning.  But I had to ship what I thought was a decent course.  While I am being very critical of my work (as I should) my feedback from my cohort is very positive.

    “You force reflection and deep thought with your assignments. You don’t tell us what to do, but instead require that we think long enough to tell ourselves. This is true across all courses, but I felt it most in this one.”

  • “Project challenged me to go outside of my comfort zone.”

  • “I thought the result of this course was beneficial to me as a professional and will certainly help my thought processes when meeting the needs or learners.”

  • Now that the reflection is done, I look forward to revising the course into RWL 2.0.  Stay tuned!

    Let the shipping begin

    Image Credit Book Delights – WordPress.com

Design Thinking in Instructional Design

I have been intrigued with design thinking for some time.  Several years ago, we visited Shattuck School’s (Faribault MN) We Create center.  School leaders shared they had created their learning space (oh my it was wonderful) using the design thinking process.  Last year, we took a trip to the Mayo Clinic Center of Innovation and I  learned how they were using the concept to create innovative products/processes/systems/spaces to better serve their patients  Their motto – Think Big, Start Small, Move Fast.

Think Big, Start Slow, Move Fast!

Think Big, Start Slow, Move Fast! – Mayo Clinic Center of Innovation’s motto!

 

What I love the most about design thinking, is the human-centered approach. Through empathy interviews and observations, teams define problems (some not clearly visible) and ideate solutions based on  those findings.  Then, create a prototype of a solution to test with customers.    This process is utilized by all types of companies/organizations  – from health care to entrepreneurs.

This fall,  I am an adjunct prof in a graduate level course called Real World Learning Design.  Realizing that companies/organizations were using this methodology to innovate and solve problems (or create new products)  – I wondered – could I embed this methodology into my course?   I learned that schools were using the approach to redesign learning spaces. Could the same process be used to redesign learning? After all, shouldn’t students be at the center of our instructional design?

So, I did ton of reading over the summer.  First with Tim Brown’s book Change by Design, then with John Spencer and  A.J. Juliani’s book Launch.  I curated a huge bookmark folder of online resources and lurked #DTk12chat.  Then I stumbled on Stanford’s d.school’s Crash Course and other materials!  Having never participated in a design thinking experience, this provided an excellent roadmap to applying it into my course. (not just as a facilitator – but as a learner with my students!) Did I mention they have a creative commons license on their materials? Thank you d.school!

The past 3 weeks, my students (teachers) completed empathy interviews with their students around learning.  The key point to empathy interviews, leave your assumptions and bias at the door.  You need to go into the interview with a “beginner’s mindset” and not lead students into answers.

Teachers also observed their students outside of their classroom . It was eye-opening for some of my teachers to go into other classrooms and to watch their students. For some, they might be more engaged in one classroom – for others – maybe there was an obvious disconnect.  Led to questions… Why?

Fast forward to tonight.  As the stories came out, it was apparent we had quite a few common themes in all of the interviews.  (From grade 2 to high school) The first pic below is what we found as common themes.

2016-10-05-18-51-45

2016-10-05-17-13-09 2016-10-05-17-13-13
2016-10-05-18-52-02

Dear Teachers!

2016-10-05-20-24-49 Design thinking pictures

 

Some improvements I would like to make the next go around:

  • First F2F day, my students need collaborative time to create questions.  (maybe at least 4 common questions).
  • Have students send me at least the first interview for feedback.  Most of my students either recorded videos or podcasts of their videos.  There were times where they would “lead” students to answers and I believe getting feedback would make the experience better for the students
  • On the second f2f day, I need to create time constraints.  We probably spent too much time sharing our empathy maps/findings when we could have spent ideating and creating solutions. I would also like to explore different ideation strategies.  We also did not have time to go in and refine, refine, refine.
  • I am not sure I am happy with the timing.  Some of my students have already started the implementation of the lessons.  But, I still think there are opportunities to interject what is learned into experiences/activities with tweaks.  (I had one student share, how he began to change things already based on what he learned from his students.)
  • I need to either bring norms to the table OR create norms with the class.  Like – No “Ya Buts” when ideating.  Have signals for when people do so.  When other ideas emerge – let people go off and work out ideas.
  • I love the new “learning lab” space in our HS.  I think we should consider making it even more collaborative and functional.

One of my big aha’s is how design thinking is directly correlated with all of the Innovator’s Mindset characteristics.  I feel I have a deeper understanding – especially the traits of empathetic, observant, and problem finders after this teaching/learning experience.

George Couros - 8 Characteristics of the I nnovator's Mindset

George Couros – 8 Characteristics of the Innovator’s Mindset

 

Next Steps
Teachers will be designing and implementing learning experiences based on their definition of real world learning. They also will have an opportunity to take what they learned through their empathy interviews and implement  (their learning design prototypes) within their students.   They will collect student evidence of learning, get feedback and analyze and present their results.  I can’t wait!

Overall, I am very satisfied with the turnout.  Could it be better – absolutely!  I will definitely be using again in my next course – Innovative Instructional Leadership.

Evidence of Impact:
Here are a few of my student’s blog posts after going through the empathy interview process.  What I value the most about these posts – is their thoughts and desires to get to know their students better, to build upon teacher:student relationships and design better learning student-centered experiences.

 

One last note, since my cohort actually meets in my school – we decided to leave all of our materials up for our other teachers to see and invited them to share their ideas.  (with post-its and all!)  The more transparent we can be with our learning, the more opportunities there are for everyone to learn!

Dear Teachers

Connected

This past week my grad students (in course Connected Educator, Connected Classroom) began blogging and self assessing their current connectedness.  I decided it was a good time for me to do my own reflection and current practice with my personal learning network.

A brief PLN history.  It’s ironic, I stumbled on an old blog post of mine called My Reflection on Blogs from 2009 that  was an assignment during MY Grad program from the University of Wisconsin Stout – eLearning graduate certificate program.  In the post, I talk about my thoughts of blogs – and how boring mine was, how I appreciated blogs with opinions and a strong author’s voice.  Still true today.   But what I absolutely loved – was a concept map I created of where my PLN was at that moment.

Jen Hegna - PLN - Year 2009Jen Hegna – PLN – Jan. 2009

 

Social networks and wiki’s were a big deal for me back then.  I was lurker, learner, contributor of these types of networks had created and facilitated these types of networks for my school and groups I was associated with.  I also subscribed to discussion boards that would be delivered to my email.  The H-NetEdtech board was my favorite and would have new content delivered nearly every day.  I had a few blogs I subscribed to and learned from on a regular basis as well as podcasts. I had an iPod, but it was not wireless  – to download new content the iPod needed to be tethered to a computer. I had a SMART phone – but I believe it was sort of Palm Pilot that was cool (at the time) because I could have my calendar on it (again, after a tethered sync) and email!  Whoo HOO! While I felt I had an established PLN.  My future desires was to work with Twitter and Second Life to support my learning.

Second Life never really panned out for me. It was something I was investigating during my masters degree.  It was cool, you could meet and chat face to face with people and you could go visiting and building other destinations.  (Reminds me a lot of minecraft today)

Twitter on the other would become a significant part of my learning. I decided to search for my very first tweet.  Not the most clever tweet now was it?  But that tweet would become the first of 15, 400 tweets (as of Jan 26 – around midnight!)  Sometime late fall of 2009 or early 2010 – I received my first TRUE Smart phone.  I believe it was a Motorola Droid (of some sort).  This changed things and mobile learning became an essential part of my growth!

My First Tweet

My First Tweet

Snapshot of Twitter

Snapshot of Twitter – 1/26/15

My PLN today.

Twitter. Twitter is my primary learning tool of choice.  What was once a wish, is now my reality.  I have gone through all the phases of twitter use and today, twitter is just what I do.  Participating and moderating in Twitter chats has really created new learning connections for me.  My top – most favorite chat is #mnlead on Sunday nights at 7pm CST.  I also enjoy #plearnchat on Mondays and lurk and learn from a ton of other hashtags that fill my tweetdeck columns. Some of my favorites today – #makered, #pblchat, #sblchat, #leadwithgiants, #sunchat, #divergED, #tosachat, #satchat, #designthinking.  (there are many more!)  Frequency of use – I use twitter every day, multiple times a day but mostly at night and on weekends. I use it to learn and have conversations with other people on learning journeys. I use it to share ideas and share great things  I see in my district.  Its a regular part of my routine.

Social Networks. Nings and wiki’s have been replaced by Facebook and Google+ Communities.  I do have a Facebook account BUT I use it primarily for personal use.  Recently, I have been joining groups on FB.  Some of my favorites – TTOG (teachers throw out grades)  Hack Learning, and my newest group BreakoutEdu.  I also “LIKE” pages like Edutopia, Teachthought, and Mindshift because I enjoy a little “sprinkling” of PD on my personal wall about educational innovations.  Google+ communities is used less frequently but  there is great potential in connecting. I also like how it integrates with Google Apps and Gmail.  I have created a few Google communities but haven’t been the best facilitator. It really shouldn’t be about me – it should be about the group – but sometimes we need people to keep the convo going.  I probably should try to bring some life back to them.  Frequency of use – I use Facebook every day – usually early morning and at night because of the personal connections to family/friends. Google communities are used sporadically several times per week.

Video Conferencing.  I don’t remember the last time I used Skype (literally – I think it has been at least 2 years).  My new video platforms of choice – Google Hangouts (GHO) and Periscope.   I also love Google Hangouts on Air as a way to stream video live and it records to Youtube.  Here is a recent hangout I did with Kim Hurd (@khurdhorst) in taking a tour of her classroom!  We had approximately 9 people watching it live and asking questions.  I think the best part of this tool is that it archives to YouTube so I can share it out, review it later.  Something I wish Periscope would do as the streams only last for 24 hours. So- you have to remember to save your videos to your camera after recording – and then upload them to YouTube later.  I was playing around with my phone – there may be a setting within my Google Backup that will allow me to save periscope videos to my Google Account.  Fingers crossed.  Frequency of use – I use both google hangouts and periscope on a weekly basis.  I have weekly team meetings using GHO. I do watch several periscopes a week (just because I am notified via my phone).  But actually facilitating a GHO or publishing a periscope – is probably a couple times per month.

Blogs. Reading and subscribing to Blogs that make me think are  daily routine for me.  I use Feedly to track all of my content.  The majority of my content consists of educational leadership and edtech with a sprinkling of entrepreneurs and business blogs.   For the blogs I REALLY like – I will subscribe via email just because I am in my email – much more frequently than feedly.  Blogs that I read that spark my interest will usually get tweeted out to my pln.  Frequency of use – Nightly/Weekends.  As for writing blogs – this is sporadic and is a big area in which I want to improve.

Voxer. One of my newest PLN favorites is Voxer.  I will admit – I didn’t like it at first and took some time for me to get use to. Twitter is transparent and open.  You can jump in and out of conversations with other folks and its totally OK.  Voxer – is a little less open but allows people to get deeper with conversations.   I believe this can improve the relationships of the participants.  My first voxer group was MN Educators on Voxer and it took me some time to figure out the communication norms.  From what I understand – in my short 7 mos of true PLN voxer experiences – conversations may change from time to time – but everyone tends to discuss and contribute to the same topic.  Its very awkward when people randomly come into the conversation with topics outside of the scope of the convo.  I have been that random person – and its helpful to listen/read the past posts to know the topic at hand.  Check out these other Voxer Norms via Tammy Neil (@TG_Neil) Frequency of use – Daily, multiple times a day.  Mostly before and after work on my 25 minute commute.

I still am connected to a couple of email groups, I subscribe to Youtube content, have a LinkedIn account, and do follow great people and pin great things on Pinterest. From time to time – I will even pick up the old telephone or meet my PLN at a f2f conference or edcamp!  If I had to guess – all in all I spend an average of 7-12 hours each week on my professional growth.  Some weeks less – some weeks more.  Sometimes its a couple of minutes – other times it hours (like writing this blog post over the course of 3 days).  I am not saying that this is a good amount of time and effort spent on learning –  but some time towards my growth is going to be better than no time towards my growth.

While this is where I am today – I certainly have hopeful goals of where I want to be.  But that – is for a future post!

PLN Image

Image Credit – Lifelonglearners.com

Day 1: Connected Educator, Connected Classroom

Today was the first f2f day of Connected Educator, Connected Classroom.  This is course 2 of a series of 5 graduate level courses in our new Innovative Instructional Leadership Program with Winona State University.  We meet 3 days (beginning, middle, and end – for 4 hours) f2f and the rest of the time is spent online.

PLN pic

Connected Educator Sketchnote – via @sylviaducksworth

There are 5 big goals in this course:

  • I am a connected
  • My classroom is connected
  • I influence others to connect
  • I am an active/contributing member in this cohort
  • My evidence and reflections prove I have met course objectives (ePortfolio)

I will admit.  I am very excited about this course.  Excited first because I can’t wait to see what the products, processes, and opportunities these educators in our class create, implement, analyze, and reflect on.  I have seen the amazing work of these educators – and you can too by clicking on their ePortfolios.  (Check out their Blended Learning Artifacts)

2015-16 Innovative Instructional Leadership Cohort!

Another reason for excitement with this course is that I am doing my own innovating as course facilitator.

#1 – I have eliminated grades in this course.   Yes. Grades.  I was inspired to try this after learning a few of our teachers in my district were going down this path.  I have been reading the books and blogs by @markbarnes19, and @mrssackstein, AND lurking, learning and participating in #TTOG (teacher throw out grades) groups via Facebook and Twitter.  Instead, the course is chalk full of self assessment where students maintain their own progress reports.  (see template here)  Most activities are on a 5 points scale.  Below is an example of a generic scale.  When my students submit their work, I will provide them feedback.  If we agree on the score, we are golden!  If not, we may need to have a short conference to discuss.  At the end, when all work is completed and evaluated – we will have a f2f conference to discuss their final grade.  This is the grade that will be posted to the college.  Please note – I was up front about this with my S’s as we discussed how learning would be assessed.

Generic Scale

#2  Besides a few scheduled twitter chats, this course is completely open! Teachers can go in and out of each module. They can work ahead or catch up.  They can revise all they want – to produce the best learning products to get the best results!  My students can also propose new activities/evidences if they have another idea – even better than mine.  I do have a few deadlines – just to check for progress as some of the projects are significant and will need quite a bit of pre-planning before implementation.  For instance, they need to develop a personal growth plan to create/expand their PLN.  They need to create a lesson plan to implement a global learning experience in their classroom.  They also will create an action plan to influence others (colleagues) to become connected.  Once plans are created and self assessed, they are put into action and implemented, evidence is collected, analyzed, and reflected on their ePortfolios.

Speaking of evidence – Below are 2 samples I shared during our f2f session today to showcase evidence of the “journey”.  To me, the journey is just as important (if not more) than the result.  I assured my students, if you do not get the result you want, that is OK!  What did you learn? What can you do better next time?

Evidence via @DonWettrick – the metacognition in this video is incredible!

Evidence via principal @dellwein – 8th grade middle school students doing live collaboration with students from Norway using padlet.

Both of these examples were found via my PLN (twitter or periscope) and serve as excellent samples of students during the learning journey.  I do want end products too – but the journey is just as important!

One of the things my students will have to do (under the target – I am connected) is create a blog to use for or I should say AS learning.  I have a few prompts for them to respond to, as well as providing flexibility in topics.  As promised, I also will be modeling the use of reflection through blogs and hope to blog just as many times as my students.  ( I need this anyways as its one of my professional new year’s resolutions!)

PS – the PechaFlickr icebreaker was so much fun!  http://pechaflickr.net/

Petcha Flickr Activity

Petcha Flickr Activity – an impromptu way of story telling and getting the creative juices flowing!