Shifting Focus From Concepts To The Results Of These Concepts

by Terry Heick

It’s not the pondering behind an concept that ought to hassle us, however somewhat the impact of the concept.

#edtech. Content material-based tutorial requirements. PLCs. Video streaming. Use of information. Mandates to be research-based in our habits. Distant educating. Differentiation. Social media within the classroom.

None of those concepts are good or unhealthy in and of themselves. They’re simply concepts. They’re value-neutral–inert in isolation. We solely cost them once we internalize them–consider them utilizing our distinctive schema, think about them in circumstances acquainted to us, or in any other case contextualize them comfortably to keep away from cognitive dissonance.

By internalizing them, we clean their tough edges for simpler consumption. Who needs to really feel like they’ve an incomplete understanding of one thing? At this level, although, the concept has misplaced its authentic form. It’s misshapen–the identical distinction between an actual canine and one a clown twists up in brown and white balloons.

Shifting from an idea or concept to one thing we perceive in our personal phrases is not any small shift. And comes with a loss. By internalizing an concept, we additionally connect feelings to them–hopeful optimism, head-shaking skepticism. Or indifference.

For instance, I really like the concept of customized studying, so I connect optimistic emotions to it that may lead me to cognitive distortions downstream, the place I oversimplify its perform or catastrophize our continued misunderstanding of its potential in schooling. I champion it, however the ‘it’ (customized studying, on this case) is merely an concept. The it + context is totally different. That is chemistry.

Consider it as sample: Thought–>Integration–>Impact.

The thought alone is beneficial solely as a matter of imaginative and prescient or artistry. As a tutorial or mental train. As a matter of playful dialogue or good old school bench racing.

The combination is a matter of design and engineering (designer and engineer being two minds of a instructor).

Concepts, integrations, and results all matter, in fact, nevertheless it’s all additionally recursive: One impacts the opposite, the concept impacting the combination, the combination affecting the impact, the impact shining new gentle on the concept. Possibly then, as a substitute of a linear Thought–->Integration–>Impact, we’d suppose as a substitute of one thing extra like a triangle:

                         Thought

Integration                             Impact

Altering Our Pondering

And as a substitute of “Is that this a very good concept?”, we’d ask different questions:

What’s ‘it’? What are its components? What does it appear to be entire?

What’s it doing?

How is it working?

What does it ‘price’? Impact? Change?

How does it help academics–make educating a inventive and mental and human act as a substitute of a matter of coverage, process, and survival?

What are its results–and never slender results in pursuit of a single purpose, however somewhat macro results on a factor in its native place?

In schooling, these could be redressed as:

What has standardizing content material right into a slender vary of content material areas completed to studying?

How has a gamified system of schooling labored for kids as they search to turn out to be entire human beings able to good work, compassion for the folks round them, and nuanced digital and bodily citizenship?

See additionally What Ought to A Faculty Do?

How has schooling retreated right into a tangle of coverage and jargon impacted the capability of households and communities to be served by their very own studying?

How do academics reply when known as to be ‘research-based’? Does that encourage them to pour over peer-reviewed journals of rising pedagogies to solely herald “confirmed” methodology into their classroom? Or does it ship them to Google to seek for ‘research-based educational methods‘ the place they discover the identical 6-8 examples which might be tossed limp and lifeless into their subsequent lesson plan as a result of that’s what they have been instructed to?

Let’s broaden our view. Let’s faux for a second that we’ll finally be capable to design a system of educating and studying the place each single pupil will be capable to grasp each single tutorial customary their native authorities has set out for them. What’s the impact of this technique? Of this mastery? What are we assuming in regards to the requirements and their mastery? That they’ll create a nation of crucial thinkers that do wonderful issues?

And this technique–what are we assuming about it and its results? What does it ‘do’ to youngsters? After they graduate from this hypothetical machine, will they’ve a powerful sense of self-knowledge, knowledge, place, and familial legacy? Of crucial pondering, work, and love? If not, is that okay?

Is that even the meant impact we’re searching for? If not, what’s? We must always know, proper?

Concepts As Results

A flipped classroom is nice, sure? 1:1? Maker schooling? The 3D printer within the library? Sure, as concepts. So what are they doing? What are their results? The thought is all the time impartial.

A ‘good concept’ is advertising and marketing based mostly on emotion and look. How is it been applied, and extra critically, what are its results? Know-how. Workshop-based PD. Snark on twitter. That grouping technique you have been planning on utilizing tomorrow.

And watch out of the metrics or proof you’re searching for. That new questioning technique could have 65% extra engagement from college students however could have stymied the scholars from wrestling with the query on their very own. Similar with instructor self-directed PD, 3-minute hallway switches, or labeling a college as ‘good’ or ‘unhealthy.’ Saying one thing is a ‘good concept’ can solely be accepted if we transfer straight right into a dialog about integration, after which on impact.

“What are its results?” is a fancy query that deserves our pondering and most cautious genius. However one much more worthy of our collective affection could be, “What’s it doing to our youngsters as they search to turn out to be extra human–to develop intellectually, creatively, and in knowledge and love?”

We would then crane our necks additional downstream than we’re accustomed to in order that we’d see what we–and so they–are shifting in the direction of collectively.