Consider when you first learned about the concept of numbers and counting. You probably learned one to ten because of your fingers and toes, using a tangible representation. At this developmental stage, this information was the reality, but eventually we learn that there are numbers beyond that.
Counting to 20, or 100, became another milestone. Negative numbers represent the lack or reduction of a quantity, so comprehending we can count forwards and backwards became the new truth. Eventually math extends to fractions and decimals, irrational numbers, and even more abstract concepts like imaginary or complex numbers. When does it stop? Getting metacognitive, what are numbers without objects? Did we discover math or invent it? Jeff Dekofsky addresses this question. This progression through the simple concept of numbers can happen organically in a mathematics classroom. It is not limited to numbers, really any math idea or topic can be expanded upon in this way. Now, consider when we first learn to communicate. We start expressing ourselves through sound and movement, developing oral language starting with simple one-word statements and eventually crawling, walking, and running around to speak through body language. As we age, we acquire new vocabulary in a variety of contexts, such as academically through literature, or socially through friend groups and family dynamics. We develop multiple ways of conveying our thoughts, feelings, and ideas. According to Lingua (2022), there are over 7,000 languages around the world, and new bussin’ words are added to language every year. In her TEDTalk, Lera Bordotisky explores how languages shapes the way we think. Just as math concepts and language can be organically explored, so can 21st century skills. What if this approach is the cheat code to our future? My innovation project,teaching 21st century skills in a blended learning environment through the lens of mathematics has definitely evolved from the past into the present and it will continue to evolve towards the future. As I reflect on my journey, I need to consider how to start at the foundation and root of one idea, building and growing outwards and upwards, expanding to new connections and possibilities.
The Past
When first developing my innovation plan, it really inspired me to start thinking about what education gifted me, which is the skills and characteristics that support my continuous growth and improvement towards success. Being a millennial and growing up in the transition of Y2K, 21st century skills were something society just began articulating and my path through high school in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program and college gave me opportunities to develop these skills real-time. My transition from a student to an educator aligned with my learning philosophy and starting the Applied Digital Learning (ADL) program, I learned about the new digital age and new learning culture. A lot of reading research and literature on blended learning environments and 21st century skills reinforced my experiences and were consolidated in a literature review. I spent the summer producing an implementation outline ambitiously anticipating I could flip my classroom on its head within a year and refine after the follow two. Unfortunately, while I was learning what my mind and spirit felt true all along, putting those ideas into action fell short.
Creating my innovation plan felt natural and sharing my ideas with others was also exciting. A new school year meant this new opportunity to go for it and transitioning from teaching Precalculus (a subject I had taught consistently for the past seven years) to teaching Algebra 2 also provided a chance to use the change for the better. Breaking the cycle of factory model is hard, especially when collaborating with other teachers who have a fixed mindset and are closer to the end of their careers. With the team I am working with this year, I honestly cannot blame them at times for wanting to stick with what is comfortable because everything about education is exhausting. Despite my initial enthusiasm, there were many obstacles hindering me, and the vortex of the whirlwind sucked me right up into the abyss of a fixed mindset, rather than my yet mindset. I found myself ignoring my innovation plan because it seemed like it would have created double work for me on a lonely island under attack from the outside world. My soul has felt crushed one too many times to count for pouring my blood, sweat, and tears into a lesson, unit, activity, student, etc. that feels like no positive results are being produced. I want to be a great teacher, but what makes a great teacher?
Periodically, I would develop a lesson that incorporated some technology components, but it was not done consistently or with intention; I was just using technology for technology's sake or doing a great activity amid all the same old repetitive routine. This barely appeased my guilt of not teaching 21st century skills through the lens of mathematics in a blended learning environment to meet my student needs. Looking at my Implementation Outline – Version 1, it is safe to say I have done nothing since August 2023 as listed in this outline. If I have, it was done by accident or without the focus of the innovation plan. Everything changed though in December to now.
The Present
As semester exams were just around the corner, an overwhelming sense of regret and frustration brought me to a breaking point. When students were demonstrating that they retained little content but also lacked the skills necessary to take responsibility for their learning, it forced me to reflect and be self-critical. How can I expect students to attain these skills if I have yet to give them the significant learning environment in which to develop and refine them? I had completed practically nothing except the initial stages of my project.
In one of the discussion boards, a classmate recommended Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics by Peter Liljedahl, so I added it to my list of books. Coincidently, a few months later, my district launched a cohort to do a book study on that same book. The first meeting in November incorporated the first three practices within Liljedahl’s writing and encouraged implementing some of the 14 practices in our classrooms. I told myself I would wait until the spring semester, or even next school year, pushing what needed to be done now into the future. It hit me like a brick wall. I needed to adapt my innovation plan to utilize these practices that break the norms of a traditional mathematics classroom and through these structures, identify technological components that would enhance the learning through a blended learning environment. I drafted, revised, and finalized an article about my journey from past to present, promoting the publication through podcasting and reflecting on writing through writing. I am learning that I am still a recovering perfectionist and that my life of "balls to the wall or not at all" can really be a detriment to my professional growth and ultimately my students’ learning and engagement. I would not consider my innovation plan a win or a loss, but unavoidable in identifying how to actually follow through with my plans.
The Future
Now that I can reflect on what I have done and am currently doing, seeing the the back of the puzzle box - the big picture, there are some things I intend to address and implement in the future.
Amidst the chaos, I realized the importance of getting more people alongside me earlier on and using my voice to speak up and say that we should try innovative ideas for students. If anyone questions us, we need to stand firm and articulate that what used to work is no longer effective and we cannot be instructing students with the ways of the 20th century, considering where the head and heart meet. This is especially difficult with math because it seems like math never changes. Facts are facts, order of operations will always be true, and there's not really ways to be creative with math when we know the most "efficient" ways to solve problems. This is not true, but the fixed mindset of some of my colleagues believe this in their souls. Fortunately, I have one colleague in my content team, along with the Building Thinking Classrooms cohort, doing similar innovative structures to collaborate with, and I can take my experience from this program and really use it to my advantage (plus there will be so much more time once I graduate!). Another improvement is being slow and steady with my changes within a NOW culture. I initially asked why not now? but it takes time and effort to figure out what works and what does not, along with making the systems and structures that do work more efficient over time. My innovation plan will look remarkably similar to before, but the timeline will be adjusted to refine components at a more appropriate and sensible pace. Focusing on a few 21st century skills, such as communication, collaboration, and reflection, rather than the larger list, will also make things less daunting. This is definitely something I would have done differently if I could go back in time and start again. My ambitious nature can be beneficial in certain situations, but this was a time when the goal’s timeline was too sudden to realistically implement amongst the other obligations as a teacher. Through my roles as a content team member, department lead, and cohort member, I will intentionally share what I am doing in my classroom with my peers through writing, conversation, and even observations. Inviting others into this new world will also hold me more accountable with following through on my plans. My failure to follow through with my plans is actually a win. Often times, educators do dream big, but we have conflicting responsibilities and commitments that hinder our capacity to make these dreams a reality. What I have learned throughout the ADL program is that a lot of work is done behind the scenes before anything can be done in front of the students. This journey of learning and growth highlights the iterative disposition of education, preparing me for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
References
Boroditsky, L. (2018). How language shapes the way we think | Lera Boroditsky [Ted Talk]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKK7wGAYP6k
Dekofsky, J. (2014). Is math discovered or invented? - Jeff Dekofsky [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_xR5Kes4Rs Fractions explained - a guide for parents. (n.d.). Komodo Learning. https://komodomath.com/us/blog/fractions-explained-parents-guide Lamb, R., & Shields, J. (2008, June 24). How are Fibonacci numbers expressed in nature? HowStuffWorks. https://science.howstuffworks.com/math-concepts/fibonacci-nature.htm Liljedahl, P. (n.d.-a). 14 practices. 14 Practices. https://buildingthinkingclassrooms.com/14-practices/ Liljedahl, P. (n.d.-b). Https://buildingthinkingclassrooms.com/. Building Thinking Classrooms. https://buildingthinkingclassrooms.com/ Liljedahl, P. (2021). Building thinking classrooms in mathematics, grades K-12 : 14 teaching practices for enhancing learning. Sage Publications Inc. Lingua. (2022, June 29). How many languages are there in the world? | lingua.edu. Lingua.edu. https://lingua.edu/how-many-languages-are-there-in-the-world/ Newmarket. (2019, November 30). How to get past counting on fingers & toes. https://www.mathnasium.com/ca/math-centres/newmarket/news/how-to-get-past-counting-on-fingers-toes TEDx Talks. (2017). What makes a good teacher great? | Azul Terronez | TEDxSantoDomingo. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrU6YJle6Q4
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While I have never sat through the entire movie Back to the Future, I am well aware of its premise and some of the famous lines...
Being comfortable with being uncomfortable takes time, and with the help of discussion boards for my master's program, peers have really opened my eyes to seeing bigger pictures from different perspectives. I am a firm believer that we need to move away from the factory-model structure and towards innovative practices in education but that requires change. Someone mentioned the analogy of a time machine, and if you read any of my other posts, such as I Want to Be a Butterfly and New Digital Age, New Learning Culture, you will notice how I thrive on analogies. They help me connect the dots. Sometimes, it feels as though we are in the present and choose to go back in time by continuing to implement the same educational practices that we were a part of our personal experiences. But, consider this - do we choose to go back in time year after year from the present, or have we been perpetually stuck in the past and need to climb into the time machine available to us to jump forward? Past is comfortable in some regards because we can anticipate what is going to happen. The future is what scares us because we do not know if it will follow the patterns of the past (and actually I think we know it will not follow those past patterns) so when everything around us is zipping forward and it becomes overwhelming, a way to find comfort is sticking with what we know, even at the expense of others. Monica Oslo gracefully challenged my thinking by posing questions to my reply:
She also made me consider how to teach the past to understand what mistakes we made, what is cause and effect of certain events, and how we can learn from the past perspectives to move forward into the future. For me, it is more about using the tools of today and the future and the tools of the past can be used as a bridge to the here and now. We should not necessarily force students to use the past tools just because that is what we are comfortable with or "how we were taught", only using them as they were used in the past. I teach math so the tools of right now include Desmos graphing calculator and tools like PhotoMath, SymboLab, Wolfram Alpha, etc. Why not embrace these tools? There are still a number of teachers who think students should not use calculators ever. I actually was one of those teachers a few years ago because I thought WHAT! They do not know math if they type in 2+2 to get 4, the calculators will just give them the answers!!! What needs to change in my classroom (and with my mindset) is that structures can be put in place to have students use the tool but still understand HOW and WHY the produce the results they do. This could go back to visual representations and talk about the history of computation devices (i.e. abacus, slide rule, etc.) so when the technology does fail, we understand how and why it works the way it does and rely on our brains and experiences. We can then conceptualize how to create our own work without technology through a pencil and paper. We also can discern whether or not the technology is accurate. Technology must be utilized in a way that does not just generate answers. We need to have students generate questions and justify, explain, validate or discredit a resource or "answer". We need them showing their thinking with pencil and paper, through dialogue, through motion, through any medium, but also include technology as that medium. A really great video I revisit from time to time is the 3 M's.
see
There was a particular topic I asked ChatGPT to help me check my work on an equation. While at quick glance everything looked accurate, there was actually a huge error in a calculation that resulted in a way off answer that I got. I compared my work to it, was able to tell ChatGPT exactly where its error was. It "apologized" for the error, made the correction, and bam! Our results matched. I have also asked it to make me problems and an answer key, just to see what it could do, and it created what looked like an amazing worksheet but all of the answers in the key were horribly wrong! It is not about relying on the technology to do all the work for us, but how to leverage it to build our thinking further, and we need to give students the opportunities to experience this because this is the reality of society. Another example I have heard of initial resistance but eventually embrace is spell check (check out spell checker history). I know I had weekly spelling tests in elementary school but do those still happen? Honestly I have no idea but we rely on spell checker for a lot of things. Does it catch all of our mistakes? Absolutely not, especially when we misspell a word that is another word! One of my biggest pet peeves is when people use the word "loose" for the word "lose". I do not want to loose my job! Wait, what? But as thinkers and learners, we use this tool but criticize it, analyze it, and even ignore it at times because it is not always right and we know and understand the bigger picture. Technology is only as "smart" as the user, so let's give our students and ourselves the opportunity to get smarter by seeing that technology is not replacing thinking, but we can adapt it to extend our thinking and perspective beyond what we can fathom.
References
3 M’s - media method modality and their roles in educational technology use. (2018, August 24). Www.youtube.com. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ56_tcvocY&t=1s
Minions - what?! (2013, July 27). Www.youtube.com. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfylJy_nMbM pajak2d. (2015). Roads?! Where we’re going we don’t need roads!!! In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3AfIvJBcGo
We need to teach into the unknown. Innovation is preparing students for their future, not our past." Grant Lichtman's TED Talk about his experiences on his road trip to observe schools across the nation over ten years ago really resonates with me and my innovation plan, teaching 21st century skills in a blended learning environment.
I do not disvalue my educational experience as a student or the experience of others, but let's be honest. It is outdated. Some of us lived in the student world that transitioned from learning from transparencies on overhead projectors and chalkboards to INCREDIBLE technology... where computers were gigantic monitors and towers, the internet came on an AOL CD, can you hear the dial-up sounds in your head right now? Our ringtones came up recording the audio from the radio at just the right time or from our Limewire downloads and advanced technology was an anti-skip CD player. Others of us lived when these things were science fiction. If we continue to use what society has engrained in us to believe is proper education, factory-model instruction, one-size-fits-all standardized testing, sit-and-get teacher-centered lessons, we are living in a time machine that is taking us to the past where we don't belong. It brings slight comfort to know that Grant was able to learn that for one school's problem, another had a solution, and vice versa. What stinks is I would love the time to go explore other campuses, other math classrooms, and see successes, but when is there time? This goes into developing effective professional learning, where time and resources could be spent on teachers to actively engage in their learning through continuous observation and feedback. But doing this requires systemic change, so what influence can we have to get this change to happen? One possibility is moving higher up in the educational hierarchy but with my experience, those who move up get sucked into the vortex of the past and forget how to consider challenging the status quo. Another possibility is through voting and impacting legislation but I am not sure what that really looks like. When we look at resources like this, looking to see what these presenters are doing now helps me strengthen (or sometimes weaken) the message. Fortunately, Grant is still blogging (https://www.grantlichtman.com/blog/) and one post he has is from December 19, 2019 (The Three Tipping Points for School Change). He continues to write through the pandemic, but even though this post was just months before our worlds were flipped upside down, he captures what is needed eloquently.
The Desire to Change
“We want something different from what we have.” The Dedication to Challenge “We ask our students to get outside of their comfort zones and take risks.” The Decision to Control “We can’t control everything, but we are going to totally own what we can control.” (Lichtman, 2019) This could apply to us right? We want something different from what we have, an educational system that supports and encourages authentic learning. We ask ourselves to get outside of our comfort zones and take risks, embracing innovative lessons. We cannot control everything, but we are going to totally own what we can control, which is what happens in our classrooms daily. This blog is now bookmarked, Grant seems to be on to something...
References
Lichtman, G. (2019, December 19). The Three Tipping Points for School Change. Corwin Connect. https://corwin-connect.com/2019/12/the-three-tipping-points-for-school-change/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=SAGE_social&utm_content=corwinpress&utm_term=6bad4b6b-44c0-4546-be62-e90caed921e8
TEDx Talks. (2013). What 60 schools can tell us about teaching 21st century skills: Grant Lichtman at TEDxDenverTeachers [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZEZTyxSl3g We have globally moved from the industrial age to the digital age, but our educational system relies heavily on industrial age techniques. Classrooms mimic the factory-model process where, according to Thomas and Brown, “learning is treated as a series of steps to be mastered” (2011). When students are addressed as though they are machines achieving repetitive tasks as efficiently as possible, success is defined by the results they produce through standardization of assessments and grades (Thomas & Brown, 2011). One thing that remains constant in this world is that it is always changing, but our educational system attempts to force an outdated approach in this new environment and reality. Rather than trying to play catch up, we need to grow and adapt with the current digital age. Part of this requires adopting a new culture of learning. One reason teaching high school mathematics can be challenging is because of the instilled societal mindset: people are born good or bad at math and there is nothing one can do to change that, so why invest one’s time into something they will “never” be successful in? While a yet mindset can address this concern, incorporating a wider set of characteristics and skills that all people need, regardless of their choices in life outside of the mathematics classroom, bridges the connection between one’s passions, desires, and dreams for life with the academic knowledge. Yes, a significant amount of math content is explicit knowledge, “content that is easily identified, articulated, transferred, and testable” but despite that, according to Brown, “the pool of unchanging resources is shrinking, and that the pond is providing us with fewer and fewer things that we can even identify as fish anymore” (Thomas & Brown, 2011). Math is important, don't get me wrong, but as math teachers we need to be realistic and consider all of the other skills students can learn beyond the math content. How many students are going to be graphing transformations of functions and writing the key attributes domain, range, intercepts, etc.? Not many, but how many of them are going to have to analyze visuals and draw information and conclusions from these visuals? Plenty. Rote memorization only serves a small group of students, holistic approach serves all. Teaching 21st century skills in a blended learning environment through the lens of mathematics requires the new culture of learning approach, which heavily relies on adopting its two essential elements simultaneously: global connectivity and structured environment. With the world and information at our fingertips, society has “unlimited access and resources to learn about anything” (Thomas & Brown, 2011). There is, however, a need to be able to discern between what is valuable, relevant, and appropriate, and what is not. The focus should not be on just answering prefabricated questions, but using these answers to generate more questions because this continuous cycle fosters the mindset of life-long learning. It shifts our view to not valuing what we already know but embracing what we do not know yet and allowing us the opportunity, the time, and the space to discover and create new ideas and perspectives. Critical and analytical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication, and metacognition are all 21st century skills that current and future employers seek because our world is experiencing new problems and questions we could not fathom even five, ten years ago. All levels of companies and brands need innovative employees to think outside the box and really utilize and adapt the current reality to fit the needs of the future. These skills are only taught through experience. The analogy of learning to ride a bicycle comes to mind. One can watch others ride a bicycle, get all the safety gear and training wheels, have someone coach and guide them through staying balanced, but you only know you have learned how to ride the bicycle when you fall, get back up, keep adjusting, and then having the elation of finally pedaling a few feet without crashing. Once one learns and truly understands how to ride a bicycle, other ideas and tricks start to emerge, like wheelies or trail riding. If you have not been on a bicycle in a while, getting back on takes a little time but it becomes second nature. Being able to ride a bicycle opens up the world even more than on foot. Our classroom needs to have the structure of the watching others, providing safety gear and training wheels, coaching and guiding through setbacks. Students will make mistakes and fall down, but the culture in feeling safe to get back up because those around you will support you is vital. Additionally, learning is enhanced when it becomes a collective through the relationships, and a blended learning environment that intentionally incorporates communication and collaboration builds the opportunities to develop those relationships that will improve student engagement and learning. Not only that, but it also mimics our global society, where everyone’s individual perspective and experience is relevant and valid but can positively contribute to the collective and help us to adapt our own viewpoints. Creating a significant learning environment through blended learning addresses the problem that our community considers the educational system as broken, because it is not helping students grow into young adults that can positively contribute to society. A big challenge that comes with building a blending learning environment is battling the established perception that a traditional classroom is the only appropriate structure for mathematics, but according to Gallup (Inc, 2022), Americans are at an all-time low in terms of satisfaction in the education system. The top three reasons Americans are dissatisfied is the quality of education: 65% believe there are problems with the curriculum or educational approach, 15% believe the curriculum is poor and/or outdated and 9% believe students are not learning adequate life skills. Now is the time to shift from the present average methods that produce average students with ostensibly average results to innovative environments that prepare students for a relentlessly adaptive future (Harapnuik et al., 2018). The current data shows that the current educational approach is not generating growth or superb results. Also, college is losing its leverage as a necessity to enter the lucrative workforce. With organizations conducting micro-credentialing options for specific on-job skills that introduce and strengthen an employee’s projected professional abilities and business standards (Pelletier et al., 2022), this leaves the public education system to provide significant learning environments where students can begin to develop the traits that can set them apart and help them rise above the status quo. Students will reflect your attitude and mindset towards learning, so when we shift to creating significant learning environments, we need to establish structures and routines that support students to find passion and imagination in any content area. I tend to think about the big picture but introduce things to students in pieces, starting with mindset. As the year progresses, I add other pieces that involve additional 21st century skills. Everything at once would be overwhelming, especially at the high school level, where usually up to this point, they have been conditioned to learn the game of school and think drill and kill is what teaching looks like. Incorporating reflection throughout the learning process creates a supporting layer where the small steps of growth can be redefined as exponential growth as those small pieces are added to build to the back of the puzzle box big picture. Imagine trying to do a connect the dots puzzle but without the numbers. Unless the picture is overtly obvious, it is highly unlikely we would be able to accomplish the task of creating the final picture. So many possibilities of how those dots could connect, this could easily be turned into a math lesson. If you have a picture with 10 dots, and you connect all of the dots together, that would create 45 total lines with a 362,880 combinations of ways to get those 55 lines. WOW. Imagine trying to put a puzzle together but without a picture. They actually sell those for people who want a challenge! Okay, now let's say you have that picture. What process do you take? A lot of people will start with the edges first and work their way in. Some people look for color patterns, others look for piece type patterns, and it makes managing a 100-piece puzzle that mathematically has approximately 9… with 157 zeros… 9000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 ...ways to choose pieces and put them down in the correct place so much easier. When you do puzzles with friends, the different perspectives help. As educators, we have the final picture, and it is our learning environment that provides students the pieces. How we provide those pieces is what makes the difference between collecting dots and connecting dots. Because we have put together this puzzle year after year, we must intentionally consider how to provide students access to these different pieces and implement structures to give them opportunities to explore how to put them together independently or collaboratively. We can tell them all we want how to connect them but it is not until they realize for themselves the connections that they really get it. Teaching 21st century skills in a blended learning environment through the lens of mathematics requires a new culture of learning approach, relying on two essential elements simultaneously: global connectivity and structured environment. With our connections to worldwide communities and the intentionally designed settings that nurture the new culture of learning, we can change the world one student at a time, turning them into the heroes of the future. References Beautiful butterfly jigsaw puzzle. (n.d.). Lovejigsawpuzzles.com. https://www.lovejigsawpuzzles.com/jigsaws/butterfly-jigsaw-puzzle/butterfly-jigsaw.jpg
Butterfly extreme dot-to-dot / connect the dots PDF. (2023). https://teachsimplecom.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/images/butterfly-extreme-dot-to-dot-connect-the-dots-pdf/image-1628885272548-1.jpg Free Vector | Bicycles icons flat color set with people riding bikes isolated vector illustration. (n.d.). Freepik. https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/bicycles-icons-flat-color-set-with-people-riding-bikes-isolated-vector-illustration_38754353.htm Free Vector | Character illustration of people with global network concept. (n.d.). Freepik. https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/character-illustration-people-with-global-network-concept_3425172.htm Harapnuik, D., Thibodeaux, T., & Cummings, C. (2018). Choice, Ownership, and Voice through Authentic Learning. Creative Commons License. Inc, G. (2022, September 1). Americans’ Satisfaction With K-12 Education on Low Side. Gallup.com. https://news.gallup.com/poll/399731/americans-satisfaction-education-lowside.asp Pelletier, K., McCormack, M., Reeves, J., Robert, J., Arbino, N., & Educause. (2022). 2022 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report, Teaching and Learning Education. Educause. Thomas, D., & Brown, J. S. (2011). A new culture of learning : Cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change. Douglas Thomas And John Seely Brown.
Something I have learned through my role as a student (The Yet In Me - My Mindset Experience as a Student) and an educator in the education system is the word "yet" does not mean that I am on the cusp of a dramatic change or extreme growth in a short period of time but rather an opportunity to grow in almost a miniscule way in the moment, but those moments add up. I am still working on feedback though and my response to it. I accept all constructive feedback and prefer when people have suggestions or recommendations on how to proceed forward. Even prompting my thinking with questions helps. Typically though, others believe I am mad at them because I get upset, then the reality is I am upset with myself for not thinking of the ideas sooner.
This can be the same for our students. When a student has devoted a lot of time and energy from their perspective into solving a problem or completing a task, and then they get feedback on how to improve and adjust, their response is a reflection or deflection. When they reflect and understand intrinsically that it helps them learn and grow, the response comes out in a positive manner. When they deflect and the response comes out negatively, I am not sure it is because a student does not care, but they are building up a wall for some reason. Reflecting is uncomfortable. Realizing that we could have been better in the past "if only we had done this before" is humbling. Our response to the feedback and having a growth mindset in which to receive and accept it makes it less uncomfortable. The destination always seems to be the emphasis. The final grade, the diploma, the big promotion, all of these things are what we openly celebrate and praise. What if we focus more on the journey? Consider the space program and all of the failures that led up to the success. Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon literally defined it as "one small step of a man" because that's actually all it was. The "one giant leap for mankind" encompasses all of the events that brought them to that moment. Through trial and error, through meticulous research and development, they learned when failures happened and how to adapt their understanding to build a rocket that takes people out of this world and onto the next. You could even consider Elon Musk and all that he is involved in with SpaceX. He can be viewed as genius or lunatic, but if we consider the great innovators of humanity, wouldn't we possibly classify them as either of those labels? They are ones who decided to ignore people limiting them and just try new things to see what happens. When the failure struck, the negative criticism did not stop them but rather encouraged them to try something else. We should consider the impact The Yet Mindset has as one small step for a student, one giant leap for education and the world. Let's get out of the world we are in and look towards the future.
References
NASA Video. (2013). One Small Step, One Giant Leap. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSdHina-fTk
Think about a flip-flop... what does it look like? What does it sound like? What does it feel like? I LOVE flip-flops and in this moment, I am reminded of an embarrassing moment in middle school band. I played the flute so I had a front row seat in class, right in front of the band director, Mrs. Wis. There was one day when I wore my new cheerleading spirit flip-flops. Are these things making a comeback? Next thing I know, Mrs. Wis tells me in front of the class, how much she likes my thongs. Cue middle school immaturity and chaos. I got the "best thongs award" that banquet... fun times. The name comes from the sound they make (Why Are They Called “Flip-Flops”? | Wonderopolis, n.d.), how clever and practical! Yet, last night during my nightly insomniac pondering sessions, I wondered why do the straps have to connect between the big and second toe? Flip-flops actually date back to Ancient Greek and Roman times (Smith et al., 1891) but became popular in the United States after World War II (Why Are They Called “Flip-Flops”? | Wonderopolis, n.d.). For over 2,000 years we have just accepted the design of the straps, and doing so has caused myself and countless others the pain and agony of bunions and hammer toe. We seek relief to a problem that comes from lack of innovation. I have mentioned before that I was going to call this ePortfolio "Math CreativeLee" (ePortfolios - GenuineLee Me Pt. 2) but no amount of Project Runway or Next in Fashion could help me design an innovative flip-flop that puts the strap between any other toes. My theory as to why the strap has always seemed to go between the big and second toe is that's where the largest gap is... but our body compensates for such a large space to grip a small strap, thus creating the afflictions! We counter this pain by going to the doctor and getting all of these other crazy contraptions to reset our feet's natural positions so we can continue to enjoy the glorious freedom of breathing feet. Why don't we actually get to the root of the problem and change the design at its sole? Imagine a world now where flip-flops broke the norm and we started to be fashion forward by designing and wearing straps between our other toes... Why does education have to stick with continuing to place that strap in a space where we think we are hitting a large audience but really we are squeezing the life out of our bodies and soul. We are contorting our bodies to attempt and meet all of these criteria others have set years ago while suffering aches and discomfort and mediating these with other resources rather than just looking to change the norm. What if we addressed the problem at its soul? References blewis. (2020, June 14). DIY Rag Flip Flops. The Shabby Tree. https://theshabbytree.com/diy-rag-flip-flops/
Smith, W., Marindin, G. E., & Wayte, W. (1891). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (3rd ed.). https://ia600309.us.archive.org/8/items/adictionarygree01smitgoog/adictionarygree01smitgoog.pdf Why Are They Called “Flip-Flops”? | Wonderopolis. (n.d.). https://www.wonderopolis.org/wonder/why-are-they-called-flip-flops/ |
My husband lovingly teases me when I reflect on my day with him and say "I learned something new today!" because he would be surprised if I didn't learn something new.
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