Picturing failure

Our educational system rewards success and penalizes failure.  To most people, that seems right. We want to create successful citizens able to make well-informed choices, vote, hold jobs, raise families, and make the world a better place.  Yes, we do. We want all of that. That's part of why we provide access to education.

But while we have the best of intentions, we forget that the path from here (wherever that happens to be) to success is paved with failure. Individual failure, collective failure, smart failure, fast failure, failure that teaches us what we need to know and propels us further along the path.   Failure is the part of the scientific method that we tend to forget, as testing a hypothesis requires that we be as open to the possibility of failure as to possibility of success when determining what the data actually tell us.

The mantra to fail fast, fail smart, fail cheap is intended to remind us that failing become less likely to hurt us when we embrace it on a daily basis.  The large and/or tragic failures are sometimes quirks of fate; other times, however, they reflect a refusal to fail earlier, when the stakes would have been lower.

Picture yourself failing, learning from the failure, and making better choices as a result. It's amazing how freeing that can be, whether from self-denigration or the equally destructive criticism of the failures of others.

Details are the devil

Details matter, whether in education, research, parenting, or sports.  And because details matter, they trouble the diligent in pursuit of excellence or in pursuit of completion, on less lofty days.

Today was devoted almost entirely to completing the blended course required for my certification of mastery in blended course design.  The deadline (Tuesday) for submission to the certifying agency is self-imposed, though prudent, given that the course is to be taught in April.

I am being reminded that the challenge of a well-designed course is in the be-deviling details of aligning the course objectives to each teaching unit and to every measure of learning...to what I teach in each week, each class, and each assignment...the details of a lecture versus a reading versus an in-class exercise or activity.

I'm convinced that many of the questions students ask about assignments, course expectations, and grading are more indicative of a lack of good course design than of student laziness, inattention, or boredom.  To my chagrin and delight (depending on my level of preparation), I have found that clear expectations, well-written directions (for assignments), and carefully planned lessons both decrease student questions and increase the likelihood of student participation--even when the assignments are not graded.  When assignments are planned well, it's easier for students to do them well.

Students from freshmen through graduate school will do their best to comply with course requirements if they are clear, well planned, and designed for learning.

It's not magic, nor is it manipulation.  It's taking the time (a lot of it) and the thoughtful planning (even more than the time) to design a course from which students will learn, in which they can be successful, and during which they see relevance to their lives.  That's what makes the difference.

The more attention I give to course design, the more I enjoy teaching and the more my students seem to enjoy learning.  The challenge is the time required to attend to the details, the details that differentiate lectures developed years ago to be delivered on auto-pilot from courses that invite students into a collaboration of learning.

It's been a long day and I'm tired.  But the details are coalescing into a course I will be happy to teach...and for which I will be prepared enough to focus on the students and what they need and want to learn.  The more I focus on the devilish details in the planning, the more I can focus on my students in the delivery.

Failing to learn

Failure is a recurring theme in much of my reading, of late.  Oddly enough, the reading I've been doing is about creativity and innovation.  About our education system.  And about the connection between learning and failing.

Though it may more accurately be the fear of failure, rather than failure itself, that is the antithesis of creativity, the technicality seems less important than the recognition that much effort is expended in the avoidance of failure.  This is odd to me, as the most important lessons are generally those that involve failure.

Failing to learn.  By refusing to fail?  Or by understanding the importance of failure?

One of the gifts of age is having enough failures to harvest.

In praise of struggle

This morning, part of the class discussion was "why would anyone want to be a CEO, given the stress and pressure?"  After class, a student stopped me to ask whether I was familiar with how (differently) Japanese companies approached leadership.  Later, I happened upon an NPR story about how Eastern and Western cultures tackle learning. Now I'm wondering about cultural and individual approaches to success--to how we learn and to how willing we are to struggle.

While acknowledging diversity within each of the cultures, as well as the existence of "counter-examples," the NPR article states that "(f)or the most part in American culture, intellectual struggle in schoolchildren is seen as an indicator of weakness, while in Eastern cultures it is not only tolerated, it is often used to measure emotional strength." Think about that for a minute.  The implication is that, in our Western culture, success should appear effortless and easy.

The article suggests that equating struggle with strength (rather than with weakness) means that we are more likely to demonstrate the very persistence required for success. And I'm sure I've heard this somewhere before:

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.  Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.  Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.  Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.  Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.  The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

Calvin Coolidge understood the value of struggling, of persisting, of pressing on, of just not giving up.  It may be one of the most important--and most universal--lessons available.

Perhaps easy isn't really...or shouldn't be.

Seeing the forest...and the trees

We call them Instructor and Course Evaluations and I just received the latest ones.  I tell students that I separate the feedback forms (we are in the midst of a transition to electronic feedback, so this is the last time I'll be able to use this process) into three groups based upon the pattern of responses to the 21 computer-scored statements on the front.  The three groups I use are (1) Walks on Water, (2) Spawn of Satan, and (3) Other.  I glance at the Walks on Water data to see where I could do better, I ignore the Other pile, and I study the Spawn of Satan pile to see just how many students were dissatisfied and in what areas.  I realize (and explain to students) that I am neither good enough to walk on water nor bad enough to be a true spawn of the devil, but I understand how the process works when student feedback is limited to a one-shot event.

So, after reviewing the front sheet, I turn all the forms over to the section for student comments and pull out the forms with writing.  Then I read the comments carefully, trying to understand the feedback and glean what I can for the next semester.  This is my favorite comment from the latest group:

She presents the material from the book effectively, but the assignments that we do that supplement the simulation are ambiguous and it's hard to know exactly what she wants.  Then she grades somewhat hard so that makes it difficult.  The grading system has changed in some parts and I'm still confused on what I'm actually being graded on.  But she is a good lecturer and does care about the students.  She enjoys teaching and is passionate about the subject so I respect that.  She is a little sassy but keeps it tolerable most of the time.  Overall, she is better than most I've had in (the department).

What I like is the student's ability to provide constructive, useful feedback...and how accurately my challenges and successes for the semester were evaluated.  I did struggle with grading this required course taught by multiple instructors.  I'll struggle with it again next semester, as I try to balance the content we are all expected to teach with the content I think is more useful and interesting to the students.  And, in the midst of that balancing act, I'll wrestle again with how to evaluate (aka grade) both the common content and the unique content.  Clearly, I have room for improvement.

But what I like even better is the student's ability to see both strengths and weaknesses.  We talk in class about how giving and receiving feedback is often challenging, both in professional roles and in personal roles.  The tendency to allow one or two areas of difficulty, disagreement, or disappointment to skew perception of the whole is far more prevalent than the ability to see both the parts and the whole.

I can't take credit for this student's ability to provide useful feedback, but I can certainly gain from it.  I'm not at all opposed to some ambiguity in assignments, but I can provide more clarity and a bit more consistency when it makes sense to do so.  I'll continue to be passionate...and probably won't worry too much about being a little sassy.  Some days, it's the only coping mechanism I have.

First things first

My reading lately includes ethics texts (for a January course), daily thoughts on gratitude, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and Facebook (with some Celia Rivenbark for balance).  In the midst of this (and other) reading, there have been recurring references to Anna Quindlen's writing and life.  The most recent example is a Quindlen quote from this morning:  

The ultimate act of bravery doesn't usually take place on a battlefield.  It takes place in your heart when you have the courage to honor your character, your intellect, your inclination, and your soul by listening to its clean, clear voice of direction instead of following the muddied messages of a timid world.

Being immersed as I am in reading and musing, the intersection of the topics, the quote, and the timing prompted me to wonder about some things...such as where we learn to listen to that clear voice of direction...why we accept the voices of others...and what happens when we stop being curious, thinking for ourselves, and digging deeper into a subject for the sheer joy of it all.

So, I took the time to read a bit more about Anna Quindlen, a woman who transitioned seamlessly from writing Newseek columns to writing novels in order to honor her own inclination to be home with her children and to write fiction.  And in the process of reading about Quindlen, I wondered about the source of the quote, as the punctuation in the version I saw seemed...well, wrong, especially for a writer of Quindlen's caliber.  So, honoring the voice of one of my own beloved muses, I searched for the primary text, found the source of the quote, and the punctuation I would have expected.

I don't always take the time to put first things first, to find the source and read it for myself, to grapple with my own understanding (or lack thereof).  When I do, though, for the sheer joy of satisfying intellectual curiosity, there are few things more satisfying.  If I can find a way to bring a small part of this into the classroom...

A lot to learn

This fall, my friend Julie is teaching high school English for the first time as a 'real' teacher and she is unabashedly excited.  Her students will have what every student deserves--a teacher doing what she/he loves.  Julie returned to school after becoming a mom; several semesters of coursework and student teaching later, she received her Master of Arts in Teaching.   

When I saw Julie the week of new teacher orientation, she made a passing comment about seeing the Benchmark results for classes taught by her colleagues (the other English teachers) as part of the formal presentation...and wondering how her own results will look next year.

Yesterday, the Mayor posted on Facebook (the fact that our mayor posts--and 'likes'--frequently is one of many charming things about our city) a quote by educational philosopher Robert Maynard Hutchins:

The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.

One of the responses to the Mayor's post came from a friend of mine, the single father of a son starting sixth grade:

Now the object is to prepare them for the Benchmark Exams, not to educate.

This morning, a shared link about Molly Ivins caught my eye and connected the dots. Julie, the Mayor, and Molly Ivins, three highly educated people, committed to their own education and the education of others.  Maynard Hutchins and a single father wondering about the object of education.  And they can't all be right.

Except that they are.  

We need Julie's enthusiasm, the Mayor's willingness to engage in the dialog, Hutchins' legacy (which, by the way, is a continuation of a far older Socratic legacy), parents who challenge our educational priorities, and Ivins' example of refusing to abandon the belief that speaking out (over and over again) will make a difference.  

I have so much to learn...

Renaissance, renewal, and roaming

I turned in grades this week for the spring semester, which means the semester officially ended.  My summer class begins on Saturday.  It's the circle of academia.

The students who took Innovation and Creativity taught me as much as I (may have) taught them. Their willingness to engage in the course, in the assignments, and in dialog with me was affirmation that I am where I need to be--in an environment where learning can happen.  It may not matter, in the final analysis, who is learning--it matters that learning occurs.  Perhaps learning begets learning...

For the students who said that the assignments themselves were a chore, but that writing about them wasn't, I am thankful; you got it.  To the students who wanted more guest speakers, I apologize.  For the many students who took risks they didn't want to take and wrote beautifully about their experiences, I am grateful.  It will be a privilege to teach this course again next Spring.

My summer course is another new one for me...and I will, again, be taking a risk, both with changes in content and in delivery.  I'm a bit anxious, pressed for time, and grateful for the semester I just had.  At this point, I'm almost ready for the Summer semester to begin, at least as far as the course plan, syllabus, and Day One lecture.  But I'd be lying if I said it was in the bag.

Seekers, by definition, never arrive.  Seekers journey.  And, when renewed, seekers roam to new places...and such is, indeed, the circle of academia.

A jinx on both your classes

I wrote a few weeks ago about the oxymoronic exhortation to be spontaneous.  Closely related is the conundrum of being labeled "creative," a surefire way to create a self-consciousness that rarely co-exists with creativity.  Next semester, I have the opportunity to take all of this to new heights by teaching a class entitled Innovation and Creativity for which I will be "perfect" because I am "so creative."  Oy vey.

Honestly, I like marching to a different drummer, singing my own song, taking the path not traveled, and seeing things from a different perspective.  But the minute you label them as unique or try to teach them to others....well, they kind of become mainstream and defeat the intended purpose of expressing uniqueness.  So, I tend to let others teach it and write about it ("it" being "how to be different") and just do what seems to work for me in any given moment or situation.  Now, however, I'm supposed to teach a group of graduate students how to be "it."  Oh my.

Yes, I love to teach.  Yes, I love a challenge.  Yes, I think it's important to find a unique contribution to the world.   I'm just not sure I know how to teach something I've never stopped to analyze or study and which seems to be nothing more than how I make my way in the world.

I have textbooks and a syllabus from the previous semester, both of which I am devouring in the hope that I will discover some magic formula for teaching something that seems both ineffable and idiosyncratic.  Perhaps it wouldn't be so daunting if I didn't feel the pressure to BE CREATIVE in front of 30 students who assume I know this stuff.   If chaos is in any way linked to creativity, then I'm feelin' real creative about now.  And that real creative feeling is temporarily getting in the way of preparing for both my Spring classes, as I'm having trouble with the focus part of creativity.

I started writing this blog to remind myself how it feels to be the learner; I am considering myself reminded.

Who knew work could still be fun?

During the past week, I've taught myself to use Prezi (you can see my first attempt here), created a web site to use for a high school technology program, and installed Google Chrome (that was actually today).  The week before, I finally mastered the web cam I blogged about earlier and actually used the administrator rights for the Facebook page for that same high school technology program.  And it's all been fun.

Fun is not a word I hear my colleagues use very often. We tend to use more academic terms such as intriguing, useful, invigorating, stimulating, challenging, cutting edge, or (if we're really going out on a limb) refreshing.  All of those are swell words--really, they are.  But multi-syllabic words don't capture what you see in a girl's eyes when she talks about how much FUN she just had at the park...or what you hear in a boy's voice when he tells you how much FUN it was to go fishing.

Call me old-fashioned, quaint, anachronistic (if you must, but not in my hearing, please), but don't take the joy out of learning something, accomplishing something (I had to create the Prezi twice, thus, twice the satisfaction of finally getting it right), or finishing something.

Life isn't, can't be, shouldn't be all about fun.  But there are places for sheer joy--and learning should be one of those places.  If we allow the fun to flourish where it can, it is partial recompense for those inevitable places where learning is just difficult.  And I do love that Prezi...

Curious about what happens to curiosity

If curiosity were framed as a competitive advantage in the workplace, business schools would be in serious competition to develop curricula in curiosity.  Consider, if you will what might be taught in:

• Competing for Curiosity
• How Curious is Your Strategy?
• Curious Economics
• Curiosity Killed the Competition
• Accounting for the Curious
• Curious Markets I Have Known

A Google search on curiosity has 26,600,000 results.  Narrow the search to intellectual curiosity and the results shrink to 3,360,000.  Much of the accepted wisdom in the articles, news stories, and blogs is about how kids are naturally curious.  Which is why I'm wondering what has happened to those Curious Kids by the time they get to college.

Curbing the curiosity.  Is it the educational system?  Is it the demands of the job market?  Is it our parenting style(s)?  Perhaps some inextricable combination of multiple factors?  Whatever it is, I'm seeing classrooms full of students who diligently take notes, perform at (what they perceive to be) the minimum requirement to get the grade they want, and, more often than not, accept without question whatever lecture material is provided.

(Let me wander off the path momentarily to differentiate the all-too-prevalent "gotcha" students--the ones who exhibit the obsolete meaning of curiosity, which is exactness or accuracy--from those who have a desire or inclination to learn about or inquire into any subject.  The former are proliferating as rapidly as the latter are disappearing.) 

I have very little in the way of scholarly wisdom to impart; rather, I just miss having the equivalent of academic playmates who find joy in intellectual discovery of something not known at the beginning of a spontaneous episode of curious cavorting.  I make room for it in my class planning, I encourage it in my students, I demonstrate it (sometimes to the point of absurdity), and the joy of learning--for no other reason than the fun of it--seems hard to find.

What if the absence of curiosity--and the related joy of learning--is a symptom that we're teaching and studying the wrong things?

Writing crap

In the world of online reading, it's hard to know where the road will lead. That happened today when I found Danah Boyd's post about the academic impact of what we--meaning, loosely, academics--write.  In a conference presentation to academics focused on research output, Danah (a researcher at Microsoft Research New England and a Fellow at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society), calls it as she sees it:

If you didn't believe in the value of research, my guess is that you could game the system to maximize citations and publications. There are plenty of folks out there who do indeed write crap that they don't believe in so that they can stir up controversy and get people to pay attention to their work.

Impact doesn't necessarily have to be about the public, but it does have to be about the future. It is fundamentally about getting people to think and see the world in new ways. My hope is that we can find a way to get beyond discussing impact and generate research that does impact.

In this view of the world, impact includes writing for the public, which may actually make some research far better, more useful, more engaging.   Anne Davis writes about the unfortunate dichotomy between research and writing in her EduBlog Insights:

I have blogged very little since working on published research for the past two years. I can’t help but think all the published results would have been improved with input from the larger audience that would lead to better meaning making.

This isn't a new dialog; it's been around for as long as I can remember and all that's changed is the forum.  But perhaps a larger forum will generate more possibilities by blurring the line (for the better) between quantifiable research for the purpose of securing tenure and research that allows us to be better educators.  Or, as one of my students wrote:

(We) should be taught real world experiences from teachers (not researchers) with real world experiences. Researchers should be in educational walls, but in concert with teachers. Researchers provide a great foundation for the theory of the concepts used in the real world, while the actual teachers should provide knowledge of how to apply these concepts in real world situations. This would apply Bloom’s taxonomy by providing the knowledge, understanding and application from researchers and analysis, synthesis and evaluation from the teachers.

What we learn...or don't

Predictable cycles are standard fare in strategy texts. It matters, for example, whether your industry is primarily a slow-cycle market or a fast-cycle market (affecting the speed with which your competitive advantage is lost). It also matters whether you are on the pendulum swing toward or away from centralized management. And there are others. But the up-close-and-personal cycle I'm seeing this week is the one seen pretty universally across colleges and universities--it's the mid-semester slump. We (meaning students and faculty) know it's coming, think we're better prepared for it this time, and experience it anyway.

Learning from the past (history) or from others (case studies) gives us the intellectual ability to interpret our behavior, whether corporate or individual. Amazingly enough, very few of us seem to be able to change it much.

And the technology, too

The Steelcase Learning Lab is the model for our beta classroom. The technology tools and infrastructure are the least of my concerns, however, as there are very capable people managing that project. What concerns me is how to use what's being provided.

I've not been an early adopter of any technology. Late to cell phones and computers, I do not use the full functionality of any technology; I use only what seems effective or efficient...or what I'm required (by someone else, of course) to use. Were I to be completely honest, I'd admit that the Learning Lab technology is more than a little intimidating. Using technology well is impressive; using it poorly (especially in the presence of Digital Natives) does not inspire confidence in either the user or the observer(s). I can learn the technology; in fact, I'll be provided the "opportunity" within the next two weeks. And it will remind me how it feels to be a novice. So why would I do this?

It's easy to teach students who love to read, who love to write, who love learning for the sake of learning...the ones we all want to be and the ones we all want to teach. But even when we find those near-perfect students, few of us have the luxury of esoteric discourse ranging from neural networks to computer networks, with a sidebar about The New York Times book review of Jonah Lehrer's Proust was a Neuroscientist (which I thoroughly enjoyed, by the way). I teach undergraduate business students at a state-funded university, students who are being recruited and hired for a wide range of abilities. I don't get to choose which ones I teach, I have very little time with them, and I need to reach them as quickly and as effectively as possible. Will the technology help? Teaching well matters enough for me to take the risk. And the willingness to learn--which is what we expect of our students-- does seem to require some willingness to risk.