Why Now Is The Time To Overhaul K-12 Education — from forbes.com by Phyllis Lockett and Michael Horn

Excerpts:

If you take a team approach, then one adult works with students on their social-emotional learning and how they connect to their learning. And another leverages data to create small group opportunities based on the learning objective. And another connects learning to real world projects and helps students build social capital in the community, which also creates a more permeable classroom that’s open to the outside world. Or there could be other ways the teams are structured to best support the student.

For all the plans in the past to “reinvent” K-12 education, none have questioned the fundamentals of time-based instruction. It’s no surprise then that the system produces the outcomes it does. Not every child needs exactly 180 days to master the knowledge and skills required for a third grader. Conversely, some kids need more time. It’s an arbitrary system that cuts off learning for children based on a calendar, yet doesn’t provide a different pathway forward for them that’s productive. In our current system, time is fixed and learning is variable, then students are labeled and sorted accordingly.

Michael Horn


From DSC:
This quote…

The answer is for district leaders to create independent teams of educators in which they are shielded from traditional day to day pressures and have the explicit license to do things differently. They can give these new “schools within schools” the resources they need without encumbering them by the old ways of doing things.

…makes me think of a graphic I did a while back about the need for more Trim Tabs within our learning ecosystems:


 

From DSC:
I virtually attended the Law 2030 Conference (Nov 3-4, 2022). Jennifer Leonard and staff from the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School put together a super conference! It highlighted the need for change within the legal industry. A major shout out to Jennifer Leonard, Theodore Ruger (Law School Dean), and others!

I really appreciate Jen’s vision here, because she recognizes that the legal industry needs to involve more disciplines, more specialists, and others who don’t have a JD Degree and/or who haven’t passed the Bar. On Day 1 of the conference (in the afternoon), Jen enlisted the help of several others to use Design Thinking to start to get at possible solutions to our entrenched issues.

America, our legal system is being tightly controlled and protected — by lawyers. They are out to protect their turf — no matter the ramifications/consequences of doing so. This is a bad move on many lawyers part. It’s a bad move on many Bar Associations part. Lawyers already have some major PR work to do — but when America finds out what they’ve been doing, their PR problems are going to be that much larger. I’d recommend that they change their ways and really start innovating to address the major access to justice issues that we have in the United States.

One of the highlights for me was listening to the powerful, well-thought-out presentation from Michigan’s Chief Justice Bridget McCormack — it was one of the best I’ve ever heard at a conference! She mentioned the various stakeholders that need to come to the table — which includes law schools/legal education. I also appreciated Jordan Furlong’s efforts to deliver a 15-minute presentation (virtual), which it sounded like he worked on most of the night when he found out he couldn’t be there in person! He nicely outlined the experimentation that’s going on in Canada.

Here’s the recording from Day 1:

 


Jeff Selingo’s comments this week reminded me that those of us who have worked in higher education for much of our careers also have a lot of work to do as well.


 

Addendum on 11/8/22:

 


 

“Unleash all this creativity”: Google AI’s breathtaking potential — from axios.com by Jennifer Kingson

Excerpt:

Google’s research arm on Wednesday showed off a whiz-bang assortment of artificial intelligence (AI) projects it’s incubating, aimed at everything from mitigating climate change to helping novelists craft prose.

Why it matters: AI has breathtaking potential to improve and enrich our lives — and comes with hugely worrisome risks of misuse, intrusion and malfeasance, if not developed and deployed responsibly.

Driving the news: The dozen-or-so AI projects that Google Research unfurled at a Manhattan media event are in various stages of development, with goals ranging from societal improvement (such as better health diagnoses) to pure creativity and fun (text-to-image generation that can help you build a 3D image of a skirt-clad monster made of marzipan).

The “1,000 Languages Initiative”: Google is building an AI model that will work with the world’s 1,000 most-spoken languages.

  • AI “can have immense social benefits” and “unleash all this creativity,” said Marian Croak, head of Google Research’s center of expertise on responsible AI.
  • “But because it has such a broad impact on people, the risk involved can also be very huge. And if we don’t get that right … it can be very destructive.”

    And as Axios’ Scott Rosenberg has written, society is only just beginning to grapple with the legal and ethical questions raised by AI’s new capacity to generate text and images.
 

Using Virtual Reality for Career Training — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang
The Boys & Girls Clubs of Indiana have had success using virtual reality simulations to teach students about career opportunities.

a Woman with a virtual reality set on occupies one half of the screen. The other shows virtual tools that she is controlling.

Excerpts:

Virtual reality can help boost CTE programs and teach students about potential careers in fields they may know nothing about, says Lana Taylor from the Indiana Alliance of Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

One of those other resources has been a partnership with Transfer VR to provide students access to headsets to participate in career simulations that can give them a tactile sense of what working in certain careers might be like.

“Not all kids are meant to go to college, not all kids want to do it,” Taylor says. “So it’s important to give them some exposure to different careers and workforce paths that maybe they hadn’t thought of before.” 


AI interviews in VR prepare students for real jobseeking — from inavateonthenet.net

 

2023 Top 10 IT Issues: Foundation Models — from educause.edu

Excerpt:

Recent times have brought about a Great Rethink that is upending previous models of management and working. Higher education is no exception. In 2023, institutional and technology leaders are ready for a new approach.

The EDUCAUSE 2023 Top 10 IT Issues help describe the foundation models that colleges and universities will develop next year and beyond, acting on what was learned in the pandemic and framed by the three building blocks of leadership, data, and work and learning.

See where things are headed in 2023 and beyond.
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The Educause 2023 Top 10 IT Issues

 

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From DSC:
At this point in time, I’d find your visionary, innovative, tech-savvy leaders out there — and not just for IT-related positions but for Presidents, Provosts, CFO’s, Heads of HR, and similar levels of positions (and ideally on the Boards as well.) Such people need to be at the table when strategies are hammered out.

For example, if your institution didn’t get seriously into online learning long before Covid19 hit, I’d clear house and go back to the drawing board on your leadership.

Also, data won’t save higher ed. New directions/pathways might. But I’m doubtful that new sources of data will — no matter how they are sliced and diced. That sort of thing is too much at the fringe of things — and not at the heart of what’s being offered. The marketplace will eventually dictate to higher ed which directions institutions of traditional higher education need to go in. Or perhaps I should say that this is already starting to occur.

If alternatives to institutions of traditional higher education continue to grow in acceptance and usage — and don’t involve current institutions of higher ed — those sorts of institutions may already be too late. If more corporations fully develop their own training programs, pathways, and credentials, there may be even fewer students to go around.

A final thought: Cheaper forms of online-based learning for the liberal arts may be what actually saves the liberal arts in the long run.


Also relevant/see:


 

Get Ready to Relearn How to Use the Internet — from bloomberg.com by Tyle Cowen; with thanks to Sam DeBrule for this resource
Everyone knows that an AI revolution is coming, but no one seems to realize how profoundly it will change their day-to-day life.

Excerpts:

This year has brought a lot of innovation in artificial intelligence, which I have tried to keep up with, but too many people still do not appreciate the import of what is to come. I commonly hear comments such as, “Those are cool images, graphic designers will work with that,” or, “GPT-3 is cool, it will be easier to cheat on term papers.” And then they end by saying: “But it won’t change my life.”

This view is likely to be proven wrong — and soon, as AI is about to revolutionize our entire information architecture. You will have to learn how to use the internet all over again.

Change is coming. Consider Twitter, which I use each morning to gather information about the world. Less than two years from now, maybe I will speak into my computer, outline my topics of interest, and somebody’s version of AI will spit back to me a kind of Twitter remix, in a readable format and tailored to my needs.

The AI also will be not only responsive but active. Maybe it will tell me, “Today you really do need to read about Russia and changes in the UK government.” Or I might say, “More serendipity today, please,” and that wish would be granted.

Of course all this is just one man’s opinion. If you disagree, in a few years you will be able to ask the new AI engines what they think.

Some other recent items from Sam DeBrule include:

Natural Language Assessment: A New Framework to Promote Education — from ai.googleblog.com by Kedem Snir and Gal Elidan

Excerpt:

In this blog, we introduce an important natural language understanding (NLU) capability called Natural Language Assessment (NLA), and discuss how it can be helpful in the context of education. While typical NLU tasks focus on the user’s intent, NLA allows for the assessment of an answer from multiple perspectives. In situations where a user wants to know how good their answer is, NLA can offer an analysis of how close the answer is to what is expected. In situations where there may not be a “correct” answer, NLA can offer subtle insights that include topicality, relevance, verbosity, and beyond. We formulate the scope of NLA, present a practical model for carrying out topicality NLA, and showcase how NLA has been used to help job seekers practice answering interview questions with Google’s new interview prep tool, Interview Warmup.

How AI could help translate extreme weather alerts — from axios.com by Ayurella Horn-Muller

Excerpt:

A startup that provides AI-powered translation is working with the National Weather Service to improve language translations of extreme weather alerts across the U.S.

Using GPT-3 to augment human intelligence — from escapingflatland.substack.com by Henrik Karlsson

Excerpt:

When I’ve been doing this with GPT-3, a 175 billion parameter language model, it has been uncanny how much it reminds me of blogging. When I’m writing this, from March through August 2022, large language models are not yet as good at responding to my prompts as the readers of my blog. But their capacity is improving fast and the prices are dropping.

Soon everyone can have an alien intelligence in their inbox.

 

Innova: A Revolution in Education? — from gettingsmart.com by Chris Terrill

Key Points

  • Innova Schools is designed to rapidly cut through the vast inequities that exist and be a lever for change in Latin America.
  • Innova has the potential to revolutionize education around the globe.

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

The initial school start-up was funded by Carlos Rodriguez Pastor, a Peruvian businessman. He saw an opportunity to provide high-quality schools in areas where the government struggled to supply essential education services (Peru and Colombia consistently rank near the bottom on the global education survey). He enlisted the famed US design firm IDEO to develop a comprehensive program that would eventually be utilized in multiple countries.

From DSC:
Stop the presses. I love that idea of using IDEO to be involved here. It seems like that is a positive step towards implementing Design Thinking within our learning ecosystems.

In the original model, the founders designed a rigorous, engaging, personalized curriculum, with a heavy emphasis on Project-Based Learning. I wanted to know if and how that is actualized, and how that is enacted across multiple countries in schools thousands of miles apart.

Finally, IDEO’s work included a design for the physical structure of schools to be quickly and economically replicated at each location; how was that design working? The vision for Innova may be one of the most ambitious educational undertakings today. What lessons can I, as an individual educational leader, and we, as a global education community, learn from their work?

The Maker Space and the Gaming Lab demonstrate clearly how digital competency is a central element of their curriculum. I saw highly engaging lessons that were perfectly synced with classroom projects, pursuing a bigger goal of equipping Colombian students to fill the digital labor gap. 

 

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What does the ‘metaverse’ mean for education? — from hechingerreport.org by Javeria Salman
Experts warn educators to think twice before jumping on new technologies

Excerpt:

Sometime in the past year or two, you’ve likely heard the word “metaverse.” It’s the future, the next big frontier of the internet, if you ask technology CEOs or researchers.

While the term has become the latest buzzword in education circles, what it means for teaching and learning largely remains to be seen. Experts say much of what we see marketed as the metaverse from education technology companies isn’t actually the metaverse.

In a true metaverse experience, your digital identity travels between the physical and virtual worlds, Platt said. With the help of blockchain technology, that identity — your preferences, your achievements, your educational records, other elements of who you are — is maintained across platforms and applications.

 

Future Today Institute's 2022 Tech and Science Trends Report is now available

The Future Today Institute’s 15th Anniversary Tech Trends Report

Excerpt:

Future Today Institute’s 2022 Tech and Science Trends Report is now available. Downloaded more than 1 million times each year, FTI’s annual Tech Trends Report is a must-read for every industry. Learn the key trends impacting finance, insurance, transportation, healthcare, sports, logistics, telecom, work, government and policy, security, privacy, education, agriculture, entertainment, music, CPG, hospitality and dining, ESGs, climate, space and more. Discover critical insights. See what strategic action you can take on the futures, today.

 

HundrED Global Collection 2023 — from hundred.org
Meet the 100 most impactful innovations that are changing the face of education in a post-COVID world.

The HundrED Global Collection 2023

Excerpt:

The year 2022 has been a year to look to the future, as the global education conversation moves again toward themes of education transformation and the futures of education. The 100 innovations selected for this year’s global collection are impacting the lives of over 95 million students worldwide. The collection highlights the important role of teachers in education innovation; the continued need for students to develop 21st century skills, including social and emotional learning; an increasing focus on student wellbeing and mental health; and equity in education.

For more information, download the full Global Collection 2023 report.
You can also browse the innovation pages of the selected innovators here.
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From DSC:
Here’s an excerpt of the email I received today from EducationHQ out of Australia — though I think it applies here in the United States as well:

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Amplify and value teachers’ voice in education policymaking: researchers — from educationhq.com
Amplify and value teachers’ voice in education policymaking: researchers

Excerpt:

Monash University’s Teachers’ Perceptions of their Work Survey has revealed teachers’ waning satisfaction in their role and highlighted their…

Also from educationhq.com

Teachers changed my life: Trauma-informed education shows kids they matter — from educationhq.com by Beck Thompson
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Nonprofit Bringing Businesses to Life in the Classroom — to the Tune of $400,000 — from the74million.org by Tim Newcomb
Making candles out of crayons, building birdhouses, fashioning furniture: Real World Scholars has helped 50,000 students become entrepreneurs

Not much entices a second grader to skip out on recess to get back to schoolwork. But excitement around a classroom-run business can do just that, especially when it means creating candles out of crayons and selling them in the local community.

Students design their ideal urban home in My ArchiSchool exhibition — from dezeen.com

Students were able to bring family members to the exhibition. Architectural model by Ethan Chan

Excerpt:

Promotion: fifty-two students presented digital designs and architectural models of their ideal home as part of Hong Kong-based education institute My ArchiSchool’s latest exhibition. As part of the exhibition, My ArchiSchool students were asked to design their ideal home within an urban environment. The exhibition, which took place on 2 October 2022 at the Sky100 on the 100th floor of the International Commerce Centre in Hong Kong, showcased photomontages of digital designs presented alongside physical models.

5 Resources that help students become digital citizens — from rdene915.com by Rachelle Dene Poth

Excerpt:

We need to create opportunities for students to become more digitally aware and literate, and to be responsible when using technology. There are many ways to do this, depending on our content area and grade level. We can model best practices for our students, bring in a specific digital citizenship curriculum to guide them through their learning, or use digital tools and resources available to have students explore and create.

Helping students learn to safely navigate what has become a highly digital world is something that we are all responsible for. Students need to be aware of the impact of their posts online, how to create and manage social accounts and protect their information, and how to properly access and use resources they obtain through technology.

3 Reasons School and District Leaders Should Get on Social Media — from edweek.org by Marina Whiteleather

Excerpt:

School and district leaders can—and should—be using social media in their work.

That’s the message shared by Stephanie McConnell, a superintendent in the Hawkins Independent School District in Texas, and Salome Thomas-El, a K-8 principal in Delaware, during an Education Week K-12 Essentials forum on Oct. 13.

At the event, McConnell and Thomas-El provided insights and advice for school leaders who are hesitant to post on certain social platforms or unsure how to use them.

 

How lawyers can unlock the potential of the metaverse — from abajournal.com by Victor Li

Excerpt:

One such firm is Grungo Colarulo, a personal injury law firm with offices in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Last December, the firm announced that it had set up shop in the virtual world known as Decentraland.

Users can enter the firm’s virtual office, where they can interact with the firm’s avatar. They can talk to the avatar to see whether they might need legal representation and then take down a phone number to call the firm in the physical world. If they’re already clients, they can arrive for meetings or consultations.

Richard Grungo Jr., co-founder and name partner at Grungo Colarulo, told the ABA Journal in December 2021 that he could see the potential of the metaverse to allow his firm to host webinars, CLEs and other virtual educational opportunities, as well as hosting charity events.

Grungo joined the ABA Journal’s Victor Li to talk about how lawyers can use the metaverse to market themselves, as well as legal issues relating to the technology that all users should be aware of.

From DSC:
I post this to put this on the radars of legal folks out there. Law schools should join the legaltech folks in pulse-checking and covering/addressing emerging technologies. What the Metaverse and Web3 become is too early to tell. My guess is that we’ll see a lot more blending of the real world with the digital world — especially via Augmented Reality (AR).

We need to constantly be pulse-checking the landscapes out there and developing scenarios and solutions to such trends

 

4 Ways Classroom Design Impacts Executive Functioning — from edutopia.org by Andrew Ayers and Amelia Glauber
Effective classroom design can help elementary students develop skills like organization and task initiation.Excerpt:

Executive functions are process skills that allow us to successfully complete tasks. In any given classroom, there will be a wide range of students with a variety of executive functioning skill levels. These skills include working memory, task initiation, organization, metacognition, inhibition, planning and prioritizing, time management, emotional control, sustained attention, flexibility, and goal-directed persistence.

Also relevant/see:

Designing Classrooms Fit for Early Learners — from edsurge.com by Ozzie Tapia
With deliberate design, learning environments can promote independence, discovery and creativity for early learners.

Excerpt:

Working closely with districts has helped us hone these five strategies, which emphasize how the facility itself can play an active role in the teaching dynamic. When applied effectively, a facility—and the learning spaces inside and around it—becomes a tool for discovery and creative play, which is essential for learners at these early stages of development.

From DSC:
Along the lines of PreK-12th grade learning spaces, I’d like to see more innovations in regards to providing places within classrooms (or within a given facility at least) where students can go who want to/need to block out the cacophony of sites and sounds that may be occurring — in order to help them focus.

 

Great leaders ask great questions: Here are 3 steps to up your questioning game. — from bigthink.com by Christopher J. Frank, Oded Netzer, and Paul F. Magnone; with thanks to Roberto Ferraro for this resource
Questioning isn’t just a way to get the right answer — it’s also a means for sustaining relationships and creative thinking.

Excerpt:

Building an inquisitive team
One of the best LinkedIn profiles starts with “I am insatiably curious.” What would it take to build a team of insatiably curious, truly inquisitive people? Building an inquisitive culture involves a combination of what and how. The what is a combination of the types of questions previously outlined, and the how is the environment you create. Great leaders create great cultures. There are three basic steps to building an inquisitive culture:

  1. Start with an open-ended question.
  2. Respond, don’t react. Embrace silence.
  3. Ask a stream of questions.

Also relevant/see:

 

 


Addendum on 10/29/22:

Innovation starts with the quality of your questions — from edte.ch by Tom Barrett
In the final publication of the October throughline we explore how to build a culture of innovation one question at a time.

Snapshot
A quick synthesis of this issue to share

  • Innovation starts with the quality of your questions. Asking the right questions leads to new possibilities and innovative solutions.
  • We are often drawn to ideas because we want to fix problems; starting with an idea feels safe and more fun than starting with a problem.
  • If we want an innovative culture in our teams, we need to start with questions instead of ideas.
  • Trust and psychological safety create the culture for collective negative capability, which John Keats coined as “the ability to live with ambiguity and uncertainty.”
  • Commit to action by being aware of your need for certainty, make space for ambiguity and uncertainty in development work, and build trust by encouraging questions.

 

How Wayne Brady ‘Yes, Ands’ His Way to Success — from inc.com by Ben Sherry
At the Inc. 5000 Conference & Gala in Phoenix, the legendary performer shares how the art of improvisational comedy can help business owners innovate.

Essentially, “Yes, and” is a process of accepting what your “scene partner” in an improv comedy sketch has said and then expanding on that line of thinking to come up with a new, original idea on the spot. Instead of shutting down suggestions from peers or potential business partners, Brady says, you should look for ways to build on others’ ideas. The resulting camaraderie can help you and your partner create a potentially breakthrough idea together in real time.

The “Yes, and” attitude, says Brady, “means saying, ‘I like what you’re doing. Now let me put my own sauce on it, and we’ll see what happens.'” In order to effectively improvise, you need to actively listen to people, the same way improvisational comedians listen closely to their “scene partner,” and identify an idea that you can make even better. Next, you should encourage your “partner” to continue this process, so both parties are actively responsible for creating the new idea.

 
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