Ruminations II: Catalyzing Action

Monday, August 2 - 1:00 pm

Presentation Slide Links
Tony Bryk - Improvement Research
Louis Gomez - Nuts and Bolts: The Innovation Collaborative
Lindsay Martin - IHI's 90-Day Cycles: Bringing New Ideas into Action

What a breathtaking whirlwind of cutting-edge information! Tony, Louis, and Lindsay challenged our thinking in their presentations and gave us an opportunity to prototype rapid prototyping itself in our intimate breakout sessions. Our five big takeaways from this innovative experience were:

1. Research for policy and practice require different systems approaches.
2. Collaboratories are networked, social, formal & informal with shared norms and space for individual variation that institutionalize knowledge capture.
3. Starting small and scaling up (1-3-5-all) can accelerate the pace of research and innovation in 30- and 90-day cycles.
4. Mistakes are treasures. Failure should be an acceptable outcome some, if not most, of the time.
5. Context matters. Always question underlying assumptions before rushing to judgment.

Please feel free to share your own insights and observations in the comments!

Exploring the Future and the VUCA World in Education

Monday, August 2 - 6:30 pm

Jillian Darwish - Presentation Slide Link

Exploring the Future and the VUCA World in Education, hosted by Jillian Darwish from KnowledgeWorks, was a thought-provoking presentation in which participants were asked to envision the future and try to grasp how rapidly evolving innovations will undoubtedly affect the future generation of learners. Here are five main takeaways from this presentation:

1. Change to technology and innovation is occurring at a rapid pace.
2. The age of information overload is upon us; the key is figuring out how to filter out and process the most important information.
3. We live in a world where information is available 24/7 and at lightning speed. The research community is going to have to adapt to this need for instant information.
4. The technology that is being used and created will allow learners to connect with other learners around the world to create collaborations and shared experiences on a scale larger than has ever been used before.
5. There is no telling how technology, innovation and the environment will ultimately affect the future of education; all we know is that we must be prepared to adapt our practice to the unthinkable.

Please comment on the above 5 takeaways, and feel free to add in your own thoughts and ideas.

Looking Back: Thinking Forward

Tuesday, August 3 - 8:30 am

Denise Borders & Jim Kohlmoos - Presentation Slide Link

Last year at the Knowledge and Innovation Summit West Wind Ed Policy, the Stupski Foundation, and the Knowledge Alliance unveiled a vision for research, design, and development in education. Denise Borders of AED and Jim Kohlmoos of Knowledge Alliance kicked off Day 2 of this year's retreat by quickly reviewing the vision introduced last year as a frame of reference to inform and invigorate the day's discussions. Here are the basic assumptions and elements of this new vision for research, design, and development to transform education for the future.

Assumptions:

• Innovation is the lifeblood of continuous improvement in any organization.
• A robust R&D system can accelerate education improvement in significant, scalable and sustainable ways.
• The R&D system must itself be reinvented as a catalyst for innovation and continuous improvement.

Elements:

• A central mission that focuses on solving problems of practice.
• A knowledge ecosystem that constantly captures, generates and disseminates new knowledge.
• Dynamic networks that guide, aggregate and accelerate innovation and improvement.
• A design process that promotes rapid responses, rigorous testing, and scaling.
• Innovation centers and their interdisciplinary design teams that manage and implement the development process.
• Participating research sites that provide workable environments for the three phases of the development process.
• Funding that is ongoing, sustainable and sufficient.

Jim Kohlmoos concluded this session with the observation that we (Knowledge Alliance) have identified the basic features for an R&D system including: a problem solving mission; a knowledge ecosystem; design process; networks of innovation; centers and teams; and funding. Today, he said, "let's hang out in the stratosphere, test the big ideas, and surprise each other as we imagine a new future."

VUCA in Federal Policy

Tuesday, August 3 - 9:00 am

Mike Smith - Presentation Slide Link

Three main points:

1. Cycles of continuous improvement 
2. Issues of implementation
3. What role we play in this

There are some Game Breakers we need to consider right up front:

• technology
• continuous improvement process
• common standards, curriculum, and assessment
• aggressive early language development

A good example of a cycle of improvement -- the Singapore teacher evaluation system:

• leader circulates around the school
• intervenes immediately when there is a problem
• provides immediate feedback
• formative assessment all the time with engaged participation

Might need to think about different examples of methodologies with rapid feedback loops and different derivations of the Continuous Process Improvement. We need to think about the way we refine our theories and then the implementation.

Implementation

What can be said about implementation? Remember that implementation is 90% of the game -- we deal with adaptive problems all the time in education and less with the technical.

How does one go about implementing a reasonable legislative plan for education in a place like Pakistan?

Look at the context, at who is involved with this implementation, and use a scorecard for accountability and to monitor implementation.

What's on the scorecard?

• Standards
• Monitoring
• Empowerment
• Teaching
• Public-private partnerships
• Capacity
• Facilities

Looks very familiar across the world. Scoring system actually just measures how well, if at all, each item is implemented.

What about the US?

There are nearly 40 states with plans for systems reform-linked to Race to the Top. How might the RD&D system inform these efforts? How does this move us to the next phase?

Crisis as the Mother of Invention in Education

Tuesday, August 3 - 1:00 pm

Tom Vander Ark - Presentation Slide Link
Ted Kolderie - Presentation Notes Link

More big ideas gathered late in the afternoon on Day 2 as Tom Vander Ark and Ted Kolderie presented their thinking as to why innovation is a strategy to systemic reform in education. Both presentations focused on innovative forms of school-organization, on innovative approaches to learning (including the greater use of digital electronics) and on, innovative, broader, concepts of achievement. Here are a few takeaways from both presentations:

• The k-12 system is in crisis and needs to be reconstructed on a new model.
• Placing all bets on traditional school is not an effective strategy for the country's future.
• The private sector has play a more involved role in education innovation in order to produce at scale.
• Blended learning (online learning that happens at school) is a shift in instructional responsibility. This innovative approach to learning will create adaptive learning environments, which will involve adaptive lessons, courses, and instructional tools.
• Over the past 20 years policy has opened the k-12 system to the creation of new public schools. This provided an opportunity to search for new models that would better motivate students and teachers. So far we have not used that opportunity well.

Moving Forward in the VUCA World

Tuesday, August 3 - 6:30 pm

Documentarian Links
Mike Bowler - Retreat Summary
Peggy Siegel - Reflections and Implications

The penultimate session after dinner Tuesday was a call to action. Five of the major presenters, Tony Bryk, Louis Gomez, Mike Smith, Tom Vander Ark and Ted Kolderie, were asked to sum up their impressions of the retreat and make recommendations. The overall message: Let's get going.

Tony: Ideas are great, but the challenge is to make them work on the ground. Try to do something without worrying first about organization; let organization evolve. A few individuals often make something work -- ie, IHI started with six. So a subset of you must step forward.

Louis: Reasons to be encouraged: There's a commitment to practice. Encouragement about the road ahead, which could be a "wedge for equity." And there's evidence that people are embracing a diversity of methods, although more is needed.

Ted: VUCA is the normal state of affairs. He "ended up with a sense that in a situation where nobody can be sure, try different things."

Mike: He quit the group in the early '80s because it was an advocacy group that "hustled for dollars." Today it's much different, "but at some point you've got to do something, got to prove to yourself that you're different than you were before."

He made a specific proposal to the Alliance: Pick two topics, recruit five KA members to concentrate on 1) technology in education, now and in the future, and 2) the new common standards with an eye toward helping all the children in the country.

"Now is the time to act. If you spend two years and don't act, you'll never act....You can change the education environment. You know more about the education environment than just about anyone else."

Jim K in concluding: The collective power [represented here] is one of a kind. The two days' discussions had been "robust far beyond the expectations of the planning committee.... It's a game-changer." To quote Burwick: We can change the world.