Hunting for Ideas

This week we launched our fourth annual Innovation Hunt for Ideas. Using cutting-edge crowdsourcing software, all employees of the Minnetonka Public School system are invited to share their ideas on how to improve our educational system. Each year, the “Hunt” has evolved and the process for collecting, developing, and vetting ideas continues to improve. Last year, we added Innovation Coaches at each site to personalize the innovation process and support our Idea Champions. This year, we allowed Idea Champions to self-select the size of the idea as well as to identify the primary audience. In this way, apples will be compared to apples and oranges to oranges when we enter the second phase, Pairwise.

While I always am amazed by the transformational ideas presented by our staff, I am equally inspired by the incremental ideas. Just yesterday one of our elementary teachers shared an issue that she has noticed with our kindergarteners. Frequently, our youngest students are anxious about school, and forget where to go and who is who. While we host kindergarten round-up and provide support for these new students, this teacher suggested creating building-specific videos that show students the ropes at their new schools.

The beauty of this idea is that it actually solves several other challenges the author hadn’t even considered. At each of our elementary schools we have Immersion programs. When our kindergarteners arrive on their first day of school they are challenged not only with learning how to “do school” they’re learning it in a second language. Viewing these videos at home will maximize their learning time right off the bat. And we always have students who move into a school during the year; these videos will welcome them and help them become more familiar with their school before their first day.

This is just one of over 35 small ideas intended to improve efficiency, improve communication, and make school a more relevant place for our students. Another 60 ideas requiring more resources have also been shared.  Over 350 staff members have participated in this first stage of our idea hunt. I am humbled by our teachers, paraprofessionals, office managers, technology support staff, and administrators courageously posting their ideas and helping colleagues develop their ideas through their comments and suggestions.   

Windows and Mirrors

Students’ educational experiences need to be both windows into the experiences of others as well as mirrors of their own experiences, according to Dr. Veronica McDermott of the National Urban Alliance. The curriculum windows provide students an opportunity to stretch whereas the curriculum mirrors help students develop efficacy; it validates who they are as people and learners. Students’ efficacy, their belief in their ability to reach their goals, is the most influential factor in their achievement, in both school and life. And, more often than not, our students who struggle do not see themselves represented in curriculum and pedagogy.

Jen Kohan, MN-ASCD Executive Director, Dr. Veronica McDermott, me

I had the amazing opportunity to spend two days last week with Dr. McDermott at MN-ASCD’s Teacher Leader Institute, tackling the issue of closing the achievement gap for underperforming students. She shared – and modeled – several instructional strategies designed to engage students in high intellectual performances. “What I read; What’s in my head; What my neighbor said” and “Read, draw, talk, write” incorporate best practice in reading instruction into all content areas. But more compelling were the videos she shared to provoke our thinking.

The first was “A Girl like Me.” Kiri Davis, at the time a high school senior, directed a documentary on perceptions of beauty by girls of color. She also re-constructed the “doll test” originally produced by Dr. Kenneth Clark for the Brown vs. Board of Education desegregation case. Nearly 60 years later, children overwhelmingly continue to prefer the white doll over the black doll, and to perceive the white doll as the good doll. Teachers, adults, society in general, need to use mirrors and windows to celebrate success of people of color so that these self-perceptions can change.

The second video Dr. McDermott showed us was the “Original Dance Factory Preschool Tap.” As you watch the video, frame the behavior of the star first in an assets perspective. Then reframe the exact same behaviors from a deficit model. The message here, of course, is that we need to look for the strengths of underperforming students and to build on that. Most behavior in itself is neutral: is the child creative or disruptive? Is the child energetic or distractible?  

Throughout the conference, I kept connecting this work – windows and mirrors as a means of celebrating who students are and who they may become – with last week’s discussion of student voice. Students not only want to be heard; they want to see themselves in the curriculum and pedagogy. 

The Voice - Student Edition

Relationships matter. Teachers who care about their students matter. Being heard matters. Multiple ways to show learning matters.

At last week’s EdLeader21, Dr. Russ Quaglia facilitated a student voice panel. When he was concluding the session, four young Georgia students shared those statements in response to what mattered most. It wasn’t the first time they said that. Throughout the 45 minute panel, their message about what was most important in education was simple and clear: YOU. Again and again, students wanted their teachers to hear these three things: 1. I matter. 2. We matter. 3. You matter.

The research backs this up. If you know your students hopes and dreams, they are 18X more likely to be academically motivated. A simple survey at the beginning of a course can help teachers know about their students. One student shared a creative way that his teacher got to know them, a brilliant question: “How would what you are striving to be help us in a zombie apocalypse?” 

Students know when a teacher KNOWS them. They like hearing their names and having genuine conversations with their teachers.  Students believe they have something to teach us.  Students want to know WHY teachers teach. They believe if teaching is a passion, then it is no longer a job.

And while all of this was affirming, enlightening, and just an all-around great reminder, it was just one part of the bigger message. We need to hear our students. Students need to be invited to share their insights. One participant reminded us, “The past 200 years, ADULTS created the very best schools we know how. Would it be totally crazy to ask students what they think?”

Students should be participating colleagues in our work. Our friends in Farmington, MN include students in their Instructional Rounds. They ask students what they see and what works for them. The students’ points of view offer meaningful feedback. And it’s powerful for students to see their teachers being vulnerable and open to feedback to improve.

How we invite students to share can and should be decided locally – at the classroom level, at the building level, and ultimately systemically. Students are not just the consumers or customers of education; they are our reason for being. They should be our partners.

The final thought from the student panel was this:  just know me and let me know you. This will help me grow.