Google 20% Rule in Schools - Project Breakthroughs

Since 2011 I've been posting occasionally on our experiment in Years 9 and 10 and my school to see if we could apply the fabled Google 20% Rule - students spend 20% of their time on a blank slate passion project.

NSW Board of Studies No Barrier

We are exploiting the fact that in NSW, the Board of Studies (BOS) does not require Year 9 and 10 students to fill their school hours entirely with B.O.S. endorsed courses.  Once all the boxes are ticked, there's still at least 500 hours across the two years available as a blank slate. You can do a lot with 500 hours!

Building a 'Soft' Syllabus / Assessment Grid

My colleague Talar Khatchoyan has done a wonderful job creating a 'soft' syllabus & assessments to suit the course. I mean 'soft' as in 'soft-coded' - the outcomes adapt to any project!  

Which is fortunate, because from previous posts you'll see we've had social justice campaigns, albums recorded, robots constructed, novels written. So I thought I had seen it all, when I recently read a proposal by a student to study and decode horse body language. What an amazing idea! "Approved!"

2013 Example - Jacob's Ultima-Bot

Here is one example of a project - a ridable robot:

Jacob's project has these elements, typical for the program:

• a learning log - http://reminvent.weebly.com/ultimabot-blog.html (please do drop by of course)
• expert input 'pulled' from appropriate sources as needed (contrast to schooling where expertise is 'pushed' out on a teacher's schedule)
• ongoing mentoring by experts, sought out by Jacob. (Since 2011 where I mentioned the 'granny cloud' we now ask the students to seek out an appropriate expert mentor wherever possible, and this is working very well, very efficiently)
• a project mentor, in Jacob's case this is me, who is separate from an expert in the field. The project mentor acts as a kind of Socrates, asking questions about planning, materials, skills needed, identifying 'unknowns' and areas for further inquiry, setting targets and defining concrete 'next actions', setting the bar ever higher, looking for opportunities for publication, etc.  

Field Expert versus Project Mentor

Notice we deliberately separate out the two roles  of:

subject expert,

from

project mentor.

This has enormous strategic importance as we explore scaling the program up to encompass, potentially, hundreds of students, who at any given time might be seeking expert input from an ever-shifting veritable spectrum of disciplines, but can still be anchored to a generic project mentor.

Great Things Afoot

...I'll post more on the project soon! 

Learning Landscapes in Moodle - Three Prototypes

Whereas a yo-yo craze of late has been flipped learning, I prefer to talk about a "learning landscape", consisting of potential learning pathways and resources on demand anytime, anywhere.

In our case we present the 'learning landscape' via Moodle.

Crucial to blended learning is the visual laying out of this learning landscape: the resources and options that learners have available to them.

Anyone familiar with Moodle will nod in recognition of the "scroll of death" problem: endless links running down a page, baffling learners, creating drag, killing momentum and clarity.  

Revisiting a Year 8 unit this year we've gone back to the drawing board RE the visual layout of the learning landscape. Below I show the progression over the last few years:

2011

This plain text table was an easy first step to escape the "scroll of death". By simply adding a web page on Moodle, then inserting a table, I ca assemble hyperlinks in a visually intelligible structure. In this instance, notice that:

• the columns have names
• each challenge is worth a certain number of points, listed
• the challenges are also colour coded

In 2012, I wanted to create a graphic to replace the table. I also added additional resources and options and presented them all on this graphic. The graphic is clickable... for instance each different rung of each tree is hyperlinked to the right Moodle resource. 

My graphic designer friend can't bear this graphic, but hey, it was my next step and I'm pretty happy with it... it was better than the text table, surely!

I painted the trees on the 'paper' iPad app and then added clickable hotspots over the graphic using Adobe CS3, which is as easy as dragging a tool over the graphic to define the hotspot, then specifying the URL to go to, then exporting and uploading to Moodle. 

Many of the same activities from the 2011 text table are in this 2012 version but I have organised the graphic as a visual metaphor, with learners climbing (levelling up) different skill trees. Those skill trees are founded on (grow on) the foundational ground represented by the icons at the bottom: the performance of a play. 

This second effort did the job, but some clear shortcomings were that: 

• there was too much choice - about 50 different challenges were encoded via hotspot hyperlinks onto the graphic.
• learners couldn't preview the challenges... the only way they knew what was behind each hotspot was by clicking
• as mentioned, the graphic kind of sucks... what I called "clouds" at the top, other people saw as "smog"... NOT THE METAPHOR I was looking for!

So, this year, let's iterate the prototype! Back to the drawing board, and this is the result: 

This is my THIRD STAB at the graphic, and is superior by far!  

I created this one with "Snag It", which is a lightweight PC program that, apart from various easily visual editing options, allows hotspots. (The Mac version doesn't allow hotspots.)

Snag It not only allows hotspots, it allows me to create "pop up" images when the student puts their cursor over the hotspot. This solves the problem of learners not knowing where a hotspot will lead them. 

So when the cursor is over a spot, it looks like this (or 30 other things): 

Now Snag It exports SWF files which are flash files, not iPad friendly. This is not a problem for us. Although we are BYOD from Year 5 to Year 12, our learners don't bring iPads. 

I've also collapsed back some of the 50 choices in this graphic. 

So MY POINT!? Just that this has taken 3 years to get to a layout I am happy with. I dare say next year I'll go back to the drawing board again. 

And another point: if you're interested in personalising learning, especially via a web portal, you're going to hit this challenge: how to communicate the options. 

Think back to the classic old Bloom's / Gardner's matrices... but why stop there? Options can be laid out in lots of different ways, so suddenly, the teacher, who is no graphic designer, like me, is faced with a visual layout challenge!  

Prototype, test, iterate, is a great way of getting anywhere! I hope my versions, above, are encouraging to teachers just starting out on Moodle.  

Finally, if you've been reading my last few posts, please note that this visual graphic or table is an "organisational frame" or "o-frame".  

It is a crucial o-frame, because it allows different learners structured freedoms, that heighten agency without losing cohesion.  

Bye for now!

Frames versus Crazy Life

Optionally, see my last two posts for background: one, two.

Here's a doodle seeking to portray a distinction. 

Frames are discrete and identifiable components of our space and experience. In contrast, crazy life is beyond description!

The distinction is between complex, crazy life, which is unpredictable, organic, emotional and contradictory, versus the discrete components we can identify and manipulate in our environment.

My little 'frames theory' seeks to identify what we can and can't manipulate in our school environment - or any environment.

Fundamentally, I believe the problem with schooling is the attempt to control complex, crazy life. The factory frames of industrial schooling act as if human beings are products that can be operated on via a standardised set of frames. These frames restrict space for 'crazy life', agency and initiative.

In contrast I believe in broadening out the space for 'crazy life' and I am pioneering frames theory as a way of putting language around that.

For instance, in this video below there is a great deal of space of unpredictable and complex interactions by real breathing agents called human beings. Yet there are frames... some visible, some invisible. but the art form is deliberately designing physical, virtual, and cultural  spaces  to encourage self-actualisation in all of its glorious and subversive unpredictability.

Whiteboard + Table Legs = Revolution

Whiteboard Table

A couple of years ago my colleague Mitch Layland bolted an old whiteboard to some old table legs: 

The idea went viral - lots of teachers started asking for them:

Consider what a revolution 90° makes. It's a political revolution!

A vertical whiteboard is for broadcasting. It is a one-to-many delivery system.

In contrast a horizontal whiteboard table is space to be claimed. It allows many-to-many collaboration via line-of-sight.

Vertical is tyranny, horizontal is  power to the people! 

Here are the tables in action, including a video:

When we have visits by teachers from other schools, the whiteboard table is always remarked on. As soon as you seen one, the idea seems simple, powerful and obvious. 

But until you see one, the idea does not occur. 

Which begs a question: what else aren't we seeing? 

Or more broadly: How can we develop the ability to see the bleeding obvious?   

Some people are gifted it in this, but not me, and I want a method for acquiring the skill.

I label and describe physical objects as 'frames' in an attempt to uncover the obvious. 

 In my last post I introduced 'frames theory' whose very purpose it is to develop this skill, exposing blind spots and challenging the tyranny of the familiar

 So I shall conclude by recasting the whiteboard table in the terms of frames theory.

Younglings reconfigure space without thinking about it.

The physical classroom itself is an 'organisational frame'.

An 'organisational frame' is matter organised in a particular way.

e.g. a classroom might be: four walls, a door, and some windows. 

Organisational frames are nested. Within a classroom we find lots of other frames: a vertical surface with legs, called a 'table', and another called a 'chair'. 

In frames theory we try to see these objects like lego bricks, and approach them with the attitude of a toddler who smashes things into other things, turns things upside down stacks things on things, and so on, with no end goal at all. 

The point is to be playful, and you can't be playful if you think space is immutable.

Obvious to young learners.

So we ask, what if we used the tables as chairs? or the chairs as tables? Or we turned them on their sides? Or added legs, or put them on wheels?

Then we notice the whiteboard up the front and we ask: what if we put it at the other end? Or put it on the floor? Or dangled it from the roof? What if we cut it in two?

Back to kindergarten for me to see the obvious.

What if we put it on a table? 

The language of 'frames' forces us to step back and label the bleeding obvious, which is a step toward transforming the familiar.  

Go into a space, and take an inventory of the frames, and define them like you're an alien from Mars.

 What is right before your eyes, that you're just not seeing?

 POST-SCRIPT: an excerpt from "Antifragile" by Nicholas Nassim Taleb, p188

"We keep being reminded that the Mesoamericans did not invent the wheel. They did. They had wheels. But the wheels were on small toys for children. [] They used vast quantities of human labor, corn maize, and lactic acid to move gigantic slabs of stone in the flat spaces ideal for pushcarts and chariots where they built their pyramids. They even rolled them on logs of wood. Meanwhile, their small children were rolling their toys on the stucco floors"  

Introducing 'Frames Theory' for Innovating in Schools

​To change something you first need to perceive it is changeable.

Introducing 'Frames Theory' for Innovating in Schools

'To make the familiar strange, and the strange familiar.'

How to innovate… step back from the familiar, recognise it as arbitrary artifice, and tinker with it.

In that spirit I offer my fellow educators a toolkit I have been working on for a couple of years now.

I call it 'frames theory', and its purpose is to open pathways for innovation by identifying existing components of practice - both physical and psychological - thereby making them ripe for change.

Let the crowd be hushed… Ladies and Gentleman, Steve Collis is delighted to unveil ‘Frames Theory’ and invite collaboration!

It's simple: there are just four 'frames'.

You can use the four frames to notice distinct components operating at school, and so consider tinkering with them. The components deliberately span domains: physical, mental, social, tech/information. 

With a hat tip to Occam and his razor, here they are:

1. Organisation frames (O-Frames) are groups of objects or ideas.

An O-Frame is a cluster of elements (physical objects, ideas) with a discernible set of relationships. Every physical object is an o-frame.

For instance, rows of desks facing the front of a classroom (note that the words 'rows' and 'front' set up organisational relationships).

Beyond School: an atom is as equally an O-Frame as a company's organisational hierarchy!

2. Sequence frames (S-Frames) are action steps. 

An S-Frame is a series of actions taken in sequence over a time period.

For instance, a school routine of lining up outside a classroom, greeting the teacher, then coming in, sitting down, and eyes out the front. Equally, the timetable is an S-Frame, as are social scripts played out unknowingly by teachers and students.

Beyond School: algorithms are S-Frames. 

​Objects or concepts organised in a particular way,

A sequence of actions.​

3. Narrative frames (N-Frames) refer to story-telling.

An N-Frame is specific to psychology. Our minds interpret the world through the filter of story.

A narrative frame contains goodies, baddies, archetypes, goals, pitfalls, & more.

For instance: good guys, bad guys, allies, enemies, a range of archetypes, notions of progress, quests, pitfalls, and more. In school, teachers broadcast N-Frames at learners in phrases that frame 'where we are' and 'where we're heading'.

You can use 'N-Frame' to refer to any of these elements. 

Beyond School : ingroup/outgroup thinking, the 'other', and goal seeking behaviour, are all manifestations of N-Frames. 

4. Explanatory frames (E-Frames) refer to explanations.

​Explanatory frames are our explanations that connect the past to the present and future.

An E-Frame is a theory of cause and effect, such as ‘if I flatter this person they will like me’, ‘that person is angry at me because I forgot their name’ or ‘the climate is warming due to carbon released by human activity’.

For instance: at school, a veritable plethora of invisible E-Frames play puppet-master, sitting behind classroom management – ‘I need order so I can teach’, standard testing – ‘data leads to better learning’ or opposite 'testing wrecks learning', and relational dynamics - ‘the teacher hates me’ or ‘that student sabotages my classes’.

 E-Frames are our interpretative apparatus, and they guide our future goal-seeking strategies.

They also happen to be fallible and unreliable to an extreme degree in all matters other than the most concrete propositions. Much damage is caused due to misplaced confidence in E-Frames. 

Cognitive biases render most E-Frames useless or harmful, for instance the ‘fundamental attribution error’, whereby we attribute our own behaviour to context, but others’ behaviour to personality. 

Beyond School: scientific  theories. 

all memes are frames but not all frames are memes

Frames vs Memes

Some might equate ‘frames’ with ‘memes’ but they are not the same beast. I'm pretty sure that all memes are frames but I am certain that not all frames are memes.

Using Frames to Innovate

Together, the four frames provide language for identifying changeable components of a situation, from policies, to physical spaces, to teaching philosophies, habits, inventions... just about anything. It's a universal toolkit.

The point is, once we identify an arbitrary frame, we can change it.

That's the whole point! 

We can ask, ‘what if we changed that O-Frame to this other one?’ or ‘this E-Frame to this other one?’.

Wondrously, we can dissect and recombine frames with blind impunity, with no master plan for why the new combination will be better. You don't need a plan or a justification! It's called hacking, innovating, reinventing, and it doesn't need a reason.

​tinker!

Just mash up some new frames, and see what happens! While you do it you can say "I'm mashing up frames!" like a crazy chef.

A physical example: replace the classroom chairs (O-Frames) with lounges (a different O-Frame) . Do nothing else. See what happens.

A psychological example: as a teacher I might realise take the E-Frame that ‘student X is setting out to sabotage the class’ and replace it with ‘student X is hungry and therefore grumpy’. Whether or not the student is hungry or not is irrelevant – the point is to manipulate the E-Frame (our interpretative theory) and then observe the results. 

Similarly you can identify and tinker randomly with S-Frames, N-Frames, or bundles of them.

We don't have to have a master plan to innovate, just the courage to take what we see and tinker with it.

Frames are Everywhere

There is so much more I want to say about my little frames theory. I have been chewing on it quietly for years.

School is only one context - once familiar with the terms, you see frames everywhere! 

Piano playing consists of O-Frames and  S-Frames. Computer programs are S-Frames and computer memory consists of O-Frames. DNA and proteins are O-Frames. In cells, S-Frames emerge from Brownian motion as O-Frames bump into each other in a molecular storm.

​The cat is an O-Frame, and so is the QWERTY keyboard. Together they make a new O-Frame I would like to re-invent such that I can type!

A baseball or cricket field is an O-Frame, but the rules are O-Frames. Listen to the commentary and you’ll hear E-Frames and N-Frames.

Ingredients in a cake are O-Frames, and the cake is an O-Frame, but the recipe is an S-Frame.  

Frames provide a vehicle for seeking insights in exotic fields, since they appear in multiple domains, and at multiple scales.  Heck, our galaxy is an O-Frame, but so is my cat.

Frames nest within other frames, thereby spanning scales as well as domains. 

In coming blog posts I intend to present some case studies on the frames in action, and perhaps get more up close and personal with each of the four frames in turn.

An Invitation to Collaborate

Have I caught your attention? Has a light-bulb plopped on – some intrigue – some sense of potential? Please join me and let’s explore frames together.

First step, leave a comment, won’t you? I need to gauge how accessible I have made the frames. 

Second step, I've created a wiki for frames - head over and add something, anything - add just one example of a frame!

Third step, you could post your own blog post where you grapple with frames… I’d love to hear your thoughts and see where you take the ideas.

Creatively,

Steve