Creating an Environment for Innovation Though Evaluation & Feedback: 8 Tips and Warnings

For individuals and systems to flourish during these transformational times, which do you think serves that goal better, a bit of risk, a bit of failure and a good deal of feedback OR safely doing what has always been done?  If you weigh in on risk, failure and feedback, please read on.  If you choose safety in complacency, save yourself some time and make a different decision.

Before we can talk about effective feedback, which we define as supporting professional growth in your school or system, it is essential to consider the much celebrated belief that, “There is no such thing as failure only feedback.”  In theory this is supposed to help our egos get past our malfunctions. In reality, most of us are secretly hoping to be told how amazing our teaching or leading is and hearing otherwise makes us both uncomfortable and defensive.

Keeping that very real human tendency in mind when sharing feedback, below are 8 suggestions a leader whose focus is growth in folks and systems may choose to follow:

1.    Ask others how they prefer to receive the feedback.  This is the bottom line for respect. 

2.    Know that while sharing feedback will help oneself and others improve, it will also cause most folks to squirm a bit – that is OK.

3.    Differentiate the feedback, based on the rating of the performance.  (please see: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-15/the-ideal-praise-to-criticism-ratio.html)

4.    Provide feedback in a way that matches the receiver’s value system.  People pay attention more to that in which they find importance.

5.    Follow common knowledge regarding giving feedback: timely; connected to a goal; specific; actionable and connected to practice.

6.    Create a structure of feedback - one that constantly communicates how things are going.

7.    Keep in mind that generally people change their behavior when provided with an environment for change and specific cognitive maps that outline a “plan” in their heads.  Therefore, the onus is on the leader/evaluator to ensure that the environment and maps, which Art Costa refers to mental rehearsals, are clearly communicated in a culture of high expectations.  (Costa,Arthur & Garmston, R. Cognitive Coaching. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon Publishers, 1994. )

8.    Remain keenly aware of the fact that the meaning or your communication is the response that it elicits; regardless or your intentions.  As many have experienced – the intended message is not the received message.  Tip:  See suggestions 1-7

How educational leaders model the practice of effective feedback for teachers not only helps teachers in improving their own performance but also provides mental models of effective practices for these teachers to use with their own students. Feedback in every relationship in the schoolhouse matters!  Synthesizing more than 900 educational meta-analyses, researcher John Hattie has found that effective feedback is among the most powerful influences on how people learn. (John Hattie, Know They Impact, Educational Leadership Feedback for Learning September 2012, Vol. 70, No. 1)

Please join us at Ignite’14 to share thoughts and practices regarding this most fundamental of educational practices for positive transformation.

Sharon can be reached at:  ienvision@mac.com or @ienvision

Giving Thanks to the Greeks and Aussies

"The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable." - Carl Jung

I love being an educator - at the same time I am overwhelmed by a system that seems to move farther away from the human values that I see as integral to the learning process only to creep back the other way when no one is looking.  Concurrently, there is a educational movement (reform) that causes me despair while another is using social media to "grow" practices that are engaging and meaningful to our learners as well as providing them with the skills necessary to compete in a global workforce.

Years ago, I did a book study with one of my inter-state professional learning groups (before social media!) using Bernie Neville's Educating Psyche: Emotion, Imagination and the Unconscious in Learning.  Bernie teaches at the Graduate School of Education at La Trobe University in Australia.  

At the time, it was a very inspirational book for us all.  It is a book I have given Thanks for often because it increased my ability to shift my perspective and therefore my perceptions in the classroom and "see through" education in general.

Our group was so moved by the ideas in this book, that we "honored" it by writing our own pieces - aligning our beliefs about what is great about education to Psyche.  As Neville writes, "Where intellect seeks reality, soul finds poetry." p.9  As a group, we felt the reality of increased high stakes testing was beginning to get in the way, beginning to create an imbalance, between the process of the logical and factual expected in test prep and tests; and the creativity and play needed to foster insights and process.

The following is the piece I wrote those many years ago.  NLPers will note that we also aligned our pieces to Dilts' Neurological Levels of behaviors, capabilities, values, beliefs and identity.  This piece, written with Eros and Psyche in mind is about education - though some may read it differently.

The Metamorphosis of Perception

The woman, in her robes, sat reading on a mystical evening
the spring wind making dance the luminescence of the moon.
The lover approached,
she could not see him-
she was not fully awake-
she could not hear him-
she only perceived the wind
She could feel him-first from the inside-anticipation
quickening heart - nostrils flare-
she felt him -
a feeling as primal as the beginning-
primal as wolf scent in deep mountain wood.

He approached her - opening
her robe of sleep, of half-blind eyes,
of complacency
and began to caress, to stroke,
what she had hidden for the eonsbehind those robes.

How could this happen?
This lover - this demon/teacher/musician/gardner/Eros
What was his power
that she allowed, then encouraged
him to remove her luxurious robes?
Little by little at first, tentative, careful subtle shifts-
lacy water on soft sand
becoming more deliberate, force
full waves pounding on the shore-
changing a carefully orchestrated landscape.
Moving to a rhythm more natural than the sea
(was it coming from within or without?)
her depth of yearning surprised her.

Her lover sees what the robes have kept virginal
for all those years.
Virgin hopes, dreams and longings for fulfillment
the fulfillment that comes from the mind/energy, sexual/spirituality, the beliefs/heat
of him, the lover,
the most instinctual, natural, explosively slow connected knowing.
Connected together by bonds deeper and wider than the universal tap root,
together by bonds stronger than any tie previously known-
stronger even than the tie that had encircled her robes, keeping her starlight hidden.

The robes kept falling, falling, drifting to the earth as a magical wind
shifted the masks once again in the darkness.
Minds humming, bodies vibrating to the universal tune,
the lovers fell back onto the soft discarded robes
and mingled all that they had been, and all that they would become
in both symbiotic and embryonic ecstasy.

The butterfly flapped its newly open wings,
gently creating a new wind
to encircle and caress the metaphorming universe.

Reference:  Neville, Bernie.  Educating Psyche: Emotion, Imagination, and the Unconscious in Learning.  Melbourne: Collins Dove, 1989.

Election Day

Election Day 2012

What will I elect
for myself this year?
What will I check
in my voting booth?
Will I choose
that which I want-
living artfully
through love
or
will I numbly
check the blank
boxes?
I choose Art!
I choose Love!
Is there someone
I can elect
who will choose the same?

Ripping on Ed Reform

Tragically, it is that time of year again.  It starts out so light and fun and ends with a last breath.  


I live a mile from the right edge of our continent.  Always, in early summer, the Atlantic Ocean manages to quickly claim the lives of several people, regardless of age, gender or race.  The ocean does not seek to extinguish life, it is, in fact, simply behaving as oceans will.  The ocean's force known as Rip Tides or Rip Currents (rips) is easy to contend with - but the human ability to remain resolute and stubborn lends itself quickly to the victim's demise. 


A rip is defined as a strong, narrow seaward flow of water that begins close to shore and extends through the surf zone and sometimes seaward of the breaking waves. They are normally fairly narrow.  A huge one would only measure half of a football field.  Ubiquitous PSA's, signs, and videos instruct that when one finds oneself in a rip, he or she is to turn parallel to the beach and swim until out of it (again, at most 50 yards, usually more like 10).  At that point the swimmer can turn and make it safely back to shore.  


In a rip, a person feels themselves being carried out as if on a river, eyes locked on a quickly diminishing shore.  Panic overrides education and he or she begins to "dig in" and attempt to swim harder than ever before.  The swimmer becomes more frantic as his or her concentrated efforts do not bring him or her closer to the destination.  In fact, the tiring swimmer finds him or herself further out to sea, watching the folks on the beach become smaller with each stroke.  Finally, exhaustion claims another beach goer and the headlines report another drowning.


So, the question I ask myself every morning as I check my metaphorical waters is, "Where in my life am I trying to swim against the rip?  Where do I need to turn and swim parallel for a while - until such time that I can reconnect with my shore; my safe haven?"  


Currently, there is much in Education, especially that which is called "reform" that can feel like a strong, wide rip that has the potential to quickly take us away from all that we love about teaching and learning.  Swimming parallel, for me, means  going a bit rogue, becoming more autodidactic, and participating in every opportunity I have to connect with those who honor our most honorable profession.


This week, that means attending Edcamp Leadership, an unconference, where I will share conversations; meet folks from my learning network; reflect on the craft we love; and generally be inspired by the stories of remarkable educational leaders.  Swimming parallel so that we can reach our shore - creating learning spaces in which our students can thrive, grow and acquire the skills necessary for a global work force.

Reflections of Ripples

This morning, back in my bed, I awoke to the sound of the rooster's crow.  (We really do have a rooster in the neighborhood - I have no idea why!)  Immediately, my mind was awash in the sense making it began on the long ride home from the DAU and GMU's 8th Annual Innovations in eLearning Symposium.  As with any well-planned, fabulously run conference the intellectual candy was in abundance, allowing us to savor and extend learning's pleasures.


Like Phil Libin, CEO Evernote, I strive to surround myself with folks smarter than me.  Check.  Everyone was friendly, so willing to share, and o' so smart.  Together, we looked at teaching and learning from a myriad of perspectives, through jet propulsion - jerkily (O'Driscoll), anthropologically (Oehlert), analytically (Siemans) while sitting in the Lotus position (Kapor).  I know I'm leaving some unmentioned.


To make sense of it all will take awhile and will require me to stay in contact with some of the free agents I had the pleasure of meeting.  They are now more than nodes on a network - they are nodes on my extended professional learning network.


So now, as I take more control of the bike I ride, I enjoy thinking about the destination - that place where true learning occurs, as defined by me. (C4LPT)  What about other learners? 


Part of my sense making requires establishing some goals.  Writing this blog is one of them.


My other goals place my focus on changing the learning landscape for others; to continue the dream others started long ago - to create learning spaces in which well planned learning activities allow learners to remove their own training wheels and TAKE OFF!  


So here's some thinking - please comment if you could add to my sense making.  I believe any one person is only as good as their feedback.


Kapor spoke to a few things, one of which was how to assess mastery and he mentioned Khan Academy.  My thinking is that Khan is good for a very specific task.  That task is allowing learners to see how he or his team thinks about and solves a problem.  That the learner can watch it as many times as necessary is a bonus.


I find one of the best ways to assess mastery is to have one teach the skill/task/content.  We know that whoever teaches; learns.  When one prepares to teach something, he or she goes much more deeply than simply learning.


Therefore, I think the Khan platform would be extraordinarily useful in terms of assessment.  To display mastery, the learner would create a video of his or herself teaching the concept.  These videos could then become teaching tools for others.  As Eric Mazur, physics Havard, discovered - students learn best from one another.


I will work tirelessly with you to create places of learning to which folks want to belong.