Is there a way to leverage Google's formula for improving your school? Definitely.
1. INNOVATION COMES FROM ANYWHERE
When is the last time you asked an Education Assistant for ideas to improve your school? I did, and dramatically changed the environment in our noisy lunchroom. Our EA staff were instrumental in reducing the number of behavior referrals coming in off the playground. Give everyone in your school a voice and you'll find fresh ideas to improve your school where you least expect it!
This seems like a no-brainer, right? We often hear school leaders and teachers say they put the needs of kids first. Do we really? Most structures in our schools are designed for adults. Most contracts for example make it difficult to extend the learning day or calendar. Innovative learning technology goes untouched in most classrooms because the grownups are intimidated by it, don't understand it, or simply don't care. Testing schedules tend to disrupt our most vulnerable students schedules taking them away from instruction for 2-3 weeks. I could go on for pages on how we don't focus on the user. We need to Re-Focus on the user...our students.
Mindset is a powerful tool. Think big. Teachers and school leaders that set B.H.A.G.s (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) set the bar high for themselves and their students, then backward plan to animate their plans, aligning vision, data and resources to get them there.
5. SHIP AND ITERATE
"Ship your products often and early, and don't wait for perfection..." I'm working with a Principal and team of teachers at Hiawatha Academies in Minneapolis right now to implement a blended learning program with Kindergartners. We are being thoughtful in our planning, but we aren't going to wait for perfection before we launch. In three weeks we will have kids engaged in adaptive online learning. Every six weeks we plan to evaluate student progress and our implementation to make sure we're on target, and to prepare for scaling it out to more classrooms. Ship it and iterate.
So this is where we might run into some issues. Google theory holds that employees should be given 20% of their time to explore ideas outside of their work assignment, or even beyond the vision of the company. What if we gave teachers the opportunity to do the same? Will innovative practices emerge, or will we lose 20% of critical instructional time? I believe that depends on the culture of your school. Do your teachers feel empowered to explore new approaches to teaching and learning, or does your school or district have a strict culture of compliance, mandated curriculum and inflexible leadership? What if we loosened the reigns a little? Will creativity overcome the belief of many that teachers can't make their own decisions? I bet great things can and will happen.
Android was designed on an open platform to encourage other developers to improve the product. Education is getting better at this, but still has a long way to go. This week I was writing a 2nd grade interim assessment. Interim assessments are proving to be powerful tools to target and improve learning outcomes. I know we're not the only school doing this, and I bet others will share their work. The challenge for educators is the limited platforms for sharing. Pintrest is an awesome start, and other platforms like Sophia Learning are getting us closer, but there's a greenfield opportunity untouched in this space right now.
Nobody likes a loser, right? And most teachers I know are perfectionists that don't like to admit their mistakes. This is a huge problem, as well as a huge opportunity for educators to stop hiding behind their flops, and embrace them. Every crappy lesson is a chance to improve your practice and improve learning opportunities for your students. A new school in Minneapolis called Venture Academy is wrapping their arms around this concept and making it a core value of their adult and student community.
We all read and hear about how important mission and vision statements are to drive success. But most people can't tell you what it is. Take a look at what happens when leadership has a laser focus on their vision. The Kettle Moraine School District just west of Milwaukee, Wisconsin's vision is "Learning without boundaries". It drives everything they do. As a result they are quickly becoming a national model for personalized learning through innovative practice.
We're not Google, but that doesn't mean their secret sauce can't make your school a great(er) place to teach and learn.
