Initiative

Initiative – Taking action at one’s own discretion, independent of outside influence or control.

Merriam-Webster defines initiative as a noun meaning any one of three things: 1) the power or opportunity to do something before others do, 2) the energy and desire that is needed to do something, 3) a plan or program that is intended to solve a problem.

Any one of these definitions fits well with the idea of providing our HCS students with a 21st Century education.  In more traditional classrooms, initiative has been frowned upon.  for many years our students have been asked to regurgitate data and facts.  Students, even teachers or administrators, that showed initiative and stepped out of the normal progression of learning often ran into barriers.  However, in the last few years, initiative has become one of the most critical skills sought after by businesses looking to gain an edge in a globally competitive market.  The fact, as Tony Wagner points out,  that "knowledge is a commodity at the fingertips of everyone at a moment's notice," is driving schools to create learning opportunities where students generate original ideas and show initiative in developing those ideas along with thoughtful plans to solve potential problems.

This paradigm shift presents a challenge for educators and educational systems in that it is difficult to assess and label as good or bad, the process of showing initiative.  Rather the process and thinking behind the process matter more than the outcome.  Add to that a set of parents who want to know a child's grade or see something that indicates their child has "succeeded" and teachers are caught in a dilemma.  Students crave situations for them to demonstrate initiative.  Parents, who were educated in a system that asked for correct answers and success was equal to 90-100%, have a difficult time comprehending that a student that generates an idea, develops that idea into an action and tries it and fails actually learned a lot while working through the process.

I was recently with some friends and we were talking science projects for our children.  One of my friends, an educator, was totally flabbergasted when her son came home and was interested in recreating the magnetic field that has been measured around the Bermuda Triangle.  He wanted to do this an make things disappear.  I loudly applauded his intiative and risk taking..  My cheers were met with a resounding "No Way!"  and the reasoning was because it would not work.  My argument went to the fact that two things were in place to have success: 1) The student was interested in the topic and would devote time to it as long as the process was the learning and not the result. 2) This was an original and creative idea that showed initiative on her son's part.  I felt that should be honored and respected.  As it turns out, he was talked out of the magnetic field project and did something more generic (I honestly cannot remember because I was so bummed he did not get to pursue his idea!)  But this friend of mine was more interested in the student being successful than pursuing a novel idea.  What did the student learn from this experience?  The message is clear - conform and choose ideas that have a reasonable chance of success.  Trying something that is highly challenging and has a high degree of failure is not a good thing.  (This is a teacher whom I have tremendous respect for!  And still do!)

We do the same in the classroom.  I am advocating that we coach and teach students the processes to pursue ideas.  That students experience failure as a part of the learning process so that when they move out into the fast paced, global market and 21st Century they are ready to deal effectively with failure and understand the process of generating new ideas and taking initiative to act on them whether they seem doomed for failure or not.  They at least can assess the risks and make an informed decision as to whether or not to move forward.

Structuring opportunities for students to show initiative is a key component in developing 21st Century skills for our future generation.

Curating Information

Hawaii Catholic Schools has identified a series of skills, developed from the work of Tony Wagner and the p21.org.  On of these identified skills that we want all Hawaii Catholic Schools' students to develop is Curating Information.  Hawaii Catholic Schools defines curating information as actively managing, validating, maintaining, creating and finding pertinent resources.

As taken from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, curating is derived from the noun curator which is defined as "someone who has the care and superintendence of something."  The origin of the word curator is in "Latin, from curare, to care, from cura, care."  Information is defined as "knowledge that you get about someone or something: facts or details about a subject."  As I put these terms together, the two definitions create an interesting picture for 21st Century educators.

For as long as I have been in education (suffice to say a number of years!) teachers and adminstrators have been the gatekeepers of information at school!  we decide what information students are to learn and tell back to us.  We decide the content that is most relevant.  We manage the students' access to content through texbooks and other resources.  We decide on the topics they will research and create reports, using our format of presentation, on.  Teachers have been the guardians of information and it has provided us a certain degree of job security!

With the advent of the internet and the proliferation of mobile devices with 3G/4G access to information, educators no longer have sole ownership of content.  Everyone has access to everything at anytime they need or want to use it.  This shift necessitates a change in how we approach teaching and learning.  No longer is our role that of information dispensor or the ultimate guru of knowldge.  We now must teach the skills necessary to manage and filter the vast quantity of knowledge that is constantly moving, growing and shifting across the digital world!

As the term Curating Information hints at, students are now the owners of any knowledge they wish to search for or show an interest in.  People are creating their own content constantly in forums such as blogs, Vimeos or YouTube videos.  Teaching students HOW to navigate this ocean of digital content and apply it to our physical world in a practical and effective manner is, quite possibly, the most important 21st century skill we can help our students develop.

One of the best ways we can model this for our students is to transform ourselves into  Teachers as Curators of Student Learning.  There is so much quality information out there on the internet that is relevant for us as we look to improve our practice as both classroom teachers and school leaders.  For us to truly teach our students the skill of Curating Information, we need to open our minds and shift our paradigm around how we engage our students int the act of learning!

Hawaii Catholic Schools: 21st Century Skills series - Entrepreneurialism

Hawaii Catholic Schools has identified a series of skills, gleaned from the work of Tony Wagner and the p21.org.

One of these 21st Century skills is Entrepreneurialism.   The Webster-Merriam online dictionary defines entrepreneur as "a person who starts a business and is willing to risk loss in order to make money." Entrepreneurialism is identified as a noun.  For Hawaii Catholic Schools and our students, we define entrepreneurialism as "undertaking the process of creating and/or organizing original ideas into functional applications."  This can demonstrated through students starting/beginning/creating a business and demonstrating in their process of creating that they understand and accept  the inherent risk of failure that lies beneath the surface of their work.  

This idea of taking inherent risk during the creation phase is a bit of a foreign idea in schools, where getting 100% is considered the pinnacle of success.  Reframing Failure is a short 5-minute video posted by Edutopia (a FANTASTIC resource for educators and parents!!!) that asks us to rethink how we see learning - and failing.  Schools have spoon-fed our students a steady stream of "give us the right answer" or "there is only one answer." Teachers tell students that they are wrong, if they miss it, or tell them they are right if they get it correct.  As a system, we have consistently been deficient in developing any kind of exploratory or analytical or entrepreneurial skills in our students.  Ask students, or many of our teachers, to come up with a new idea, and most will ask for the "right answer."  Or worse, they want to know what every single little step is so they can "get the right answer!"  Very few will risk and move forward trying anything innovative or new.  

We have placed such a huge value on getting things correct, that we have failed to develop a skill that literally drives our society: Entrpreneurialsim.  To be entrepreneurial, you have to develop sound thinking, research skills, presentation skills, business acumen, math skills, etc., etc.  The key difference between this list of descriptors  and how they look inside and outside of school is that inside school we are developing many of these skills (and actually are doing a relatively good job of it!) but we are doing it without the connection to failure.  Most of our students leave school possessing everything necessary to succeed and make choices, except that many of them have not experienced failure.  An entrepreneurial spirit embraces failure as a valuable learning tool.  The ability to understand and assess risk and reward.  To look ahead and see potential pitfalls and plan to address them in case they show up.  These are characteristics of an entrepreneurial mind and these are the skills we need to actively seek to develop in our students in Hawaii Catholic Schools!

Please share how you are developing ENTREPRENEURIALISM  in your students!
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Hawaii Catholic Schools: 21st Century Skills series - Collaboration

Hawaii Catholic Schools has identified a series of skills, gleaned from the work of Tony Wagner and the p21.org.

One of these 21st Century skills is COLLABORATION.   The Webster-Merriam online dictionary identifies collaboration as a verb that means "to participate or assist in a joint effort to accomplish an end."  At Hawaii Catholic Schools we take a more academic approach and define collaboration as "working with others to complete a task and/or realize a shared goal."  Either way, it is quickly becoming evident that in order to create your own life path, collaboarting with others, in some capacity, is becoming more and more a necessity.  

Humans have worked together for the greater good since our earliest time.  By nature, we are social creatures.  Anyone who spends any time in a pre-school or Kindergarten classroom will tell you this.  Yet for some reason, we have spent decades trying to educate this innate human skill out of our students so that they can demonstrate individual responsibility.  Now certainly, even when collaborating with others, being able to monitor your time and air time are important.  Being a contributing member of a team is rewarding and challenging at the same time.  And as much as we have the internal drive to communicate with others, we also have other internal "skills" that involve us wanting to have our way or be right!  These are naturally occurring challenges that come into play as humans collaborate to solve a challenging problem.

In the current push for developing a set of 21st Century competencies that help our students develop into contributing members of society in a manner of their choosing, we need to construct learning opportunities that help students learn how to collaborate.  We need to balance the organic evolution of working together with constructed coaching on how to listen and respectfully agree or disagree with a position or an idea of another group member.  Educators have been aware for years that children learn best by talking and problem solving together, yet we consistently assess our students in an individual manner that measures only what knowledge they have regarding a particular content area.   Now, we are beginning to see the benefits of having students take a more collaborative and application based approach to learning.

In this short article,  The Changing Role of the Teacher, the author highlights key points made by two keynote speakers at a recent education confewrence, both of whom spoke to a changing education landscape and the role of collaboration in this education shift.  One speaker, Robert Prensky talked about "futurecation," which he says involves preparing students to do things "we could never do before."  Will Richardson, the other keynote speaker, wondered "Why is school the only place my kids can't take out the electronics they have in their pockets to answer the questions?" Both of these speakers appeal to the need for our classroom teachers to adjust with the times, listen to and understand the research about how kids learn best, and change the pedagogical  practice in our classrooms to effectively meet the needs of our students and the changing demands and demographics of the workforce.  This is a gigantic challenge to our field.  Moving from textbook-driven regurgitation style teaching to student-driven, problem-based learning affords students opportunities to learn how to develop effective questions, to bounce ideas off of others and to formulate solutions, try them, and assess the merits of their thinking.  Collaboration is key to this type of instruction and assessment.

Collaboration in the classroom - practical information is a blog that points to some clear direction on how to move in the direction of creating a collaborative environment for our students.  Gone are the days of rows and and individual learning.  For our Catholic schools to thrive and survive, we must change our instruction to not only meet the times, but get ahead of the times.  This is not solely related to money or technology, but rests more in the mindset of how we engage our students.  That being said, technology can make our ability to collaborate that much easier, if we embrace it with an open mind!

Hawaii Catholic Schools have the luxury of having as the core of our mission the figure of Jesus Christ.  Quite possibly the greatest teacher of all time, Jesus modeled 21st Century teaching for us well before it was fashionable!  He created opportunities for his disciples and those who followed him to learn through questions, parables and other problem-based learning opportunities.  He rarely gave an answer but led people to discovery through dialogue and conversation.  As Catholic institutions, we need to take this same approach in engaging our students in the academic content areas.  We want our students to be strong in faith and equally strong in skills such as collaboration in order to step out into this rapidly moving world and be confident, Catholic contributors to our society.

To Know, To Value, To Act - A well rounded 21st Century HCS student

21st century Learning component graphic

Mahalo to the folks at Educational Technology and Mobile Learning for finding this link! If you have not signed up for their free link, I strongly suggest it!  They provide resources in short, chewable chunks that are easy to digest! (I am making no apologies for the food reference as I am hungry while I am typing this!)

I found this graphic to be particularly intriguing.  We have spent exhaustive hours on the topic of 21st Century Learning.  I have personally come and spoken with a few of our HCS schools on the topic (and will gladly come to visit more of your campuses!) as we move more purposefully into raising the rigor of our academic programs while at the same time engaging our students on a more personal level and deciding on just which tech tools will best help us accomplish this!  Foe me, this visual connected as an educator and also as a Catholic.

Academically, I thought this graphic separated the idea of 21st Century skills into easily comprehensible parts.  Teaching our student the Foundational pieces is critical in the current century, yet some people are hearing that these foundational pieces are going away with the move to 21st Century instruction.  In my understanding, that could not be further from the truth.  In fact Foundational Knowledge has become crucial to truly actuate the other parts of the learning equation.  Digital Literacy, core content knowledge and the inter relational understanding of  content taught in schools serves as the launching pad for the other two forms of knowledge.  Meta Knowledge is best applied when a strong foundation is in place.  Being aware or the global setting and our role in the big picture (Humanistic Knowledge) is so important in our interconnected world as more and more our ability to collaborate and connect becomes easier, faster and more wide spread.

What struck me about this graphic was how nicely it tied to our mission as Catholic education institutions.  Our Foundational Knowledge is our belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.  This is where we begin.  From there, we move to what we value as Catholics and then to our belief that we must act to complete our faith.  It is not enough to take just one part of this trio.  We need all three.  For too long in education, we have remained in the Foundational Knowledge circle because it was easier.  We are compelled to move out of that circle and connect with the Humanistic Knowledge and Meta Knowledge in order to give our students the rigorous and well rounded education they deserve! 

Changing Paradigms, Keeping the Faith

For those of you who have been in any of my workshops or spoken with me, you know what a huge fan I am of Ken Robinson.  I am such a fan of everything he says and jealous of how he delivers it!
This animation,  Ken Robinson - Animation - Changing Education Paradigms , addresses the origins of our educations system and challenges us to change how we are delivering education for our students! It is so compelling on so many levels.  I encourage everyone to view it and find their personal connection to the message!  After viewing this vignette,  comment on our HCS Blog about how you are changing, or are going to change, the education paradigms at your school in order to provide a higher quality education for our students in Hawaii Catholic Schools.  Let's begin 2013-14 with a dialogue that engages us and respects professional conversation as a collaborative tool!  I want to hear from parents, classroom teachers, administrators, pastors, even our students!  The work we are doing impacts all of us both directly and indirectly and for us to grow as a network of schools serving students in a Catholic education then we need to model the 21st Century skills we want our students to master!  We need to change our paradigm!

Speaking of 21st Century and paradigm shifts, last school year we published a flower looking diagram that had our HCS 21st Century skills (mahalo to Tony Wagner and the P21 organization for their contributions!) organized around a central theme of Catholic Identity!  In looking at this, some ideas and questions began to be raised about what is at the center and what might encapsulate our mission.  Through collaborative dialogue and constructive feedback, some education minds got together this summer (via the Internet) and came up with a newer model that we feel more clearly and accurately reflects our mission as Hawaii Catholic Schools.

We took the skills and wrapped them around a center of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment and encapsulated all of this in our Catholic Identity!  Please let us know what you think of this!  Feedback is a good thing!  I made it larger so that those of us with weak eyesight can read it easily!

Also, please sign up to be a follower of the HCS blog.  We want to get as many of our school personnel, parents, and even students to get involved in educational dialogue regarding current trends in education and in particular our Hawaii Catholic Schools.  Every two weeks there will be another opportunity to join in the conversation!