The Idea of a School That Learns

1. The Idea of a School That Learns -- Schools can become vital by accepting a learning orientation, not by regulations or commands. -- Everyone in a school system works together and learns from one another.(Learning Organization)

2. The five Learning disciplines: • Personal Mastery: The results that you want to create in your life through your personal vision. • Shared Vision: Teachers, administrators, and staff in a school working together towards common goals. • Mental Models: Reflection and discussions among all members of the community without feeling uncomfortable or scared. • Team Learning: Collective thinking and group interactions which draw forth from all members individual talents. • Systems Thinking: People learn to deal with change that leads to growth and stability over time. -- Schools must continue to meet the current needs of society. -- Building a school that learns involves a learning classroom, a learning school, and a learning community.

3. The Learning Classroom a. Teachers: They are continuous and lifelong learners who promote learning in students lives. b. Students: The ones who are co-creators of knowledge and participants in the development of the school. c. Parents: They are crucial to the success of their children by getting involved in the schools. Often, parents see school as an uncomfortable place just as it was when they attended to school.

4. The Learning School • A. Superintendents: Possess more formal authority than anyone else in the school system. However, he is the leader who can effectively shape a learning school system. • B. Principals, School Leaders, and Higher Education Administrators: The people who set the tone for the school. Not just a supervisor, but a lead teacher and lead learner. • C. School Board Member, Trustees, and University Agents: Policy setters who can model organizational learning through their own practices.

5. Community Members: A community and it’s schools are reflections of one another. Lifelong Learners: Schools and communities are always learning from one another. The Learning Community

6. Core Concepts About Learning in Organizations • Every organization is a product of how its members think and interact ~ Encourage collegiality and positive staff morale. Learning is connection. • You are teaching students as well as the subject. • Good teachers bring students into community with themselves and with each other. Learning is Driven by Vision. • Most critical to a schools success. • Vision is more than just improving test scores, increasing graduation rates, or increasing attendance. It is about developing personal and shared goals and relating them to needs of your students, your school, and your community.

7. The Strategy of Organizational Change A. Introduce organizational learning in the classroom,school, and community. B. Focus on one or two new priorities. C. Involve everyone in learning and change. ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

8. Entry points ( for Successful Educators) • Create a learning classroom • Systems thinking in the classroom • A school’s shared vision • “I want my child in a learning school” • Personal vision • The ethical dimension • From the outside in • Guiding ideas.

9. Industrial Age System of Education • Observations, Assumptions, Public Demands (standardized testing), Responses A. Student Alternatives : Cope or Disengage

10. Industrial Age Heritage of Schools(product efficiency Vs. quality learning) A. Scientific Revolution of the 1600/1700s fuels Industrial Revolution B. Machine Age and Organizational Management C. Assembly Line image; Grade levels, Uniform schedule/bell/curricula D. Problems created included: ~ labeling students ~ uniformity of products ~ teacher-centered learning ~ student self-discipline Vs. teacher discipline

11. Problems are dealt with by the educational field by speeding up the line to increase output, not necessarily learning, not new solution presented

12. Educators feel trapped and disempowered A. Change because of crisis B. Change without crisis C. Change cannot occur D. Change is seen as the enemy

13. Education as a product of the age a. Lack of competition b. Roots to Industrial age too strong to change c. Students and teachers follow the game plan and learn behaviors, not material d. Students develop into “pleasers” and non risk takers e. Students sense of self and commitment for the future is mostly not developmental

14. Industrial Age assumptions about learning • Children are deficient and school fix them • Learning takes place in the head, not the body as a whole • Everyone learns, or should learn, in the same way • Learning takes place in the classroom, not in the world • There are smart kids and dumb kids

15. Industrial Age assumptions about school • Schools are run by specialist who maintain control • Knowledge is inherently fragmented • Schools communicate “the truth” • Learning is primarily individualistic and competition accelerates learning

16. Conditions for Innovation • Radical Change has not been sustainable • Innovation takes decades, not years • Signs of breakdown in assembly line school concept: • Stress • “Haves and Have Nots” disparity • Growing inequity • Conditions that no longer exist • Women have broader career choices • Traditional family and community structures • Monopoly of information • Number of industrial workers had dropped

17. An alternative to the Machine Model of Schools • Revolution is slow in education • Machines vs. Living systems • Schools should be organized around appreciation of living systems, not machines

18. Traits of Educational Process tied to “Active Learning” and “Living Systems” • Learner-created learning • Encouraging variety/multiple intelligences • Analyzing the interdependent and changing the world • Linking social relationships to friends, families and communities • Continual research and questioning

19. CHAPTER IIA PRIMER TO THE FIVE DISCIPLINES 1. PERSONAL MASTERY 2. MENTAL MODELS 3. SHARED VISION 4. TEAM LEARNING 5. SYSTEMS THINKING

20. 1. PERSONAL MASTERY • Personal mastery is a set of practices that support people in keeping their dreams whole while cultivating an awareness of current reality around them. • It is an individual matter through solo reflection which represents a lifelong process. • Rubber band analogy - most natural desired resolution of the tension is for our reality to move closer to what we want.

21. PERSONAL MASTERY • Schools should set a context where people have time to reflect on their vision. • Reflecting on the vision establishes an organizational commitment to the truth wherever possible. • Schools should avoid taking a position about what other people should want or how they should view the world.

22. 2. MENTAL MODELS • Our behavior and attitudes are shaped by the images, assumptions, and stories that we carry in our minds of ourselves, other people, and the world. • Exercise from text • Differences between mental models explain why two people can observe the same event and describe it differently.

23. MENTAL MODELS • They limit people’s ability to change. • It has a direct relevance for challenges in schools. • Reflexive loop • Two types of skills are central to this practice: • Reflection - slowing down our thinking process • Inquiry - holding conversation.

24. 3. SHARED VISION • It will foster a commitment to a common purpose. • It is a set of tools and techniques for bringing aspirations into alignment with common goals or purposes. • In building shared vision, a group of people build a sense of commitment together. • Visions based on authority are not sustainable.

25. SHARED VISION • It requires time, care, and strategy. • It spreads through personal contact. • To accomplish the shared vision, members must meet in person to talk about what they really care about.

26. 4. TEAM LEARNING • It is designed to get the team thinking and acting together. • They do not need to think alike; but they will learn to be effective together. • It regularly transforms day-to-day communication skills.

27. TEAM LEARNING • It is based on the concept of alignment. • Group members must function as a whole by having a common awareness of each other, their purpose, and their current reality. • It starts with the ability to respect each other and to establish some common mental models about reality.

28. TEAM LEARNING • The most effective practice we know emerges from dialogue. • The practice of dialogue is to pay attention, to not only the words, but to the tone and the body language.

29. TEAM LEARNING • Dialogue encourages people to suspend assumptions by reflection. • There are three types: • Surfacing assumptions (making yourself aware of your own assumptions) • Displaying assumptions (making your assumptions visible to yourself and others) • Inquiry (taking a new look at all assumptions)

30. 5. SYSTEMS THINKING • It provides a different way of looking at problems. • It involves looking at components as a large structure instead of isolated events. • It is the study of system structure and behavior.

31. BUILDING BLOCKS OF SYSTEMS THINKING • Reinforcing processes - when small changes become big • Balancing processes - pushing stability and resistance • Causal-loop diagrams - shows influence from one element to another • Stock-and-flow diagrams - shows interrelationships in a mathematical way

32. Creating Classrooms That Learn • “Class” derives from the roman word classis meaning a summons or call. • “Room” comes from an old English word meaning open space. • Classrooms are environments of continual openness where people are called together to study the world around them.

33. Teacher As Designer of the Learning Environment • The classroom is primarily a product of the ways people think and interact. • Methods for improving the quality of thinking and interacting can make everything more powerful in the classroom.

34. Teacher As Designer • Book presents a variety of teaching techniques and classroom designs from all disciplines and teaching methods. • Representation of ways to develop better capabilities by redesigning the way teachers, students, and parents think and interact in class.

35. All Children Can Learn • Research suggests everyone has potential to achieve something significant if conditions support learning and if each individual’s capabilities are valued. • Mental models in educators and parents affect ideas about human potential. • Winners vs losers. • Advanced vs disadvantaged / dumb.

36. All Children Can Learn cont. • Recognizing that students learn in multiple ways and that abilities are not fixed at birth is imperative. • Concentration on changing ways people think and interact is a must. • Hope draws many people to teach in the first place; Remembering that all children can learn helps keep that hope alive.

37. Designing a Learning Classroom • The following steps aid in the design of the classroom as a learning environment that makes your presence, your relationships and everyone’s learning process more effective.

38. Step 1“If I Had a Learning Classroom.” • Imagine a classroom that learns, don’t worry about the curriculum or arrangement of time. • A series of questions is used to guide the educator through this visualization process (p.106). • Be specific and express details. • There is no right or wrong.

39. Step 2“Enhancing The Definition” • Broaden your idea by considering statements that other educators and writers have made envisioning the learning classroom. • Page 107 has some useful statements to help further develop your classroom image.

40. Step 3“What Would It Bring Me.” • Once your classroom image has been developed, consider the following questions. • What sort of benefits would happen as a result? • What would it bring to the students? • What would it bring to me personally? • How would it be different from the classroom where I teach now?

41. Step 4“Selecting and Refining the Top 5.” • Choose the five characteristics of a learning classroom that are most compelling to you (whether or not they are plausible). • Include one or two that you think you may never be able to do.

42. Step 4 continued • Refine the abstract into more specific detail: • What conditions are necessary? • What is an example? • How might it address a student’s learning need?

43. Step 5“How Would We Get There?” • What would you have to do to achieve each component of your vision? • What practices would you follow? • What capabilities would you build-in yourself and in your students? • What policies would be put in place: at classroom, school, community, and even state levels?

44. Step 6“What Stands In the Way?” • Consider opposing forces you might face from students, parents, other teachers, the school, community and state. • Consider the innate challenges that would arise as a natural consequence of your making the change.

45. Step 6 continued • Opposing forces are a natural consequence when an established practice is threatened. Consider the following: • Where might these forces come from? • How might you accomplish your goals without provoking the opposition?

46. Step 7“I’ll Know I’m Making Progress If …” • Consider each of the five characteristics you chose in step 4 and the obstacles you described in step 6. Name one or more “indicator” (piece of evidence that would signal that you have made some progress) for each set.

47. Step 8“First Experiments” • Design an experiment for yourself that might be effective in creating a learning classroom. • Arrange in a couple of weeks to conduct an evaluation of the experiment. • Based on the experience, add further design to your framework to work towards the learning classroom.

48. I. A Five Disciplines Developmental Journey

49. Background: Children’s Capabilities • System thinkers • Iceberg concept • Memorize the names of arteries, but may not grasp the concept of the blood flow • Children must have higher order thinking skills • Most of the time schools are asking students to memorize

50. II. Teaching Structural Tension