Tag Archives: learning

Keeping the friction

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I’ve been a proponent of integrating technology into schools and classrooms for a couple decades. And in many ways I’m excited about AI and what it has to offer in the field of education.

But I have one major concern above all others: Making learning easier is not the goal.

Decreasing the challenge doesn’t foster meaningful learning. Reducing the required effort doesn’t make the learning more memorable. Encouraging deeper thinking is the goal, not doing the thinking for you.

We need to make sure that AI is not taking the friction out of learning but rather maintaining or increasing the friction in the best places to promote meaningful learning. Friction is required.

Thinking Requires Effort

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I recently read a great article by Alec Couros, The Radical Act of Thinking. In it he said, “The challenge isn’t finding the tool anymore. The challenge is avoiding it. We’ve reached the point where AI is the path of least resistance for almost every task.”

And then he concluded with this:

“To succeed, we need to fundamentally reframe “effort.” We have to stop viewing the struggle of thinking as an inefficiency to be solved, and start protecting it as the very thing that helps us grow.”

Here are a few ways that I see teachers doing this at Inquiry Hub:

  1. Community video or podcast challenges. Part of the challenge might include creating the video in a specific genre, or a meta part of the presentation where students explicitly describe what they have learned.
  2. Personalized inquiry projects. This is offered through a course designed around the process of learning, not content. So it doesn’t matter if a student is learning to code, designing a website, publishing a book, learning a specific skill in art, composing a song, starting a business, or even learning to crochet… the inquiry is designed around students learning skills they want to learn.
  3. Solving problems in class. I’ve questioned the value of homework for over 15 years now. Watching our senior math teacher teach Math & Physics, I see him focusing on the why of questions. I see his students working in pairs and groups to solve problems together on white boards. I see students actively struggling and learning in class, where they have access to support, and the focus is on the struggle and understanding the problem.

Something else that we do is to be careful not to add things to students loads unnecessarily. I can’t tell you the countless times I hear well-intentioned educators say, “You know what would be a good project for your students to do?” Followed by a legitimately good idea. But we are not an alternate school, we are a regular school with an alternative approach. Our students still need to fulfill the entire regular curriculum on top of the inquiries they do for credit. As good as other ideas may be, they become make-work activities that not all students are interested in, and this just invites students to use AI or to feel like the work is just busywork.

Will Richardson asks, “Every time you’re about to implement a new program or pedagogy or technology or initiative or building project or anything else, ask and answer this simple question: “In service of what?””

When we add anything to our schedule, it’s to serve one of two purposes:

1. Integrate curriculum or make the curriculum more engaging. Our students go on to universities, colleges, and technical institutes, and they need the required courses to get there and do well. But the required curriculum doesn’t need to be taught in a linear, boring fashion. When a project is added in class, the intent is to meaningfully cover more curriculum in less time.

2. We add things in service of students. A recent example: For the last 10 years our PAC has fundraised to provide students with FoodSafe every 2nd year. So all our students learn life skills around preparing and serving food. This year our PAC is also providing our seniors with first aid training. The plan is that they will alternate years between FoodSafe and first aid so that every student who goes through Inquiry Hub will have these life skills when they leave the school. Carving out 8 hours of training time over 2 days involves our senior teachers reworking their schedule… in the service of giving our students a life skill.

I won’t pretend that everything we do is AI proof, and that there aren’t lessons and activities where students could avoid thinking using a tool that does the work for them. I also won’t pretend that every assignment and project is ‘in service’ of authentic learning for students. But I will say that we’ve worked hard to make the learning meaningful for students. We provide them with opportunities to work in our community towards common goals, and we provide them with opportunities to pursue projects meaningful to them, focusing on the process of learning… on the struggle, with a perspective that failure and struggle are a path to real learning, not a barrier.

I’ve said before,

“We talk a lot about ‘learning through failure’ in education, but we don’t really mean failure. Because when a student takes lessons from something not working, then it’s a learning opportunity and not actually a failure.”

This fits with what Alec said above,

“To succeed, we need to fundamentally reframe “effort.” We have to stop viewing the struggle of thinking as an inefficiency to be solved, and start protecting it as the very thing that helps us grow.”

The secret sauce is in providing the space and time for students to struggle out in the open, facing challenges or learning life skills that they will use. However, you don’t create these opportunities by continually adding things to a student’s plate. Adding more to their plates only invites them to find tools to do the work for them.

Thinking requires effort, and providing students with opportunities to demonstrate that effort in meaningful ways is, in my mind, the project of schools. Reducing busywork, and maximizing the problem-solving time, in a community of learners who find benefit from working together, is what schools should be in service of.

Foundational Geometry of the Cosmic Matrix in the Tetraverse

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This is the next installation in the Book of Codes series that I do with Joe Truss.

‘Foundational Geometry of the Cosmic Matrix in the Tetraverse‘

It’s an easier video to understand if you are willing to take the time to watch ‘We Live in a Tetraverse‘, our introductory video based on the premise that the smallest building blocks in the universe must be tetrahedral.

Joe and I spent 4 hours putting the final touches on the ‘Foundational Geometry of the Cosmic Matrix in the Tetraverse’ video this morning, after working on it almost every Sunday morning for a few months now. Here are other videos in the series:

‘Secret Origins of the Enneagram‘

‘A Short Take on Assembly Theory in the Tetraverse Model: A Geometric Representation‘

‘A Dimensional Twist of the Tetraverse (A response video to Klee Irwin’s 20 Group Twist)‘

As always, feedback is greatly appreciated.

The upside down bell curve

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The bell curve, also known as a normal distribution, is a graph that depicts how values in a dataset are distributed. Most values cluster around the average with fewer values appearing at the extremes… those rare few that do very well or very poorly.

But there is a new curve evolving that matters more, the upside down bell curve where the ones on the extremes are where most of the data points are distributed. In an era of free and openly available information, this is the new learning curve. There is no more average majority, instead there are those that understand and those that do not. Those that participate and those that opt out. Those that engage and those that choose not to. Those that seek to learn and those that disengage.

The resources needed to do well are available. The access to information is there for all who want it. The opportunity to get that information in a format or delivery that makes sense to you is easy to find. The question is, are you willing to put the effort in?

If you learn how you best learn, then access to information is no longer a barrier and you will likely learn very well. You will be with the majority of people on the successful side of the distribution curve. If you decide it’s too hard, or choose not to engage, you will be with the other majority, ignorantly selecting the unsuccessful side of the distribution.

There will be anomalies, those that have learning challenges that are not met and struggle, and those that make no effort yet still find it easy to understand things. There will also be those few that just choose to squeak by, capable of more but neither excelling or struggling. But this is the era of extremes. This is a time when the ‘A’, the ‘Exceeding Expectations’, the ability to excel, is available to most… and yet will only be achieved by the ones who actually choose it.

The mathematical average of the curve might be the same, but the distribution will be starkly divided.

Light but right

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I just joined a gym and they had a great promotion on 5 sessions with a personal trainer, so I took advantage of the deal. Today I met my trainer, but not until after I’d already done the Coquitlam Crunch (3x up, once down – 9 kilometres with 3/4 of the time going up hill).

So I wasn’t exactly fresh and ready, but I was excited to get started.

My trainer asked what I wanted to work on. I definitely didn’t want to do legs after the crunch, and my buddy and I did a hard chest and back workout yesterday, so I chose shoulders. He had me doing some exercises with 2.5lb weights, and some face pulls that I’d normally do with 60 or 80lbs, but he had me working with 20lbs doing a technique I’d never tried before.

Here’s the thing, I definitely got a good shoulder workout in. I don’t need to go heavy, I just needed to focus on technique and to work my muscles in a way that I’m really not used to. It was hard to get a full set in with these light weights and both my form and technique definitely faltered as I progressed.

It’s a nice, humbling reminder that it’s better to go light, and do it right, than it is to slap more weight on and have crappy technique. I’d say, ‘lesson learned’, but I know that’s actually just an observation rather than a shift in practice. It’s going to take a few more sessions for me to really understand how to push my body properly with lighter weight rather than muscling through workouts sloppily, with heavier weights.

Time under tension

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One of the principles of exercising to develop muscle is time under tension. How much time are you working the muscle for?

Learning is similar. For how long are we challenging ourselves before giving up?

Resilience is similar. We cannot strengthen our resilience unless we face things that are challenging us for longer than we could previously tolerate.

I think sometimes we focus too much on making experiences easier, when what we really need is to create greater time under tension.

Emotionally invested

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“When students are emotionally invested in the learning process, commitment and performance will typically go up. Scott Barry Kaufman, a psychologist who studies learning and creativity, said, “If we want to see what young people are capable of achieving intellectually and creatively, we have to engage them in activities that matter to them.” By linking students to their personal interests and their own creativity, they can explore questions like: What do I love? What am I good at? What problems can we solve? What do we want to create? Why is this important? How will we figure this out? What might we contribute to the world? It’s within this productive struggle and its inherent ambiguity that students can build a self-inventory of creative and adaptive capabilities. These life-building skills will transfer beyond the project and the classroom. Students can discover what’s possible for themselves and what they’re capable of.”

~ Robert Attwell, Student-Powered Inquiry-Based Learning

Robert visited our school last year and wrote this article, published last month in Canadian Teacher Magazine. (See a PDF of the article here.)

A couple days ago 5 pre-service teachers from Simon Fraser University visited our school for the day and I had them end the day learning about some of the inquiries that on of our Grade 12 students, Jacob, did while he was with us since Grade 9. Afterwards, I asked Jacob, what’s something that he really liked about coming to Inquiry Hub, and what’s something he thinks he might have missed coming to such a small school?

Jacob chose only to speak about one thing. He said, ‘If I didn’t come here I’d never have had the opportunity to do all these projects, or I would have had to do them on my own time… except I probably wouldn’t have had the time to do them.’ Essentially, he has had school time to work on projects and inquiries that have mattered to him.

I think that should be something all schools spend a bit more time doing.

Ripple in time

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I was at a dinner with some online school principals from other districts last night and one of them mentioned the influence that I had back in the early days of Twitter. It was interesting to hear his thoughts, and to recall what those days were like. The sharing and learning had a depth to it that I haven’t felt since. It was a time when educators were trying new things, playing with new technologies, and experimenting with their own practice on an almost daily basis. And then openly sharing their successes and failures, asking questions, and seeking solutions to new and thoughtful problems.

I’ve thought fondly of those times, but I never really took the perspective that I had influence, or that what I was doing was having a ripple effect on others. I felt more like I was riding the ripples of others than I felt like I was making the ripples myself.

It was quite an honour to hear him speak of the influence I had, and to look back at that time a little differently.

Pruning – Strategic Subtraction

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One of my favourite quotes comes from Derek Sivers:

“If more information was the answer, then we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs.”

When looking at Dr Simon Breakspear’s ‘The Pruning Principle – Unlocking educational progress by mastering the art of strategic subtraction,’ I feel as though there is a chasm between the insightful information he shares, and the ability to use that information meaningfully and effectively in schools. Simon summed this up at the BC Principals and Vice Principals Association conference in Whistler yesterday when he said, “Subtraction is harder than it looks!”

So, let’s examine this Pruning Principle a little closer and leap over the chasm between this insightful concept and it’s usefulness.

The premise:

In gardening pruning, cutting back, is essential to cultivating long-term vitality. That said, it’s important to recognize that pruning almost never involves removing something completely.

The challenge:

The ideas of ‘doing less’ or ‘de-implementation’ have negative connotations. ‘Pruning’ is a better, more positive frame. The challenge is to recognize that sometimes we have to stop doing many good things to spend time doing fewer better things.

“There is nothing so useless as doing effectively that which should not be done at all.” ~ Peter Drucker

The plan:

  1. Examine (Review the landscape.)
  2. Remove (Subtract with care.)
  3. Nurture (Cultivate what matters.)

With a focus on ‘impact’, intentionally remove things we do that are not as impactful or effective as we think, in order to nurture and give more time to the truly impactful things.

This is an iterative process. The pruning need not, and probably should not, be big/irreversible/long-term/complex-structure. Instead start small/reversible/short-cycle/short-term.

The targets:

Areas to target for pruning:

  • Time
  • Priorities
  • Physical and visual space
  • People/participants involved
  • Commitments and responsibilities
  • Processes or steps in a process
  • Platforms and schools
  • Rules and policies
  • Standards and frameworks

The goals:

  1. Redirect finite energy and resources
  2. Stimulate desired new growth
  3. Reshape for health and longevity

The questions:

What is on my ‘Stop Doing’ list?

What can I Delay, Delegate, or Dump?

How do I shift my internal dialogue from pruning being a negative, a subtraction, to being one where pruning is about caring and greater competence?

The example:

Pruning is a great metaphor, it takes the subtraction of things to help nurture them and have them blossom or bloom. But my favourite example from Simon Breakspear was about learning to ride a bicycle. One of the biggest challenges in learning to ride is balance. A kid’s bike comes with training wheels. While the wheels prevent falling over, they are a crutch that doesn’t actually help with balance. Now, we see little bikes with no pedals, and no training wheels. Kids are learning to balance before learning to pedal… and they are learning to ride both younger and faster! Instead of adding training wheels, we subtracted the pedals and made the learning journey better.

The first steps:

Choose a target area and start small. Do small experiments. Focus on the improvements you want while remembering that you are already at capacity. You aren’t going to effectively add more, or do better, unless you prune somewhere else.

We can flourish (blossom) when we focus time and resources on things that have impact. By pruning distractions and low-impact efforts, we and our teams can redirect energy towards what truly matters… enhancing both performance and wellbeing.

The infinite classroom

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I recently heard someone describe AI as the infinite classroom… You can get anytime learning, catered just to you. And for a moment I thought, ‘I remember Google being described like that, and YouTube too.’ Now, I know that the ‘catered to you’ part of Artificial Intelligence is a richer experience than Google or YouTube, but that doesn’t mean that we haven’t kind of been here before. The guy went on to say that schools today are irrelevant. He was American and his focus wasn’t K-12 education but rather ‘investing’ $200k+ for a college degree that could be irrelevant by the time you get it.

Still, this made me think of all the digital distractions that make school less appealing and engaging compared to out-of-school offerings and opportunities… From AI providing meaningful, just-in-time learning, to social media, to gaming. Be it for learning or entertainment the competition for attention is significant outside of school.

So how do we engage students in schools when an infinite classroom as well as unlimited distractions are happening outside of schools?

What we shouldn’t do is bring back more traditional testing to ensure students don’t cheat using AI. What we also shouldn’t do is try to compete with the outside world and attempt to make schools more entertaining.

What we should do is create rich experiences where students are exposed to concepts and ideas that they would not have found on their own. We should provide social opportunities to learn together. We should provide opportunities for student voice and choice.

It’s not about competing with the infinite. It’s about cultivating learning experiences where students feel invested in the experience. It’s about fostering curiosity and providing shared learning opportunities that challenge students meaningfully.

In a world of infinite distractions, engagement in schools needs to be community and relationship focused. If it’s just about accumulating information and content, then classrooms as we know them will be no match for the infinite classroom (and unlimited distractions) that out of school opportunities will provide.