Via Education Innovation, I came across this metropolismag.com posting with these 10 tips from IDEO for creating a 21st century classroom experience
1. Pull, don’t push
Create an environment that raises a lot of questions from each of your students, and help them translate that into insight and understanding. Education is too often seen as the transmission of knowledge. Real learning happens when the student feels the need to reconcile a question he or she is facing – and can’t help but seek out an answer.
2. Create from relevance
Engage kids in ways that have relevance to them, and you’ll capture their attention and imagination. Allow them to experience the concepts you’re teaching firsthand, and then discuss them (or, better yet, work to address them!) instead of relying on explanation alone.
3. Stop calling them "soft" skills
Talents such as creativity, collaboration, communication, empathy, and adaptability are not just nice to have; they’re the core capabilities of a 21st-century global economy facing complex challenges.
4. Allow for variation
Evolve past a one-size-fits-all mentality and permit mass customization, both in the system and the classroom. Too often, equality in education is treated as sameness. The truth is that everyone is starting from a different place and going to a different place.
5. No more sage onstage
Engaged learning can’t always happen in neat rows. People need to get their hands dirty. They need to feel, experience, and build. In this interactive environment, the role of the teacher is transformed from the expert telling people the answer to an enabler of learning. Step away from the front of the room and find a place to engage with your learners as the “guide on the side.”
6. Teachers are designers
Let them create. Build an environment where your teachers are actively engaged in learning by doing. Shift the conversation from prescriptive rules to permissive guidance. Even though the resulting environment may be more complicated to manage, the teachers will produce amazing results.
7. Build a learning community
Learning doesn’t happen in the child’s mind alone. It happens through the social interactions with other kids and teachers, parents, the community, and the world at large. It really does take a village. Schools should find new ways to engage parents and build local and national partnerships. This doesn’t just benefit the child - it brings new resources and knowledge to your institution.
8. Be an anthropologist, not an archaeologist
An archaeologist seeks to understand the past by investigating its relics and digging for the truth of what was. An anthropologist studies people to understand their values, needs, and desires. If you want to design new solutions for the future, you have to understand what people care about and design for that. Don’t dig for the answer - connect.
9. Incubate the future
What if our K–12 schools took on the big challenges that we’re facing today? Allow children to see their role in creating this world by studying and creating for topics like global warming, transportation, waste management, health care, poverty, and even education. It’s not about finding the right answer. It’s about being in a place where we learn ambition, involvement, responsibility, not to mention science, math, and literature.
March 31, 2009
10 tips from IDEO for creating a 21st century classroom experience
March 28, 2009
Sweden and Denmark at the top of the Networked Readiness Index 2008-2009 rankings
Sweden and Denmark once again lead the rankings of The Global Information Technology Report 2008-2009 edited by Soumitra Dutta, Insead and Irene Mia, World Economic Forum. The Report, which you can read by clicking here, underlines that good education fundamentals and high levels of technological readiness and innovation are essential engines of growth needed to overcome the current economic crisis.
Living in Switzerland - ranked 5th - I was curious to find what was written in the report about this country. Here is an extract from page 15 of the report:
"the country’s ICT excellence seems to be the result of the interest and usage of the business sector and ordinary citizens rather than of a precise government vision and strategy. The country displays the highest and third-best levels of business and individual readiness, respectively, out of the 134 countries covered, coupled with widespread usage (6th and 3rd for individual and business usage, respectively), while the government lags behind, at a rather disappointing 17th place for both its ICT readiness and usage."
March 25, 2009
200 years that changed the world
Watching this video by Hans Rosling, I learned that people across the world have become wealthier and healthier in the past 200 years. I also learned that the differences between and within countries are large.
March 22, 2009
Video by HEC Montréal students to the song Mamma Mia by ABBA
Have a look at this 5 minute video that takes you through HEC Montréal. Good, creative initiative by the 150 students who participated.
March 21, 2009
BlogCampSwitzerland 4 in Zürich today
I’m participating at BlogCampSwitzerland 4, a European conference, today. BlogCampSwitzerland 4 takes place at ETH Zürich. You can get more information on BlogCampSwitzerland 4 by clicking here.
March 19, 2009
Strong leadership trend: From autocratic to participative
When asked to identify a trend they see emerging in leadership, the trend most often mentioned by 112 executives is the shift from an autocratic style to one that’s more participative. I read that in this Center for Creative Leadership Research White Paper – a document that I came across by reading this blog posting of Stefan Lindegaard.
How is the management style of leaders at the company / companies you work for?
March 18, 2009
3 actions to ignite latent energy
Reading this article about the work of Ms. Lynda Gratton, I became aware of 3 actions that support the principle of igniting latent energy:
# 1. The first is to ask questions that spark energy, to engross and interest others as well as your own curiosity.
# 2. The second action is to create visions that compel. These are visions of the future that you and your colleagues can buy into, that encourage others to imagine the future and to become excited about being involved in that future.
# 3. The third action you can take is to co-operate with others to craft meaningful and exciting work.
Have you thought about whether you are asking enough questions that spark energy?
March 16, 2009
One of the greatest enemies of innovation is success
Watching this 2 minute interview with Paul Sloane, I learned that one of the greatest enemies of innovation is success.
March 14, 2009
Do you want to help a person to learn? Then involve him or her
At an interesting presentation by Benjamin Wilding on Tuesday, March 10 at the University of Zurich, I was not least struck by this quote by Benjamin Franklin - written on page 3 of Mr. Wilding’s slides:
Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.
March 12, 2009
10 lessons of Rafael Nadal
In this interesting Knowledge@Wharton article, I read about the following 10 key lessons that Mr. Alvarez de Mon, IESE Business School, believes managers can learn from Rafael Nadal, the current # 1 tennis player in the world.
# 1. Talent
Each of us is born with a different talent. The key is to choose a profession that permits you to develop it. Although talent is a function of genetics, it needs to be nurtured in order to bloom fully.
# 2. Character
Nadal is an example of how a strong and determined character can propel a career to the very top. Along with talent, character is the second engine in an unbeatable duo.
# 3. Training
In both sports and business, there should be a natural relationship between making mistakes and being prepared to learn. In the case of Nadal, not everything is technique; it’s also about mental control, and about an eagerness to be constantly learning. Before he unseated Federer as the world’s number-one player, Nadal had been defeated on various occasions by his rival.
# 4. Values
Before you can become number-one, you have to develop such values as humility in order to have a solid foundation for dealing with success. But you also need to know the difference between yourself as a real person, and yourself as a sports and media “personality”.
5. Teamwork
Tennis players are solitary competitors on the court, but they always depend on the team that supports them. Trainers and managers act as advisors off the court, but once the match has begun, responsibility falls entirely on the player, just as it does on an executive. Even when just one person is in power, others are working for him behind the scenes.
6. Positive outlook
Some athletes lose a match before playing it. The secret lies in seeing the problem and turning it into an opportunity. Beyond such a perspective, you also have to exercise mental toughness in order to play your best when conditions are most difficult.
7. Environment
Your family environment is key; it shapes personality and it’s important to remember who you are and where you came from.
8. Coaching
Often, a talented person is the last one to realize what he has. The job of a good coach is to identify talent, select it and train it correctly so that it develops.
9. Pressure
The only way to deal with the pressure of serious competition is to realize that there are other things beyond winning a championship cup.
10. Collaborators
Both senior executives and elite athletes run the risk of surrounding themselves with people who only tell them what they want to hear.
What is - for you - the most important of the above?
March 10, 2009
Today is equal pay day
In the executive summary of the 2008 State of the World report, I read that women account for over 40% of the world’s workforce but only earn 25% of the global income. Today is equal pay day. On the website equalpayday.ch, I read that here in Switzerland, men earn about 20% more than women. I also noticed this statement by Mr. Heinz Karrer, CEO of Axpo:
"Der Weg zu einer wirklichen Gleichstellung mag ein steiniger sein, aber es lohnt sich, ihn bewusst und beherzt zu gehen. Wir haben uns in der Axpo HR-Politik dazu verpflichtet. Das heißt gerade in traditionell von Männern dominierten Branchen wie der unseren: Erstens konsequent den gleichen Lohn für den gleichen Job und die gleiche Qualifikation bezahlen. Und sich zweitens bei jeder Neubesetzung die Frage stellen: Okay, bisher war da zwar ein Mann? Weshalb nicht ab morgen eine Frau?"
On the Global Gender Gap Index 2008, Switzerland is ranked # 14 – a very strong improvement compared with Switzerland’s 2007 ranking as # 40. Switzerland gains 26 places in the rankings based on very substantial increases in the percentage of women in parliament and those in ministerial level positions. The Global Gender Gap Report 2008 is published by the World Economic Forum which is based in Geneva, Switzerland. The Gender Gap Index 2008 is the result of collaboration with faculty at Harvard University and University of California, Berkeley.
March 08, 2009
Apple day at Jucker Farmart
Today, I spent some time at apple day at Jucker Farmart in Seegräben, Switzerland. I was very positively surprised – not only about the good, fresh taste of the apple juice that Jucker Farmart makes but about the entire customer experience that the people, who work for Jucker Farmart, created. What I saw, heard, and tasted was really unique. As you can see from the last photo below, even the bathroom was designed using great creativity. Congratulations to the people working for Jucker Farmart. Keep up the good work.
March 07, 2009
That’s what friends are for
Reading this McKinsey Quarterly article by Soumitra Dutta and Matthew Fraser with the title "When job seekers invade Facebook", I noticed - not least - the last sentence:
We may find ourselves asking more frequently that age-old question "What are friends for?"
In this regard, I came to think about the great song “That’s what friends are for.”
March 06, 2009
Doodle launches new features
On this Doodle Blog posting, I learned that Doodle is among the 200 best Swiss websites. Doodle is placed in the category social networks. If you need to, for example, set up a time for an event with other people, Doodle is a great tool which is easy to use. It is also a free tool. Doodle works like this:
Step # 1: Create a poll.
Step # 2: Forward the link to the poll to the participants.
Step # 3: Follow online what the participants vote for.
As you can read more about in this Doodle Blog posting, Doodle recently launched several new features. Among these is Branded Doodle, a service that enables companies and other organisations to purchase their own private Doodle, branded with their logo and name. Read more about Branded Doodle by clicking here. Read also about the other new features of Doodle by clicking here.
March 05, 2009
March 03, 2009
10 management challenges regarded as uniquely critical
In this very interesting blog posting, Gary Hamel presents the following 10 management challenges regarded as uniquely critical:
1. Ensuring that managerial work serves a higher purpose.
2. Fully embedding the ideas of community and citizenship in management systems.
3. Reconstructing the philosophical foundations of management.
4. Eliminating the pathologies of formal hierarchy.
5. Reducing fear and increasing trust.
6. Reinventing the means of control.
7. Redefining the work of leadership.
8. Expanding and harnessing diversity.
9. Reinventing strategy making as an emergent process.
10. De-structuring and disaggregating the organization.
Thinking about how the company, you work for, is managed, which of the above mentioned management challenges do you view as being the most important?
