Trying, Failing, Learning, Succeeding

I went into my departments SharePoint  testing site today in order to try out a new data gathering configuration.  The testing site is the place where we try out our ideas before we run them live.  I hadn't been to this site for awhile and seeing older test items that I had worked on made me realize how much my knowledge of SharePoint has grown in the last year.  When I started my current position, I knew nothing about SharePoint.  Now I am the SharePoint data guy and one of the few people in my department who know the program really well.  The crazy thing is that I learned everything I know from using the program and trying things out.  What started as a reorganization project to help me understand how my department worked,  grew into site design work, and then morphed into creating custom data collection tools for the entire division.

I tell you this brief technical story because I think it illustrates the best way that humans learn things.  We learn by doing.  By getting our hands dirty and trying things out.  We learn by tackling real world problems.  I think our K-12 education system has, for the most part, lost sight of this fact.  Students do not receive enough opportunities to tackle real world problems.  A worksheet is not a real world problem.

There is one more point, equally important, from my SharePoint story.  I had a testing ground.  I had a safe place where I could try out designs, fail, learn from my mistakes, and prepare a product that would succeed when put into actual use.  Without that safe place to fail, I never would have been able to create something useful.  Failure was a critical component of my learning. 

The question on my mind right now, is how do we build schools where students can safely fail as they tackle real world problems so that they can successfully build things that change our world?   



 

The Technology Feedback Loop

Today I had the opportunity to see two sides of education.  I started the day observing two high school Algebra classes in preparation for a data gathering project.  During my observations, I was surprised by the amount of down time the students had through out the course of the period and how boring it was.  The students had a number of practice problems to do on paper, but when they finished they had to wait until a teacher could review the answers.  If a student came across a difficult problem, more often than not they didn't do it, because they knew they could just wait for the teacher to review the answer.  During those periods of waiting their engagement with the content was lost.  In today's age of instant information and responses, this method seemed so antiquated.

On the flip side, later in the day I was able to participate in an iPod lesson with third grade students where they were practicing fractions.  Even though one of the apps we used had some really difficult problems, the students continued to try them.  They didn't lose focus and were really able to persevere through out the lesson.  I believe this has a lot to do with the immediate feedback that the app based practice provides.  Students didn't have to wait.  They could try a solution.  If it didn't work, they learned from their mistakes and tried again.  I didn't see the same frustration and lack of effort.   

I spent some time today thinking about how we can make the iPod example more of a reality in schooling.  I want to leverage technology to make learning more personal, exciting, and immediate.  We have the tools to do it.  We just need to find the right combination, put it together, and make it happen.   That is my goal.