The X learner and the Next Level

Jody Britten
Sep 4, 2018 · 4 min read

We live in the innovation age. Where thinking differently, approaching problems from different perspectives, and collaborating outside of specific fields to embrace different strategies and ways of thinking are commonplace. I love John Kao’s definition of innovation. He defines innovation as a set of capabilities — individual, organizational, societal — that allow for the continuous realization of a desired future. (I really love that definition).

For educators this puts our focus on one thing: school should be about where we are going, not where we have been.

In more traditional classrooms we see teachers directly teaching and checking off the standards and skill/understanding progress of students after a lesson or unit that they have planned and facilitated is complete. This happens through multiple means that are often teacher controlled, directed, and facilitated.

In an innovative classroom, things seem flipped. In these classrooms we observe teachers going into the learning experience with an idea of everything we need our kids to make progress on (in individual and whole group ways). We see teachers allowing kids to come up with big questions, designing provocations, and encouraging student experiences to lead the way to obtaining and mastering skills. When we walk into innovative classrooms we observe real world relevance at the heart of student work. We see curriculum being put back in the cupboard as a resource (to help differentiate instead of dictate what happens in the classroom). This kind of relevant, real-world teaching deepens engagement, allows students to show mastery at personalized levels, and creates opportunities for teachers that are focused on facilitation and observation rather than direct instruction.

The question we need to ask is if this kind of practice is innovative or if its really best practice that we should see in every classroom? Or is it something else.

Before shouting that we need innovation in our schools maybe we need to think critically about what we are seeking. Is it innovation in the systems of education, instructional practice, or every single component of education that we are trying to improve? Is it just brushfires of innovation? Is it mass scale of innovation? Or is it just the constant use of new tools, new research on learning, new… (fill in the blank with whatever “it” happens to be today).

If we think about this with the lens of Mitch Resnick’s work in Lifelong Kindergarten, we might have some answers on how to approach the idea of innovation. Resnick talks about X students as people who are constantly exploring new ideas and inventing new possibilities. Maybe if we use the idea of X we will get to the point where innovation and best practice mean the same thing. Where X learning means that every component of educational systems is working in tandem to “constantly explore new ideas and invent new possibilities” (as Mitch suggests).

So what if we took this learner centered idea of X and did something bold in education?

What if we decided to develop X students AND X teachers AND X learning organizations? What if we took such action so that our organizations, teachers, and students all become immersed in constantly exploring new ideas and inventing new possibilities?

X learning organizations would be those that focus on creating an infrastructure to support students through developing human capital; view learners as individuals; create policies that uphold best practice; access materials that uphold best practice; curate data that is connected to vision, continuous improvement, and best practice; develop long-term funding to support innovation and best-practice; facilitate local and national partnerships that promote innovation and best-practice; have continuous access to training to support innovation and best-practice; have communication practices that uphold the vision and focus on sharing experiences that are models of innovation and best practice; create work and learning environments that uphold ideals of innovation, model vision, and promote best-practice; and have a focus on continuous improvement (see John’s definition of innovation) that leads to continuous realization of a desired future.

What if we stopped trying to innovate in a brushfire fashion (see Moving the Rock for some awesome reading on brushfires of innovation and scaling) and started to actually move the needle on X students AND X teachers AND X learning organizations simultaneously?

What if we got the smartest people we know together locally and said “okay lets do this” and walked away with a map on how our local learning systems (schools, districts, etc.) are designed or targeted to change to become contributors to X students AND X teachers AND X learning organizations? What if we thought for a second that innovation is our drive to be the best for our students? What if we chose not to make innovation special? What if we chose to make what we have called innovation the past few years our new norm?

What if we took ideas from three minds (all different, but all lending us a new lens to improve learning experiences) and made the decision to make things as they should be in school for our kids?

“As I see it, whoever’s doing the inventing is also doing most of the learning — and probably having most of the fun.” Mitch Resnick

“An organization is really a factory for producing new ideas and for linking those ideas with resources — human resources, financial resources, knowledge resources, infrastructure resources — in an effort to create value. These are processes that you can map, with results that you can measure.” John Kao

“Thinking of stuff is not innovation. Tinkering with stuff is not innovation. Even inventing stuff is not innovation. Innovation instead, when it’s done right, makes us go “wow, of course, why didn’t I think of that?” It creates complete experiences that we want to engage in. It eliminates inconveniences and hassles and improves our overall experiences. At its most dramatic, it creates entire categories of offerings, so new that we find it hard to name them at first.” Grant Lichtman

Jody Britten
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