To begin our night we focused on what a "Theory of Action" is and what our jobs as stakeholders on the task force are. We had quick times for discussions at our tables, a carousel activity with breaking us up into different groups and then a recap of the district's progress on the five current goals.
The leaders of the group modeled good teaching strategies and kept us engaged in the learning. Our final task for the night was to evaluate where we were in regards to our knowledge on a "Theory of Action" and what our hopes for the task force were. My hope is:
I hope the theory of action provides all learners (leadership, faculty, staff, and students) with the ability to solve problems for jobs that don't exist yet with technology that we haven't even imagined.
One of our tasks last night was to describe a convergent use of a paperclip and divergent uses of paperclips. A convergent use is to use an object as it was intended, in this case, to clip papers together. A divergent use might be a door lock popper, a bobby pin, a chip clip, or a zipper toggle.
My notes from last night referenced points that I heard at #inacol15 and points that I have heard economist Andrew McAfee and Sir Ken Robinson state on TEDTalks. Not only did the leaders of the discussion engage us, but I was able to make connections to my prior knowledge. Research has shown that any time a connection can be made to a student's prior knowledge the better retention he/she has for the subject.
In Susan Patrick's blog post from December 31, 2015, her ninth point is titled, "Neuroscience, Youth Development Research and How Kids Learn Best." She says that many times new initiatives in education don't start with how students learn best, but predicts that new learning models will put the knowledge of youth development and neuroscience at the forefront of planning and shaping new learning models.
Lukasz M. Konopka, department of psychiatry at Loyola Medical Center agrees. In his 2014 article Neuroscience prospective on education, he says:
We must embrace th individual and individuality. We must not assume that all children learn the same way and fit into convenient algorithims.
This ties in very well to one of the TEDTalks that Sir Ken Robinson has given where he says that his identical twins are nothing alike and that the Victorian model of education did a really good job of outputting a student that fits in the box.
In "Skills Promoted to Aid Learning Amid Adversity" by Sarah D. Sparks, Education Week, Jan 30, 2013, the state of Washington is using research about the whole learner to assist those students with the most need in developing their executive function more. Philip A. Fisher, the director of the Stress Neurobiology labratory at the University of Oregon in Eugene has this to say:
"There's growning recognition in the research and education communities that beyond the 'three Rs' is the executive function."
For me, I make the connection that this is like Headquarters in the movie Inside Out (2015 Disney). In this movie, a young girl (11 years old) moves from the Midwest to California. Slowly, her islands of personality all come crashing down and she disengages from school. Researchers are confirming what educators already know, if a student's basic needs aren't met, then he or she will not be successful. To bring world-class education that use critical thinking and data-driven arguments, we need to pay attention to what neuroscience and neurobiology are telling us.
As I participate on the "Theory of Action" task force, you can bet that I will be questioning what is best for the students and how can we measure the growth with the wealth of knowledge that we now have in regards to neuroscience.
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