When Things Don't Work

I have been sitting in on another teacher's classes for the past week.  She is doing a pretty new thing in our school, and I wanted to see how it went.  Since we are a school that encourages innovative ideas in teaching, it is fun to go see when a teacher has done something new.  She took on the idea of 20% time projects, inspired by Google.  You may or may not know this, but Google gives its employees the freedom to use 20% of their work time on personal projects.  To see how this has gone at Google, click here.  http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/googles-20-percent-time-in-action.html

This innovative Google idea has spurred on a lot of talk in education.  What if we gave students one day a week to work on their own passion projects?  What would we have to give up teaching, and what parts of our curriculum would be covered by a project like this?  Since the kids end up writing a lot in this project and present them to an audience, one of our English teachers decided it was right for her 10th grade class.  For the first three quarters of the year, they have spent their class time on Fridays working on a project of their own making.  They are now in presentation time, and teachers and parents have been invited to see the presentations.  I've gone to as many as I can and have live tweeted them as they go.  One of the most important things that the students are required to address in their presentation is what they have learned about themselves and what their greatest challenges were.

Most students have said something along the lines of,  "I failed to accomplish my goal because . . . "  Fill in the blank with "poor time management, procrastinating, being used to being told what to do, not having a specific enough goal, etc."  Those who have failed to accomplish have been encouraged to own it and explain what went wrong for the benefit of the listeners. 

As I listen to these presentations, one thing has stood out to me.  I have spent a lot of time in my career batting clean up.  Every teacher (except for those who never try anything new) spends time analyzing what went wrong and how to do it better next time.  What we have not traditionally done is allow the students to see that process.  Much like the post where I encouraged you to let them see you sweat, I think it is just as important to let them see you fix things.  When a project fails, own it - in front of your students.  Send an e-mail explaining what part of the mess was on you and thank them for allowing you to try new things with them (after all, it isn't like you can try them with an experimental group before presenting it to your class).  This will encourage them to self analyze as well.

I am currently in the middle of a challenge based learning project that appears to be failing.  I don't know if it will fail in the end, but the beginning is rough.  I called the beginning a false start, posed the question again with more clarity, and we started over.  We aren't where I want to be, but we are definitely better than we started.  Don't be afraid reflect and repeat.

This is, by the way, the reason we beat the Soviets to the moon.  All of our mistakes were addressed in front of the world, open to public scrutiny, and able to be solved.  The Soviets never announced anything until AFTER it had been successful.  No one knew of their failures until decades later.  Even within their space program, mistakes were not allowed to be spoken of.  How can improvements be made if there is no acknowledgement of failure?  They cannot.

One of the things that is squeezed out of education when we run short on time is reflection.  Our class time is precious, so we fill it with all the activity and teaching we can.  However, as John Dewey said, "Learning does not come from experience.  It comes from reflecting on experience."  Thanks to technology, students can reflect outside the classroom.  You can have them reflect on a project using a Google form.  You can ask them a reflective question and have them e-mail you the answer.  If you want them to reflect together, you can have them use a discussion board or wiki.  There are many ways to give time for reflection without using your class time.  Don't be afraid to assign it for homework because it is critical to learning.