Education 2.0 isn’t coming. It’s Here. And the Way You’re Educated Will Change Forever | BostInno

Sometime in late 2010, I sat down with angel investor Josh Abramowitz in NYC.  I asked him to invest in Smarterer, a business whose purpose was to validate people’s digital, social and technical skills.  What I encountered for the next hour wasn’t someone merely evaluating my specific business concept – it was an attack on the entire higher education system.

Josh argued that our higher education system was on the verge of crumbling.  Not because there weren’t marvelous educators or exceptional institutions, but because colleges and universities were charging exorbitant sums that weren’t equal to the return.  Our educators were burying our students with tremendous debt. But increasingly sophisticated learning and credentialing opportunities were emerging online, and they were free or nearly free.  And this disparity would lead to a full-fledged education revolution, he predicted.

I thought it all a bit fantastical and zany.  I’d never heard anything like it.  And while I didn’t know it at the time, this was my first taste of Education 2.0.  And from that moment on, I started to see the changes in education happening all around me.  Smarterer was a piece of an entirely new education ecosystem, being driven by a innovators and visionaries who were developing new business models that would enable and accelerate this change.

Fast forward to early 2012, and this ecosystem is in full-bloom, with dozens of companies making substantial progress toward this change.  And this isn’t just a bottom-up movement.  Just a few weeks ago, President Obama pointed to the Universities and told them they were, “on notice.”  The country would no longer accept the exorbitant fees of a college education given the results.   An amazing about-face from a President whose platform used to be sending more and more kids through college.

What the Universities need to know is that what’s coming for education is something like the shift the music industry failed to see until it was too late.  Things will never be the same again.  Instead of griping about how hard it will be to tap their endowments to pay for education, they should be thinking about how to take advantage of the changes.

To save their universities, here’s the three-pronged ecosystem that every University Leader should start thinking about:

  1. 1.       The Death of the Textbook.

Textbooks are too pricey (even used), too outdated and too damn heavy.  Students no longer need the book to get educated.  Apple – always at the forefront of change – recently announced there are more than 20,000 education and learning applications built for the iPad;  Boundless Learning finds content online that’s almost exactly like that in your old Advanced Algebra book (and Bench Prep is helping big publishers like McGraw Hill convert their books to mobile learning courses);  Eleven Learning crowdsources writing textbooks themselves, reducing costs significantly; Classroom Window reviews the tools and technologies to equip teachers with more effective learning programs.

  1. 2.       Peer-to-Peer and Self-Education (like Self-Medication, but different).

MIT kicked this off with the Open Courseware Project, but that was just the tip of the iceberg.  Now learning is from the people, to the people.  General Assemb.ly taps the experienced to teach the classes we always wanted;  Skillshare helps you develop and launch your own mini university;  Khan Academy (a non-profit!) provides free world-class education to anyone, anywhere;  Flash Notes is a marketplace for buying and selling class notes.  And Codecademy provides an interactive format that lets anyone learn how to code.  In short, we’re teaching each other, redefining the principles of the teacher and the student.

  1. 3.       The Connected Resume & Credentialing.

Not so long ago, our resumes focused on where we worked and where we went to school.  But now our reputations are documented by proof of “social credibility,” like how you answer questions on Quora or the content of your Tumblr blog.  This social credibility can be expressed via sites like Identified Branchout or Bullhorn Reach, who help you find jobs based on your social network connections.

Because of self-education, the “big data” that recruiters and hiring managers want now is information on your skills.  It doesn’t matter how you accumulated the skill, just that you have it.   The speediest shortcut to being considered for a job is being able to authentically prove what you know.   It’s no surprise, then, that LinkedIn is hard-at-work on a skills section, Behance asks you to define your skills as part of your creative portfolio, and the most successful Elance and Odesk contractors prove their knowledge by taking tests.

So if I were running a University today I’d realize I’m probably late to the game.  Figuring out how to raise tuition next year and sell more textbooks in the on-campus store is akin to Warner Music saying Napster wouldn’t change anything in the 1990s.   Smart Educators should start tapping into new ways of learning and new ways of proving what you know.  Not tomorrow or next semester, but right now.  Today.

As for Josh, I feel lucky I got to hear the story before everything changed (and yes, he invested in Smarterer).

If we have it right, by the time our kids are college-age, the education system will be nothing like it is today.  As a matter of fact, they won’t just be taking classes – they’ll be teaching them, too.

  1. Inside the Conversation

  3. 4. The death of the "campus" as we know it.
    Boston University's online graduate degree program runs on online course Blackboard to make education accessible to students all over the world, and and innovative startups like Boston-based Proctorcam use webcams to proctor students taking online exams right from their homes, so their homes become their college campus and testing centers 2.0.

    03/23/12 - 11:43 am

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  • My wife keeps saying she really wants our kids (six month and two year old) to attend college when they grow up. Although I can't argue with going to college for the experience, I do agree and believe that disruptive technologies in education will revolutionize learning and overtake traditional brick & mortar schools in quality and effectiveness bit by bit. I can't even begin to imagine what education will be like in 16 years. Plus, I don't want to pay over-priced tuition fees...

    03/23/12 - 12:05 pm

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    • via bostinno.com

    Long time readers of my blog and/or Twitter feed know my frustrations with the established (dare I say dinosaur?) education establishment. This piece lays out how education/learning is changing with our without the cooperation of the gatekeepers. The direct link to the original piece is here: http://bostinno.com/2012/03/23/education-2-0-isnt-coming-its-here-and-the-way...

    Be well. /jeff

     

    Complexity, Systems, and Reductionist Thinking: A Cautionary Tale.

    Happy 2012 Everyone!

    Time on the treadmill is my chance to catch up with the growing stack of periodicals that I never seem to find enough time to otherwise read.  Yesterday, the article at this link:  http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/12/ff_causation/all/1 in Wired Magazine caught my attention. It tells a cautionary (and in this case, quite expensive) tale of relying too much on cause/effect thinking. Failing to understand that in complex systems, the relationships among the various players are not a simple as "A causes B" to occur.

    For my colleagues and friends in social science (and in particular Leadership Development & Research) I offer this up to our community as a conversation starter on the challenges this type of thinking creates for us. Human dynamics and interactions are equally as complex as any biological/microscopic bench science relationship. So are we being to simplistic when we put forward lists of "habits", "practices", "skills", etc. as pathways to leadership success? I think we are dealing with dynamics that are far messier that can not be easily explained by "objective" (whatever that is) science.

    The full article can be read at the link above.... it's rather lengthy and covers much more ground than I want to address here. So for your convienience I've pasted below the segment that takes a critical look at the challenges in simple cause/effect thinking.  Two things I'd like you to keep in mind here:  1) even though this piece is written from a "hard science" perspective, there is much for us in social sciences to take from it; 2) I hope that this can begin a conversation among us as to how we improve our abilities to really understand the complexities involved in the work of people trying to practice "good" leadership.

    Feedback is most welcome.   Be Well!      /jeff

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    ...The story of torcetrapib is a tale of mistaken causation. Pfizer was operating on the assumption that raising levels of HDL cholesterol and lowering LDL would lead to a predictable outcome: Improved cardiovascular health. Less arterial plaque. Cleaner pipes. But that didn’t happen.

    Such failures occur all the time in the drug industry. (According to one recent analysis, more than 40 percent of drugs fail Phase III clinical trials.) And yet there is something particularly disturbing about the failure of torcetrapib. After all, a bet on this compound wasn’t supposed to be risky. For Pfizer, torcetrapib was the payoff for decades of research. Little wonder that the company was so confident about its clinical trials, which involved a total of 25,000 volunteers. Pfizer invested more than $1 billion in the development of the drug and $90 million to expand the factory that would manufacture the compound. Because scientists understood the individual steps of the cholesterol pathway at such a precise level, they assumed they also understood how it worked as a whole.

    This assumption—that understanding a system’s constituent parts means we also understand the causes within the system—is not limited to the pharmaceutical industry or even to biology. It defines modern science. In general, we believe that the so-called problem of causation can be cured by more information, by our ceaseless accumulation of facts. Scientists refer to this process as reductionism. By breaking down a process, we can see how everything fits together; the complex mystery is distilled into a list of ingredients. And so the question of cholesterol—what is its relationship to heart disease?—becomes a predictable loop of proteins tweaking proteins, acronyms altering one another. Modern medicine is particularly reliant on this approach. Every year, nearly $100 billion is invested in biomedical research in the US, all of it aimed at teasing apart the invisible bits of the body. We assume that these new details will finally reveal the causes of illness, pinning our maladies on small molecules and errant snippets of DNA. Once we find the cause, of course, we can begin working on a cure.

     

     

    The problem with this assumption, however, is that causes are a strange kind of knowledge. This was first pointed out by David Hume, the 18th-century Scottish philosopher. Hume realized that, although people talk about causes as if they are real facts—tangible things that can be discovered—they’re actually not at all factual. Instead, Hume said, every cause is just a slippery story, a catchy conjecture, a “lively conception produced by habit.” When an apple falls from a tree, the cause is obvious: gravity. Hume’s skeptical insight was that we don’t see gravity—we see only an object tugged toward the earth. We look at X and then at Y, and invent a story about what happened in between. We can measure facts, but a cause is not a fact—it’s a fiction that helps us make sense of facts.

    The truth is, our stories about causation are shadowed by all sorts of mental shortcuts. Most of the time, these shortcuts work well enough. They allow us to hit fastballs, discover the law of gravity, and design wondrous technologies. However, when it comes to reasoning about complex systems—say, the human body—these shortcuts go from being slickly efficient to outright misleading.

    Consider a set of classic experiments designed by Belgian psychologist Albert Michotte, first conducted in the 1940s. The research featured a series of short films about a blue ball and a red ball. In the first film, the red ball races across the screen, touches the blue ball, and then stops. The blue ball, meanwhile, begins moving in the same basic direction as the red ball. When Michotte asked people to describe the film, they automatically lapsed into the language of causation. The red ball hit the blue ball, which caused it to move.

    This is known as the launching effect, and it’s a universal property of visual perception. Although there was nothing about causation in the two-second film—it was just a montage of animated images—people couldn’t help but tell a story about what had happened. They translated their perceptions into causal beliefs.

    Michotte then began subtly manipulating the films, asking the subjects how the new footage changed their description of events. For instance, when he introduced a one-second pause between the movement of the balls, the impression of causality disappeared. The red ball no longer appeared to trigger the movement of the blue ball. Rather, the two balls were moving for inexplicable reasons.

    Michotte would go on to conduct more than 100 of these studies. Sometimes he would have a small blue ball move in front of a big red ball. When he asked subjects what was going on, they insisted that the red ball was “chasing” the blue ball. However, if a big red ball was moving in front of a little blue ball, the opposite occurred: The blue ball was “following” the red ball.

    There are two lessons to be learned from these experiments. The first is that our theories about a particular cause and effect are inherently perceptual, infected by all the sensory cheats of vision. (Michotte compared causal beliefs to color perception: We apprehend what we perceive as a cause as automatically as we identify that a ball is red.) While Hume was right that causes are never seen, only inferred, the blunt truth is that we can’t tell the difference. And so we look at moving balls and automatically see causes, a melodrama of taps and collisions, chasing and fleeing.

    The second lesson is that causal explanations are oversimplifications. This is what makes them useful—they help us grasp the world at a glance. For instance, after watching the short films, people immediately settled on the most straightforward explanation for the ricocheting objects. Although this account felt true, the brain wasn’t seeking the literal truth—it just wanted a plausible story that didn’t contradict observation.

    This mental approach to causality is often effective, which is why it’s so deeply embedded in the brain. However, those same shortcuts get us into serious trouble in the modern world when we use our perceptual habits to explain events that we can’t perceive or easily understand. Rather than accept the complexity of a situation—say, that snarl of causal interactions in the cholesterol pathway—we persist in pretending that we’re staring at a blue ball and a red ball bouncing off each other. There’s a fundamental mismatch between how the world works and how we think about the world.

    The good news is that, in the centuries since Hume, scientists have mostly managed to work around this mismatch as they’ve continued to discover new cause-and-effect relationships at a blistering pace. This success is largely a tribute to the power of statistical correlation, which has allowed researchers to pirouette around the problem of causation. Though scientists constantly remind themselves that mere correlation is not causation, if a correlation is clear and consistent, then they typically assume a cause has been found—that there really is some invisible association between the measurements.

    Researchers have developed an impressive system for testing these correlations. For the most part, they rely on an abstract measure known as statistical significance, invented by English mathematician Ronald Fisher in the 1920s. This test defines a “significant” result as any data point that would be produced by chance less than 5 percent of the time. While a significant result is no guarantee of truth, it’s widely seen as an important indicator of good data, a clue that the correlation is not a coincidence.

     

     

    But here’s the bad news: The reliance on correlations has entered an age of diminishing returns. At least two major factors contribute to this trend. First, all of the easy causes have been found, which means that scientists are now forced to search for ever-subtler correlations, mining that mountain of facts for the tiniest of associations. Is that a new cause? Or just a statistical mistake? The line is getting finer; science is getting harder. Second—and this is the biggy—searching for correlations is a terrible way of dealing with the primary subject of much modern research: those complex networks at the center of life. While correlations help us track the relationship between independent measurements, such as the link between smoking and cancer, they are much less effective at making sense of systems in which the variables cannot be isolated. Such situations require that we understand every interaction before we can reliably understand any of them. Given the byzantine nature of biology, this can often be a daunting hurdle, requiring that researchers map not only the complete cholesterol pathway but also the ways in which it is plugged into other pathways. (The neglect of these secondary and even tertiary interactions begins to explain the failure of torcetrapib, which had unintended effects on blood pressure. It also helps explain the success of Lipitor, which seems to have a secondary effect of reducing inflammation.) Unfortunately, we often shrug off this dizzying intricacy, searching instead for the simplest of correlations. It’s the cognitive equivalent of bringing a knife to a gunfight.

    These troubling trends play out most vividly in the drug industry. Although modern pharmaceuticals are supposed to represent the practical payoff of basic research, the R&D to discover a promising new compound now costs about 100 times more (in inflation-adjusted dollars) than it did in 1950. (It also takes nearly three times as long.) This trend shows no sign of letting up: Industry forecasts suggest that once failures are taken into account, the average cost per approved molecule will top $3.8 billion by 2015. What’s worse, even these “successful” compounds don’t seem to be worth the investment. According to one internal estimate, approximately 85 percent of new prescription drugs approved by European regulators provide little to no new benefit. We are witnessing Moore’s law in reverse.

    This returns us to cholesterol, a compound whose scientific history reflects our tortured relationship with causes. At first, cholesterol was entirely bad; the correlations linked high levels of the substance with plaque. Years later, we realized that there were multiple kinds and that only LDL was bad. Then it became clear that HDL was more important than LDL, at least according to correlational studies and animal models. And now we don’t really know what matters, since raising HDL levels with torcetrapib doesn’t seem to help. Although we’ve mapped every known part of the chemical pathway, the causes that matter are still nowhere to be found. If this is progress, it’s a peculiar kind....

     

      full article can be found at: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/12/ff_causation/all/1

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    Do We Value People Who "Think Different"? In Schools: Mostly Not. - Forbes.com

    Greetings:

    I do hope this item will at least give you pause to think about the implications. We need every creative thinker we can find.

    Be well.   /jeff

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    http://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkamui/2011/12/15/do-we-value-creativity-part-1-in-schools-mostly-not-2/    by Chunka Mui, 

     

     

    I read with great interest Rob Siltanen’s fascinating story about Apple‘s “Think Different” ad campaign.  Both the people behind the campaign and the “ crazy ones” that “ Think Different” celebrated where masters in creativity.  But how is creativity really treated, beyond the reality distortion field of such misty-eyed ad campaigns?

    Not too well, I fear.  Consider this conundrum: multiple studies show that teachers profess to value creativity but dislike creative students.

     The Real Story Behind Apple's 'Think Different' CampaignOn MarketingOn MarketingContributor
     To Reform Education, Outsource It To ParentsChunka MuiChunka MuiContributor

    For example, one study by Westby and Dawsonfound that when teachers were asked to describe their favorite students, the personality traits cited correlated negatively with personality traits associated with creative students, such as being impulsive, emotional, individualistic, and having a preference to be alone when creating something new. Instead, teachers liked traits that ran counter to creativity, such as conformity, sincerity, reliability and unquestioned acceptance of authority.

    The contradiction between the teachers’ professed love and their actual feelings towards creative students became clear when the teachers in the study were asked to describe creative students. They included traits such as being deliberate, reserved, reliable and industrious as being “creative.”

    In other words, teachers like the idea of creativity as long as its manifestations are not disruptive.

    I got a poetic, “truth from the mouth of babes” illumination of this dynamic recently from my six-year-old son. After helping himself to my Apple iPod for a long while, my son declared that his new favorite song was Harry Chapin’s “Flowers are Red.”

    This came as a surprise to me, in part because I had no recollection of the song. I’ve owned several Chapin albums for decades and they sit mostly untouched in my iTunes library. A little detective work showed that “Flowers are Red” got onto my  iPod via a “genius” playlist—an iTunes generated playlist of songs similar to another song that I had selected.

    The bigger surprise came when I listened to the song’s lyrics. “Flowers are Red” tells the painful story of a little boy whose creativity is squashed by his teacher.

    The boy came into the teacher’s class believing:

    There are so many colors in the rainbow
    So many colors in the morning sun
    So many colors in the flower and I see every one

    Whereas the teacher wanted him to accept:

    Flowers are red, green leaves are green
    There’s no need to see flowers any other way
    Than the way they always have been seen

    Here’s a wonderful YouTube animation done to the song (warning—heartbreak ahead):

    According to Harry Chapin, the song was inspired by a report card that his secretary received about her son that read,

    The Real Story Behind Apple's 'Think Different' CampaignOn MarketingOn MarketingContributor
    To Reform Education, Outsource It To ParentsChunka MuiChunka MuiContributor

    Your son marches to the beat of a different drummer but, don’t worry, we’ll have him joining the parade by the end of the term.

    As I’ve written previously, my son is a preschool dropout and we’ve been outsourcing his education to ourselves for the last several years. It came as a shock that the memory of his preschool experiences at the age of three were still strong enough to cause him to identify with “Flowers are Red.”

    When my son had his brush with school, it didn’t cross my mind that his teachers disliked his creativity. I did fear that, in their daily struggle to control and corral 18 toddlers, there wasn’t any time or energy left for nurturing creativity. The studies conducted (and cited) by Westby and Dawson offer a harsher conclusion.

    As the “Flowers are Red” teacher told her student:

    There’s a time for everything young man
    And a way it should be done
    You’ve got to show concern for everyone else
    For you’re not the only one

    With that,

    The teacher put him in a corner
    She said… It’s for your own good…
    And you won’t come out ’til you get it right
    And are responding like you should

    "They came close to really beating any curiosity out of me."

    The little boy’s experience in school was not unlike whatSteve Jobs told Walter Isaacson about his early school experience in Isaacson’s biography, “Steve Jobs.” Jobs, who was a very smart and troublesome boy, told Isaacson:

    I encountered authority of a different kind than I have ever encountered before, and I did not like it. And they almost got me. They came close to really beating any curiosity out of me.

    Jobs was saved by a fourth grade teacher named Imogene Hill who became, in Jobs’ words,” one of the saints of my life.”

    Harry Chapin also acknowledged that not all teachers squash creativity, as evidenced by a second teacher in the song who encouraged the little boy to see “all the colors in the rainbow.” For that little boy, however, it was too late. By that time, the little boy had been “taught” that:

    Flowers are red, green leaves are green
    There’s no need to see flowers any other way
    Than the way they always have been seen

    How generalizable are Westby and Dawson’s findings? Unfortunately, they cite a long line of earlier educational studies of creativity that were consistent with their findings.

    How does this match up with your experiences? In Part 2 of this series on creativity, I’ll explore how creative people fare in business. What is your sense of that?

    Follow Chunka Mui on Twitter @ChunkaMui

     

     

     

    Is Shared Vision Similar to Riding a Train?

    I recently completed an MBA class on organizational learning and systems thinking. In this class we break down the five disciplines that Peter Senge wrote about in  The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization.  In the class we use The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization as one of our main texts.  In the course students are asked to write individual "micro papers" on each of the disciplines.  When we covered the "shared vision" discipline one of the more intruiging papers I got used the metaphor of a passenger train to explore his understanding of shared vision.

    I offer it to you for comment and suggestions.  I also thank Brian Thayer for graciously allowing me to post the paper in this forum.

    See what you think.     Be well.

    jeff

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    Shared Vision    --   Brian D. Thayer

     MBA 634

    July 17, 2011

                 Imagine a map of any complex subway system in any metropolitan area, with each rail line in the system marked by a different color or line style. The different colors and styles make it easy for anyone looking at the map to know which lines to use to reach a specific destination. Now imagine that instead of having just one metropolitan area on the map there are thousands or millions of subway maps combined into one mash-up of a system. Each line on our new map represents a unique path through life, either as an individual or as an organization. There may be shared stops and parallel paths along the way, but each line remains distinctly different from any other line.

                In my analogy, the discipline of shared vision is the process of bringing passengers together onto one train and orchestrating the chaos, everything from the order of the individual cars, the overall speed of the train, every passenger seating assignment, and even the stops along the way, towards a common destination. All with the intent of having the organization continue towards its destination, even if the people on-board change. The different sections of the train may represent a different business unit, department, or team. There may be barriers between train cars that can only be crossed by having the right ticket or connections. The executive team may ride along the track in the first class cabins, but the overall destination of everyone on-board remains the same.

                The details lie in the different experience of each individual on the train. Some may not care to be on the train; there could be some who have hitched a free ride and will jump off at the nearest opportunity. Maybe others are only on the train because they are paid to provide a service to the passengers. More yet are on-board to control the train itself and could care less about who is riding along with them. Even some of the passengers may be so oblivious to their surroundings that they do not even realize they are on a train.

                However, on every train is a single conductor, one individual who can visualize the entire system in minute detail. The conductor’s job is to ensure that the train reaches its destination safely and on time, making the appropriate stops along the way for connecting passengers. The conductor must also make the decision on when to separate cars that are no longer necessary or ones that must ultimately head in a different direction. The conductor is the steward of the train and the role must be filled appropriately.

                It is the responsibility of the conductor to ensure that everyone on-board is operating in concert and aligned with the ultimate destination of the train. From an organizational perspective, the conductor role does not have to be a single charismatic leader. It could be a group of influential executives or even a committee of strategic thinkers from throughout the organization. The key factor is that whatever the composition of the role, it operates as a single voice and works toward creating a sense of ownership in the ultimate destination among everyone on-board.

                The destination of the train must be chosen wisely. Train operators could dictate the destination only after a passenger is on-board, but if that is not where the passenger wants to go, he or she will not remain on the train for long. Of course, tickets could be sold with a specific destination in mind, but that only works so long as the train operator can convince passengers the destination is worthwhile. Operators may solicit feedback on the destination and take recommendations, but in the end, the best destination is the one that is accepted by all, is well known, and has many frequent stops along the way to allow individuals to change direction.

                The trick, though, is to know when an individual should switch trains. While on-board each train in life, it makes sense to remain aligned with larger organizational goals in order to make the trip more pleasant, but sometimes, those goals will clash with an individual’s vision of the future. When they do, it is time to reexamine the map, look for the next stop, and switch directions. If the situation is bad enough, pull the emergency brake cable and bail out, particularly if it looks like the train is heading for a cliff or hijackers are imminent.

                Currently, I am staring at the map by the nearest exit and planning my next move. I can see that the train I am on now does meander towards my ultimate destination, but I am not sure I care for the ambiance of the train. The passengers are nice enough, but I do not believe they know where the train is going. The conductor enforces strict controls on how passengers move between cars and keeps the knowledge or our next stop and our final destination secret. The individual train cars operate with barely more than an electrical connection linking the cars and the darkly tinted windows prevent passing trains from divining the mysteries within. I see myself waiting until I pass certain highlights along the journey before making my next move, but without a significant change in how the train is being operated I do not see my trip on this train lasting much longer.

                My wife and I were talking through my train analogy this morning. We certainly share a common destination, but right now my life if moving at a much different pace than hers. I am focused on finishing school, making the next move in my career, and achieving the goals I expressed in my personal mastery micro paper. On the other hand, my wife is busy planning how we will integrate a new baby into our family, making sound financial decisions to secure our future, and sacrificing something today so that we can have more of everything tomorrow.

    I believe we are both interested in the same end goal, a happy, healthy, secure family, but we acknowledge that we are coming at it from two different perspectives. I want to increase revenue and she wants to improve operating efficiency, but our vision of our future remains the same and we are committed to making that vision a reality together.     

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    Interesting New Research in Memory & Learning #humangrid #fb

    Learning TRENDS by Elliott Masie - July 28, 2011.
    #673 - Updates on Learning, Business & Technology.
    55,349 Readers - http://www.masie.com - The MASIE Center.
    Host of Learning 2011 - Over 746 Registered Already!

    Special: "Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips"

    A recently released study caught my eye this month, focusing on the changing nature of how learners deal with memorization. Dr. Betsy Sparrow, a psychology professor at Columbia University, has been studying the impact of the access to search engines on learner's expectations and processing of memory. Her work, which is done with several colleagues, was so fascinating that it was covered by The New York Times and PBS. And, I reached out to her and she has agreed to be a keynoter at Learning 2011 in November in Orlando.

    Here is the abstract of Dr. Sparrow's paper in Science Magazine: "The advent of the Internet, with sophisticated algorithmic search engines, has made accessing information as easy as lifting a finger. No longer do we have to make costly efforts to find the things we want. We can "Google" the old classmate, find articles online, or look up the actor who was on the tip of our tongue. The results of four studies suggest that when faced with difficult questions, people are primed to think about computers and that when people expect to have future access to information, they have lower rates of recall of the information itself and enhanced recall instead for where to access it. The Internet has become a primary form of external or transactive memory, where information is stored collectively outside ourselves."

    There is a great video interview with her at our site:

    http://www.learning2011.com

    Dr. Sparrow and her collaborators, Daniel M. Wegner of Harvard and Jenny Liu of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, staged four different memory experiments. In one, participants typed 40 bits of trivia — for example, “an ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain” — into a computer. Half of the subjects believed the information would be saved in the computer; the other half believed the items they typed would be erased.

    The subjects were significantly more likely to remember information if they thought they would not be able to find it later. “Participants did not make the effort to remember when they thought they could later look up the trivia statement they had read,” the authors write.

    A second experiment was aimed at determining whether computer accessibility affects precisely what we remember. “If asked the question whether there are any countries with only one color in their flag, for example,” the researchers wrote, “do we think about flags — or immediately think to go online to find out?”

    In this case, participants were asked to remember both the trivia statement itself and which of five computer folders it was saved in. The researchers were surprised to find that people seemed better able to recall the folder.

    “That kind of blew my mind,” Dr. Sparrow said in an interview.

    The experiment explores an aspect of what is known as transactive memory — the notion that we rely on our family, friends and co-workers as well as reference material to store information for us.

    I am very excited to have Betsy Sparrow join us at Learning 2011. I will be interviewing her in one of the opening keynote session and she will participate in our new Research to Practice sessions, where there will be drill-down conversations about the impact of this type of research on our learning design.

    Once again, check out the video interview of her at http://www.learning2011.com and click on Dr. Sparrows picture on the home page.

    This is one of the really fun parts of being the Designer of our annual global event. I get to reach out to really smart and creative people doing great work in fields that have impact -- and then get to introduce them to the critical world of workplace learning.

    Yours in learning,

    Elliott Masie
    email: emasie@masie.com

    MASIE Center Seminars, Events and Services:
    * Learning 2011 - Nov 6 to 9, 2011 - Orlando, Florida.
    * Membership in The Learning CONSORTIUM
    Info and Registration: http://www.masie.com

    You have received this message as part of your subscription to Learning TRENDS by Elliott Masie.
    - To Subscribe: http://www.masieweb.com/trends/subscribe-to-trends

    via email09.secureserver.net

     

    The global mindful manager. A New breed beyond the vision? | Mannaz.com

    The global mindful manager. A New breed beyond the vision?

    Uwe Napiersky
    		 By Dr Uwe Napiersky
    14 June 2011

    The design and approach is based on leadership research and his own 20 years of international management consulting experience. The GMM framework is developed for MBA’s at the Aston Business School in the UK. It builds on the school’s vision to establish a new learning culture and to focus increasingly on soft skills development.

    What is the GMM concept about and what it involves
    “We will have to learn to develop ourselves…And we will have to stay mentally alert and engaged during a 50–year working life, which means knowing how and when to change the work we do.” Management guru Peter Drucker wisely predicted.

    The quote implies the notion and importance of lifelong learning skills and adds an additional dimension to the dynamic and complicated world of manager of the 21st century. To stay competitive as a manager s/he needs to learn new skills and to be adaptable on a permanent basis.

    The GMM framework and concept is firstly about how to manage yourself to stay focused and to enhance your reflective mindset. Secondly – in parallel – it is underpinned with a blended intercultural module to enhance the global mindset to manage cultural diversity effectively.

    1. Stimulate a reflective mindset
    On the whole the GMM principles enable a MBA-student to think and act in a new and mindful way. It involves critical reflection on their own actions and encourages purposeful peer interaction by providing and receiving feedback. The programme runs over 2 trimesters and applies John Cowan’s (Napier University) action –reflection dynamic model.

    John Cowan’s (Napier University) action –reflection dynamic model:

    The global mindful manager.

    The learning journey starts by stimulating and supporting an active experimentation procedure of identifying what skills need to be further developed. Subsequently individual goals for skill development activities are set; a guided process is set in motion to raise awareness and reflection in and on actions. An electronic reflection log book and peer feedback supports identifying how and how well the skills development and self directed learning are progressing.

    Typical examples for skill development are e.g. enhancing priority management, creative or problem solving skills or specifically self selected topics from the field of e.g. e-business, finance, investment banking etc.

    Skill development is like the training of muscles; you need to do it in a planned and continuous manner and it is an integrated process – not a standalone activity.

    By conducting a monitored action reflection process, with SMART criteria, students are demonstrating the ability to manage their own development effectively and achieve personal development goals. Furthermore students indicate, by writing a reflective report and by working on their own “awareness map”, their level of understanding about both:

    principles of self – development and improvement,  and
    issues around self awareness and mindfulness

    – both in a personal and professional context. In group meetings they discuss typical enablers or blockers.

    Overall the programme is designed to boost MBA-students learning agility with a set of state of the art tools and techniques of innovative management development. It entails the belief that you can open the door for success from inside to develop your unique inspiring personality. It uses strategies of self efficacy from the field of sport psychology too and builds on the evidence that learning agility and enhanced self awareness is an important predicator for potential.


    Anførsel, start

    If you’re worried about people retention, you’re missing the point.

    		 Anførsel, slut


    2. Enhance a global mindset
    The parallel running module is aiming to enhance students’ awareness of cultural implications.  It starts with the intercultural fundamentals and increase awareness of their own cultural behaviour and communication style. The experience from previous year’s student cohorts showed how important it is to recognise when and how culture affects the efficiency and effectiveness of their work.

    The new module is built around the “Intercultural Readiness Check”, a highly valid and internationally acknowledged questionnaire which assesses the four pillars described in the overview box.

    3. Practise mindfulness
    The experience with working with international groups and teams very often demonstrate mindless behaviour. It has been proven that multicultural teams perform better than monocultural teams. However, research also tells us that it takes approx. 17 weeks before a multicultural team work effectively due to cultural differences. For understanding cross-cultural differences, a person needs increased mindfulness, in order to be able to work in other cultures without being “stuck” in own cultural biases/patterns and expectations. The concept of mindfulness helps to overcome cultural barriers.

    4. Make use of leader development research
    Contemporary leader development research emphasises self-awareness as the core of leadership development. Evidently it is shown that self-awareness is consistently related to leadership effectiveness (Yukl, 2008). Self-awareness leads to understanding strengths/weakness, situational application, development needs within the working context.

    Overview: Framework & components of the GMM approach:

    The global mindful manager.

    5. The challenges, enablers and mental blockers
    The experience from a pilot programme provided a good insight into how to raise the level of self-aware and insight and where are possible limitation and challenges.

    1. Commitment: Personal growth during the programme depends on students’ commitment to learning and change.
    2. Self efficacy: It depends on the extent to which the individual believes that they can develop their personal and or managerial abilities that are important for their careers. People with high efficacy tent to perform in average around 25 % better.
    3. The myth of “working hard” does do the trick. Real development needs a meaningful and inspiring learning plan and it needs the realisation that self development is a continuous process.
    4. What got you here won’t get you there. Skill development is sometimes a process where old patterns of behaviour need to be “unlearned”. To rewire your brain requires a double loop learning process.
    5. Critical reflection: Understand critically why you do what you do. The ability to think critically correlates with personal maturity as well with professional and personal experience. Basic knowledge in human motivation is a plus too.
    6. Self evaluation skills. It needs knowledge, guidance and experience to make sense of e.g. psychometric tests.
    7. Getting out of your comfort zone.

    A new breed beyond a vision?
    The global mindful manager.Definitely it is more than a vision. Global autonomously motivated knowledge workers will need mindful global managers – the big global players are increasingly following this model.
    My experience as a consultant – working for global players – showed me how unskilled people are to build meaningful development plans for their people and to develop people. That incompetence grew on an international level tremendously.

    Increase your global employability
    We are working here at the Aston Business School to create a learning culture and a generation of managers by asking the emerging leaders to take deliberately responsibility for their own learning process and development, stressing life-long learning, encouraging self-directed learning etc. It is of course imbedded in a coherent learning architecture which includes career support, coaching, social online networks etc.

    In the long run – take the 50 years perspective of Druckers quote  – managers will work globally, being employed for a period of time maybe in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, wherever and move then to another location. The GMM prepares them to be mindful and to demonstrate adaptable flexibility for staying globally employed.

    Uwe NapierskyAbout Uwe Napiersky
    Uwe Napiersky is a business psychologist with Ph.D. As a teaching fellow he works at the Aston Business School and as a member of the Work and Organisational Psychology Department at Aston University. He focuses on both Leader development and Leadership development programmes in a global context. Before turning to Academia he worked for Fortune100/blue chip companies across the globe in all sectors on different management levels. His nearly 20 year’s consultancy experience was developed with PA Consulting Group and Mannaz.

    via mannaz.com

     

    Why Leaders Lose Their Way - by: Bill George - HBS Faculty - Harvard Business Review #humangrid

    In recent months, several high-level leaders have mysteriously lost their way. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former head of the International Monetary Fund and a leading French politician, was arraigned on charges of sexual assault. Before that, David Sokol, rumored to be Warren Buffett's successor, was forced to resign for trading in Lubrizol stock prior to recommending that Berkshire Hathaway purchase the company. Examples abound of other recent failures:

    Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd resigned for submitting false expense reports concerning his relationship with a contractor.

    U.S. Senator John Ensign (R-NV) resigned after covering up an extramarital affair with monetary payoffs.

    Lee B. Farkas, former chairman of giant mortgage lender Taylor, Bean & Whitaker, in April was found guilty for his role in one of the largest bank fraud schemes in American history.

    These talented leaders were highly successful in their respective fields and at the peak of their careers. This makes their behavior especially perplexing, raising questions about what caused them to lose their way:

    Why do leaders known for integrity and leadership engage in unethical activities?

    Why do they risk great careers and unblemished reputations for such ephemeral gains?

    Do they think they won't get caught or believe their elevated status puts them above the law?

    Was this the first time they did something inappropriate, or have they been on the slippery slope for years?

    In these ongoing revelations, the media, politicians, and the general public frequently characterize these leaders as bad people, even calling them evil. Simplistic notions of good and bad only cloud our understanding of why good leaders lose their way, and how this could happen to any of us.

    Leaders who lose their way are not necessarily bad people; rather, they lose their moral bearings, often yielding to seductions in their paths. Very few people go into leadership roles to cheat or do evil, yet we all have the capacity for actions we deeply regret unless we stay grounded.

    Self-reflection: a path to leadership development

    Before anyone takes on a leadership role, they should ask themselves, "Why do I want to lead?" and "What's the purpose of my leadership?" These questions are simple to ask, but finding the real answers may take decades. If the honest answers are power, prestige, and money, leaders are at risk of relying on external gratification for fulfillment. There is nothing wrong with desiring these outward symbols as long as they are combined with a deeper desire to serve something greater than oneself.

    Leaders whose goal is the quest for power over others, unlimited wealth, or the fame that comes with success tend to look to others to gain satisfaction, and often appear self-centered and egotistical. They start to believe their own press. As leaders of institutions, they eventually believe the institution cannot succeed without them.

    The leadership trap

    While most people value fair compensation for their accomplishments, few leaders start out seeking only money, power, and prestige. Along the way, the rewards — bonus checks, newspaper articles, perks, and stock appreciation — fuel increasing desires for more.

    This creates a deep desire to keep it going, often driven by desires to overcome narcissistic wounds from childhood. Many times, this desire is so strong that leaders breach the ethical standards that previously governed their conduct, which can be bizarre and even illegal.

    As Novartis chairman Daniel Vasella (HBS PMD 57) told Fortune, "for many of us the idea of being a successful manager — leading the company from peak to peak, delivering the goods quarter by quarter — is an intoxicating one. It is a pattern of celebration leading to belief, leading to distortion. When you achieve good results... you are typically celebrated, and you begin to believe that the figure at the center of all that champagne-toasting is yourself."

    When leaders focus on external gratification instead of inner satisfaction, they lose their grounding. Often they reject the honest critic who speaks truth to power. Instead, they surround themselves with sycophants who tell them what they want to hear. Over time, they are unable to engage in honest dialogue; others learn not to confront them with reality.

    The dark side of leadership

    Many leaders get to the top by imposing their will on others, even destroying people standing in their way. When they reach the top, they may be paranoid that others are trying to knock them off their pedestal. Sometimes they develop an impostor complex, caused by deep insecurities that they aren't good enough and may be unmasked.

    To prove they aren't impostors, they drive so hard for perfection that they are incapable of acknowledging their failures. When confronted by them, they convince themselves and others that these problems are neither their fault nor their responsibility. Or they look for scapegoats to blame for their problems. Using their power, charisma, and communications skills, they force people to accept these distortions, causing entire organizations to lose touch with reality.

    At this stage leaders are vulnerable to making big mistakes, such as violating the law or putting their organizations' existence at risk. Their distortions convince them they are doing nothing wrong, or they rationalize that their deviations are acceptable to achieve a greater good.

    During the financial crisis, Lehman CEO Richard Fuld refused to recognize that Lehman was undercapitalized. His denial turned balance sheet misjudgments into catastrophe for the entire financial system. Fuld persistently rejected advice to seek added capital, deluding himself into thinking the federal government would bail him out. When the crisis hit, he had run out of options other than bankruptcy.

    It's lonely at the top, because leaders know they are ultimately responsible for the lives and fortunes of people. If they fail, many get deeply hurt. They often deny the burdens and loneliness, becoming incapable of facing reality. They shut down their inner voice, because it is too painful to confront or even acknowledge; it may, however, appear in their dreams as they try to resolve conflicts rustling around inside their heads.

    Meanwhile, their work lives and personal lives get out of balance. They lose touch with those closest to them̬their spouses, children, and best friends — or co-opt them with their points of view. Eventually, they lose their capacity to think logically about important issues.

    Values-centered leadership

    Leading is high stress work. There is no way to avoid the constant challenges of being responsible for people, organizations, outcomes, and uncertainties in the environment. Leaders who move up have greater freedom to control their destinies, but also experience increased pressure and seduction.

    Leaders can avoid these pitfalls by devoting themselves to personal development that cultivates their inner compass, or True North. This requires reframing their leadership from being heroes to being servants of the people they lead. This process requires thought and introspection because many people get into leadership roles in response to their ego needs. It enables them to transition from seeking external gratification to finding internal satisfaction by making meaningful contributions through their leadership.

    Maintaining their equilibrium amid this stress requires discipline. Some people practice meditation or yoga to relieve stress, while others find solace in prayer or taking long runs or walks. Still others find relief through laughter, music, television, sporting events, and reading. Their choices don't matter, as long as they relieve stress and enable them to think clearly about work and personal issues.

    A system to support values-centered leadership

    The reality is that people cannot stay grounded by themselves. Leaders depend on people closest to them to stay centered. They should seek out people who influence them in profound ways and stay connected to them. Often their spouse or partner knows them best. They aren't impressed by titles, prestige, or wealth accumulation; instead, they worry that these outward symbols may be causing the loss of authenticity.

    Spouses and partners can't carry this entire burden though. We need mentors to advise us when facing difficult decisions. Reliable mentors are entirely honest and straight with us, defining reality and developing action plans.

    In addition, intimate support groups like the True North Groups, with whom people can share their life experiences, hopes, fears, and challenges, are invaluable. Members of our True North Group aren't impressed by external success, but care enough about us as human beings and as leaders to confront us when we aren't being honest with ourselves.

    As Senator Ensign told his fellow senators in a farewell speech in May, "When one takes a position of leadership, there is a very real danger of getting caught up in the hype surrounding that status ... Surround yourselves with people who will be honest with you about how you really are and what you are becoming, and then make them promise to not hold back... from telling you the truth."

    Bill George is a Professor of Management Practice, Henry B. Arthur Fellow of Ethics, at Harvard Business School.

    via blogs.hbr.org

     

    Embrace Uncertainty | Lolly Daskal

    This is wise advice for our times. http://www.lollydaskal.com/2011/03/27/embrace-uncertainty/

    Uncertainty is a permanent part of our lives. Rarely will you come to a moment and say, I am certain.

    We are consistently called to make decisions, and we are constantly making these decisions with limited intelligence. It’s important that we learn to embrace the tension of not knowing everything.

    Great leaders lead without knowing it all.

    Great leaders do not eliminate uncertainty, but learn to navigate through it.

    Great leaders lead despite the shadows of uncertainty.

    Great leaders recognize that clarity of vision is more important than certainty of the outcome.

    Every day, we are expected to make decisions regarding our business, our relationships, our marketing, our ideas, and our strategies. We make these decisions even though we don’t always have the answers.

    If we knew everything that was going to happen, we wouldn’t need to experience it. There would be nothing to attain, achieve or acquire.

    Lead From Within: The only thing we can be certain about is where we have been and what we have done in the past.  Where we are going is always new, and often uncertain.

    Sent via BlackBerry, so please excuse any typos. I'm all thumbs.

     

    Brennan's Hierarchy of Imagination

    Brennan's Hierarchy of Imagination

    Download full size (67 KB)

    This is the result of a conversation I had with Patti Brennan about the nature of creativity and imagination that was inspired by Maslow's famous Hierarchy of Needs. I was impressed how Patti had a clear mental model of why "teaching creativity doesn't work but expanding their imaginations might work better" in the context of some of her work in patient healthcare. Her basic thought was that in order to get patients to take control of their health, they need to imagine what it looks like to be more healthy.

    At the base of the pyramid is human reflex -- i.e. response to a stimuli. One level above it is problem solving which in her mind doesn't require creativity and just a set of processes that can be activated. Above that is creativity -- an elevated form of problem solving that involves invention and improvisation. And at the very top is imagination, which Patti insisted is "boundless creativity." You can mix the different levels at the interfaces and see a different kind of creativity/action happening. I sincerely enjoyed how this model felt in my mind. -JM

    Posted by

    via creativeleadership.com

     

    Attn: Educators - 21st Century Competencies fm Singapore. Note inclusion of arts & phys ed #fb

    MOE to Enhance Learning of 21st Century Competencies and Strengthen Art, Music and Physical Education

    1The Ministry of Education (MOE) will implement a new framework to enhance the development of 21st century competencies in our students. This will underpin the holistic education that our schools provide to better prepare our students to thrive in a fast-changing and highly-connected world.

    2As part of this effort, MOE will strengthen the quality of Physical, Art and Music education. These subjects enable students to develop physical robustness, enhance their creative and expressive capacities, as well as shape their personal, cultural and social identity.

    New Framework for 21st Century Competencies and Student Outcomes

    3To better position our students to take advantage of opportunities in a globalised world, our students need to possess life-ready competencies like creativity, innovation, cross-cultural understanding and resilience. Diagram 1 illustrates the Desired Student Outcomes and the 21st Century Competencies.

    Diagram 1: 21st Century Competencies and Desired Student Outcomes
    Diagram 1: 21st Century Competencies and Desired Student Outcomes
    Desired Student Outcomes

    4The desired outcomes for every student are:

    • a confident person who has a strong sense of right and wrong, is adaptable and resilient, knows himself, is discerning in judgment, thinks independently and critically, and communicates effectively.
    • a self-directed learner who questions, reflects, perseveres and takes responsibility for his own learning.
    • an active contributor who is able to work effectively in teams, is innovative, exercises initiative, takes calculated risks and strives for excellence.
    • a concerned citizen who is rooted to Singapore, has a strong sense of civic responsibility, is informed about Singapore and the world, and takes an active part in bettering the lives of others around him.
    21st Century Competencies

    5Knowledge and skills must be underpinned by values. Values define a person’s character. They shape the beliefs, attitudes and actions of a person, and therefore form the core of the framework of 21st century competencies.

    6The middle ring signifies the Social and Emotional Competencies—skills necessary for children to recognise and manage their emotions, develop care and concern for others, make responsible decisions, establish positive relationships, as well as to handle challenging situations effectively.

    7The outer ring of the framework represents the 21st century skills necessary for the globalised world we live in. These are:

    • Civic literacy, global awareness and cross-cultural skills
    • Critical and inventive thinking
    • Information and communication skills

    8Together, these competencies will enable our young to tap into the rich opportunities in the new digital age, while keeping a strong Singapore heartbeat. Annexes A to C elaborate on the competencies.

    9Many of these competencies and values are being taught in schools today. What schools will aim for is to strike a better balance between students’ learning of content knowledge and their acquisition of the necessary competencies and values to thrive in the future.

    10MOE will place greater emphasis on these competencies through the academic curriculum and Co-Curricular Activities (CCAs). Expectations and learning outcomes based on these competencies will be articulated across the entire curriculum in the next curriculum review cycle in 2012-2014. Values and competencies will also be explicitly taught during character and citizenship education lessons.

    11At the same time, MOE will build teacher capacity to deliver these 21st century competencies through the provision of pedagogical exemplars, training and professional sharing. MOE will also develop tools for holistic feedback and assessment. From 2012, all students will be provided with an individual Holistic Development Profile, which will record each student’s progress in developing these competencies.

    Strengthening the Quality of PE, Art and Music (PAM) Education for Holistic Education

    12Over the years, MOE has invested in providing infrastructure and facilities to facilitate PAM education in our schools, such as Indoor Sports Halls and synthetic turf fields. MOE plans to equip schools with more of such facilities in the future. For example, in line with the recommendations of the Primary Education Review and Implementation (PERI) Committee, primary schools will be provided with two Programme for Active Learning (PAL) rooms, a performing arts studio, a dance studio, a band room and an outdoor running track. The establishment of the Physical Education and Sports Teacher Academy (PESTA) and the Singapore Teachers’ Academy for the aRts (STAR) also support the in-service training and professional development of our PAM teachers to strengthen PAM education. Move towards “Single-Subject” Specialisation for Art and Music

    13To enhance the delivery of the Art and Music curriculum, all new Art and Music teachers will be trained for single-subject specialisation, i.e. only in Art or Music. They will focus on teaching either Art or Music, and handle Art- or Music-related CCAs and programmes. Existing Art and Music teachers will also move towards single-subject specialisation.

    Increase in PE Curriculum Time

    14PE develops students physically and equips them with the knowledge, skills and attitudes to pursue an active and healthy lifestyle. Hence, MOE will increase PE curriculum time for all primary and secondary school students. Please refer to the table below for the details.

    Level PE Curriculum Time
    Primary 1 – Primary 2 1.5 hr → 2 hrs
    (in addition to 2 hrs of PAL)
    Primary 3 – Primary 6 1.5 hr → 2.5 hrs
    Secondary 1 – Secondary 4 1 hr → 2 hrs

    15This will be implemented in phases, in step with the building of the Indoor Sports Halls, the implementation of single-session primary schools and the increased recruitment of PE teachers.

    via moe.gov.sg

    Think anyone in the U.S. will take note of these? I sure hope so!!!

    About

    This is one of my "file cabinets" for keeping items that I think merit a 2nd or 3rd look. You're welcome to browse the items and use what you can. All this good info isn't any good if it can't be shared.

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