Nudging Enough?

In moving to Long Island this past summer, traffic (and trying to avoid being stuck in it) became an integral part of my life. in Baltimore, I had been blessed with a commute that could be measured in feet, not miles, and walking to work was an option, that in hindsight, I should have taken advantage of more often. Now as I get up each morning, I offer a short prayer that the Long Island Expressway is accident free so that my ride to and from work is without incident.

Prior to this, I probably would have passed on watching Jonas Eliasson's Ted Talk on How to Solve Traffice Jams. I have very little interest or skills in urban planning and this topic seemed a little further afield than the types of Ted Talks that tend to peak my interest. I clicked play, however, because I had just been caught behind the residue of several accidents coupled with congestion that had made my commute close to unbearable that morning.

Eliasson's analysis of the traffic congestion in and around Helsinki revolved around the use of a congestion charge that was levied on cars that were using a series of bridges to enter Helsinki (sounds suspiciously like how to get into Manhattan). These bridges were the bottlenecks that then led to backups in other areas around Helsinki. Eliasson's analysis of the situation showed that the congestion charge pulled enough cars off the road to have a serious impact on traffic congestion because of being a nonlinear phenomenon. In other words, once the traffic was reduced past a certain threshold, it appeared to be dramatically less.

Eliasson's comments about the experiment with traffic Helsinki brought two realizations to mind. The first was that the traffic congestion charge was equivalent to the classic nudge. It wasn't a significant amount, but it was just enough to get enough people to change their behavior over a period of time that it impacted the traffic patterns around Helsinki. Subtle, but perceptible guidance to change another's behavior can be more effective than getting up on your hobby horse and yelling at everyone to change.

The second realization is that you do not have to get everyone to change in order to create change. Despite our desire to view the world as having linear relationships (e.g. as x increase so does y), not everything does. We actually can impact change by just engaging with a critical mass of teachers, students, or other stakeholders to change the perception of things on the ground.

Too often, we fall into the trap of insisting on change as a mandate and pushing people towards it. I've frequently discovered, particularly with my two preschool aged daughters, that this strategy just doesn't work. It creates resistance and resentment. As I contemplate the changes that I would like to be putting in place at my school, I'm reflecting on how best to "nudge" and how to target that nudging to have the most impact.

I Am Not Planning a Polar Expedition

I just watched a Ted Talk by Ben Saunders which concluded with his plans for an upcoming Antarctic expedition on foot. He detailed his experiences doing things that most of us probably wouldn't even dream about.

Watching this talk was inspiring. Now let's be clear about one thing. I am not planning a polar expedition. While I do prefer cold weather to warm weather, my idea of a challenge does not include dragging a sledge filled with supplies across Antarctica for four months. I can think of a large number of things that I would rather do with my spare time.

But, Saunders is not encouraging everyone to run out and join a polar expedition. What he is encouraging is for us to get out and experience life. Getting out of the house, to borrow Saunder's phrase, means stepping outside of your comfort zone.

I wrote about this in an earlier post when I was challenging myself to stretch my linguistics skills. Taking risks needs to be a part of education and equally applies to students and faculty. As an administrator, I've challenged myself to learn about design thinking and will be taking part in the Day School Collaboration Network that the Jewish Education Project is supporting along with UpStart Bay Area.

Normally, schools make changes gradually. We run a program, evaluate, and make the changes for the following year. Design thinking, however, challenges us to consider rapid prototyping - making quick sample products that you test out and then go back to the drawing board as you test out the ideas.

This approach runs contrary to what I'm used to doing and moves me out of my comfort zone. I'm looking forward to seeing how design thinking gets me out of the house in the upcoming months. I'll be sharing my experiences through this blog.

An Unexpected Linguistic Adventure

In getting ready for my trip to London to attend World ORT's Wingate Seminar on instructional technology, I thought about a number of things to make sure that I was prepared for the trip. I checked the weather to ensure that I had packed the right kind of clothing. I put the finishing touches on my presentation to the group on how our school uses Google Apps for Education as an instructional and administrative tool. I spoke with friends and colleagues who had traveled to London about things I should try to do or see. At no point, did I think about brushing up on my Hebrew. After all, I was traveling to an English-speaking country.

When I arrived at the World ORT house, I received my linguistic surprise. While the sessions were conducted in English, the vast majority of casual conversations were conducted in Hebrew as the bulk of the participants were from schools in Israel. For the last several years, World ORT has been collaborating with the Israeli Ministry of Education on a program called Kadima Mada which enhances science education in schools in Israel's periphery. Along with representatives of schools in South America, the Former Soviet Union, and South Africa, the Israelis were taking part in the seminar to grow their skills in instructional technology and collaborate with colleagues from ORT supported programs throughout the world.

Sitting at lunch or during a coffee break, I could hear the sounds of Hebrew around me and if I closed my eyes, I was suddenly somewhere in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, not at a conference in the heart of London. It was in these moments that I chose to pick up the gauntlet of linguistic risk and begin to speak in Hebrew with my Israeli colleagues.

Linguistic risk involves taking your existing functional knowledge of a language and trying to stretch it. When you do not have a specific word, you try to work around it by using the vocabulary that you do have. Most importantly, though, it means being willing to make mistakes and to grow to from the feedback that you receive in the conversation.

I am not a native or fluent Hebrew speaker by anyone's definition. Like most language learners, my vocabulary is limited to specific situations, such as ordering in a restaurant or asking people about how they are doing. I lack the ability to talk about a variety of topics, including many aspects of my own profession. Yet, because I was willing to engage in linguistic risk when speaking with my Israeli colleagues, my skills in having this kind of conversation have grown and my confidence has increased exponentially.

All learning involves some form of risk. After all, you are attempting something new that you have never done before (otherwise it would not be learning). As teachers, it is our job to create an environment where students are willing to engage in risks. This means showing your support through appropriate encouragement and make sure that the risk falls within an acceptable range. The steps between learning concepts and skills need be just far enough apart that students stretch, but not so much that they fall on their faces.

I would not have taken my own linguistic risk if my Israeli colleagues had not encouraged me to speak and supported me as I stumbled my way through a conversation. After five days of continually taking this linguistic risk, I have grown as a Hebrew speaker. I am more comfortable struggling with the language and I have learned new words and phrases.

Imagine if we could constantly create this safe environment for our students to continually take risks in our classrooms, rather than just playing it safe. The opportunity for student growth could be amazing.

Pinterest Project Update

It's been almost a week since I gave out the Pinterest assignment to my 7th grade Rabbinics class. Their reaction to the initial assignment was interesting. Most of them were not aware of the site, but were pretty awed by the basic display of graphics and text that makes up a Pinterest board.

At this point, I've received links to graphics from slightly more than half the class. The "pins" have been from a variety of sources and most strongly relate to the topic. What's been most interesting, though, is that there are other Pinterest users following the board and some of them have "re-pinned" the items on the board.

I'm still trying to decide what the next step will be in this Pinterest experiment. I'm certainly considering using it for other units as I think the challenge of succinctly summing up what a picture means to you is an excellent skill. Furthermore, I think there is value in getting the students to think about a text through a visual media. I'm considering re-using the pictures in the test for this unit, perhaps as a writing prompt.

What's missing, though, is the interactive element that should go hand in hand with a social network. This assignment would be more powerful if I was not serving as the conduit for the students to interact with Pinterest. Given that I'm working with 12 and 13 year old students, I'm not sure that I want to be the person who sets some of them up with their first social networking account.

I'm considering bringing the next version of this assignment into the Google Site that I have successfully used with previous classes.I'm just not sure that it will have the visual flexibility that Pinterest has brought to this project.

Testing the Waters with Pinterest

Like many people, I have spent the last several weeks quietly laughing about my wife’s fascination with Pinterest. Very quickly, she has amassed a collection of photographs and web links about a host of topics ranging from recipes to DIY ideas. From a short distance, I was wondering with why we needed one more social media site.

In recent days, I’ve started to undergo a conversion of sorts. I’m not ready to spend hours “pinning” pictures on the site, but am wondering what it can be used for. Ali recently wrote on EdSocialMedia about how Pinterest could be used for schools. Resource collecting made perfect sense to me, as well as a few other uses, but I was wondering if it could be used in the classroom.

With that in mind, I’ve started a little bit of an experiment. Starting next week, I will be teaching a new unit in my 7^th grade Rabbinics class that focuses on the concept of “wrongdoing with words.” This is a pretty juicy section of the Mishnah (Bava Metzia 4:10) that compares wrongdoing with words to stealing:

Just as there is wrongdoing in buying and selling, so there is wrongdoing in words. One may not say to him, "How much is this item?" if he does not want to buy it. If he was a penitent, one must not say to him, "Remember your former deeds!" If he was a descendant of converts, one must not say to him, "Remember the deeds of your forefathers!" For it is said, "And a stranger you shall not wrong, nor shall you oppress him" (Exodus 22:20).

I’m looking forward to the discussion that this topic will generate, but I have a new project for my students that I’m hoping will add to our discussions. I’m planning on challenging my students to find images that they connect with our text and email me links to those images (plus a short explanation why). Since I’m just a little concerned about internet safety and since Pinterest's user terms limit it to age 13 and above (as do most social media sites), I’ll do the actual pinning for now. My hope is to create a visual collage that could be part of our end of unit assessment.

I’ve gotten started with a few images here already. You’ll notice that I’ve included some text, too. You can do this by using a tool from PinAQuote that turns text into images.

I’m not sure that Pinterest is the best tool for this task, but I’m going to give it a shot.  In a post,Twyla Felty suggests that Stixty might be a more student friendly tool. I’m thinking about giving it a try, too.

I’ll report back in a few weeks how this experiment works out. And, if you find images that connect to this topic, pass them along.

Using Google Apps for Education

I recently gave this presentation at the 13^th Wingate Seminar in January 2012 – exploring the use of Google Apps for Education at KSDS and how the school implemented this new tool. I reviewed the most commonly used components of Google Apps and analyzed how they support pedagogy and school administration at our school.

 

Have you gone Google? How are you using it?