Seeing Through New Eyes

Last week I had the pleasure of facilitating a Design Sprint with my colleagues at the University of Colorado Boulder, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, and Denver Public Schools. Our goals were to learn more about the process as well as work through a problem we are trying to solve with our online curriculum customization service. But, we did not have time in everyone's schedules to take five full days, so we shortened it a bit. We did the first three days of the sprint in one and a half days instead of three full days. It was an intense day and a half and when we finished we realized that we did make progress, but that there is wisdom to having a full day for each step of the sprint. Tomorrow we will be reviewing the prototype (day 4) that our developers have worked on, we'll refine it, and then do some user testing (day 5). When we were finished Friday afternoon everyone was tired but re-energized at the same time as we had something that could be proto...

Today was a little less active than yesterday, but I had a chance to sit down and learn more about MESH Guides . In short, these are short summaries of research mapped out for public consumption along with any resources related to teaching and learning. This is in development initially in the UK, but they are working to have it become a world-wide network. It was interesting to take some time to look through them. It will be interesting to see where things go with potential collaborations with them. Our presentation went well even though there weren't a lot of people in attendance. But the people who were there appreciated hearing about our work at UCAR which includes UCARConnect , Globe , and the Curriculum Customization Service .

Day 2 at ICET was filled with meeting lots of people, attending some sessions, and a fun dinner that ended with our Scottish tablemates getting all of us up and singing with them. I had a nice breakfast with my UCAR colleagues John Ristvey (Spark/UCAR Connect) and Tony Murphy (Globe) along with James O'Meara from the National Louis University. He is also the President of the International Council on Education for Teaching (ICET). James wanted to learn more about UCAR, our projects, and what connections we wanted to make here at the Global Assembly for ICET. He suggested I learn more about:  A school in the Chicago area called Gems World Academy   The African Virtual University because he believes they have a similar system like the Curriculum Customization Service (CCS) that I work with MESH guides and their resources The International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA)   The World Council for Curriculum and Instruction   Core New Zealand ...

This is my first time attending the World Assembly for the International Council on Education for Teaching (ICET) . It is being held in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada (just outside of Toronto). Today (day 1) has been very interesting and thought provoking. I thoroughly enjoyed the opening blessing by Rick Bourque and the singing by the O'Neill Collegiate Ensemble along with the drumming, singing, and dancing by Morningstar River . I was put into a reflective state this morning during the morning speakers. I noticed that everyone seems to still be grappling with access to high quality resources and everyone wants to push for student critical thinking. I was reminded that individually and as communities we need to be mindful of how people look at others and how we see and talk to people. Right in line with research I am currently working on, classroom discussion and facilitation in learning is vital, so the thought that the "best way to learn is together" (by Lee Maracle) resonate...

This week I have been finalizing preparations to attend two conferences, 1) the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) in Boston and 2) the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in Philadelphia. It is always an invigorating experience to attend a conference and attending a practitioner and research conference back to back will be great! I am happy to be presenting at NSTA with Patty Kincaid on the Curriculum Customization Service (CCS) and the Inquiry Hub project. And then at AERA I am presenting with Mimi Recker, Victor Lee, Andy Walker, Lei Ye, and Min Yuan on research associated with scaling of the CCS, teacher learning, and student learning. I am also presenting with Sam Severance, Raymond Johnson, and Bill Penuel on the Inquiry Hub project, our research-practice partnership and teacher professional learning.