innovation3

For everything there is a season,
And a time for every matter under heaven…
Ecclesiastes 3:1-2

If you were limited to one sentence and an “If…,then….” rhetorical structure, how would you compose your “theory in action?”

I presented yesterday at a statewide STEM V Summit (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) with online help from Darren Kuropatwa, Kristen Hokanson, and David Truss. (Patrich Higgins and Cathy Nelson were scheduled to be there but both lost their internet connection from school.)

I shared with the audience how my learning has changed dramatically because of the community of educators I have joined on the internet that complements so well those I work with day to day. I shared how learning for students in so many schools has not changed in decades: lectures, note taking, worksheets, simple projects and quizzes seem still to be the norm. I shared how our colleagues in schools with technology are not using the computers to inspire the kids.

It’s hard for me to gauge the impact my comments have in presentations like this because the changes I am talking about are so hard for most people to register in their world view. It is understandable because I was so unaware of these dramatic changes even only a year ago. Honestly, while I advocate without hesitation for a change to a student-centered paradigm of teaching and learning, I know how threatening this could be to an educator’s current way of live. But it has to be about the kids.

Our profession is so encultured in the old, but currently ubiquitous, teacher-centered paradigm of learning. Day in and day out, members of our profession diligently, if inappropriately and ineffectively, are preparing kids for a future that will not exist. See my post Problem Challenge: News Reporting in the Future?

There was, however, a moment in the morning presentation when I did get a visceral reaction from the audience that leaves me hopeful. I think people are aware that the world is changing rapidly in ways that will dramatically affect them. They, and I can really sympathize with them on this, don’t exactly know what to do about it.

The moment came when I pulled out a card I keep in my wallet with a quote on it from Eric Hoffer.

In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves beautifully equipped to live in a world that no longer exists. Eric Hoffer: Reflections on the Human Condition, p. 32

At the end of the conference, a colleague advocated for a simple statement of our “theory in action” to guide our work in STEM over the coming year. I took up the challenge and while Isa Zimmerman*, director and moderator of the summit, continued soliciting comments from others in the room, I applied pen to napkin and composed my theory in action for the Massachusetts’ STEM Initiative. What is your theory in action for your work?

If we engage, challenge and inspire students in STEM activities, then those students will choose to pursue STEM careers in record numbers.

Forgive me if I’m off a word or two. Isa asked for the napkin.

* Isa Zimmerman, Senior Fellow, University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute, University of Massachusetts President’s Office