Innovation and Imperfection: Embracing B+ Work and Beta

Risk-taking is part of innovation.

But failure is scary, and frankly, people don't learn well from failure. Who really sees an "F" on something and then thinks, "gosh, I just need to grow more"? 

Plus, teachers don't want to fail when the well-being of learners is at stake.

But innovation doesn't happen without risk.

So how do we, as teachers, find the balance between soul-crushing perfectionist behavior and failure?

Recently, GPS educators from around the district met and talked about how scary it was to take risks and try something new, but also how powerful those risks were in terms of their growth as professionals. Blended learning techniques like playlists, incorporating new stations like VR, or using new tools all took time to plan--time that they were afraid might be wasted. Part of what made it work, they said, was planning--often with other teachers, for both time-saved and moral support--and being comfortable with embracing something that was less than perfect, knowing that they would learn what worked.

This aligns with what educators call the power of "teaching in Beta" and settling for B+ work. You cannot get a 100 on every task--who among us has never cooked a not-so-great meal or missed a spot when cleaning? Dr. Angela Watson reminds us that "perfect is the enemy of done":

If we make a task into something that’s hard work — something that feels like it’s going to be outstanding — that often makes the task feel overwhelming. It becomes something we build up in our heads: B+ work is not going to be good enough; a little effort will not suffice. This must be amazing! It must be mind-blowing! It must be as close to perfect as I can get it!
When we think this way about a task, working on it becomes very daunting. We raise the stakes and start to feel overwhelmed. Then we procrastinate, or fail at it and don’t meet our own expectations.

PBL expert professor John Spencer agrees that expecting things to go perfectly is the enemy of innovation, which requires iterations to grow. He advocates embracing the idea of viewing new lessons, projects, and teaching practices as being in "beta" form, like a new piece of software:

It’s the idea that you release your work in beta, knowing that it’s not perfect and perhaps it’s not even very good at all. However, you’re going to send it to an audience so that they can see it, experience it, and play around with it to let you know what you should do to improve it. This feedback leads to self-reflection, where you ultimately change your design and then release a new version. As you move through multiple iterations, you eventually reach a place where your work is pretty good. Eventually, it’s great. But you never stop creating those iterations. You always experiment.

With this in mind, we urge you to give yourself permission to aim for a B+. It doesn't have to be perfect, and it will require reflection, but it's the only way to grow. 

Can you smell what the podcast is cooking?

Science suggests that as you listen to a podcast or radio show about cooking and you hear the sizzle of the stove as the broadcaster describes adding garlic, the smell center of your brain will light up, activating memories and prior knowledge. You might actually SMELL the food cooking. 

"When we listen, our ears aren’t just passive absorbers of information. We are activating systems in the brains that are responsible for sight, sound, motor control and olfaction. 'We imagine sounds using the same brain regions that allow us to hear real sounds,' says cognitive scientist Benjamin Bergen."

Audio, and podcasts in particular are powerful in the classroom for so many reasons:

• Helps build empathy and impacts social-emotional well-being.
• Models powerful/fluent speaking.
• Supports listening comprehension skills (which are tested on SBAC)
• Helps build vocabulary.
• Builds background knowledge (especially for ELLs or struggling readers)
• Supports the development of reading (see the Simple View of Reading formula)
• Provides models for composition/presentation.
  

Other benefits? You can often speed them up, slow them down, or use tools that read along with transcripts to increase accessibility. TED Talks on the TED platform include transcripts in multiple languages, which highlight as the speaker talks.

How can I use them?

• There are many short (under 5 minute) podcasts for kids. These might be a great warm-up once a week, with the class working on retelling, identifying key information, or just brainstorming questions about a topic or current event.
• You might use longer podcasts as part of a station rotation to build prior knowledge or provide more first person, non-fiction accounts of events.
• You might use podcasts to appeal to different learning modalities, giving kids the option to listen to sources rather than simply reading all of them.
• You can create IAB-style comprehension questions to help students practice for the listening part of the SBAC test, and discuss the techniques students used during listening. Kids can listen and discuss  individually, in small groups, or as a whole class.
• You can use them to model, guide, and have students practice the note-taking skills you teach.
• Have students write (or use flip to record) the connections they make between the current events from the audio to the historical events, general science topic, or other concepts they are learning about.

For links to elementary-age podcasts, check out this resource.

For more research, check out the Cult of Pedagogy blog/podcast about using podcasts.

For more ideas, listen to or view the video podcast from Truth for Teachers.

Supporting Student Digestion (of Content)

 

In Catlin Tucker's recent episode of her SEL series of the podcast, The Balance, she talks about how important Self-Management is to student development, and how vital it is that we provide students with opportunities to make choices.

One research-based and easy way to do this is to provide students opportunities to monitor their own progress through checklists. Chunking big assignments into smaller pieces is often a recommendation on individualized student plans, and this makes sense: just as we wouldn't do well shoving a whole candy bar in our mouths at once, our students won't digest the task well if we ask them to conceptualize it all at once.

Additionally, education specialist Dr. Kathleen Dudden Rowlands believes checklists are more than just a way for students to stay organized and on-task: 

"Metacognitive research consistently suggests that students who know how to learn, know which strategies are most effective when faced with a problem or a task, and have accurate methods of assessing their progress, are better learners than those who don't."

So what to do?

Option 1: Provide Assignment Checklists

If you already know the steps to take for students to successfully tackle a task, why not give them a checklist? Many teachers do this for longer assignments anyway, but this can also be valuable for daily assignments. This can even be done "on the fly" for individuals in need.

Option 2: Support Students in Creating their own Checklists

Not only is breaking tasks down an important life skill, but it helps students grasp the scope (and best sequence) of the task at hand. You can scaffold this by providing a partial checklist, with students brainstorming minor tasks under a major heading, or even by creating the checklist together as a whole class or in groups. 

If you want a lesson plan idea for supporting students in breaking down directions, check this out. If you want to support students by using technology, be sure to include some time to model the tool!

Technology tools to try:

Are kids mobile? Kids can use Google Keep, which is great for use on computers and mobile devices, quickly saving content, and collaboration. (Learn more about using Google Keep with students at ShakeUpLearning.)

Is the task big? Students might also use Google Sheets for a more involved project. Each part of the task can have its own tab and set of checklists. TLI also has some templates that you can provide students that cross items off the list when the box is checked AND show progress in a progress bar.

Want to keep it really simple? Google docs has also just made it easier to create and use checklists, which allows for students to check and cross out items (or uncheck, if they realize it isn't done). Check out the 2 minute tutorial below that shows a few ways to make checklists!

A note about behavior: Do you have students who might benefit from an academic behaviors checklist? Enlist them in creating their own self-management goals for the day with this tool from Intervention Central.