Mindlab - Action reflections

Wednesday 26 September 2018

Agile and servant - Leadership - week 10

Agile Teams are Self-Organising Teams
Peha’s (2011) version of the 12 principles of the agile manifesto reinterprets the last two as follows:
  • The best ideas and initiatives emerge from self-organizing teams
  • At regular intervals, teams reflect on how to become more effective, then tune and adjust their behavior accordingly
We will explore this idea using a combination of Boris Gloger’s Ball Point game (Gloger, 2008) and Mike Rother’s Kata in the Classroom (Rother, 2015).  Kata is a term from martial arts. The Improvement Kata is a repeating routine for continuous improvement. 
The following diagram of the improvement kata process is adapted from material on the katatogrow.com website.
The goal of the ball point game is for each team to get as many balls as possible to pass through the hands of every team member in 2 minutes. The game involves both estimation and self-organisation. 
- You have four rounds to iterate quickly and improve by trying different strategies.
- You always have 2 minutes in between the iterations to update the scorecard and re-strategise.
The four  basic requirements of the game are that:
  1. As each ball is passed between team members, it must have air time
  2. Every team member must touch each ball for it to count
  3. No ball to your direct neighbour on either side, you must pass to your front
  4. Every ball must end where it started. For each ball that does, the team scores 1 point (make sure you count your points)
Scrum is an Agile Process
Scrum is a lightweight process framework for agile development. It is an iterative process that consists of a series of sprints that each deliver something useful. It enables teams to self-organize and collaborate, and accepts that the problem cannot be fully understood or defined up front.
In Scrum, the product backlog (of user stories) is broken down into a series of sprints. In each sprint, a priority list of stories (the sprint backlog) is chosen for completion. The sprint lasts for a certain period of time (e.g. 2 weeks, 30 days etc.). There are daily stand up meetings during the sprint, and at the end of each sprint a working increment of the software is delivered. In other words, it is only a successful sprint if it delivers something useful.
Agile Leadership Styles
Agile leadership is situational, adaptive, empowering and inspirational. The most important leadership theory applied to agile is that of servant leadership (Highsmith, 2009).
“For the Agile Leader, servanthood is the strategy. Situational actions are the tactic” (Filho, 2011).
The key characteristics of the servant leader include awareness, listening, persuasion, empathy, healing, and coaching. Situational leadership means that the servant leader may act as a democratic leader, a laissez-faire leader, or an autocratic leader in different situations (Koganti, 2014).
Servant Leadership
The originator of the servant leadership concept (though inspired by a Herman Hesse story) was Robert Greenleaf. “The servant­ leader is servant first... It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.” (Greenleaf, 1970). A longer extract from this work, which was this week's flipped preparation activity, is in this week's media
Teachers as Servant Leaders
Servant leadership has been applied by a number of authors to teaching. “The teacher as servant leader functions as a trailblazer for those served by removing obstacles that stand in their path. Part of unleashing another’s talents is helping individuals discover latent, unformed interests. Art, music, and science teachers are prime examples of educators whose genius lies in leading students to discover unarticulated interests.” (Bowman, 2005).
Ten Characteristics of a Servant Leader
  1. Listening
  2. Empathy
  3. Healing
  4. Awareness
  5. Persuasion
  6. Conceptualization
  7. Foresight
  8. Stewardship
  9. Commitment to Growth of People
  10. Building Community
These characteristics, that come from Northouse (2013), are outlined in a blog post by Penn State (2013).
You may find this Servant Leadership in Teachers tinyurl.com/TMLServantTeacher blogpost a helpful source to create a story card in the Trello board's learning backlog.
This Week’s Software
We will be using Trello for one of the activities in this week’s session. One of the flipped preparation activities is to set up an account and familiarise yourself with this tool in advance. Please take a look at the Trello 101 guide before the session.
Mindset of an Agile Leader - The best always want to get better

Agile Methods
The Agile movement proposes alternatives to traditional project management. Agile approaches, such as Scrum and eXtreme programming  were designed for the software development to help businesses respond to unpredictability. Aspects of Lean production (from the Toyota Production System) are also increasingly utilised by agile practitioners, for example Kanban boards, where limiting the number of current work items enhances workflow. Kanban's 'pull' model makes the flow of work visible across the team. In software development, 'Scrumban' is a popular fusion of Scrum and Kanban.
Nowadays Agile and Lean practices are used in industries outside of manufacturing and software development. Agile is recognized more generally now as simply a great way of getting things done in rapidly changing and highly unpredictable situations.
Agile and Lean Ideas in Learning
In this week's classes we ponder what Agile and Lean methods can offer to the education sector. Even though Agile was developed within the software industry, and lean in car manufacturing, the link is that they are fundamentally about learning, people, and change. Many are amazed at how easily Agile and Lean ideas translate into education, and how perfectly-suited they are, for example, to running schools.
Whakataukī
Ka pū te ruha, ka hao te rangatahi
As an old net withers another is remade
Related Standards for the Teaching Profession
Learning Focused Culture
Develop learning-focused relationships with learners, enabling them to be active participants in the process of learning, sharing ownership and responsibility for learning.
He ahurea akoranga
Me whakawhanake i te whanaungatanga i roto i ngā mahi ako i te taha o ngā ākonga, e āhei ai rātou ki ngā mahi hihiri i roto i te tukanga akoranga, me te whai mana whai haepapa mō ā rātou mahi akoranga.

Digital Leadership - week 10

Agile in Education
What can you most use in your teaching?
Something that gives value to the learner.
Using Inquiry - teaching the skills - learner learning what they need based on their interests.

What is the most challenging idea?
we have a curriculum - how do you know you have coverage?
How would you resource it?
The lean enterprise - a school - how do you know that the whole journey is lean? What feeder schools.
Different schools focusing on specific areas of the curriculum. Children book into that particular school to cater for their needs. So maths at one school. Literacy at a different school.
Lean is ...



A number of authors have looked at ways that ideas from agile software development might translate into schools. For example Steve Peha, a technologist and educator in the US, has worked extensively in applying the lessons of agile and lean to the classroom. He writes “We talk a lot in education about creating a culture of learning in our schools. But we don’t have reliable ways of creating this culture. Agile does” (Peha, 2011).
Agile brings in a culture of learning - Peha

The Agile Manifesto
The Manifesto for Agile Software Development (Beck et al., 2001) was created in 2001 by a group of software development experts who had been exploring new ways of exercising their craft in the late 1990s. The manifesto provides four values and twelve principles to guide the agile software developer. The four values are: 
  • Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
  • Working software over comprehensive documentation
  • Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
  • Responding to change over following a plan
Peha (2011) provides some interesting ideas on how the agile manifesto can be reinterpreted to apply to schools, and how agile techniques might be used in the classroom. 
There are a lot of terms used this week, so here is a brief glossary of the main ones
  • Lean - an approach from the Japanese car industry that emphasises efficiency in workflow
  • Agile - approach from software development that emphasises being adaptable to change and communication within teams and with customers
  • Kaizan - a process of continuous improvement (from lean manufacturing)
  • Kaikaku - a process of radical change/improvement (from lean manufacturing)
  • Scrum - an agile software development method that emphasises teamwork
  • Stand Up Meeting - a Scrum technique were daily team stand up meetings are held - each team member reports on what they did yesterday, what they will do today, and any obstacles they are facing
  • Sprint - a cycle of activity during a Scrum process - each sprint is the same length and must result in a specific outcome.
  • Kanban - a story board that tracks progress of story cards from to do, doing and done. 
  • WIP  - 'work in progress' - a limit on how many stories can be in 'doing' on a kanban board at any one time
  • Servant Leadership - a leadership theory that is often applied to leading agile teams
  • Situational Leadership - a leadership theory that adapts its styles according to the needs of followers
  • Kata - a term from martial arts that defines a continually repeated exercise
  • Trello - a software tool that allows you to add multiple columns and cards. It can be adapted for many tasks. including creating a kanban board
  • Pull and Push - In lean manufacturing, 'pull' is preferred to 'push' - in 'pull' the tasks are pulled by the workers when they are ready, not pushed at them
  • Flow - The way that tasks flow through a kanban board when pull and WIP limits are used
Kanban
One of the ideas that has been taken from Lean Production by Agile practitioners is Kanban - which means 'visual card' in Japanese. This enables ‘Pull’ and ‘Flow’ (Anderson, 2010).
For an example of how Kanban boards can be used to help children plan, see Princess Kanban. This is on the agileschool blog, which you may find interesting. More recent materials are now on the Agile Classrooms site.
You can ‘Visualise the workflow’ by having e.g. these four columns on the Kanban board:
Learning backlogThings to be learnt nextThings we are learningThings we have learnt
These boards can be done digitally or just on the wall with super sticky post-its. They can be individual or shared with a team. We’ll work today with one that is shared with the whole class. 
User Stories 
In software development and product management user story statements are often written on story cards following the format: As a (role) I want (something) so that (benefit). The idea is to capture what a user does or needs to do as part of his or her job function. It captures the "who", "what" and "why" of a requirement in a simple, concise way, often limited in detail by what can be hand-written on a small piece of paper. However, there is no requirement that all user stories should be written this way. Our 'learning stories' in the sessions will be written in a more unstructured style as they will be more open ended than software requirements.
Stories will be written on the story cards that move across the Kanban board columns. Each one will be a short, simple description of something to be achieved in a short time frame They need to be small and focused enough to be achieved in a short time frame and allow for success to be tested. 
Epics
A story that is too big is known as an ‘epic’ and has to be broken down into smaller stories. ‘Introduce BYOD to the school’ is an epic, and ‘Introduce BYOD to one pilot class’ is still too big. However, ‘Send a survey to families from one class asking if they are willing to provide a device for their child to bring to school’ is a smaller, story-sized step
3 C's
User stories have three critical aspects. We can call these Card, Conversation, and Confirmation. The card is the trigger for a deeper conversation between stakeholders about the solution and takes place over time and is mostly verbal. The confirmation is an acceptance test - how we know when the story is done. (Jeffries, 2001). A good story card will likely end up with the back covered with results of the conversation(s) and confirmation tests.
Todays’ story cards for the first 2 sprints are developed from a forthcoming book chapter “Agile Education, Lean Learning" (in this week's media). You can use this or any other sources today when learning and problem solving. We hole these User Stories guide you towards Meaningful Learning on how Agile and Lean Approaches could help you in your practice.
Trello
Trello is one of the tools that can be used to create Kanban style boards online. It is an easy-to-use, free and visual way to manage your projects and organise anything. Naturally, there are other tools too, but this one seems to be the most popular right now, and amongst teachers and their students too.
For this week's session, each location will have its own Kanban board (see below for links)
Scrum Masters
For the main activity in the session, each team will have a scrum master. The scrum master is the team’s servant leader, who needs to:
  • make sure that just one or two of your team cards are moved in “Things we are learning” at one time
  • write an acceptance test first in the description of the card - so that you know how to justify confirmation and record the outcome of the confirmation to the description before moving the card to “Things we have learnt”
  • record the team’s main conversations as comments
  • be ready for the stand up meeting on time, to share in 1min:
    • What was the Meaningful Learning on How Agile and Lean Approaches Could Help You In Your Practice? (That’s the goal for all team members!)
    • Was the learning confirmed (acceptance test)? What (same or new User Stories) are you going to work with on the next scrum? Any obstacles?
References
Anderson, D.J. (2010). Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business. Blue Hole Press.
Beck et al. (2001). Manifesto for Agile Software Development. Retrieved from http://agilemanifesto.org/
Jeffries, R. (2001). Essential XP: Card, Conversation, Confirmation. Retrieved from http://ronjeffries.com/xprog/articles/expcardconversationconfirmation/
Peha, S. (2011). Agile Schools: How Technology Saves Education (Just Not the Way We Thought it Would). InfoQ. Retrieved from https://www.infoq.com/articles/agile-schools-education

Thursday 20 September 2018

Leadership Week 9

A Vision of the Change Process
In this week sessions we explore two ways of looking at the process of leading change. Although both of these may seem simplistic on the surface, their ability to provide an overall vision for the change is important. "In reality, even successful change efforts are messy and full of surprises. But just as a relatively simple vision is needed to guide people through a major change, so a vision of the change process can reduce the error rate. And fewer errors can spell the difference between success and failure." (Kotter, 1995).
School Vision and Learning
In his book on collaborative leadership, which builds upon some ideas form the work of John Hattie, De Witt (2016) notes that “Hattie often asks educators whether they have the word ‘learning’ on the first page of their school website or in their school's mission and vision statement”
School Vision Statements
In the session we will be reviewing the school vision statements added to the Padlets for each area, and looking for both common and distinctive themes. Here are the links to the Padlets:
Collaborative Leadership - What Makes A Leader Impactful?
De Witt (2016) identified the following features as being important in collaborative leadership. In each case the 'effect size' from Hattie's work is included. Hattie (2008) claims that an effect size of 0.4 is the expected impact on learning of a given practice. Higher than that is a positive impact:
  • Instructional leadership (0.42) - a focus on learning
  • Collective teacher efficacy (1.57) - collaborative leaders foster collaborative expertise
  • Assessment-capable learning (1.44) - collaborative leaders meet students where they are and bring them to a new level
  • Professional Development (0.51) - foster and inspire professional learning and use their venues/meetings to do it
  • Feedback (0.75) - collaborative leaders foster growth in stakeholders and themselves - feedback helps them get there
  • Family engagement (0.49) - giving a voice in the process
De Witt also notes that is it important to challenge thinking: "In order for collaboration to be real and for teachers, students, and parents to feel as though they are a part of a school climate in which they are valued, collaboration needs to include times where we not only learn from one another but also challenge each other’s thinking."
De Witt's Collaborative Leadership Framework is shown below. It outlines four types of leader, and suggests that leaders should move towards being collaborators. He suggests that leadership is situational, that all leaders might use these types of leadership in different contexts, but that they should always aim to be collaborators. The framework is meant to offer a reflective tool for leaders to study and understand how they might be leading and setting goals, depending on the situation. 
The ultimate goal where the Collaborative Leadership Growth Cycle is concerned is to choose an area in which leaders can be more collaborative at the end, as outlined in this cycle from DeWitt & Slade (2014). "Regardless of where leaders start, whether they spend time in the bystander, regulator, or negotiator stage, they can take the necessary steps to move into the collaboration stage." (DeWitt & Slade, 2014).
Kotter's 8 step Process
Kotter (1996) stresses that management and leadership are different things. "The simple insight that management is not leadership is better understood today, but not nearly as well as is needed. Management makes a system work. It helps you do what you know how to do. Leadership builds systems or transforms old ones."
Kotter (1996) suggests that there is an 8 step process for leading change.
  1. Create a sense of urgency (identify crises and opportunities)
  2. Build a guiding coalition
  3. Form a strategic vision and initiatives
  4. Enlist a volunteer army
  5. Enable action by removing barriers
  6. Generate short term wins
  7. Sustain acceleration
  8. Institute change
This diagram summarises the most recent version of Kotter's process (Kotter, 2017). It is similar to the 1996 version but emphasises some broader cross-institutional roles.
The model has evolved over time from a sequential step by step process to a more agile and iterative approach. Both approaches can be valuable. Kotter (2017) International eBook can be downloaded after filling in the form found on this site The Kotter International eBook
Leading Change in the Digital Curiculum
For our final activity in the session we will be looking at the context of addressing the progress outcomes of the “Designing and Developing Digital Outcomes” technology area from the digital curriculum. These progress outcomes can be found at tinyurl.com/TMLDDO (English) or tinyurl.com/TMLDDOTeReo (Te Reo). 
The following links should be helpful in applying either Kotter's or DeWitt's ideas to the following question
'How you would lead a change in teaching within this curriculum area?'


References
DeWitt, P., & Slade, S. (2014). School Climate Change: How Do I Build a Positive Environment for Learning?(ASCD Arias). ASCD.
DeWitt, P. (2016). Collaborative Leadership: Six Influences That Matter Most. Thousand Oaks CA: Corwin
Hattie, J. (2008). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Routledge.
Kotter, J. (1995). Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail. Harvard Business Review. March-April 1995, 59-67.
Kotter, J. (1996). Leading Change. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business Review Press.
Kotter International. (2017). 8 Steps for Accelerating Change (eBook). Kotter International
Maeroff, G. (1993). Building teams to rebuild schools. Phi Delta Kappan, 74(7), 512-519.
Senge, P. (1990). The fifth discipline: the art and practice of the learning organization. New York: Currency Doubleday. 

Wednesday 19 September 2018

Week 9 Digital

Before Class
After reading the required article 'Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age', fill out the following form with your responses to check your understanding of some of the key ideas within it. 
Wisdom of the Crowd
We begin this week be reflecting on last week's the Wisdom of the Crowd activity, guessing the number of jelly beans in the jar. Surowiecki (2004) claimed that "Under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them. Groups do not need to be dominated by exceptionally intelligent people in order to be smart, and still they are better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, and even predicting the future." The earliest example of this phenomenon was observed by Francis Galton at a country fair where people were asked to guess the weight of an ox. The mean average was close to the actual weight. The standard deviation was expansive but the key was that the mean average was exceptionally close. This demonstrates the ability of the mean of the group being able to solve a simple problem.  see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Galton#Variance_and_standard_deviation
We can be more intelligent as a crowd rather than independently. Coming to wise decisions.
Better at problem solving.
800 Jellybeans in the jar. 696 guesses.
Where is John?
Investigate in small groups and use multiple sources.
Learners of the digital age are able to learn and collaborate with people beyond their physical environment.

PLN
Personal Learning Network
a learner interacts with and derives knowledge from.
Why?
Having a PLN is necessary requirement to being an instructional leader.
PLN infographics
PLN who - Nick
PLG
Mahuri
Google+
Facebook
Twitter
Ted Talks
Network services
PLE what tools - how
Devices
phone
Connecting and Collaborating
When we talk about digital and collaborative learning as the two main concepts behind the postgraduate programme, this linking of digital tools and collaboration acknowledges the critical role of information and communication technologies in enabling contemporary forms of collaboration. The "learners in the digital age are able to connect and collaborate with people beyond their physical environment. They can connect a range of information or data and draw on a range of perspectives to collaboratively generate and critique new ideas." (Starkey, 2012).
Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) and Environments (PLEs)
A personal learning network is an informal learning network that consists of those people who a learner interacts with and derives knowledge from. These may be people known personally, but equally they may be people who are only connected via the Web, and there may be no personal interaction, simply an exchange of learning.
The term 'personal learning environment' (PLE) is sometimes used in conjunction with PLNs, but focuses more on the toolset that learners use in order to implement their learning networks (PLN). In essence, it is possible to have a personal learning network that is entirely face to face (though this would be rather limiting). In contrast a PLE assumes a digital toolset that will support the interactive learning process (EDUCAUSE, 2009).
DeWitt (2016) states that “Having a PLN is a necessary requirement to being an instructional leader because your PLN will stretch your thinking, offer an encouraging word, share resources, and help you bring out your best.”

Connectivism Quiz Feedback

The form asked a series of questions about the article 'Connectivism:
A Learning Theory for the Digital Age' by George Siemens. It was just intended as a
reflective learning check. Here is a short discussion of the questions and answers.
The correct answers are highlighted in bold text.


Which are the three broad learning theories that the article says are
most often utilized in the creation of instructional environments?
  • Behaviourism, constructionism, communities of practice
  • Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism
  • Cognitivism, constructivism, experiential learning
  • Constructivism, social learning theory, situated cognition

The article highlights behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism.
However it should be noted that the other theories mentioned in the question
(constructionism, communities of practice, experiential learning, social learning
theory and situated cognition) are all relevant to the creation of instructional environments.

How does Gonzalez (2004) describe the challenges of rapidly diminishing knowledge life?
  • The obsolescence of knowledge
  • The fading of knowledge
  • The half life of knowledge
  • The ageing of knowledge

The term used is the half life of knowledge, defined as “the time span from when
knowledge is gained to when it becomes obsolete.”

Which of the following theories view knowledge as external to the learner and
the learning process as the act of internalizing knowledge?
  • Cognitivism and constructivism
  • Behaviorism and constructivism
  • Only cognitivism
  • Behaviorism and cognitivism

Both behaviorism and cognitivism view knowledge as external to the learner, and the learning
process as the act of internalizing knowledge. These theories are older developments in the evolution of
learning theory. Later theories stress the creation of knowledge internally.

Which of the following is NOT a principle of connectivism?
  • Learning may reside in non-human appliances
  • While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow
  • What is currently known is more critical than the capacity to know more
  • Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning

There are 8 principle of connectivism, and these are four of them, except that the third example has been
switched around. It should say the capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known.
In addition to learning, which other area(s) does connectivism impact on?
  • Management and leadership
  • Media, news, information
  • Personal knowledge management in relation to organizational knowledge management
  • Design of learning environments

According to the article, all four areas are impacted on by connectivism. The author asserts that “The notion of
connectivism has implications in all aspects of life.”


Connectivism - the work of Siemens and Downes
There are several principles of the theory of connectivism, as outlined by George Siemens in 2004, in his article “Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age” (Siemens, 2004). Siemens has also pioneered the types of online course that have been labelled 'MOOCs' (Massive Open Online Courses). 


Stephen Downes, who has worked with Siemens on these courses, emphasises that their style of MOOC is connectivist (cMOOC), while other types of MOOC use more conventional approaches. Downes has collected his extensive writing on connectivism into an online book (Downes, 2012). In this book he notes that “The scope of my work covers three major domains, knowledge, learning and community. Each of these represents an aspect of network theory: the first, examining the cognitive properties of networks, the second, looking at how networks learn, and the third, tracing the properties of effective networks. These also represent the processes of learning, inference and discovery in society writ large.” (p.9).
The edge are becoming more important than the node. 
Network Learning - Building the Mooc - 
Is an idea that we learn from building connections building connections in our mind, joining ideas. The projection of someone's perceptual social network. Multiple systems interacting with each other. Real conversations about real problems.  Content and Literacy become one and the same thing.
In today's session we will be looking at six of these essays using this http://tinyurl.com/DownesEssays
  • A Gathering of Ideas (p.32)
  • The Space Between the Notes (p.62)
  • Diagrams and Networks (p.78) 
  • Creating the Connectivist Course (p.503)
  • Where the Future Lies (p.578) 
  • Engagement and Personalized Learning (p.580)
Principles of Connectivism
Siemens (2004) summarises the eight principles of connectivism as:
  1. Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.
  2. Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources.
  3. Learning may reside in non-human appliances.
  4. Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known
  5. Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.
  6. Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill.
  7. Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities.
  8. Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision.
References:
DeWitt, P. (2016). Collaborative Leadership: Six Influences That Matter Most. Thousand Oaks CA: Corwin
Downes, S. (2012). Connectivism and Connective Knowledge: Essays on meaning and learning networks. Retrieved from http://www.downes.ca/files/books/Connective_Knowledge-19May2012.pdf
EDUCAUSE. (2009). 7 things you should know about Personal Learning Environments. Retrieved from https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eli7049.pdf
Siemens, G. (2004). Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. eLearnSpace. Retrieved from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm
Starkey, L. (2012). Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge
Surowiecki, J. (2004). The Wisdom of Crowds. New York, NY: Doubleday, Anchor.