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[greggarner87]

As we gear up for Special Elections in 2017 tell the NCGA we demand Independent Redistricting. It's Now or Never! http://thndr.me/Qs8Cl6

[greggarner87]

My ‘Personal Statement’ for my PhD application

Warning: SUPER long post ahead. What follows is the personal statement for my application for NC State’s PhD in Design program, to begin Fall 2017.

I’d love to hear your feedback!

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I’m not an artist. I don’t work in oils on canvas or throw clay into just the right shape. I don’t spend much time thinking about color theory or how to pull together the right elements in the right way to create the most compelling visual effect. I’m not a creative. I don’t have a portfolio of drawings or campaigns from which to pull. I don’t create web interfaces or think about UI. I don’t own expensive pencils or even a subscription to Creative Suite. I’m not a designer. I don’t have a drafting table and rolls of blueprints. I don’t create architectural marvels with CAD and work to raise them from the earth. I don’t have more than a cursory understanding of typesetting and I don’t spend my days sketching or thinking of ways to develop new, beautiful products to be introduced into the marketplace. In many regards, the pursuit of a Ph.D. in Design might seem to be a mismatch. With an undergraduate degree in Business and a Master’s of Education, shouldn’t I pursue education policy? Or at least some kind of doctoral level program in the College of Education? What business do I have in a Design program?

The role of education has always been to get out of its own way. Education is rarely, if ever, for its own sake. Education is the silver bullet not because of what you know, but because of what you can do with what you know. It might, perhaps, be more appropriate to say ‘learning’ instead of ‘education.’ Learning is about changing the way you see the world around you and developing new models from which you develop new opinions. Learning is taking a pinhole camera and creating a panorama. In my work at the Friday Institute, I have been fortunate enough to be able to tinker and explore new ideas. To play and see how things may or may not work. To puzzle and ponder, open my eyes and wonder. To talk with any number of educators from K-12 classroom teachers to building principals to district superintendents to college faculty and experiment with these ideas. Will students have deeper, richer, more meaningful experiences as a result? What are the pain points and how might I reduce the friction? What changes can I make and then try again? Whether you call it the scientific method, design thinking, iterative design, or even trial-and-error, my work puts me in the midst of some of the toughest work in the realm of education: how do we improve our practice, as educators, for the benefit of our students?

In my first year of teaching, I had applied to be an 8th grade math teacher. I had enjoyed math and wanted to see if I could spark the same interest in others. However, after being hired by a small, rural district in east Texas, I was informed that I would be teaching 6th grade math and 8th grade keyboarding. Keyboarding, as it turns out, is categorized as a “business” class and since I had a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, the principal thought it a natural fit. I was not, however, particularly excited about teaching a class that, when I took it in middle school, had stolen all joy from the computer lab, the one place school was supposed to be fun. I resolved, on behalf of my students, that they would enjoy the computer lab and learn something along the way. I went to work creating a new kind of classroom. The first problem I faced was that I had 25 teenagers and, since I had come upon my career nontraditionally, had none of the requisite skills with which to manage my classroom. So I created a business simulation experience, where students would learn to type as well as how to format specific documents by working through a series of required document types, but instead of each student working on an individual packet, I put them in teams of 5. Each team then had a ‘CEO’ that was responsible for overseeing their understanding of correct formatting, typing technique, and even monitoring their team’s overall behavior in class. I, then, worked exclusively with the CEOs, helping them to understand what to look for, how to format the documents themselves, and coaching them through some of the difficult issues that invariably arose in a group of two dozen thirteen and fourteen year-olds. I was praised at the end of the school year by both my principal and my superintendent for my innovative classroom practices, but the truth was that these practices were borne not from any particular pedagogical insight but rather my own naïveté.

In the interview for my second teaching job at a very large, urban school district, the principal mentioned that he wasn’t actually sure what was involved in the open position but that, “they make a lot of posters and the kids seem to like it.” Upon accepting the position teaching Technology Applications at the 8th grade level, I was congratulated and given carte blanche to create the class however I saw fit. And so, as a second-year teacher with essentially no formal training in how to teach, I started writing my own curriculum for a class in which I had no prior experience. I borrowed some of the structures from my business simulation but ultimately landed on a class that was set up much more like a production studio with creative products, open-ended assignments, and rolling deadlines that allowed for multiple attempts based on feedback they received. One year, students worked as travel agents, creating compelling pitches for where to go on your next vacation. Another year, they made short films where they wrote, storyboarded, directed, filmed, and edited their original creations. In my third year, they worked as political consultants, selecting a candidate and then working to get them elected President. In each of these projects, I was far more focused on what was happening between their ears than the raw quality of their work and, as a result, many students felt the freedom to continue developing their skills outside of class, creating websites, learning to write code, learning new video editing techniques, and more, far exceeding what I could have taught them in the constraints of a one-semester, 90-minute block schedule. It was the boundless possibility of technology as experienced by my students that piqued my interest in a Master’s of Education, focused on Educational Technology Leadership. I wanted to grow. I wanted to learn more. I wanted to improve. I wanted to expand my influence and help other teachers discover what had been revealed to me through these four years as a  classroom teacher. I had already started presenting at conferences and really enjoyed getting to share my ideas with others as well as continually feeding my own desire to learn and grow.

I would move from the classroom into an instructional coaching role in Austin, Texas to assist with an iPad initiative that would provide a device for every student and teacher in the district. My role was to work with middle school teachers to create new learning opportunities and I found myself again trying to blend a great student experience, strong learning outcomes, and ways for technology to create modalities of learning previously not possible. It was in this role that I really began to expand where I sought input for new ideas. I was fortunate enough to be a part of EdTech Austin, located in a downtown startup coworking space where I could connect with other educators and some entrepreneurs and ask more expansive, generative questions. These opportunities propelled me into a consulting role for a number of education technology startups, helping them to create new products and strategies to better serve teachers.

I was hired at a middle school in Chapel Hill shortly after moving to North Carolina and was given great latitude to design and execute a new vision for what teaching and learning might look like in that school. My thinking would shift again, this time expanding to encompass not just classroom experiences, but organizational structures and methods for systemic change. It was here I caught the attention of the Friday Institute. I was invited to facilitate one of their programs aimed at instructional coaches and not long after this, I was asked to join the team full-time. In this role, I am able to leverage the whole of my experience as well as untried, divergent theories. I am able to work with any variety of education stakeholders and not just hear about what they need, but I’m able to experience it for myself and help create mutually beneficial solutions.

In truth, I am an artist. My media are my learning experiences. My canvas is a room full of educators, wondering what their day holds in store. My muse is a vision for the future where students play substantive roles in creating their own destiny, well-equipped with the skills and dispositions they’ll need to take them there. Instead of color theory, I’m digging into behavioral psychology and organizational politics and neo-constructivist pedagogy. I’m spending a great deal of time pulling together the right elements to create the perfect effect: I’m changing what you believe to be possible. In truth, I am a creative. I have compiled a decade of research and practice into a portfolio that I can pull from at will. I spend a great deal of time in UX design, but instead of wireframes, I rely on sentence stems and metacognitive questioning strategies. At my core, I’m in sales. Will you “buy” with your time and your teaching what I’m trying to sell you? Will my sales pitch resonate through compelling design, meeting a need you felt but had never named? In truth, I am a designer. At my desk are notebooks and Google Drive files full of blueprints for how to facilitate deep, meaningful change personally and organizationally. I spend my days sketching notes about how best to connect you to a future you haven’t seen, a reality unknown. I am trying to design and create much more than a product: I am creating the very capacity you’ll need to create products for yourself.

In this spirit, I pursue my Ph.D. in Design. My strengths lie in my ability to take what has been a heretofore unconventional path and show others how to blaze their own trail.  I am not naive to what I lack, particularly in terms of the ‘hard skills’ of design, but have yet to shy away from a learning experience that didn’t also refine and sharpen my understanding and expertise. Further, I look forward to being able to work with trained designers and creatives, perhaps even in a studio setting, to be able to see how we might complement one another to create new opportunities at State, in North Carolina, and even around the country. Through research, through iteration, through design I am privileged to work alongside the best educators our state has to offer, helping to raise a new creative class. But Education cannot afford to remain in its walled garden. Education must reclaim its heritage rooted in learning, one that always excelled when it eschewed the silo in favor of the studio; when it remembers that it is in the diversity of our backgrounds and experiences that we find particularly interesting and nontraditional solutions to the problems we face. NC State offers a world-class College of Design and excels in its ability to bring together elite minds that both think nontraditionally and then do the extraordinary. I seek to continue this longstanding tradition of designing the future for our state, for our country, and for our world.

[greggarner87]

The phrase “technology and education” usually means inventing new gadgets to teach the same old stuff in a thinly disguised version of the same old way. Moreover, if the gadgets are computers, the same old teaching becomes incredibly more expensive and biased towards its dumbest parts, namely the kind of rote learning in which measurable results can be obtained by treating the children like pigeons in a Skinner box.

Seymour Papert & Cynthia Solomon, 1971

[greggarner87]

The Pedagogy of Events

The format is familiar: moderately famous keynote, featured speaker(s), luncheon, panel, and maybe a breakout. Women wear suits or dresses, men in button-downs. Business cards, forced small talk, and promises of reconnecting at a later date. Fluorescent lights, projectors and screens, and far too much polite applause. The audience is full of familiar faces, the content is interchangeable, and the technology is hit or miss. (Bonus points when the panel has trouble with their handheld mics.)

I’m confident the first person to pioneer this kind of corporate/leadership/executive event was heralded as an innovator. It’s brilliant strategy to convene a large gathering of leaders to discuss a single topic or idea. Get some experts to share their advice/perspective and their ability to execute is transferred to your organization in the form of ‘thought leadership.’

And yet, it’s supremely frustrating. Because it’s just bad pedagogy.

Think of the breadth and depth of experience represented in the room. Think of the collective potential impact. Think about the contexts in which each person is currently working towards whatever goal/objective formed the gathering in the first place. And yet we persist in event programming that completely ignores the excellence in the room. We refuse to engage participants in a way that hopes to change anything at the close of the event. Participants sit for 3+ hours at a time when we know it is neither physically healthy nor educational appropriate to do so. They aren’t given any kind of cognitive task nor social activity (aside from the obligatory ‘networking lunch’) through which they can process their thoughts nor develop implementation plans of action.

What if event programmers thought about new ways to engage participants that wasn’t audience-agnostic? What if there were prototypes involved? What if the keynote speaker facilitated a working session to turn their ideas into actions? What if participants were required to participate, as in participatory learning environments? How might these kinds of events change from abstract think-tank lecture series to practical, engaged learning? And what if that learning spurred action? What if that action was focused around a single topic or idea? Well, then you’d have a reason to convene.

[greggarner87]

Minor desk upgrade. Added some giant sticky notes for quick access to visual thoughts and project planning. #ShowYourWork #designyourworkspace (at Friday Institute for Educational Innovation)

[greggarner87]

On Teaching Well: Sunday Morning Thoughts

1 - What if churches decided to redesign their Sunday mornings around solid adult learning theory? What if, instead of sermons, you went to have conversations and discuss ideas that mattered to you in your life? What if the sermon time was really more of a guided/facilitated discussion? Or, and here’s something that would really disrupt religion... What if Sundays utilized a flipped classroom model? If you have specific things worth teaching, why not provide that for folks to watch during the week and then on Sundays, you could spend more time really digging in, asking questions, and having interesting conversations. 

2 - One of the biggest hurdles to overcome in the modern American church is this superficial, consumeristic mindset that is all too common. “Entertain me,” say the congregants. That is, it’s a routine that is completely devoid from actual human interaction/connection. You walk in, get handed a piece of paper, go through the usual stand/sit/sing/listen/cracker/juice/go-in-peace and at any point in time, it seems as though connecting with others is one of the main functions of the service while simultaneously being a nuisance to the schedule and flow of the service. (Which, let’s be honest, ‘service’ is maybe the worst possible name for a Sunday morning gathering unless you’re actually providing aid to others.) What if church leveraged a social learning theory that said our growth and development is more contingent upon our interactions with those around us in partnership with the leadership rather than a one-to-many approach that results in the content of a Sunday morning being completely independent of who is in the room. Any classroom teacher can help explain here how, despite the same lesson plan across multiple class periods, no two classes are the same in terms of interaction. And yet, many of the same learning goals are accomplished.

I have no idea if this kind of church would catch on, but I look at the data around church attendance in the US and I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t a content problem, but rather a pedagogy problem.

[greggarner87]

Here’s a sneak peek of my February First Thoughts newsletter. Sign up here: http://garnerg.weebly.com/first-thoughts.html

[greggarner87]

#bif2015 thoughts that I carry with me

[greggarner87]

I’ve started a monthly newsletter (a collection, really) of things that might interest you. If you’d like to sign up, I promise to only email you once per month on the first of the month.

http://garnerg.weebly.com/first-thoughts.html

[greggarner87]

I’d never been to an education conference that took seriously the issue of educator health. But upon picking up my bag and badge for Big Ideas Fest 2015, I was informed that FitBit was a sponsor and that I was invited to sign up to compete against other attendees by wearing a FitBit Charge during our time in San Jose. I’ve long been a strong proponent that we need to pay more attention to our health and it made perfect sense that we would wrap physical health into our ongoing conversations about student emotional, psychological, and relational health. One of the panelists even reflected upon how her experiences as an educator affected her psychological health!

Being part of this social experiment wearing a FitBit for the past two days, I have made a couple of observations. First and foremost, I’m far more cognizant of my need to take the stairs, get up and walk around more, and generally seek ways to keep my body in motion. We know from research that bodies in motion facilitate higher quality learning, but having a peer group around you that are also participating in a ‘movement challenge’ places more emphasis on the need to keep active. 

For full disclosure purposes, yes, I did pack running clothes and I had already planned on getting in a short run during my stay. But the FitBit challenge upped the ante. Instead of a 2-mile jog, I found myself waking up early Friday morning to knock out 4 miles. Instead of taking some down time on Thursday afternoon during the ‘break’ time, I grabbed my headphones and an audiobook and went for an hour-long walk. I was very intentional about trying to be more active. 

So here I am, 12 hours from the close of #bif2015 and I’ve logged more than 38,000 steps. I’ve climbed nearly 50 flights of stairs. I’ve been active for 514 minutes. No, a fitness tracker doesn’t make you more active. But it does make you more aware. And just like one of our speakers this week mentioned, if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.

[greggarner87]

Each month, I share some things. 

My focus for this edition was intentionality and focus. If you enjoy what you read, would you mind reblogging?

[greggarner87]

I’m such a nerd. I’m geeking out over this planning tool. It’s powered by your current Google Calendar and allows all kinds of sweet teaching-specific integrations. 

[greggarner87]

There is a moral imperative to teach students about the ‘online world’ as it were. Both as a standalone entity and an extension of the ‘real’ world we experience face-to-face.

Thank you to iKeepSafe for creating this matrix to help align instructional efforts with the need for this kind of privacy education.

[greggarner87]

This.