I’ve recently been talking a lot about futures-thinking in education, and if there is one “take home message” that I’d like to underscore it’s this:  We all need to start thinking of ourselves as futures-thinkers and future-builders. If you haven’t seen it already I highly recommend taking a few minutes to watch this Keri Facer video.

So…What does it mean to be a future-builder?  “Building” usually requires starting with a bit of a plan, right?  The question is, who designs the plans? I think we all need to have a hand in shaping the future, and that means we all need to think about ourselves as designers as well as doers.

I’ve long been interested in “design thinking” and last week I stumbled upon a rather inspiring set of videos and resources on Design Thinking for Educators, developed in the USA by a Riverdale+IDEO. The Design Thinking toolkit is available for download for free and is well worth a look. For a little introduction to design thinking, check out the video below. I think this could be a fantastic and inspiring resource not only for teachers and school leaders, but anyone wanting to take on the challenge of designing solutions to fit their own community’s needs and make a difference.

Rachel Bolstad Future focussed issues, Shifting schooling, Teachers' work

So far, my favourite education-related read of this year has been Learning Futures: Education, Technology, and Social Change by UK professor Keri Facer. Her work aligns strongly with many ideas and questions that I have been thinking about over the last few years.  I found it a very provocative and inspiring book (on my insistence it is currently “doing the rounds” at NZCER – filled with doxens of post-it-flags which I insisted my colleagues leave in place so that when it finally returns to my desk, I can quickly thumb through some of the key ideas that really leapt out for me ).

For me one of the most important messages was the idea of schools feeling empowered to see themselves as “future-builders” . Incidentally, while looking around at what else I could find, I found my way to this resource.

If you can’t get your hands on the book or want a quick taster, here is a recent video from the author –  definitely worth a look.

Rachel Bolstad Future focussed issues book, ICT, keri facer, learning futures, technology

Rachel Bolstad Dealing with complexity, Future focussed issues

For many years some of us at NZCER have been chipping away at  the gnarly question of what it might take to achieve deep levels of community and public engagement with education – not just for the purposes of  engaging the community in debates around the perceived educational issues of today, but to start to collectively reimagine public education to ensure that it is relevant for the future. We call this “future-oriented community engagement with education”.

I’m very aware of the ease with which a term like “future-oriented” can be used to mean everything and nothing. For example, I’m fairly certain that almost everyone involved with education (including teachers, students, families, and communities) believes that what they are doing now is preparing learners “for the future”; this idea is so ingrained that it’s almost tautological.

But as I have discussed in a previous blogposting and in a lot of my writing, in my opinion most of us actually have a very poor set of  ”futures thinking” skills and tools. This isn’t necessarily a failing of our intellects, but rather of our own educational experiences and the fact that the human environment has changed (and continues to change) so rapidly that our basic default settings for thinking about and planning for the future simply can’t cut it anymore. To my mind we may as well just come  to terms with this, and with due humility,  just start getting  on with the work of assisting ourselves and each other to become better futures thinkers and futures-builders.  This is good work and important work, and really, really challenging work.  However, as an educational researcher I have seen how the inherent rewards of this kind of work are energy-building, “buzzy”, and above all, deeply meaningful for the people who are engaged with it. (Years ago at NZCER we  adopted the phrase “hard fun” to describe this kind of work, and it still crops up in our conversations from time to time).

That brings me to another question I’ve been worrying away at for the last few years: What is – or should be – the role of research in informing, supporting, critiquing, or evaluating the kind of future-oriented work that we are arguing needs to happen?  If education needs to change, what about educational research? Where are we positioned in all of this? Should we be trailing behind the changes  to document and make sense of them?  Should we be informing and directing the changes, or leaving it to others to pick up our work so that their work is “research-informed” and “evidence-based”? Is it our role to sit on the sidelines or to get in amongst it?

I think many people assume that research is about finding answers, but in my experience it’s  all about reaching the meaningful questions. If my theme question for 2010-2011 was, “what does it mean to take a future focus in education” then my theme question for 2011-2012 has been “what does it mean to take a future-focussed approach to research?”. This question has filtered through several of my recent projects; you’ll see it addressed it in section 1 of the Future-oriented learning and teaching report NZCER recently prepared for the Ministry of Education, and it’s picked it up and addressed it again in a new working paper called: What role might research play in supporting future-oriented community engagement with education?

The working paper builds on several pieces of our previous work, and in particular this piece by Ally Bull.

As you can see, my own thinking on these matters is still forming and changing and growing, and I’d be interested to hear any thoughts from educators, researchers, or anyone else who is interested in discussing this!

Rachel Bolstad Community engagement, Future focussed issues, Shifting schooling community engagement, future focus, future of research, future-oriented learning

The Ministry of Education has just released a report we prepared for them entitled Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching – a New Zealand perspective.

It’s great to have this work out in the public sphere, and given its focus I think it may be of particular interest to you in our Shifting Thinking community.

The report draws together findings from new data and more than 10 years of research on current practice and futures-thinking in education. It discusses some emerging principles for future learning, how these are currently expressed in New Zealand educational thinking and practice,  and what they could look like in future practice.

We hope that this piece of work can be a platform for continued thinking about the future of learning and teaching in New Zealand and I would be interested to hear from any of you who have a chance to engage with the report (or those of you who might have contributed to the research!)

Rachel Bolstad Future focussed issues, Shifting schooling future focus, future-oriented learning, report

It is Monday afternoon after the 2012 Shifting Thinking Workshop and this is my office floor…

Sifting through this eclectic pile of paper reveals fascinating traces of  thoughts and conversations that took place at the Workshop.   The researcher in me is puzzling now about what to do with the traces I have. Can I pull them together into some kind of coherent narrative about what happened, or even just find a way to share them back out as a resource for the people who were there? Should I keep everything? Should I have someone type all these up for me? Should I take photos of everything?

Yet I know that for every thought, question, or idea written down and currently residing on my office floor, are dozens and hundreds of others that exist now only in the memories of those who experience them last week, and even pulling together the best of what’s on my floor right now isn’t going to fully capture that. And that’s just the paper trail… we still have various video footage, photos, and other bits and pieces that record traces of Shifting Thinking in different media and many decisions to make about what to do with it all!

What next? Where to from here? How will you track or measure what difference has this made? These are the kinds of questions people were asking me at the Workshop. I’m not sure yet, I said. I don’t know. Those are a great questions. I wonder that too. What do YOU think? I feel like I should have had better answers, but I don’t yet. I hope you will keep asking me though, and I hope you will keep asking yourselves that too, because these are the questions that will take us towards our next opportunit(ies) for building something together again (maybe in a future Shifting Thinking workshop, or maybe in one of the new spaces that has been created in your own thinking, or in your new connections to ideas or to other people).

There’s more post-match analysis to come; of course. We will be sending out a post-workshop evaluation form, and thinking about how we can stay connected and keep feeding the energy for our work  and of our “shifting thinking”. We’ll have a go at getting a selection of the most interesting and useful  traces from the Workshop up onto this website so they are there for all of the Shifting Thinking community to use. But for now,  I will leave you with a few traces that I have picked up from crumpled-up balls of paper on my floor. Maybe they were your words or the words of someone you sat with or talked to at the Workshop, and perhaps they will inspire you to share more thoughts and reflections about your Workshop experience

Reminded of how thinking can shift when you work with other people.

I’ve been smiling so much my face hurts.

Liberated. Confidence to make the change. Empowered to do so. Opened my mind. Energised.

Being in the room with people who are curious – may not know the answers…. but curious!

Being with people who “get it”!! Who are excited by the process of learning and what that may mean for creating active citizens.

Use the students – consult! They are our resource.

I have had time to listen and space to think about connectoins between ideas – it has been helpful/productive/purposeful.

Risks have to be taken.

Inspiredness about connectedness and possibilities.

 

 

Rachel Bolstad Workshop 2012

Countdown to The Shifting Thinking Workshop, May 3-4 ……

We look forward to seeing you in just under two weeks! (Make sure you don’t forget to register, if you haven’t already)

Below you’ll find some helpful information prior to the Workshop and a small request…

1. Pre-Workshop: Please answer these two questions!

Prior to the Workshop, please take a few minutes to respond to two questions (and a third optional question).
Make sure you scroll down to the bottom and click “submit” when you have completed your answers.

If you can’t see the form below click here.

2. Workshop start times 

Day 1 (Thursday) begins at St James Theatre, 63-95 Courtenay Place.  Tea and coffee will be available from 8 a.m, the registration desk will be open from 8.15 a.m. and all participants should be ready for the welcome at 9am.

Day 2  (Friday) begins with tea and coffee at 8.30 a.m and we kick off with a warmup for our day’s activities at 9.a.m 

3. Coming directly from the airport?

If you are flying into Wellington on Thursday morning and coming directly to the St James Theatre, there will be space to store your bags for the day.

Options and approximate costs for getting to the St James from the airport are given below:

4. Start thinking about the entry point session options

Details about each of the  entry point session options are  posted on the Shifting Thinking Workshop page. Think about which sessions interest you the most – Yes we know, it’s so hard to choose, they are all so good! You won’t have to decide exactly which sessions you are going to until Thursday morning, when you meet with your learning group.

5. Social interlude and dinner options on Thursday night

On Thursday evening there will be a chance to get together in a relaxed environment to chat and mingle with Workshop facilitators  and participants.  For catering purposes, we’ll check with you at registration on Thursday morning to confirm whether you will be attending. The event starts DOWNSTAIRS from the Workshop at the Jimmy Bar. Nibbles will be provided and a cash bar where you can purchase  a full range of hot and cold drinks.

We will provide a list and map of nearby restaurants  and we encourage you to make some new friends at the Workshop and take them with you as you explore Wellington’s excellent food offerings.

6. Spread the word to peers and colleagues
If you have peers and colleagues who may be interested in attending the Shifting Thinking Workshop, there are still places available – but registrations close in one week. Spread the word so they don’t miss out.

7. Follow us on Twitter, and join the Shifting Thinking online community

If you’re a Twitter user, you might might like to follow us. Remember, our Twittername is @shiftingthinkng (no final “i” in the word “thinkng”). And if you haven’t already, why not register as a member of the Shifting Thinking online community?

8. See you soon!

Rachel Bolstad Workshop 2012

Jessica Hutchings and Alex Barnes from Te Wahanga, NZCER, discuss the perspective their session on identity and culture will bring to shifting thinking about participating and contributing.

Rachel Bolstad Culture & Identity, Workshop 2012 Alex Barnes, Culture and Identity, Jessica Hutchings, ST2012promo, video interview

Why is it often difficult to give up control and share power with our learners, even when we believe this is important? Jenny Whatman says she drew her inspiration from an incident that occurred more than 30 years ago, when she was a drama teacher in an Auckland secondary school. You’ll have a chance to explore these ideas through process drama in the “sharing power and responsibility” entry point session at the 2012 Shifting Thinking Workshop

Rachel Bolstad Power and responsibility, Workshop 2012 jenny whatman, power and control, shifting teaching, ST2012 promo, video interview

In this video NZCER chief researcher Rose Hipkins says getting students to participate in and contribute to the creation of new knowledge is something she has long seen as a dilemma, since she was a classroom teacher. She talks about the entry point session at the 2012 Shifting Thinking Workshop. Read more about this session in Sue McDowall’s previous blogposting.

Rachel Bolstad Knowledge generation, Workshop 2012 David Perkins, knowledge, knowledge-building, rose hipkins, science education, ST2012 promo, video interview