The Kaizen Classroom - Teach, Tweak, Repeat.

One small tweak here, one small tweak there - imagine the difference that you might make over the course of a day, a week, a term… a year?

While designing some ‘stacking starter’ activities this year, I have been thinking about how the first five minutes of a class are the ‘golden moment’ to set the tone of the class, invite them into the learning and engage with the content. If you think about our students as users and apply some UX (user experience design), we need to be mindful that they have been tuned in to different teachers and different environments in a fairly relentless cycle before they get to us. So what can we do to make it welcoming, engaging, and exciting? I have been thinking about this a lot - and beyond the first five minutes and the great power of an effective starter - the answer can be found in Kaizen.

Kaizen is the Japanese art of continuous improvement. James Clear talks about a version of it through a different lens when he writes about habit stacking (stacking a new habit onto another once the previous one is ingrained) in Atomic Habits and I think that habit stacking AND constant tweaking to seek continuous improvement has enormous potential in the classroom.

This term my focus has been on the ‘first five’ of classroom culture. Embracing the ‘DO NOW’, I have been playing with this space as a place to explore literacy (word games), ignite problem-solving and critical thinking (puzzles or problems to figure out as they come in), retention strategies (list five key words from last lesson), Agency (choose from the choice board) and journaling opportunities. I have used it as a space for agency with ‘This or That’ frames and as a place to specifically target 21st Century Skills and learning dispositions that sit ‘beside’ current learning objectives. So what does Kaizen have to do with it?

In the ever-evolving landscape of education, finding effective ways to enhance teaching methods and empower students is a perpetual goal. And as a perpetual goal, we need to be agile and constantly shifting in order to meet it effectively. Kaizen - the Japanese term that translates to "continuous improvement," is a way to think about what we are doing as a process and not a product. It is a useful way to think about how we can constantly tweak the dynamics of our learning environments. Teach. Tweak. Repeat. It even has a fun ring to it.

At the heart, Kaizen is the belief that small, incremental changes can lead to significant improvements over time. Similar to habit stacking (This is adding a new habit to an existing habit - like listening to a podcast while driving to work since driving to work is an existing habit and listening to a podcast is the new desired habit we ‘stack’ onto it), tiny wins can result in large victories over time. In the context of education, this means continually seeking ways to refine the way we deliver, present, and reflect on the ‘glorious messiness’ of teaching and learning.

The Kaizen Classroom - Key Steps:

1. Embrace a Growth Mindset:

   • If you try something once and fail that does not mean that it will never work. A growth mindset helps us to think about what the students were carrying with them into the lesson, what we (we are not devoid of our own baggage) were carrying into the lesson, and realising that a single attempt is not a finite attempt nor is it the end product. As teachers, we need to have a growth mindset and model as well as encourage the belief that intelligence and abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work and, in this case, reflective iteration.

2. Continuous Self-Reflection:

   • I have a ‘plus-minus interesting’ reflection log that I have been keeping in my planning book. I jokingly refer to it as ‘Tragedy/Comedy’ sometimes (Have you seen that Will Ferrel film Stranger than Fiction? It is one of my favourite films). I regularly reflect on what worked and didn’t work and look for ways to shift and change my delivery. Was it too hard? Was it too easy? Were the instructions unclear? Was my technology choice fit for purpose? I am never afraid to ask the students what they need more of or less of and to really tune in to what they tell me. Regular reflection on teaching methods and outcomes allows us to figure out small things we might change when we try again. (Notice - we - not me). We can identify areas to refine and improve, and be open to growing - even if it still doesn’t work in round two.

3. Small, Gradual Changes:

   • It takes a long time to turn a large ship. If we think about how students have experienced school, how they have experienced the world and what their expectations are for what learning should ‘look like’ - we would be unwise to give them too much to chew on for fear they might choke. Having said that, they can eat larger and larger pieces gradually. In a year 10 class (over a term) we have gone from the students ‘doing nothing’ when coming in to jumping straight in, knowing what they are learning and where they are up to, following a weekly quest (a map I make for them each week) and working collaboratively to find out about questions as they come up. This is a big win - but it wouldn’t be there without nine weeks of incremental baby steps. Over these nine weeks I have gradually released their expectation of me as ‘sage on stage’ and taught them the skills they need to navigate ‘trickier’ and ‘unchartered’ learning experiences. If we avoid drastic overhauls and instead focus on small, manageable adjustments, we can make meaningful change happen. Incremental changes applied carefully can lead to lasting improvements.

4. Student-Centric Approach:

   • An exit ticket that requires a bit of bravery to administer is, ‘What do you want less of?’ Asking students how learning has been/is going for them is vital for successful iteration. Is this map working for you? Do you think these instructions could be clearer? Would you prefer to be quizzed at the beginning or end of the week? Students are the end users of our learning design and we can tailor our teaching strategies to meet the diverse needs and learning styles of all students - even if it is just one baby step at a time. Kaizen helps us to deliver tiny improvements for every student.

5. Data-Driven Decision-Making:

   • Iterations can also target success criteria. Recently, a student told me that he couldn’t prepare for the Current Affairs Quiz each week because he didn’t have time to read the news. A tiny tweak to my planning now includes ‘news time’ to read the headlines as a starter activity (that golden first five). To top it off, this tiny tweak has prompted me to think about how I can offer a ‘media smorgasbord’ to gently push students to consider different sources of news. I am looking forward to sharing Future Crunch with them (an optimist’s news feed) and slipping in some lateral research skills. My next ‘This or That’ for them may now be ‘read the headlines’ but with the choices of two different global news websites or obviously biased sources. We can utilise data (like a student underperforming in a current affairs quiz) to inform the next incremental tweak to our teaching practice. Tiny weeny eeny meeny adjustments every day can lead to improved outcomes over time. Just because we plan something one way doesn’t mean it can’t be tweaked in the process of delivery in order to be more responsive.

6. Culture of Collaboration:

   • For Kaizen to have the most Bang for Buck, we should all be talking about what we are trying, what we are tweaking and what we are failing at. I love sharing ideas in the classroom and love the stories of things that haven’t worked as much just as much as I love hearing about techniques that have worked. Teach, tweak, repeat - imagine if we all shared our wins and losses with each other and how much faster our strength as a collective might grow. Effective communication and a culture of collaboration amongst staff can amplify the impact of Kaizen in the classroom to become a genuine culture of learning and innovation beyond single cell iterations.

Most measuring sticks are divided by little steps. We can learn from them too. Inch by inch…

Here are some ways that Kaizen can be used in teaching:

1. Lesson Planning: We can add tiny updates to incorporate new ideas, technologies, and teaching methods. What if we tried ‘one new thing’ each week?

2. Feedback Loops: How are we getting student voice regularly? We might tweak how we get feedback so that we can be more responsive to students’ experiences.

3. Professional Development: Kaizen also applies to professional development. Though perhaps not daily, - monthly, termly or annual reviews of practice can promote a culture of continuous improvement. Need someone? (Hello! Pick me!)

4. Classroom Environment: Make a tweak to the classroom environment or staff room each week. It could be a new quote for the wall, a new display or a new way of sharing learning outcomes. Small wins add up.

5. Target the first five: Like my examples above, maybe the first five minutes is a worthy space to focus your energy.

I have touched on the benefits of a Kaizen Classroom - and in a nutshell - the Kaizen Classroom is the belief that small wins can lead to big victories over time. Whether it is improved engagement, streamlined ‘openers’, less time wasted in transitions, more engagement and buy-in with assessments or better relationships - Kaizen is being responsive, adaptive and reflective in the pursuit of doing things better.

The journey of education is just as important as the destination. If it doesn’t work the first time, tweak it. Try again. Tweak it. Try again. Twerk it. Work it. Repeat. (Deliberate typo for fun). If we apply Kaizen principles to teaching, we are never settling for ‘this is how it is because it has always been like this’. No. We can do better. We can not only transform our classrooms one baby step at a time but we can also shape a brighter, bolder, braver future. What little thing might you do differently?

The Teaching Tree - Dive into the Archive

I have been happily blogging on my Wordpress ‘Teaching Tree’ Blog for years and, even though Squarespace says that I can import all of my content across to this website, I am yet to figure it out.

In the interim, this is a ‘satisficing’ measure - this blog can be window to all of the blogging and writing I have been doing over on my theteachingtree.blog

On my blog, you can find teaching tips and tricks, reflections on what works or why we need to try harder to make things work, general musings on pedagogy, poetry, an education manifesto and more.

This content is in the magic portal on its way over to this website but the time-space-time-life-reality continuum may cause some delays.

Top Tip - Secret teacher affirmation stash ideas

Sometimes you have days where the kids are scratchy, everyone is tired, no one wants to go to school/work, the spoon drawer is low, the plan didn’t work, your coffee got cold before you got around to drinking it and you forgot your lunch. It’s never one thing…

On those days, it’s handy to have a pick-me-up in your back pocket.

For me it is a bookmark.

Secretly and stealthily hiding in my book is a ‘Stay Weird’ affirmation postcard. I think I got it in a package when I ordered a custom vintage plate with a crow on it for my wall once. It is a picture of a girl with a face hugger on her face. It makes me laugh and reminds me to be myself. I don’t do what I do to fit in. I’m not afraid to stand out. I’m not afraid to stand up.

There are loads of people out there who will have the same humour as you do. And whatever it is, embrace it.

Keep doing what you do. Every drop in the bucket is still a drop in the bucket.

Some other fun places to hide your ‘keep your chin up’ affirmations are:

1. Your login password

2. Your screensaver

3. Your email signature (depending on where you work and what it is)

4. The dashboard of your car

5. Your desk

6. Your pen

7. Your pencil

8. The bathroom

9. The mirror

10. Your phone wallpaper

Stay weird.

Image courtesy of Red Bubble. @Luvseven

‘Only sunshine and love today’ - Collaboration with One Million Happy Thoughts - Katrina Ward - NZ Artist series.

It will never work if we don't try

The 21st Century should have transformed the way that we approach teaching and learning by now. But in many cases, we have a long way to go. What best practice ‘looks like’ has evolved significantly since the ‘train them for the factory’ mentality of 20th Century Institutions, but many students are yet to experience what 21st Century learning looks like, sounds like, and even feels like.

While traditional 20th Century methods emphasise ‘chalk and talk’ and ‘guess what is in my head because I am the expert’ conformity, modern pedagogy is about empowering learners with critical thinking skills, creativity, collaboration, digital fluency and agency to choose and direct their own learning. Yet, there are still educators who, clinging to a fixed mindset of the past, are fearful that letting go of their ‘sage on stage’ position and allowing their students to think for themselves will lead to chaos, revolt and a stripping of mana. My mantra is this: "It will never work if we don’t try".

Thinking with a growth mindset is the only way through.

Why does a fixed mindset get in the way?

A fixed mindset is the belief that learners’ abilities, intelligence, and talents are fixed traits that cannot be developed. These students don’t learn like that. These children can’t think for themselves. These children don’t work well together. The only effective teaching is lecturing. Students won’t behave unless we make them do X. (etc).

BUT

If we don’t give students an opportunity to learn for themselves, think for themselves, work with each other and try new things, they simply never will. It will never work if we don’t try. Therefore, we have to try if we want it to work.

Risk-taking needs to apply to teachers as well as to students. Asking ‘what if’ and ‘I wonder what might happen when’ is the beginning of making meaningful change. Using the classroom more like a laboratory and looking for hypotheses, catalysts and experimental data is a shift in mindset which allows for more ‘play’ in the gears. Fixed mindset teachers may fear that allowing students to think for themselves will lead to mistakes and chaos in the classroom (and sometimes it does but this doesn’t mean pulling back and scaffolding more to try again). Having immersed myself in classes with just such chaos, it is a switch in thinking about ‘what learning looks like.’ Learning does not look like writing down what your teacher says. Learning looks like making mistakes, giving things a go, seeing if others have the missing skills to support you, supporting others and becoming brave to try new things with thinking and experimentation.

We underestimate student potential. Recently I gave some year 9 students an experiential learning opportunity to figure some things out. Research sources were provided alongside a ‘how to make an explainer video’ on Canva video link. I gave them a brief explanation of what an explainer video was and then pressed the ‘invisible launch button’. Some students struggled. Some were slow at first. Some teetered on the edge, as if on a cliff, and were afraid to click the links. But some flew. And then others worked out how to fly too…

With another class I have been ‘weaning them’ into it. Each time I launch a weekly quest (the whole week’s learning on a learning map (literally a road map made on Canva), I am taking away a bit of the scaffolding. Baby steps. Baby steps. But such important baby steps.

Students are often capable of so much more than they're given credit for. But, how can we know, if we never give them space to try?

The conformity over creativity conundrum is rife. I want students to listen and do what I say when I am giving them instructions. But I also want them to feel confident to ask questions and challenge the status quo. I want them to work out if there are gaps in my thinking and I want them to suggest new ways to show their learning. If I had a fixed mindset before designing tasks for them - i.e. I must give them a worksheet or a cloze activity with the answers because that is all they are capable of - then how could I know what great new things they might fill the gaps with? How will I know that they can’t make their own explainer video? How will I know that they can’t write, edit and record a podcast script if I don’t offer them the opportunity. We can always redirect, revisit the initial launch stage and tweak instructions to add more scaffolding - but the important thing is that we have to try. We have to try to give them an opportunity to try.

Teachers should be more like cats. Curious. Confidently trying new things and bouncing back cutely.

If we don’t try, we will never know.

Here are some simple things to start ‘future proofing’ learning experiences. (Things to try in order to know)…

1. Encourage Curiosity:

Provide a topic and get the students to ask the questions. Use a squid diagram for one question and one answer to spark a new question and a new answer. Rinse and repeat. Then launch a discovery experience where they find out the answers to the class questions.

2. Embrace Mistakes:

Mistakes can be re-labeled as learning opportunities in disguise. This goes for teaching as well as learning. I tried a strategy - it didn’t work. Now I know that the strategy didn’t work, I can adopt a different strategy. If that doesn’t work, I can try something else. Eventually, something will give. As I reflect on wins and losses in the learning design process, I can use my failures as markers of success for what DOES work. And what does work is not giving up. We have a duty to model resilience and a willingness to try new things. Students may even increase their resilience and confidence as they figure out that learning is lifelong and rewarding.

3. Foster Independent Thinking:

Instead of spoon-feeding information, teachers can guide students in researching, analysing, and forming their own conclusions. This empowers students to develop independent thinking skills. If we teach to a test, teach only for an assessment, or teach only in ‘one way’, what is the actual output we are addressing? Are we fostering a new generation of thinkers and innovators? Do we want the world to be better? If we do, we have to try.

4. Celebrate Diversity:

Every student is unique, and their strengths and interests vary. We can celebrate and harness this diversity and create an inclusive environment where different perspectives are valued and explored as new realms of cognition that could 'strengthen the pack’.

5. Provide Constructive Feedback:

A common complaint amongst teachers at the moment is that students only do things for credits. How can we change that mindset? What if we took grading out of the mix altogether? Feedback should focus on growth and improvement, not just grades. Constructive feedback helps students understand where they can improve and motivates them to take initiative in their learning journey. If you are operating a ‘launch and explore’ experiential learning class, then you are free to be giving daily commentary to students as learning happens because you are not anchored to the board.

As teachers let go of a fixed mindset and embrace a more growth-oriented approach, they open up a world of possibilities for their students. Some things I can’t change. I will never be tall - but I can wear big boots and feel taller for fun. In a rapidly changing world we need to adapt and think critically, be creative and try new things. We teachers need to adapt and adopt new ways of presenting learning for students to have a go. We have to ‘make the pie’ with them rather than ‘serving the pie’. And if we don’t give it a go - only one thing is certain - and that is that it will never work.

Painting learning - what might it look like?

This drawing is an experiment in using colour and form to represent teaching and learning. It visualises complex concepts, growth, connection, support, communication, place and digital tools in a single ‘denkbild’ image.

Education denkbild – thought picture

What do you think?

Let me explain starting with green and pink.

These two colours are stacked like bricks and intersect through the middle. These are like lessons or building blocks where one lesson or concept should ideally stack over a previous one and connect to it. They alternate green and pink because they are online and offline. It doesn’t really matter which one is which because they are interchangeable.

The white cellular column in the centre is the support and strength of teacher interaction. It is a trunk through the middle like a growing tree – all learning moves through it/can be guided by it but it is a layer over the stacks of experience and learning represented by the green and the pink. It is organic and cellular looking because it is always growing and responsive.

The pink dots scattering across the green and the green across the pink are to show that learning can be off and online, digital and analogue – even if predominantly one, it can have elements of the other within it. I.e. home learning with a zoom session, or in class learning with a paper based home learning task. It is like yin and yang.

The top blue shapes represent the scaffolded growth towards self directed learning – blue sky thinking and discovery. The pink and green overlapping dots represent the ties to the previous learning but also to the future learning state being an easy blend of online and offline, home and school, in person and remote and the shapes are floating because they are growing and flexing.

One important aspect is that even though there is a gap on the left, all of the learning connects somehow. Through prior experience and through echoes of form.

The flower pattern at the top represents the adjacent possible and the lifelong learner future state. It is flowers because it is blooming. It is pattern because it is structured. It is dots because it is the seed of the cells in the centre of the ‘tree’.

This was a really interesting exercise in thinking and symbolism. I enjoyed it as a process and it took me a long time to get my thinking ‘straight’ enough to represent in visual form.

What do you think? Have a go at drawing a process to help to illuminate it! The results could be surprising.

‘And this is my picture’.

Inspiration from ‘Sand talk’ by Tyson Yunkaporta and a deliberate revisiting of my masters thesis ‘Childhood as place – a denkbild’ exploring metaphor and mental imagery as a way to deepen and extend thinking.

Connections game from NYT ticking all the right boxes

This is a quick post to applaud the new (Beta) Connections game released by the New York Times.

I already love Wordle and Spelling Bee and recently we have spent wintery family evenings mulling over letters trying to reach genius level or musing on spelling prefixes we might have missed. Our daughter, 9, nonchalantly offered ‘napoleon’ as a word without even trying too hard for a recent game which made us all stop and go, woah.

Word games are connection-building, conversation-starting, learning-igniting AND boredom-battling so it is no surprise that the new Connections game has me ‘all in’ without too much targeted persuasion.

The new Connections activity is another idea to add to the collective teaching-hive’s back pocket.

The premise of Connections is: 16 words, 4 categories. They have added ‘4 mistakes’ to make it a bit more like Wordle (you can guess as many ridiculous words as you like with Spelling Bee). You have to sort and categorise the words into four categories without making more than four mistakes.

It encourages connection, comprehension, links to prior knowledge and prompts logic and reasoning skills. It reminds me of Euler diagrams and hexagonal thinking. If I were to apply it to teaching, I would gamify it as an extension in the classroom and assign teams to come up with the best four connections with reasons why they are the best fit. If the answers are open-ended with multiple possible answers then the game would be a great one for weighing up arguments and applying critical thinking skills as well as supporting learning conversations and social constructivism. For a pot luck/crazy idea, you might even choose 16 random words with no predetermined categories (co-design potential) or, like the NYT version, you might design the game with four categories and see if players can guess the game categories in the game design.

Some critics are arguing the first one is too easy, others say it is too U.S-centric – I didn’t even get it right (I have no idea about the last two categories) BUT I did love the challenge and enjoy the game all the same. I won’t discuss the answers in case you haven’t had a chance to play it yet.

The take away is that, even in its Beta status, it is likely to easily make it to my daily three.

Play it here.

Why do you do what you do? On championing neurodiversity.

We put the we in weird. At least that’s our family motto when we find that we don’t feel like we are fitting in. But who says we have to?

Super sloth wearing sunglasses bursting out of a yellow background wearing sunglasses with a happy sun on its tummy.

Both of our children have been diagnosed with autism and it came as a surprise to us because we thought they were perfect. And actually you know what, they are. It’s just that we are probably on the spectrum too. Perfectly perfect within the spectrum of ‘normal’.

Growing up in the 80s and 90s there were very few girls diagnosed with autism. I was labeled ‘bright and quirky’ and preferred my own company and time to pursue my special interests which was ART ALL DAY. I eventually went to boarding school where I never had any homework (because i finished it all in class) and I got to spend my evenings painting using my special key for after hours access to the art room. This was my solace and always has been.

When I read back through my school reports it painrs a picture of a kid who didn’t fit in. Who embraced her quirks (I was pretty brave thinking back) but who didn’t necessarily know how to manage burnout from people or noise. Now I like to live my life in full colour, at full noise but also low volume.

Let’s fast forward to now. I’ve found my calling in education and consultancy possibly due to my hyperfocus now on all things Art AND Education. I draw and read and write in the early hours of the morning before the family wakes up. I love reading about education and pedagogy. I love thinking about ways to put it into practice so that it can be more accessible because I know that not all teachers/parents love the hyper-geekery that I do. I love writing poetry. I love language rules and I love to break them. I love colour. I feel the sky.

So this is how I have come to be here - doodling in my free time making ‘feeling perky being quirky’ affirmation images so that my son can see them and go ‘that is cool as hell - I want to share that’ because the affirmation strikes a chord with him. Because being quirky and being celebrated for being quirky needs to be the new norm.

I don’t believe in publishing stories that are not my own and I can’t share too much about what goes on in our children’s lives because they are not my experiences to share. But I can say that as a parent who wants to make a difference, as a an educator who has the power to spark change and as a an artist who can think about how we can do/present/engage with things differently, this is my calling.

Norming is boring. Let’s do things differently. Let’s make a difference with difference.

Quirky kiwi wearing sunglasses enjoying the rain under a rainbow with text ‘norming is boring’ as well as rainbow hearts and rainbow neurodiversity infinity symbol.