The Agile Professor - Creating an Agile Learning Environment for Classrooms and Schools

October, second week, 2007.

At a faculty meeting I outlined how a stand-up meeting can be a useful way to have students begin a class with a greater degree of focus. The method I suggested was to stand in a circle with a group of about six students and ask them two questions: “What did you do since the last class that develops the project we are working on, and if there are problems, what can I do to help overcome them?”. This can be done without much fuss and in about five minutes another group can be handled in the same manner. At the end of the class period a second stand-up meeting with the same groups is scheduled and the questions now are; ” What are you going to do to advance your work on the project?” and “What can I do to help?”

The faculty thought this was a worthwhile idea and agreed to try it out.

I found that my students responded easily to this simple format and that they got to work faster than usual and sustained focus through the six hours we were together. At the end of the class stand-up meeting, one student asked for help, we agreed on a time to meet, and completed a task in half an hour that would have been difficult for her to do alone in a couple of hours.

THE STORY

I had spent the Thanksgiving week-end driving to Fort McMurray, AB in a vehicle we had bought in Denver, CO. Several times on the trip I had thought about how a stand-up meeting might just possibly be the thing to help students stay more focused on their work. At the same time it would give me a more specific way to help them in a strategic way, rather than just from moment to moment during class times.

Our weekly faculty meeting was held in the print making studio during lunch. The discussion around student activities, engagement, and completed work, prompted me to outline what I had been thinking about over the week-end. After I finished outlining the reasons for the stand-up meeting the delight in the voice of Robin, our printmaker, was a real confirmation of how useful this tactic would be. I went on to attribute the idea to Scrum/Agile methods, and suggested that in addition we create an “information radiator” that would be for our faculty team. At first this would be our assignments, course outline and class logs, in other words our documentation of activities that we bring to the studio course work. Again, after sorting through the benefits to ourselves and to the students we agreed to do this.

My Tuesday afternoon class is in sculpture, and I began this one with a stand-up meeting. The students responded with a bit of a surprise but took to the procedure very easily. Each of them indicated what they had been doing since the last class and none of them had hit any real obstacles that required my help. As we completed the six hours of sculpture class that evening - it goes from 2PM-5PM and 7PM-10PM- one of the students asked for help. This was in terms of fixing a pair of wooden blocks, that had to be formed, to the interior of a metal mesh armature she was constructing. She is building a figure that will have a crank to make wind and sound effects emerge from the torso. I was able to show her how to construct a template and map it to the wood we would use as blocks. Also this involved showing her how to use a skill saw, change blades, clamp the material and cut it out. When she finished using the air staple gun to fasten the blocks to the mesh and stood the figure up - she just beamed!

This is normally a stubborn student who will balk at suggestions and decline advice from any of the faculty members. I think the stand-up meeting gave her the opportunity she needed to ask for help in a new way. Learning habits prevent students from asking for help in certain classroom situations and I think that engaging them in the stand-up meeting puts the responsibility for learning and action squarely into the students hands. The resulting sense of self determination is subtle but very much a sweet moment for young adults.