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

On Nov. 7th, I presented a ten minute version of the relationship between individual and group learning and how important that can be in the workplace. To do this, I used a presentation model from the Instructional Skills Workshop.

http://www.iswnetwork.ca/

I used the learning circle in the first two minutes to illustrate the objectives. Action, Reflection, Learning, Planning in light of guidance is amplified in the relationship between the individual and the group/team.
Connecting Vocabularies - Cycles of the Mind

For a project I used the penny exercise used in illustrating the differences between a waterfall, a lean, and an agile method of moving pennies. A good way to illustrate the power of a “flat” organization in dealing with this type of problem.

http://www.agileadvice.com/archives/2006/08/waterfall_lean.html

http://www.agileadvice.com/archives/2005/12/penny_queueing.html

At the end of the ninth minute I asked how the Lean and the Agile methods could be used in a real work situation by the participants, in their own work place. This proved to be difficult for all the participants but one who had been to a longer presentation on Agile methods.

What I learned was that most of the participants needed the example provided by the penny exercise but even more they needed some further examples to help them bridge what they had learned to their own work. Only then would they have any answers to my two questions.

There was further discussion around how ISW methods could be brought to the attention of the faculty as a potential method for professional development.