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

Symbiotic Learning between the team and the individual.

After being with Mishkin for a three day Scrum training I saw the possibility of using the backlog as a model for a review of coursework. As the instructor or product owner of the course I bring to the class a backlog of requirements. When the class acts as a team they can be seen as participating in a series of sprints that make up a project. The project is the completed course.

This is an outline of steps taken to try out that possibility.

The first step was to arrange seating around a table long enough for each person to be seated comfortably with writing materials. This is comparable to a collocated team.

The second step was to outline the purpose of the session as the learning part modeled by the Learning Circle. The Learning Circle presents a sequence of Action, Reflection, Learning, and Planning carried out in terms of guidance.

http://www.agileadvice.com/archives/2006/04/connecting_voca.html

The Action part of the Learning Circle can be compared to the sprint activities and the Reflection part of the learning circle is comparable to the demo and retrospective in the sprint.

The third step was to have the team list each of the main elements that were worked on in the class through the semester. There were ten Media Activities, ten Movies analyzed, and six Handouts. Each of these elements could be compared to a sprint.

The fourth step was to have each person spend between one and two minutes to write what he or she had learned from the first of these elements. After finishing the writing in this time-boxed manner these thoughts were shared with the group. This simple process was used for each of the twenty-six elements that composed the main features of the course work in the semester.

The fifth step was to remind the individuals to take notes and to recognize the learning that is acquired through having the team focus however briefly on the whole of the course in terms of each of the main elements. This is to indicate the symbiotic relationship between the individual and the team.

There was excellent feedback from students after this exercise.

It may be that after a demo and a retrospective the team would benefit from such an activity as outlined above in order to make what was learned more evident to each individual, including the product owner and Scrum Master. This kind of review of each of the pieces of a backlog would take some time when applied in terms of either a finished sprint of a completed project. The results would be of benefit to the team as they advance into the next sprint or whole project with increased understanding of each other and the work.

NEXT: a mapping of the Learning Circle and a sprint/project.

One way of setting the table (quick) is for our selves, another way (flowers) is for a loved one, another is for the routine (place settings) family meal, another way (spectacle) is for guests, and another way (random) for parties. Each form reveals an intention and provides insight into felt relationships between all the things and processes, the person who makes the placements, and the responses of the people at the meal.

The description or definition of a type of relationship between objects/processes is in itself a new class of relationship between those same objects/processes. This is a form of relationship that is derived from the participant/observer. This form and the evolution of the form may be understood as learning.
Another example:

First: I have students bring three or four objects from home to paint in primary colors including white and black. The purpose is to develop a pair of tondo (round) paintings from a still life.

Second: I put a blank canvas on the model stand, 6 feet by 4 feet, and have students place the painted objects (12) one after another in turns until there are twelve objects on the surface.

This step has three parts, the first is to move one object of the twelve into a better configuration with the rest. Taking turns the students then move two of the objects to sweeten the relationships between all the objects. They are then instructed to move two objects and subtract one from the surface if desired. Another person with their turn can bring back an object someone else has removed. The configuration of ten to twelve objects is now complete. It is a 3D configuration or sculptural setting.

Third: The next step is to draw lines of force between the objects on the surface of the canvas. Each person using a charcoal goes in turn. Two turns are used to draw these relationships with any kind of line that serves.

Fourth: Then we remove all the objects. What remains is a drawing on canvas that is unique in itself. The drawing refers to the objects that were once on the canvas but is now an object in its own right.

Fifth: Have each person place a dot where they believe the center of the drawing is. Then to place four marks on the perimeter that would be where the circle would be if it were to be painted on a tondo form.

Sixth: After these points are set down we replace the objects that had been removed. They are placed in a new way, keeping in mind the sculptural relationship between the objects and the drawing in charcoal that is on the canvas.

Seventh: After the colored objects have been placed and shifted for better relationship in a similar way to the first cycle of placements a final piece of drawing is done. Each person has a chance to draw a complete circle around the objects in any way they choose. This completes the process of building a still life.

Eighth: Realize the objective of painting two tondo forms from two vantage points 180 degrees from each other. Zoom in if need be and paint a detail of the still life or zoom out to get everything on the model stand.

The process is reviewed and discussed with the students in order to help them understand the flexibility of change and how the relationships between objects can be described by the lines which in turn establish a new order of relationships.

The conclusion is in effect that: to describe or define a relationship between objects will probably require a new arrangement of relationships between those same objects.

You can see how the drawing elements show a relationship from a former placement between the objects as the lines would normally touch the objects. Now the objects are placed a second time and the drawing exists as a separate entity equal in its influence to any of the objects.

This is something we all do when we set the table for a meal.
In this exercise the drawing or lines are comparable to words as descriptions of relationships. The description or definition of a type of relationship between objects/processes is in itself a new class of relationship between those same objects/processes. This is a form of relationship that is derived from the participant/observer. Over time this form reveals an evolution of relationships. This evolution may be understood as a form of learning.

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.

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.