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Meghan Cureton

7 Questions Principals Should Ask When Hiring Future-Ready Teachers | MindShift | KQED ... - 0 views

  • seven questions that he thinks should become standard in the interviewing and hiring process
  • Question #1: How do you teach students to become problem designers?
  • Question #4: What does your global network look like?
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  • Question #3: What are your expectations for student to self-assess their work and publish it for a wider audience?
  • Question #2: How do you manage your own professional growth?
  • Question #5: How do you give students an opportunity to contribute purposeful work to others?
  • Question #6: How do you teach students to learn what you don’t know?
  • Question #7: How do you teach students to manage their own learning?
Nicole Martin

Why Curiosity Matters - 1 views

shared by Nicole Martin on 14 Sep 18 - No Cached
  • And socially curious employees are better than others at resolving conflicts with colleagues, more likely to receive social support, and more effective at building connections, trust, and commitment on their teams. People or groups high in both dimensions are more innovative and creative.
  • joyous exploration, deprivation sensitivity, stress tolerance, and social curiosity—improve work outcomes.
  • joyous exploration has the strongest link with the experience of intense positive emotions. Stress tolerance has the strongest link with satisfying the need to feel competent, autonomous, and that one belongs. Social curiosity has the strongest link with being a kind, generous, modest person.
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  • deprivation sensitivity—recognizing a gap in knowledge the filling of which offers relief. This type of curiosity doesn’t necessarily feel good, but people who experience it work relentlessly to solve problems.
  • joyous exploration—being consumed with wonder about the fascinating features of the world. This is a pleasurable state; people in it seem to possess a joie de vivre.
  • social curiosity—talking, listening, and observing others to learn what they are thinking and doing. Human beings are inherently social animals, and the most effective and efficient way to determine whether someone is friend or foe is to gain information. Some may even snoop, eavesdrop, or gossip to do so.
  • stress tolerance—a willingness to accept and even harness the anxiety associated with novelty. People lacking this ability see information gaps, experience wonder, and are interested in others but are unlikely to step forward and explore.
  • thrill seeking—being willing to take physical, social, and financial risks to acquire varied, complex, and intense experiences. For people with this capacity, the anxiety of confronting novelty is something to be amplified, not reduced.
  • we all seek the sweet spot between two deeply uncomfortable states: understimulation (coping with tasks, people, or situations that lack sufficient novelty, complexity, uncertainty, or conflict) and overstimulation.
  • people become curious upon realizing that they lack desired knowledge; this creates an aversive feeling of uncertainty, which compels them to uncover the missing information.
  • nstead of asking, “How curious are you?” we can ask, “How are you curious?”
  • But maintaining a sense of wonder is crucial to creativity and innovation. The most effective leaders look for ways to nurture their employees’ curiosity to fuel learning and discovery.
  • How can organizations help people make the leap from curious to competent?
  • by providing the right types of stretch assignments and job rotations.
  • complexity and breadth of the opportunities they’d been given,
  • It enhances intelligence
  • It increases perseverance, or grit
  • And curiosity propels us toward deeper engagement, superior performance, and more-meaningful goals
  • The ProblemLeaders say they value employees who question or explore things, but research shows that they largely suppress curiosity, out of fear that it will increase risk and undermine efficiency.Why This MattersCuriosity improves engagement and collaboration. Curious people make better choices, improve their company’s performance, and help their company adapt to uncertain market conditions and external pressures.The RemedyLeaders should encourage curiosity in themselves and others by making small changes to the design of their organization and the ways they manage their employees. Five strategies can guide them.
  • leaders can encourage curiosity
  • when our curiosity is triggered, we are less likely to fall prey to confirmation bias (looking for information that supports our beliefs rather than for evidence suggesting we are wrong) and to stereotyping people (making broad judgments, such as that women or minorities don’t make good leaders). Curiosity has these positive effects because it leads us to generate alternatives.
  • My own research confirms that encouraging people to be curious generates workplace improvements.
  • What is one topic or activity you are curious about today? What is one thing you usually take for granted that you want to ask about? Please make sure you ask a few ‘Why questions’ as you engage in your work throughout the day. Please set aside a few minutes to identify how you’ll approach your work today with these questions in mind.”
  • “What is one topic or activity you’ll engage in today? What is one thing you usually work on or do that you’ll also complete today? Please make sure you think about this as you engage in your work throughout the day. Please set aside a few minutes to identify how you’ll approach your work today with these questions in mind.”
  • When we are curious, we view tough situations more creatively. Studies have found that curiosity is associated with less defensive reactions to stress and less aggressive reactions to provocation.
  • curiosity encourages members of a group to put themselves in one another’s shoes and take an interest in one another’s ideas rather than focus only on their own perspective. That causes them to work together more effectively and smoothly: Conflicts are less heated, and groups achieve better results.
  • he groups whose curiosity had been heightened performed better than the control groups because they shared information more openly and listened more carefully.
  • Hire for curiosity.
  • “Have you ever found yourself unable to stop learning something you’ve never encountered before? Why? What kept you persistent?”
  • most people perform at their best not because they’re specialists but because their deep skill is accompanied by an intellectual curiosity that leads them to ask questions, explore, and collaborate.
  • “What is the one thing I should do to make things better for you?”
  • hen we demonstrate curiosity about others by asking questions, people like us more and view us as more competent, and the heightened trust makes our relationships more interesting and intimate.
  • But focusing on learning is generally more beneficial to us and our organizations,
  • A body of research demonstrates that framing work around learning goals (developing competence, acquiring skills, mastering new situations, and so on) rather than performance goals (hitting targets, proving our competence, impressing others) boosts motivation. And when motivated by learning goals, we acquire more-diverse skills, do better at work, get higher grades in college, do better on problem-solving tasks, and receive higher ratings after training. Unfortunately, organizations often prioritize performance goals.
  • rewarding people not only for their performance but for the learning needed to get there.
  • Leaders can also stress the value of learning by reacting positively to ideas that may be mediocre in themselves but could be springboards to better ones.
  • Organizations can foster curiosity by giving employees time and resources to explore their interests.
  • Employees can also broaden their interests by broadening their networks. Curious people often end up being star performers thanks to their diverse networks,
  • Leaders can also boost employees’ curiosity by carefully designing their teams.
  • What if…?” and “How might we…?”
  • To encourage curiosity, leaders should also teach employees how to ask good questions.
  • Organizing “Why?” days, when employees are encouraged to ask that question if facing a challenge, can go a long way toward fostering curiosity.
  • 5 Whys
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    HT Nicole Martin
Jim Tiffin Jr

7 Questions to End Your Week With | Hack Life - 1 views

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    A simple and rich collection of prompts intended to facilitate regular and purposeful reflection. This blog post explains the questions themselves, and the intention behind them. Each question, or step, can be summarize as follows: 1) Observe 2) Reflect 3) Focus 4) Be Productive 5) Have Courage 6) Cleanse 7) Begin Anew HT to @boadams1 for sharing this with me as part of an experiment with MVPS leaders to encourage shared reflection practices.
Meghan Cureton

100 Questions That Help Students Think About Thinking - - 0 views

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    Excellent bank of questions to spur and scaffold self-directed learning and metacognitive behaviors in your classroom, workplace and your life
Meghan Cureton

5 Mindsets to Bring Positive Change Across Society - 1 views

  • Stimulating positive change at civilization level also requires certain mindsets and ways of thinking.
  • Here are five mindsets that will allow us to leave a positive mark on humanity. Curiosity and Critical Thinking
  • It is by channeling a child-like sense of awe about the world that we can truly imagine something even better. That can be coupled with questioning how we do things in today’s world instead of accepting them as they are.
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  • Asking questions—and asking good ones—is the foundation of critical thinking.
  • It takes powerful curiosity, critical thinking, and imagination to envision radical alternatives to how we do things in today’s world and then be inspired to execute them.
  • Intelligent Optimism
  • being optimistic about the future based on reason and evidence.
  • How can our youth grow up believing they can have a positive impact on the world if the news is suggesting otherwise?
  • Risk-taking
  • being a strategic risk-taker is a valuable lifelong skill of its own.
  • embracing uncertainty, stepping out of one’s comfort zone, and doing something that fulfills your life or company’s grand mission
  • embracing failure and re-defining failed attempts as temporary setbacks
  • Moonshot Thinking
  • Moonshot thinking allows for radical, daring, and disruptive ideas as opposed to incremental improvements
  • Cosmic Perspective
  • Having a cosmic perspective shifts the ambitions and priorities we set for ourselves to those that matter from a grand perspective. As a species, we become more purpose-driven.
  • It’s all about having a positive impact on the world
  • It’s not just about creating a product or generating profits, but also about solving a problem and having a positive impact on human lives.
  • It’s about asking the right questions, being intelligently optimistic about the future, taking a risk with a moonshot, and maintaining a cosmic perspective.
Meghan Cureton

How Do You Teach to the Standards When Doing Project-Based Learning? - 4 views

  • People often debate about whether we should be process-driven or product-driven in project-based learning. But I think there’s a third option. We can be learning-driven. In other words, we should start with the question, “What do we want students to learn?” and let that drive the process and the product.
  • PBL is not a license to ditch the standards or take a break from real learning.
  • #1: Inquiry-DrivenInquiry-driven PBL begins with a state of curiosity and wonder. It might be as simple as the sentence stem “I wonder why _________” or “I wonder how _________.” Students then have the opportunity to research, ideate, and create.
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  • #4: Problem-DrivenProblem-driven PBL begins with a specific problem or challenge that students must solve. An example is our maker challenges that present a specific scenario that leads students into research, problem-solving, ideation, and a final product that solves the initial challenge.
  • #3: Product-DrivenPBL experts often say, “Students should focus on the process and not the product.” But there’s also a time and a place for projects that challenge students to focus on developing a quality product. In these projects, the product has tighter parameters but the process is more flexible.
  • #2: Interest-DrivenAnother approach is the interest-driven PBL process.
  • #5: Empathy-Driven (Design Thinking)Empathy-driven PBL can have elements of the previous four PBL approaches.
Bo Adams

Cognition switch: What employers can do to encourage their workers to retrain | The Eco... - 1 views

  • “learning velocity”—the process of going from a question to a good idea in a matter of days or weeks
  • amended its performance-review criteria to include an appraisal of how employees have learned from others and then applied that knowledge
  • firm has developed short courses called nanodegrees with Udacity
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  • is it possible for firms to screen candidates and employees on the basis of curiosity, or what psychologists call “need for cognition”?
  • second question is whether it is possible to train people to learn
  • too early to know whether traits such as curiosity can be taught. But it is becoming easier to turn individuals into more effective learners by making them more aware of their own thought processes
Bo Adams

How Can Schools Prioritize For The Best Ways Kids Learn? | MindShift | KQED News - 0 views

  • if the changes to education are all in the service of doing the same thing better, they may be missing the point.
  • the current context demands a radically different vision of learning.
  • examples of schools and districts that are asking themselves difficult questions to propel change. The successful ones are letting the answer to the question, “How do kids learn best?” drive everything they do in schools.
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  • education that is student-initiated, interdisciplinary and co-planned by students and teachers together
  • “It’s about doing work that matters,” Richardson said. “It’s about connections. It’s about play. It’s about cultures where kids and teachers are learners.” When schools have a set of beliefs about learning and enact those beliefs through practice, but don’t anchor what they are doing in today’s context, they may be doing something progressive, but also a little irrelevant. Beliefs and contexts without practice leads to ineffective teaching. The sweet spot for a very different type of education system lies in the Venn diagram of all three: beliefs, context and practice.
  • It can be difficult to interrogate longstanding policies and choices, but if districts, schools and individual educators can’t reflect on what’s working and what isn’t, articulate a change, and begin doing it, the education system as a whole will become irrelevant.
Meghan Cureton

Why Successful People Always Stay A Student - Life Learning - Medium - 1 views

  • In fact, the opposite is true. Most smart people I know, ONLY ask questions. They never make assumptions.
Meghan Cureton

Breadth and Depth: Can We Have It Both Ways? - Learning Deeply - Education Week - 0 views

  • There may be ways to have it both ways. On further reflection, it seems as if breadth and depth are much more intertwined then they initially appear; it is not possible to become a deep inquirer in a subject without some broader understanding that goes around the specific thing you are exploring.
  • The T represents people who are moderately knowledgeable across a domain, and deeply knowledgeable within a strand of that domain.
  • Essential questions that force integration of breadth and depth -- Imagine if you took that same 9th grade "Mesopotamia to the French Revolution" course and organized it instead around the following essential question: "Why do civilizations rise and fall?"
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    HT @eijunkie
Bo Adams

The Trailblazers - How Students Are Learning To Make Impact Design Better - Impact Desi... - 2 views

  • Impact Design Hub spoke with Sara Cornish and Josh Treuhaft, two graduates from the inaugural class of the School of Visual Arts’ Design for Social Innovation (DSI) program, a two-year, cross-disciplinary MFA program, which aims to teach students to address social challenges through systems-level design thinking and offers one of the first graduate degrees in this field.
  • Yeah, and I think there was an understanding that we were not only joining the program, but also helping to build it, which was really exciting. I remember that the interviews were so filled with anticipation. They told us, “This is going to be amazing. You’re going to be part of something that’s an absolute first. You’re going to help trailblaze the field.”
  • it was never explicitly about learning the way to design for social innovation. It was more about teaching a variety of different thought models, processes, and tools that you can use for various types of work relating to social impact. Ultimately, the program is about systems thinking and how things are connected to each other.
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  • Framing and strategizing and mapping is great, but at the end of the day, actually putting things in the world and seeing what they do is really important.
  • If you treat your thesis and your projects as real opportunities that could lead to some sort of impact or change and take it all seriously, you’d be amazed at what you can accomplish.
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    So the question becomes: how do we get better at using design to create impact? An answer that has been gaining traction is education.
Bo Adams

Better Brainstorming - 0 views

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    HT Nicole Martin
Meghan Cureton

Creating an Ecology of Wonder | Edutopia - 0 views

  • I believe that our most precious natural resources are imagination and wonder
  • Wonder leaves us with a sense of fascination about mysteries yet unsolved or questions yet unanswered.
  • Art reveals patterns and connections that would otherwise remain unnoticed.
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  • In a learning ecology that focuses on wonder, an artful approach can be introduced in any subject area
  • Create Assessments That Reward Good Questions, Not Just Good Answers
  • Develop Different Ways for Measuring Success
Meghan Cureton

Do historians miss the ideals of assessment, as some have suggested? - 1 views

  • Grading Smarter, Not Harder
  • Their recent finding that many students don’t learn critical thinking in undergraduate history courses -- a challenge to history’s sales pitch that its graduates are finely tuned critical thinkers.
  • A panel of professors here urged a sizable crowd of colleagues to embrace not just grades but formative, ongoing assessment to gauge student learning or lack thereof in real(er) time.
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  • LASER, an acronym for Love history, Acquire and analyze information, Solve difficult problems, Envision new explanations, and Reveal what you know. Sourcing work, which Calder called a “threshold concept” in history, means asking students to evaluate the reliability of various historical texts. Who made it? When? Why? What value does it hold for historians, if any?
  • letter grades “do little to differentiate the level of student effort or the quality of student work or student growth over the course of a semester or program,”
  • to the idea of “transparency,” which they all agreed begins with articulating clear student learning goals -- for themselves and their classes.
  • Whatever the activity or assessment, Mintz said it needs to be aligned with a particular learning objective. Research suggests that the most effective activities and assessments when it comes to student learning are considered “authentic,” or those that mirror professional practice and address some meaningful question,
  • Project and performance-based assessments are much more likely to provide a “valid measure of student proficiencies and higher-order thinking skills than are multiple choice or short-answer questions,” Mintz continued. And evaluation needs to be based on a detailed rubric, he said, suggesting that students may help create these rubrics.
  • But “a paradigm shift is occurring in higher education,” Mintz said. “We all know this. We’re sifting from teaching to learning, shifting from a sink-or-swim mentality to a mentality where we have obligation to bring all students to minimum viable level of competency.” That is regardless of institution type, he said.
  • think of themselves as "learning architects" whose meaningful "forward-looking" assessment will be a "true learning opportunity" for students.
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    HT @cmtbasecamp
Bo Adams

American Schools Are Training Kids for a World That Doesn't Exist | WIRED - 0 views

  • Culture labs conduct or invite experiments in art and design to explore contemporary questions that seem hard or even impossible to address in more conventional science and engineering labs.
  • The culture lab is the latest indication that learning is changing in America. It cannot happen too fast.
  • The time is now to support the role of learning in the pursuit of discovery and to embrace the powerful agency of culture.
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