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| The Learnometer |
More great innovation at The Kindergarten Starters - Dubai, as they connect communities and embed a culture of collaboration!
A BLUEPRINT FOR COLLABORATION
Collaboration has been talked of widely, especially in
relation to schools, so it set me looking for opportunities to look at the
school system as a whole to create conditions where the interaction of the parts
generates more valuable outcomes that only arise from effective collaboration.
This is not the way we are trained to think. Life is
about competition and the idea that together we can generate symbiotic,
mutually beneficial relationships among the various stakeholders is really
something we only talk about generally. We wanted to create a culture of
collaboration in our school so we took some definitive steps.
I’ll describe a few here and illustrate how these can be
models for collaborating for change. When at Pittsburgh for a conference
relating to Creating Communities of Innovation, I met Peg Keiner of Gems World
Academy, Chicago- a young lady who was enthused about the opportunities GEMS
was giving her and her passion made me want to connect with her school.
The opportunity came a few weeks after I had returned
when I was asked whether we would want to collaborate with GWA, Chicago on an
Agency by Design project that they were undertaking. We belonged to the same
community niche and so the idea of sharing our ideas and thinking to allow both
schools to flourish in a cooperative way lay before us.
We came together to align our work. Here is an example:
Students were invited through sharing images throughout
the school year, to begin to inquire and make connections about student life in
other regions of the world. They had to tell their story of their year through
five pictures with captions and through the use of images and thinking routines
from Project Zero’s Agency by Design they were required to engage with one
another. Students posted their pictures on the My Learning Fusion Forum and
then looked through the five photographs of the year. They asked questions,
reflected and responded to each other. This enabled students to enhance their
understanding without having visited Chicago or Dubai and for partnerships to
develop. We are hoping this will result in cultural systems that minimize
competition while maximizing cooperation, harmony, productivity, and diversity,
allowing each community member to remain true to their intrinsic nature.
My visit to Pittsburgh gave me the opportunity to visit
the Children’s Museum where parents came together with their children to create
something of interest to both of them. As I watched the powerful impact this was
having on the learning of very young children, I thought that this was
something I could take back to my own school.
Thus was born- Makers Market. Parents and children were
invited to ‘make’ anything from edible to repurposed products that would finally
find their way to a Maker Mart which would auction those items to raise funds
for charity.
Studies demonstrate that there are clear, measurable
benefits for children when their parents are actively engaged in their
learning. Children are more likely to develop positive self-esteem, be
motivated to learn, be positive about school and achieve good grades. Young
children are more likely to maintain high aspirations and plan to go on to
further education and build a career.
Makers Market gave parents opportunities to tinker with
robotics and circuits, to make artefacts of recycled material, to teach their
child to weave, sew or knit, to decorate cupcakes or make a sandwich, dabble in
writing poetry or paint a picture together. It was a wonderful way of spending
a Saturday morning with the children and help them learn something new.
When various parts of a community are brought together to
focus on how they can create greater collective impact, it offers the
opportunity to discover these combinations of mutual support. Having
experienced this both the school and the parents quickly saw how we could
collaborate in ways that combined the unique capacities of each to do more
together.
This is but another small example.
Very recently I witnessed the collaborative networks
working within the GEMS School Support Centre to change our school environment
by systems that combined the complementary capacities and skills of the various
senior members to generate greater results.
Let me put this in perspective. Last year The
Kindergarten Starters began a unique initiative of welcoming parents into
school to be a part of at least one forty minute lesson and to give us
feedback. Among the 3,500 parents who visited us last year was a father who
wrote to me about the environmental conditions in the classroom that could be
affecting student learning.
I shared this with Phil Redhead, GEMS Senior Manager –
Digital Strategy, and he promised me that he would bring a prototype of an
invention called the Learnometer, created by Professor Stephen Heppell, to help
study the impact on learning of environmental factors such as air pollution,
carbon dioxide levels, air pressure, humidity, sound volume and rhythms, light
levels and temperature. A few months ago Phil arrived, carrying the
Learnometer and we were excited about beginning the action research.
We connected with Professor Heppell and his team to set
up the classroom which had to be monitored. In a few days it was apparent that
the light in the classroom was insufficient and that the carbon dioxide levels
were above prescribed limits. We began working on one variable at a time.
Providing additional lighting was not a challenge but we couldn’t fathom how we
would reduce the carbon dioxide levels in the class of 36 students. Removing
students was one option but we decided to try something different. We placed
green indoor plants within the classroom and in a day saw the dramatic drop of
carbon dioxide levels.
When this bit of information was shared with the Chief
Education Officer, he saw the implications for other schools and soon the Chief
Operating Officer and the Chief Schools Operations Officer had ensured that all
161 classrooms would have wall-mounted green indoor plants.
As we look at weaving collaborations and networks, we
witnessed how linking people and organizations generated mutual and systemic benefits.
I believe that these principles of recognizing and creating opportunities and
communicating them can be used in our work with change leaders, as we help them
design ways of collaborating to maximize cooperation and enable each player to
do what they do best.
The My Learning Fusion portal is a powerful platform for
collaboration, both within the local school community and globally. We are
still discovering its potential every single day to connect us beyond our
classrooms with our parents and the wider world. As we continue to study the
impact of the Learnometer and what it means for learning, we hope to continue
our collaboration with Professor Heppell to make our learning environment a
positive and productive one.
One of the shifts we need to make is in our own mindsets
from taking the lesson from nature of “survival of the fittest” to looking more
carefully to see the sophistication of how nature uses cooperation as much or
more than competition. If we can learn this and practice it at every given
opportunity, then the benefits that accrue would make it a win- win situation
for everyone concerned.
Asha Alexander
Principal - The Kindergarten Starters, Dubai.
