1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:11,595 [SQUEAKING] [RUSTLING] [CLICKING] 2 00:00:11,595 --> 00:00:13,220 JUSTIN REICH: So the course Envisioning 3 00:00:13,220 --> 00:00:16,340 the Graduate of the Future is about helping 4 00:00:16,340 --> 00:00:19,430 schools develop what we call a graduate profile. 5 00:00:19,430 --> 00:00:22,880 It stems from the idea that to do really good work, 6 00:00:22,880 --> 00:00:24,990 you need to begin with the end in mind. 7 00:00:24,990 --> 00:00:28,670 So if you're going to prepare people for their roles 8 00:00:28,670 --> 00:00:31,220 in a democracy, for the future of work, 9 00:00:31,220 --> 00:00:33,710 to be reflective ethical individuals-- if that's 10 00:00:33,710 --> 00:00:35,130 the work that schools need to do, 11 00:00:35,130 --> 00:00:36,963 they've got to be able to say to themselves, 12 00:00:36,963 --> 00:00:38,780 what should a graduate be able to do? 13 00:00:38,780 --> 00:00:40,260 What kind of person should they be? 14 00:00:40,260 --> 00:00:42,470 What should they accomplish while they're 15 00:00:42,470 --> 00:00:43,470 in a school setting? 16 00:00:43,470 --> 00:00:45,920 And so a graduate profile is a document 17 00:00:45,920 --> 00:00:47,900 that characterizes for a community 18 00:00:47,900 --> 00:00:52,030 the hopes and aspirations that they have for their graduates. 19 00:00:52,030 --> 00:00:54,080 As schools develop these graduate profiles, 20 00:00:54,080 --> 00:00:57,640 they can then use it both as a rubric and as a blueprint. 21 00:00:57,640 --> 00:01:00,140 So you can look at what you're already doing and saying, are 22 00:01:00,140 --> 00:01:03,224 the kinds of things that we're doing going to prepare people 23 00:01:03,224 --> 00:01:05,099 to be the kind of folks that we hope they are 24 00:01:05,099 --> 00:01:07,040 and develop the skills that we hope they have? 25 00:01:07,040 --> 00:01:08,715 If not, what can we do to change? 26 00:01:08,715 --> 00:01:11,090 And as we think about new programming or new things we're 27 00:01:11,090 --> 00:01:12,560 trying to accomplish in our school, 28 00:01:12,560 --> 00:01:15,018 we can say to ourselves, OK, we have this graduate profile. 29 00:01:15,018 --> 00:01:17,720 We have this type of person, this set of accomplishments 30 00:01:17,720 --> 00:01:18,890 that we're aiming for. 31 00:01:18,890 --> 00:01:22,400 How well is our work happening right now in order 32 00:01:22,400 --> 00:01:24,720 to be able to prepare people to do that? 33 00:01:24,720 --> 00:01:26,637 SARAH HANSEN: So it sounds like there's really 34 00:01:26,637 --> 00:01:28,640 no one size fits all for these profiles, 35 00:01:28,640 --> 00:01:31,042 that they're developed by local school communities. 36 00:01:31,042 --> 00:01:33,500 JUSTIN REICH: That would be particularly true in the United 37 00:01:33,500 --> 00:01:34,000 States. 38 00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:36,350 In the United States, we have an extremely decentralized 39 00:01:36,350 --> 00:01:37,380 education system. 40 00:01:37,380 --> 00:01:38,990 So we have 50 different states. 41 00:01:38,990 --> 00:01:40,670 We have about 13,000 school districts. 42 00:01:40,670 --> 00:01:42,170 We have 130,000 schools. 43 00:01:42,170 --> 00:01:44,630 In our country, we have a really strong tradition 44 00:01:44,630 --> 00:01:46,170 of local control. 45 00:01:46,170 --> 00:01:48,590 And so it makes sense, in our system, 46 00:01:48,590 --> 00:01:50,660 that local communities, with their elected school 47 00:01:50,660 --> 00:01:52,640 boards and things like that, would 48 00:01:52,640 --> 00:01:54,290 do this exercise together. 49 00:01:54,290 --> 00:01:56,660 In a big city like New York City or LA, 50 00:01:56,660 --> 00:01:58,970 it might make sense for each different school 51 00:01:58,970 --> 00:02:01,430 to go through this exercise together. 52 00:02:01,430 --> 00:02:04,660 And other parts of the world have more centralized education 53 00:02:04,660 --> 00:02:06,410 systems, in which it would make less sense 54 00:02:06,410 --> 00:02:08,868 for individual schools to generate their own graduate 55 00:02:08,868 --> 00:02:10,910 profile because part of what they're trying to do 56 00:02:10,910 --> 00:02:13,380 is be part of a larger federal system. 57 00:02:13,380 --> 00:02:16,100 But yeah, the way that we mostly frame it 58 00:02:16,100 --> 00:02:17,990 for people in the United States in the course 59 00:02:17,990 --> 00:02:23,540 is the idea that, when teachers do the work of schools, 60 00:02:23,540 --> 00:02:25,460 it's just incredibly time consuming 61 00:02:25,460 --> 00:02:30,680 and taxing to make these complex institutions run every day. 62 00:02:30,680 --> 00:02:32,720 Today, some administrator had to call me 63 00:02:32,720 --> 00:02:35,240 because I forgot to pack my daughter lunch. 64 00:02:35,240 --> 00:02:36,740 And their teacher has to figure out, 65 00:02:36,740 --> 00:02:38,150 what is this kid going to eat? 66 00:02:38,150 --> 00:02:41,380 And that was one tiny thing that happened in one school. 67 00:02:41,380 --> 00:02:43,130 And there were a zillion things like that. 68 00:02:43,130 --> 00:02:46,110 What a graduate profile process does is it says, 69 00:02:46,110 --> 00:02:48,410 OK, you've probably been just running your school 70 00:02:48,410 --> 00:02:50,000 and just making it work for a while. 71 00:02:50,000 --> 00:02:53,600 Let's stop and take a break for a second and say to ourselves, 72 00:02:53,600 --> 00:02:56,155 is what we're doing leading to the outcomes that we hope for? 73 00:02:56,155 --> 00:02:57,530 When we look at our students when 74 00:02:57,530 --> 00:03:01,370 they walk across the stage in May or in June, 75 00:03:01,370 --> 00:03:03,660 are they people that would make our community proud? 76 00:03:03,660 --> 00:03:05,493 Have we taught them the things that we think 77 00:03:05,493 --> 00:03:07,063 they'll need to be successful? 78 00:03:07,063 --> 00:03:09,230 Because the world changes, it's important to revisit 79 00:03:09,230 --> 00:03:12,230 those things periodically and ask new questions about-- 80 00:03:12,230 --> 00:03:15,230 as technology changes, as culture changes, 81 00:03:15,230 --> 00:03:16,760 as the disciplines change, are we 82 00:03:16,760 --> 00:03:18,770 doing the work to have people be really well-prepared? 83 00:03:18,770 --> 00:03:19,603 SARAH HANSEN: Right. 84 00:03:19,603 --> 00:03:21,140 And along those lines, how did you 85 00:03:21,140 --> 00:03:26,450 structure this particular course to spark local change? 86 00:03:26,450 --> 00:03:28,670 JUSTIN REICH: In all of our online course design, 87 00:03:28,670 --> 00:03:31,790 our goal is that when people take our courses, 88 00:03:31,790 --> 00:03:34,520 they leave and make a difference where they're at. 89 00:03:34,520 --> 00:03:36,830 So we don't really care if they complete the course. 90 00:03:36,830 --> 00:03:38,030 We don't care if they do our assignment. 91 00:03:38,030 --> 00:03:40,030 I mean, we build a bunch of things to help them. 92 00:03:40,030 --> 00:03:43,732 But the measure for us is not did you get a certificate, 93 00:03:43,732 --> 00:03:44,690 did you pass the class. 94 00:03:44,690 --> 00:03:47,030 The measure is did you go back to your local community 95 00:03:47,030 --> 00:03:49,650 and feel empowered to make change. 96 00:03:49,650 --> 00:03:53,630 So that permeates-- that question permeates everything 97 00:03:53,630 --> 00:03:55,570 that we do in the design of our courses. 98 00:03:55,570 --> 00:03:57,320 So for instance, one of the things we know 99 00:03:57,320 --> 00:04:00,387 is that it's a lot easier to engage in change processes 100 00:04:00,387 --> 00:04:02,720 when you have other people with you who are helping you. 101 00:04:02,720 --> 00:04:05,180 So leading an initiative by yourself 102 00:04:05,180 --> 00:04:07,790 is more hard than leading it with a couple 103 00:04:07,790 --> 00:04:08,702 of other colleagues. 104 00:04:08,702 --> 00:04:10,410 So from the very beginning of the course, 105 00:04:10,410 --> 00:04:12,620 we encourage people to sign up in small groups 106 00:04:12,620 --> 00:04:16,325 from their school and form what we call learning circles. 107 00:04:16,325 --> 00:04:18,950 So we say, as you're taking the course, find a couple of people 108 00:04:18,950 --> 00:04:21,980 that you can meet with regularly throughout the course. 109 00:04:21,980 --> 00:04:23,960 A second thing that we do is that almost all 110 00:04:23,960 --> 00:04:26,840 of the activities and assignments in the course 111 00:04:26,840 --> 00:04:30,860 ask you to go out and start doing things in the world. 112 00:04:30,860 --> 00:04:34,035 So the first activity that we ask you to do individually 113 00:04:34,035 --> 00:04:35,720 in Graduate of the Future is to start 114 00:04:35,720 --> 00:04:37,100 talking to different stakeholders 115 00:04:37,100 --> 00:04:38,900 in the school about what they think 116 00:04:38,900 --> 00:04:40,670 the best work in the school is or what 117 00:04:40,670 --> 00:04:42,337 they think the most important things are 118 00:04:42,337 --> 00:04:43,500 for students to learn. 119 00:04:43,500 --> 00:04:45,170 So it's not the case that we say, 120 00:04:45,170 --> 00:04:47,180 come take a six week online course. 121 00:04:47,180 --> 00:04:49,250 And then at some point in the future, 122 00:04:49,250 --> 00:04:51,290 go and do interesting things. 123 00:04:51,290 --> 00:04:53,660 We say, as soon as you show up in this course, 124 00:04:53,660 --> 00:04:55,352 start doing interesting things. 125 00:04:55,352 --> 00:04:57,560 As you go out in the world and make these experiments 126 00:04:57,560 --> 00:05:00,680 in your local context, create little artifacts, summaries 127 00:05:00,680 --> 00:05:02,838 of conversations or data that you're recording 128 00:05:02,838 --> 00:05:04,130 from experiments you're trying. 129 00:05:04,130 --> 00:05:06,530 And bring that back into the course forum 130 00:05:06,530 --> 00:05:08,030 and share that with other people, 131 00:05:08,030 --> 00:05:09,697 in part because that's an accountability 132 00:05:09,697 --> 00:05:12,538 mechanism for you, but in part we can stimulate some really 133 00:05:12,538 --> 00:05:14,330 interesting conversations if we have people 134 00:05:14,330 --> 00:05:16,638 all over the world saying, hey, I 135 00:05:16,638 --> 00:05:18,680 went to talk to the stakeholders in my community. 136 00:05:18,680 --> 00:05:21,222 And here's the kinds of things that they said were important. 137 00:05:21,222 --> 00:05:23,240 Well, look, we see that some of these themes 138 00:05:23,240 --> 00:05:24,950 cut across lots of different schools 139 00:05:24,950 --> 00:05:26,420 in lots of different places. 140 00:05:26,420 --> 00:05:27,290 And then you also have some things 141 00:05:27,290 --> 00:05:29,210 that were really unique to your local context. 142 00:05:29,210 --> 00:05:32,785 If you're a school that's on the coast of Massachusetts, 143 00:05:32,785 --> 00:05:34,910 particularly if you have a strong fishing community 144 00:05:34,910 --> 00:05:37,760 or something like that, the sea just matters to you in a way 145 00:05:37,760 --> 00:05:40,910 that it's not going to matter to a town in North Dakota that's 146 00:05:40,910 --> 00:05:44,013 going through a fracking boom that's thinking about the oil 147 00:05:44,013 --> 00:05:45,680 and gas industries and things like that. 148 00:05:45,680 --> 00:05:48,290 I mean, the places that we're located-- 149 00:05:48,290 --> 00:05:51,710 places that have extensive immigration 150 00:05:51,710 --> 00:05:53,210 from different kinds of communities, 151 00:05:53,210 --> 00:05:56,900 or don't, or are in rural northern New England where 152 00:05:56,900 --> 00:05:59,750 communities are hollowing out because young people are moving 153 00:05:59,750 --> 00:06:00,320 away-- 154 00:06:00,320 --> 00:06:01,880 all of these things make a difference 155 00:06:01,880 --> 00:06:04,005 for how schools think about themselves and the work 156 00:06:04,005 --> 00:06:04,880 that they need to do. 157 00:06:04,880 --> 00:06:06,920 SARAH HANSEN: Right, right. 158 00:06:06,920 --> 00:06:09,140 Tell us about the role of case studies then, 159 00:06:09,140 --> 00:06:12,350 these very specific examples from different locations 160 00:06:12,350 --> 00:06:14,210 from around the United States. 161 00:06:14,210 --> 00:06:15,980 What role do these case studies play 162 00:06:15,980 --> 00:06:17,757 in sharing these specific examples? 163 00:06:17,757 --> 00:06:18,590 JUSTIN REICH: Great. 164 00:06:18,590 --> 00:06:22,160 So we think one of the main virtues of online learning, 165 00:06:22,160 --> 00:06:24,770 for school leaders, and other helping professions, 166 00:06:24,770 --> 00:06:27,230 and teachers, and things, is that we can take you to places 167 00:06:27,230 --> 00:06:29,438 where things are happening that would be hard for you 168 00:06:29,438 --> 00:06:30,780 to see in your local context. 169 00:06:30,780 --> 00:06:33,405 So there are definitely lots of schools across the country that 170 00:06:33,405 --> 00:06:35,660 are engaged in some kind of graduate profile 171 00:06:35,660 --> 00:06:37,220 process, envisioning graduates. 172 00:06:37,220 --> 00:06:40,250 But if there's not one that's near you that you can go visit, 173 00:06:40,250 --> 00:06:42,800 in our course we want to be able to take you there. 174 00:06:42,800 --> 00:06:44,630 Teachers, like lots of other professionals, 175 00:06:44,630 --> 00:06:48,560 they want to see people who are like them doing work 176 00:06:48,560 --> 00:06:50,690 in contexts that looks like theirs, that 177 00:06:50,690 --> 00:06:53,340 feels relatable in order to be able to say, 178 00:06:53,340 --> 00:06:54,710 OK, this feels real. 179 00:06:54,710 --> 00:06:57,500 This feels like not just some suggestions 180 00:06:57,500 --> 00:06:59,180 that these academics at MIT are making. 181 00:06:59,180 --> 00:07:02,180 But this feels like work that schools can do. 182 00:07:02,180 --> 00:07:04,520 So we have these voices in practice case studies, 183 00:07:04,520 --> 00:07:06,590 where we try to take people in our courses 184 00:07:06,590 --> 00:07:08,510 to schools that are doing interesting things 185 00:07:08,510 --> 00:07:12,260 and not necessarily doing the best or exemplary work, 186 00:07:12,260 --> 00:07:15,333 but just places that are really deeply engaged in the work 187 00:07:15,333 --> 00:07:17,000 and envisioning graduates of the future. 188 00:07:17,000 --> 00:07:18,375 We happened to find three schools 189 00:07:18,375 --> 00:07:19,920 that really different stages. 190 00:07:19,920 --> 00:07:21,890 So we went to Washington Leadership Academy 191 00:07:21,890 --> 00:07:23,600 in Washington DC, where they were just 192 00:07:23,600 --> 00:07:26,000 starting to have these conversations as a relatively 193 00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:28,490 new school about what do we want our graduates to look 194 00:07:28,490 --> 00:07:30,440 like, how would a graduate profile help us. 195 00:07:30,440 --> 00:07:32,670 We went to Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, 196 00:07:32,670 --> 00:07:35,420 which was a suburban community, very much 197 00:07:35,420 --> 00:07:37,010 in the middle of this process-- 198 00:07:37,010 --> 00:07:39,440 community group meeting happening in the midst 199 00:07:39,440 --> 00:07:40,850 of creating a graduate profile. 200 00:07:40,850 --> 00:07:42,770 And then we went to the Community Charter 201 00:07:42,770 --> 00:07:44,295 school of Cambridge that had already 202 00:07:44,295 --> 00:07:45,920 finished their graduate profile process 203 00:07:45,920 --> 00:07:50,468 and was starting to use it to evaluate their current program 204 00:07:50,468 --> 00:07:53,010 and curriculum and think about future program and curriculum. 205 00:07:53,010 --> 00:07:55,490 So we can take the learners in our course 206 00:07:55,490 --> 00:07:58,040 to these three moments of time and say, well, here's 207 00:07:58,040 --> 00:07:59,540 what it might look like when you're at the beginning. 208 00:07:59,540 --> 00:08:00,830 And here's how you get started. 209 00:08:00,830 --> 00:08:02,000 Here are some of the things that come up 210 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:04,340 in the middle, and the exciting parts, and the friction, 211 00:08:04,340 --> 00:08:05,132 and the challenges. 212 00:08:05,132 --> 00:08:06,890 And then if you're successful, here's 213 00:08:06,890 --> 00:08:08,750 how this can be a tool that can help you 214 00:08:08,750 --> 00:08:10,760 with future kinds of work. 215 00:08:10,760 --> 00:08:13,130 And seeing people who have their jobs, 216 00:08:13,130 --> 00:08:16,000 look like them, doing this is really important for-- 217 00:08:16,000 --> 00:08:21,320 I mean, our learners often say that the documentary videos 218 00:08:21,320 --> 00:08:24,680 that we create are the most powerful part of the learning 219 00:08:24,680 --> 00:08:26,090 experience for them. 220 00:08:26,090 --> 00:08:28,070 SARAH HANSEN: So this course moves away 221 00:08:28,070 --> 00:08:31,290 from grades as the primary assessment tool. 222 00:08:31,290 --> 00:08:32,708 Can you talk about that? 223 00:08:32,708 --> 00:08:33,500 JUSTIN REICH: Sure. 224 00:08:33,500 --> 00:08:36,559 So it would not be possible-- there's not really 225 00:08:36,559 --> 00:08:39,919 a set of declarative knowledge that we want people to know. 226 00:08:39,919 --> 00:08:41,450 I mean, we could have asked someone 227 00:08:41,450 --> 00:08:43,549 a multiple choice of what is a graduate profile 228 00:08:43,549 --> 00:08:45,140 or a few other things like that. 229 00:08:45,140 --> 00:08:47,510 But mostly, we want them to engage 230 00:08:47,510 --> 00:08:50,000 in a process that's customized for them 231 00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:51,840 to their local community. 232 00:08:51,840 --> 00:08:53,360 So we don't have enough staff to be 233 00:08:53,360 --> 00:08:56,330 able to grade everyone's performance 234 00:08:56,330 --> 00:08:58,740 on those kinds of tasks. 235 00:08:58,740 --> 00:09:01,400 So the way that we do assessment in the courses 236 00:09:01,400 --> 00:09:04,700 is we give people challenges. 237 00:09:04,700 --> 00:09:07,010 Some of them are individual, reflective activities. 238 00:09:07,010 --> 00:09:10,460 But most of them are go out in your school, collect some data, 239 00:09:10,460 --> 00:09:13,190 try some experiments, do a new thing, and then come back 240 00:09:13,190 --> 00:09:15,230 and tell us what happened. 241 00:09:15,230 --> 00:09:18,390 And then we award people a certificate in the course 242 00:09:18,390 --> 00:09:20,660 if, through an honor system, they 243 00:09:20,660 --> 00:09:23,420 enough weekly checklists and enough parts of those weekly 244 00:09:23,420 --> 00:09:25,910 checklists to do about 60% of the work in the course. 245 00:09:25,910 --> 00:09:29,630 And then they can get a certificate. 246 00:09:29,630 --> 00:09:32,360 An additional level of accountability that we have 247 00:09:32,360 --> 00:09:35,463 is that when people do these assignments, 248 00:09:35,463 --> 00:09:37,380 they create some kind of artifact around them. 249 00:09:37,380 --> 00:09:39,110 So if I went and talked to a few stakeholders, 250 00:09:39,110 --> 00:09:40,440 I would take notes on what I thought 251 00:09:40,440 --> 00:09:42,230 were the most important ideas that came out. 252 00:09:42,230 --> 00:09:43,940 And then we have people post that in the forums. 253 00:09:43,940 --> 00:09:46,280 And then we ask people to give each other peer feedback 254 00:09:46,280 --> 00:09:48,650 on what they're doing and what they're learning-- 255 00:09:48,650 --> 00:09:50,180 how do they take notes, what kinds of questions 256 00:09:50,180 --> 00:09:50,722 did they ask. 257 00:09:50,722 --> 00:09:52,880 When they do a first draft of the graduate profile, 258 00:09:52,880 --> 00:09:55,160 what seems to be being communicated effectively? 259 00:09:55,160 --> 00:09:56,210 What's unclear? 260 00:09:56,210 --> 00:09:59,660 When they do a second draft, how are they improving it? 261 00:09:59,660 --> 00:10:05,180 I mean, teaching professionals around the world, 262 00:10:05,180 --> 00:10:09,320 they don't need us to hold them accountable. 263 00:10:09,320 --> 00:10:12,030 They're going and doing the work of making schools 264 00:10:12,030 --> 00:10:13,440 better every day. 265 00:10:13,440 --> 00:10:15,540 They need our help, and support, and guidance, 266 00:10:15,540 --> 00:10:17,170 and those kinds of things. 267 00:10:17,170 --> 00:10:19,230 And we're not we're not trying to certify people 268 00:10:19,230 --> 00:10:21,690 as having achieved a certain level of envisioning 269 00:10:21,690 --> 00:10:24,057 the graduate of the future proficiency in the way 270 00:10:24,057 --> 00:10:25,140 that other courses should. 271 00:10:25,140 --> 00:10:27,810 An introductory computer science course 272 00:10:27,810 --> 00:10:30,270 should certify you are reasonably 273 00:10:30,270 --> 00:10:32,640 proficient at x number of things. 274 00:10:32,640 --> 00:10:35,460 For us, assessment-- I mean, the most important thing 275 00:10:35,460 --> 00:10:40,650 that our assessments do is they encourage, inspire, empower, 276 00:10:40,650 --> 00:10:43,350 give permission to people to go out in the world 277 00:10:43,350 --> 00:10:45,405 and start trying to make their schools better 278 00:10:45,405 --> 00:10:48,030 through some process that we're helping guiding people through. 279 00:10:48,030 --> 00:10:49,920 And for me teaching these courses, 280 00:10:49,920 --> 00:10:53,550 I think some of the most fun, rewarding feedback we get 281 00:10:53,550 --> 00:10:56,500 is something along the lines of before I took this course, 282 00:10:56,500 --> 00:10:58,140 I didn't know it was my job to do this. 283 00:10:58,140 --> 00:11:01,230 I didn't know that I could help lead a community conversation 284 00:11:01,230 --> 00:11:03,450 around a graduate profile. 285 00:11:03,450 --> 00:11:05,070 But there was nobody else doing it. 286 00:11:05,070 --> 00:11:06,840 And when I started doing it, people 287 00:11:06,840 --> 00:11:08,640 started going-- or the principal started going along. 288 00:11:08,640 --> 00:11:09,900 Or my colleagues started going along. 289 00:11:09,900 --> 00:11:11,650 Or the superintendent started going along, 290 00:11:11,650 --> 00:11:14,435 or other things like that. 291 00:11:14,435 --> 00:11:16,560 My colleague here in the Sloan School, Peter Senge, 292 00:11:16,560 --> 00:11:18,852 who's worked in lots of industries, not just education, 293 00:11:18,852 --> 00:11:21,300 says there's no one in an institution who 294 00:11:21,300 --> 00:11:24,960 really feels empowered to make change by their title. 295 00:11:24,960 --> 00:11:27,150 Lots of people feel like we're stuck in the world 296 00:11:27,150 --> 00:11:27,733 that we're in. 297 00:11:27,733 --> 00:11:29,160 But there are all kinds of people 298 00:11:29,160 --> 00:11:30,630 around the world in wherever they 299 00:11:30,630 --> 00:11:33,690 work who go, nope, I'm going to make this thing better. 300 00:11:33,690 --> 00:11:38,160 And that's a real part of the spirit behind our classes, 301 00:11:38,160 --> 00:11:40,855 is that sense that it doesn't have to be your job. 302 00:11:40,855 --> 00:11:42,480 You don't have to be the superintendent 303 00:11:42,480 --> 00:11:44,520 to declare that we have to have conversations 304 00:11:44,520 --> 00:11:47,520 about what our graduates should be able to do. 305 00:11:47,520 --> 00:11:49,470 You just start having those conversations. 306 00:11:49,470 --> 00:11:51,095 And if you do it well, and if you do it 307 00:11:51,095 --> 00:11:53,820 with enthusiasm, and with care, and with an invitation 308 00:11:53,820 --> 00:11:55,650 to others, they'll start getting involved. 309 00:11:55,650 --> 00:11:57,870 SARAH HANSEN: Yeah, it's interesting, 310 00:11:57,870 --> 00:12:00,660 how you ask students to articulate-- 311 00:12:00,660 --> 00:12:03,420 I used to think this and now I think this. 312 00:12:03,420 --> 00:12:05,880 And that brings to mind design thinking. 313 00:12:05,880 --> 00:12:08,808 Could you talk about the role of design thinking in the course? 314 00:12:08,808 --> 00:12:09,600 JUSTIN REICH: Sure. 315 00:12:09,600 --> 00:12:11,640 So I would say all of our courses 316 00:12:11,640 --> 00:12:14,440 that we build have a a kind of bias to action behind them, 317 00:12:14,440 --> 00:12:17,460 which I think is one of the key tenets of design thinking. 318 00:12:17,460 --> 00:12:19,800 So design thinking is a methodology 319 00:12:19,800 --> 00:12:23,790 for understanding and addressing problems 320 00:12:23,790 --> 00:12:29,760 that believes that good ideas come from iteration more 321 00:12:29,760 --> 00:12:33,060 than any other source, that the way that you get to a good idea 322 00:12:33,060 --> 00:12:34,437 is that you start with bad ideas, 323 00:12:34,437 --> 00:12:37,020 or you start with lots of ideas, and you cycle through them as 324 00:12:37,020 --> 00:12:38,310 much as you can. 325 00:12:38,310 --> 00:12:40,650 So this course, I think, embodies this notion of we 326 00:12:40,650 --> 00:12:43,590 want to get away from the idea of the graduate profile as-- 327 00:12:43,590 --> 00:12:45,540 well, before you can do any of this, 328 00:12:45,540 --> 00:12:47,957 you're going to have to get everyone together in the room. 329 00:12:47,957 --> 00:12:49,748 And you're going to have to have a two year 330 00:12:49,748 --> 00:12:51,060 commitment to a process. 331 00:12:51,060 --> 00:12:53,700 And our approach to it is more, what 332 00:12:53,700 --> 00:12:57,690 is the smallest thing that you can do to start getting people 333 00:12:57,690 --> 00:13:01,650 to think about, ask questions about, explore where graduates 334 00:13:01,650 --> 00:13:02,340 should end up? 335 00:13:02,340 --> 00:13:05,525 Anyone in a system can ask their colleagues, their students, 336 00:13:05,525 --> 00:13:06,900 their parents, their stakeholders 337 00:13:06,900 --> 00:13:08,220 those kinds of questions. 338 00:13:08,220 --> 00:13:11,040 Anyone can start taking the answers to those questions 339 00:13:11,040 --> 00:13:12,883 and synthesizing them, and putting them 340 00:13:12,883 --> 00:13:14,550 on your classroom door, or bringing them 341 00:13:14,550 --> 00:13:16,260 to a department meeting. 342 00:13:16,260 --> 00:13:18,510 Anyone, having done that step, can 343 00:13:18,510 --> 00:13:20,940 go to the next step of finding leadership, and trying 344 00:13:20,940 --> 00:13:22,500 to get more resources, and more time, 345 00:13:22,500 --> 00:13:24,870 and more support behind these initiatives. 346 00:13:24,870 --> 00:13:29,040 That, I think, is the most design-inspired component 347 00:13:29,040 --> 00:13:32,010 of it, which is that we're going to have people figure out 348 00:13:32,010 --> 00:13:34,710 how to do this well not by studying it 349 00:13:34,710 --> 00:13:37,470 for a long time in the abstract and setting up a long process, 350 00:13:37,470 --> 00:13:39,780 but by saying, here's some ideas. 351 00:13:39,780 --> 00:13:41,100 Get started. 352 00:13:41,100 --> 00:13:42,390 Have some missteps. 353 00:13:42,390 --> 00:13:43,740 Have some things at work. 354 00:13:43,740 --> 00:13:46,558 And be continuously adjusting as you're going along. 355 00:13:46,558 --> 00:13:47,850 SARAH HANSEN: I love that idea. 356 00:13:47,850 --> 00:13:52,447 What is the smallest thing I can do to spark a change? 357 00:13:52,447 --> 00:13:54,030 JUSTIN REICH: I don't remember if it's 358 00:13:54,030 --> 00:13:55,090 in this course or another course. 359 00:13:55,090 --> 00:13:57,507 Generally speaking, we refer to that as the Someday Monday 360 00:13:57,507 --> 00:14:00,017 Problem. 361 00:14:00,017 --> 00:14:02,100 If you really want to do powerful work in schools, 362 00:14:02,100 --> 00:14:04,410 you have to imagine really different kinds of schools. 363 00:14:04,410 --> 00:14:06,030 The institutions that we have now 364 00:14:06,030 --> 00:14:07,890 are not doing the best possible job 365 00:14:07,890 --> 00:14:09,420 they could preparing young people 366 00:14:09,420 --> 00:14:11,640 for their futures as citizens, as reflective, 367 00:14:11,640 --> 00:14:13,320 ethical individuals, as people prepared 368 00:14:13,320 --> 00:14:14,730 for a changing world of work. 369 00:14:14,730 --> 00:14:17,190 But also, all the kids are showing up tomorrow. 370 00:14:17,190 --> 00:14:20,100 And some of them are showing up without their lunch, like mine. 371 00:14:20,100 --> 00:14:21,690 And you can't fix all of those things. 372 00:14:21,690 --> 00:14:23,640 You can't send the kids home for two years 373 00:14:23,640 --> 00:14:25,750 and be like, let us retool for a little bit. 374 00:14:25,750 --> 00:14:27,640 When you come back, it'll be great. 375 00:14:27,640 --> 00:14:29,850 And also, as you're working towards these bigger 376 00:14:29,850 --> 00:14:33,300 changes and someday you have to have these things that you can 377 00:14:33,300 --> 00:14:34,902 try and implement on Monday. 378 00:14:34,902 --> 00:14:36,360 What's the next thing that I can do 379 00:14:36,360 --> 00:14:38,910 that gets me one step closer to this larger goal? 380 00:14:38,910 --> 00:14:40,890 And actually, depending upon the time of year 381 00:14:40,890 --> 00:14:45,660 it is, people are more or less receptive to more fine-grained 382 00:14:45,660 --> 00:14:46,980 or more wider-grain things. 383 00:14:46,980 --> 00:14:49,470 If we taught versions of Envisioning the Graduate 384 00:14:49,470 --> 00:14:51,960 over the summer, we would do it in a way 385 00:14:51,960 --> 00:14:54,483 that there's less about the day to day interventions 386 00:14:54,483 --> 00:14:57,150 that you would do, because there aren't day to day interventions 387 00:14:57,150 --> 00:15:00,120 to do in July in schools in Massachusetts, 388 00:15:00,120 --> 00:15:02,190 and more about, all right, what is 389 00:15:02,190 --> 00:15:03,585 some kind of longer term planning 390 00:15:03,585 --> 00:15:04,710 that I might be able to do. 391 00:15:04,710 --> 00:15:07,440 And this, we happen to be filming this right 392 00:15:07,440 --> 00:15:08,520 before Christmas break. 393 00:15:08,520 --> 00:15:10,820 There is no Someday work that gets done 394 00:15:10,820 --> 00:15:12,182 right before Christmas break. 395 00:15:12,182 --> 00:15:13,640 If you're going to make suggestions 396 00:15:13,640 --> 00:15:16,290 to people in this time of year, it has to be like, 397 00:15:16,290 --> 00:15:18,733 here's one more thing that you can try before you head out 398 00:15:18,733 --> 00:15:19,400 for the holiday. 399 00:15:19,400 --> 00:15:21,230 But do but do that one thing. 400 00:15:21,230 --> 00:15:24,530 There's always one step that we can 401 00:15:24,530 --> 00:15:28,640 try and take to get us one step closer to this broader 402 00:15:28,640 --> 00:15:30,037 vision we have. 403 00:15:30,037 --> 00:15:32,120 SARAH HANSEN: So when you think about facilitating 404 00:15:32,120 --> 00:15:35,540 this course again, how are you thinking about iterating? 405 00:15:35,540 --> 00:15:38,120 JUSTIN REICH: A big thing that we're thinking about is-- 406 00:15:38,120 --> 00:15:40,880 in the first runs of our courses, 407 00:15:40,880 --> 00:15:46,130 we really focused on the idea of making an experiment, 408 00:15:46,130 --> 00:15:48,950 making a change, starting some kind of process 409 00:15:48,950 --> 00:15:51,860 as the central learning goal of the course. 410 00:15:51,860 --> 00:15:52,970 And we still have that. 411 00:15:52,970 --> 00:15:54,890 But the thing that we're trying to add to it 412 00:15:54,890 --> 00:15:57,680 is, are we giving people enough tools and resources 413 00:15:57,680 --> 00:16:00,663 to share what they're learning, to not just engage people 414 00:16:00,663 --> 00:16:02,330 for Envisioning Graduates of the Future, 415 00:16:02,330 --> 00:16:05,090 to not just engage people in the process of doing 416 00:16:05,090 --> 00:16:06,770 a graduate profile exercise, but to be 417 00:16:06,770 --> 00:16:09,170 able to share with a couple of other colleagues 418 00:16:09,170 --> 00:16:11,365 here's how we're thinking about this whole thing. 419 00:16:11,365 --> 00:16:13,490 Here's all the stuff that I learned in this course. 420 00:16:13,490 --> 00:16:14,907 And you're not going to have time, 421 00:16:14,907 --> 00:16:16,910 or you're not that into online learning, 422 00:16:16,910 --> 00:16:17,990 you're not going to do the whole thing. 423 00:16:17,990 --> 00:16:20,240 But let me share with you what I've learned about this 424 00:16:20,240 --> 00:16:23,150 so that, if I'm a principal of the elementary school 425 00:16:23,150 --> 00:16:25,378 in my town, I can show the five other principals 426 00:16:25,378 --> 00:16:27,170 in the elementary school what I've learned. 427 00:16:27,170 --> 00:16:29,690 And then all six of us can do this process together 428 00:16:29,690 --> 00:16:30,530 in our schools. 429 00:16:30,530 --> 00:16:33,350 So in subsequent versions, we're continuing to think about, 430 00:16:33,350 --> 00:16:35,960 are we doing enough to empower our learners 431 00:16:35,960 --> 00:16:39,290 to feel good about taking what they've learned in this course, 432 00:16:39,290 --> 00:16:40,260 sharing it with others? 433 00:16:40,260 --> 00:16:42,620 How do we make it more accessible, easier to share? 434 00:16:42,620 --> 00:16:44,120 We've been experimenting with things 435 00:16:44,120 --> 00:16:47,600 like creating workshop agendas for all of our courses. 436 00:16:47,600 --> 00:16:51,200 If you wanted to facilitate this course in a face 437 00:16:51,200 --> 00:16:54,890 to face setting, here's seven one our professional learning 438 00:16:54,890 --> 00:16:56,240 community meeting agendas. 439 00:16:56,240 --> 00:16:57,830 Here's two half-day agendas. 440 00:16:57,830 --> 00:17:01,737 Here's one full day agenda for being able to do that. 441 00:17:01,737 --> 00:17:03,320 Those are the kinds of resources we're 442 00:17:03,320 --> 00:17:05,510 trying to generate more of as we iterate and do 443 00:17:05,510 --> 00:17:06,560 more and more of these courses. 444 00:17:06,560 --> 00:17:06,890 SARAH HANSEN: Right. 445 00:17:06,890 --> 00:17:08,750 Those seem like such useful support. 446 00:17:08,750 --> 00:17:11,510 It's not telling teachers how to do the work that they're 447 00:17:11,510 --> 00:17:13,797 already doing, but it's providing support around that. 448 00:17:13,797 --> 00:17:14,839 It's really, really neat. 449 00:17:14,839 --> 00:17:15,800 JUSTIN REICH: Yeah, we're pretty sure that when 450 00:17:15,800 --> 00:17:17,359 we share those agendas-- 451 00:17:17,359 --> 00:17:18,983 we have learning circles facilitators. 452 00:17:18,983 --> 00:17:20,900 It's fine for us if people glance through them 453 00:17:20,900 --> 00:17:22,319 and go, oh, that's interesting. 454 00:17:22,319 --> 00:17:24,694 I'm not to do that, but I'm going to do this other thing. 455 00:17:24,694 --> 00:17:26,599 But it's not clear to us how many people 456 00:17:26,599 --> 00:17:29,270 take what we give them as training supports 457 00:17:29,270 --> 00:17:32,660 and use them in the way that we give them to them. 458 00:17:32,660 --> 00:17:36,465 But we see all kinds of ways that people take them and adapt 459 00:17:36,465 --> 00:17:38,090 them into their own local circumstances 460 00:17:38,090 --> 00:17:40,190 and make them make sense for them. 461 00:17:40,190 --> 00:17:41,690 SARAH HANSEN: Is there anything else 462 00:17:41,690 --> 00:17:44,720 that you'd like to add about teaching this course? 463 00:17:44,720 --> 00:17:47,060 JUSTIN REICH: Well, it's just such a tremendous honor 464 00:17:47,060 --> 00:17:51,045 and privilege to be able to have the time of the teachers 465 00:17:51,045 --> 00:17:51,920 in the United States. 466 00:17:51,920 --> 00:17:54,560 I mean, it's just a great joy to be able to support them, 467 00:17:54,560 --> 00:17:57,770 to learn with them, to have them come up with new ideas. 468 00:17:57,770 --> 00:18:01,640 I mean, in the first run of this course, a big idea 469 00:18:01,640 --> 00:18:04,220 that I hadn't really thought of before 470 00:18:04,220 --> 00:18:07,070 but came home to me listening to teachers was, 471 00:18:07,070 --> 00:18:08,720 as they finish this graduate profile 472 00:18:08,720 --> 00:18:10,970 process, a number of them said, look, 473 00:18:10,970 --> 00:18:13,280 we basically made a document that describes 474 00:18:13,280 --> 00:18:16,580 who we want to be as adults. 475 00:18:16,580 --> 00:18:18,050 It wasn't just a graduate profile. 476 00:18:18,050 --> 00:18:19,970 It was a community member profile. 477 00:18:19,970 --> 00:18:22,520 It was an aspiration for who we are as people. 478 00:18:22,520 --> 00:18:23,960 And we can use that. 479 00:18:23,960 --> 00:18:27,110 That can help us think about how we hold ourselves accountable 480 00:18:27,110 --> 00:18:29,420 to our behavior and to our engagement with students, 481 00:18:29,420 --> 00:18:31,920 and the community, and those kinds of things. 482 00:18:31,920 --> 00:18:34,370 And so that's what-- 483 00:18:34,370 --> 00:18:37,070 these courses are not built so that there's 484 00:18:37,070 --> 00:18:39,660 a bunch of experts at MIT who know all the things 485 00:18:39,660 --> 00:18:41,660 and go out and tell other people how to do stuff 486 00:18:41,660 --> 00:18:42,950 and how to run their schools. 487 00:18:42,950 --> 00:18:45,500 If we're doing this work in the best possible way, 488 00:18:45,500 --> 00:18:48,483 we're inviting this dialogue with a community of educators 489 00:18:48,483 --> 00:18:50,150 and saying, look, we're fortunate enough 490 00:18:50,150 --> 00:18:51,770 to be able to just sit around all day 491 00:18:51,770 --> 00:18:55,235 and think about how children learn, how teachers learn, 492 00:18:55,235 --> 00:18:57,110 and to not have to worry about whether or not 493 00:18:57,110 --> 00:18:58,940 somebody forgot their lunch. 494 00:18:58,940 --> 00:19:01,520 And so that's what we can bring. 495 00:19:01,520 --> 00:19:04,460 But the teachers that we work with know more 496 00:19:04,460 --> 00:19:07,280 about their schools, and their community, and making schools 497 00:19:07,280 --> 00:19:09,300 work than anybody else does. 498 00:19:09,300 --> 00:19:11,750 And so we have to build learning experiences 499 00:19:11,750 --> 00:19:15,207 that honor and incorporate that wisdom and experience. 500 00:19:15,207 --> 00:19:16,040 SARAH HANSEN: Right. 501 00:19:16,040 --> 00:19:20,750 And finally, what invitation would you offer to our audience 502 00:19:20,750 --> 00:19:23,122 out there who might like to engage with this class? 503 00:19:23,122 --> 00:19:25,580 JUSTIN REICH: So we try to make the courses so that they're 504 00:19:25,580 --> 00:19:27,060 as accessible as possible. 505 00:19:27,060 --> 00:19:29,850 So we usually run them in a facilitated way once a year. 506 00:19:29,850 --> 00:19:32,360 And then the rest of the year, you can go and visit 507 00:19:32,360 --> 00:19:34,610 the archived material, and take it, and use it however 508 00:19:34,610 --> 00:19:36,950 you want. 509 00:19:36,950 --> 00:19:38,960 There's a whole bunch of this unMOOCed material 510 00:19:38,960 --> 00:19:41,540 that people can take and do whatever they want with. 511 00:19:41,540 --> 00:19:44,450 We try to have regularly throughout the year 512 00:19:44,450 --> 00:19:46,400 all of our courses running. 513 00:19:46,400 --> 00:19:49,790 People can go to the Teaching Systems Lab website, 514 00:19:49,790 --> 00:19:52,550 tsl.mit.edu, and sign up for our newsletter, 515 00:19:52,550 --> 00:19:55,250 and hear about new kinds of things that are going on. 516 00:19:55,250 --> 00:19:59,990 And we love having teachers engage with our work, 517 00:19:59,990 --> 00:20:02,337 give us feedback, help us learn how we can do a better. 518 00:20:02,337 --> 00:20:03,170 SARAH HANSEN: Great. 519 00:20:03,170 --> 00:20:04,060 Thank you very much. 520 00:20:04,060 --> 00:20:05,393 JUSTIN REICH: It was fun, Sarah. 521 00:20:05,393 --> 00:20:06,880 Thanks for having me.