Wow. That was our first thought when we read about Micro Schools and Pandemic Pods. The changes in the dynamics of education that have taken place over the last year are just incredible, and the shockwaves just keep rolling.Unhappy with the quality, consistency and suitability of purely online teaching at their local schools during the pandemic, parents got organized. Setting up "Pandemic Pods" of around 10 children, they then hired a private tutor (or one of the parents taught the children themselves), and their own Micro School was born.Now this might seem like just a reaction to a temporary situation. A way to make sure children had more of a multi-sensory, multi modal continuation of learning with a social dimension that the hastily assembled Zoom classes just were not offering, in a time when children most needed stability. We don't think so. This is a key part of the disruption of education that is underway.
It is easy to see why Micro Schools appealed to parents during the pandemic. Children were really suffering with the upheaval of everything around them. Parents were trying to keep working from home whilst keeping an eye on their children, and the need to find a solution was pressing. Small, local, self-contained and safe.The one-room schoolhouse is an iconic part of North American culture. Little red-bricked buildings used to dot the landscape, with as many as 190,000 of them in the US back in 1919. All ages in one room, with multi-modal lessons grouped by maturity and progress, rather than your date of birth. Education was different in 1919, but there was a fluidity of this type of learning environment. The teacher could not be everywhere, and so peer-teaching and a community learning model were natural evolutions here (if the schoolmaster didn't "physically educate" you for talking, that is!).
Today there are less than 4000 of these buildings in the country, and they are almost all rural, where population does not allow for segmented age groups. For a long time they were seen as old-fashioned, but the nostalgia for the local, one-room schoolhouse is now taking on a new dimension, and finding its way towards the cutting edge of education. For parents who want to have more control over their children's education, you can see the appeal. The pod agreements take into account the best schedules for the families, as well as the most suitable learning approaches and content for the small group of children that form part of it. Contact with the teacher is daily, and the individualized attention and personalized content that is possible in such a microcosmic group is hard to replicate in all but the most innovative K-12 learning environments.
They have been around for a while. Organizations like Acton have been supporting people to set up their own Micro School within existing schools for years now, and Nola has helped organizations bring Micro Schools into community spaces like museums and galleries.The difference these days is the grass-roots element. When the pandemic hit, and parents began to internalize the new realities of education for their children, it was clear that many schools were falling short. Let's be clear, we have always said (and will always say) that teachers are superheroes. No question.However, aside from the Herculean effort of teachers to shift learning online, the structures and know-how just weren't in place for so many schools. Online learning that truly supports the social dimension, and not just the cognitive one; that is something that does not evolve overnight.Enter parents groups. Where would we be without parents groups on Facebook? This is where recommendations are passed on and decisions are made, and it was natural fertilizer for the explosion in pandemic pods. This San Francisco group quickly garnered over 9500 members, and pods were set up all over the area with members sharing tips and tricks, resources and recommendations.The thing is, that going back is not easy for everyone. Have you ever realized while on holiday that where you live really isn't up to much? Or hired a car and found it tough to go back to your own? When the dust settled, those schooling in pods came to a crossroads - go back to school, or formalize what they were doing and step it up a gear. Micro Schools came into their own. In a Micro school, you can still ostensibly follow the curriculum, but approach it in your way, and broaden it out to include things that the learners are actually really interested in. One of the parents, for example, might teach coding, or the group might bring in a local designer to show the children how to use basic tools to create posters, designs, invites and social media posts. Local, small-batch artisanal education.
Sounds good so far? Let's dig a bit deeper. Hiring a teacher between 8 children and overseeing the content and learning approach with regular contact and discussion? You need time and money for that. The families in North America doing this are overwhelmingly white, privileged and without Special Educational Needs, and so the natural diversity of the area is stripped away into homogeneity. Not good. As this article scathingly puts it: "The New Aristocracy Discovers Micro schools-Introducing the newest, oldest way to engineer a feckless elite"We also take away a lot of the dialogue between parents and educators that helps us to shift mindsets and introduce progressive thinking. A parent might be looking for a school that has good discipline and scores high on state league tables, but that doesn't mean the education will help their child to be the best version of themselves. Sometimes the school is old-fashioned and teacher-centered, and sometimes it is the parents who hang on to outdated ideas, but the dialogue is always healthy.
The Micro School is a great idea. Flexible learning environments, more permeable walls between learning and the real world, personalised pathways through content and malleable schedules to suit the learners and the families.However, they risk being another tool of the elite, to further widen an equity gap that is already far too big. Teachers competing for the biggest paychecks, beholden to the direction of parents who may or may not know their pedagogy from their andragogy. Neurodiverse and BIPOC pupils excluded from the homogenous bubbles of learning that risk marginalization and are just downright unfair.Some organizations are doing something about it. Micro School organization Weekdays are lobbying and campaigning for more subsidies and support to ensure that Micro Schools do not end up as ableist, segregated, and sexist in the type of families who can access them. They are also helping to ensure that teachers who they recommend are thoroughly background checked and receive fair working conditions so that the children and teachers in the Micro School are less vulnerable.
This was bound to happen. When the Innocent Smoothie company started a new wave of interest in drinks with natural ingredients, homespun branding and environmental ethics, Coca-Cola saw the challenge and just bought the company; letting them retain their way of working but under the wider company umbrella.That's not the best example, but you know what we mean. Micro Schools are great, but only when equitable and properly run, and so an obvious solution was to bring the innovation in-house. Liberty Schools in Kansas City have installed Micro Schools in all of their regular schools, where small groups of learners can study more personalized pathways within special spaces like makers studios, or even off-site in business, manufacturing, or cultural hubs. Our favorite example is the Hubling approach by Learnlife. They partner with schools who know they need to do something to break out of the mechanistic model of education that still pervades modern schools, but lack the resources or capacity to do this full scale. In partnership with Learnlife, small learning hubs are set up within the school, which are customized with a range of 3D printing, music production, coding, art, and cooking facilities, to name but a few. This means a school can have a self-contained space for the magic to happen, and this is perfectly adaptive to a Micro School philosophy, where the learners can personalize their pathways and focus on what really interests them- away from the hum of the busy school.
Innovation is not linear. We were never going to emerge from a hugely unsettling pandemic with a shiny new school system, but the seeds have been sown. The pandemic pods showed us that when education is customized, localized and puts the learner at the centre, it can be a powerful experience.What we also learned is that we can't call it progress if it only works for some of us. There is a way forward here, and we don't have all the answers. What we do know is that everywhere we look, from liquid learning to coworking spaces, digital nomads to adaptive learning, the solutions of the future are fluid.They are never one thing, or one model, but the creation of choice, access and innovation. Micro Schools are actually quite a big idea, and we think they have a place in the future of education.
The podcast. It seems like they are suddenly everywhere, though they have been around for a long time now. Podcasting used to be called "audio blogging" and we can see why that was ditched. It's not just because these days podcasts can also have a video element and not just audio, but also because "audio blogging" makes us sound like we still think gramophones are high-tech.
On every imaginable subject, from conspiracy theories and true crime to an actor who is on a mission to find out why Tom Hanks fired him from an HBO series in 2001, podcasts cover every niche imaginable, and more that you could never have imagined in the first place.
How many of us listen to podcasts? According to this article, there are over 700,000 active podcasts in the world, and 62 million weekly listeners in the US alone. The 2021 edition of the infinite dial study puts that figure on the rise after the pandemic, with 41% of US citizens over the age of 12 now considered regular podcast listeners.
With remote workflows a natural part of producing podcasts, it is easy to see why the medium lent itself well to a lockdown society in 2020-1, but that still doesn't explain why people love them so much.
The niche appeal is definitely part of it. Think of how broad the internet is, with a website or community for everyone. Whether you love Japanese anime or you are obsessed with ancient tribal tattoos, there is a place for you that the mainstream media just cannot provide.
Podcasts are an extension of that. For those of us who want to find our tribe in imagining a new approach to education, we can join in with shows like Gamechangers and find people who see things broadly the same as we do, but yet broaden our horizons and challenge our assumptions as we learn. Podcasts bring these communities to life.
So the depth of podcasts is also very much part of the appeal. TV or radio shows tend to treat issues quickly and superficially before cutting to commercial; trying to hold your attention before you flick over to one of the 500 alternatives on the goggle-box. Podcasts can go deep and explore the issue to such an extent that you can actually learn and retain something through spaced repetition of key ideas, and a more condensed construction of schema-mental models of the idea structures that might actually stick around in the brain long enough for you to access them. Our increasingly busy lives also make podcasts really appealing. Have you ever tried to watch an episode of something on Netflix while making dinner? Your fajitas would have looked much better with your full attention. While driving, running, relaxing, cooking, lying on a beach, or even working on something reasonably automatic, the podcast means we can learn and grow at the same time. This on-demand learning and entertainment that demands nothing of us is a perfect model for the modern world and the balance of responsibilities so many of us have to juggle. The podcast means there can be "me time" amidst the noise, without taking our foot off the gas. Finally, podcasts are pretty short. Committing to an audiobook is like getting into a long-term relationship these days, as we spread the listening over several days or weeks. We love audiobooks, but they have to be really good to hold our attention and commitment for the duration. The podcast is a short and passionate affair, which asks nothing more of you, but has you coming back again and again on your own terms. Perhaps that is why podcasts are on the rise, while audiobook use seems to be flattening out.
You really have to be clear on this before you start. Take it from us when we say that listening to a podcast may be a passionate affair, but producing one is a labor of enduring love. Go in with eyes open and think about the long term.
So why did we want to launch The NEO Academy Podcast? To connect, to be part of a conversation we care about, to have a platform to share ideas in a way that engages, and to do all of the above on a deeper and more substantive level.
Connecting with professionals around the world on LinkedIn is great, but with an algorithm that favors broetry over depth, it is not the best place to share the more complex side of issues and ideas.
There is also the sense that on LinkedIn, there is a persona that people allow you to see; carefully sculpted into a one-page embodiment of the professional presence you wish to convey. Though some might try to inject character by calling themselves a "marketing ninja" we rarely get a true sense of who is behind the tagline. Podcasts reveal that, and we love them for this above all else. Finding your tribe is only half the voyage, connecting is the bit that really matters.
As much as we try to show who we are and what we care about in the world of education, there is so much noise on social media channels that authenticity is hard to perceive. On a podcast, we feel that there is space to say this is us, this is what we care about, these are the people who align with our values and here is what we want to say.
If you feel the same and want to get that message out there, we cannot think of a better way to do it.
We really wanted to do this podcast right from the start, and our experience 3 months in is entirely positive. NEO Academy is an education marketing & recruitment consultancy, but we definitely do not stick to that core topic. We felt that there was more than enough chatter out there about increasing engagement and wanted to explore the wider context of our environment.
We have always felt that, as a purpose-driven team, we had to be conscious of the type of institutions we were supporting to grow. We believe in learner-directed, purposeful, meaningful approaches to education, that equip learners with the skills to be positive and fulfilled members of an increasingly complex and challenging society.
That has given us a broad field! We have talked about finding your why and what creativity really means, but we have also connected with key figures in our sector that inspire us, just to find out more about who they are behind the profile. We have always felt that the worlds of marketing and academics should be far closer in building authenticity and sustainability in equal terms to help their institutions thrive, and so our network spans both.
When we talk about innovations like integrating WhatsApp in student recruitment or Project-Based learning, we are always aware that our colleagues in marketing and admissions will benefit hugely from really understanding these things better too. Likewise, when we see great things happening in institutions, we want to help them share those insights to help others embrace positive change through the inspiration this brings.
Did we mention fun? When you talk about what you love, how could it be otherwise? We learn every week, laugh, connect with passion and emotion and forge more authentic bonds with people and institutions we want to support. We are sure there are challenges to come, but we are yet to see a downside to this.
You. You come next. If reading this has resonated with you, please reach out to be a guest or just to get some advice on starting your own. We are happy to help. You can find some inspiration through back-episodes of our #geNEOusChats, and a special bonus for those who prefer these articles on an audio basis: #geNEOusIdeas.
Though Mark, our host is easy on the eyes, we understand that having a devastatingly handsome* figure on the screen will not help you focus on those fajitas. In service of your busy life and need to focus, we have launched an audio-only version of him: The geNEOus Podcast. Give it a try, and let us know if, like us, you also feel like he's the next Andy Puddicombe of the education industry**.
*editors note - The geNEOus (formerly NEO Academy) Podcast host also wrote this article, and this claim may have been wildly exaggerated.
**Andy declined to comment.
Sorry. The phrase "the new normal" was already quite annoying 6 months ago, and pretty much unforgivable at this stage, but we beg your indulgence nonetheless. Surely we can use it once? Co-working seems like a pretty good topic to justify dusting off the expression, because as we emerge from the pandemic, it is clear and plain that the way we work is fundamentally altered. We are not talking about the liquid workers and the digital nomads, but the 9 to 5 office workers who suddenly had to work from ergonomic chairs in their laundry room at home, and are perhaps still wondering what on earth happened.This does not feel like a temporary aberration: something has shifted. Offices are indeed opening back up in many countries, but not all employees want to return. It is not just the city workers in traditional white-collar roles, who do not all want to go back to their office desks, but also employees of Google and Apple who would prefer to be home than in the office treehouse or nap pod. While workers who want to be 100% remote are growing fast in number, the surprising statistic is that 82% of employees in the US want to work from home at least one day per week. No commute, more flexibility, interruptions and meetings- all may be good reasons to be more productive and happy at home. 66% of Australians said working from home had brought them closer to their families. Not everyone is happy at home, and work-life balance could be even harder depending on your family situation. For some, the office is a refuge! But one thing is clear: companies are beginning to wonder why they should pay hugely expensive overheads for a property that their employees largely don't want to be in. It is time for co-working to enter the mainstream.
Enter co-working. No longer a few startup types huddled over desks in urban garages, but gleaming, modern, and aesthetically thoughtful spaces, bursting with diverse networking opportunities and bespoke additional services.For those who veer between office and cafe as their preferred workspace, beautiful concept spaces such as Anticafé in France have a pay-per-hour service that includes access to all co-working facilities, as well as hot and cold drinks served in beautiful surroundings. Anticafé is so successful that they have opened co-working spaces throughout France with a different twist compared to a "normal" co-working.
No more nursing that cold cup of coffee to hang on to the coffee shop Wi-Fi a bit longer, as the staff stare at you with an "I know what you're up to" expression.There is an increasing diversity of co-working space, focus, approach, and structure; a sure sign that the market is growing. One very logical and effective approach is to focus the offer on a particular sector or community. Naturally, sectors like tech and design are very appealing, especially when so many of the workers are self-employed, or on liquid contracts that shift with demand. The third sector is an emerging sector of interest to coworking. In Edinburgh, The Melting Pot coworking space is soon to open its doors, with a focus on charities, NGO's and social entrepreneurs. This makes so much sense as collaborative practice is a lifeline in the third sector, where funding is restrictive, and rarely can one organisation operate without partnership. As they say on the website: "The Melting Pot harnesses the power of an unstructured collective – the power to ignite, support and effect social change by connecting resources to people, their ideas, passions and expertise."
It's not necessarily the case that organizations completely ditch the traditional office and buy co-working memberships, but more likely a hybrid model. A staggering 68% of UK businesses already had a flexible workspace policy even before the pandemic! This means that some staff could work in co-working spaces some days if, for example, it was more practical to get to than the office.By having a flexible workspace policy, organizations can lower their carbon footprint, but also cast the hiring net more widely. Having access to a broader geographic pool of potential employees is a huge plus; especially in more competitive markets like software engineers and technical project managers.
Costs are of course lower- typically between 20 to 40% cheaper per head. It is not only the square footage you pay for in a traditional office but the maintenance, cleaning, security, and whole host of others that are no longer a concern at a co-working space. Fixed office space is also a financial liability that impacts a companies appeal to investors, whereas co-working space fits neatly in the monthly columns. And you only pay for what you use of course. Agile organizations that need to flex quickly to respond when demand surges, can bring in project teams on a liquid-working approach and house the entire scale up in a coworking space. No renting extra space in the office next door- most spaces allow you huge flexibility of use after the basic package has been paid for.
Don't really fit in to the office culture? No problem at a co-working space, where a shifting tide of diverse hot-deskers flow in and out. There is always a core of semi-permanent members, but enough movement around the edges that it rarely feels static. In any case, you don't work with most of them, so why worry!Networking, however, is a reason you do indeed want to unfurl those social skills and make connections. In a traditional space, we are cocooned from more transversal opportunities. Try as we might, it is inevitable that in working for one company, we fail to keep our professional network broad and current.
In the coffee room is the CEO of that firm you've had your eye on for a while for a potential move, and next week someone is giving a workshop on a topic that really interests you, but which your own company would never justify investing in. Co-working has cross pollination and growth in its DNA. In fact, they have it in their manifesto. Co-working tends to come alongside a more flexible working arrangement in general. The culture of presenteeism holds no sway here so, depending on your role, it is likely that you can come and go when you like, without the stigma of being seen to be working late in the evening, or leaving early when objectives are met. There is simply more control and autonomy.
Divergence and diversity are the hallmarks of strong teams for the future, but these need space to converge and collaborate around projects and challenges that are as fluid as they are. Universities with an eye on the future can already see that co-working spaces are ideal places to merge learning and professional development with personal development and networking, and partnerships are the obvious next step.The University of North Carolina has jumped in with both feet, developing a range of partnerships with co-working spaces to support their students' divergent needs.
It's not just the space they are looking for, but the ecosystem. Mentoring on university-based startup programs can come from in-house experts at the co-working space, and access to such a range of thinkers and doers is fertile ground for innovative thinking and big picture approaches right from inception.The days of subject siloes and fortified classroom walls are over. Academia cannot be a bubble, but as a permeable membrane, it can flourish.
Sorry again. We promise it is the last time. And yes, co-working is the new normal for companies (sorry). The hugely cumbersome system of having employees work in the same place at the same time and in the same way just had to crack sometime. Family responsibilities, work-life balance, office culture (or lack of it), unproductive time without the ability to leave and come back to it refreshed; all of this is just not where the future lies.As climate change gathers pace and we finally, hopefully, get serious about it, how can we really justify the forced commute and the full-scale air conditioning and strip lighting for that one person who stays late in the office? Why would we fail to reinvent our city centers with something that added more vibrancy than the offices clustered around a Starbucks? The "prestige" of an organization is better represented by amazing levels of productivity from happy and engaged employees, than the brass plaque in prime real estate that weighs down your balance sheet year after year.
Why would we not embrace the opportunity of diverse teams working in collaboratively in different locations, and the opportunity to hire top talent outside a 25-mile radius? They have to work somewhere, and home is not always an option.Add this to the cross-pollination opportunities in co-working spaces that are targeted at your sector, and you can see why co-working is inescapably a fundamental part of the new normal for organizations, and we're definitely not sorry.
There are two general angles to the discussion around change in education. There are those who want to keep the existing structures in place, but make education more learner-centred and inclusive, and there are those who dismiss that as "tinkering at the edges" and want to transform the system to become fully learner-directed and transversal.
Project-Based Learning (PBL) seems to elicit praise from both camps, and that includes higher and further education as well as K-12 schools. So we wonder: is the wholesale adoption of PBL a stepping stone to more fundamental change, which everyone can agree on?
Project-Based Learning is not project work. Remember when you learned all about Romans, and the teacher came to school dressed as a centurion and got really grumpy because the class still seemed kind of bored? It's not that.
Imagine If, a Danish PBL consultancy sum it all up by saying that "Project-based learning is a full-time methodology. It's a mindset that students learn by doing. Teachers design projects so students hit learning goals by going through the process of making the project, but the ownership is on the students to decide how they will complete it."
Let's take the most open example: choose an issue that is important to you and do something about it. Yes really, it can be as broad and exciting as you like. A question like that can be a starting point for PBL into which so many learning opportunities can be built, and so many skills developed. Imagine, in this case, that the response from the learner is that climate change is the thing that bothers them most, and they want to understand it on a global level to make a difference at a local level.
And so it begins: researching, synthesizing information, defining the "problem", surveying others, persuading, reaching out to real organizations, designing a social media campaign with real metrics, event planning, and budgeting, fundraising, reflection, resilience and perseverance, creativity, design thinking, activism, linking up with learners in other countries, global citizenship, understanding global policies and the mechanisms of law, carbon literacy and...we could go on, but the point is made. The learning opportunities are rich, and the best thing is that the learner decides on the direction to take.
Traditional, mainstream schools who are trying to include more authentic learning in their approach can still loosely scaffold the parameters of the project so that it aligns to the learning outcomes, even if they need to adapt the way they measure competencies by using an agile system such as Lift Learning. Within those parameters there remains scope to be extremely creative. Learners solve a problem, answer a question, use a huge array of resources and tools, learn and communicate in diverse ways, and ultimately take ownership in a way that really motivates. Motivation without voice and choice can only be external, and that's really never worked out well.
The more learner-directed environments can use Project-Based Learning too but may build the opportunities to measure and assess collaboratively with the learner. There will be more open flexibility in direction and duration and more emphasis on tools such as metacognitive reflection and 360-degree feedback. As a core approach, there is something in it for both camps.
First off, let us just be really clear. When PBL is done right, it works. The Allen-Sanchez study showed that Schools using PBL reported significant improvements in engagement, attainment, attendance, skills development and deeper learning skills that will serve the learner lifelong and life-wide.
When tasks are meaningful and voluntary, when they are self-directed and unscripted, rich learning takes place. Leaving "what" behind and looking at "why" and "how" uses our natural creative curiosity, and when learners can express their learning in their own words and their own ways, the memories created around that cluster of knowledge and skills are positive and enduring. Student-driven inquiry, as opposed to tasks set by a teacher- these, are worlds apart. Learners are not uniform, and traditional classes struggle to cater to the diversity within their walls. Not so with Project-Based Learning, where learners can move at their pace, in their way, in their language, and on their terms. There can be play, failure, reflection, iteration, and retrenchment. This is all part of a living, breathing authentic task, and light-years away from the cotton-wool-padded and scripted projects that already have an answer for everything, boxes to tick, and few, if any, variables.
The artifacts or outputs of Project-Based Learning need not end at the classroom walls. Real tangible business ideas or social projects, community events, or physical devices. Learners can see the real application of their learning to the world around them because that is the way learning should be.
As one teacher put it, "Project Based Learning puts students at the epicenters of design and outcome, creating new generations of visionaries and “solutionaries.”
The VUCA world is Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. Commentators often use this term to talk about the future, but we are clearly already there. If 2020 showed us anything, it is that this world will throw us a curveball whenever it feels like it, and there is nothing we can do.
Not nothing. We can at least prepare. We saw it clearly in 2020; those who were ready to adapt to the new reality were able to find opportunities to thrive (not to "capitalize", which is a different thing). If learners grow up with scripted outcomes, controlled environments, predictable outcomes, and all the certainties of test-driven education, how will they ever be ready for challenges we cannot yet imagine?
In Project-Based Learning, you develop agency. You find out what you like, what drives you, what you are capable of, and all of the things that surprise you about yourself. There is no certain outcome, and there are multiple ways to get where you want to go, with forks and failures in every road, which become reflection and resilience. PBL is not the panacea, but it is an important part of the puzzle.
Project-Based Learning is not an extension, or an add on. It is not something that can be dropped into a traditional learning environment and made ready for Monday morning.
The culture of the school or institution will not change overnight, and there can be a tendency to over-evaluate or micromanage processes, rather than letting learners find their own way forward. Shortcomings in the planning can lead to unfair criticisms of PBL, such as when the task distribution has not been well-supported, and teachers see learners "slacking" when in fact it is the structure that has failed to engage them.
The real world angle has to be, well, real. If a group of university students is working on a community project that feels too scripted and curated, it will detract from the excitement of a challenge that has a truly uncertain outcome. Teachers, learning guides and facilitators have to step back and take on a different role, and this is not easy for so many professionals who are used to leading from the front.
Project-Based learning is an amazing tool that has the magic ability to fit in to almost any learning environment, but it can take many months or years to perfect it and let the organisational culture adapt to it. Creative learning experience designers can build in other approaches and methodologies within and around it, with PBL at the core, and the learning environment can be truly transformed, without scrapping the outcomes that are often externally imposed.
Is it all worth it? Let's let Sir Ken Robinson answer that one:
"The fact is that given the challenges we face, education doesn’t need to be reformed — it needs to be transformed. The key to this transformation is not to standardize education, but to personalize it, to build achievement on discovering the individual talents of each child, to put students in an environment where they want to learn and where they can naturally discover their true passions.”
What comes to mind when you hear the word creativity? Is it a painter cackling madly as they smear the canvas with a bold medley of colors? Perhaps it is a writer, sitting in the bough of a cherry tree, scribing verse after verse of beautiful poetry, only to rip it all up and scream at the moon in anguish. Perhaps not. But creativity is a tricky one.
A YouGov survey of 25,000 adults last year found that 28% considered themselves very creative, with the majority claiming to be "somewhat" creative, but yet there is still a lot of disagreement on what it actually is, where it comes from, and how it can be learned. Considering that "creative thinking" is never left out of any discussion on future skills, we should perhaps look first at what it isn't.
The fact that we know for certain that traits such as creativity do not originate from a particular side of the brain, has not stopped people from repeating it. "I'm more of a left-brain thinker," we say, and it goes unquestioned, just like a number of potentially dangerous neuro-myths that still even find their place in education today. Teachers talk about right and left brain traits, learning styles, and suchlike, without perhaps realizing that there is absolutely no evidence to support them.
These myths are so ingrained in popular culture that they will likely be around for a while yet, but they need to go. Why? Because growing up believing that creativity is inherent, that it is part of your neurological hardwiring, is a very dangerous idea. To grow up thinking that you are just not a "creative type" is robbing people of their own inherent potential. The brain is malleable, habits and skills can be acquired, mindsets can be changed or developed, and creativity is our birthright.
The late, great Sir Ken Robinson will always be remembered above all else, for his work on the decline of creativity as a result of traditional test-driven education. That narrative is gathering pace, with studies to back it up: schools, colleges, and universities are killing creativity. No, not all institutions, and not all education systems, but the vast majority to varying degrees are not helping to foster the development of this most precious resource.
Conforming to systems, building learning around a test, measuring everyone by the same yardstick, rewarding "good" behavior and promoting narrow ideals of success; all of these things are boxing in young minds, and dampening the spark of creative endeavor.
Sir Ken Robinson's famous paper clip test is a great example. How many uses can you think of for a paper clip? Most adults come up with 15-20 uses, but kids are generally up in the hundreds. This divergent thinking, wild imagination, lack of inhibition at what might be considered "silly"; all of this is a fertile breeding ground for creative thinking, but yet year after year, we stifle it, until all we can think of is to use it to hold bits of paper together. The creativity crisis study in the USA found that not only do we decline in creativity throughout our lives, but each generation is also becoming less creative than the last. This is not what we need for a challenging future society.
You have a brain. At least, we assume you do. If not, then well done on making it so far into this article. In your brain, there is absolutely everything you need to be creative. Basically seeing something in a slightly different way, stepping back and connecting what you are doing with a process from something else, describing something in a way that someone can understand, figuring out what to do in a difficult situation, decorating your home, or making a joke.
Creativity is everywhere, and in all of us. The neurological process is absolutely fascinating, and something called our "imagination network" lights up when we switch from our executive functioning and start to explore new territory. This "outside the box" thinking is when we start to explore our knowledge and experience in a different way. Imagine looking for something in your digital files and going through all the folders to find the stuff you need. One by one, you open, access, analyze and continue. The imagination network is searching by tags; finding all of the non-standard connections between all of these bits of information in folders that have never been stored together. You see new patterns, connections, overlaps, and ideas. It might come to nothing, but the process is fun, and the more you do it, the easier it gets.
And that's the point. You have to do it. Nobody can do it for you. If our schools and colleges are not giving our learners space to play, iterate, make mistakes (and laugh about them, as well as learn from them), then how can creativity flourish? A case study is not going to do it because you are not the protagonist and the successful outcomes are narrow. We need open-ended projects, creative control, and learner-directed approaches, where the learning is in the journey and not just the destination. Creativity will flourish in the reflection on that journey, in the sense of experimentation and the absence of rigidity of structure. You will not find it on page 12 of your textbook.
Fundamentally, if we always do the same things, we will get the same result. The climate is changing rapidly, so population displacement, food shortage, new ways of living and working will all require new ways of thinking. The unpredictability of the next 50 years means fluid thinking is a must. We simply cannot hit the wall every time an apparently unsolvable problem arises: we must endure.
Developing creativity means developing confidence and agency. It means reducing anxiety because we have more of a sense of control over our lives, and know we have the ability to face and solve problems. Creativity links the head and the heart and means that we are in touch with our own emotions and rational thinking processes alike so that the solution we create is holistic. Teachers report that creativity in the classroom helps learners feel more of a sense of pride and accomplishment, and because creativity is bringing head and heart together, it reinforces our positive self-image in a more robust and enduring way. In summary, it is awesome.
Whether you are in the classroom, or out in the world already, there are opportunities everywhere to foster creativity.
Educators need to provide space for meaningful, learner-directed projects and activities that have multiple possibilities and pathways and are not aimed at a predetermined "correct" answer or outcome. These spaces must be inclusive, and allow learners to work at their pace, in their way, and feel supported.
The learner voice should always be central, and educators can learn as much from their pupils as the reverse, in a truly open environment. Creativity should be a hallmark of every "subject", so we do not grow up with the fallacy that art is creative, but maths is not.
For those of us with high school and college in the rear/view mirror, sorry, but it's game over for you. Just kidding -a reminder that creativity can be making someone laugh, after all. For those of you with children, you already have an advantage. Accompanying your children in play, games, and the strange and beautiful quests they come up with at random on a rainy Tuesday afternoon- all of this is a license to explore your own creative resources.
It can be even simpler- just by switching things up. Take a different route home, learn to cook something new, do something that is slightly out of your comfort zone, speak to someone you don't know very well at work, and move beyond the small talk phase to share a story or two. Reflect on things you've done that were creative; maybe that same day, such as when you raised a point in a meeting that nobody had thought of, or even just sat down with a colleague and made them feel better about something.
To dig further back, you will be pleasantly surprised at the huge amount of rich life experiences that are bursting at the seams with creativity, if you begin to explore your past through creative journaling such as Daily Om's a year of journaling to uncover the authentic self.
Creativity is in all of us. It is not in a part of the brain that some of us have and others do not. It is not just found in art and literature, but in hairdressing, finance and plumbing. We are all amazingly creative as kids, but the world tends to squeeze it out of many of us as we grow. That's not your fault, and it does not mean you have lost it. It was always there, popping up in your life perhaps without you noticing, but now it is time to reconnect. The world needs creativity, and so do you.
Amazing online courses are not the norm. If they were, they would not be considered amazing! However, they are certainly out there, setting the bar high for the plethora of decidedly average offers that still make up the mainstream. You know the ones: no sense of community, lack of coherent narrative, discussion forums that have less atmosphere than the surface of mars, and the personality of a chatbot.
That may sound harsh, but if 2020 showed us anything, it is that online learning is here to stay. Flexible, asynchronous high-quality digital education is democratic, inclusive and will hold the high ground in the future landscape of higher and further education, as well as professional development and enquiry. It is eminently unfair to judge all online learning negatively, because an institution tried to copy-paste traditional one-to-many classroom instruction onto the online space and created a decidedly underwhelming experience. Better design is out there, and we would like to introduce you to three of them, and examine what makes them engaging and effective.
Ok here is the elevator pitch. Imagine a degree that isn't focused on what you know, but what you can do. One which doesn't ask you to do multiple-choice tests and abstract dissertations, but actually build a skills portfolio that is evidenced through real-life projects or simulations and authentic assessments. Interested?
We are. The Competency-based degree program at Northern Arizona University has won some major awards for innovation. Students can learn at their own pace, with a personalized learning mentor. In qualifications such as business, there are some core units to complete, but even some of those are skills-focused, such as critical thinking and innovation.
Students do not enroll and then complete the course in lockstep with a cohort, but rather subscribe to the program in 6-month periods, which means that progress can be paused or accelerated depending on how you feel and what else is happening in your life. If you want to achieve your degree in one year, that is possible. Learning can be tied to your current employment for direct application and reflection, to a startup idea you have or have already launched, or combined with other studies you are taking elsewhere. The mentor will help guide you in how you can develop and evidence the skills that are measured by your program, and the rest is up to you. Credit is given for knowledge and skills you already have and can demonstrate in authentic assessments or practical projects, meaning there is no duplication of learning and the course meets you where you are.
A subscription gives you access to all of the institution's learning resources so that you can explore the tangents and connections that interest you. The focus is on skills, and so you are free to direct the course of knowledge that you need for your personal context. In terms of a sense of community, NAU reacted quickly to the pandemic by "moving services such as campus recreation, health promotion, mentoring and counseling opportunities, career development and much more to a virtual format." The "campus" experience of online studying is not easy to master, but this is a very solid attempt that continues to be developed today. Beware, however, as competency-based online courses are not for everyone. Because you direct your own learning and the mentor does not directly "teach" the material, you definitely need to have developed a strong sense of purpose to motivate your progress and good learning skills that do not depend overly on others to scaffold for you. If you know what you want, however, and you know how you learn best, then the flexibility of this type of course online is an excellent opportunity.
A very different type of course for our second example of online courses getting it right. This time, though flexibility and skills are embedded in the fabric of this course, the real edge is down to practicality.
The AdsAccelerator course is for Facebook and Instagram advertisers to take their game to a new level. We know this sounds like one of the ads that pops up on YouTube and tells you to "stop scrolling and start winning" with some revolutionary new learning approach. We have, however, been inside this course and poked around, and we are impressed.
Even before you get into the learning material, you can see that AdsAccelerator is laser-focused on the practical. Industry logos are everywhere, but the huge amount of testimonials from relatable people in non-shiny suits really drives home the message of how easy it is to implement the learning directly into your work.
This is really speaking to people who are just trying to get ahead in a technical and complex industry that is highly competitive and evolving at breakneck speed. They do not have time to learn the behavioral psychology behind the AIDA model; they just need to know how they can use it. The peripheral learning can be done at your own direction and pace around it- AdsAccelerator is about getting into the thick of it.
They have designed it well. There are starting points for people who are totally new to the industry, and more complex tracks for those that are well seasoned. The video narratives are clean, crisp screen shares that explain clearly what to do and why it should be done. The meta-structure of the topics is in a logical order as if you were explaining the whole thing to someone in conversation, and the content had to unfold in a logical order that wouldn't have the listener saying "wait...what?".
Micro-segmented content is the name of the game here, and it is a practical choice. Things change very quickly in this world, and these videos will need to be revisited regularly for revision. The segmentation not only means it is easier to keep up to date with the industry but the learning is personalizable with users able to dive into very specific areas.
The challenging aspect of this type of course design is the overall pedagogical approach. Individually, the video segments are very well-structured, and thematically they do follow a logical order. The repetition of ideas is also organized to make the learning stronger. Spaced repetition and spiral sequencing of content are really useful approaches to help learners acquire knowledge with less cognitive load.
Spiral sequencing is when "there is an iterative revisiting of topics, subjects or themes throughout the course. A spiral curriculum is not simply the repetition of a topic taught. It requires also the deepening of it, with each successive encounter building on the previous one." This is much easier to do in a static curriculum designed from the ground up, but the Ads Accelerator program went successfully on the challenging route. As such, these courses will work well for those who have quite well-developed learning and note-taking skills and/or those who are able to apply the learning immediately and iteratively to real-world tasks.
This is a fun one. The Learning how to learn course on Coursera is one of their most popular courses ever. Online learning does not always need to be super high-tech to succeed. A lot comes down to the learning guide or instructor, and a good progressive knowledge of pedagogy and modern theories of learning.
Dr. Barbara set everything up in her home basement studio. Her husband films and she edits, and the result of such grassroots beginnings, is Coursera's most successful course ever, with almost 2 million participants so far.
We recommend reading this New York Times article which outlines all the quirky but hugely effective tools she employs to really make this a hugely successful learning experience, but here we will summarize what we loved.
The videography is great. Dr. Barbara moves unexpectedly, pops up on the other side of the screen, and disappears. Our brains are constantly given reasons to pay attention, and this is not surprising given the real focus on neuroscience as part of "rewiring" our brains for more effective learning. The goofy animation is sometimes so bad that it's good because of its authenticity, and there is a huge sense of personality and connection throughout.
Great teacher practices what they preach. All of the learning devices referenced in this course are fully used in its delivery. Pacing and pausing help us to stop and internalize the content. Chunking of key groups of information helps us construct mental models that we can retrieve from memory and make our own associations with. All of this is supported with prompts for us to reflect on our own learning metacognitively.
If you want to see great pedagogy in action, with all the high-tech wizardry stripped away, go take a look at this course.
The existential shock of the pandemic is fading, and that means learner expectations will rise. No more will we have the patience for subpar learning experiences when the "reasons" don't stack up.
Hard to have a practical focus that keeps pace with industry in a big institutional environment? Take a look at AdsAccelerator and its micro-segmentation approach. The campus experience cannot be brought online, and you cannot have authentic assessments in virtual environments? Take a look at NAU. And overall, let's remember that the learning environment above all else must be based on a solid understanding of how we actually learn best. Strip away the tech and look under the hood. Dr. Barbara knows how the engine runs, and without that, all the app integrations and fancy animation in the world will take us precisely nowhere.
Online learning is here to stay, so let's get it right, and learn from the best.
