WK 4 Reading - Comment to Classmates Post 2 of 2

I loved Zander's words in Chapter 9 about us having the "infinite capacity to light a spark of possibility" right at our fingertips and that "passion, rather than fear, is the igniting force."  Oh how true those words ring.  That not only should we ignite a spark in others, but be willing to catch any sparks they may throw at us as well.  I must say that reading Chapter 11: Creating Frameworks for Possibility was right up my creative alley so to speak.  I know that I am the happiest whenever I am creating new things or even watching that creative spark in both of my daughters.  My 15 year old is able to do things with video that I only wish I had been able to do at her age or to have even had the opportunity to learn with the tools and technology she has available to her.  

I loved the story of the teacher who shaved her head because of the student who underwent chemotherapy and the other students were making fun of her baldness.  What a great way to take charge of a situation instead of letting it get out of hand and head into that downward spiral Zander speaks of.  I have a dream to teach and believe that dream is well within my "arena of possibility."  Zander made a really good point about how a vision does not require one to win, but merely to play into the possibility.  His words on how a personal crisis can lead to the creation of a vision that turns a life of possibility sang out to me about the past year or so of my life and how I have taken the my job loss and divorce not as a sign of failure, but rather as a sign to have a new beginning full of possibilities and dreams.  This book has helped me to realize that all the negativity about not having a job and never even being called for a job interview to teach does not define who I am.  My thinking either positive or negative is what defines me and my actions allowing me to choose to explore my own world of possibilities in order to move forward in my life and ignite that spark in others around me.

WK 4 Reading - Comment to Classmates Post 1 of 2

Wk4 Art of Possiblity - WE are The World Post by Tiffany Jones

"Individually we are one drop, together we are an Ocean." - Ryunosuke Satore

Clip Art from Microsoft

This week the reading was again very powerful!  The author  discusses the subject of WE and how different this is  from ME.  It is so refreshing to take the spotlight off ourselves and focus on working together. Many times teamwork or collaborations are phrases that many throw around, with only a few actually having true collaboration.  With each of us focused on the future and working with our individual talents to perform their best, allows the group to do likewise, with each participant performing at their peak. When each group member in WE is performing at their top level, the group as a whole is Exceeding Standards. Another visualization I have is because each person of the WE team is able to hyperfocus on their part, they have become a star, with all the stars shining together, optimum brightness is achieved.  I found this to be so true with my group work here in the EMDT program, working with my group allowed me to put my best foot forward and with everyone's strengths, talents and hard work, our projects far outshone what I could have accomplished on my own.  Developing a group synergy where tasks are shared makes the overall "job" more manageable, fun and ultimately, Successful!      

 

Photo and poster created by Laurie Kish

Laurie M. Kish said...
I really liked your comments about the teamwork within the projects across the EMDT program and how you related this experience to Zanders chapter on Telling the We Story. It is so true what was clearly stated in this chapter that "we" is "you-plus-I," and the questions I am sure that your EMDT teams asked like mine was "What shall we do?" or "What will work for us?" it was always a compromise between what we all wanted individually and what we ended with as a collaborative effort. And to think that at the time we did not even know that we were applying one of the Art of Possibility principles. We all had a place in the dialogue and in the final outcome.
May 28, 2011 6:06 PM                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

WK 4 Reading The Art of Possibility

The chapter Lighting the Spark in Zanders book, Art of Possibility states that passion rather than fear is the igniting force of possibility.  He discussed how the practice of enrollment is about giving yourself as a possibility to others and being ready, in turn, to catch their spark.  You become partners in a field of light.  I have experienced this many times through use of enrollment, getting others to see the light, through my passion verses using manipulative means to engage them.  Allowing them to see your passion gives them different perspectives thus unleashing possibilities that they would not otherwise have seen.  I am passionate about incorporating what I call the fun factor into my corporate training courses where my French colleagues culturally oppose this.

Fun training materials - Photo taken by Laurie Kish

Photo taken by Laurie Kish with permission

I prepared a training course on Project Management that I intended to release world wide to all our global sites that involved an interactive team building pirate adventure where they were required to dress up as pirates and journey across the open seas with the mission to find the treasure within a specified time-line, specified cost, and with a certain performance measure.  I presented this to my French colleagues just prior to launch and the mere idea of this seemed childish and they closed their minds immediately.  Of course fear ran through my soul and I felt attacked, and defeated after spending many weeks developing this module.  I decided to show them how passionate I was about learning effectiveness when hands on fun activities are integrated into the modules by convincing them to participate in a session to experience it first hand.  They agreed and in the end I opened up my module for their critique and comment and asked them to help me improve it so it was culturally acceptable to the French.  By doing this, I could see the light in their eyes as they engaged in helping me add more fun factors.  They were sold and to this day they often contact me to help them incorporate other fun examples into some of their training sessions.  The sparks of possibility are living within all of us; we just need to imagine that all people and situations can be an invitation for enrollment.  

WK4-2 DB Quickies: My dream teaching environment

Explore the open sea in search of fine treasures wherever they may be...

Photo taken by Laurie Kish

My dream job environment is being a teacher outside the constraints of my employer, perhaps a consultant.  Today I teach adults and I work for someone else who controls the budget and all the decisions.  In my dream job, I would be the captain of my ship, navigating where I want to go and how I would get there.  In this way, my limitations for creativity, engagement, and activities would be within my treasure chest and no one else’s.  I would be the one responsible for the business and agendas, which would allow me to make a bigger impact on a life, be it a child or an adult.  What is standing in between me, and my dream job right now is myself.  I tend to play it safe too often and not take many risks.  I could walk the plank and take a risk that when I jump, I will land in a sea of opportunity and not sink with the anchor that is tied to my ankles today.  I now have twelve months worth of new tools that I have learned in EMDT that will forever stay with me.  I just need to believe in myself!  

WK4-1 DB Quickies: My dream teaching environment

ENGAGEMENT, ENGAGEMENT, ENGAGEMENT!

Photo from http://www.corporateexplorertraining.com/projectmanagement.php

My Perfect Teaching Environment

As a corporate trainer my dream teaching environment would be a large air-conditioned meeting room at a five star hotel across the hall from the hotels large pool.  The room would have large ceilings, round tables seating up to 12 people each with built in power connection ports.  Video projection screens built in to each of the 4 walls and audio sound capabilities that would almost make you feel like you were attending a concert as you arrived.  What you would see would be blue ocean surrounding you with sounds of waves, wind, and seagulls.  My environment needs to be very colorful with lots of space for interaction and activities.  No podiums!  Cordless microphones so the trainees and instructor could be heard from anywhere in the room during the training.  It would have a pile of large flat cardboard sheets in one corner, large rolls of heavy clear plastic tarps, and large sand buckets containing colorful rolls of duck tape and scissors, cutting blades.  Aisles with post-it writing pads would be next to each round table.  A large treasure chest filled with fabulous merchandise would be visible from the center of the room.  You see, the beginning of every training would have a very interactive team exercise where each table works together to build a boat out of cardboard.   One lucky sailor on the team would be asked to get in the boat and navigate it with oars they would hopefully build to from one end of the pool to the other and back without sinking.  Talk about team engagement and getting the audience engaged! 

Wk 4 Publishing Leadership Project

"To Infinity and Beyond"

Photo taken by Laurie Kish

Taking my Action Research Project to a whole new level...

My Action Research project and Literature Review focused on the impact that corporate sponsorship and the integration of technology had on High School student’s motivation to learn mathematics and their ability to apply what they had learned.  Working in the corporate Medical Device world and having a son in High school I realized that perhaps I might be able to connect the two and make a difference in the life of the students as well as show Corporate America that giving time and dollars to a local school might help them to secure future Engineers, Biomathematicians and Scientist.

Riverside High School

bioMerieux Inc. The Odyssey Bus National Tour - Lab in Motion http://microsite.biomerieux-usa.com/odyssey/

My plan for publishing my Action Research project involves presenting it at two national conferences, one focused at Human Resource professionals and employee educators within corporations and the other focused on school educators.  If I could get my message out to these two audiences then perhaps they could find mutual benefits in building lasting partnership where the sky could be the limit.  My project focused only on mathematics but I see this application in all areas of high school education: science, engineering, economics, and beyond.  

http://www.astd.org/

I selected The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) which is an association dedicated to workplace learning and performance professionals.  Members work in many industries and organizations with a goal to link learning and performance to individual and organizational results.  They have a voice on critical public policy issues and legislation concerning advancements in workplace education so why not explore the possibility of them assisting or partnering with school educators on policies that can benefit both of them like tax credits for corporations that help educate students? They have an annual international meeting that attracts thousands of corporations from many industries. This is a perfect setting to introduce the concept and advantages of corporate sponsorship with local community schools and the benefits to them. 

Screen shot from http://www.iste.org/conference.aspx

The improvements to educational outcome and our future labor force are so closely tied together that it becomes very important to select a venue that targets both key audiences, K-12 and undergraduate institutions as well as corporate sponsors.  So I selected The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) for my K-12 and Undergraduate target audience because they strongly believe that corporations are major stakeholders in education and that we need to collaborate with them to successfully transforming education.  Each year at their international conferences they have nearly 20,000 educational technology professionals and corporate representatives from 60 countries that come together over five days to learn, collaborate, and share information all of which leads to unlocking students’ potential.  I feel this is a perfect opportunity to share my vision and results with the K-12 and undergraduate educators to encourage them to allow corporations to sponsor their classrooms.

• Publishing/Leadership Thinking Outload Blog #1 
  http://childrenrfuture.blogspot.com/2011/05/wk1-publishingleadership-project-part-1.html 
• Publishing/Leadership Thinking Outload Blog #2                    http://childrenrfuture.blogspot.com/2011/05/wk3-publishingleadership-project-post-2.html
  
  
• Publishing/Leadership Project                                               
  https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0Ad-ipdqLGbJyZHZkc3NucF8xOGdqaDY1emRm&hl=en_US&authkey=CLGmzooN
                                                         

 

Wk3 Publishing/Leadership Project Post 2 of 3

Screen shot from http://www.astd.org

My Action Research project involved examining the literature to see if High School student’s motivation to learn mathematics is increased through the integration of technology and corporate sponsorship.  In conducting my Action Research project around these aspects, I was able to confirm the validity of the research that stated that a student’s motivation to learn is increased through the integration of technology and corporate sponsorship.  It was also noted that there are benefits for corporations as well.  

I prefer that my message reach as many people as possible who are gathered at a meeting with dedicated time to devote to the topic of their interest. Networking is so valuable in getting the message out that corporations should be contributing to the education of our future workforce.

Within my first think out loud project post, I mentioned  targeting two to three different audiences:  (1) educational institutions (K-12 and undergraduate), (2) corporations, and (3) National Legislation.  Given this, I have identified two possible conferences in which I could present and why.  One of the conferences could lead to possibilities for National Legislation when more data is available so it would be an excellent first step in a the longer journey.

The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) is an association dedicated to workplace learning and performance professionals.  Members work in many industries and organizations of all sizes with a goal to link learning and performance to individual and organizational results.  They have a voice on critical public policy issues and legislation concerning advancements in workplace education.  Their mission is to empower professionals to develop knowledge and skills to succeed.  They have an annual international meeting that attracts thousands of corporations from many industries. This is a perfect setting to introduce the concept and advantages of corporate sponsorship with local community schools and the benefits to them.  It could be a way to bridge the gap between what corporations need, future skilled workforces, and what students need, state of the art technology and hands on experiences and the opportunity to see what could be out there for them related to future careers.

Screen shot from http://www.iste.org/conference.aspx

The improvements to educational outcome and our future labor force are so closely tied together that it becomes very important to select a venue that targets both key audiences, K-12 and undergraduate institutions as well as corporate sponsors.  The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) strongly believes that corporations are major stakeholders in education and that we need to collaborate with them to successfully transforming education. ISTE has a 30-year history of working with corporations to help achieve their mission of advancing excellence in learning and teaching through innovative and effective uses of technology.  Each year at their international conferences they have nearly 20,000 educational technology professionals and corporate representatives from 60 countries that come together over five days to learn, collaborate, and share information all of which leads to unlocking students’ potential.  I feel this is a perfect opportunity to share my vision and results with the K-12 and undergraduate educators to encourage them to allow corporations to sponsor their classrooms.