{"id":6540,"date":"2022-07-23T20:49:21","date_gmt":"2022-07-24T01:49:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=6540"},"modified":"2023-03-21T00:09:32","modified_gmt":"2023-03-21T05:09:32","slug":"the-project-paradox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=6540","title":{"rendered":"\ufffcThe Project Paradox"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019m thinking hard about our annual summer institute, Constructing Modern Knowledge<\/a>, which begins in two days. This will be our thirteenth CMK in fifteen years since we lost two to the COVID-19 plague. CMK is lots of things, but fundamentally we attempt to create a utopian learning environment overnight where educators learn to learn and learn about their own creative power while engaged in personally meaningful project development using high- and low-tech materials. A great deal of thought and nuance combine to produce the most seemingly unstructured experience possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Constructing Modern Knowledge endeavors to remove time constraints, assessment, curriculum, coercion, ability grouping, segregation of any sort, instruction, and other pillars <\/strong>of schooling from our four-day learning adventure. One way we approach this goal is by beginning the institute with the question \u201cwhat do you wish to make?\u201d We neither ask \u201cwhat would you like to learn?\u201d or provide instruction in the vast array of materials and technological tools available for knowledge construction. I borrowed the \u201cWhat would you like to make,\u201d from my mentors, Dan and Molly Watt, thirty-five years ago. It encourages participants to approach projects with the wide-eyed optimism and innocence of a young child. Surprise, serendipity, and whimsy are critical ingredients in the CMK secret sauce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Visit the Constructing Modern Knowledge web site by clicking the image above<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We do not assign groups, project topics, engage in icebreakers, teach how to use technology, brainstorm, introduce vocabulary, assess prior knowledge, or even suggest what participants work on while at CMK. Our beginning ritual, \u201cWhat would you like to make?\u201d is sufficient for people to bunch up and get busy. Work together or alone \u2013 whatever feels more natural, productive, or gets the job done. It is OK to change your mind, be inspired by another project, or set off in a different direction. There is no time to be distracted by instruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Year-after-year, teachers representing every grade, geographic origin, subject, and previous experience level create projects that take my breath away \u2013 and they do so in less than four days, often with bleeding edge technologies. The next \u201cproject\u201d CMK participants undertake is reconciling their own personal CMK experience with the one(s) they create for their students. With any luck, that<\/em> project<\/em> lasts long after they depart Constructing Modern Knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Take off your teacher hat and put on your learner hat at Constructing Modern Knowledge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Remove your teacher hat<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Seymour Papert teaches us that \u201cyou can\u2019t think about thinking about thinking without thinking about thinking about something.\u201d Therefore, we begin CMK with Papert\u2019s admonition to take off your teacher hat and put on your learner hat. Being selfish with the learning experience unlocks infinite possibilities once you return to your vocation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Choice, collaboration, creativity, computation, and competence are essential elements of our project-approach. As the de-facto teacher at CMK, I try hard not to impose my will upon our \u201cstudents.\u201d Honest educators will confess that such temptation is hard to resist, especially when you would like students to have a particular <\/em>experience or learn something specific. Add the constraints imposed by a four-day event and oh, boy do you want to teach! <\/em>This is especially true when you have a mountain of cool hardware, software, and objects-to-think with available. This may be someone\u2019s only opportunity to use a specific piece of gear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But resist you must! I urge everyone at CMK to suspend their disbelief and trust the process. This is not a workshop. You are not here to learn X<\/em> tech or develop Y<\/em> skill, predetermined by others. You will<\/em> learn an alphabet of concepts and develop sophisticated skills by making something that matters to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said\u2026<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Despite sincerely altruistic motives, CMK may represent the only chance I have to trial a specific project, especially with a super cool piece of emerging technology, with a group of adult learners. For teachers, teaching often satisfies all the qualities of project-based learning for themselves.<\/em> Students are unlikely to gain as much from your project <\/em>as you do.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember the oft-repeated mantra of the EdTech community, \u201cIt\u2019s not about the technology.\u201d That clich\u00e9 is so stupid, it\u2019s not even wrong. Of course, it is about the technology. School has always taught based on the available technology of an era and technology is never neutral<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> it always influences behavior. Good technologies amplify our potential, grant us new powers, enhance our humanity, and inspire us to create previously unimaginable artifacts of our learning experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If computers are available, computing (programming\/coding\/making something out of bits) supercharges your projects and pays the greatest intellectual dividends. The best constructive technologies are generative in nature. They feature a low threshold that invites you in, and a high ceiling that allows for continuous challenge and generative design. Rather than thinking of iterative design in terms of customers or products, generative design is a more intrinsic process of having an idea, engaging in conversation with material or technology, tinkering, breakthroughs or bugs, and then generating the next challenge, embellishment, experiment or project idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example\u2026<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I navigate the world trying to notice cool new ideas and inventions so that I may use that new stuff in project-development or as inspiration for students to create themselves. For many years, I asked educators in my learning theory class to create a working Knowledge Navigator<\/a><\/em>, figuring that a few years after genius engineers at Apple create a working prototype, the underlying technology becomes so accessible that anyone can create their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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