Keep Throwing Darts at the Dartboard

I recently viewed the A Plus condensed version of Will Ferrell’s commencement address to the graduating class of 2017 at USC.

Ferrell’s charge to “keep throwing darts at the dartboard” resonates deeply with me.  This has been a challenging year, maybe the most challenging of my 16 years as a middle school science teacher.  I accepted a position at a new school in a new district.  I had three preps, none of which I had taught before, and I moved classrooms 4 times throughout the day (although this movement helped me gain a much better appreciation of how our students feel during their school days).  This year was hard.  It pushed me way outside of my comfort zone.  It was a year of steep, steep learning.  It was frustrating at times but it was also rewarding.

I love teaching.  My passion is to create learning opportunities and environments where kids push their thinking, find and develop their strengths, are creative, think critically and discover and develop new ideas and understandings.  Creating this environment though is a messy process and requires constant revision and reflection, problem solving and risk taking.  The bullseye on my

dartboard is student understanding. Here’s the thing though; the bullseye is on the move, it’s always changing, it’s constantly getting tweaked and sometimes it gets completely revised.  The bullseye on my dartboard looks different with every new group of learners in August.  It is modified with every new learning objective that we are working towards.  It is adjusted based on the needs of every learner that walks through our classroom door.  The bullseye on my dartboard must be tweaked every day depending on what happened to each learner earlier that day, the night before, last month or years before.

Every time I throw a new dart at my dartboard, I aim for the bullseye but I know I’ll never quite get there.  If I think I have, it’s probably time to do something else because I’ve lost sight of my target.  This is what makes teaching exciting and rewarding but hard.  This moving bullseye gives me the push to take risks and try new things. This year I threw lots of darts.  I completely missed a few times, especially in those first few months of the new year.  But I also think that I threw some darts that were pretty darn close to hitting their mark. Through all of this dart throwing, my student learners amazed me.  They were creators, they were problem solvers, they were risk takers, they were thinkers, they were learners.

I learned as much from my misses this year as I did from those darts that were creeping up on the bullseye.  As I close out my first year in my new school, I look forward to reflecting on what my student learners taught me this year.  I look forward to taking my learnings from this challenging year and recalibrating my aim for next year’s darts.  I look forward to the next school year when I will continue to ‘keep throwing darts at the dartboard”.

Photo Credits: Dartboard, Dartboard with Darts

Challenge, Choice, Creativity, Constraints......Innovation

A snippet of a dialogue that occurred multiple times over the last three weeks:

“Ms., I need at least four more motors.”

“Sorry R., I only have the one motor that I already gave you.”

 “But Ms., I can’t make it work without at least four more motors, five would be better.”

“You’re just going to have to figure out how to make it work with one R.; I know you can do it.”

I had challenged my 6th grade TIDE (Technology, Innovation, Design and Engineering) students to design, engineer & showcase something that would inspire and/or impact another person.  Individually or in small groups, they had come up with some great ideas including light-up slime, a website to help people find and donate to credible charities and R.’s idea that involved designing and building a moving vehicle that younger kids could experiment and play with.

The students, using design thinking, began by empathizing with the end user of the product they had decided to create.  After ideating and zeroing in one idea, they were now building their first prototypes and R. was struggling.  In all of our design challenges, there are criteria and constraints.  I believe that constraint begets creativity and innovation.  In this particular challenge, because so many ideas were being pursued, the primary constraint I gave the students was that they needed to create their prototype/s using things that they could find in our room.  I had one motor in the classroom, this was R.’s sticking point.

In his daily productivity logs, R. let me know again and again that he would not be able to successfully create the moving vehicle that he had envisioned unless he had many more motors.

Four days into the challenge, I almost gave in but then I reminded myself of what happens when we have constraints.  We are forced to get creative.  We are compelled to get innovative.  We are pushed to think more deeply.  And as a result, we often create/develop something that is better, or at least really different, than we originally intended.  I stood strong and kept encouraging him.  Day 6 - Breakthrough!

“Ms., I was thinking about what I could do since you won’t give me more motors and I remembered those littleBits that we worked with last month.  I was thinking that I might be able to use them to solve the problem I’ve been having with the wheels on my car…”

“Of course, R., they are in the room.”

After being stuck for 6 days, R. figured out a solution.  He spent the next 5 days tweaking and testing and tweaking and testing his prototype until he was satisfied.  When he showcased his work, his smile stretched from ear to ear.  He was so proud that he, on his own, persevered through his struggles and was able to create a final product that met his original criteria.

Merriam-Webster defines a constraint as “the state of being checked, restricted, or compelled to avoid or perform some action”.  Constraints, at least in the mind of my middle school learners, are often perceived as a negative; things to avoid if at all possible.  After a year of many design challenges, each with their own criteria and constraints, I have a deeper understanding of the power of constraints.  Constraints can be an avenue to help learners open their minds, get their creative juices flowing and think differently and deeper.  When paired with choice, constraints push learners to be innovative.  Constraints are uncomfortable though and can be met with resistance.   As the learning facilitator, it is critical to create an environment where learners are free to take risks while receiving encouragement, support, time and in some cases, scaffolding, to break through their self imposed walls and become problem solving innovators. Constraints, then, become the wings that let a learner fly.  

                                                           Photo Credit:  Kyle Szegedi (Unsplash)

I’d love to hear how others embed and entwine constraints into learning opportunities.  How do your students respond?  What challenges have you faced?  What success have you seen?

What is Innovation?

Innovation is a commitment.  It means being open and willing to think differently about common and not so common issues, problems, questions and learning targets.  Embedded within innovation is a willingness to take action even when the outcome being sought is not guaranteed.  Innovation can feel like a risk but it can also feel incredibly rewarding.  As I try to innovate in the learning space that my students and I call our classroom, it usually feels messy and chaotic in the moment but fulfilling and comprehensive upon reflection.  I hear the opportunities for learning that innovation creates in the questions and conversations of my students and I see the learning that innovation promotes in the physical manifestations of their problem-solving.  As we work towards learning deeply about the sciences together, innovation looks like inquiry, problem-based learning, engineering design challenges and design thinking.  It looks like collaboration and experimentation with a focus on deep learning, not grades.  It sometimes feels frustrating because deep learning is hard and takes time while turning in a paper for completion is not.   Innovation can also feel lonely depending on where others are in their own learning journeys.  At the same time, innovation in learning feels more inclusive and accessible to all learners, regardless of past performance and experiences, regardless of learning style, regardless of "baggage" that all learners bring to their learning experiences.  Ultimately, innovation both challenges and inspires me to become a better educator and learner.

Photo Credit:  Sky