How does it fit?

At the beginning of the semester, I wrote a post about using the history of the LEGO company as a cautionary tale for innovation in education reform. The idea came from a Diane Rhem interview with the author of Brick by Brick. But there was another idea presented in book that also caught my attention - clutch power.

When a child snaps two bricks together, they stick with a satisfying click. And they stay stuck until the child uncouples them with a gratifying tug. And therein lies the LEGO brick's magic. Because bricks resists coming apart, kids could build from the bottom up, making their creations as simple or complicated as they wanted. … it is clutch power that makes LEGO such an endlessly expandable toy, one that lets kids build whatever they imagine. (page 20)

It was the last sentence that got me thinking. How might I design learning experiences that use clutch power - allowing learners to "build whatever they imagine?" In particular, I had one of our math courses for preservice teachers in mind. It explores a variety of mathematical topics that students often see as disconnected: algebra, geometry, measurement, and data.  Was there a way to treat concepts in that course as building blocks that learners could use across the domains to build new understandings instead of simply following the instructions I provide?

I am still working on that question, but I did start experimenting with simple problems that allow learners to add their own ideas while demonstrating their content competency. The following is one problem (modified) from the final I just gave. I would be interested in your feedback.

Plot the points (2, 2) and (2, 4) on the coordinate plane. Pick two other points that could combine with these first two to be used as the vertices of a trapezoid. Use this context to develop items that would align with the following targets (be sure to justify your alignment using the indicators):

• Graph points on the coordinate plane to solve real-world and mathematical problems (5GA1, 5GA2)
• Classify two-dimensional figures into categories based on their properties (5GB3, 5GB4)
• Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving area, surface area, and volume (6GA1-A4)
• Draw, construct, and describe geometrical figures and describe the relationships between them (7GA1, 7GA2, 7GA3)
• Solve real-life and mathematical problems involving angle measure, area, surface area, & volume (7GB4, 7GB5, 7GB6)

Because this was a new assessment for most of my students, this time around I offered some example items to pick from:

1. Define the term "trapezoid" and then use that definition to identify what other names apply to your shape.
2. Find the area and perimeter of your shape.
3. Extend each side (creating 16 angles) and find all the angle measures.
4. Write your own question for this context.

I still expected them to align the item with the targets, justify their alignment, and come up with a correct response.

Can innovation be a bad thing?

And there's lots of ideas about innovation, theories of innovation, rules of innovation, like you should open up your innovation more. You should think about all these different types of innovation, you should practice disruptive innovation. There's all these theories out there about how you boost innovation. And when I went into do my initial interviews at LEGO, they hadn't read all those books. In fact some hadn't been written then, but they had done all those things that consultants and academics say you should do, and it almost put them out of business. And I thought that was really interesting. You know, how can we be so wrong?

This quote comes from an interview with David Robertson on his book Brick by Brick. I have been trying to share ideas from the interview with anyone interested in education reform. Given that innovation is such a buzzword in education these days, I think Robertson's book might serve as a cautionary tale for those trying to reform education.

So why did innovation nearly destroy this popular toy? Robertson explains:

what had happened is that when they'd innovated, they just came out with a whole lot of toys that weren't very LEGO-ey. They weren't very popular. ... 

I got the sense that the toy-designers in the 90s were allowed to be as creative as they wanted. As a result, LEGO put out a slew of new toys but the new toys did not fit together the way the old LEGOs did; this limited the creativity of the users. So the kids disengaged.

I sometimes wonder if we are in danger of doing the same thing in education. We see teachers being very creative in designing their lessons. For example, using technology to innovate the way they deliver content. However, by focusing on innovation in teaching are we sacrificing students' ability to be innovative? When I shared this question with a colleague, he said, "I know that those times when I thought I created the perfect, creative lesson - those were the times when students seemed least likely to be engaged."

There are several other ideas I took from the interview that might apply to education but it feels like I dropped a pretty big bomb in that last paragraph. Perhaps this is a good place to stop and see if some of you might want to add your two cents. I look forward to reading your thoughts.