The reasonable [person] adapts [themself] to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to [themself]. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable [person].
This updated quote is based on Geoge Bernard Shaw’s (1903) Maxims for Revolutionists which was an appendix to his play Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy. The following is the original quote.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man (Shaw, 1903).
I am currently working with a new group of graduate students who are building their literature reviews to support their innovation plans and as result, like my students, I have to walk the talk and go back to the primary source whenever possible. It has been many years since I last read through Shaw’s Maxims for Revolutionists so when I reviewed the above quote on Reason also I reviewed the entire work. I have always been was struck by the satirical or contrarian bent of most of Shaw’s writing and his maxims are some of the best examples of his desire for progress or change.
Shaw is the unreasonable man that he writes about and he was striving to adapt the world to himself. While some may not agree with the man or his philosophy there is no denying some of his ideas are impactful and as challenging today as they were over 100 years ago.
We need to consider that most people are not intentionally or logically resisting change, they simply have been conditioned by our educational system to accepting the way their world is and unconsciously have a hidden competing commitment that prevents them from even seeing the opportunities that are being presented. The following is an excerpt from the soon to be published book on the Learner’s Mindset (Harapnuik & Thibodeaux, 2021) that explains why people will have a hidden commitment that hinders their growth and progress:
…Garnder Campbell also laments that when he points to an opportunity that new media, technology, or other emerging resources offer, too many educators fail to see the potential in these opportunities, and he shares the following exchange to highlight the missed opportunities:
Gardner: I say well I have a bag of gold. Would you like a bag of gold?
People: Where do you find time for bags of gold…oh no another currency to master gold… is that sustainable?
Garnder: Like no you spend it.
People: Well, what would you spend it on?
Gardner: What would you like to spend it on?
People: I don’t have time for your philosophical questions Gardner.
Gardner: It’s a bag of gold what part of that do you not understand?
This resistance to change or more specifically resistance to recognizing an opportunity should not be attributed to these educators’ lack of commitment to change or doing what is best for their students. Harvard researchers Kegan and Lahey (2001) suggest that most people are not opposed to change they are just unwittingly holding a hidden competing commitment that prevents them from seeing the need for change. These commitments are often grounded in beliefs or mindsets that have been held very closely and many will be routed in their childhood experience.
Since most people in the west have spent 13 years in K-12 education and assuming 7 hours a day for 180 days a year we have spent 16,380 hours in a school-based on the information transfer model, we should not be surprised by our deep routed fixed mindset thinking and our aversion to seeing the world from any other perspective. When you factor in another 4 years for an undergraduate degree, most teachers have spent 21,420 hours in a passive educational environment of information transfer, main lecture points, rubrics, individual competition, and standardized testing. Considering the thousands of hours most teachers have spent in this environment, we should not be surprised by their deeply rooted hidden commitment to maintaining this status quo. Shifting from the fixed mindset to the growth mindset, to the innovator’s mindset, or ultimately a learner’s mindset may seem straightforward but as Kegan and Lahey (2001) have found this type of change challenges the very psychological foundations upon which people function.
Kegan and Lahey (2001) suggest that you deal with or mitigate the limits of the hidden commitment to the status quo in the following steps:
Diagnose the competing commitment
Identify the big assumption
Testing and replacing the big assumption
It is possible to diagnose the competing commitment and identify the dominant assumption simultaneously by getting teachers to step back far enough to see how an authentic learning opportunity can create the context for the standards, curriculum, and assessment they are required to use. This change in focus is the first step, but it will be difficult because it is asking people to look at things from a different perspective while their hidden commitment to maintaining the system of education that they know is preventing them from seeing the opportunity. Replacing the big assumption happens when you equip teachers to create a significant environment where they can give their learners choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities. This will start them down the path of embracing or adopting a learner’s mindset.
Moving to or adopting a learner’s mindset requires that one change their thinking about learning, their approach to helping learners learn how to learn, and changing the learning environment. One of the most significant challenges to adopting and living the learner’s mindset is that these three changes in our behavior need to happen cumulatively and in close proximity.
This change in mindset is not easy and there are several systemic, psychological, and practical challenges that must be overcome. Consider the following resources as you explore how to reinvigorate your learner’s mindset:
Campbell, G. (2010, May 3). No digital facelifts: Thinking the unthinkable about open educational experiences. [Video] Retrieved from https://youtu.be/lelmXaSibrc
Harapnuik, D. K., & Thibodeaux, T. N. (2021). Learner’s Mindset. Book in progress.
Kegan, R., & Lahey, L. L. (2001). The real reason people won’t change. HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Change, 77.
Walking the Talk
Changing or improving the world one learner at a time is not an end but a process. Once you start this process it requires continual effort. Fortunately, it has a compounding effect, and small but consistent efforts will maintain and grow its impact.
I have been endeavoring to walk the talk in all aspects of my life for many decades. Whether it was the technology-related courses I developed in the early ’90s, my move into online learning at the University of Alberta in 1995, my related research into web-based instruction that went into my doctoral dissertation, or the dozens of online and blended learning courses that I have developed since then, I have always strived to apply all the theories, approaches and principles that I advocate in my own practice. A continual and iterative process of analysis and evaluation that leads to synthesis and creation is simply part of the learner’s mindset and is what I have been using in the development of courses for the new Applied Digital Learning (ADL) Master which is an update or revision of the Masters of Digital Learning and Leading (DLL) which I co-developed at Lamar University in 2014-2015. One of my goals for revising the DLL courses and converting them to ADL courses has been to strip away unnecessary information, activities, processes, or anything else that will impede the learner’s choice, ownership, and voice as they create their innovation plans and then create significant learning environment where their plans can be realized. Another goal is to point to how key foundational concepts like Applied Learning, Assessment Of/For/As Learning, Connecting the Dots Vs Collecting, the Dots, Change of Focus, CLSE, COVA, and the Learner’s Mindset will play a role in their growth and development.
Desiring the Quick Fix
Over the past several years my colleagues and I have observed and analyzed the tendency for many educators who come into the DLL program to look for a quick fix to innovation. They generally see technology as a tool that has a hyped potential for a quick fix so they often expect to be told what procedure, process, or product they should implement as part of their innovation plan. While the application or applying of a model or simulation may initially appear to be what they want when they try to apply these products or processes to their circumstance, they quickly find that this often doesn’t work. The educational technology (Edtech) literature for the past several decades is filled with examples of how the application of technology in a learning setting makes no significant difference and has little impact on learning outcomes and that the focus needs to be the learning, not the technology if we want to make a difference (Reich, 2020; Cuban, 2001; Russel, 1999; Wenglinsky, 1998). The research is clear. Edtech is not a quick fix or silver bullet (Thibodeaux, Harapnuik, Cummings, & Wooten, 2017) and the naive notion that one can implement it better than the last group that failed is continually repeated in all levels of classrooms across the nation. This is why the SAMR model or other quick fixes do not work (Harapnuik, 2017). Why does this thinking continually persist?
Start with a Change in Thinking about your Thinking
In analyzing this situation I looked at what type of thinking or level of thinking that was being used. According to the revised Bloom’s taxonomy when people are attempting to carry out a procedure or implement a process or apply an existing model to a new but similar situation they are using lower ordering thinking in their hopes of applying existing information to their situation. The category of Applying is at the top of the lower order thinking within Bloom’s taxonomy but it is still considered lower-order thinking and only facilitates information transfer because there is no analysis, evaluation, or creation which are at the higher-order and are essential to deeper learning.
The inverted Bloom’s taxonomy is one of my favorite perspectives because it combines the higher-order thinking into a continuum and reveals that analyzing, evaluating, and creating must be conducted in conjunction. In the Applying section, the notion of using information in a new but similar situation seems to fit what I was seeing in many of my students in the DLL program.
Because I practice what I preach, I continued to analyze and evaluate my ideas further before I created this post. I also went to the original or primary sources of the Bloom taxonomy (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) to make sure I wasn’t missing any key information in the dozens of abbreviated versions of Bloom’s taxonomy that a quick Google search revealed. While the summary in the inverted Bloom taxonomy was useful and it was compatible with many other summaries of Bloom’s taxonomy, you will find online the original perspective from Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) was much more effective in addressing my concerns.
Applying: Carrying out or using a procedure through executing or implementing. Applying is related and refers to situations where learned material is used through products like models, presentation, interviews, and simulations.
This summary confirms what I have seen with many students who just want to be told what procedure or model they need to execute or implement and believe that all they have to present an existing model to their colleagues, simulate the new approach, and their innovation process is complete. To be fair to many of these students, this is what they know and simply what their administrators, schools, districts, or other organizations ask them to do. This ongoing process of identifying a standard to be met, finding the approved or accepted procedure or process being used in the organization to meet this standard, and finally applying a standardized test or other information transfer confirmation tools to confirm that the standard has been met by the students is the norm. For rudimentary knowledge, simple situations, and information transfer this application process does work well and our education system has been relying on this model for over a century. As we move further into the digital information age we are realizing that our challenges are much more complex and require much more than doing what we have done in the past. To address these more significant challenges we need to move beyond applying existing information or processes in a new but similar fashion.
Moving to Higher Order Thinking
We need to move into analyzing, evaluating, and creating new solutions to ever-increasing challenges that we and our learners will face in the future. We also need to look beyond convenient summaries, quick fixes, or “Coles Notes” solutions and go back to primary sources to get the full picture. If we want to address the ever-increasing complexities in the challenges we face in the 21st Century then we must use higher-order thinking. We must continually analyze and evaluate what we are doing as we begin creating innovations that will enhance learning. Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) explanation of the following three higher thinking levels offers the best starting point for our own analysis, evaluation, and creation of a novel way of integrating these ideas.
Analyzing: Breaking material or concepts into parts, determining how the parts relate or interrelate to one another or to an overall structure or purpose. Mental actions include differentiating, organizing, and attributing as well as being able to distinguish between components.
Evaluating: Making judgments based on criteria and standards through checking and critiquing.
Creating – Putting elements together to form a novel coherent whole or make an original product.
Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating Lead to Deeper Learning and Learner’s Mindset
While the inverted Bloom’s taxonomy is useful for helping us to see the linear relationship between analyzing, evaluating, and creating and also see how the higher-order thinking is separated from lower-order thinking, it doesn’t convey the interrelatedness between analyzing, evaluating, and creating. It also doesn’t show how the interrelation between analyzing, evaluating, and creating contributes to deeper learning.
The Venn diagram (Harapnuik, 2021) reveals how analyzing, evaluating, and creating come together and at that convergence point is where the learner engages in deeper learning and has then moved into the Learner’s Mindset.
This deeper learning and the adoption of a Learner’s Mindset is realized when you create a significant learning environment in which you give your learner’s choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities (CSLE+COVA). I have been applying this approach in all the learning environments that I have created and most recently have applied this to the DLL and ADL programs as well as in the Provincial Instructor Diploma Program (PIDP).
In my grandiose goal of changing the world one learner at a time, I am sharing this approach with as many people that I can. It is my hope that you too will begin the ongoing process of analysis, evaluation, and creation. Through a continual and iterative process of analysis of your learning environment, the new concepts, theories, and ideas you are exploring combined with your goal of bringing learning innovation to your organization, you too can begin to explore and evaluate how best to synthesis your findings and ideas into an innovation plan which will create the changes you desire and prepare your learners for life.
Please remember that this is only one part of a bigger picture so explore the following:
Anderson, L. W., Krathwohl, D., & Bloom, B. S. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. Longman.
Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing: A Revision of bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives (Abridge Edition). Addison.
Cuban, L. (2001). Oversold and underused: Computers in the classroom. Harvard university press.
Harapnuik, D.K. (2017). Reconsider the use of the SAMR model. [Blog]. Retrieved from https://www.harapnuik.org/?p=7235
Reich, J. (2020). Failure to disrupt: Why technology alone can’t transform education. Harvard University Press.
Russell, T. L. (1999). The no significant difference phenomenon: A comparative research annotated bibliography on technology for distance education: As reported in 355 research reports, summaries and papers. North Carolina State University.
Thibodeaux, T. N., Harapnuik, D. K., Cummings, C. D., & Wooten, R. (2017). Learning all the time and everywhere: Moving beyond the hype of the mobile learning quick fix. In Keengwe, J. S. (Eds.). Handbook of research on mobile technology, constructivism, and meaningful learning. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
Wenglinsky, H. (1998). Does it compute? The relationship between educational technology and student achievement in mathematics. ETS Policy Information Center. https://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/PICTECHNOLOG.pdf
A recent question by one of my graduate students reveals that while the name or phrase may change or fall out of favor, but if the idea is good it will persist in a slightly different format.
In an online class meeting, I cautioned my graduate students on using the phrase “disruption” or “disruptive innovation” in their innovation proposals because disruption has a tendency to convey a negative connotation in an educational setting. Teachers don’t like disruptions to their classes.
The following question and response (which I do have permission to share) reveal the challenge of conveying meanings especially when some names or labels have the potential to be misunderstood.
Question
I do have a question about using the word “disruption”. As that is the name of this course, I understood it to be one of the qualifiers of our proposal. As a student, I now understand that disruption is not negative. Could it be part of my charge to change that rhetoric? Is there something more fundamentally wrong with the theory of disruption? Why did we read Clayton Christensen’s article in week one, if it is a term we should avoid? Do you agree with Christensen?
My Response
You do ask a really good question about disruptive innovation. If I recall my memory correctly Christensen coined the term disruptive technologies back in an article in 1996 and then he later referred to this as disruptive innovation in his 1997 book Innovator’s Dilemma. Many people now refer to Christensen’s ideas on how technology can disrupt the change process as the theory of disruptive innovation which I would argue is still quite well supported, but like any theory, there are supporters and detractors. I am on the supporter side, but I am also aware of the limitations. In a much earlier (2009-2010) version of this disruptive innovation course which was called a different name in a different institution, I had my students read Christensen’s book Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World. Back in late 1990, I would have my students read the Innovator’s Dilemma, so I have been a longtime supporter of Christensen’s ideas. While I may have shifted the way I talk about disruptive innovation and more importantly ask my students to talk about disruptive innovation, I still believe we need to be aware of how it works and take advantage of the opportunities it offers.
The change in language is just a matter of applying the old adage/proverb…you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. People don’t want to be disrupted and it can often scare people, especially those who want to be safe. Over the past 10 years, we have seen a shift in our campuses toward the use of “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings” and in 2015 when Lukianoff and Haidt argued in the Atlantic article The Coddling of the American Mind that overprotection is having a negative effect on university students I knew I needed to shift the language a bit in the course where I used the notion of disruptive innovation. I have been trying to bring about change in learning environments since the late 80’s so I have learned many valuable lessons. I learned that you have to take a very broad approach and consider many different factors and while the facts or data may be right many people are still afraid of the data and some just like things the way they are…they don’t want to be disrupted. In the post People who like this stuff…like this stuff I point to 4 key factors that you need to address to bring about change in the learning environment. I will be asking my student to apply these ideas in an upcoming course on organizational change.
To summarize, the adage you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar is very true, especially in an educational setting. Be careful how you use the term disruptions but still use the ideas. Remember we want to improve or change the world one learner at a time.
It took me a while to realize I could speed up this process if I didn’t scare my learners first.
