Unleashing Creative Agency through Reflection and Experimentation

Unleashing Creative Agency through Reflection and Experimentation Tired of Band Aid solutions that never stick? But you need a podcast that gets to the root of real change in education. Welcome to better leaders, better schools with Danny Bauer. This is a masterclass in rethinking school culture from the ground up, with candid conversations and proven frameworks. This is your blueprint on how to do school differently and impact generations to come. In today’s show, I speak with Leticia Britos Cavanaro, a scientist turned designer over at the Stanford D School and author of experiments in Reflection. We covered topics like how a traumatic teaching experience led to a breakthrough in learning why reflection is a Ruckus Maker superpower and the importance of asking great questions versus finding great answers. Once again, thank you so much for listening to this show. You could be doing absolutely anything right now, but you’re here with me, so thank you for that. 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Learn how Teach FX could help your teachers get students talking by visiting teachfx.com/ruckus. What does your school cafeteria make you think of? Chaos? Headaches? Quality food? Quest stands a part in the school food service industry as a partner that provides high quality food for your students. This is food you can be proud of. Learn more at Quest Food management services questfms.com, or follow questfood on social media. That’s questfms.com. Hello Ruckus Maker. Today I am joined by Leticia Britos Cavanaugh, who is a scientist turned designer who experiments with the futures of learning at the Stanford D school. She teaches, designed to Stanford grad students and professional learners, including educators, as a means to unleash their creative agency to tackle complex challenges and find innovative approaches. She also develops tools that leverage technology as a way to support experiential learning through reflection. Leticia, welcome to the show. 04:57 Leticia Thank you, Danny. It’s a pleasure to be here. 05:00 Danny The pleasure is mine. I really believe reflection is a superpower, and it’s something that I write about a lot and something I engage in. And when I saw your book come out, Experiments in Reflection, I was so eager to engage with it because it’s something so near and dear to my heart. So we’re definitely going to dig into that book. But before we get there, I’d love for you to tell a story, which would be your first experience teaching, because it was fairly traumatic from what you told me. But you stayed in education. What was going on there? 05:38 Leticia Actually, I stayed in education because of how traumatic this experience was. I was fresh off getting a master’s, a master degree. This is in my home country of Uruguay, in the south part of South America, and I have completed my masters in molecular and cellular biology. I was really set on doing research, being in the lab, but I took a job at a teacher’s training institute, and the year was already kind of like, had already started. And I was given, okay, this is the syllabus for this biochemistry class. And I had to get in front of the students. These were future science teachers, K twelve science teachers. And I needed to start teaching them about the metabolism and all the reactions, chemical reactions in the body. And I said kind of like, easy. I know how to do this. I just dusted off my book from my undergraduate biochemistry 101 course. I made my transparencies. Like, this tells you how long ago this was. And I just got in front of them and started talking, and I was all excited showing them the beauty of the metabolism and looking at these reactions and the Krebs cycle. And kind of like. And I turned around and their faces were sort of like either confused or bored or they were falling asleep. And I was just like, what’s going on here? I was scratching my head and I kind of, like, next class, the same happened. For a few classes, I was, like, scratching my head and really not understanding why. It’s kind of likeI don’t think I’m that much of a worse teacher than the teachers that had taught me. And yet I had learned I was doing the same. I remember being a learner, being there and I had learned. I was so excited so what’s going on? And I realized I had kind of a key insight that caused, like I said, oh, this is it. I realized that I as a learner had learned not because of how I had been taught, but in spite of how I had been taught. That very likely many of the other students in my class, I can barely scrape by. Maybe they just did well in tests, but kind of like, really they weren’t really as excited about the subject, and I somehow had survived that. And I think that it was foundational for me and kind of like thinking, we can’t, as teachers, have this standard that our students learn in spite of what we do. In the best case scenario, we’re just like a hurdle that they overcome. There has to be a better way, if you will. And so that’s when I realized a few things. One, that I had more agency and kind of like freedom to try new things in my teaching. Of course, I will reproduce what I had experienced as a student. But it’s like maybe I can still cover what, the content I’m supposed to cover. But I can. I have lots of levers and things that I can try in terms of how I teach. And the other thing that I realized that was key for me was how I could apply the same scientific approach that I was using as a researcher as answering questions about nature to answer the question of how I can best nurture my students’ love of learning and their ability, their skills to learn? And in this case, because the class was about nature and about biochemistry and their ability to learn and think like scientists and naturalists. I really decided right there and then, I love this, and I’m going to crack this knot and figure out a different approach to teaching through kind of experimenting my way through that. And that really set me on the path that I think leads to where I am today. 09:57 Danny How about that? So do you remember some of the experiments back in the day that you ran to increase student engagement? Or is it, if you’d rather just talk about the process of how to think about experiment, that’s fine, too. 10:13 Leticia Both. I love to kind of address both questions, but I do remember because some of the experiments were so memorable for me. As far as turns out, for the students, the very first one. So the very first one was something that I think I titled Elemental Love Story. And this class was about the kind of, like, the learning objective of the class, let’s say, or what was in the syllabus was kind of like, understanding why life, or like living beings like ourselves and others are made out of carbon and not other elements in nature. I came to class, and I just wrote on the board, like, here’s your assignment. You can use class time or to do this, write a love letter from a being made of carbon to a being made of silicon. And this love letter is kind of, like, actually an impossible love. If this love can’t be, just write that letter and that’s it. And they just all looked at me like, okay, this woman is crazy. And soon enough, they were kind of, like, trying to find information. Looking at the organic chemistry book, it’s like, what’s the difference between carbon and silicon? Without going into details about this, because this is not the goal of our conversation, carbon and silicon are very similar as elements, but they have key differences in terms of their stability. It’s like carbon is more stable, but also kind of, like, their ability to react with oxygen in useful ways. I was so surprised by the amazing kind of creativity and letters that they wrote and how proud they were of those. To this day, I often hear from them, they remember this assignment, but they also remember those principles. We did one thing that is traditional when you’re studying metabolism is that you’re given this kind of big metabolic map that is sort of like a poster size thing with tiny reactions happening all over the place and you’re able to understand it. And it’s like I actually gave them a blank poster. And I said, as we study the different reactions, you will draw and build your own metabolic map. They did that and kind of like, exams were open and everything was open book and everything open. And so they could bring that and explain where they were and what was missing. Things like that really invited them to engage with the material in a way that is not just reading what’s already pre digested in the book or just listening to me talk about it. 13:12 Danny Just simple memorization, regurgitation, type of assignments versus what really came through to me is tapping into your creativity. And thinking about the love the word experiment because it means either way, you’re going to learn something. It’s going to work, you’re going to learn, or it’s not going to work, and you’re still going to learn, and that’s going to make the classroom experience even better. I just really appreciate that approach. I think this might be a good segue to at least start talking about experiments and reflection. And you had pointed out a few experiments for me to do. I’ve done them all. After a couple of weeks, my wife and I went to Morocco, believe it or not, and she had a wonderful conference over there. She’s in academia, like you. But long story short, I didn’t do too much work, but I did bring your book along. I thought this would be a good place where I can be out of the ordinary for me and do some deep thinking. So that sets the stage for experiment number four, which has to do with thinking about who you are, really and what would you like, context wise, to share on the show today with the Ruckus Maker listening? 14:33 Leticia I love what you’re saying of trying to find those moments to reflect. And I think it’s from there, thinking about, okay, how can I make this reflection in particular something that is already embedded in what I do? So it doesn’t feel like it’s something that I have to do or I have to find time. I think that’s something that gets in the way of people really using reflection and leveraging reflection. Does that mean that it’s like, oh, well, I’m busy. I don’t have time for that. And before we dive into experiment four, just wanted to mention kind of like this concept of first. When we think about reflection, oftentimes we think about that is just thinking. My goal with the book was to really stretch the definition of reflection and how we think about reflection to give more depth to what is real and how can that help me? The book is a collection of three experiments in three dimensions. One is about the first collection in which this experiment of thinking about your identities, it’s about awareness. It’s about really getting better at noticing not only what’s around you in the world, but also noticing yourself, noticing your emotions, your reactions, looking inwards. The second dimension is about making sense. Going beneath the surface, making interpretations, finding meaning. And the third dimension, and is one that is maybe a little bit counterintuitive to our, also our common understanding of reflection as kind of like, backwards looking or looking back is envisioning. How to use reflection as a way to reflect forward to figure out or find or shape, like, many different futures so that we can make decisions today that help us be kind of like collective shapers of the future. But going back to the experiment that you mentioned in kind of like this go the goal of being more aware not only about your surroundings and your reality, but yourself. This experiment is something that. It’s really kind of powerful for people because it invites you to explore the multiple identities or elements of identities that some of them are very evident and out there. It might be related to if someone looks at you can use a label to describe anything from the color of your skin to kind. Or maybe if you’re listening to me, you’re probably kind of picking up. I mentioned it earlier, but if not, you’re not a non native English speaker, right? Or it might be something that is kind of like on your LinkedIn title or your business card. Like something that is like outwards facing identities.And then there’s many identities that are sort of like that. Maybe people who know you would know that, but it may or may not be visible to others. And finally, there’s a lot of identities that maybe we actually try to actively keep just to ourselves. And what is really important is kind of like, how those identities change how others perceive us, but more importantly, how we perceive ourselves, how we feel, how we show up. And being mindful of that. And also being mindful that certain identities that sometimes we kind of latch on can be limiting. One thing that I often encounter is students kind of like using identities that have to do with their ability or not ability to do something. I’m kind of like I’m an introvert, so I can’t participate in class or I’m not creative. And kind of like, they use these identities in a way that gets in the way of them learning and being better. For some educators here, they would be familiar with the concept of having a growth or a fixed mindset. I think that’s something that is related to that. 19:04 Danny Brilliant. Like you said, the first set is all about awareness. And were talking about finding the time. I would just encourage the Ruckus Maker listening to create the time for reflection and definitely pick up experiments in reflection. Do experiment number four. Cause it’s focused on who you really are when you’re out there in the world? And there’s a very interesting punchline, which I won’t spoil for the listener here, but the second part of the experiment I found really interesting because I was challenged to think of myself in ways that I don’t usually do. And I found that really interesting as well. So that’s just a teaser for the Ruckus Maker listening to pick up the book. And you mentioned, too, how identities can limit us. I’m the introvert or I’m not that more analytical versus creative. And when you really label yourself that way, is there. Is it possible that you’re putting an upper limit on the challenge to what’s possible. Thank you for challenging us with that. Let’s move on, maybe to experiment number seven. I really enjoyed it as well. I liked this one a lot. And it wasn’t just about finding the answers, about asking the right questions. And I started in one place, and obviously, through your experiment, you actually come up with many different ways of thinking about something interesting to you. And I’ll just leave that there to queue you up. What would you like to say about experiment number seven? 20:42 Leticia Questions are so fascinating for so many reasons. And if we think about most of the education system, we tend to kind of elevate answers as the thing that is valued. For our students,talking about identities, they even associate or add the value of finding. Of being the person who knows the answer as part of their identity. As being the knower. A lot of the work that I do as an educator and with some of my colleagues as well is changing that balance. And, like, what do we put in a pedestal? Can we elevate questions? Can we elevate the value of questions and the value of not knowing? And so. Because it’s scary to go to a place where you have to say, I don’t know. But that’s where you can get to an interesting place. For instance, in. I remember a recent design challenge that we gave students, and in the whole brief, we said, like, look, the final presentation is going. You have to build an artifact that represents a question that you uncover in your two weeks exploration with the starting point of a topic. And that sometimes is kind of like, for students, like, wait, what? I don’t have to. No, no, you don’t have to answer the question. The whole point is what is an interesting question that you unfolded, unveiled in your exploration. A lot of value in thinking about reflection as a means to step boldly into this unknowing at the disclosure. We talk a lot about ambiguity and specifically intentional ambiguity. How can we, instead of giving students, okay, here’s the path, here’s the instructions, here’s what you’re supposed to do. Give them more of a like, an open space that invites them to. That is more akin to our lives. In real life, we live unsupported lives. We might pretend that we have a plan and that we know what’s going to happen. For the most part, we don’t. How can we create learning experiences that prepare students for those situations in which you have to figure out what to do when you don’t know what to do? And develop that cognitive flexibility and that being okay with not knowing. I think questions do that for us. And there are different types of questions that get us to different places. The traditional question of asking why is the question that gets us in a state of curiosity. It is open, but wait, why are we doing this way? It might be a way of challenging the status quo or what if. It’s a way of. It’s a question when we phrase it as a question, opens the door to kind of putting an idea out there and doing the mental experiment of kind of let’s defer judgment or not be judgmental about the possibilities here, but just explore freely. And we see, one thing that I do with students often is when we are exploring how to best work in teams is to actually look at the question asking behaviors. There’s studies that we’ve explored of design teams and how question asking is a key. Kind of like a catalyst of creative work. There are some questions that allow you to go deeper into understanding something, and there’s some questions that allow you to kind of diverge and generate possibilities. What if we did this? Or how does this work? Kind of like, getting in the habit of asking questions and recognizing the value of questions is really important. 24:51 Danny I think it’s also important for the record speaker listening, becauseI’m always pulling on these edges of, playing it-safe-principals who maintain the status quo and Ruckus Makers who are visitors from the future showing us how education could one day be. The only way we’re able to visit the future and show people how education can be is by asking these great questions and running experiments. When it comes to being an administrator, the play it safe principle, there’s a binder for that. You turn to page 394, and it tells you how to do the thing. But when we want to invent the future and innovate and do what we need to do, what I call do school different, we have to ask these kind of questions, and I’m so glad that you brought up that this is actually what prepares students for the future. 25:41 Leticia Sorry to interrupt you. Since you mentioned leaders, this reminded me of one of my favorite definitions of leadership was proposed by Marshall Gantz from the Harvard Kennedy School of government. And he says that ‘leadership is taking the responsibility of creating conditions that enable others to achieve a shared purpose in the face of uncertainty.’ And that’s so important. And kind of like being able to create that. That’s that space for others to not know and to kind of like. And figure it out, ask better questions. It also reminds me of the work and in line with that. There was a project that a couple of colleagues from the D school worked on related to school safety, And how do we redefine schools with all of these very unfortunate tragedies that have happened in recent years? The really important thing that they did is they created a toolkit that was kind of like just a set of post-its with a lot of different questions about. And they actually mailed it to different districts, school districts, to really promote that curiosity. Let’s really ask ourselves what’s at stake here. I really encourage people to actually look up the word. These are San Seidel and various amazing architects that actually led the reconstruction of Sandy Hook after the tragedy. And the stories that he tells of not that they got the assignment and the contract because they didn’t offer, here’s how the school is going to look. Like they said, we are going to invite the community in a process of co-design and discovery of what we want the school to look like? Let’s start with not knowing. And that is incredibly courageous and incredibly valuable to do as a leader. Whether you are a leader of an organization or you are called to be a leader in situations, high stakes situations like this one, I think having the courage of inviting questions can radically shift the outcomes 100%. 28:21 Danny That’ll be fun in experiment seven. So we’re going to pause here just for a second to get some messages in from our show sponsors. And when we get back, I’d love to ask you about the value of reflecting forward. What makes an assessment effective? I would argue giving teachers access to quick, reliable and useful results that inform the next best steps for teaching and that’s where Excel really stands out. Teachers get powerful insights into student performance on a daily basis so they can address issues the moment they arise. Imagine that ingesting instruction in real time before it’s too late. 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And it is, which is why you need a collaborative partner who will proactively listen and respond to your individual cafeteria needs. When you bring on quest food management services, you can expect support around school cafeteria facility and equipment design, concept and station creation, menu and nutrition development, employee management, technology implementation, marketing, communications, and day to day guest food service and operations. With Quest, you get it all. Learn more about Quest food Management [email protected] or follow questfood on social media. That’s questfms.com dot. 31:08 Danny All right, and we’re back with Leticia Ritos Cavanaugh from the Stanford Design School and author of experiments in reflection. Again, Ruckus Baker approved, added to your reading list. This is a fantastic book. I wanted the last question regarding the book to be talking about reflecting forward, because usually when I think people think of reflection, they think of reflecting backward. As you mentioned, you wanted to expand the definition of reflection and this kind of stuff. The value of reflecting forward. I loved experiment nine. This is certainly when you’re thinking about how to do school differently. This is a framework for you. Tell us about that experiment. 31:50 Leticia Coincidentally, actually, we’re in 2 hours, I have the pleasure of, I’ll have the pleasure to work with 100 educators in engaging in this. Actually the activity proposing this experiment. But basically, when we think about reflection, we have to reflect on something that happened. But I think it all comes down to a key mindset or belief that we can start questioning and start shifting, which is that there is not one future that is happening to us, that we’re just waiting for it to come our way or we are getting there. It’s actually the future that will be some combination of possible futures. When we make this cognitive switch from one future to many possible futures that we can contribute to build and steer, that’s where that changes everything. And then we can use, of course, there’s many methods and tools that we can use to use imagination to think about many possible futures and then reflect on, like, well, like, what are the futures that we want. And what do we need to do today to get there?. It’s really about not trying to guess or divine the future, but really about prospecting, like thinking about possibilities. One quote that is really powerful that you may have heard from writer William Gibson, is the future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed. What it means is that in practice, while there might be things that are happening here, there in isolated ways, those are signals of possible futures that then we can take on and things like if this was massively adopted, how could this change, for instance, the way that we move around or educate our young people? For instance, if we think about autonomous vehicles, self-driving vehicles, there are we right now in San Francisco and in a few other cities, I can call a cab and it’s not going to have a driver. It’s a reality today, but that’s not true in other places. But if we take that signal and then start thinking about if that was spread, what are the implications? And start thinking about first order implications, second order implications, third order and so on, we can start prospecting kind of like possibilities. This is the basis of that experiment. 34:42 Danny Do you mind touching just quickly about 1st, 2nd, 3rd order consequences. But in case it’s completely brand new to the Ruckus Maker listening, how would you describe that? 34:55 Leticia I can show you, Danny, this wheel that I was doing in preparation for this webinar. We might think about, for instance, if the car drives itself, I can see a situation in which everyone, there is no need for human readable traffic signs. All stop signs, everything disappears because humans, we don’t need to see it. The cars need to know where to stop. And that may be a second order consequence from that. Maybe then the streets need to. Not only the cars need to have sensors, but the streets need to be smart and have detectors of water and flood and temperature, and they communicate with the cars. So that might be a second order consequence and that leads to actually redesigning the whole city planning to maybe have special streets that are for self driving vehicles. Or you could think there’s no need to park because my car comes, picks me up, drops me off. And that might mean that, like, maybe that leads into kind of why don’t we in addition to taxis and similar, we can co own a car. And the car picks me up, drops me off, and then goes, picks you up and drops you off and so on. 2030 people can own a car. That might, one consequence might be there are less cars in the road and one fourth or third or fourth degree consequence might be there’s less pollution. But also our cars and our calendars have to sync to know. So there’s an algorithm that maximizes the use of the car with our calendars, Things like that. So really thinking about many steps removed, 100%. 37:01 Danny Before we get to sort of like the last questions I asked all my guests, I wanted to ask you about another creative project, your involvement called Rifbot AI. Again, I think it’s connected to reflection, but this time infusing a little more technology around it. So what are you doing over there? 37:20 Leticia As we are in this moment in which AI is like the movie everything everywhere all at once, It seems that it’s all over the place. I’ve been doing a lot of workshops and virtual and in person with educators related to the use of AI. And I definitely see a sort of distribution that is like some people are. I don’t know about that. I’m really suspicious and not sure. How is that going to impact me? Is it going to replace the teacher and others who are kind of like all in, And I think that what is important is to actually explore with thinking about the potential, but also about the pitfalls. And for me, what I decided to do is to develop a tool that can be used by the teacher to promote a specific pedagogy, experiential pedagogy, if you think about it. Like we learn best by doing and reflecting on what we did. Like, because reflection is a way, if we want to tie it to learning, which I think is important, it’s about making connections from between the activity that the teacher, let’s say we had as part of a teacher led activity, making connections from that experience to our past experiences, our beliefs, our previous knowledge. And that’s where reflection, kind of like an action, kind of connection and real learning happens. So this tool that I created uses generative AI for the teacher to initially set a question that ties it to an activity that they have created. It could be a lecture, a specific topic, it could be a workshop, it could be an exploration outside of the classroom. And then they can customize it, change a few features, and send the link to students, and the students can have a conversation. So the RIF will ask follow up conversations based on what the students respond. So each conversation, even if the teacher has said the initial question to focus the attention to what they want the students to reflect, each conversation will be unique. Importantly, the content of the conversation is kind of like an extension of like, if the teacher could have 5100 conversations at the same time, or with the students, but they can see the conversations and they can extract themes, they can see some insights, and they can bring those insights and those themes back to the whole group. This assistant also helps to elevate the voice of students who might not be quick to talk in whole group sessions. So that is the tool that I’ve created. We have hundreds of educators using it currently at the university level, and we’re exploring ways of making this available to even more educators. But in general, we need as educators to explore these technologies in a way that is aligned with the pedagogy, not just for the sake of the technology, but what does allow us to do that supports a pedagogy that we know leads to effective learning? 40:52 Danny Definitely check that out and you can request educator access and learn all about what’s going on over there. If you could put one message on all school marquees around the world for a single day, what would your message be? 41:12 Leticia I’d say school is about you. What did you learn about yourself today? That’s what I’d say. I kind of like students to really say. They might be like, really? It’s like, yeah, school is about you. It’s about the history or whatever it is that you’re learning. I think that’s where we’re getting in trouble. 41:37 Danny And if you were building your dream school, you didn’t have any limitations in terms of resources. Your only constraint was your ability to imagine what your dream school looked like? What would be the three guiding principles? 41:52 Leticia The first one for sure, and this is something that I learned working and designing the program that I co direct, the university innovation fellows, is that students can and must be co designers of their education. I want to work. I would work with students in envisioning and building the school and the way of learning. Another principle is that we can learn through making an impact now so students can make a change as they learn. They don’t need to wait to graduate and to get the diploma, And they can work with communities, which is something that is not new, but it’s oftentimes it’s kind of like, oh, we have like these like site visits or this program on the side. But how, what if that was the kind of like, the thing that we do to learn is to work with communities, right, is at the center. And the third principle, equally important is that we are all learners, right, students, teachers. But we need to kind of like to model this and live this. Like, it cannot just be kind of like play lib service to this. So recognizing that each one of us, students, teachers, leaders, right, we have one mission, and it is one mission that is hard, is going to take us a lot of work and struggles, Which is to get better at learning. So that when we are faced with a situation where we are not in the artificial environment of the school, we know what to do and we know how to figure things out. And everyone in the school, including peers, need to be an ally for that mission. And one story that if you want to check it out, there’s a book by Guy Claxton that is called What’s the point of school? He tells the story of a school principal that at the beginning of the year, in kind of like the plenary with all of the students, he makes a point of like, for instance, say, likelook, I’m gonna play, I don’t know, the trumpet. And he shows how bad he is at that. And he makes a point of saying, like, this year I’m going to learn the trumpet. Let me show you how bad I am. And then that allows him to have conversations with students throughout the year about learning that are two way conversations. And it’s not him as the principal saying, like, what have you learned today? But they can say, like, hey, and how’s the trumpet going? really about modeling that we are all learners. 44:38 Danny We covered a lot of ground today, of everything we discussed. What’s the one thing you want for Ruckus Maker to remember that it’s always. 44:47 Leticia Best to start small and sneaky. Ruckus Makers are change makers. It’s hard. Instead of thinking when I have resources and when I have x, y, and z, I’ll be able to do ABC, it’s like, what do you have right now? And how can you do something small, actually, intentionally small, that is going to maximize your learning, allow you to learn something and challenge your assumptions. And going back full circle to the beginning of my story as a teacher, we have more levers to play and more control about things that we can experiment, that we think, just thinking about what is my sphere of influence and what can I do? We talk about and with my colleagues Erika Stradaliu, and minusing about sneaky little experiments. And kind of like, how can you create a sneaky little experiment where you don’t have a, need a lot of permission and a lot of kind of like hoopla and you don’t even announce it, and then you kind of, like, you use those results to kind of like show the value of your ideas and recruit allies and show your impact. Start small and sneak. Thanks for listening to the better leaders Better Schools podcast Ruckus Maker, how would you like to lead with confidence, swap exhaustion for energy, turn your critics into cheerleaders and so much more? The Ruckus Maker Mastermind is a world class leadership program designed for growth minded school leaders just like you. Go to betterleadersbetterschools.com Mastermind, learn more about our program and fill out the application. We’ll be in touch within 48 hours to talk about how we can help you be even more effective. And by the way, we have cohorts that are diverse and mixed up. We also have cohorts just for women in leadership and a BIPOC only cohort as well. When you’re ready to level up, go to betterleadersbetterschools.com mastermind and fill out the application. Thanks again for listening to the show. Bye for now and go make a ruckus.