Open Way Learning with Ben Owens
In this interview with Ben Owens, we discuss Ben’s transition from working as an engineer to working in K-12 education, opensource as a metaphor for teaching and learning, various stakeholder reactions to opensource resources and learning, bridging the gap between out-of-school and in-school learning, iterating on teaching and learning, and so much more.
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Welcome back to another episode of the
csk8 podcast my name is jared o'leary
each week of this podcast is either an
interview with a guest or multiple
guests or a solo episode where i unpack
some scholarship in relation to computer
science education in this week's episode
i'm interviewing ben owens and we
discuss ben's transition from working as
an engineer to working in k-12 education
open source as a metaphor for teaching
and learning various stakeholder
reactions to open source resources and
learning bridging the gap between
out-of-school and in-school learning
iterating on teaching and learning and
so much more as always you can find
links to some of the things that we
mentioned like other podcasts and books
by visiting the show notes at jared
o'leary.com or by clicking the link in
the app that you're listening to this on
you'll notice that this podcast is
powered by boot up which is the
nonprofit that i work for if you haven't
been to their website boot up pd.org you
can find a bunch of free computer
science education resources that i've
created and learn more about our
professional development but with all
that being said we will now begin with
an introduction by ben hi everybody my
name is ben owens i am the co-founder of
an education nonprofit called open way
learning and
i've had a torturous path into the
education arena you might say i actually
started my professional career as an
engineer and did the multi-global
engineering firm thing traveling all
over the u.s and locations from
california to the midwest and the gulf
coast and all sorts of places in between
and then like
most engineers do actually not but i
decided to become a public school
teacher and landed in rural appalachia
where i taught physics and math at an
innovative high school wall-to-wall
project-based learning school did that
for 11 years before starting my
non-profit so delighted to be here today
and look forward to the conversation
with jared i'm really curious about like
catalysts that lead to like career
shifts or just like changes like big
shifts in life so going from engineer to
educator can you tell me the story
behind that yeah
it's interesting even when i was you
know doing the corporate thing in
engineering and i worked for
the multinational firm dupont if you're
familiar with them there were many
opportunities for me to
move from one location to the next so
where i could have just stayed at a
single location probably for my entire
career i always wanted to look for
something different and see what i could
apply my skill set into a different
context so
that
environment sort of seeded this
conscious thought of me always wanting
to do something different and obviously
moving from an engineering career to an
education career was a pretty big move
much to my wife's chagrin
because it did involve a bit of a pay
cut as you might imagine yeah
she in fact called it my volunteer work
benefits i guess for me i grew up the
son of educators my dad was a college
professor my mom worked in the central
office at the local school that i spent
my k-12 experience with and so i just
sort of had education in my blood and
denied that for the longest time and
then finally decided through my
experience
working in all of these different
locations where i was either directly or
indirectly responsible for hiring talent
at these various locations and that was
operators mechanics technicians
even engineers and
what i noticed was we consistently had
problems finding the talent we needed
and this was happening again in the gulf
coast it was happening in the midwest it
was happening in california it was
happening in charleston west virginia
and it just told me there's something
fundamentally wrong if we
as one of the highest paid organizations
plant sites or research labs in these
various locations can't find the talent
we need and even having to go overseas
to find the talent we needed that just
told me there's something fundamentally
wrong with how we are doing this public
education thing and sort of the
intersection of my background of again
denying
that that's probably what i really
wanted and needed to do in life and then
that experience
led me to say all right time to go to
grad school you know learn a little bit
about this education thing
and at the time i was just sort of like
all right this will be something at some
point in the future maybe when i retire
yeah but then this sort of perfect storm
of my wife and i looking for land to
retire and then this school that i
mentioned before this really innovative
school in western north carolina which
was part of at the time what was called
the north carolina new schools projects
and it was
an early college so the school was
actually on a community college campus
so students would come and they would
take college classes right you know as a
freshman in high school and leave with
an associate's degree as well as a high
school diploma often two weeks before
they got their
high school diploma they would get their
associate's degree which is the coolest
thing in the world even if they didn't
get their associate's degree they would
get on average of 60 plus hours of
college credit so
theoretically those kids could go into a
university setting then or whatever
other thing they wanted to do
with two years of college paid for by
the state of north carolina which was
really phenomenal anyway that's a long
way of answering your question it was
just too good of an opportunity to pass
up and it just seemed like this was
something well aligned with my idea of
wanting to do something differently than
just be a standard math and science
teacher so there's a concept in teacher
education known as apprenticeship of
observation and i forget if it's lordy
who talks about it or bouge but it's
basically the idea that most people go
through a k-12 tenure and they are
apprenticed through observing teachers
and they kind of have this idea of what
it means to be an educator and so my
idea of that i thought was very
different from like when i actually then
started teaching in the classroom was
like oh this is what it's actually like
so i'm curious for you like having gone
through school to become an engineer and
like your k-12 tenure in college and
whatnot like what did you believe about
education when you were an engineer and
then when you actually got in the
classroom like did you no longer believe
what i believed about education going
through engineering school for example
was you know this process of going
through you know a pretty rigorous
engineering program i brag on my
alma mater georgia tech it's pretty well
known as a good engineering school but i
will say
that with the exception of a couple
classes i mean yes i needed to know
advanced differential equations i needed
to do design classes and mechanical
engineering and all these other things
but i see that it was more of punching
my ticket what i really needed both in
the k-12 experience as well as
in my
engineering school experience and i did
have some classes like this particularly
my lab classes or one of my
thermodynamics classes which was really
hands-on was
the ability to simply solve problems i
mean i'm talking about real-world
problems not a
five-page
derivation of some equation but
although you know there is some merit to
that i won't diminish
that ability but what was really
important what i found and especially
once i got into the working world is
when i was able to find colleagues who
really knew how to get together and
let's collaborate and let's solve this
problem let's look at all the different
angles let's go through a formal design
process i did not learn that until
essentially doing even though it wasn't
called an apprenticeship i was basically
an understudy with a lot of senior
engineers who knew how to do that really
well and that to me was sort of my
epiphany moment of these are the things
i really need to know and then the cool
thing was in that process we inevitably
brought in what one is in the design
community would currently call our user
you know so we would talk to customers
we would talk to the mechanics on the
front lines we would talk to the
operators that were there at 3am running
the process and really try to understand
their perspective and then bring that in
and again none of that unless i was
totally asleep that day
none of that was really taught in
engineering school are really certainly
not my k-12 experience those types of
things i think when combined
with you know the things that one needs
to know as an engineer or one could make
the same argument that one needs to know
as a lawyer or as a paralegal or a
physician i think it's those
sort of transcendent skills that
really need to be brought to the fore a
bit more in our traditional education
systems k-12 as well as higher ed so how
did you learn how to teach and then
how is that understanding evolved over
time well fortunately when i went to
grad school i was living still
practicing as an engineer with dupont at
the time in charleston west virginia so
i went
to marshall university had a graduate
program there in charleston west
virginia so their focus was on a
constructivist approach so dewey paget
i ate that stuff up because that really
aligned well with my experience that i
had had moving from a very traditional
engineering school approach into a
practitioner where i fully realized that
you know learning by doing getting in
with the mechanics and rebuilding a pump
or a compressor that was infinitely more
valuable to me than any calculus course
i ever took
so
that whole idea of constructing one's
learning by simply experiencing it was
really the game changer for me then that
was before i had any inkling that i was
going to be an educator but once i got
into the teaching world i had that
strong value and the school that i
taught at you know we intentionally
targeted students who first generation
college goers minorities low
socioeconomic and just other kids that
just the traditional system the
traditional high schools weren't working
out for them and that made up you know
like 98 of our student body so we were
dealing with kids who you know were
traditionally the furthest from
opportunity by and large
although there were some students that
you know this is the path i'm going
because i get the two years of college
paid but those types of students our
challenge was how do we rekindle that
joy and wonder of learning and my
perspective and one that i think we
eventually got that was consistent with
the ethos of the school itself was get
them experiencing to learn get them in
into a position where they can do
interdisciplinary work that looks like
what the real world looks like and when
they do that they see that wow i can
make a difference in my community today
and i don't have to just plan for
making a difference later i can do it
right now and that was pretty cool to
see the way that you just described that
really resonates with me and is how i
prefer to learn how i prefer to teach et
cetera but i'm curious how have people
reacted to the approach that you're
describing for teaching and learning
well for many of the students they loved
it again because they had been told
either directly or indirectly that
you're a failure that you don't belong
here you know because you're not doing
it my way that you somehow
must not care about your learning and
therefore we're gonna just do whatever
is needed to sort of you know get you
the minimum essential you need so that
you can go on and do your thing and
again that's not a indictment on any one
single school or a teacher or whatever i
think that's just the general system of
you know you either get it with the
approach you know you're either on board
with my approach or you're not and if
you're not tough i've covered the
material and what we tried to do was
simply say all right if you're not
getting it it's not your fault it's my
fault and i've got to work so i think
when students saw that that they
really had agency they that we listened
to them that we really cared about what
difference they wanted to make in the
world and
we did the heavy lifting to try to
figure out how we could ensure that what
we were responsible for teaching because
my school was still a
district school in the state of north
carolina i was a public school teacher i
had an obligation of teaching to the
standards
that whether i agreed with them or not
so
i took that very seriously but rather
than simply say okay today we're going
to do this we're you know i would look
for how can i engage a student who
really loves music in a way that we can
connect these science and math standards
to what they care about now other
educators were a bit skeptical in some
cases fortunately my principal was all
on board with this approach and sort of
let me do my thing and just make sure
you're meeting your obligations and that
you know whatever you're doing it is
going to result in at least the ability
that the accountability metrics that we
have are going to look positive and then
of course the good news was that they
did not just me but my colleagues and i
consistently had the types of test
scores and all the other graduation
rates all that other that would be the
envy of any school but there were some
parents particularly that saw this as
just a dear election of teaching because
in reality i was not teaching like what
some students had become used to which
was
come in and sit down and you're going to
listen to me blather on for 45 minutes
about some topic and take notes and then
you're going to do some problems and
there will be a quiz and whatever rinse
repeat and i wasn't doing that and in
fact i refused to do that actually the
students they could come to me and say
hey mr o we really don't get this
concept would you please relent and give
us a lecture on it like all right so
there was actually a group of parents at
one time who developed a petition to get
me fired this was in my i think it was
my second year of teaching at that point
i decided well gee is this teaching gig
really something i want to do and if i'm
going to have to deal with this level of
backlash you know because it was really
hard on me as i was like really
questioning like am i doing the right
thing is what they are accusing me of
really true that i am you know
not paying attention to what i should be
and leading these students astray
fortunately at the time when that
petition land on my district
superintendent's desk he basically said
no way this guy is actually doing what
we want him to do and i didn't have a
whole lot of data at that time because
it was still relatively early in my
career but he trusted me my principal
trusted me my colleagues trusted me and
the good news is with some exceptions
many of those same parents came back
later and said thank you for persevering
because i can see the result in
my students that i don't think could
have been matched with the traditional
approach the things that they are doing
now the things that they did in college
is just you obviously knew something
that we did and so that was coming full
circle was probably the best accolade
that i could have gotten of any award
that i eventually got and they became
our biggest cheerleaders for the school
and for our approach because it wasn't
just me i just happened to be an easy
target because i was so blatant about it
where some of my colleagues would do a
little bit better job of hiding below
the radar
yeah again this is the apprenticeship of
observation people think they know how
to teach because they've observed it in
any subject area i taught i'd have
parents come back and be like well
that's not how i did it when i was in
school it's like you're right and we
have a better understanding of how we
learn
like it's been
well i mean our understanding like in
research on this has changed a bit
thankfully yeah yeah
no for sure i think what that experience
did do as painful as it was was it
really reinforced this idea of for me to
think about continuous improvement and
innovation i i also needed to be very
pragmatic about it i needed to think all
right am i going too far too fast like i
had done in my engineering career and i
probably needed to do a better job of it
as a teacher and listen to the parents
listen to the students not only with all
right what are you interested in but how
can i help make this shift because you
know if you're coming into my class as a
sophomore in high school you've spent
you know essentially 10 years in one
modality and now i'm doing a fruit
basket turnover
and that's going to be new and strange
to you and i need to ensure that i'm
providing you the scaffolding and the
other support so that you can be
successful yeah your mention of like the
continuous improvement and innovation
that definitely resonates with me every
year i'm teaching it's different than
the previous year and like i'd have
former students come back and be like
why are you teaching it this way like
why didn't you do that when i was in
school well because
continuing to learn and grow et cetera
absolutely i really find a lot of value
in learning from different sources and
trying to apply them in unique context
and whatnot in our prior discussions
before we started recording like it's
clear that you have been heavily
influenced by open source and have
applied that into teaching and learning
i'm curious if you could expand upon
that so i know for this audience is a
little bit different than most and
hopefully there's some educators also
that are listening to this that aren't
just steeped in computer science and
stem and whatnot but for those who
aren't you know the open source idea is
that a coder can sit down and create
something and put it out there in an
open source environment and then that
gets remixed and reused and so there's a
saying in the open source community that
the best code floats the top and that's
through this
idea of crowdsourced iteration that
we're constantly looking at what can i
do to tweak this and adapt it and remix
it for my situation or for the situation
as a whole i don't remember the specific
research but it's
one of the things that generally points
to how if a bug appears in an open
source type of code the time it takes
for it to get resolved is much quicker
than a proprietary because you've
basically got the entire planet of
coders who have the ability to
troubleshoot that so that ideal really
started resonating with me as i got into
the education space you know again from
my experience of just knowing that
collaboration and empathy with one's
user whether that again is the mechanic
the operator the customer whoever that
just casting that wide net for input on
what am i doing what can i do to make
this better how can i solve this problem
really sort of was in my bones and
finding in the education space that we
really didn't talk to one another was
troubling to that going to a unit to a
conference and sitting down at the table
and introducing myself to an educator
and saying hey let's share email and you
know i'll be willing to give you i
remember this was in the days of the
flash drive i was doing this at a
conference in dc i met a fellow physics
teacher i said here i'm going to give
you this flash drop that has got
everything that i've ever done at that
time it was like my fifth or sixth year
every project i've developed every
activity everything that i've developed
and it's yours here take it just remix
it make it better and he looked at me
like i was insane like what yep
why would you do that
you know that's worth gold like why
would you give that away and my response
was why wouldn't i i'm not in this you
know to compete with you i'm in this to
ensure that whatever we're doing in this
collaborative environment we're helping
kids make these connections that they
need to make so they can be successful
and what i'm offering is one simple way
to do that and if you can take it and
make those ideas better all the better
so that whole ethos as i started
learning more about the open source
principles of transparency and community
and collaboration inclusivity
adaptability just really resonated at a
level and i think for me it helped sort
of solidify this
ideal this ethos that i was embracing
because i really couldn't put a label on
it before and then when i started
reading about you know the open source
community and that approach i'm like
that's it that's it my co-founder for
open way learning we sort of stumbled on
this about at the same time and in fact
he was working directly with a coder and
just had a conversation and i think
that's he brought that conversation to
me and i'm like that's it eureka
that's what we've been after that helps
define this really radical approach that
we're using
that really shouldn't be that radical i
mean if there's any place that things
like community and collaboration and
inclusivity should be happening it's in
the education space and one of the
potential silver linings of the pandemic
is i think it forced teachers and other
educators to do more collaboration
because they were in an environment
where the rule book just got totally
thrown away and if you want to reach
students in an environment that's
totally different than what you've done
in the past you're going to have to
reach out and listen to what others are
saying listen to your user listen to
your colleagues look at what things are
working and then remix them for your own
context and i think that was where we
were seeing evidence of an open source
approach that's my 10 minutes or
whatever has been talking about how
the whole ideal of open source and that
by the way is in open way learning that
word open is intentional because we
believe the open way is those
characteristics you know that i
mentioned before that resonates in a lot
of different ways so like the kanji that
is around my neck and that is on
tattooed on my side means the way uh do
in japanese and like open source like
for
last 20 or so years on my website i've
shared any resource that i use when
teaching or create i just share it
freely all the presentations i've done
etc so like this really resonates with
me but i have heard some pushback from
some educators who have said but isn't
this just free labor and so they're
putting their efforts into something and
then they're not getting like a return
on investment for it so i'm curious like
how you respond to people who say that
if it is simply a one way where i'm only
sharing and i'm not receiving that could
be a valid argument but i will submit
that anytime i share something whether
it's the rule of karma
or it's a tangible that person reaches
back out to me and say hey ben i love
what you did here here's how i remix
that to me is gold because i can take
what they have done and it gives me that
whole different perspective of how they
applied this lesson this resource this
protocol whatever it was in their own
context with their students that is that
rapid prototyping mindset of let's take
things and let's just constantly make
them better and then just in general
whenever you do that you build a level
of trust among colleagues that you're
able to form this network this network
that you can tap into i used to play in
the twitter world a lot more than i do
today and i've found that as a teacher
that was one of my best resources to
sort of embrace this open source idea
because i could go on and just say
here's a resource that i've got and just
send it out to my community of followers
and say y'all try this out and tell me
what you think about it and you know
within 24 hours i would have 10 to 20
comments
that were
you know real time that i respected of
educators
literally around the world
who were looking at something and giving
me feedback i can't put a currency
on that that is just huge that helped me
improve as an educator it helped me that
day and helped me just going forward to
be more attentive to listening to their
different perspectives and you repeat
that process again and again and again
when you do this level of collaboration
it always
you find is more beneficial to you than
anything that you can share out so yeah
i get it i you know yeah i spent
countless hours pulling stuff together
but to me that's an easy investment for
the type of collaboration network that i
was able to experience in benefit yeah
one of the so recurring conversations
that i have with john stapleton who has
been on the podcast a couple of times is
talking about like having hyper local
curriculum so there's this tendency to
like create curriculum at scale where
it's like hey everyone across the nation
is going to use this exact same lesson
but that like clearly is not going to
connect with every community every
student teacher etc so the thing that i
love about like open source and like
just that ethos is like if you go to a
program or even just like a function and
you copy and paste that into yours you
have to modify it in order to fit your
needs and i wish more educators saw
lessons in that way as well like here's
somebody else's lesson okay cool i'm
gonna change it so it actually works
better for the students that i'm working
with as opposed to just taking it copy
and paste and not making any kind of
alteration whenever i get the
opportunity i always
remind teachers i'm working with do you
know about the oer comments do you know
about creative commons do you know about
because legitimately we should not be
copying and sharing copyrighted material
that's just you know that's not cool
now i would argue that you know in the
education space with some exceptions we
shouldn't have a whole lot of
copyrighted material and if you're in it
for proprietary reasons to make money
with your textbook or whatever then i
see you as the evil empire and
i'll get a lot of pushback with that but
i think it follows that mentality of one
size fits all let's create a textbook
that is this section is equally
applicable in anaheim as it is in terre
haute indiana and that's just
not the case so i always
you know refer people to oer commons
where you can look at open source
materials that have been vetted by their
peers and they can take and remix to
their own context and then load it back
up and continue that process and that is
infinitely more valuable than any
textbook that's proprietary or any
teacher pay teachers don't even get me
started with that
type of approach where we just simply
say well if it worked over there it's
got to work for me so i'll just take it
and i'll regurgitate it in my classroom
that's not really quality teaching now
there may be cases where you could adapt
it pretty much with no changes but
anything that i would ever get i would
always remix it and i would remix it not
at just the classroom level but at the
individual student level and that to me
is the holy grail when we're really
customizing the scaffolding the
activities that we're doing with each
individual student and that to me is the
highest quality of teaching that's hard
hard work yeah but it is an investment
that is worth the payoff because when
you can finally
see that glimpse
of oh i get it now because of the work
that you've done at that personalized
individualized level that's worth all
the time that you invest to do it now
you mentioned it kind of in passing but
i'm curious can you explain what is open
way learning yeah so open way learning
it's an education non-profit that sort
of our theory of change is that you
can't just focus on the latest buzzword
innovation
right
and which we see all too often in
education like oh stem is the thing
right now so let's all alert to that or
project-based learning is the thing
right now or personalized learning or
sel whatever it is and that's not to
criticize any of those programs but
unfortunately they get treated like
programs because we get used to this
idea of seeing the latest thing you know
oh this is the sexy thing coming down
the pipe we've all got to do that
what we don't do typically as schools or
districts because it's hard work is to
step back and say well what are the
cultural elements that need to be in
place for these innovations to really be
implemented with the level of fidelity
that will meet the intent like them or
pbl or whatever it is i mean that's
great when it's implemented at that
level but when it's seen as a program of
the month you know we as educators will
simply say well this too shall pass so
i'll do the minimum i got to do to keep
my head you know below the radar and
once it goes away then i'll do the same
thing with the next big thing in the
meantime i'm just going to continue
teaching in a very traditional way so
when we step back and say well let's
start with understanding our why as an
organization as a school as a district
as a learning community and do that in a
way that produces what we call a living
mission and vision that is not just
words hanging on a conference room or
hanging next to the entryway but it
actually lives you could shadow a
student you could say hey take our
mission state and walk around with a
student today and tell us whether or not
what you're seeing is consistent and in
alignment with what we put on this
document this aspirational dot they
should be aligned so that's our first
sort of criteria the second is this idea
of collective autonomy if you've read
daniel pink you know his thing about
human motivation purpose mastery and
autonomy and this goes back to that idea
of just because you've got a title as
principal or assistant principal or
superintendent or department head
doesn't mean you're necessarily a leader
it means that you have the capacity to
be a leader but we need to widen that
net to say our students can be leaders
our parents can be leaders our community
members a first-year teacher can be a
leader and be flexible in that
definition and then give people the
collective autonomy to bring that
leadership to bear third is a culture of
collaboration so we work on how do we
ensure that schools
don't have just dysfunctional plcs but
that actually have true professional
learning communities where we are
spending time learning from our
colleagues because that's one of the
premises behind that is the expertise
you need to be excellent as a school as
a department as a district already
exists in that learning community the
key is how do you collaborate to bring
those ideas forth and then that leads to
the fourth idea which is when you have a
collaborative community a true learning
community to borrow from peter sinji's
definition then you catalyze that with
the open source
chair of ideas of resources of knowledge
with one another so sort of those four
cultural elements that really get into
the people and really get into the
systems of living mission and vision
collective leadership culture of
collaboration and open source sharing
now you've got the stuff in the water to
take something like project-based
learning to a whole other level
something like personalized learning to
a whole another level because
all of those cultural ingredients are
working together to manifest it in a
really cool way and you've also got the
ingredients to say you know this sexy
thing coming down the pike isn't in
alignment with our mission and vision so
we're not going to invest the time to do
it and that's not just one person's
decision it's a collective decision
because
everyone within the learning community
sees that there is incongruence with
that thing and what they are doing to
make the education spaces as good as
possible for kids now there are
obviously exceptions to that if it's a
regulatory thing or whatever the god's
own mentality say thou shalt do this
obviously you don't have a whole lot of
freedom but even there there's enough
wiggle room that you can at least adapt
it in a way that you can apply it so
that it matches that culture so that's a
really long answer to what is this thing
called open way learning and it's just
this idea it's the theory of change that
we've got to be focused on this longer
term systemic level cultural level
stuff in order to be successful which
often is a tough sell which is why we
don't go to big trade shows because if
i'm standing next to i won't name them
but ed tech communities or whatever that
have all the sexy buzzwords right there
nobody's gonna pay us any attention but
fortunately there are enough schools and
districts out there that have said you
know enough is enough we've really got
to step back and take a different
approach at this because what we have
been doing by chasing the buzzword edu
fad is just not working for kids so when
i stepped into
boot up working at the nonprofit it
allowed me to work with districts in
ways that i hadn't previously when i was
in k-12 and even when i was teaching
higher education and whatnot i'm curious
for you like when you started working in
the non-profit space how did that change
or reinforce your understanding of like
education or educators well i'll tell
you just because it took a while to get
my non-profit status you know and just
going through the process there was a
period of time about a year where i was
simply an llc and i was struck by
the difference between
the types of conversation i could have
with folks
when i was a for-profit llc as opposed
to a non-profit that could truly put out
there and say i'm doing this work for a
higher reason than just making a profit
so i think just inevitably i would
venture to say that's probably going to
be true for any social space or
environmental or wherever it just it
allows you to have a level of
credibility that i think
my friends and the for-profit space can
sometimes struggle with now there are
some legitimately good for-profit
organizations in the education space but
we early on said for us to really
embrace this open source
ideal we've got to manifest that in
every aspect of what we do we've got to
be able to pass the red face test when
we have a conversation with any educator
that we're going to be doing this to
co-design with your in-house experts
what you need in order to be successful
we're not going to come in with a paint
by numbers approach although it will
probably save us a lot of time if we
just developed here's the 10-step
process to change culture rinse repeat
but it just doesn't work that way every
school every district every teacher we
work with is a remix is a start with
empathy and listen and i think that to
come back to your question the
consistent feedback we get is you know
this is refreshing everybody that we've
ever worked with
by and large has just come in and said
do these things
and you know giving us a workbook and
giving us whatever and giving us the
training and say now go off and do it
and what you guys are doing is say let's
start by listening to
where you currently are and what your
goals are and what your assets are what
is the talent you bring and how can we
collaborate how can we essentially in a
theoretically a three-day workshop
create an atmosphere that looks very
much like
what i described before with the living
mission and vision the collective
autonomy etc and they see that wow this
is pretty powerful stuff
and it's something that we can actually
do to make a difference and i've had
teachers approach me you know in tears
to say no one has really listened to me
in the 25 years that i've been teaching
until what you guys just did in the last
two days you put me in a space where i
could express
my ideas in a safe way not that my idea
got implemented but my idea got heard
and that was so powerful thank you it
reaffirmed why i became an educator and
to me again that's one of those like wow
that is the best feedback i could ever
get
because it really means what we are
doing which is if you want to boil it
down and it's all open source anyway so
you get anybody out there can take it
you know become a competitor i suppose
but i would just think we'd be helping
raise all boats but you could take what
we're doing which is
just simply getting learning communities
together and
using things like the design process
using things like empathy mapping to sit
down and listen to students to listen to
teachers and then take those ideas and
remix them in a way that works in your
local context for you not for the school
over there for you and then what we do
is we right up front say how can we work
ourselves out of a job as quickly as
possible so that we build that local
capacity those systems so that it's not
dependent upon open way learning or any
other that you've got what it takes to
be
that learning community of constant
innovation and
continuous improvement is just now baked
into your dna now if we were to zoom out
from your perspective what do you feel
is holding back either educators or the
field and then what's something that we
can actually do about that that's the
the ten thousand dollar question my
experience
in the education space which you know i
came in very naive you know
then this former engineer is going to
change the world
or at least change how to teach stem or
whatever and then this cold face of
reality sits in
[Laughter]
so
what i have learned to call it not
surprising as a former physics teacher
is the institutionalized inertia of the
status quo that the
systems we have developed over time
where we just simply put in autopilot
and do school are so baked in to
our culture and and that's why i argue
that unless you address culture you're
going to simply reinforce and further
manifest the dysfunctional culture that
is not serving kids especially our kids
who've traditionally been furthers from
opportunity we've got to shake up the
culture we've got to focus on those
things and do it in a way that
really means we're doing hard work that
looks different than what we've done in
the past and not just rely on the way
that we've always done things as the
only way that we can proceed so i would
submit that there's no single
institution whether that's a district or
a department of education at the state
level at the
regional level
national level no higher ed
organization or community no nonprofit
that will individually as an institution
change this i think it will only happen
if we have a crowdsourced approach that
recognizes the best idea from wherever
that idea comes from and we collectively
take those ideas as a way to say there
is a better way than what we've done in
the past now the trick is how do you get
those ideas to really come forward and
again i would submit they already exist
it's just we've got to encumber them so
that they rise to the top and
that means
teacher is going to have to be
vulnerable and listen to ideas from
their students that means a principal is
going to have to be vulnerable and
listen to
and follow through with ideas from their
teaching staff from their support staff
a superintendent
a state superintendent whomever they're
gonna have to say i may not have all the
answers and so i'm gonna have to really
rely on not just my collective staff
here but i'm gonna have to rely on this
crowdsource mindset and cast that net
really wider and create the systems
where i can constantly listen to and act
on those ideas and again i would go back
to when did that actually happen well we
just had it happen recently in the
pandemic when we made this massive shift
in a very short period of time districts
no longer were the necessary north star
with all the answers to many of their
teachers or schools or whomever so
people had to be creative and had to
look beyond what they had traditionally
looked like so that to me was an example
of a test case of the potential for
really changing the paradigm so the
optimist in me says well let's just
continue doing that more and let's
emphasize where it's actually beginning
to sink in and have an impact the
pessimist in me unfortunately sees too
many districts just saying okay we're
going back to the same old way that we
did prior to the pandemic yeah it's
difficult with the industrial model so
heavily baked into
what typically occurs in education but
the way that you've spoken throughout
this conversation has really discussed
the value of bridging the gap between
in school and out of school
understandings practices problem solving
ways of knowing etc but i don't know
it's hard to kind of change the
landscape when we have this factory
model the industrial model that is so
pervasive when what you're describing is
more of a networked model and to be able
to share across that so do you have any
recommendations for educators who like
want to break beyond those approaches
and get into more open ways of learning
well one that just immediately comes to
mind is my friend grant lichtman and
he's done some writing on this i know in
the past couple years specific to the
things that he's been seeing at this
networked level during and post well if
we are in a post-pandemic which i would
argue would really not yet and he's the
author of the book moving the rock which
i would highly recommend so that's one
example of if you really want to dig in
further and look at
a level of expertise someone that you've
had on this podcast before arya cheering
and her work at duke is another example
of how we can obviously she being at the
higher ed
space is able to see an even broader
perspective of how we can bring in this
open source idea into
many different applications including in
her case she's working with the durham
public schools on specifically a
cs type of approach in general that then
uses
computer science and programming in an
open source so basically both ends of
the spectrum there in the book i wrote
open up education or co-wrote with adam
hagler my co-author we point to a number
of other examples and that's not a pitch
for the book
it's just if you want resources find
somebody who's got a copy and read that
as well but that idea as you alluded to
is still pretty radical it is still
pretty good i mean even to this day when
i speak to teachers who i know have been
doing wonderful collaboration and i just
bring up so tell me how you collaborate
with your own district or maybe with
your own region because i see them
collaborating on twitter or on national
networks or whatever well i never even
considered that yeah
so i think it's indicative of when we
get into this industrial model system
this paradigm is so strong it just tends
to cloud
this idea of what we could be doing and
the idea is right there the methodology
is right there it just sometimes it just
simply takes a shift where like well why
don't we collaborate why don't i go
across the hall and just sit in a
colleague's classroom and then we just
have a conversation later about what did
i like what did i wonder because when i
was teaching that was the best feedback
i could get sure the annual observation
and the forum and all that you know that
was beneficial to a certain extent but
the best feedback was a colleague who
does the same thing and works with the
same students and is able to look and
say hey ben did you know that what
you're doing with these three students
is just probably not very effective why
don't you try this because that's
working in my classroom like night and
day oh wow i would have never even
considered that and thank you for that
insight so little things like that i
think that we can do within our own
sphere of influence but anything that
you can do to collaborate intentionally
collaborate and share be vulnerable with
others you're going to become a better
educator doing or you're going to become
a better superintendent doing that it's
so powerful we've got to get away from
this idea that we may think that we have
all the answers or because of our own
experience or because of what we've done
in the past we've always got to say what
i'm doing today has got to be better and
different than what i did yesterday and
one of the things that i really
appreciate that you have reiterated
multiple times is like elevating student
voice in this experience i'm curious
what you would recommend specifically
for that for educators who might
immediately jump to oh i can collaborate
with other educators but like how could
they learn from and with students when
open wave learning does our work we do
have available if schools want to use it
we don't force it on anyone but it's
kind of like a maturity model of some of
the foundational things that we've just
seen that we know that work that should
be
part of that systemic ecosystem that you
have in place and one of those is a
vibrant advisory program whether that's
at the elementary middle or high school
level is are you spending the time
developing relationships with students
are you spending the time addressing
social emotional needs of students are
you listening to what their goals are
what gets them up in the morning what
makes them tick now sometimes that may
be a hard conversation because if
students have not been in that
environment they may be reticent to
share but if you are persistent and just
invest the time to get to know students
then they're going to develop that level
of trust and respect mutual respect and
you're going to also be a little bit
vulnerable by asking them so tell me how
i'm doing tell me what i could do
that would make this class better that
what could i do to make this lesson
better this project and you may get some
pretty biting response like
i certainly did
like mr o never do that project again it
was awful
okay
you're exactly right i thought the same
thing you just helped validate that
so yeah having an advisory program in
whatever form it is whatever way that
you can do that and if your school is
not supportive then figure out a way
that you can bring that to your own
individual classroom i promise you that
investing that time and developing that
solid relationship is going to pay off
tenfold as you go forward so that is
sort of the foundational level and then
it's simply
asking it's asking in a one-on-one level
it's saying hey i want to have a focus
group anyone that has a birthday between
june and october i want to meet you over
in this corner everybody else just
continue working on what you're doing
and you go and you simply have a
conversation with those students i've
got this this is what the idea i'm
bouncing around what do you all think
how could i make it better how could i
make it where it has a more direct
community impact and then the other
thing we would do this from time to time
is actually take students to the chamber
of commerce meeting you know just say
hey who wants to go to the chamber of
commerce one was pretty striking
where we as teachers would go to the
chamber of commerce be in our school and
sometimes we were the only educators
there but that was where i could have a
direct conversation with the plant
manager of the local snap-on tools plant
for example or
with a physician at the local hospital
or with a paralegal or whomever and i
could say well what are some of the
problems that you're working on that our
students could also work on because
chances are you've got some issues that
you simply don't have the time money and
resources and when students can engage
in that conversation with someone that
they respect in their community or that
they just didn't know about it opens
many many doors that you can take
advantage of that's another helpful hint
that i would encourage folks to do is
just whatever it takes to blur the lines
between what's happening in the school
and what's happening
do you have any recommendations for
how to prevent burnout that can come
with like that iteration like those were
some excellent examples of like how you
can like kind of practice and iterate on
your own abilities by getting feedback
from students and but it's difficult
being an educator as you mentioned in
the story about like being petitioned
like how did you and do you work through
stresses like that yeah i mean i'm sure
there are folks that are listening to
this saying yeah that's great there ben
you're probably smoking something
because
there's no way
that i could do that anything close to
what you're talking about and i won't
kid
anyone listening that this is indeed
hard work what i found was by doing that
hard but different work that was more
collaborative more inviting more
inclusive was
so much more rewarding that it was worth
it it was worth the time investment and
if i had worked half the number of hours
that i did but was just sort of going
through the motions and knowing that it
wasn't having the impact that would have
burned me out within a heart because
what was motivational and this goes back
again to i think what daniel pique talks
about is that purpose mastery and
autonomy i knew that at my school there
was a clear living mission that provided
purpose that was consistent and in
alignment with what i wanted to do to
make a difference in the world for the
time that i'm on this planet that was my
way to channel that and affect it with
the students i was working with i had
the ability to master things by knowing
that i could collaborate with colleagues
knowing that we could share ideas so
that we could constantly get better and
continue to become better teachers and
master that approach and then i had the
autonomy
that didn't mean that i could just close
my door and do my own thing i had the
collective autonomy where again i our
ideas mattered what i could bring as a
passionate educator to my colleagues and
they could listen and they could give me
feedback was respected so i could leave
at the end of the day knowing that with
that purpose mastery and autonomy i'm
doing good work that is in alignment to
my core values as a person and i think
that ultimately is if you were in that
place which i was fortunate enough to be
and i would also say i'm pretty
fortunate enough to be since i run my
own non-profit
i guess i'm my own boss so i just make
sure that ethos exists in this community
as well that you can leave with a smile
on your face and knowing that you've
done good work that day now i think as
you're alluding to you can also take
that to the extreme and become just
insane and my wife would probably argue
that
i do that on occasion
it is imperative that you block time and
i've i've gotten good at practices like
just i'm gonna block a day and that's my
day and it's not the weekend it's my day
where i still may be doing work but it's
work that i get to dictate i get to
define i get to sit down and read or
just do something that's totally
different and it's not dictated by a
meeting or whatever and then you know
i'm also shut down at four o'clock every
day i'm done unless there's a specific
thing that others expect me to be in for
whatever reason but i'm pretty stingy
about what those can be that's the time
where my wife and i and our dog and cats
can enjoy being together and we can go
walk in the woods
i can go on a run or i can do whatever
so i think it's having that level of
discipline to know that you know when
you're doing work you're going to go all
in but you're also going to ensure that
you protect
time
as well so that you're honoring self and
don't treat that as being selfish but
treat that as part of the entire system
to stay healthy in all the different
ways that are necessary yeah i really
appreciate that response the work that i
do literally will never end in terms of
like the series of things that i can
always work on so like having those firm
here's when i start working here's when
i stop working that definitely helps now
i say that with full recognition of i
started at 5 a.m this morning because i
woke up at four and like it's just like
one of those days where all right it's
definitely gonna be like a 10 hour day
but
in general i try and do eight to four
get my eight hours and
we all have those days but
yeah i think as long as we
do it in moderation then uh we're
they're honoring self so i'm curious
what do you wish there's more research
on that could inform your own practices
i know that there
needs to be more research on
just the
approach of using an interdisciplinary
approach to education like what if we
just simply de-siloed the process and
got kids
working on experiences whether it's
project-based learning problem-based
place-based profession-based whatever
xbl you want to say i know there's some
like university of michigan
collaborating with michigan state just
publish something that you can find on
the lucas foundation about the impact of
things like project-based learning
experiential learning it shouldn't be
just that's the one example that we can
point to that shows the impact because
anecdotally every situation whether it's
in my own school or the schools i have
the privilege of working with when
teachers
embrace that approach and move away from
the industrial model it's a total game
changer and especially for students who
the light bulb has gone off and they're
just like all right i'm going to bide my
time until either i can drop out or
until i graduate and just you know let
me just kind of keep my head down when
you're able to impact those kids where
they are shining in a way that nobody
expected themselves their parents
included that's beautiful and i know
there's a research
piece of that that can validate it in a
way that we can point to traditional
metrics or whatever and so i think we
need more of that and let's see other
areas the reality of the fourth
industrial revolution with ai and just
so many things that are just racing by
us there has to be something and if it
is research that points to the fact that
the current model is not working to
sufficiently prepare our students for
that reality and if the research is the
thing that motivates
folks to actually make that move to make
cs more inclusive to make stem more
inclusive to help ensure that yeah just
because i'm an english teacher i'm not
going to worry about coding to something
where i'm going to worry about whatever
it takes
regardless of my diploma i have on my
wall over here i'm going to do whatever
it takes to equip these kids with what
they need to be successful and i'm going
to collaborate with my colleagues now i
may bring a little bit of expertise in
this area but the big picture is how are
we preparing our kids to be the
entrepreneurs the change makers the
difference makers and not just the test
takers i like that what's something that
you're working on that you could
actually use more help with like from a
listener or something oh my gosh
we're not the
kid
i think any listener who has heard
something that i have said that can just
point to either well what you said was
bs because
i have over time developed a worldview
but i'm sure it's very biased and i'm
sure it is not representative of
especially
as a white male you know i inherently
bring a certain bias to this
that i constantly am looking for and
always know that i can do a better job
of listening to others particularly our
communities that have historically been
oppressed by folks like me and i think
that's one thing first and foremost and
then others are just is there something
out there that says well you know ben
the work that you're doing could be
catalyzed if you considered this or if
you looked in this arena or here's an
example that you could highlight that is
actually making that difference because
i think if we can look at those pockets
of equipment look at those images of
what's possible and elevate those and
have folks then act on it like all right
how can i replicate that because that
community looks really similar to the
community i'm working with how did they
do it so i can do it and again take that
idea of if we share and remix and
localize it then i think we can get
better so anything like that would help
me as sort of the if i'm doing nothing
else than saying hey you district a
you need to collaborate with district b
and this other non-profit because what
they're doing is amazing and i never see
a penny of that other than the fact that
i got them together that's all good
because that is beginning to make that
shift happen from this industrial model
to something that's more equitable and
purposeful for kids i love how so many
of your answers just embody the open
source like way of being like it's
phenomenal i don't know how intentional
it was in that response but it was just
like spot on
very good it'll probably be on my
epitaph that this was the open source
guy who struggled with coding in python
do you have questions for myself or for
the field i guess the big question i
always have is
how radical
is what i'm proposing from your context
as you've had experience in the higher
ed community you've had the experience
teaching
you know what the system and the
resistance potentially so am i really
out there in the tundra screaming to
nobody's listening or do you think you
see any elephant in the room that can be
impacted by this by some element of what
i'm discussing yeah that's an excellent
question and this might sound like a
non-answer but i've seen enough
districts to realize that there's a huge
continuum of what would be accepted and
what would not like one district that i
was in where i got put on a growth plan
because i like created a lesson based
off of the previous four lessons that
they gave us and they came in on that
one and they're like this isn't a
district approved lesson plan blah blah
blah i'm like okay like
you didn't give me five lessons for five
weeks so i made one up based off of the
previous four weeks like and you love
the lesson
so districts like that would probably
hear what you're talking about and go
nope but then like other districts that
i've been in and other districts that
i've seen like their end goal is to just
get kids interested in learning and to
be able to do something with what they
learn in school outside of school and in
those districts yeah they'll listen to
this and be like yes this totally
resonates let's do this i'm on board
with it the hard part is like trying to
figure out with that first district well
what is it that you value and how can we
get at that through this approach that
also really works probably even better
for kids than what you are mandating and
whatnot so like had i had the
understandings that i have now if i were
to go back to that first district that i
taught in to be able to engage in those
conversations with the administrators
and just sit down and be like what do
you hope students will learn and then
what are some different approaches that
we can use and how might we align this
approach that i highly recommend with
what you're trying to do and i think
bridging those conversations would help
but yeah i totally think everything
you're talking about could totally be
done in education it's just a matter of
getting like administrators or even like
you mentioned earlier like parents on
board with understanding like hey this
is a valid way of you know learning and
teaching or facilitating et cetera great
i appreciate that feedback and i think
the way that affects the work i do is we
intentionally don't try to evangelize to
that first district and examples like
that i mean
because there are enough folks out there
that are pointing to we've got to do
something differently yeah and certainly
with what we just experienced in the
pandemic where the curtain got pulled
back and we got to see the sort of the
ugly underbelly of this industrial model
that has just been existing for too long
that needs desperate change so i can say
and this again falls in the theory of
change that if you get a coalition
schools districts educators in general
who are willing then that's where things
like the collaboration and the sharing
and the trust can affect the type of
change we're after so that's my guarded
optimism based on what you're saying
there and i'm excited to continue to
work with those folks because again
not that i've got the answers but i
think we've got a way that we can help
their answers come to the top including
listening to students along the way and
letting them co-design with us something
that's going to work better so where
might people go to connect with you and
the organizations that you work with so
my email is ben at
openwaylearning.org so feel free to
shoot me an email whether you agree or
disagree with anything i've said today
or indifferent about it and
openwaylearning.org you can just go to
that url and you will see our website
you can also find me on twitter
at engineer teacher and at open way
learning or our non-profit and we're
also on linkedin and facebook same thing
so if you just do open weight learning
you'll eventually find us if it's not
one of the first things that pop up
that's my contact info and i'm always
happy to hear from others and
collaborate what can we do to develop
that coalition of willing partners as
you probably can tell by now i'm pretty
passionate about not just doing it
myself but having willing collaborators
to co-design that with me so we raise
all votes and with that that concludes
this week's episode of the cska podcast
i hope you enjoyed this interview as
much as i did and i hope you consider
sharing this with somebody else or
sharing a review on whatever app that
you're listening to this on this helps
more people find it stay tuned next week
for another episode and until then i
hope you're all staying safe and are
having a wonderful week
Guest Bio
As an engineer who spent a 20-year career in manufacturing locations across the US, Ben Owens saw first-hand the essential need to rethink student success so that it was less focused on siloed curriculum and test scores and more focused on the skills, knowledge, and dispositions needed for students to thrive in a rapidly changing world. Ben left the corporate world in 2007 to do something about this by becoming a public school teacher in rural Appalachia. He taught physics and math for 11 years at Tri-County Early College and in that role was able to work with a dynamic team of peers to craft and scale an engaging approach to student-centered teaching and learning that blurs the lines between what happens in school and what happens in the real world. This experience provided profound insights into why and how we must shift our approach to education in general and STEM education in particular - especially for historically marginalized students.
Ben is the co-author of “Open Up, Education! How Open Way Learning Can Transform Schools,” a book that makes a compelling case for why our schools must be more open if they are to truly prepare students for a rapidly changing world. He was the recipient of the 2017 Bridging the Gap Distinguished Teacher in STEM Education; the 2016 North Carolina Center for Science, Mathematics, & Technology Outstanding 9-16 Educator Award; a member of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Teacher Advisory Council; a 2014 Hope Street Group National Teaching Fellow, and a former “Community TA” for the MIT Teaching Systems Lab. He is an Open Organization Ambassador and a National Faculty member for PBLWorks, and co-founder of the non-profit, Open Way Learning.
Open Way Learning is a not-for-profit organization that helps schools create the cultural conditions that allow authentic, localized innovation to thrive in their own learning communities. The Open Way Learning approach rejects an inequitable and archaic factory model of school that prefers compliance over relationships, isolation over collaboration, and teaching to a test over authentic learning. This “Open Way” model focuses on four core elements that are rooted in the open source movement - one of the primary drivers fueling our innovation economy: a living mission & vision, collective autonomy, a culture of collaboration, and the free and open sharing of ideas and resources. This approach allows teams to attend to the cultural elements that enable them to develop, remix, adapt, and sustain innovative strategies such as competency-based learning, project-based learning, distributed leadership, design thinking, true personalized learning, and high-quality STEM teaching & learning. When baked into the DNA of a school, the Open Way Learning model enables it to nimbly respond to the just-in-time needs of each student so that they are equipped with skills needed to thrive in the 4th industrial revolution, rather than just the first.
Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode
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Learn more about the “cognitosphere,” which is the concept by Grant Lichtman that was mentioned
Connect with Ben
Find other CS educators and resources by using the #CSK8 hashtag on Twitter
Free CS Resources I Have Created
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