Category: Thinking

The Shape of the Lens

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Inspired by an optics metaphor used in ethnography, this mental model explores our perception and understanding of behaviour. Use it as part of your team’s developmental dialogue and process.

Seeing through a lens

We all bring a different perspective to the challenges we face. My story and my experience is my bias. Recognising this foundational truth to collaboration is an important step.

Explore with your team the lenses that can be held up to view the situation you are in. Consider the lenses that are present in your group and those perspectives not immediately present.

However we are not just looking through a lens, we are attempting to see. Consider what it takes to shift our perspective and reveal gaps in our understanding. Follow your curiosity and deepen your understanding of alternative perspectives.

Your Talking Points

  • How does my bias impact what I see here?
  • Are we all using the same lens on this situation?
  • What combination of lenses might offer something new?
  • Which lenses are more opaque to us?
  • Which perspective should be represented more clearly?

Hold up a mirror

A further step is to hold up a mirror and consider our own participation in an issue, problem or challenge. Am I part of the problem?

When we look back, at first, we may identify the role we play or acknowledge our influence on an issue. We may reflect on the positive, negative or neutral impact we have on a situation.

When we look closer and see ourselves, we increase self-awareness which is an important trigger for learning and growth. Reflexivity is that circular loop of seeing and changing because we see.

Look through a lens, but hold up a mirror too.

Your Talking Points

  • How does this situation provoke my thinking?
  • What am I noticing my thinking is drifting to?
  • How might I change as a result of this?
  • What harm might I be causing?
  • This has helped me to change because…

What’s in the shadows?

Ethnographic studies of human behaviour often refer to the goal, to uncover the unmet needs or poorly defined issues. For our model here we describe that as exploring what is in the shadows.

These are issues or challenges at the root of behaviour. However they may be masked, obscured or in shadow from everyone. With your team explore the shadows and consider what is poorly represented, unspoken or missing from your dialogue and discussion.

It is a challenge to see what is cloaked and obfuscated. This takes time. Commit to your inquiry and use a range of data sources to reveal more and more. Perhaps data becomes your torch exploring and illuminating the shadow.

Your Talking Points

  • A blind spot for me is…
  • What are we not paying attention to?
  • How do we know this is the right problem to be solving?
  • What is distracting our attention here?
  • If we looked in the opposite direction what might we see?

See through a lens ~ Hold up a mirror ~ Explore the shadows

Photo by Jon Eric Marababol

Look back and smile on perils past

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The word spek– is a really old word root meaning “to observe”. If you prefer a little Greek: skopein means to “behold, look, consider”. Or perhaps some end of the week Latin: specere “to look at”.

You can see spek– is the root of the word perspective. This is something we are all seeking at the moment. Our isolation has meant that we are missing the normal connection and interactions that allow us to “consider” and to “observe” how others are. And so how we are.

The word perspective originates from Latin perspectus meaning “clearly perceived”. We want perspective because we seek clarity.

Let’s look at some other uses of the word and how they are important utilities for us right now.

Introspective

You know this one. Looking inside ourselves. Many of us have had to spend more time with ourselves than we might have liked (!)

It is not just about looking and observing. This is a time for increasing self-awareness of our response to change and the problems that have emerged.

Regular introspection and reflection give us the chance to capture what is happening with our disposition. The ups, downs and spirals.

Write it down, talk to a colleague or loved one. Using language to express how we see ourselves is a powerful way to process what we are going through.

Your Talking Point
What do you notice about how you have responded to the uncertainty of your current experience?

Retrospective

Looking back is a critical position to take in the coming months, as we transition to some sort of normality. Future innovations will build on the success of the past. They are not disconnected.

Our schools need to consider the powerful practices that were already having a high impact. In our enthusiasm for change and the “new normal” we have to look back at what worked for our community.

What were we doing before? What did we value and how is that different? What still works? Which first principles still exist?

In many ways, it is illogical to consider a snap back to the way things were. Learning, leadership and innovation are intricate and complex behaviours. The stories we carry now and the experiences we have gone through will mean it will be irrevocably changed because we have changed.

Your Talking Point
How has your value set shifted and changed?

Prospective

When we add pro- we look forward. We are scanning the horizon and looking ahead. Here in Australia (in early May) we are starting to see a shift in the restrictions and easing of the constraints.

Many of us are looking ahead and figuring out the path through the next few months. Prospective thinking will serve our communities well, as we navigate a return to the normal rhythms of school and consider what is ahead.

There are school events and rituals to be celebrated that will undoubtedly be on our minds. Will we run those as normal? Will they be different this year?

As we lead we need to be prospective. Crucially our students and families will not have had a homogenous experience. Regardless of the synchronous and asynchronous labels we might use. That diversity will mean we might be all looking ahead and prospecting for different things.

Exploring and surfacing that type of insight may help us design a better learning experience in the future.

Your Talking Point
How will you discover what your community members are looking forward to?

–

As always let me know what resonates.

Look back, and smile on perils past meaning

The blog post “Look back and smile on perils past” is a quote from Sir Walter Scott’s poem, The Bridal of Triermain: Or the Vale of St. John:

That this same stalwart arm of mine, 
Which could yon oak's prone trunk uprear, 
Shall shrink beneath, the burden dear          
Of form so slender, light, and fine; 
So! now, the danger dared at last, 
Look back, and smile at perils past!

**Photo by Emma Dau

Finding Ways to Doubt Myself

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Over the last few years I have been shifting the way that I read content to do with education and learning.

The shift has been a subtle but very important one for me. I deliberately recognise the bias I have towards certain bundles of ideas and find ways to explore the opposing views.

Earlier this year I developed some course content for a Masters course on Innovation in Education. One of the subjects was Design Thinking and despite having many years of experience working with this process I decided to doubt everything I thought I knew about it.

Rather than rest on the laurels of my experience I actively doubted my understanding. This forced me to reconsider, question and ponder on what I might be missing and to be a learner again. It also helped me to see my own bias much more clearly.

A recent example is seeing that I have a negative bias towards furniture being organised so learners are sitting in rows in a classroom.

Tom Sherrington nudged me into this direction with his post about The Timeless Wisdom of Sitting in Rows. He points out that:

…in the majority of situations when I am likely to be teaching, explaining, instructing, questioning – or getting my students up to do it – rows work absolutely beautifully. Is this about exerting my authority, sage on the stage, being in control, telling students things, asking them things…? Yes, of course it is. That’s my responsibility. Is this a miserable, oppressive state of affairs for the poor compliant souls at my mercy? No. Not at all. They can see me; look me in the eye, communicate, engage, interact, listen, learn, think… It’s all good. Efficient and effective, yes. And human – always human.

These types of posts and reflections allow me to not just have a counter point to something I might believe, but I begin to see my own bias with more definition.

In the past I might discount such articles simply from the title but now I seek them out and actively doubt what I think I know.

#28daysofwriting

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Will this cause harm?

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I have been reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s brilliantly tangential book Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder.

A concept and mental model he shares is iatrogenics. This is a medical term that refers to “harmful unintended side effects”.

In Antifragile, he writes:

In the case of tonsillectomies, the harm to the children undergoing unnecessary treatment is coupled with the trumpeted gain for some others. The name for such net loss, the (usually bitten or delayed) damage from treatment in excess of the benefits, is iatrogenics.

Iatro– means “a physician; medicine; healing,” from Greek iatros “healer, physician”. –genic means “producing, pertaining to generation.” So harm caused by a healer.

While some have advocated using ‘iatrogenesis’ to refer to all ‘events caused by the health care delivery team’, whether ‘positive or negative’, consensus limits use of ‘iatrogenesis’ to adverse effects, possibly including, broadly, all adverse unforeseen outcomes resulting from medication or other medical treatment or intervention.

(Iatrogenesis)

Taleb extends this concept beyond medicine and it has helped me think about the total impact of any intervention.

When we intervene without a full appreciation of the potential positive and negative effects, Taleb describes this practice as  “naive interventionism”.

What does this look like in other fields like education?

In schools these interventions might be a simple timetable change from one year to the next. You may be experiencing that now – as the the new academic year in Australia has just started. Perhaps you are only just realising the negative impact of that extended first session or the longer lunchtime.

Perhaps something more significant like streaming in primary maths classes causes obvious missed opportunities for building relationships – perhaps the negative impact outweighs the positive. We are causing more harm than good – this is iatrogenics.

I experienced many primary schools in the UK with complex intervention programmes for students I taught in my classes. I don’t remember ever fully evaluating the negative side effects of those interventions and how they were delivered.

Taleb suggests any intervention will have iatrogenics – the question for leaders is whether we are even aware of them?

It is easy to begin to use the mental model of iatrogenics in your development planning – all we have to do is ask ourselves a few questions:

  • “Will this cause harm?”
  • “How might we understand the negative impact of this idea?”
  • “What can we do to minimise the negative impact?”
  • “How will we know if the negative impact of this outweighs the positive?”
  • “What would happen if we did nothing?”

#28daysofwriting

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4 critical thinking mental models to use when exploring research

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In a few recent weekly newsletters I have been exploring some mental models for interrogating  research. These mental models are a handy set of structures and ideas to apply to any research you might be exploring.

With growing access to research in education we need to be better equipped to think in a critical and creative way about what is shared. The emphasis on evidence informed decisions means there is a need for more critical thinking tools or models like I share below.

Correlation does not imply causation

The example of research that started me down this path was some of the emerging research findings into learning spaces from Melbourne University led by Dr. Wesley Imms.

In particular how they have been reported – take this quote from Dr Imms:

we’ve found a very strong correlation between innovative learning environments, high levels of deep learning and high-quality teaching.

The first mental model we might use is: ‘Correlation does not imply causation.’ This is directly related to the quote from Dr. Wesley Imms. We might safely assume his words were chosen carefully.

What does ‘Correlation does not imply causation‘ mean? Well just because we have innovative learning environments and we have observable high levels of deep learning and high quality teaching, it does not necessarily mean these positive outcomes were caused by the innovative learning environments.

Cause and effect is much harder to capture and that is why research continues.

Check out these Spurious Correlations for a more alternative explanation of this mental model.

The Hawthorne Effect

Some other related mental models we can deploy here are things like the Hawthorne Effect. This explains that sometimes the effect of an intervention is because observation (paying attention to people) alters behaviour positively. An ongoing research challenge I imagine.

Gambler’s Fallacy

Gambler’s Fallacy, also related to statistics, is the belief that future probabilities are influenced by past events. “Although this has not worked in the past I am sure it is bound to work this time around.” This is similar to the model of Path Dependency.

Randomness

One final one is the mental model of Randomness as explained by Farnam Street: “much of the world is composed of random, non-sequential, non-ordered events. We are “fooled” by random effects when we attribute causality to things that are actually outside of our control.”

Remember the idea with all of these mental models is to build up a bank that we can draw from at any time to help interrogate and explain situations we are in.

There are plenty more to use – feel free to share any other thinking tools and mental models to use when exploring research in the comments below.

I use these types of mental models all the time when I am working with leadership teams on development projects. I hope you have found these four a useful addition to your critical thinking toolkit.

#28daysofwriting

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