How can The Connected Learner lead to organizational change?

A real challenge in successful education research is to get buy in from colleagues in your own organization. NSF held a kick off meeting for the 6 teams funded by the NSF RED program. The teams worked together over a day and half to understand the language of change, the drivers of change, and the barriers to change. The workshop part of the program was lead by a team from MACH. They even managed to get a group of grown engineers and computer scientists to dance (watch the Youtube Channel for Elliot Douglas).

When asked if there was anything about the kick off meeting that surprised us, Celine said that we were being encouraged to share ideas across teams. Research projects are funded for their innovation and that leads to researchers protecting and thinking of their project as unique. In this scenario we are expected to borrow and learn from each other. A good start for our project since learning from your peers is a foundational concept for our proposed change to CS education.

We were asked to imagine that each RED project is a boat with drivers and anchors, then to draw the drivers and anchors for our context. My drawing looks like a 5 year old did it! The big idea is to see how many people you can get on the boat and keep it moving.

Coming soon: The elevator pitch for The Connected Learner