Archive for the ‘Book Summaries’ Category
Friday, February 4th, 2022
The Diffusion of Innovation (5th ed) by Everett M. Rogers is THE book for anyone who wants to understand this phenomena. This is the 2003 version, but it is still very current. I used this book a lot when I was doing my dissertation and revisit the concepts via this summary from time to time. This is my longest book summary so it may take more than one sitting to finish it. I think it will be work your time.
Chapter 1 – Elements of Diffusion
- Getting a new idea adopted, even when it has obvious advantages is difficult. Therefore, a common problem for individuals and organizations is how to speed up the rate of diffusion of an innovation. Diffusion is a process in which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system. A degree of uncertainty is involved and the process can be planned or spontaneous. It results in one kind of social change and leads to certain consequences.
Element 1
- 1) The innovation: It is an idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new. If it seems new, it is an innovation. The adoption process is an information seeking and processing activity in which an individual is motivated to reduce uncertainty about the advantages and disadvantages of an innovation. The characteristics of innovations, as perceived by individuals, help explain their different rates of adoption.
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Element 2
- 2) Communication Channels: The essence of the diffusion process is the information exchange through which one individual communicates a new idea to others. Mass media channels are usually the most rapid and efficient means of informing an audience. Interpersonal channels involve face-to-face exchanges. A third form involves the interactions between individuals via the Internet.
Element 3
- 3) Time: The inclusion of time in diffusion research is one of its strengths. The five steps in the process are: knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation, and confirmation. There are five adopter categories that are time-based. The first adopters are called innovators. They are followed in time by early adopters, the early majority, the late majority, and laggards. When the number of adopters is plotted over time, an S-shaped curve results.
Element 4
- 4) A Social System: This is a set of interrelated units that are engaged in joint problem solving to accomplish a common goal. Social systems have structure that gives regularity and stability to human behavior (norms). It allows one to predict behavior with some degree of accuracy. The communication in a system also has a structure. Knowledge of the system’s structure is necessary if one wishes to study diffusion within the system.
Some History
- A series of independent groups started this research in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Each group was invisible to the others and used different approaches. They all, however, found the diffusion followed an S-shaped curve and the innovators had higher socioeconomic status than did later adopters. By the late 1960’s the independent groups had come together as shown by the increase in cross-tradition citations.
Gabriel Tarde
- Tarde was a French lawyer and judge around 1900. He observed that for every ten new ideas that spread, ninety will be forgotten. He also observed that the rate of imitation usually followed an S-shaped curve and that the takeoff in the curve begins to occur when the opinion leaders in a system use a new idea. Forty years later his observations were put to the test by empirical research.
The Nine Major Diffusion Research Traditions
- 1) Anthropology – The study of how tribes or villages use technological ideas such as the steel ax, horses, and boiling water.
- 2) Rural Sociology – The study of how farmers in rural communities adopt agricultural ideas such as weed sprays, hybrid seed, and fertilizers.
- 3) Education – The study of school systems, teachers, or administrators as they adopt teaching/learning innovations like kindergarten, modern math, programmed instruction, and team teaching.
- 4) Public Health and Medical Sociology – The study of individuals or organizations such as hospitals and health departments as they adopt medical and health ideas like drugs, vaccinations, family-planning, and AIDS prevention.
- 5) Communication – The study of individuals and organizations as they adopt technological innovations and new communications technology.
- 6) Marketing and Management – They study of individual consumers as they adopt new products.
- 7) Geography – The study of individuals and organizations as they adopt technological innovations.
- 8) General Sociology – The study of individuals and other units as they adopt a wide variety of ideas.
- 9) Early Sociology – The study of communities or individuals as they adopt things like city manager government, postage stamps, and ham radios.
- Other traditions include economics, public administration, political science, psychology, industrial engineering, statistics, and others.
A Word About Education
- Unlike some fields, innovations adopted by education are done so by organizations rather than individuals. Early studies were carried out by Paul Mort at Columbia University. He found that the best single predictor of innovativeness was expenditure per student. The stereotype of the rich suburban school as highly innovative was largely confirmed. Mort found that considerable time lags were required. It took kindergartens about 50 years to be completely adopted. Driver training needed only 18 years while modern math needed only 5 years. Both were promoted by change agencies. The insurance companies and auto manufacturers in the case of driver training and the National Science Foundation for modern math.
Tags: Diffusion of Innovations, Everett M Rogers
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Monday, October 11th, 2021
The Future of Smart: How Our Education System Needs to Change to Help All Young People Thrive by Ulcca Joshi Hansen is the book for you if you want to make education more authentic, exciting, and valuable for every student in your school. It gives some history of how the factory model of schooling got started and how it still exists in some classrooms. It talks about districts that have tried to bolt on innovations such as projects and internships to conventional schools. It also talks about schools that have made a full transition to what she calls Human-Centered/Liberatory schools. There is a list of 49 US schools she has visited that have made this transition.
Introduction
- Ulcca has visited many schools and some give her a feeling of welcome, openness, and curiosity. Montessori schools generally fall into this category. Do schools kill creativity? Yes. But not all schools. The compelling schools she found did just the opposite. Fostering curiosity and creativity is not straightforward, but it can be done. The purpose of this book is to describe the steps to take if you want your school to match this ideal. We have to ask “how are you smart? rather than “are you smart?” We need to focus on cultivating the unique abilities of each child rather than reinforcing an arbitrary hierarchy of merit. Wealthy parents often pay to send their children to holistic schools, but some of these schools do arise in poor neighborhoods.
Part 1 – Past: A Brief Overview of How We Got Here
1. Education at a Crossroads
- We start with the history of the standardized test movement that started under Clinton in the 1990s and took off with the bipartisan NCLB under Bush 43. It never asked if something was wrong with the system so efforts to get kids to pass tests were added on to the factory system in place that started in the 1800s. There is some explanation about what we know about the differences between our left and right brain. (Watch Iain McGilchrist’s TED Talk “The Divided Brain” for details.) Ulcca feels that the testing has put more emphasis on what the left brain is good at and less on the holistic nature of the right brain to the detriment of all students.
2. The Origins of the Divide Our Modern Worldviews
- Here we explore the clash of the different world views of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and the people of Europe who were strongly influenced by the objectivism of the Scientific Revolution. Indigenous people were indifferent to property ownership, lacked a sophisticated written language, and lived by myths and rituals. These are hallmarks of right-brain thinking. Europeans gave value to everything based on how useful they were (utilitarianism). It’s no surprise that Christian monarchs sent explorers out to expand their faith and improve their fortunes. These are hallmarks of left-brain thinking. We also learn that in China new scientific ideas were incorporated into traditional holistic thinking rather than replacing it. The question then becomes, can we revive indigenous ways of knowing without discarding science or technology?
3. A Worldview Divide in Education
- Before schools were invented, most children learned by experiencing life with their family and their community. In essence, they were home-schooled. Schools were modeled after factories with each child treated like an object that needed to be filled with the same knowledge and skills. The natural world was screened out in the impersonal left-hemisphere-oriented system. Discoveries in physics by Einstein and others showed that nature was interconnected and that the old laws of Newton were only approximations. With this background, reformers of education like Montessori, Steiner, and Krishnamurti developed schools where children could engage with the world and each other to develop as individuals. This is based on the idea the children teach themselves. They also need distance from authority and bureaucracy.
4. Holistic-Indigenous and Ecological (HIL) Values in Education
- The factory model where everyone learns the same things at the same time at the same pace is very unnatural. It features no understanding of child development or uniqueness. Children are separate entities and there is no focus on relationships or collaboration. It is also still the dominant model found in our schools. The HIL system focuses on interconnection and relationships and connections are central. The school is seen as a community. Academic subject matter is still a concern, but so are social-emotional skills. In addition to being consumers of knowledge, students will be producers as they create projects that use things like podcasts, interviews, observations, and conversations along with reading. Assessments give students information on how they can improve the learning process.
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Wednesday, August 18th, 2021
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink is a must-read for educators and parents alike. Dan summarizes current research and does a great job turning it into interesting and understandable prose that educators can apply to their practice. Every school should have this on the shelf.
Three Types of Motivation
- 1.0 – The basic motivations we need for survival
- 2.0 – Motivations based on direct rewards and punishments. Such carrots and sticks are typically financial in this context. They work for jobs that are routine, which are often the jobs that can be sent offshore or done by a computer.
- 3.0 – Intrinsic motivation, which is conducive to creativity. This allows you to do things for the satisfaction of doing them rather than any monetary reward. Examples include open source software, Wikipedia, learning to play a musical instrument, or doing a puzzle. It is important for nonroutine (heuristic) jobs. In these jobs rules are loosely defined, which requires creativity.
Carrots and Sticks Don’t Always Work
- Pink sites 128 studies that lead to the conclusion that tangible rewards tend to have a substantially negative effect on intrinsic motivation. This is one of the most robust findings in social science and one of the most ignored. (Doug: Educators should check out Alfie Khon’s 1993 book, Punished by Rewards.)
- Studies show that rewards and punishments can extinguish motivation and diminish performance. They focus behavior, which can crush creativity and they can crowd out good behavior. In some cases, they can lead to cheating, shortcuts, unethical behavior and lead to addiction. They can foster short-term thinking at the cost of long-term results.
Carrots and Sticks Aren’t All Bad
- Rewards do not undermine people’s intrinsic motivation for dull tasks where there isn’t any motivation to be undermined. To increase chances for success you need to: 1) Offer a rationale for why the task is important 2) Acknowledge that the task is boring 3) Allow people to complete the task their own way. Another way to offer extrinsic rewards for creative work is to give the reward after the job is finished. Care must be taken so that such rewards don’t become expected. In general, praise and specific positive feedback are less corrosive than cash and trophies (Doug: That means stickers for you elementary teachers)
Tags: Daniel Pink, Drive, Motivation
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Thursday, July 1st, 2021
Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam Grant offers advice about rethinking that all of us can use at work and beyond. The key is to think like a scientist. This means you have to actively try to disprove your own ideas as a way of testing their quality. This would make a great text for any leadership course and an outstanding read for anyone seeking self-improvement. Make sure that there is a copy in your professional development library.
Prologue
- This book is about the value of rethinking your assumptions, instincts, and habits while keeping an open mind. It starts with a story about wildfire fighters who when trapped neglected at first to drop their heavy gear as it was part of their identity and dropping it would signal failure. One man started a fire that in effect burned a hole through the fire and saved his life. This required rapid rethinking as this technique wasn’t taught in fire school. Due to the pandemic, we have also seen many leaders being slow to rethink their assumptions. This book is an invitation to let go of knowledge and opinions that are no longer serving you well. A hallmark of wisdom is knowing when to abandon some of your most treasured tools as you seek new solutions to old problems.
Part I. Individual Rethinking – Updating Our Own Views
1. A Preacher, a Prosecutor, a Politician, and a Scientist Walk into Your Mind
- The big idea here is to think like a scientist rather than a preacher, a prosecutor, or a politician. This requires that you revisit your beliefs to see if new evidence has made them obsolete. The worst bias is thinking that you aren’t biased. Be careful to avoid confirmation bias where you only look for facts that support your beliefs and desirability bias where you see what you want to see. Scientists are actively open-minded searching for reasons why they might be wrong. Your IQ may work against you as smart people recognize patterns faster, which can lead to seeing more stereotypes. If you are trying to promote a change, reinforce the things that will stay the same.
2. The Armchair Quarterback and the Imposter: Finding the Sweet Spot of Confidence
- Here we meet two opposing syndromes. The Armchair Quarterback Syndrome happens when confidence is greater than competence. The Imposter Syndrome happens when competence is greater than confidence. Arrogance is ignorance plus conviction. Humility allows you to absorb life’s experiences and convert them into knowledge and wisdom. A mix of confidence and humility gives us enough doubt to reexamine our old knowledge and confidence to pursue new insights. Most effective leaders score high in both confidence and humility.
- Adam believes that there are benefits associated with the Imposter Syndrome. It can motivate you to work harder. It can allow you to work smarter as you question old assumptions. Finally, it can make you a better learner as you realize that you might have something you need to learn. You are more likely to seek other opinions. It can keep you on your toes as you never think you know it all. You maintain doubts as you know you are partially blind and committed to improving your sight. Each answer raises new questions and your quest for knowledge is never finished. Arrogance, however, leaves you blind to your weaknesses.
3. The Joy of Being Wrong: THe Thrill of Not Believing Everything You Think
- Most of us are wrong more often than we like to admit. Rather than being upset when you find that you are wrong about something, it’s better to tell yourself that it means you are now less wrong than before. You can even be joyful if you realize that it means you have learned something. Adam recommends that you allow learning from being wrong to let you detach from your past and to also live so that your opinions are detached from your identity. This will make it easier when a core belief is challenged.
- A study of professional forecasters showed that the most important driver of success was how often they updated their beliefs. The best went through more rethinking cycles. They have the confident humility to doubt their judgment and the curiosity to discover new information and rethink their predictions. You should view your opinions as hunches and know that something isn’t true just because you believe it. Emotions can also get in the way. When you feel strongly about something you are less likely to change your mind when new facts present themselves. This is why so many respected predictors failed to predict Trump’s victory in 2016.
4. The Good Fight Club: The Psychology of Constructive Conflict
- There are two kinds of conflicts. There are relationship conflicts where people essentially don’t like each other, and there are task conflicts where people disagree about how to do something. The former get in the way of success, while the latter usually helps people to work together successfully. Task conflict brings out the diversity of thought. It can help us stay humble, surface doubts, and make us curious about what we might be missing. It can lead us to think again moving us closer to the truth without damaging our relationships. What matters to children is not how little their parents argue, but how respectfully they argue.
- It’s possible to disagree without being disagreeable. Disagreement is key when it comes to task conflict. The trick is not let task conflict turn into relationship conflict. As a leader, you want to promote the idea that disagreement is necessary for growth and success. It’s also key that leaders show they believe and care about the people with who they disagree. This can make disagreement seem like a sign of respect. Try to frame disputes as debates. This signals that you are receptive to considering dissenting opinions and changing your mind. Don’t fall into the trap that some leaders fall into by surrounding yourself with agreeable people. They shield themselves from task conflict by eliminating boat-rockers and listening to boot-lickers.
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Sunday, May 23rd, 2021
Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher’s Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling by John Taylor Gatto explains how the “Germain” system of schooling adopted in the US was designed to produce docile factory workers and not original thinkers. As you read this important book reflect on how your schooling and the current schools in your community use the weapons of mass instruction John describes.
Prologue: Against School
- John’s experience shows that the main theme in secondary schools in the US is boredom. This can be traced back to our school’s Prussian heritage which offered a design aimed at producing mediocre intellects that would ensure a population composed mostly of docile and incomplete citizens. In other words, a manageable population. This type of schooling precludes critical thinking and strives to make children compliant and as alike as possible. At some point, they get sorted into manual labor and college tracks. The unfit are tagged with bad grades, remedial placements, and other punishments.
- Not only are students designed to engage in mass production, it’s vital that they also engage in mass consumption of things they may not need. They are sitting ducks for the folks in marketing. The good news is that once you discover the tricks and traps of modern schooling, they are easy to avoid. This book promises to help you do just that.
1. Everything You Know About School is Wrong
- This chapter focuses on the history of American schools. Prior to the school for all movement of the mid 19th century, children were included in family work, thinking, and inventing. Education was open-sourced and goals included self-reliance, ingenuity, courage, competence, and other frontier virtues. As students in factory schools, they became consumers of facts rather than producers of anything. While original thinking was patronized at times, it was subtly discouraged. There was also the beginning of the shift from local control to federal influence as school districts became larger, more bureaucratic, and less efficient.
2. Walkabout: London
- Here we are introduced to the concept of open-source learning. This is the learning that happens outside of schools when individuals decide for themselves what they want to learn and who they want to learn it from. This chapter tells the stories of many people who became very successful without college degrees. Some dropped out of college. Some never spent a day in college, and some are even high school dropouts. It seems that for many passionate and driven people, school as we know it only gets in the way.
- In the US 1.25 million students drop out each year. This takes courage and we should help these kids learn what they want to learn rather than giving up on them. Many students who do go to college end up learning little or nothing and end up with a huge debt and a grim career outlook. Perhaps more students should intentionally take up open-source learning rather than going to college. While John went to two Ivy League schools, he finds that most of what he learned that mattered happened outside of school. He also revisits the role schools play in standardizing students so they can serve corporate needs.
3. Fat Stanley and the Lancaster Amish
- Stanley was one of John’s students with an attendance problem. What John discovered was that he was skipping school to in turn work for free for five relatives who had their own businesses. He wanted to learn how to run a business so he could be running his own by the time he was 21. Once John knew this he started reporting Stanly as present as he knew that Stanley was learning more than John could teach him in school.
- We then look at the Amish with a focus on their values. While they never attend high school, they are successful entrepreneurs. They are innovative, take risks, have a strong work ethic, have high standards of craftsmanship, and use their families as their labor force. They are also legendary good neighbors. Amish children all experience practical internships and apprenticeships supervised by adults. In a sense, Stanley had discovered the secret of the Amish and adopted it for himself.
4. David Sarnott’s Classroom
- David Sarnoff arrived from Russia at the age of nine. His father promptly died and he taught himself English and got a job selling newspapers to be the family breadwinner. In five months he was fluent with no school. At fourteen he had his own newsstand. When he saw an ad for an office boy at Marconi Wireless he crashed a line of 500 boys and got the job. The lesson here is that waiting your turn is often the worst way to get what you want. As an office boy, he taught himself telegraphy and soon found himself on the leading edge of technology. At the age of 39, he became president of the Company then called RCA. He did all this without one day of school.
- John believes that if we taught kids to think critically and express themselves effectively that they wouldn’t put up with the nonsense schools force down their throats. Borrowing from a brochure he had recently seen at Harvard he cites qualities beyond grades that are needed for success. They included the ability to: analyze data, define problems, extract meaning from piles of information, conceptualize, collaborate, and convince others. John notes that none of these were taught in his district by policy.
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