Notes from the field: What I’ve learned (and haven’t learned) at the National Association of Independent Schools Annual Conference
First, a disclaimer- my experience may not be indicative what the conference has been like for anyone else. Its possible that everything I have experienced and observed is off base- but I’m still going to make some observations and critiques.
The conference was supposed to feature Design Thinking. Some important Design Thinking concepts are “radical collaboration,” “bias towards action,” “show don’t tell,” and “everyone is smarter than anyone.” In many ways, Design Thinking is like progressive education-- it respects the intelligence and expertise of every person, it is collaborative, noisy, and creative. It puts the power in the hands of the group, not in the ‘leader.’
And yet so far the NAIS Annual Conference has been a testament to traditional education. Every session I've seen has been frontal, relying on PowerPoint presentations and lecturing. A rigorous schedule keeps people moving from place to place without time to explore or process. Focus in kept on the “presenter” and communication between participants is kept to a minimum, or at least taken for granted.
Perhaps in some future year, the conference itself will be designed using Design Thinking. Here are some questions I might ask as part of the process of redesigning the conference:
How might we leverage the knowledge, passion, and experience the 4,000 participants in a way that is collaborative, personal, and engaging?
How might we model the values of Design Thinking during the conference so that people experience the methodology, not just hear about it?
What if the participants took visual notes of their sessions and did not rely on professional cartoonists?
What if smaller, more nimble groups were tasked with identifying challenges and ideating solutions, and prototyping solutions?
What if Open Space Technology was used to bring groups of people together to explore an issue rather than having people propose sessions ahead of time?
What is blended learning and the flipped classroom was modeled by having sessions recorded ahead of time for viewing so that more active collaboration can happen at the conference?
Now, I want to admit here that pulling off a well organized conference with thousands of people is no easy task. The people at NAIS deserve tremendous credit for pulling off an event of this magnitude. There is a immense incentive NOT to try any of the crazy ideas I mentioned above. What we have works and that can't be taken for granted. Changing to a new model risks chaos- or worse- failure. But as Design Thinkers we love to “fail fast forward.” Let's keep designing the revolution!
