EDspaces 2019: Keynote with Tony Wagner

The annual EDspaces conference and expo is billed as the place "where space, technology, and pedagogy converge" and it did not disappoint. In it's 24th year, the conference in Milwaukee, WI featured designers, vendors, and educators of creative and innovative learning environments from across the globe. 
In the opening plenary Session, Tony Wagner, one of the true visionaries in education, kicked off the conference  with a video describing the future of work.
He asked the audience to think about what can human beings do the robots and AI cannot do?
and further described the shift from a knowledge economy to a world that does not care what our students know; instead to a world that cares about what can they do with what they know.
Next, Wagner described his research that became his 2012 best seller ​Creating Innovators: ​The Making of Young People WhoWill Change the World. His interviews of highly innovative twentysomethings and their "ecosystems" ​(parents, teachers, and ​

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The Future of Work

mentoring influences) brought him to several conclusions, among them were that the skills you need to succeed in a competitive academic environment are not related to innovation era. 
What must we do differently to prepare students for the innovation era?

• Ask for evidence of a problem solved or failure and learning associated with it. 
• Look for creative problem solving abilities - we are born this way - young children ask 500 questions or more and everyone is an artist .Then something happens... school. 

In fact, the students identified as creative innovators became innovative despite university and educators who were influencers were outliers in their educational institutions.

Next, Wagner identified 5 contradictions in education:

1. Measuring and rewarding individual achievement - innovation is a team sport 
2. Silos of knowledge - Not a single real problem can be solved within an individual academic discipline 
3. Culture and structure of the classroom where knowledge of an indivual, compliance, are valued and students are consumers - The world demands that you seek out information 
4. F- Word (failure) We grade kids on the mistakes they make - Innovation demands failure; iteration - this is fundamentally how we learn - we learn more from our mistakes than our successes; we learn from trial and error; use A, B, and Incomplete (B is performance standard as evidenced by a body of work; A is reserved for real human excellence) - How many want to fly with a C- airline pilot?
5. Motivation. We use fear (failing, embarrassment, not getting....) - This does not bring out the best in us. The innovators had intrinsic motivation. - both parents and teachers focused on play, passion, and purpose.

Next steps/food for thought:

• Does state have an educational R & D budget?
• Accountability 2.0 - selective assessments every 3 years with demographically similar students 
• Every student has a digital portfolio that shows progress over time
• Every student demonstrates mastery badges on a transcript — what can they do
• What content are kids learning? What skills are they learning? How are they being motivated to do their best work?
• What if we make our work public? 
• Statewide profile of a graduate - what is the assessment for the attributes on the profile? 
• Develop local performance assessments 
• What are our recent graduates doing? What did we do right? What would have helped you?
• Internships
• Have students keep question journals? Or concerns?  - then give them time & space to explore those questions 
• College admissions process does not encourage innovation - consortium transcript; test optional 
• The skills you need for work today are the same ones you need for active citizenship, life long learning, and creative leisure ​