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Brea Baxter

bbaxter@aea1.k12.ia.us

Unleashing Student Potential

Cultivating an Agile Culture of Introspection and Connection

Stephanie Lane

slane@ghaea.org

Laura Williams

lwilliams@aealearningonline.org

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These Slides

https://bit.ly/48pHdFT

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Session Goals

Learn about Modern Agile
Experience some Culture building activities you can take and use with students
Connect to a network of #changeagents

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What is an Agile Culture?

Culture Protip: Create class and team values!

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Stickies- reflect in your own journeys how each of these has affected you - what does this look like/feel like to you? Add to the chart paper stickies corresponding to that value.

This has become our values as a team and symbolizes the work we are doing. When we talk about agile this is our home base.�Modern Agile has no roles, responsibilities or anointed practices. Instead, it is defined by four guiding principles:

Make People Awesome!: This includes everyone in our ecosystem (colleagues, customers, etc.).�Capitalize on the strengths of our colleagues- play to their strengths.�Make our customers awesome at what they do with our products or services.

Make Safety a Prerequisite: Safety is a basic human need and a key to unlocking high performance�Fear is rampant on too many teams. People are afraid to make changes, afraid to voice their opinions and afraid of making mistakes. The trouble is, fear kills performance.�“People aren’t afraid of failure, they’re afraid of blame.” Blaming increases negativity and helps no one.�Once, an engineer at Google confessed, “I screwed up a line of code and it cost us a million dollars in revenue.”�Jeff, the lead Google’s AI division said “Did we get more than a million dollars in learning out of this?” When the team responded that they had, the meeting concluded and everyone went back to work with more crucial knowledge than before”

Experiment and Learn Rapidly�When we get stuck or aren’t learning enough, we take it as a sign that we need to run more experiments. Speed is key with this principle. We don’t wait long periods of time before learning that something isn’t working. We fail fast and quickly move on to new experiments. Experimenting & learning rapidly helps us achieve continuous improvement.

Deliver Value Continuously: If you don’t deliver regularly, you delay learning about what delights customers.�Sometimes it can be as simple as delivering a half-baked idea to someone and quickly receiving feedback.�Delivering value continuously helps make customers happy and safe. It enables us to experiment and learn rapidly.

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What is an Agile Culture?

Example: Nodaway Valley Students 9-12th Grade

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Agile Team Values Canvases

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Culture is intentional.

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Creating Opportunities for Human Connection

Face-to-face communication
Eye contact & hand shakes fires up our neurotransmitters
People naturally network and communicate in dyads (pairs!)

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Culture Building Speed Rounds

Definition of Done:

Today we will experience:

Partners or teams (self-organized!)
Timeboxed experiences
Try it out!
Have fun!
Be ready to switch into a new activity!

Speed Round 1 : Hersey Personality Test

Speed Round 2: Storytelling through Images

Speed Round 3: Me Too Board

Speed Round 4: Influencer Activity

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Make Safety A Prerequisite

Fast Friends Introductions

Introduce yourself
School/Organization & Role
What do you love about your work?
What’s your “hill to die on” when it comes to the work?

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Before we jump in: How well do you know with your partner?

Timebox:

5 Minutes

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Before we jump in: How well do you know your partner?

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Speed Round 1

Hershey Personality Test

Timebox:

5 Minutes:

Choose A Chocolate

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Milk Chocolate: All American, loves baseball, mom and apple pie. May have been a cheerleader in high school and now make a great Cheerleader for your program. Playful yet level headed. Great Fundraiser and good PR people. Kind thoughtful but appreciate a good practical joke. Dependable and reliable and remember everyone else’s birthday.

Mr. Goodbar: Analytical and logical. Serious. Likes to be the expert and lay Devil’s Advocate. May drive board members crazy because you see ALL the possibilities. After gathering all the data and weighing options you are willing to take risks. You take your time in making up your mind and then you see policies as pretty much set in stone. Like working with deadlines and guidelines.

Dark Chocolate: Patient, reflective and curious. Independent and individualist. Enjoy solving problems, see them as challenges. Can see the big picture. Make a great writer because you like to see a problem through from start to finish an are not unhappy working on your own. Work well with difficult people and children.

Krackel: Creative, optimist. Joyful and “perky”. Messy but organized. Always see the cup as half full. Friendly, in a kooky way. Great at fundraising that is a little offbeat. Comfortable thinking outside the box. Make a great early childhood professional. Impatient when others don't get it. Like immediate results.

No Chocolate Lover: Not afraid to be different. OFten able to look in a different manner or perspective than the rest of the group. Good at sticking with commitments. Often quiet but have a strong will power and will get things done.

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Speed Round 2

Storytelling through Images

With your partner, share one recent picture and share the significance of this photo.
3 Minutes each.

Timebox:

6 Minutes

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Speed Round 3

Me Too Board

How many things can you find in common with your partner or group?
Keep a tally of your score.
5 Minutes each.

Timebox:

5 Minutes

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Speed Round 4

Influencer Activity

What is the last item you bought that delivered value to you?
Value, real time feedback, exposure
3 Minutes each.

Timebox:

6 Minutes

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Wrap-Up

Did we move the bar?

How do you feel now with your partner?

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You’re Invited: Iowa Authentic Learning Network

Click here to join!

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Bonus! Resources to Launch

Local AEA Contacts for your region found here.

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Upcoming Learning Opportunities

Explore our Statewide AEA Calendar

Registration for LRC

Registration for Graduate Credit

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