Passion Driven Classroom Book Review - Or Is It "Ideas to Apply KM in your org"

In 2011, Angela Maiers and Amy Sandvold published “The Passion Driven Classroom”. I immediately heard great things and 2 years later I had the opportunity to read it – what a great book.

Personally, I’m passionate about knowledge management (KM), and I’m also passionate about the education system. This book blends both. I had assumed that Angela was “in” the KM world, but after some simple google searches, it appears she comes straight from the education world. Its fascinating to me that she talks about KM and applies it to the education system, and yet I’m not sure she even realizes it? Awesome [to see worlds combine]!

The book starts out talking about “passion”. Again, like KM, it feels like she’s fighting battles about “please believe me, this is important and it’s a better way”. I think we often fight a similar battle in KM, and I’m not sure the battle even exists, I think we self-create it?

The first chapter describes passion, the second chapter defines it. In the third chapter, she starts to apply it. She calls it “clubhouse learning”. She re-names the teacher the Chief Learning Officer (CLO) – again, sounds like KM - She talks about how the workshop classroom is driven by curiosity; the role of the teacher is expert learner and passion practitioner. Amazing.

Here’s where it gets great. The first tactical example is to create a “Resident Expert” wall. A list of your students and what they do well. KM would call this the beginnings of an expertise location system – ie an employee profile.

Then it gets better, chapter 4 gets into the “learning essentials”. They are “learning clubs”, “opening message / daily boardroom”, “reflection” , “task board” and “good fit tools and technology”. From a KM perspective, Learning clubs are Communities of Practice (CoP) within the classroom. The opening message / daily boardroom is a beautiful implementation of a fundamental “work out loud” culture (i.e. what are the plans for the day, what did we accomplish yesterday, what do we need to accomplish today, etc.). Reflection is an After Action Review and Retrospect. The Task Board shows who’s in what CoP and who’s working on what. The good fit tools and technology is exactly what it sounds like (i.e. be open to technology and find the best tools to help you do what you need to do). What a beautiful way to answer the key KM questions of “who knows who”, “who knows what”, “who does what”.

She then shares her “HEART” model, which is an acronym for Hold On (study the book cover and guess what it might be about – or in KM, study the project charter and predict how the org will respond), Eyes and Ears (look for connections, patterns, etc – just like KM!), Ask Questions, React/Reflect, Tell and Show. Again, this sounds almost identical to the work-out-loud models and cultures we’re looking to build.

Oh, I almost forgot the final essential for Learning Clubs and that’s “Celebration”. We often talk about celebration in project management (PM), and personally, we like to apply that PM technique to our KM efforts as well. She even gives some very tactical examples of how to celebrate (i.e. “silent cheer”, “hearty handshake”, “round of applause”, etc.)

The book then moves even deeper in to how to setup the classroom as a Learning Club. She talks about “Thinkbooks” where each student has a profile, answers key questions, keeps notes, etc. She breaks down the boardroom meeting, giving specific examples of questions to ask. She talks about “heart maps” as a specific way to help students write words (or pictures) in a hand-drawn heart. Those words help each students and their fellow students understand each other’s passions (sounds like an employee profile as part of an expertise location system, yes?).

Deeper and deeper she goes in Chapter 6, now giving a specific minute by minute agenda for each day. She talks about time segments for “passion discovery”, “learning is thinking” and “practicing our passion”. This reminds me of one of all time favorite KM processes known as “Knowledge Continuity”. She seems to pre-define the 5 most important CoPs (clubs) that each classroom should have. I suppose that would be like pre-defining the first 5 CoPs to start at your organization, which is maybe the only piece of the book that pure KM’ers would probably debate (saying its probably better to follow the bottom-up, grass roots approach of simply enhancing the communities that already exist in the org).

She closes by saying that readers of the book should join #edchat on twitter (twice a day every Tuesday).

I found it fascinating that she basically dove into a KM plan for an organization, and yet she wasn’t thinking about that at all, she was thinking about how to structure a classroom. From the KM perspective, we’d probably translate her words into define CoPs, understand yourself and others, work out loud and follow your passions (and leverage a little technology in there too). Fascinating. I’m excited to see these approaches (and words) coming out in education and in organizations.

Well worth a read and let's apply these ideas in our classrooms, our schools, our education systems and our organizations!

Review of the Leadership Development Program at the Center For Creative Leadership

I attended the LDP program at CCL in Greensboro, NC from Aug 5-9, 2013. I thought the program was excellent and I'll provide a quick review here. In case you might attend the program someday, I won't give away any spoilers or notes that might lessen the experience for you.

First, it's worth noting that Greensboro is CCL's headquarters. Maybe this is true for other locations, but it felt like a Disney experience, they planned every detail for us without making it feel "too" planned. For example, weeks before the classroom portion starts, they provide multiple lines of communication (emails, personal phone calls, etc.). Also before the classroom, you'll take several online personality assessments and request online feedback from many people you work with. 

CCL highly recommends that you stay at a local hotel known as "Proximity". It's very nice and its rumored that US Presidents have stayed there. Not only do you have your own room, there is also a suite on the first floor that is shared by all of the participants in your class. Breakfast is covered by the program and it is served on the first floor in the building connected next door. It is a full restaurant where breakfast is served (as opposed to continental or buffet). The service is great, they are very nice and the food comes amazingly fast. CCL has a bus pick up all of the participants and drive them over to CCL hq (where class is held). I never quite cracked the code, but somehow the 2 instructors know exactly when the bus is arriving and each instructor holds open a door to welcome each and every student- nice touch!

On your first day, you're in a new location that you've never seen before, so what do they do? They give a walking tour to the whole class so that you feel comfortable with the building, which is beautiful! They have local artists display in the hallways of the building, you can even purchase the art, if you'd like. 

So before you even walk in the classroom, you're feeling the quality and attention to detail of the program. It only gets better from there.

The agenda was quite a "secret", or maybe I missed it somehow. So, with respect to that, let me just say that there are 7 "experiences" that you'll have. If I told you exactly what they were, you could probably google them and somewhat ruin the excitement (and the learning opportunity). 

To give you an idea though, you'll review not 1, not 2, but 3 different personality assessments of yourself. I loved this approach because each assessment provides a different perspective for you to learn and consider. 

You'll learn a specific approach for giving feedback and you'll thoroughly practice it. 

There are two day-long experiences that you'll have that I simply can't say more than "they're amazing". Be prepared to open your mind and learn from other professionals. 

Finally, you'll have plenty of one-on-one time with an expert executive coach. Be prepared for an "a ha" moment (or two) as your coach helps you understand how to be a better leader in your own unique way. 

In the class I attended, I don't know if we were lucky or if this happens every time, but we formed an unbelievable bond as a class. We shed tears of joy together and we all hugged on the final day, it was that kind of quality experience. 

I highly recommend the course and I personally look forward to the continued friendships and the coaching that comes with the class. I think I'm already a better leader and a better person because of this experience.