School Technology: A Wicked Problem Description: Schools are becoming technology-rich places, but that technology does not always translate into meaningful experiences for students. This course approaches school technology as a problem that is too poorly understood with blurred boundaries and inaccurate assumptions. Leaders will be introduced to strategies that recognize multiple perspectives on technology, teaching, Read More
Category: Wicked Problems
Because Education is Wicked
This brief post continues the theme of: Wicked Problems Transparent Taming of Wicked Problems Solving Wicked Problems Wicked Solutions Matter Because education is a wicked technology, it is anticipated that curriculum and instruction designed for 21st century classrooms will be assessed and evaluated using terms such as good or bad, working or dysfunctional, acceptable or Read More
Hermeneutic and Naturalistic Approaches to Research and Planning
Hermeneutic researchers fall into the hermeneutic cycle (see figure 1) in which an artifact is interpreted in light of the culture and then the culture is reinterpreted in light of the emerging understanding of the artifact. This cycle between the whole of the culture being reconstructed and the parts of the culture embodied in the Read More
Wicked Solutions Matter
The idea of wicked problems has been addressed in previous posts on this blog: Wicked Problems Transparent Taming of Wicked Problems Solving Wicked Problems In my definition of wicked problems, I pointed out that “Every Solution Matters,” specifically I wrote: Wicked problems are social, so when planners design and implement a solution, it affects the Read More
Frameworks Defined
A continuum can be created with educational scholars placed at one extreme and educators at the other; educational theory is placed on the extreme with scholars and models of instruction are placed on the extreme with practitioners. Between these two extremes, there exists a gap that must be filled if instruction is to be informed Read More
Theory and Practice in Education
Education is one of several soft technologies that share an interesting trait: The scholars who discover the science behind the natural phenomena that are the basis of the technology and the practitioners who apply that science to the human purpose are different people. Other examples of human technologies marked by this trait include agriculture (botanists, Read More
Transparent Taming of Wicked Problems
In ta previous post, 21st century education was presented as a wicked problem. Whereas tame problems are definable (cause and effect can be clearly identified), understandable (methods for resolving the problem are known or can be known), and consensual (reasonable people will agree on the need to solve it), wicked problems are none of these; Read More
Wicked Problems
In the 1973 article, “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning,” Horst Rittel, who was a professor of the science of design at the University of California, Berkeley and Melvin Webber, who was a professor of city planning at the same institution, recognized many problems include a social dimension. While many problems are complex and Read More
Interaction in Preliterate Cultures
Walter Ong (1982) concluded only about 100 of the 10,000 human languages that survived into the 20th century had a written language; leading to the conclusion that most cultures demonstrate primary orality. Adjaye (2008) observed indigenous communications systems that rely on oral traditions are based on structures and procedures that are integrated into the cultural Read More
The (Overturned) Standard Model of Education
Words are powerful tools for human thought; once “something” is named it can be recognized and humans can both communicate about it and interact with the concept in a way they could not previously. When the named thing is not an object, but an action (or collection of actions), words can clarify communication and make Read More