The Illinois Model

Thom Dworak and I have the following Growing Adaptive Thinking  workshops scheduled: May 21st-23rd, 2018 ; Kent, Ohio;  registration link .   June 05th-07th, 2018, Chicago-Roselle, Illinois; registration link . Oct 09-11, 2018 , Chicagoland; no registration link yet. Jan 28-30, 2019 ; Lake Zurich, Illinois. April 23-25, 2019; TBD in Chicagoland. Sam Todd of Black Cloud Operations reached out to host our workshop in Ohio. To maintain the interactive setting, the session is capped at forty (40) attendees.  What's the philosophy of the program? Here's some background:  Law enforcement culture tends to utilize a linear, technical mindset for training, intelligence, policy, operations, and supervision.  At the same time, police officers, supervisors, and command staff continue to struggle with complications from poor decision-making and leadership.  This antiquated framework is a carry over from an industrial education model primarily d...

Answers, facts, solutions, data, statistics have never been cheaper. We used to have to go to the library. Or flip to the back of the textbook. But now we visit Wikipedia. Or Google it. Or ask Alexa. Answers are objective solutions to technical questions. What's the capital of Montana? Who was the 27th President of the United States? What are the criminal arrest demographics in New York City? If one train left New York for San Francisco at 6am.....? When is and what's the path of the next solar eclipse?  What report does our corporate policy require we complete for this...? What headlight bulb belongs on a 2003 Chevy Malibu?  Though they may be complicated, answers and solutions are exact. They have end points, where the question or problem is definitively satisfied. Like a final exam with 100 multiple choice questions. And with artificial intelligence, robots, and machine learning, answers are becoming even cheaper, more accessible, and in-demand. But...

There's no value in collecting blocks unless you're connecting them to build something awesome! I've been on the fence as to whether my  Weekend Building Blocks is a worthwhile project. For the past two (2) months, I've been reading a lot of crap...hardly the stuff worth the effort of sharing. This week, however, was different. So...I'm resurrecting  Weekend Building Blocks  this week. Just don't expect it every Friday as I'd been doing. haha. Finnish schools. All-of-the-Above. Sapien tools. Micro-lessons. Bad slide design. Self-Managing for Complexity. Harold Jarche talks about preparing kids for the future, using Finland's education system as a case. Integration and phenomenon-based teaching are at the heart of the reform. Jarche also draws parallels to the modern workforce. Our secret formula for writing (effective) multiple choice quizzes.   Joel Smith addresses problems with multiple choice format test questions. He then offers suggestio...