[journalism interactive 2015] andrew matranga open book classroom
TRANSCRIPT
The Great Game
of EducationUsing the Open Book Classroom to increase
student communication, transparency and
motivation@AndrewMatranga | @JiConf 2015
University of Denver | Media Film & Journalism Studies
● 2014 topic: Google Plus As/In the
Classroom
o Look at how well that experiment went…
Google Plus has gone the way of the
Dodo Bird, and we know how the Dodo
fared.
Update to 2014 Teach-a-thon
Background on Open Book Finance
Jack Stack and the SRC story
● 1983 - Springfield, MO: The demise of International
Harvester and the rise of employee ownership
● 2015: SRC Holdings Corporation operates 31 business
units including joint ventures with John Deere and two
venture capital incubator funds. And ~$500mil in sales.
● The roadmap? Open Book Management.
● Now Missouri Southern is partnering with SRC to create
the Great Game of Education.
o But I own the domain ;)
The Higher Laws of Business
1. You get what you give.
2. It’s easy to stop one person, but it’s pretty hard to stop 100.
3. What goes around comes around.
4. You do what you gotta do.
5. You gotta wanna.
6. You can sometimes fool the fans, but you can never fool the
players.
7. When you raise the bottom, the top rises.
8. When people set their own targets, they usually hit them.
9. If nobody pays attention, people stop caring.
10.As they say in Missouri: Shit rolls downhill. By which we mean
change begins at the top.
The Ultimate Higher Law
When you appeal to the
highest level of thinking,
you get the highest level of
performance.(From Jack Stack’s Great Game of Business)
From the Boardroom to the Classroom
1. Know and Teach the Ruleso Every student should be given the measures of academic
success and taught to understand them.
2. Follow the Action & Keep Scoreo Every student should be expected and enabled to use their
knowledge to improve performance.
3. Provide a Stake in the Outcomeo Every student should have a direct stake in the success, or the
risk of failure, in the class.
The Great Game of Business becomes the Great Game of Education
Basically it’s an accountability system and conversation about
our progress, as groups and as individuals. We’ll assess
ourselves and our work, both in celebration and in critique, with
the goal of constantly improving, in our Huddle, which is a
weekly status meeting to check in an update progress. The first
effort is rarely the best effort, and we’ll build on our experiences
and assignments. We’ll create a self-measuring system built
on shared learning outcomes, and we’ll build key
performance indicators that help us reach those outcomes,
individually and collectively. You will base your scoring of
yourself, your peers and your instructor on our learning
objectives.
What is the Open Book Classroom
Basically, these Student Learning Objectives boil down to
five questions and how we answer them over the course of
the quarter: ● How you engage with the software and your peers.
● How you take initiative in labs and in the group projects.
● How you collaborate in discussions and in the group project.
● How you organize your files on your workstation, personal
computer and in Google Drive.
● How you use creativity through the software and your
own independent thinking. -From sample syllabus
Student Learning Objectives
Open Book Empowers Students
Instructor Cares About
● Lightbulbs
How can everyone share values?
Student Cares About
● Grades● Process
● Assessment
● Mentoring
● Deadlines
● Accuracy
● Learning
● Deadlines
● Credits
● Graduation
● Job
Open Book in Action
Tools
● The Huddle >
● Old Skool Whiteboard >
● Google Drive >
● Twitter >
● Storify >
● Learning Management System
Each class features a 15-
minute Huddle to discuss
news, class progress,
analytics and the week
ahead.
Goal: Catch up stragglers
and confront confusion.
The Huddle
Image: Zingerman’s
The Huddle and the Board in Action
Peer Reviews and Open Book
● Peer Reviews on Storify posts that
students create
● Still a work in progress, as students
need to learn how to use feedback
and give feedback.
● In short: It’s a story.
● In this case: Of the class and the students.
● Each person tells a story and shares the
story.
● It’s Agile Development meets the newsroom,
in a journalism lab setting.
● Runs on a whiteboard, Twitter, Google Drive
and Canvas.
In Sum: The Open Book Classroom
Comments? How’s my driving? Holler back...
Next Steps
Transition student
newspaper to Open
Book Finance...
For The Win.