Inversion: Thinking Differently About How We Approach Learning

Reimagining education is not a new concept. Much talk has always been about what's wrong with education and how the time is ripe for new and innovative approaches to creating meaningful learning moments. As we move into the middle of the third decade of the 21st Century, we can look back to many defining moments in educational history. Despite my love for history, to keep the list short(ish), I'll focus on the last six and a half decades:

• 1958 - National Defense Education Act
• 1965 - Elementary and Secondary Education Act and Head Start
• 1983 - A Nation at Risk
• 1994 - Improving America's Schools Act
• 2002 - No Child Left Behind
• 2009 - Common Core Standards Initiative
• 2015 - Every Student Succeeds
• 2020 - Covid Shuts Down Schools
• 2022 - ChatGPT released

Inevitably, we can debate all day about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of each of these events, and we have yet to realize the full potential (or drawbacks) of AI in education. Rather than focus on the merits of an educational debate, let's shift our perspective to the future and collect our thoughts on how we can ruin education.

Okay, you may be thinking that I've lost my mind. Why would we want to think about how we can RUIN education? However, there is a method to my perceived madness. In particular, this problem-solving approach, called Inversion, causes us to think about the problem we are tackling from a different angle. Instead of striving for perfection, we can identify the potential pitfalls and determine how to avoid them. In this critical thinking activity, the goal is to try and come up with the worst solution. From this worst solution, we list why the solution would be bad. Then, using these unfavorable reasons, we figure out how to avoid the negative. Eventually, these bleak possibilities can be turned into an optimistic future.

Here's an example that illustrates how the process of Inversion works, albeit in abbreviated form. Recently, the Christensen Institute released a new blog related to the findings of the Talented Disrupted report, which indicated that half of all college graduates are underemployed. Of course, with a daughter finishing her second year of university studies and another who will be attending a university in a few short years, the report caught my attention. Moreover, Julia Freeland Fisher 's reflection on how scaling internships at the collegiate level could lead to unintended consequences was an eye-opener. As Julia noted in her post, scaling internships can lead to a lack of innovative thinking about the challenge. This is where we can use the Inversion process to think differently about the challenge of having 50% of our college graduates underemployed.

As Julia mentioned, the Talented Disrupted report recommended that the solution to this challenge is that colleges should "enable every college student to access at least one paid internship." Additionally, Julia noted that this surface-level solution leaves us with many other possible challenges, and she offered some vital advice. Of course, the Christensen Insitute is famously known for disruptive innovation, and Julia engages her readers to think disruptively about possible solutions rather than stick with surface-level options.

Using the Inversion technique, as we consider the possible fallout from scaling university-level internships too quickly, we see that they can become one more box to check with little to no meaning, or worse, they become ineffectual as the university tries to manage the sheer volume of placements. As we flip these negatives into positives and consider how to avoid what could be an overly simplified solution to an authentic challenge, I began to think about scaling internships differently. Rather than having a university the size of Penn State, where my daughter attends, try to manage 88,000+ internships, a more manageable approach is to drill down to a much smaller level. Here, we can turn to high schools to think about internships differently. But even at the high school level, we may be thinking about a few thousand students in a highly populated suburban area. Conversely, we may only have a few hundred students in a more rural area with few businesses that can take interns. Now, we need to think about those adverse outcomes again to invert them into positives.

As an offered solution, APLEs (authentic project-learning experiences) create opportunities for our learners at the K12 level and beyond to engage in collaborative problem-solving that asks them to think like experts, engage as experts, and connect with experts. Rather than participate in a simulated, in-class opportunity, APLEs present learners with critical thinking challenges with no one correct answer and the potential to effect change in their world.

Sample Social Justice APLE from Project ARC:

At Project ARC, we utilize various techniques, such as Inversion, to facilitate conversations to uncover potential solutions to challenges we face in education. These techniques are then easily transferred into classroom practice. Thus, professional learning days with Project ARC facilitators are not about the "sit and git" way of PD of the past. Moreover, we'll help you think about college- and career-ready learners differently as we assist you in designing APLEs to meet the needs of all your learners and grow their networked ecosystems beyond the school's walls. Contact [email protected] if you would like to discuss how we can help you think differently about education, professional learning, and college- and career-readiness outcomes. I'd also like to hear your thoughts about the Inversion technique, disruptive innovation, or ruining education!