ISTE Live ‘24 with Dr. Kaylah Holland

Join Georgia and Jessica as they discuss the new book, Putting Out Fires, by one of favorite guests, Dr. Kaylah Holland. Explore with our team some practical recommendations for design thinking in teaching and everyday life. 

Transcript

Colorado Convention Center 5

[00:00:00] It's time for the Edge, a podcast brought to you by ISTE Community Leaders. Whether you're a seasoned educator, a visionary administrator, or a passionate education enthusiast, fasten your seatbelts, plug in your earbuds, because this podcast is tailor made for you.

[00:00:14] Get ready to embark on an exhilarating journey as our ITSD community leaders take you behind the scenes and into the dynamic world of education. In the episodes ahead, we'll unveil stories from the front lines, showcasing the relentless dedication and innovation that fuels the transformative field of education.

[00:00:32] Buckle up! Embrace yourself for an adventure. Coming up today, we're recording live at It's D24 in Denver. I'm one of your community leader hosts, Georgia Terlahi. I'm a TK5 instructional coach and educator of 35 years. And I'm here with my favorite partner in crime, the Rick to my Morty, Jessica Pax. Thank you, Georgia.

[00:00:53] The feeling is, as always, entirely mutual. I'm Jessica Pack, a middle school teacher and an ISTE author. The beautiful part about being at ISTE Live is that we can harvest guests and incredible stories everywhere we turn. And, Even reconnect with old friends. Our guest today has become a friend of the podcast and a friend of us.

[00:01:16] Welcome Dr. Kayla Holland.

[00:01:19] Could you introduce yourself for listeners that maybe aren't in the inner circle? Yes, in the inner circle. Ooh, that sounds really fancy. My name is Kayla Holland, and I am an instructional designer. I think my technical title is director of instructional tech and blended learning for break free education.

[00:01:35] And I am an ISTE author, brand new, and also an advocate for students in the juvenile justice system. Well, we're so glad to have you back on the edge. We feel like you're a friend of the podcast, a friend of us. So it makes us so happy. So you've been a little busy and I know you're new it's the book putting out fires just launched this week.

[00:01:55] Could you tell us a bit about what, like what it's about and what inspired you to write it? It launched two days ago here at ISTE, so it's available like for pre order online, but I got my actual hands on the first copy a couple of days ago, and it's just unreal the experience to just put something out into the world and like hold it in your hands for the first time, right?

[00:02:16] But it's called Putting Out Fires. a framework for solving problems in education in your school and classroom. And it's really all about problem solving. I was really drawn to that idiom, you know, when people say like, Oh, I'm just putting out fires, meaning they're like stuck in the same cycle of response over and over.

[00:02:32] And with my work in juvenile justice, I heard that all the time when I'd go and travel around and talk to teachers and just say, Hey, how are you doing? They'd say, Oh, I'm, I'm putting out fires and putting out fires. So the nerd in me wanted to know why are we always. Putting out the same fire. Why are we always stuck in the same response and, and solving the same problem?

[00:02:51] So I created this framework called putting out fires and it uses a lot of design thinking, which I know you guys are familiar with and adds onto it this framework of what do I do with these solutions? So once I've done these beautiful design thinking exercises, I understand the problem. I, you know, look at the people involved.

[00:03:09] I create all these wild solutions. What do I do with them and how do I know which one is best for my specific problem? So that's really where that putting out fires framework comes from. I was laughing earlier today because someone asked me about it and I said this isn't a beach read. Like it's not a, it's not an easy read to like take on vacation and like read on the plane.

[00:03:26] This is a workbook. The goal is, because I believe in active learning, right? So the goal is for you to start the book at the beginning with a problem and end with an actual solution you've implemented, gained feedback on, and changed your own problem with a solution in some way. So have you been able to work with any teachers or administrators or any anyone in the education?

[00:03:50] Have you been able to work with anyone in the education field who's utilizing your framework? Yeah, absolutely. And that's why the book is so meaningful to me because I really started the putting out fires framework for teachers in the juvenile justice space a couple of years ago and kind of built it and I've been doing it in workshops and trainings for my JJ teachers.

[00:04:13] And it's been really successful. And so that's where the idea was. I think this could really make a difference. Let's try to frame it in a book way that more people could access. So, you know, the idea is it doesn't have to be these big, huge problems that are solved. It could be little problems that people are experiencing, but any solution implemented to a problem changes that person's world, right?

[00:04:34] And so that's kind of the idea. But we've seen, you know, big things and little things happen. Yeah. You know, with with the problem solving framework and one of the big ones is in in my own personal experience is the problem in JJ facilities of lack of science concepts, experiments, all the things because JJ classrooms are so secure there under, you know, high security, lots of chaos, all the things I can't get a lot of science equipment into facilities.

[00:05:00] And so the problem was, you know, how might we provide science experiments for students who are confined in a facility so they're more engaged. And scientific concepts and the solution that came out of it was virtual reality headsets. And it was really cool. So we did a lot of research on it, found a great program that we love to use.

[00:05:17] And I've implemented now in 10 facilities in the last year, we got a grant. We as break free, got a grant to kind of fund that work. Now we're about to start year two. So it's really cool to like, I've experienced this in my own life. I've also used some of this to like, where am I going to eat dinner? You know?

[00:05:32] So like big problems and small problems. It's, It's my family jokes because if we have an issue, I'm like, okay, break out your sticky notes. Like, let's, let's problem solve this. They're getting a little bit tired of me doing that, but it's fun and it works, works every time. So we're in this process, like in some of the juvenile justice facilities that you've worked in.

[00:05:52] Is it, is it a collaborative process? Like you were talking about the science, like how did that sort of work boots on the ground? What did that look like? Yeah, that's a really great question. It can be an individual process or a collaborative one. And, and I, I kind of like them both for different reasons because if it's individual, it's really, it's your specific problem.

[00:06:10] You're really diving into it. You can bring people in if you want, but it's kind of your impact and your influence. But if it's collaborative, you're getting lots of voices involved. So we can talk to students, and we can talk to teachers, and really put our heads together and work on a specific solution.

[00:06:25] And I, I even talk about like, you know, when you're creating a hundred solutions, like, I can't do that with my human brain. That's where something like AI might come in. To, you know, add on to my humanness and create some interesting ideas for me. But if you have a room full of people, that would be more powerful than using AI, right?

[00:06:42] Because it's all these brilliant human brains together. So, the collaborative piece is huge. And that really comes in to play with, like, the VR stuff. When, you know, I started that with just my colleagues. And we kind of went through that process. And we selected, like, here's some three or four. Now let's go test them at a facility.

[00:07:00] And we got kids to try them out. Do you like this? Do you not? Is the headset comfortable? You know, is it easy to use? And we got kids feedback. And they were really honest. I mean, kids will be honest if you ask them, you know. And I've told them, like, we're testing, you know, you're my, like, little beta testers and, you know, thanks for doing this.

[00:07:17] It was during the summer kind of thing. And they were very honest. We got great feedback, and we launched with ClassVR. As our program, there's unsolicited commercial there, but but I love them. They're a great company. I really like listening to you talk about this because it really centers the human element of your book and just the work that you're doing.

[00:07:36] The human element in terms of like the end game for the user whose problem is being solved, but also the collaboration that's happening. It seems like there's an incredible opportunity for personal growth for every single person that's involved. So that's really cool. Yeah. I'm glad, I'm glad you mentioned that because that really is, it's, it's crucial to keep people at the center of any problem or solution.

[00:07:59] And I think we as humans lose that, that path, right? We think like, Oh, here's my problem. Here's the first solution that comes into mind. Let's implement it. We're done. Move on. And there's so much more to that because if we're not designing with the people, the solutions are going to impact. We're really missing the point.

[00:08:16] We need to be designing for everyone. including everyone, all those voices instead of just saying, here's the solution. We're implementing it moving forward. So that's a big part of it, really keeping people at the center. Another thing I really like about the book is that I tried to be purposeful in the examples chosen so that it's for educators, but it's not really education examples because I think we could really learn a lot from other fields.

[00:08:41] You know, businesses that are being really innovative and how they're approaching things. I think we get so siloed into like, we're education, we can only learn from educators. There's a whole big beautiful world out there of innovative solutions. So I tried to put a lot of those examples in so you can learn from, you know, really cool things happening around the world.

[00:09:00] So. Some of the things you were talking about was like the collaborative piece of problem solving. I was wondering if it's something you've already done or something you see in the future, working with the juvenile justice students, of having them use, use the problem solving method in their personal life.

[00:09:16] Because I would imagine that is something that it would be really good in the space to kind of teach kids to build the grit that, you know, your first reaction maybe isn't always your best reaction. So is Do you have plans for that, or have you done that? We've done it in a way. It's not directly tied to like the activities in the book, but we do use design thinking with kids to help them problem solve.

[00:09:39] But what's really more powerful in that sense is using restorative practices because kids really need to learn, you know, how do I handle my emotions? What do I do with my anger or my sadness? And like, I as an adult need to learn that in so many ways, right? And so I really am jealous of the kids a little bit because they're getting to learn this at such a young age.

[00:09:58] Because I, you know, I need to learn that for myself at my current adult age. But but they really utilize restorative practices for that more. And then we also plug in design thinking exercises to really get them to be creative and empathize with others. And you'd be surprised, that's a really difficult task for teenagers.

[00:10:15] And I don't know if it's just my juvenile justice teenagers, like the justice involved kids, or just all kids in general. But it's really hard for them to, to empathize with other people, right? They really feel like the world is against them. They really feel like it's not been fair, and in a lot of ways it hasn't for them, so I understand where they're coming from.

[00:10:34] But yeah, it's an interesting, like, getting them to, to go through some of these design thinking exercises and empathize with other people has been a really interesting experience. We, we do this with some student facing content our monthly initiatives for Break Free. Break Free. And in like a culminating product that's built in a contest and one of them is called unconstruct and we update the theme of it kind of every couple of years.

[00:10:57] So, so for a couple of years, we ran the homeless population. So kids went through a design thinking process, really like looking at a problem and creating a solution. So it's kind of a stripped down version of what's in the book. And they were able to come up with a solution for the homeless population in their community.

[00:11:12] And then for a couple of years we looked at pedestrian safety. That was our problem of practice. So here's your problem, you know and like walk through some of these. We're, we're about ready to launch a new version of Unconstruct which is going to focus on ocean life. In the SDG, where we're really looking at ocean conservation and how do we kind of protect our, our coral reefs and things like that.

[00:11:33] I find it's really helpful to, to paint for a picture for kids of what the problems are. Like, they know their internal problems, but, but they're kind of too narrow sometimes and they need to see the bigger picture. So, some things like that in the stripped down version of our Unconstruct initiative really help them do that.

[00:11:52] I like that you're talking about empathy as really being the heart of design thinking. And you know, what really strikes me too with like the emotional regulation conversation is that this is a pathway for social emotional skill development. And I think that when we're faced with problems, whether we're educators in an education space dealing with education problems, or if we're like, you know, the juvenile justice students that you're serving There's a tendency to like freeze and not know how to even begin to start to solve anything or to think about how to solve it.

[00:12:23] And that can lead to like a spiral, but it's sometimes a shame spiral or sometimes a just hopelessness sense of feeling. So I think what you're doing is really fantastic. That's really nice. Do you do you have any stories you could share of maybe students you've tracked after this? With they've worked with you and they've left the facility and maybe have been able to use some of the things in their real life Yeah, that one's difficult.

[00:12:49] I really don't because I don't have as my work with break free I'm connected to the facility itself and the teachers. And so my work with students is very I don't know their real names I only know initials. So like I've been told things by teachers who've communicated with You know, or no kids once they've been released in a lot of states, the kids aren't allowed to contact teachers that they connected with insecure schools once they've been released.

[00:13:17] So it's, we really don't have any real data. But I know there are kids who they've gone on to college. We've got a kid who won one of our contests that got connected to Berklee School of Music and they gave him a scholarship, so he was doing some online classes and things for them. So I mean, there's real success stories but it's really difficult to track that that data just because of the privacy concerns.

[00:13:41] What is your hope for the future? What's the next step to keep building on the work that you've accomplished so far? Oh, wow. That's a difficult question. Goodness. I really don't know. I'm not the kind of person who's a good, like five year planner. I'm really like, what do I need? What do I, what am I going to do in the next six months kind of thing?

[00:14:01] Right. And I really, I think the book is, is good because it has the workbook already built into it. So I don't know that it would be like a, there'd be like a second book or anything, but I'd love to build a community around people who have like the shared mindset, the shared, you know, core values and language that we use kind of created from the book.

[00:14:21] And that's what, that's what this kind of exercise and the putting out fires framework did for me was shift my mentality into believing anything's possible. If you have the right solution in place and you understand the problem, you keep people at the center like you can really solve any problem. And when you have that mentality, It kind of makes the world this really big place and you really want to go and, you know, change these opportunities and challenges and things like that.

[00:14:47] So I'd love to build a community around it. So that might be something in the future, but I don't know if that's possible in the next six months. Like I said, I'm not a big five year planner or anything, multi year planner, but that would be, that would be a really cool next step. I'm also just a nerd and I'd love to see like, what is the solution you implemented for your problem?

[00:15:06] I just want to know like what's happening. Out there in the world with the book and, and if it impacted people, you know, positively or negatively. So maybe like a stories from the field, you could collect, you know, even if it's, you know, people talking to a video camera or whatever and curate it somewhere, that would be awesome for other people to be able to access and just see how it's working.

[00:15:29] And maybe, you know, what are some of the challenges? What are some of the successes? So they wouldn't be afraid to try some of your ideas. I'd love that. And other people have such interesting ideas. You know, mentalities and ideas about like, even problems I'm facing. So like, you know, even in our PLN, we always reach out, like, yeah, I'm experiencing this problem.

[00:15:47] Anybody have any ideas? It's that kind of, you know, what if we had a community where we could post, here's my problem, you know, anybody have any ideas for an innovative solution? I think that would be really cool. Well, as we're starting to wrap things up, is there anything else that you'd like to share with listeners?

[00:16:04] Oh, you know, I just, my favorite quote right now is Henry David Thoreau said, it's not what you look at that matters. It's what you see. And that's where my head's been lately. And just, you know, in the, the people that we see and the, and the kids, a lot of times there's such misconceptions about the students in the juvenile justice system and there's labels put on them unconsciously or consciously.

[00:16:27] And I just really, I don't know. I hope that people look at them and see. You know, scholars and academic athletes or whatever phrase you want to use, but see something positive because these kids can drive meaningful change. You guys know I'm super passionate about that, but I just would leave listeners with that.

[00:16:45] If you just, it's not what you look at that matters is what you see. So if you shift your mentality a little bit, we can see problems as opportunities and then you can solve them. That's the, that's the whole idea. That's beautiful. Thank you. Where can listeners connect with you Kayla to continue the conversation?

[00:17:02] I'm on all social media, you know, at Holland Kayla, or you can check out my website, Kayla Holland. com.