Learning experience designer, philosopher, and educator

Evolving education and breaking boundaries

August 03, 2023 by Mitch Whitehead

In a classroom somewhere a student is asking their teacher, is this English we are studying or history? What a strange question to ask in the middle of a class on Shakespeare - but these are the divisions our school systems build into the minds of students. Are we doing music now or mathematics? Is this a physics class or philosophy? We do both a disservice to learners and to the knowledge and disciplines we love when we hold fast to the boundaries erected around us as teachers. Boundaries are built, not for the benefit of teachers or students, but for efficiencies of organisational models, labouring under the weight of the status quo.

Beyond the Tabletop: Solving Solutions, Not Problems

July 20, 2023 by Mitch Whitehead

A small group of participants are gathered around a table. The conversation is curious, urgent, and probing. A large piece of paper covers the surface of the table - heavily drawn upon. The participants consult their notes, plans they’ve been making, and various documents. They suggest strategies, and possibilities, and brainstorm ideas. There are flashes of inspiration, realisations, and questions. They’re chewing on a significant challenge that will take all their skill, experience, and resources to resolve. Finally, they come together, having settled on a way forward.

Why Your Next Hire Should be a Philosopher

June 16, 2023 by Mitch Whitehead

In the Ancient Greek city of Miletus, there lived a philosopher named Thales. It is said that he was asked by the people why, if he was so wise, he was also poor. Surely if he were truly wise, they said, he would be a wealthy man. He may have knowledge of science and philosophy, they said, but he seemed to have no skill for using them in the real world. Thales sought to prove these critics wrong. Using his knowledge of meteorology, economics, psychology, and his sharp, analytical mind, Thales devised a plan…

A Facilitator's Manifesto: Six Principles for Transformative Learning Experiences

June 10, 2023 by Mitch Whitehead

My manifesto outlines the big six principles I follow to achieve powerful, innovative, and transformative learning experiences. Everything happens within a relationship. Only authenticity is sustainable. Listen, Ask, Speak. Be what you are looking for. We walk the journey together. And, Let the learning emerge. Taken together these six principles can transform your workshop facilitation, learning and development programme, and learning experience designs.

Thought Grenades: The Explosive Art of Asking Questions

June 10, 2023 by Mitch Whitehead

Asking just the right question, at just the right time, in just the right way is one of the most powerful ways to facilitate any learning experience. A fantastic question can be disruptive, revelatory, inspiring, and even re/disorienting. A great question can be a thought grenade. Asking great questions can be tough though, so how do you handle questions in a way that enhances the learning experiences for your participants?

Grandparent Speed-Dating: A Problem-Based Learning Case-Study

June 08, 2023 by Mitch Whitehead

In workshops and training, I have often used the Design Thinking methodology and Problem-Based Learning in conjunction, both in developing workshops and structuring and facilitating them. I have even run workshops that have taught these processes and approaches to teachers and educators which has always proven to be a transformative experience. In those workshops, I’m very often asked to give an example of these at work and so I took some time to write up one of my favourite case studies for Design Thinking and Problem-Based Learning in schools.

New Forms of Learning: Lessons from the Strandbeest

June 08, 2023 by Mitch Whitehead

Skeletal, alien creatures roam wild on the beaches of The Netherlands. Tubular bodies and an array of legs skitter along the sand powered by great sails of white cloth and stomachs of plastic. These creatures have not come from some crashed meteor or alien spacecraft but from the mind of a Dutch inventor, artist, engineer, and creator - Theo Jansen.

Teaching like a Lockpicker

June 08, 2023 by Mitch Whitehead

We might then ask ourselves, as educators, how can our students approach a challenge, a task, or a puzzle “as if for the first time”? When we set work for students, plan our lessons, and give them assessments, are we teaching them to really pick locks or just to be great at picking one very particular lock? To do this would emphasise skills and tools over memorisation and repetition. We would be looking at a much more holistic approach rather than the targeted learning so many education systems rely on.

A Year In Books

November 30, 2020 by Mitch Whitehead

This year, much of my reading has been led by a desire for comfort, reassurance, and escape as, I suspect, is the case for many avid readers. I have been revisiting favourite authors such as Ursula Le Guin, John Scalzi, and Stanislaw Lem, as well as particular books like The Lord of the Rings, The Tao Te Ching, and The Odyssey. Much of this is well-trodden territory for me and the familiarity offers consolation as well as the usual pleasures of reading. Alongside these favourites, there have been many books new to me, or newly released from authors I already know well, that have particularly struck a chord over the last 12 months.

A Bridge to Cross the Rivers of Life: Inspiring (In)dependent Learners

June 19, 2020 by Mitch Whitehead

Over the past few months I, and a team of colleagues here in Milan, Italy, have been participating in Project Zero’s online course Creating Cultures of Thinking. Along with my responsibilities as a department head I spend most of my time teaching philosophy and the Theory of Knowledge, so the notion of Cultures of Thinking seemed to make obvious and appealing sense to me. Of course we need deep and rich thinking cultures in our schools, I thought to myself. After all, as a philosopher thinking is at the very heart of what I teach . What I came to see, over the months of working with my team and other colleagues in teams around the world, was that there were wider dimensions to building that kind of culture than I’d yet realised.

Through a Glass, Darkly: Teaching, Technology and Video Calls Part 2

June 10, 2020 by Mitch Whitehead

Whilst a basic laptop would be more than enough to use all of the tools that I spoke about in my previous post, your setup can be improved upon by some attention to hardware and the setup of your environment. There are lots of great videos on YouTube that go into detail of how to improve the quality of your video calls but a few key elements that I try and consider would be the audio quality, lighting, and screen and devices.

Through a Glass, Darkly: Teaching, Technology and Video Calls Part 1

June 09, 2020 by Mitch Whitehead

With a great many teachers now working from home, many of us are coming to learn that not all video calls are created equally. There can be a huge range in quality, reliability, and effectiveness of video lessons and there are a lot of factors to take into consideration when setting up your online teaching process. We have to consider the software or platform we are using, the hardware we are utilising to make the video call, as well as how we conduct the lesson through the conferencing software.

A New Old Way of Teaching

October 25, 2019 by Mitch Whitehead

A transcript of the keynote speech I gave at the MITA IV conference held at the American School of Milan on February 2nd 2019 and that I presented in revised form at the IB Global Conference in Abu Dhabi, on October 25th 2019.

In the Zen Monastery

February 02, 2019 by Mitch Whitehead

In the Zen monastery, in a monk’s daily life there is time for meeting with the master of the temple, the Roshi. This meeting consists of a single activity. The Roshi will give the monk a koan, a cryptic phrase of question, a sort of paradox or puzzle, about which to think. The sound of one hand clapping or trees falling, unobserved, in the woods.

Philosophise With a Hammer

January 27, 2019 by Mitch Whitehead

A lot of students come to philosophy without ever having studied the subject before, certainly not in any rigorous manner, and I felt it was important to show them what the subject is all about, what is valued and prized in philosophy, and to give a rough idea of the lie of the land that they would be forging out across. Many thanks to all those friends and colleagues who gave comments on this piece.

A Year in Books 2019

January 27, 2019 by Mitch Whitehead

A few years ago I started logging my reading on www.goodreads.com so that I could look back over what I had read, but also so that I could try and keep some sort of handle on my book buying. All too often I was coming back with a new purchase only to find I’d already bought the book weeks, months or years ago – I’m willing to admit that this aspect of things has only been a partial success.

Impressionism: Capturing Life at the Holburne Museum, Bath

January 27, 2019 by Mitch Whitehead

Making the most of some time in the holidays, I found myself in Bath with my other half and my in-laws. Whilst everyone took the chance to roam around Sydney Gardens I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to head inside of the Holburne Museum and take a look around the Impressionism: Capturing Life exhibition.

Why Philosophise?

January 27, 2019 by Mitch Whitehead

This one has been hanging around on a bookshelf for a while and whilst I’ve grabbed a page or two I hadn’t sat down and read the whole thing until recently. I’d intended to read it and use it with some students as an unseen text but having gotten to the end I’m not sure it’s quite right for that purpose. Having said that it is a very interesting text and gives an idiosyncratic yet deeply scholarly approach to the title question.

Cumulative Gains at BETT

January 27, 2019 by Mitch Whitehead

I was fortunate enough to be invited to speak at BETT - the global Education Technology show in London. I was asked to speak on behalf of Google, as one of the educators speaking at Google’s Teaching Theatre. I’ve long been a vocal advocate of Google Apps for Education and have seen its transformational effect in my own teaching practice and in that of my friends and colleagues – at my own institution as well as on-line.

I gave a talk that focused on what might seem like a pretty dull aspect of education technology – being efficient. Being efficient is not exciting. Being efficient isn’t attention grabbing but, I hope I argued, everything that is exciting and attention grabbing becomes possible when you become more efficient.

The Profile of a Modern Teacher

January 27, 2019 by Mitch Whitehead

I saw this great infographic posted on the Wayfaring Path blog, and I think it provides a lot of stimulus for thought and reflection. It covers issues of learning technologies, of course, but also much more within teaching practice. I’m not sure I can hold my hand up proudly and say that I do all of these, certainly not all the time, but they are all things I would say I would hope to do and hope to develop. Some are scarier than others and I imagine different teachers are going to have very different ideas of which are the difficult ones.