eduScrum at Leysin American School in Zwitserland

Day 1.

Quarter to six I arrived at Willy’s front door, Denise was yet to come so he invited me in the house to shelter from the heavy rainfall. It had been five minutes before the doorbell rang. Denise had appeared with her entire family to wave her of. As we made our way to the car with our weighty luggage the sky boomed with rage and it began to rain even harder. Short after lightning struck down from the heavens startling us all, including the entire Wijfjes family and even Willy!

Before we could begin our journey we had to pick up a very important package.

As we arrived at Noah’s house the first thing we saw peering through the crack of his front door was a camera, short after the mystery man revealed himself with a cheeky smile. He jumped into to the car and off we went.

It took at least eight hours to get to Switzerland! Of course we had been prepared for this by Willy but blimey what a long ride. I had slept quite a lot during the ride with my head comfortably on Noah’s bag. He sat in the front with Willy and Denise and I sat in the back. I had downloaded some eminem songs that continued to blare through my earphones on repeat the entire way there..so I can now proudly say that I can at least rap one entire chorus of ‘Lose yourself’.

In between my strangely, rather comfortable car naps we stopped once in a while to stretch our legs and take in the view of the German countryside. I had never been to Germany before so to see it so flat surprised me. I had expected more of a Sound of Music like landscape. But I was to early with my judgement because after an hour or two on the road our surroundings vastly changed to far exceed my expectations.

After another hour we began to notice a peculiar weather pattern, it turned from rain to snow and from snow to rain all the way up to Switzerland. There the weather was even more confusing as the fog slowly crept up to us and devoured us under a great white blanket of mystery. I believe we could all feel a rush of excitement as we first saw the mountain range, I barely know how to describe what we encountered. Pearing through the fog we could just about make out the great green giants from a distance. After a day or two we would realize that these mountains were way bigger than we could had ever imagined, but when one lives on the flattest place on earth where even a sand dune can impress you.

As we made our way up the mountain the fog became thicker and thicker like a intoxicatingly heavy syrup whispering us towards the finish line. We knew it wouldn’t be far now and although Willy had a firm hand driving up the mountain, I began to notice he was becoming more and more nervous as we gained altitude. I also observed that inside the car the ambiance was gradually taking a turn for the worst. Looking back on the situation I now understand the sudden silence. It must have been terrible to have to drive up a incredibly steep mountain in the fog

after eight hours of driving with also three teenagers nagging at you with questions like ‘are we there yet?’.

After a good fifteen minutes I was getting fed up with far too serious vibe. So just after Willy took another sharp turn a sentence flopped out of me that will probably haunt me till the end of my school days . “And then we road off the mountain..” I said dryly breaking the awkward stillness. Willy and the rest all cracked up and have been mocking me with ‘and then’ jokes ever since.

We had finally arrived at our destination Leysin. I couldn’t see more than three meters in front of me but nethertheless I was very impressed by what little I could see. Everywhere were tall student houses connected by a broad road leading to the infamous “Leysin American High School”, standing proudly carved into the mountain like an ancient statue.

As we entered the school the first thing my eye fell on was the giant student library. I enjoy a good book so already I was longing to have a quick look. We were standing in the hallway as we were suddenly approached by a friendly looking man named Paul. We shook our hands and kindly introduced ourselves. “Well you guys must be hungry after that long trip” he said gesturing to the dining hall. Gradually we made our way over, yet to encounter the wonders of the tosti machine.

Day 2.

We had slept like lambs that previous night but when I woke up I still felt absolutely knackered. We had arranged to meet Bill in the dining hall for breakfast. We had a good chat and seeing as we were of for the day we decided to visit have a look around. It was a rainy day but that didn’t matter to us. We took the small mountain train down to a town by the name of Aigle and spent the day sightseeing. We walked past the lake Geneva and had lunch in a beautiful  lunch cafe called Zurcher. We each chose a different chocolate and split it into exactly four pieces so we could all share. I chose a particularly scrumptious chocolate cake with with layers of raspberry in it. We also visited the statue of Freddie Mercury which was a lot larger than I had imagined.

After a couple of hours we headed back to leysin and had a good dinner before bed.

Day 3.

Day three was the first day of the course we were all very excited. Willy had asked us to wake up early so we got up at half past six and headed to breakfast at seven. When we stepped outside snow surrounded us for miles, there was not one place that remained untouched by it. It was quite nice being the only ones in the cafeteria, we had all the choice in the world including these godley blueberry muffins. As we made our way to the middle school we had an epic snowball fight, one of many to come. When we were inside we set up the stuff and awaited the teachers. Willy’s course includes many games and fun activities. The one I found the most interesting was the paper airplane game. There were three or four teams of about five people

and every one of them had a team captain. This team captain had chosen his/her teammates on the account of qualities. There had to be a variation of qualities in one group so the team captain wasn’t allowed to pick the same quality twice. When the team’s were made and the game was on you could definitely notice considerable differences between the team’s. They all had a very different tactic, some had divided their groups into different divisions. Two people were to throw the planes, two to fold the plains and two to finish them. Whilst other groups did every step together. The more games the teachers played the more they came in to there own and we began to see people began to take over certain roles in the groups. There were leaders, followers, class clowns and of course the mediators. It was all very interesting to study different groups like that I enjoyed it very.

Day 4.

Day two was the second and final day of the course. Some teachers had decided that eduScrum was not for them had not shown up. Luckily there were still a lot of teachers very enthusiastic to stay so we started with a couple more games and Willy told stories from his experiences with eduScrum and as did we. We explained the pro’s and the con’s of eduScrum in the classroom and we tried to answer the questions from the best we could. At the end of the course we shook hands and said our goodbyes to some of the foreign teachers. Because it was a lovely day on the mountain we decided to go for a hike after we went back to our rooms and had a long good rest.

Day 5

Day five was a lovely day, the sun shone brightly on the mountains illuminating the brilliant green leaves. The sky such a deep blue colour it looked almost like you could dive into it.

We had decided to go down the mountain to take a tour in the most notorious Chillon castle on lake Geneva. After an hour or so we took the car for a drive to Geneva but due to some problems with my health we couldn’t make it as far. We drove back to up the mountain and played cards for the rest of the evening.

Day 6.

Day six was our last day in switzerland, we went to breakfast early and took a couple of tosti’s and fruit with us for the ride back. It took about the same amount of time to get back to the Netherlands than the trip up to Switzerland, although it felt a lot shorter. When we got to Limburg Maastricht Willy brought us to a little snackbar where he ordered something called Zoervleis (which means sour meat) which was ace and showed us the place where he grew up. It was really nice to take a little break like that before we stepped in the car again to drive home.

Thank you Willy for this awesome experience and this amazing opportunity, I feel very lucky for having been part of your eduScrum family. Also great thanks to Noah and Denise for taking care of me and literally carrying me up a mountain. I have made memories with you all that I will cherish them forever.

Bo Walkden, 4 HAVO (Highschool)

Encourage personal development with education

INTERVIEW with Willy Wijnands by Nina Visser

PULSE MEDIA GROUP – ONDERWIJS VAN DE TOEKOMST – ONDERZOEKEND LEREN – juli 2017

Encourage personal development with education

When students own their own learning process, they become intrinsically motivated, they experience more fun learning and personal growth, says Willy Wijnands, founder of eduScrum. "Students get the best together and themselves up."

How can students become owners of their own learning process?

"By working in small groups in small groups, they discover in their own way what they are good at and what they can learn. When a project is completed, students will not only receive a grade, but will also reflect on their qualities and on what they have learned from themselves, from others and what others have learned from them. In addition, they describe what they can do better next time. By becoming aware of their own ability and learning, appoint what they want and do not want, they become the boss of themselves and their learning process. "

What role does co-operation play with this?

"Collaboration leads to personal development, based on four building blocks: trust, communication, involvement and responsibility. Cooperation requires mutual trust between students. In addition, communication is very important so that they learn to be themselves and dare to say what they find. These two building blocks provide engagement within the team, which in turn leads to responsibility. The four building blocks refer not only to the team as a whole, but also to individual students. "

How do you contribute to this?

"We have developed eduScrum to stimulate the personal development of students. This is an active collaborative form in which students in teams make assignments according to a fixed rhythm. They themselves determine their activities and keep their own progress. The teacher determines the assignments and provides support to a class, team or individual student, where necessary. Through this method, students themselves think about how they want to learn. I even take students to training, teaching teachers how to handle the method. It is important to emphasize that eduScrum is only a means. It is just right if other methods are used to apply variety to education. "

Nina Visser PMG

eduScrum wird international

Bunt ist der Mix an Nationalitäten und Backgrounds, die sich Ende Februar 2017 in Alphen aan den Rijn in den Niederlanden treffen, um den Grundstein für die internationale eduScrum "Familie" zu legen. Willy Wijnands, Begründer von eduScrum, hatte zum ersten internationalen eduScrum-Training geladen.

Chris aus Berlin, Manfred, Christian, Günther und Patrick aus Österreich, Filip und Maria aus Belgien, Kristina mit rumänischen Wurzeln aus den Niederlanden, Emmanuel, Franzose aus Spanien, Alejandra und José aus Mexico, die Südafrikanerin Denise aus der Schweiz und Nuno aus Portugal.

Bänker, Berufsschullehrer, Lehrer, Sommerschuldozenten, Schulrektoren und -Eigentümer, einfach Interessierte, Suchende einer Alternative zum „echten“ Scrum. Bildungsziel Schulabschluss, Bildungsziel Weiterbildung oder Bildungsziel Maurer. Aber (fast) alle eduScrum-Pioniere im eigenen Land.

Besonders schön für mich: ich bin dieses Mal nicht „nur“ zu Besuch im Training, sondern als Co-Trainerin mit dabei.

Alle Teilnehmer mit Willy Wijnands

Foto: Alisa Stolze

Magic Moments in Alphen 

Am Donnerstag besucht die Gruppe Willys Unterricht am Ashram College. Flaps, also eduScum-Boards, werden bestaunt, Fragen gestellt, erste Informationen fallen an den richtigen Platz. Große Augen bei den Besuchern. Die letzte eduScrum-Chemieklasse ist schon einige Stunden vor der Zeit mit der Entwicklung der Lerninhalte fertig und freut sich über die Aufmerksamkeit, die den sorgsam gestalteten und gepflegten Flaps entgegenschlägt. Die Jugendlichen sind stolz, uns ihre Arbeit erklären zu können.

Am Freitagmorgen treffen wir uns um viertel vor neun zum Training.

Wichtig und immer dabei an diesem verlängerten Wochenende: 

Wer bist du, und warum bist du hier? Was ist dir wichtig? Und was ist für dich Vertrauen?

"Wenn ihr euren Schülern nicht vertraut, dann braucht ihr mit eduScrum gar nicht erst anzufangen.", sagt Willy. 

Außerdem wichtig: das eigene WARUM und den Schülern die Möglichkeit zu geben selbst herauszufinden, warum sie lernen wollen, ihr eigenes WARUM zu finden.

Das Training ist gespickt von Reflexionen und Retrospektiven, es gibt bewusst viel Raum zum eigenen Ausprobieren, Fallen, wieder aufstehen

„Genau das werden eure Schüler auch erleben. Wenn sie zu tief untertauchen, holt sie wieder an die Oberfläche."

Nach einigen Runden Scrum-Simulation steht wieder eine Retrospektive an. Wie habt ihr diese Arbeit in Iterationen erlebt, was nehmt ihr mit? Denise sagt: "Wir sind alle so unterschiedlich und sind als Einzelpersonen in dieses Training gekommen, aber jetzt sind wir ein Team."

Eine besondere Feierlichkeit macht sich im Raum breit und hält für beide Trainingstage an. Wir wissen, wir brauchen alle hier, um einen nachhaltigen Wandel anzustoßen. 

"Magic Moments", schreibt Emmanuel später in Willys Trainingsgästebuch.

Erste Begutachtung der Flaps

Foto: Willy Wijnands

eduScrum lernen wie die eigenen Schüler

Doch zuvor wird hart gearbeitet.

eduScrum scheint auf den ersten Blick simpel zu sein und das Rahmenwerk ist wirklich nicht kompliziert. Die Umsetzung erfordert jedoch einige Übung. 

In zwei der kleinen Lehrerteams haben sich Scrum Master eingeschlichen, die ihren Teams bei den ersten Umsetzungen helfen. In einem anderen Team ist Scrum allerdings ganz neu. Und tatsächlich stellt sich nach den ersten 30 Minuten Arbeit am Beispielprojekt heraus: das haben wir ganz anders verstanden!

Eine wunderbare Übung, denn genau so unsicher wie die Lehrer in unserem Training, werden sich später deren Schüler während der ersten Runden eduScrum fühlen. Und gerade durch das Ausprobieren und durch Fehler wird eduScrum nicht nur intellektuell verstanden, sondern begriffen.

Genau wie ein Inputvideo zu diesem Workshop besagt: „Tun ist die bessere Art von Denken.“ und „Wenn ich mehr Fehler mache als du, dann gewinne ich!“

Mit dabei: engagierte Schüler aus Willys Klassen

Am zweiten Trainingstag arbeiten wir vor allen Dingen an Aufgabenstellungen aus dem Kontext der Teilnehmer. Nachmittags kommen Schülerinnen und Schüler aus Willys Klassen vorbei, die wir gruppenweise interviewen dürfen. 

Sie erzählen von selbstorganisierenden Lernteams und Lehrern, die lehren und coachen anstatt zu dozieren. Davon, wie sie selbstbewusst ihren Lernfortschritt planen und Freude daran haben, zu sehen, wie stillere oder schwächere Mitschüler in ihrem Team aufblühen. Wie sie Scrum für die Planung ihres täglichen Lebens benutzen, ihre Eltern in deren Scrum-Praxis beraten, und dass sie gern ihren Samstag dafür hergeben, einem internationalen Haufen von Lehrern und Weltverbesserern eduScrum schmackhaft zu machen.

Am Ende des zweiten Trainingstages unterschreiben sich die Teilnehmer gegenseitig ihre Zertifikate als eduScrum-Lehrer. Und ich kann nach einem Jahr der Zusammenarbeit endlich mein offizielles eduScrum-Trainerzertifikat entgegennehmen, als erste(r) Trainer(in) außerhalb der Niederlande.

Wahnsinn!

Trainerzertifikat, unterschrieben von allen Teilnehmern des internationalen Trainings

Foto: Alisa Stolze

Die Tage gingen viel zu schnell vorbei...

...aber wir bleiben via Email und Kurznachrichtendiensten in Kontakt, um uns gegenseitig auf dem Laufenden zu halten und zu unterstützen. Die Motivation, eduScrum nun wirklich im eigenen Unterricht anzuwenden und im Heimatland zu verbreiten, ist groß, wenn auch alle ein wenig aufgeregt sind. Werden wir das schaffen?

Willy hat inzwischen eine Einladung nach Mexico und ein weiteres Mal nach Portugal, ich nach Wien. Wir dürfen gespannt sein auf die ersten Ergebnisse!

Alisa Stolze,

Co-Trainerin

All the beginnings are difficult, that is the same with eduScrum.

But I also learned, that it is worth practicing!

When I was visiting an eduScrum training in Alphen aan den Rijn in november 2016, me and the participating dutch teachers had the opportunity to talk to eduScrum students between 14 and 17 years to ask them about their experiences with eduScrum. We were sitting together on the cosy carpet of a hotel hallway with three groups of eduScrum classes and talked. Listening to the students, I thought it was very interesting that their happiness about working with eduScrum gets significantly bigger with every year of eduScrum practice.

Especially in those classes that begin working with eduScrum we could hear several critical voices

The work with eduScrum is not actually harder than regular lessons, but it is different, because students have to plan their work by themselves.

Especially eduScrum starters dislike having to get used to a new way of working.

The planning is too much effort, they say, and it takes them too long until they can begin with the real work of learning.

„I prefer getting an assignment from a teacher, listening to the explanation and afterwards just doing it and trying to understand. All those stickers are just too much for me.“ one girl tells us.

Another student adds: „I even think that the stickers and the tasking is extra work. I don’t need all those stickers to know what I have to do next.“

One grade higher the situation is already different. Students like Willy’s way of teaching.

One girl tells us, that eduScrum didn’t work very well for her during her first year trying. Why? Because the teacher that had been working with the class using eduScrum didn’t tell the pupils about why they do which step, why there is a Burndown to watch progress, for example, and why they would have a Definition of Doing and a Definition of Fun.

„So what is the Definition of Doing exactly?“ one of my fellow participants asks the group. „That something is really done. That there is nothing left to do and that we are happy with the results.“ It can be so simple!

The English terms used in eduScrum were no problem for the group.

I was especially impressed by how the students explain the effort points that they poker in order to determine how big one item of work is:

„Points don’t just tell you how much of work an item is, but also how hard it is.“

Planning? No problem. At the beginning it is a lot, ok, but then you estimate the points and split the effort points of work to fit the number of working lessons.

The overview of work to do or still remaining also helps the students to help each other.

Teams are based on different qualities: „If I really don’t get a thing I just ask my teammates and they can explain it to me.“

The eduScrum "professionals" : happy about their possibilities and freedom

The team of students that practice eduScrum for three years now even ask following teachers to be allowed to use eduScrum for their assingments and are happy about their independency:

„I don’t like if people tell you what you should do. Here you are self-responsible, you can plan, you can make decisions to do more in one lesson and take it easier in another. That is great! You can always see by yourself where you are and how much work is left.“

„With one look at the Burn Down Chart I know where I stand. It helps me and it is very easy to understand. If you are below the ideal line, you are faster than needed, if you are above, you need to speed up. You can see at one glance how much work you have to do in this lesson. It is very good to control yourself.“

„The Burndown helps you in a different way than the Flap (the board on which the students plan their items of work). On the Flap you see the items or tasks, but they don’t have the same effort points. If you put a sticker with a big item plus a sticker with a small item to done, well, that first looks like it was the same effort. On the Burn Down Chart I can see how much work really is done.“

Students like the teamwork

„Teamwork creates team feeling. If everybody in the team has already finished something and you don’t, that doesn’t feel nice.“

„You feel responsible. That is because groups are build on different qualities. Everybody has a purpose.“

„If you don’t do anything, you let your group alone.“

„First I thought I could do everything in the last minute, but now I prefer to work with the group.“

What is important to the students:

„If you start with eduScrum please explain very well! If everyone gets it, students can work on their own. And please show us, why it is important to do an assignment. We want an assignment with context that shows us why it is important to learn. Thank you!“

Alisa Stolze

(German eduScrum team member)

How do we want to learn?

How do we want to learn? - From the EDU-INNOVATION-Team in the Netherlands

Rick, Sofia, Bart, Amber, Noah, Julia and Paulien, all 17 years old, form the EDU-INNOVATION- Team at Ashram College in Alpen aan den Rijn in the Netherlands. You might recognize Sofia, Bart, Amber, Paulien and Noah from the eduScrum-Keynote we saw at the Scrum Day 2016 in Stuttgart.

                                                                       

The students asked their classmates and themselves the question: How do we actually want to learn?From the answers, their own experiences and with a little bit of coaching by Willy Wijnands from eduScrum they developed an emergent book. This is a short impression of it:

„Do you remember? Sitting in always the same lessons, having to listen for hours and almost falling asleep? There has to be a different kind of lesson! There are so many ways to change education.

At the moment, the teacher determines the What (which is ok) but also how we are supposed to learn. This has to be different.

What if we switched the roles and students would be in charge of preparing and giving classes?

We want to decide how we would like to learn!

The seven of us, Rick, Sofia, Bart, Amber, Noah, Julia and Paulien wrote down together how students want to learn. We would actually like to learn in a different manner. That the teacher gives us a nice and interesting assignment that has something to do with the subject and that we can choose how to work on that assignment. We want a different kind of lesson. A more innovative and creative type of class.

We think that this is the best base for students to imagine and also build even more creative, innovative and better and more beautiful products. At the end of the day we hope that we can contribute to a lot of creative, fancy and innovative classes for both, students and teachers.

To give more body to our concern, we did a survey among about 250 of Willys students.

We asked ourselves and the others the question: How do we want to learn, and what do we need to learn differently?“

Some of the answers are collected right here:

HOW DO YOU WANT TO LEARN AND WHAT DO YOU NEED FOR THAT?

•      I prefer to learn in groups.

•      Flexibility in my planning and what concerns homework.

•      Only short blocks of teaching, not all of the theory at a time.

•      More practical examples.

•      It is good to have a goal to achieve and points that you have to finish on your journey, so that you can plan for yourself with the group you are sitting in.

•      To work freely with the support and incentive of somebody to keep you busy in a good manner.

•      Explanation at a point when you really need it.

•      I want to choose by myself what I want to learn instead of having to do things I already know. That bores me.

•      Time to work on my own during class.

•      To be allowed to use the internet during the lessons to look up some things.

•      Learning by doing a practical assignment that does make sense to me.

•      I would like to get good assignments instead of being bored with always the same tasks.

•      To work together in a group, so that I can ask my group questions if I don't understand things.

•      To actually work with a book so that I can really write things down.

•      10-15 mins of teaching, the rest of the time we want to work quietly and on our own, the teacher has to take care of that.

Three of the answers sum up what the students think:

„Is is not so hard to make better education. We want to see the benefit of our work, we want to know why we have to learn certain things. The How we want to determine by ourselves. What we have to do we want to hear from the teacher and maybe talk with him or her if something is not clear.

Students want to know why they have to learn something. Of the teacher they expect to make clear

what there is to learn. When both is transparent we want to decide how to do it.

Give us a clear assignment and let us try in our own way within the borders of your demands. Be there for us if we need explanation. Give us more room and freedom!“