|
Most days, I drive what I consider to be an obnoxious number of miles to and from work. In many major cities, it wouldn’t be worth noting, but in San Diego it definitely is on the longer side of a commute, both in mileage and time commitment. For years, I would complain aloud about the traffic — the bad accident that added 40 minutes to the drive, the construction that caused awful delays, even weekly protests that turned freeway traffic to a halt.
At some point a few years ago, I had the realization as I was sitting in traffic for the umpteenth time, that in fact, I was the traffic. Realizing that I was an active part of the problem I was complaining about stopped me from regularly complaining (I’m not perfect — complaints still seep out from time to time). As I started becoming more aware of myself as part of the traffic, I began to realize that traffic patterns have variability to them and that variability is predictable. [And no, this is not a thinly veiled advertisement for any specific traffic app — although many of them are built on this premise.] If you have ever thought about leaving somewhere earlier or later to avoid “rush hour” — you’re planning around the predictable variability of traffic.
I have learned on my commute where the stuck points are — where no matter how smoothly things are moving before or after, there will likely be a slowdown. There’s a tough merge, an awkward entrance to a HOV lane, and a curve that all cause an uptick of quick maneuvers that usually send a rippling effect of brake lights and slowdowns in their wake. I can plan for that by adjusting my speed slightly when I get to those spots, removing any distractions that may compound my ability to react promptly, and acknowledge that this is part of the environment I commute through. Or I don't plan around it, and find myself needing to react in the moment — causing myself to spill coffee on my clothes, spill the content of my work bag around the car, and generally send my heart rate and blood pressure to dangerous levels.
This idea of variability extends from traffic to people, from the sizes of clothes we wear to our learning — variability exists and is predictable. We can choose to plan for it in our lessons or find ourselves “surprised” by it when we come across it. The small addition of considering multiple ways students can express what they’ve learned — through a visual, written words, or by sharing aloud with another person — might avoid the need to differentiate widely in the moment as you’re trying to wrap up class. Offering students a choice between a mild, medium, or spicy problem (or set of numbers) might allow students to lean into how confident they are feeling in the moment and access the problem in a way that feels appropriate, instead of finding a sea of hands or a crew of fast finishers disrupting the room.
Expecting and planning for variability is another key part of the design process, which we wrote about in August wrote about that a bit in August. We’ll continue exploring the ideas next time, but let’s find ways to expect variability and design with it in mind — for our students and our teachers.
Audrey Mendivil
@Audrey_Mendivil
audrey.mendivil@sdcoe.net
| 
