Surround Yourself With Those that Make You Better
Katie Novak and I had a chance to discuss some of the concepts from our book, Innovate Inside the Box, on the below webinar with CAST. It is an hour-long if you are interested in watching it. Here is the full webinar below:
Here are a few things that I wanted to highlight from the video:
1. I was asked what my background in UDL was, and my answer essentially, “Katie is my background.” Katie taught me a lot about UDL through the book, and she helped connect the ideas of UDL and “The Innovator’s Mindset.” The reason I bring this up is as a reminder that no matter what we do, we do not need to be experts in everything.“ You can’t be an expert in everything. What we can do is surround ourselves with people that bring different strengths to the table that make us better, and Katie made me way better through this process with her background, knowledge, and expertise. I hope she learned from me as well in the process.
2. At about 30:30 in the video, I discuss a conversation that I had with Katie after the book about the idea that we remove all barriers for our students in education, and I asked, is that really the goal? She explained to me, and this was helpful, that UDL is not only about removing barriers for students but teaching learners how to remove the obstacles for themselves. This makes total sense and ties beautifully into the idea of empowerment.
3. Near the end of the podcast, we discuss how innovation is not about “stuff” but that it is truly a human endeavor. You can have all the latest cool things in the world, but if we keep our thinking the same, we spend a lot more money to do the same things, but “cooler.” As I have said for years, this is about thinking differently about the work that we do.
I hope you enjoy the webinar! Katie is such an incredible person, and it was an honor to work with her on this book, but I also appreciate every time we get together to have conversations.
Here is the link again if you would like to watch it directly on YouTube.
