E47: Continual Learning with Dr. Dave Martinez, Early College High School (ECHS) Principal

Welcome to KnolShare with Dr. Dave.  Streamed on Grokshare.com and broadcasted on iTunes and Google Play.  You are listening to Episode 47, featuring Dr. Dave Martinez, ECHS Principal in Costa Mesa, CA. The topic is “Continual Learning”.  Continual learning is the practice of intentionally identifying new topics that will increase knowledge for personal pleasure or business acumen.
Episode 47 is the second of many topics extracted from my book Elastic Minds: What are Thinking?, that will be featured in coming podcast episodes.
Dr. Martinez opined that “When you go into a program you always want to make data decisions by measuring the temperature and taking a look at the numbers to see if you are making improvements”.  Fundamentally, this is equal to measuring relentlessly, a term used in the lean and agile space.  Evaluate if progress is being made and determine if to pivot or stay the course.
In the journey of helping students achieve the awesomeness, build a team of peers that will be contributors to the students success.  Dr. Martinez stated “You should not go at this alone!”.  Teams are fundamental to delivering business value to organizations and working in teams can bring amount amazing innovations.
Dr. Martinez also said “Put theory into practice”.  One of the key factor is to ensure the students are happy.  Jurgen Appelo’s book Managing for Happiness spoke of the correlation of people being happy and the success in business.  The same applies for students being happy and their success in learning.
The leadership at ECHS is very innovative and encourage students to help curve some of the campus activities.  For example, a survey of students resulted in three programs that improved extracurricular activities on campus.  The wisdom of crowds theory was applied and students responded with innovative programs that was beneficial for the entire student body.
Resilience is relevant to being in a growth mindset for continual learning to be present in a person’s life.  Dr. Martinez tells his students that resilience is having GRIT.  G is for Growth, R is for Resilience, I is for Intensity, and T is for tenacity.  Find a way to learn outside the box so you can be successful.
 Purchase the Elastic Minds: What are you thinking? book on Amazon.com.
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The KnolShare with Dr. Dave Podcast is Streamed on GrokShare.com.
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This podcast and interview produced by Dr. Dave Cornelius
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