Designing learning for real life

It seems that the focus of what I have learned the last two days is centered around designing learning opportunities. By first clarifying what the learning objective is and how it will be assessed, an educator can then look at the activities that will lead to success for that end. Whether it is using technology, strategies, environment, it comes back to the learning design.

In applying this to professional and personal change, this also has value. When looking at ourselves and how we want to change, we can use the same method of looking at what it is we want to change and design the process. Whether it is physical, moral, relational, we can first identify what it is we want to achieve, how we would assess it, and then design the process and structures around it. It takes some discipline to focus and design the process, but otherwise, we may spend a lot of time and money and not getting our results or learning from the experience.

Lately, I have been thinking about how to be more loving. If there was a unifying theory to life as Einstein was looking for physics it would be love. Love gives our lives meaning and makes us feel alive. It has quantifiable evidence as being the highest of positive emotions, much like is shared in Christ's teachings: I give you faith, hope, and love but the greatest of these is love. How to set an assessment or quantifiable data on love as a performance metric. I guess you could count acts of love. What about thoughts of love?  To yourself and to others.

A learning opportunity

It was a full day today with training from Dr. Ellie Drago-Severson on how to communicate and facilitate learning from the standpoint of understanding their ways of knowing. While some people have self-focused rules-based learning motivations, others are focused on the approval of others. Some are self authoring: focused mainly on their own thoughts and  beliefs while others can be self-transforming: open to to learn new things from other people. A good facilitator has to meet everyone where they are and create an environment conducive to learning together from each other. It is a good framework to self-check on how much we are influenced by ourselves and others in learning.

This has helped me see my study on my dissertation with more clarity. In creating ideal learning situations, you must be able to identify and adapt to serve each person's needs and challenges. It is not enough to create a good protocol. One must be able to identify if it is working for everyone and adapt the situation if it is not. Coaching and giving good feedback is important for people to stretch and grow. That is uncomfortable for people to do. One practice I thought was bold was the norm that if someone said something about someone else, you should challenge them to say it to the person directly. That is an environment that values frankness and open discussions as a cultural trait. Many organizations have made huge mistakes by having a reticence to speak truth to each other.

The keynote speakers really focused on getting the good news out there. They showed the possibilities and responsibilities of using technologies to show the learning that is going on in schools. One compelling video is on Youtube about the impact of an elementary music program that has drawn huge following and has had big stars take part. Schools are doing great things and it is important to show that to people in contrast to all of the criticisms that have been leveled at education.