Deconstruct #3 - Week of 1/17

So I'm sitting in my local coffee shop working this week. It was Monday, MLK day. Across from me is a high school age girl concentrating with stacks of index size cards spread out all around her. The girl is ferocously trying to memorize things. I see her picking up a card, then closing her eyes and reciting something quietly to herself. my mind wanders...back to MY high school and college days where someone could have found me in the campus library with a similar set up. I reflect back to what I might have been studying. I remember, I was a bit older than this girl but I was studying for my CPA exam which I took right out of college. The hardest I have ever studied in my life. I locked myself in a hotel room for a week prior to my exam so I could eat, sleep and drink accounting so that I would pass the reknown test. The test that 70% of people all fail the first time they take it. I took review classes that told us what would be on the test and drilled question after question which were to be similar to the questions on the test. So I ask myself, did I really "learn"? Learn in the way I know the word now? What do I remember? and other similar questions. Although I do have to say I do remember some of what I studied, but is this the most effective way to learn something? I don't think so. It was the age old drill and test method. I spent every waking moment trying to learn this information. The amount of information covered in the 4 tests was enormous. In comparison to the information I can now recall is minimal. In fact, the information I can recall is directly related to the information I used shortly after and therefore constructed knowledge.

I look back at the girl in the coffee shop working so hard to memorize facts and I think of "The Big Picture". I wonder if she is studying something she is passionate about? I know the answer, because she wouldn't be forcing herself to memorize. I wonder if she could be learning anything, what it would be? how would someone this far down the road of our "defunct traditional education system" do if we provided her with an opportunity to learn whatever they wanted? I think she would respond simlarily to how I feel. Somehow it almost seems too good to be true. You mean we can learn what we want, what we are interested in? That seems easy? Could school really be about what we want it to be, defined by the student? To me it almost seems like a euphoric idea, although I know how beneficial for the student it would be. I only hope I can somehow provide an environment like this for my children so they don' thave to be exposed to the warped system I did. So they won't be tainted like I am about "What they SHOULD learn."

Deconstruct #2 - Week of 1/10

Each of us is special and we need to feel that way!

While I was reading "The Big Picture" one thing that struck me, was a story that was told about when the author had a bet with one of the kids for a free dinner. I think the bet was if he wasn't gone from school, but that part wasn't as important as the message of the teachers and administrators treating each student as an individual, not as a unit. It reminded me of my dad. My dad was a 6th grade teacher for 35 years, well he actually taught a few grades, but 6th grade or probably the last 10-15 years. Anyway, this example really reminded me of some of his teaching methods. I always knew he was a great teacher because people would come up to him years later and tell them what they learned. He definately strayed from the curriculum and thought that teaching life lessons and trust and respect were more important. The response the kids gave him told him he was right. Anther thing he did is give each kid a nick name, often times these nick names would stick with them through their high school years. The common thread of the story from the book was my dad made different deals with the kids during the year and I don't know if they were bets or what, but the reward was he would take the kid out to lunch, just the 2 of them. The kids absolutely loved this. The would remember it YEARS later.

To me this is a lesson that it really does matter who the person is and when they know that someone truly cares about them and takes some time to show it, so many many things are possible.

Deconstruct #1 - Green means go

This is my first entry for Dr. Kim's class where we are to "deconstruct" something once per week. I'm not exactly sure I got this right but this is going to be my first stab.

I realized the other day when my son said, mom the light is green, go that he had learned both from reading "Go Dogs, Go" by Dr. Seuss and from observing us in the car that green means go and red means stop. As I was thinking about this I wonder, why. Why and who associated green to mean go and red to mean stop. And as a society we all know this and we learned just by being exposed to it as kids, then anxious drivers, confirmed in drivers ed etc.

It makes me think of how many other things we learn by being members of a society and a culture. We never sit down and say ok, green means go , red means stop, now take a test and make sure you know it, I'm going to drill you. Sure, we take a drivers test, but we have learned long before that that green means go and red means stop. To brainstorm a few other things like this we "group learn" (borrowing "group think" from MM which was introduced in our last class). Shaking hands, greetings, opening the door for people, common manners, not saying you hate a christmas present you don't like, how to be a host, to bring a host gift to a party. All of these things we all do and don't think about are second nature to us. We have learned them so well and they are so engrained in our life, I bet most of us can't pick out exactly when we learned these things. We probably mostly learned them by example and by being immersed in situations where different people did all of these things. If we take these same concepts of learning something so well we don't even think about recalling it and apply it to other situations where does that bring us? The word immerse makes me think of immersion schools, which of course brings us to language and I think most people agree that immersion into a different culture and language is the quickest way to learn a language. I happen to have experienced that as did my husband. I did an exchange to the University of Oslo in college where all 3 of my classes were all in Norwegian. I had taken some Norwegian languages classes but was by no means fluent or even close to being fluent. After living there for 5 months, I could comfortably converse, read, write and understand the language on a simplistic level. QUite amazing, actually.

So this makes me think of the examples above, we probably didn't even know we were learning most of these things, it was just surrounding us at different times and in different ways and we absorbed it by being present and probably aware of the situation. So this to me screams "AUTHENTIC LEARNING" where the environment is real, you consiously and subconsiously pick up on all kinds of things and learn to do things or not do things based on the social interaction. Conforming probably becomes a discussion point as well. Why do some people choose not to conform, they still probably know what is "right" and "wrong" but choose not to comply. That is a different tangent I think.

So if I apply this to my environment of professional development and technology training. Things that should be present in a favorable learning environment.
* Authentic (or simulated) environment for how the product will be used
* Group interaction and involvement
* Consistent exposure of people using the product correctly, examples
* Interested participants
* IMMERSION

That's all for now

A New Year, a New Blog

OK, I have resolved to blog more consistently this trimester.

Today I had a meeting with someone I provide contract training for. We talked about some of the technology training I provide and how there are so many little nuances about software programs and how you can be exposed to them in training but not necessarily remember how to do each little thing. How does one solve that problem. It seems that you don't really learn something until you need to use it in a real life situation and when that time comes, you are in such a hurry to do it, you spend all the time doing it the "long way' instead of investing time in finding what the shorter way to do it is. How does a technology trainer accomplish this problem? I can teach tips and tricks all day long and people will ooh and aah over them, but will they remember them when it comes time to actually put them to use. If they don't, how can I help. Contacting me isn't the answer, but rather creating some kind of an "always there" community. This actually reminds me a lot of my ARP. How do I decentralize the knowledge I and other possess so many people can access it any time and quickly. Knowledge base comes to mind. Seems like there is an opportunity here for me at this company.

This reminds me of the article that learning/training must be, relevent, timely, and useful. If this organization is to become more computer efficient/literate, individuals must learn and also become more effective in their usage of programs.