Category: Learning

Mindset for the Class of 2014

Dwayne Harapnuik Leave a comment

http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2014.php

Beloit College Mindset List via kwout

A student in my EDUC 652 class posted a link to the Beloit College College Mindset list for the Class of 2014. Since 1998, Beloit College has released the Beloit College Mindset List. It provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college this fall.

The list include 75 items in addition to a generous description of the student who will graduate from College in 2014. The following is only the first 5 points:

For these students, Benny Hill, Sam Kinison, Sam Walton, Bert Parks and Tony Perkins have always been dead.

  1. Few in the class know how to write in cursive.
  2. Email is just too slow, and they seldom if ever use snail mail.
  3. “Go West, Young College Grad” has always implied “and don’t stop until you get to Asia…and learn Chinese along the way.”
  4. Al Gore has always been animated.
  5. Los Angelenos have always been trying to get along.

This is a really good reminder of how important it is to really get a good understanding of where are learner are at. Unless you grew up at the same time and in the same conditions your cultural attitudes will be different. I am not saying that we need to bend to our young learners whims and unrealistic expectations, we just need to be aware of why they assume and expect what they do and take this into account when we create learning environment in which they can flourish.

Learned Helplessness – A Reality Check

Dwayne Harapnuik Leave a comment

A few weeks back I ran across a blog post called Learned Helplessness and I am realizing that I should have addressed this topic as well in my blog.  The author starts out with a Papert qoute:

What you ought to be learning at school is that you don’t need to be taught in order to learn.

The reason I am addressing this now is that I have been in a conversation with a student in a graduate course I am teaching that focuses on using Disruptive Innovation as a catalyst for change and we are are discussion the challenging notion of creating an environment where our colleagues are willing to embrace the notion that they should not require extensive formal training on how to use technology. I am all for orientation on new technologies, just in time instruction and other forms of informal instruction to help people adjust to new technologies but am against the notion that one shouldn’t be expected to adopt a new technology until has had the formal training. This is learned helplessness.

The reason I didn’t include this in my blog earlier is that even though it is true it is a hard pill for some to swallow and I have been working at catching flies with honey as opposed to vinegar. I have been so careful over the past while not to offend or challenge folks too much that I may be doing them a disservice. Sure, I have pointed to video clips and other blog posts that relay this challenging message making them “the bad guy” by pointing to their hard to swallow doses of reality.

Perhaps I have to challenge my colleagues and peers every once in a while if I really genuinely care about them and the learning. I think we need to find a balance between supporting and encouraging our colleagues while still holding them accountable with respect to their attitudes and actions toward learning.