It's About Learning

Leading Learning and Technological Change – MDDE 610 Webinar

Dwayne Harapnuik — March 12, 2015 — Leave a comment

For a learning theorist and Professor there are few things more invigorating than working with a group of highly motivated learners. My long time colleague and friend Dr. Craig Montgomerie often asks me to join his online Athabasca University class MDDE 610: Survey of Current Educational Technology Applications to provide his students the opportunity engage with a professional like myself who has extensive experience in promoting the use of Educational Technology.

In the MDDE webinar for March 10, 2015 titled Leading learning and technological change we focused on the most difficult challenges in any organizational change — dealing with an organization’s culture and implementing strategies that require a cultural shift. Through examining a case study of the ACU Connected Mobile Learning Initiative we explored how addressing the following four key principles increase your chances of success significantly:

Start with Why
Identify and engage key influencers
Install an effective execution strategy
Enlist and empower self-differentiated leaders

We also analyzed how ignoring even one of these principles can contribute to failure and how these principles are currently being used in the BCIT School of Health Sciences Future of Learning initiative.

Webinar slide deck – MDDE 610 March 2015.pdf

The following resources were mentioned or briefly discussed in the webinar and can be used to gain a deeper understanding:

The Head Won’t Go Where the Heart Hasn’t Been
This post stresses that:
If you really want to bring about change in people then you need to appeal their hearts and not to their heads. The sharing of more information or engaging in more rational discourse on its own doesn’t appear to help people to make significant change but an appeal to values, attitudes, and feelings first can motivate people toward making changes.

People who like this stuff…like this stuff
Includes a short annotation and links the books Start with Why (Simon Sinek), Influencer, Four Disciplines of Execution (4DX) and Freidmen’s Failure of Nerve.

Connected The Movie by the ACU Connected Initiative
Link to the ACU Connected mobile movie that started and provided the fundamental Why or vision for Mobile Learning at ACU.

Additional resources on Change and Innovation:

In Uncategorized

Why sitting is bad for you

Dwayne Harapnuik — March 11, 2015 — Leave a comment

In Video - Wednesday Watchlist sitting

It Only Takes a Spark

Dwayne Harapnuik — March 10, 2015 — Leave a comment

This past weekend I wrapped up the second part of the PIDP 3210 Curriculum Development Course and one often wonders how did the course really go. The following note from one learners in the course suggests that at least one of the my students benefited from the experience:

Just a quick note… I’m teaching our 5-day course this week … and, I wanted to share this with you …

I went into class yesterday with what I can only describe as a ‘spark’. It seemed odd; but, today, the same … I started today’s activities with that feeling of the spark. This weekend’s course’s materials aside, the learning environment you created is, I believe, responsible for this spark in me, and now in my class. I’m thinking that I needed it somehow, or I probably wouldn’t have felt it … who knows; it’s a mystery, eh. 🙂 . And, thanks for this.

It only takes a spark…

In Learning, Motivation accolades, spark

So…What am I going to doing about it?

Dwayne Harapnuik — March 6, 2015 — Leave a comment

Are you tolerating a problem in the world around you and not doing something about it? I see so many opportunities to improve learning environments and get quite frustrated when I miss the chance to make a difference. But I also see, read and hear about situations where opportunities to make a difference are missed.

I recall a blog post from a renowned educator who is a considered a leading thinker and writer about the intersection of social online learning networks and education. This educator was driving his 14-year-old son to school when the son remembers a homework assignment he forgot to do for biology class. The following is their exchange:

“Something big?” I ask, fearing the worst.
“Nah,” he says with a shrug. “Just a handout and some questions. It doesn’t matter.”

This educator reflected on the fact that he could not remember any work that his son and daughter had done the past year that actually did matter in the world; work that had a purpose outside the classroom.

For the remainder of the post he reflected on his experience in traveling the world and viewing “work that matters” that has significance beyond the classroom walls. He effectively argued that when learners create authentic solutions to real world problems it not only benefited those who’s problems were being solved the work benefited the learner.

While I was excited and agree that authentic learning or “work that matters” is important I was also concerned that he didn’t provide any suggestions on how he would attempt to address the problem his children were having with hand outs with questions that didn’t matter. Perhaps he has, but the post left me wondering.

We each have our own spheres of influence. If we see a situation that needs improvement the first thing we need to ask is…

So…What am I going to doing about it?

In Change authentic learning, educational reform, Innovation, reform, work that matters

What Can Educators Do to Enhance the Learning Environment

Dwayne Harapnuik — March 4, 2015 — Leave a comment

I always look forward to an opportunity to explore what we can do as educators to enhance the learning environment. The following are a list of videos, links to blogs/articles and related resources that were used in a workshop for the Emergency Nursing instructors are BCIT. It is always a privilege to spend time exploring learning and achievement with such a group of dedicated educators.

Not Suited for School But Suited For Learning

Generation Tomorrow – Eddie Obeng, Zeitgeist Europe 2013

Time Travellers in the 21st Century

John Seely Brown On Education

Seely Brown suggest that we focus on the following three key factors to bring our learning into the 21st Century:

Knowledge/information – Pull from the Internet.
Skills – Pickup with mentoring.
Disposition – Foster the idea that learning can be an adventure.

How to Change People Who Don’t Want to Change | The Behavioral Science Guys

The BS Guys recommend that:

When you are trying to influence people who need motivation don’t give them more information….Use questions to help them explore motivations they may already have.

The Head Won’t Go Where the Heart Hasn’t Been

If you really want to bring about change in people then you need to appeal their hearts and not to their heads. The sharing of more information or engaging in more rational discourse on its own doesn’t appear to help people to make significant change but an appeal to values, attitudes, and feelings first can motivate people toward making changes.

See more at:
https://www.harapnuik.org/?p=5461

Fixed Vs Growth Mindset = Print Vs Digital Information Age

If we really want to take advantage of all the opportunities that the digital information age offers, we need to move away from fixed mindset to growth mindset thinking.

See more at:
https://www.harapnuik.org/?p=3627

John Hattie: Visible Learning Pt1. Disasters and below average methods.

Hattie argues:

“short of physical and psychological abuse, almost anything you do in the classroom will positively impact student achievement…key is to figure out what promotes achievement…”

John Hattie, Visible Learning. Pt 2: effective methods.

Teaching effects that really make a difference – above .40

Positive Feedback: The PIPS Model

PIPS Model to providing effective feedback
P – Praise something specific
I – Improve – suggest ways
P – Positive overall praise
S – Supply an uplifting comment