It's About Learning

Compliant Cogs or Creative Contributors

Dwayne Harapnuik — December 7, 2018 — Leave a comment

Source: https://seths.blog/2018/12/where-are-the-linchpin-jobs/

Seth Godin (2018) is pointing to the bad deal that industry has offered the worker:

Here’s a job. We’ll pay you as little as we can get away with while still being able to fill the job. We’ll make sure it’s easy to find people for this job, because we don’t want you to have much in the way of power or influence. We’ll use software to read the resumes, and we’ll do it in huge batches.

In return, you’ll work as little as you can get away with. That’s the only sane way to respond to the role of being a cog. If the system is going to squeeze you, no need to volunteer.

Godin warns us that the most cog-like jobs are will eventually be done by machines and that cog-like work doesn’t create nearly as much value as truly human work. He is looking to his community and to employers to take the risk and move from compliance and cog based jobs to jobs that require the employee to use their unique talents and abilities to contribute in ways that only they can.

If this is going to work I think educators also have make a shift in the way that we prepare our learners to become contributing members of society rather then just compliant cogs. We need to move away from the information transfer model of education that uses the industrial age and standards testing approach which simply asks students to regurgitate information and fall into compliance. In contrast we need to embrace the learner and create significant learning environments that give the learner choice, ownership and voice through authentic leaning opportunities if we really want to empower our learners to do the work that only a few humans can really do and to contribute to a better humanity and society.

Are we preparing our students to be compliant cogs or creative contributors?

References:

Godin, S. (2018, December 6). Where are the Linchpin jobs? [Blog] Retrieved from: https://seths.blog/2018/12/where-are-the-linchpin-jobs/

In Learning, Technology & Culture authentic learning opportunities, choice, cogs, creative, ownerhship, Voice

How to Enhance Information Retention vs How to Learn

Dwayne Harapnuik — December 6, 2018 — 2 Comments

Source: https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-12-03-8-great-ways-to-enhance-retention-infographic

There was a time that I would simply repost this infographic, point to the source, and quiet those voices in my head screaming “this is not about learning this is just about information retrieval and retention”. But this is a different time.

Ebbinghaus’ classic forgetting curve shows how quickly we forget information and unless we utilize one of the many tips or tricks to repeat our exposure to information we are hoping to retain then we will indeed forget the information. In several places in the infographic the authors incorrectly equate the notion of information transfer to learning in statements like:

First conceived in by the 19th-century psychologist Hermann Ebbeinghaus, the forgetting curve models the exponential rate at which humans forget the information we’ve learned.

Students forget the most right after they have learned something, with the rate of forgetting declining as time goes on.

In other places the authors more accurately convey that what is happening is information transfer and not learning:

How can teachers equip their students to retain more of the information they are given?

The more students are asked to recall information, the more they strengthen their memory.

What makes these types of infograhpics so frustrating and perhaps even dangerous is that they often embed elements of truth within the misinformation. The five factors that affect our ability to retain information: relevance, difficulty, context, stress, and sleep are accurate but the first three also hold the key to a more accurate way in which we actually learn. Before I go any further, I need to clarify that I am using the constructivist definition of learning which can be summarized as the learner coming to know by making meaningful connections rather than the behaviorist or information transfer definition of learning which can be summarized as the process of acquiring new knowledge, skills or behaviors. If you hold to the information transfer understanding of learning then you need to continually repeat the information input, test the retrieval, use visual or other mnemonic tricks, and use a host of other methods detailed in the infographic to improve the information retention and retrieval.

Or, you can simply use authentic learning opportunities to provide the relevance and context for the learner to take ownership of what they are learning and make those meaningful connections that will not be forgotten. When a learner is exposed to new information or values within the context of working on real-world problems they will be able to develop useful skills and modify existing understanding which ultimately leads to the making of meaningful connections. When you add the significance that comes from a solving and ultimately owning a real challenging problem, the learner will not only retain what they have learned they will have a foundation to make additional meaningful connections and apply their understanding to new situations. This is learning.

We have a choice.

Continue to give students information and then equip them to use a wide assortment of information retention methods or tricks to effectively regurgitate the information.

OR

Create a significant learning environment in which we give our learners choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities and help them to learn how to learn.

This leads me to the final question that we need to ask. Are you preparing your learner for the test or for life?

In Infographic, Learning authentic learning, COVA, CSLE, CSLE+COVA, information, information processing, retention, retrieval

Redos, Retakes, and Do-Overs

Dwayne Harapnuik — December 5, 2018 — Leave a comment

In Video - Wednesday Watchlist failure, redo, retake

Avoiding the Problem or Opportunity: A Time Honoured Tradition

Dwayne Harapnuik — December 3, 2018 — Leave a comment

If you have spent any time working in or around our educational system at almost any level then you will recognize the following responses that are all too often offered by school board members, superintendents, principals, teachers, and parents when faced with challenging problems or responding to innovative opportunities:

1. Find a scapegoat. Teachers can blame administrators, administrators can blame teachers, both can blame parents, and everyone can blame the system.
2. Profess not to have the answer. That lets you out of having any answer.
3. Say that we must not move too rapidly. That avoids the necessity of getting started.
4. For every proposal set up an opposite and conclude that the “middle ground” (no motion whatever) represents the wisest course of action.
5. Point out that an attempt to reach a conclusion is only a futile “quest for certainty.” Doubt and indecision promote growth.
6. When in a tight place, say something that the group cannot understand.
7. Look slightly embarrassed when the problem is brought up. Hint that it is in bad taste, or too elementary for mature consideration, or that any discussion of it is likely to be misinterpreted by outsiders.
8. Say that the problem cannot be separated from other problems. Therefore, no problem can be solved until all other problems have been solved.
9. Carry the problem into other fields. Show that it exists everywhere; therefore it is of no concern.
10. Point out that those who see the problem do so because of personality traits. They see the problem because they are unhappy— not vice versa.
11. Ask what is meant by the question. When it is sufficiently clarified, there will be no time left for the answer.
12. Discover that there are all sorts of dangers in any specific formulation of conclusions; of exceeding authority or seeming to; asserting more than is definitely known; of misinterpretation by outsiders— and, of course, revealing the fact that no one has a conclusion to offer.
13. Look for some philosophical basis for approaching the problem, then a basis for that, then a basis for that, and so on back into Noah’s Ark.
14. Retreat from the problem into endless discussion of various ways to study it.
15. Put off recommendations until every related problem has been definitely settled by scientific research.
16. Retreat to general objectives on which everyone can agree. From this higher ground, you will either see that the problem has solved itself, or you will forget it.
17. Find a face-saving verbal formula like “in a Pickwickian sense.”
18. Rationalize the status quo; there is much to be said for it.
19. Introduce analogies and discuss them rather than the problem.
20. Explain and clarify over and over again what you have already said.
21. As soon as any proposal is made, say that you have been doing it for 10 years. Hence there can’t be possibly any merit in it.
22. Appoint a committee to weigh the pros and cons (these must always be weighed) and to reach tentative conclusions that can subsequently be used as bases for further discussions of an exploratory nature preliminary to arriving at initial postulates on which methods of approach to the pros and cons may be predicated.
23. Wait until some expert can be consulted. He will refer the question to other experts.
24. Say, “That is not on the agenda; we’ll take it up later.” This may be repeated ad infinitum.
25. Conclude that we have all clarified our thinking on the problem, even though no one has thought of a way to solve it.
26. Point out that some of the greatest minds have struggled with this problem, implying that it does us credit to have even thought of it.
27. Be thankful for the problem. It has stimulated our thinking and has thereby contributed to our growth. It should get a medal.

Other than the phrase “in a Pickwickian sense” which refers to Mr. Pickwick in Dickens’s Pickwick Papers and refers to being especially jovial in order to avoid offense, chances are you have heard one or many of these excuses used when challenging questions are asked, problems are being pointed out, or innovative opportunities are being promoted.

Perhaps the most sobering consideration about this list is that it was compiled by the progressive educator Paul Diederich in 1942. Deidrich was part of intense discussions with hundreds of teachers during summers in the late-1930s when the Eight-Year Study was being implemented in 30 high schools across the US. The study revealed that graduates of these more progressive schools which offered artistic, political, and social activities did as well academically as graduates from more traditional schools. Unfortunately, these reforms in the schools in the study demished within the next decade and by the 1950s there was a return to the fundamentals and a focus on the mechanics of spelling instead of a focus on the writing assignment as being part of a something authentic or part of the real world. As we face the challenges of moving our educational system from the industrial age to digital information age we must remember that this is a long-term challenge and we should heed Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr epigram:

The more things change, the more they stay the same

The educational historian Larry Cuban offers additional information and links in the post Educator Discussions That Avoid “The Problem” on his site from where I copied this list.

References
Cuban, L. (2018, November 30). Educator discussions that avoid “The Problem”. [Blog] Retrieved from: https://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2018/11/

In Change, Education Innovation, opportunity, problem, progressive, reform