Tune Up Your Learning Environment

Filip Vervenne - reflection about educational development 21st century

- a short reflection about educational challenges for 2013 -

Up to a 5 star learning environment!


Check out with me 5 major changes/suggestions to create a future proof instructional and curriculum

design…

1. Forget about learning outcomes.

2. “Engage me or enrage me”.

3. Think Deming.

4. Make learning exciting.

5. Interconnect.



Is this familiar to you?


Honestly, I’m bored… to hear about learning outcomes. For too many years now, people have been focusing on this as if it is or can be the (only) drive for good education!

From the Ministry of Education to universities to headmasters and teacher trainers... everybody worries about refining, updating, implementing learning outcomes.

Well, enough,… forget about learning outcomes!

FORGET ABOUT…1


In my opinion, learning outcomes are

• pretentious

• unrealistic

• endless listed

• useless

• and simply creepy for students

Why forget about…?1


What is feasible…?

Not everything that can be counted, counts.

Not everything that counts, can be counted.ALBERT EINSTEIN

Competences/learning outcomes:

1


Don’t waste your time and

just draw some general competences

based on the well-known BLOOM-matrix: goals, aims for knowledge, skills, attitudes…

linked to your discipline / course / training.

Put your energy in what really matters, the next stars,…

… so what’s up?1


Try to engage the learner in the whole cycle of the learning process.

Nowadays it’s very common to engage the learner in the learning activities with assignments, group work, collaborative tools and tasks.

Good! Of course!

“ENGAGE ME OR ENRAGE ME”2


However, 3 interesting challenges remainand they are situated, where you would less expect them:

in the preparation and the tail of the learning

event*…

* let’s call it an event: the course, training, methodology, interaction,…

Engage…


Take your time to draw together, at least:

1. some essential competences / L.O.

2. the design of the learning event3. the assessment

Engage…


• Use the Deming circle, Plan Do Check Act/Adjust, to design the curriculum and to engage the learner in each step you make.

• This model for reflection is well known in its applications of Quality Management but it is a perfect and in fact a wonderful basic tool for the instructional designer. Think PDCA!

THINK DEMING3


Think PDCA ánd link, connect,

realize each step of the PDCA with the learner.

- see 4 and 5 too -

THINK DEMING3


Creativity is the drive to establish an attractive learning environment.

MAKE LEARNING EXCITING4


Books and books have been written about the added value of using new media. Well, OK. Although, don’t get lost in games, social media, learning management systems and other digital torture…

4


Books and books about new methodologies. Well, OK. Very inspiring but once again, some trainers get dragged into a flashy whirlwind of methodologies… and so do… the learners!

ÞDon’t get lost in the wood, never able to find the treasure…

4


• is not about trying out as much as possible, using loads of tools and methodologies you don’t connect with…

• is all about the right and well-balanced cocktail of approaches and methodologies!

not flashy but eclectic

So… making learning exciting …4


Try to connect.. or even more: interconnect!

Star 1 – 4 are about connecting too, but there is more…

INTERCONNECT5

There are 2 dimensions and 3 different layers in this connection. That’s how it became… an interconnection.


Connect with the learners’

1) Experience: what are the experiences related to…

2) Talents*: what are his/her strengths, natural talents/gifts,…

3) Learning style: how he/she learns the best

Interconnecting, dimension 1…

* Recommended literature: Luk Dewulf

5



1) Experience: what are the experiences related to…

=> is obvious, it is basically thought in every teacher training

5



2) Talents*: what are his/her strengths, natural talents/gifts,…

* Recommended literature: Luk Dewulf

5


Nature x nurture

But… “use it or loose it”…

=> Do we use this in education?!

Þ Competence based vss a talent orientated education

Working with

talents5



3) Learning style: how he/she learns the best

5


remember Vygotsky…

Now, just connecting… is not enough…

zone of proximal development

=> we should be challenging

5


… let’s put him

in a slightly updated version…

zone of proximal development

5


5


TOO HARD

TOO EASY

You should

be here


Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. Proposed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the positive psychology concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields.


Vygotsky,

Mihaly,

AND the theory of connectivity, dimension 1,

We can replace the skills in this model,

relating the challenges to the experience, talents and learning style

summarising


experience, talents

& learning style

5

The perfec

t match

…


Connect with your own

1) experience

2) talents

3) learning style

Interconnecting, dimension 2…5


5


Relating and macro connecting star 1 – 5 we can summarize that the right way to a 5 star learning experience involves also

connecting your strengths to those of the learners

This will generate the best basic conditions for learning:

support, feedback and challenges

in search of the right learning leverage5


Individual matches. That’s when learning becomes really exciting, for both, the teacher/trainer and the learner. And that’s exactly how it should be. In the end, both are learners

up to a 5 star learning environment…

1. Forget about learning outcomes.

2. “Engage me or enrage me”.

3. Think Deming.

4. Make learning exciting.

5. Interconnect.



Reflected?!


If this modest contribution has peaked your interest,

let’s get interconnected,

please get your comments to

MAIL [email protected]

TWITTER @filipvervenne

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TEL 0032 474725009

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http://www.linkedin.com/in/filipvervenne



Tune Up Your Learning Environment

Education

learning exciting

learning process

learning event3

think deming

think pdca

books havebeen

good education

new methodologies