Wednesday, 27 July 2016

Should learning be a challenge?

I recently came across this short article. It's a nice reminder to not spoon feed your learners. Give them some tough meat and a dull knife instead :-)
If You Think Training Should Make Learning Easy, You Are Doing It Wrong
How does this relate to your own experience as a learner?

And here's a related video referenced at the end of the article:
For those of you that learned about booster questions at CALMet 11 in Seoul, it provides some insight on why booster questions can have an impact on learning.

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2 comments:

  1. InOrbit Ivan28 July 2016 at 09:27

    Good point Bruce,

    This reminds me on one (running-in-the-woods) discussion between Maja and me about the similar topic. In short, we were in line with the 'tough meat and dull knife´ approach. The idea is to make learner think, as much as possible to waste brains´s energy - somehow this speeds up learning process very much, leading to more permanent knowledge about the observed topic. Connected to that, we were almost kidding that the learning motto should be - "We learn when we burn" J.

    Because even though you might be confused after a learning process (like the case of some students in video below), your knowledge might 'miraculously' grow.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVtCO84MDj8

    Thanks for the post,
    Ivan

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  2. Anonymous28 July 2016 at 16:19

    Awesome video! Thanks for sharing that, Ivan. I will use that one when working with our sponsors; many are currently enamored with the short-form video approach to training - and Khan Academy in particular - because it's short and easy for the trainees :-)

    The process of exposing our misconceptions somehow opens the mind to learning and adjusting our conceptual models. As trainers, we should take advantage of that process.

    I do think that there is a place for videos such as those on the Khan Academy, but I see them as just one tool in the teachers toolbox. For instance, combine their use with a problem-based scenario and use them as references to support solving the problem. They can be a primary source of new information and concepts but the information they convey won't truly be learned without the opportunity to apply it in engaging activities.

    Cheers from Boulder,
    Bruce

    “We only think when confronted with a problem.” - John Dewey

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