Archives for October 2020

Ritual

27 October 2020 by Clark 2 Comments

I’ve talked before about the power of ritual, but while powerful, it also seemed piecemeal. That is, there were lots of hints, but not a coherent theory. That has now changed. I recently found a paper by Nicholas Hobson & colleagues (Schroeder, Risen, Xylagatas, & Inzlicht; warning, PDF) titled The Psychology of Rituals that creates an integrated framework. And while my take simplifies it down, I found it interesting.

At core, what the model suggests is that there are two components that are linked together. The first element are things that involve the senses. The second element are the semantics we’re looking to create allegiance and adherence too. And there are important elements about this relationship.

There are a number of elements that are on tap for involving the senses. Certain movements, sounds, and words said or to be spoken can be used. There can also be food, drink, smells, and more. Objects also. Timing is an element; at the micro level of things in order, and at the macro level of the triggers for the ritual.

Semantics come, of course, from your needs. It can be about things you want people to believe, or a set of values you want people to subscribe to. Or, of course, both. From the design purpose, I’d suggest it’s about agreeing to be a member of a community of practice; to undertake certain actions when appropriate, and to uphold certain values.

Interestingly, according to their model, the relationship between the two is effectively arbitrary. That is, there is no intrinsic relationship between what you’re signifying, and how you do so. Rituals are about the practices. Which means you could in theory do just about anything to make the relationship.

The other thing is that the ritual has to be invariable in its aspects. You define it, and so do it. Note that the execution can vary considerably; from several times a day to upon certain triggering conditions. So, for instance, having completed a course, or before engaging in certain activities.

While such a definition gives us lots of freedom, it also doesn’t necessarily serve as a guide for design. Still, thinking about it in this way does suggest the utility in developing deeply held beliefs and appropriately practiced behaviors. At least, that’s how I see it. You?

What is wrong with (higher) education?

20 October 2020 by Clark 7 Comments

I was having a conversation with a colleague, sparked by dropping enrollments in unis. Not surprisingly, we ended up talking about flaws in higher education. He suggested that they don’t get it, and I agreed. He was thinking that they get the tech, but not the learning. I think it’s more complex. There are those that get some parts of the learning right. Just not enough, and not all of it right. Thinking further, post-convo, it occurs to me that there is a layer beneath the surface that matters. So I want to consider what is wrong with higher education.

And, let’s be clear, I’m not talking about the problems with tuition and administration. Yes, tuition’s risen faster than the cost of living. And yes, there’s little commercial pressure to keep universities free from the persistent creep of increasing administration. I saw an interesting article talking about how universities without a solid financial foundation, and ones without a good value proposition, will perish. It’s the latter I’m talking about.

I previously mentioned the three pillars I think create a valid learning offer:

a killer learning experience,
being a partner in your success
and developing you as an individual.

I suggest that all three are doable, but it occurred to me that there’s a bit more to unpack.

The ‘being a partner in your success’ bit is most frequently seen. Here, it’s about looking for signs of trouble and being proactive about reaching out and assisting. It’s not ‘sink or swim’, but recognizing there can be troubles and helping learners cope. The Predictive Analytics work that Ellen Wagner did is the type of opportunity we have here.

The ‘developing you as an individual’ is really building your more general skills: communicating, working with others, a positive attitude, knowing how to search, etc. And, of course, knowing how to continue to learn. Given the rate of change, most of what you learn as the core of a degree may well be out of date in short order! But you can’t address these skills on their own, they’re specifically about how you do domain things. And that’s a layer I’ve yet to see.

And the ‘killer learning experience’ is a second area where I think folks still aren’t doing well. My short (and admittedly cheeky) statement about education is that they’re wrong on two things, the curriculum and pedagogy, other than that they’re fine. Most universities aren’t doing a good job of curriculum, focusing on knowledge instead of skills. And some are moving in a good direction. Startups are addressing this area as well.

The other problem is the pedagogy. There’re two elements here: the learning design, and engagement. Too often, it’s still the ‘information dump and knowledge test’. But even when that’s right, making it truly meaningful for the learners is sadly neglected. Even professors who care often forget to put the ‘why’ into the syllabus.

In short, what is wrong with higher education is the ability to successfully execute on all these points. (It’s true for other education, too, but…) I’ve seen efforts that address one, or two (and plenty that get none right). However, as of yet, I have not seen anyone doing it the way it could be done. It’s doable, but not without some serious attention to not only the elements, but their successful integration. And it’s important enough that we should be doing it. At least, that’s what I think. So, what do you think?

Learner-centered, or…

13 October 2020 by Clark 6 Comments

I saw a post the other day that talked about ’empathy’, and I’m strongly supportive. But along the way they cited another topic that I’ve had mixed feelings about. So I thought it was time to address it. I’m wondering about ‘learner-centered’, and it may seem churlish to suggest otherwise. However, let me make the case for an alternative.

First, ‘learner-centered’ (apparently also known as ‘student centered‘) is used to take the focus away from the teacher. And I approve. It’s too easy, without awareness, to put the emphasis on ‘teaching’, and you’re on a slippery slope to lectures and knowledge tests. I’m all for that. However, I’m worried about a down-side.

My worry, with learner-centered learning, is that we may become too accommodating. It could be too easy to cater to learners. For instance, one belief that persists is that learning should be ‘fun’. Which is wrong. We know that we need ‘desirable difficulty’ (ala Bjork). That’s why I’ve lobbied for ‘hard fun‘. We could also use learner-centered to make the case for adapting to preferred learning styles. Which, too, would be wrong.

Obviously, you can also argue that learners need meaningful learning, so a learner-centered approach would be appropriate. But I want to suggest another candidate. One that, I argue, leads to good outcomes without carrying any opportunity for baggage.

I’m arguing for ‘learning-centered’, not learner-centered. That is, the focus is on the learning needed, not on the learner. Which isn’t to say we leave the learner out of the equation, but the question then becomes: what does this mean?

I’m suggesting that the key is learning focused on:

meaningful outcomes
aligned design
addressing learners’ prior knowledge
addressing learners’ emotions: motivation, trust, anxiety, confidence

And, look, I get that folks talking about ‘learner-centered’ will argue that they’re talking about the same things. I just see it also carrying a greater potential for focusing on the learner at the expense of learning. And, in general, I would expect to be wrong. That is, most folks aren’t going to go awry. But is there an alternative without the problems?

So, the question is whether ‘learning-centered’ has similar pitfalls, or is it more likely to lead to better outcomes? And I don’t know the answer. It’s just a concern that I’ve felt, and thought I’d raise. Now it’s your turn! What are your thoughts on the phrase ‘learner-centered’?

Personalized and adaptive learning

6 October 2020 by Clark 1 Comment

For reasons that are unclear even to me, I was thinking about personalized versus adaptive learning. They’re similar in some ways, but also different. And a way to distinguish them occurred to me. It’s kinda simplistic, but I think it may help to differentiate personalized and adaptive learning.

As background, I led a project to build an intelligently adaptive learning platform. We were going to profile learners, but then also track their ongoing behavior. And, on this basis, we’d serve up something appropriate for learner X versus learner Y. (We’d actually recommend something, and they could make other choices.)

It was quite the research endeavor, actually, as the CEO had been inspired by Guilford’s learning model. I dug into that and all the learning styles literature, and cognitive factor analysis, and content models around learning objectives, and revisited my interest in intelligent tutoring, and more. I was able to hire a stellar team, and create an approach that was scientifically scrutable (e.g. no learning ‘styles’ :). We got it up and running before, well, 2001 happened and the Internet bubble burst and…

In some sense, the system was really both, in the way I’m thinking about it. I’ve seen different definitions, and one has adaptive as a subset of personalized, but I’m going a different way. I think of personalized as pre-planned alternatives for different groups, whereas adaptive reacts to the learner’s behavior.

Our use of initial profiling, if we only used that, would be personalized. The ongoing adaptation is what made it adaptive. We had rules that would prioritize preferences, but we’d also use behavior to update the learner model. It’s something they’re doing now, but we had it a couple of decades ago.

So, my simple way of thinking about personalized versus adaptive is that personalized is based upon who you are: your role, largely. We’d swap out examples on marketing for people selling services versus those selling products, for instance. Or if we’re talking negotiation, a vendor might get a different model than a lawyer.

Adaptive, on the other hand, is based upon what you do. So, for instance, if you did poorly on the last problem, we might not give you a more difficult one, but give you another at the same level. Twice in a row doing badly, we might bring you another example, or even revisit the concept. This is what intelligent tutoring systems do, they just tend to require a rigorous model of expertise.

Of course, you could get more complicated. Personalization might have a more and less supportive path, depending on your anxiety and confidence. Similarly, adaptive might throw in an encouraging remark while showing some remedial materials.

At any rate, that’s how I differentiate personalized and adaptive learning. Personalized is pre-set based upon some determined differences that suggest different learning paths. Adaptive calculates on the fly and changes what the learner sees next. How do you see it?