This blog is where I “learn out loud”. I try to show my thinking. Yet, I realize I haven’t been doing that as much as I should, or perhaps not as effectively and mindfully as I should So here’re some reflections on sharing my thinking, or ‘exposing myself’.
Worked examples, as we know from John Sweller, are most effective when they come before practice. Similarly, in Cognitive Apprenticeship, instructors model the desired performance. And I do try to share my thinking. However, I may not have been doing it properly. It needs to unpack the expertise; it can’t be just the knowledge, but what the thinking behind it is. The expertise that experts don’t have access to!
For instance, in my workshops, I often show the outcome of what I (with a team) did, after I have learners do it. Other times, like in the recent L&D conference, I shared my deeper thinking on analyzing technology through affordance, but then didn’t challenge learners to apply that themselves (to be fair, I only had an hour; on the other hand, I didn’t properly prepare).
Increasingly, I think one of the ways to scale my impact is to share my thinking, in context. When people are practitioners, that may be enough, but at some times it may also help to provide ‘challenges’ and provide feedback as well. That, however, doesn’t scale as well. I can only review so many projects…
I guess my biggest take away is to be more conscious about making the underlying thinking clear. I think it’s helpful to learn out loud, but also to ensure that I’m showing the thinking. So, I’ll keep exposing myself…or, at least, my thinking. I’ll try to do it more explicitly and clearly, as well.
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