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Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

Reimagined Learning: Activities elaborated

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I’ve been reflecting on the new learning model I proposed earlier, and want to share some elaborations with you.  In this case, I want to elaborate on the notion of activities, and some associated properties.

Activities provided or chosenFirst, I think it’s important to recognize that gradually, learners will take more and more ownership of choosing activities.  If you’re an adult past college, you choose (with, perhaps, some guidance and support) what professional development you do: you choose books to read, conferences to attend, even perhaps choosing mentors whether agreed upon or stealth (people you follow via their blogs or tweets).  We shouldn’t assume learners will have that ability, and our curricula should make explicit what good activity criteria are, and helps learners develop those skills, gradually handing off the responsibility for choosing them, with gradually released scaffolding.

Activities embedAnother important property of these activities is that they embed, possibly at multiple levels. So, for instance, a project to develop a prototype might have component activities to capture and represent the results of the initial analysis, and then an initial concept, and then an initial storyboard, all before the prototype is developed.  Each of those would be activities with deliverables or products, and evaluation or reflection.  And the prototype might be an activity that is part of an activity to develop a full application.  There are lots of ways in which activities could be related.

Activities can be socialFinally, activities can be individual or social.  They can be assigned to one person, or to teams or workgroups to accomplish. The products of activities from individuals might feed into a group project, or vice-versa as well.  The products of a group activity would be a group product, though the reflections could be individual or group, and there could be subsequent individual products as well.

The point is to have as widely varying description of an activity as possible, to support flexibility in designing learning experiences.

As implied in the initial post, these activities should generate products, and reflections as well, which are important for being able to provide feedback, helping shape learners’ understanding.  I suppose I should dig into that more, too?

Erik Wahl #LSCon Mindmap

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It’s hard to capture Erik Wahl’s dynamic presentation at the Learning Solutions conference (e.g. he painted three separate artworks during the presentation as music videos played). Still…:

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Reimagining Learning

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On the way to the recent Up To All Of Us unconference  (#utaou), I hadn’t planned a personal agenda.  However, I was going through the diagrams that I’d created on my iPad, and discovered one that I’d frankly forgotten. Which was nice, because it allowed me to review it with fresh eyes, and it resonated.  And I decided to put it out at the event to get feedback.  Let me talk you through it, because I welcome your feedback too.

Up front, let me state at least part of the motivation.  I’m trying to capture rethinking about education or formal learning. I’m tired of anything that allows folks to think knowledge dump and test is going to lead to meaningful change.  I’m also trying to ‘think out loud’ for myself.   And start getting more concrete about learning experience design.

Let me start with the second row from the top.  I want to start thinking about a learning experience as a series of activities, not a progression of content.  These can be a rich suite of things: engagement with a simulation, a group project, a museum visit, an interview, anything you might choose for an individual to engage in to further their learning. And, yes, it can  include traditional things: e.g. read this chapter.

This, by the way, has a direct relation to Project Tin Can, a proposal to supersede SCORM, allowing a greater variety of activities: Actor – Verb – Object, or I – did – this.  (For all I can recall, the origin of the diagram may have been an attempt to place Tin Can in a broad context!)

Around these activities, there are a couple of things. For one, content is accessed on the basis of the activities, not the other way around. Also, the activities produce products, and also reflections.

For the activities to be maximally valuable, they should produce output.  A sim use could produce a track of the learner’s exploration. A group project could provide a documented solution, or a concept-expression video or performance. An interview could produce an audio recording.  These products are portfolio items, going forward, and assessable items.  The assessment could be self, peer, or mentor.

However, in the context of ‘make your thinking visible’ (aka ‘show your  work’), there should also be reflections or cognitive annotations.  The underlying thinking needs to be visible for inspection. This is also part of your portfolio, and assessable. This is where, however, the opportunity to really recognize where the learner is, or is not, getting the content, and detect opportunities for assistance.

The learner is driven to content resources (audios, videos, documents, etc) by meaningful activity.  This in opposition to the notion that content dump happens before meaningful action. However, prior activities can ensure that learners are prepared to engage in the new activities.

The content could be pre-chosen, or the learners could be scaffolded in choosing appropriate materials. The latter is an opportunity for meta-learning.  Similarly, the choice of product could be determined, or up to learner/group choice, and again an opportunity for learning cross-project skills.  Helping learners create useful reflections is valuable (I recall guiding honours students to take credit for  the work they’d done; they were blind to much of the own hard work they had put in!).

When I presented this to the groups, there were several questions asked via post-its on the picture I hand-drew. Let me address them here:

What scale are you thinking about?

This unpacks. What goes into activity design is a whole separate area. And learning experience design may well play a role beneath this level.  However, the granularity of the activities is at issue.  I think about this at several scales, from an individual lesson plan to a full curriculum.    The choice of evaluation should be competency-based, assessed by rubrics, even jointly designed ones.  There is a lot of depth that is linked to this.

How does this differ from a traditional performance-based learning model?

I hadn’t heard of performance-based learning. Looking it up, there seems considerable overlap.  Also with outcome-based learning,  problem-based learning, or service learning, and similarly Understanding By Design.  It may not be more, I haven’t yet done the side-by-side. It’s scaling it up , and arguably a different lens, and maybe more, or not.  Still, I’m trying to carry it to more places, and help provide ways to think anew about instruction and formal education.

An interesting aside, for me, is that this does  segue to informal learning. That is, you, as an adult, choose certain activities to continue to develop your ability in certain areas.  Taking this framework provides a reference for learners to take control of their own learning, and develop their ability to be better learners.  Or so I would think, if done right.  Imagine the right side of the diagram moving from mentor to learner control.

How much is algorithmic?

That really depends.  Let me answer that in conjunction with this other comment:

Make a convert of this type of process out of a non-tech traditional process and tell that story…  

I can’t do that now, but one of the attendees suggested this sounded a lot like what she did in traditional design education. The point is that this framework is independent of technology.  You could be assigning studio and classroom and community projects, and getting back write-ups, performances, and more.  No digital tech involved.

There are definite ways in which technology can assist: providing tools for content search, and product and reflection generation, but this is not  about technology. You could be algorithmic in choosing from a suite of activities by a set of rules governing recommendations based upon learner performance, content available, etc.  You could also be algorithmic in programming some feedback around tech-traversal.  But that’s definitely not where I’m going right now.

Similarly, I’m going to answer two other questions together:

 How can I look at the path others take? and How can I see how I am doing?

The portfolio is really the answer.  You should be getting feedback on your products, and seeing others’ feedback (within limits).  This is definitely not intended to be individual, but instead hopefully it could be in a group, or at least some of the activities would be (e.g. communing on blog posts, participating in a discussion forum, etc).  In a tech-mediated environment, you could see others’ (anonymized) paths, access your feedback, and see traces of other’s trajectories.

The real question is: is this formulation useful? Does it give you a new and useful way of thinking about designing learning, and supporting learning?

#LearningStyles Awareness Day review

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I want to support David Kelly’s Learning Styles Awareness Day, but have written pretty much all I want to say on the matter. In short, yes, learners differ. And, as a conversation with someone reminded me, it helps for learners to look at how they learn, so as to find ways to optimize their chances for success.  Yet:

There’s no psychometrically-valid learning styles assessment out there.

There’s no evidence that adapting learning to learning styles is of use.

So what to do?

Use the best learning you can (at the end of the video).

Then help learners accommodate.

Here’re my previous thoughts, developing towards a proposal for how to  consider learning styles,  in chronological order:

Learning Styles

Learning Styles, Brain-Based Learning, and Daniel Willingham

Rethinking Learning Styles

Situated Learning Styles

My problem with learning styles really is the people flogging them without a) acknowledging the problems, and b) appropriately limiting the inferences.  Sometimes it seems like playing ‘whack-a-mole’…

MOOC reflections

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A recent phenomena is the MOOC, Massively Open Online Courses. I see two major manifestations: the type I have participated in briefly (mea culpa) as run by George Siemens, Stephen Downes, and co-conspirators, and the type being run by places like Stanford. Each share running large numbers of students, and laudable goals. Each also has flaws, in my mind, which illustrate some issues about education.

The Stanford model, as I understand it (and I haven’t taken one), features a rigorous curriculum of content and assessments, in technical fields like AI and programming. The goal is to ensure a high quality learning experience to anyone with sufficient technical ability and access to the Internet. Currently, the experience does support a discussion board, but otherwise the experience is, effectively, solo.

The connectivist MOOCs, on the other hand, are highly social. The learning comes from content presented by a lecturer, and then dialog via social media, where the contributions of the participants are shared. Assessment comes from participation and reflection, without explicit contextualized practice.

The downside of the latter is just that, with little direction, the courses really require effective self-learners. These courses assume that through the process, learners will develop learning skills, and the philosophical underpinning is that learning is about making the connections oneself.  As was pointed out by Lisa Chamberlin and Tracy Parish in an article, this can be problematic. As of yet, I don’t think that effective self-learning skills is a safe assumption (and we do need to remedy).

The problem with the former is that learners are largely dependent on the instructors, and will end up with that understanding, that learners aren’t seeing how other learners conceptualize the information and consequently developing a richer understanding.   You have to have really high quality materials, and highly targeted assessments.  The success will live and die on the quality of the assessments,  until the social aspect is engaged.

I was recently chided that the learning theories I subscribe to are somewhat dated, and guilty as charged; my grounding has taken a small hit by my not being solidly in the academic community of late. On the other hand, I have yet to see a theory that is as usefully integrative of cognitive and social learning theory as Cognitive Apprenticeship (and willing to be wrong), so I will continue to use (my somewhat adulterated version of) it until I am otherwise informed.

From the Cognitive Apprenticeship perspective, learners need motivating and meaningful tasks around which to organize their collective learning. I reckon more social interaction will be wrapped around the Stanford environment, and that either I’ve not experienced the formal version of the connectivist MOOCs, or learners will be expected to take on the responsibility to make it meaningful but will be scaffolded in that (if not already).

The upshot is that these are valuable initiatives from both pragmatic and principled perspectives, deepening our understanding while broadening educational reach. I look forward to seeing further developments.

At the Edge of India

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A few months back, courtesy of my colleague Jay Cross, I got into discussions about the EdgeX conference, scheduled for March 12-14 in New Delhi.  Titled the “Disruptive Educational Research Conference”, it certainly has intriguing aspects.

I was asked to talk about games, the topic of my first book.  Owing to unfortunate circumstances (my friend and co-speaker on games had to change plans), it looks like I’ll also be talking about mobile (books two and three) which is exciting despite the circumstances.

However, what’s really exciting is the lineup of other people speaking. I’ve been a fan of George Siemens and Stephen Downes for years, and an eager but less focused follower of Dave Cormier and Alex Couros.  And I’ve only met Stephen once, and am eager to meet the rest.  I don’t really know the other speakers, but their positions and descriptions suggest that this is going to be a great event. Meeting new and interesting people is one of the reasons to go to a conference in the first place!  And, of course, Jay will be there too.

I’ve been to India before, as one of my partners has it’s origins there, and it’s a fascinating place.  Part of the conference is to look at how the latest concepts of learning play out in the Indian context, but given that it’s across K12, higher ed, and corporate, we’ll be talking principles that are across contexts.

Looking at disruptive concepts, with top thinkers, in an intriguing context, makes this an exciting opportunity, I reckon.  I realize it may not make sense for many readers, but I’m hoping some will be intrigued enough to check it out, and there will be a steady stream of related materials. Already there are links from many speakers, and resources about the Indian education context.  If you do go, please say hi!

Meta-mobile

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As a followup to my last post, I was thinking how you would use the different modes of mobile (the Four C’s): Content, Compute, Communicate, & Capture, to support the different layers of learning.

4C's by learning modeHere I’ve made a first attempt at trying to matrix the 3 layers of learning (performance, learning, meta-learning) by the 4 C’s of mobile.  It’s indicative, not exhaustive, but it helps me to try to get concrete about what you might do.

As you can see, there’s some overlap, and one questions is are there continuums between the layers. Is performance support categorically different than formal learning, or are their bridges?  Is meta-learning categorically different?  (I’m not sure I care too much, as long as I’m considering all!)

So, in the interest of learning and thinking ‘out loud’, I invite your feedback.