Final Reflection

So many take-aways from this course. First, the all-important question of “who is the adult learner?” The adult learner has lots of prior knowledge and experience that needs to be considered and included in order for instruction to be successful. The adult learner is more intrinsically motivated and engaged with learning, especially if the learning is of their own choosing and they participate in goal-setting. It’s important to consider differences/preferences among generations when developing instruction, but more often than not, because they are all adults, they have similar expectations of learning and instruction: as I mentioned, it should be self-directed, where they have input on the learning goals; it should be relevant to their lives right now and help them create meaning; and it should be in a collaborative and respectful learning environment. These are the traits that make andragogy different than pedagogy. Additionally, the instructor’s role is more as a facilitator than a direct imparter of knowledge (as it is in pedagogy).

We covered the spectrum of learning theories and models, which served to emphasize that humans learn in a variety of different ways. All the theories start with a premise that knowledge is an attainable thing, either by releasing or tapping into what is innate, through reasoning, through having experiences, or through collaboration or knowledge-sharing.

Behaviorism says learning is about observable changes in behavior brought on by stimuli and responses to those stimuli. Cognitivism says that learners are like computer processors, taking in data and processing it – sorting through it and deciding what to keep and what to discard. What is kept is encoded into long-term memory where it can be recalled. Constructivism believes that knowledge is constructed by the learner in an attempt to understand their experiences and to create meaning from them. Experiential Learning is about knowledge being created through having different experiences that cover behavior, cognition, perception, and concrete experience, in other words, by doing, observing, thinking, or planning. It’s the process of doing, reflecting, modifying, and then doing again until you improve.

Communities of Practice and Connectivism move further into the realm of social learning theories where individuals make up groups or networks where learning occurs – learning from one another, learning from the group as a whole. Learning takes place through interactions, discussions, collaborations among group members who are peers, novices, experts, instructors, etc. Culture is a big factor in both CoPs and Connectivism, defining some of the rules of interaction and how the collective knowledge is accessed. These two theories feel very relevant to me and I can see them at work in my personal and work lives. I’ve already purchased books on both subjects and will be finding ways to incorporate them more intentionally in the trainings I’m developing at work.

I’m leaving this course with a much deeper tool box than I had coming in. Awareness of the theories and models, and the traits of adult learners, are all critical to successful instructional design. I am already applying the principles to my work and I’m looking forward to learning more.

Connectivism and Things to Connect With

I loved learning about Connectivism this week. Like Communities of Practice, this is one of my favorite learning theories discusses this semester. Perhaps it's because it's newer and applies to our very modern age of all things technology and connectedness, but regardless, it's a pretty awesome concept.

So far I have checked out a number of different sites to help me engage more with the topic. I really like Stephen Downes blogs. He has a professional blog geared towards his work: http://www.downes.ca/index.html, and a personal blog called Half an Hour: http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/ where he expounds on all sorts of topics, but many are also related to his work and education. Stephen has a strong presence on YouTube, too. His videos can be a little dry, but they are jam packed with good information. Plus he reminds me of my Uncle Jim, so I sort of enjoy watching him talking on and on.

MOOC List is a great collection of MOOCs for all! https://www.mooc-list.com/. It's a captures all the MOOCs out in the Internet ether and lists them in one place by date, which is super convenient! Of course you can search the site any way you like.

I don't know if you are an anglophile like me, but I was VERY excited to learn that Oxford is launching its first MOOC. Here's an article about it from the BBC:
http://www.bbc.com/news/education-37975359 - of course it's an Econ course they're running through edX with Harvard and MIT...boring! but it's still great they are doing it. I hope they will do more, because I would LOVE to "take" a course with Oxford. (notice I said "with" and not "at")

More on my love of all things British - I was able to find Bodleian Libraries on Twitter, which just rocked my little world! And led me to find all sorts of other British biblio-profiles. So, my PLN on Brits and books and lit, has just expanded 20-fold!

That's all I have for the moment...more later!

Communities of Practice

I thoroughly enjoyed researching, writing about, and presenting on Communities of Practice (CoP). It is my favorite theory that we've reviewed so far in the course. I like that CoP's can be completely organic. They can just evolve out of a small group of like-minded people interested in a specific area of practice. I think the group only truly becomes a CoP when they cross the line from just talking about individual experience to actively collecting, sharing, and mapping their collective knowledge.

I keep going back to my quilting bee, but it just fits in perfectly to so many aspects of what we're learning. The group is a CoP, because it's all about sharing information and experience with each other so that everyone learns and develops personally, but also develops the collective knowledge of the group. People start out on the periphery - like me! When I first joined up, I sat quietly and observed and listened and did as I was told, soaking in as much as I could from our guru instructor and all the women around me with varying degrees of experience. Slowly, I am moving closer to the center of the group. I am by no means a pro, like the women at the very center and our guru instructor, but I am learning and my experience is deepening, so that I have something to share now rather than just being and observer. It's exciting! 

Another thing that excites me about learning this theory, is that I can now see CoP's everywhere and I can see where they would be useful, too! I think I just didn't have a name for them before, but they are truly all around us. I'm coordinating a women in technology and engineering group for my company and without even realizing it until now, I've been coordinating an CoP this whole time. Now that I know and have more tools to make it better, I'm really excited to push us into new territory.

YEAH!

Internships and Experientail Learning

I ran an intern program for my company for the past 3.5 years. It is a pretty amazing opportunity for students in engineering, computer science, economics, and business. Students get to work full-time at our company for 11 weeks during the summer. They work on projects that are the equivalent of what we give entry level employees, so it's real work. They're surrounded by mentors and coaches from their department, so they get tons of support. They get to learn about the power industry through training, field trips to industry sites, and presentations by our senior staff. We also put them through job preparation workshops to teach them about how to get a job when they get done with school. What's more, they get paid a ridiculous amount of money!

I would have LOVED to have an opportunity like this when I was in college. Unfortunately, these types of opportunities were not available to me as a liberal arts major. My summer internships was at an arts foundation in Chicago. They couldn't pay, but luckily my college gave me a small stipend so I could at least afford rent for a couple months, but I was on my own for everything else. The work I did for the foundation was all over the place. I filled in at the welcome desk when the receptionist was out. I made copies and stuffed envelopes for mailings. I called donors and asked for money. I rearranged and cataloged the library. I developed brochures for one of their programs, and then I printed and folded about 400 copies of those brochures. I hung art work in the gallery. I participated in critiques of student work. I swept out the sculpture classroom to remove dust from plaster molds. I took notes at meetings. I provided college advising for high schoolers. I co-taught a workshop on making tin retablos for Chicago public school teachers. I co-taught a class on mural making with a group of high schoolers who were training to work with elementary and middle school students on a city-wide mural project. I served wine at a donor party. I walked the Executive Director's dog.

I learned many things that summer. Some of which were sort of applicable to the working world and my future adult life, but most of which were about myself and life in a big city. It was not a waste of time, but it was a very different experience from the students who intern at my company. They are actually learning how to be engineers, what it's like to work in a professional environment, what's going on in the industry that they may choose to work in, and what it's like to make money. These are very important skills to learn at an early age in order to get a leg up in life.

Constructivism - Speed Limits Question 1

Topic 1:  Do you think the speed limits in your state/area make sense? (e.g. MA and UT have different speed limits for the same types of roads; why? Does it make sense? Should it be changed? Etc.)

I am a speeder. I am constantly annoyed by the speed limits on Massachusetts roads. Reviewing the information and resources provided by the Constructivism group on this subject, helped solidify some of my views. The information about raising speed limits to meet the preference of 85% of drivers makes complete logical sense to me. Through observation and over 20 years of experience driving in Massachusetts, many other states in the US, and some foreign countries, I believe that it's the differential in speeds that cause the most accidents. Speeding certainly plays it's part in this, but it's the combination of people going too fast, going moderate speeds, and going too slow that create the potential for more accidents, beyond those caused solely by speeding.

However, if you ask me if the speed limits in Massachusetts as compared to Utah make sense, then I say yes, they do make sense...as much as I wish we could drive 80 on Mass interstates. All interstates and roads are not created equal. Utah's rural and urban freeways are very different than Massachusetts' rural and urban freeways. A rural freeway in Utah could be a two lane divided highway that stretches the length of the state, like Interstate 15. You will pass through a few "urban" areas that are densely populated and several rural areas with very small populations, but most of the road is straight and surrounded by the great wide open where there are no people and very few other cars on the road. An 80 mile per hour speed limit on this road makes sense.

Compare this to Interstate 90 in Massachusetts where you've got a road that crosses the entire state east and west, passes through many urban areas and where even the rural areas are populated for the most part. There are far more cars on I-90 at any given time and in any given location, whereas on I-15 in UT, you might see a good number of cars at rush hour going through Salt Lake City, but that's the exception to the rule and only for a short distance relative to the rest of the road. So, slower speed limits on an interstate in Massachusetts makes sense (begrudgingly).

Another consideration is that alcohol consumption and drunk driving rates in the two states are radically different. The number of incidents of drunk driving in Massachusetts is more than double what it is in Utah. Driving drunk on roads with more cars and higher population density is a recipe for disaster, so of course there are more deaths in Massachusetts from drunk driving than there are in Utah. This is another reason why speed limits should be kept lower in Massachusetts. Although I'm not sure if there is any correlation between lower speed limits minimizing accidents caused by drunk drivers - I hate to imagine a drunk driver giving themselves permission to follow an 80 mile per hour speed limit on any given road in Massachusetts. Very scary.

Roller Derby and Bruner's Spiral Curriculum

In a former life I played roller derby. I was one of a few women who helped launch Boston's roller derby league - originally called the Boston Derby Dames, more recently renamed to Boston Roller Derby to be more inclusive. I skated and helped manage the league for five years and then retired. I'm really proud that the league is still active today.

The resurgence of roller derby started back in 2000 in Texas. A bunch of gals started TXRD - Texas Roller Derby, which was a banked track league like the ones you saw on TV from the 70s. There was some inhouse fighting among the leadership, which resulted in the league splitting. TXRD remained a banked track league, and Texas Rollergirls formed a flat track league. Flat track roller derby took off like wild fire, because it was so easy to set up a track - you could do it on any flat surface that was large enough to accommodate the oval track size with a little room on the outside. Whereas with banked track...you actually needed a banked track, which was generally constructed of wood panels that had to be connected together to form the upright track, you needed a place to store it, and more importantly a place you could set it up so people could come and watch.

So as I said, flat track derby exploded all over the US. Boston was one of the first leagues in the country to jump on board, and was a big part in the early rule making and development of the first association - the Women's Flat Track Derby Association, or WFTDA, or "woof-tih-duh" (a mouth full!)

Most of us who came to derby were not professional skaters by any means. Most of us hadn't roller skated since elementary school, so there was a lot to learn or relearn. The women who were designated as coaches did a lot of talking through online forums to share knowledge around how best to get new skaters up to snuff and ready to bout (a bout being the actual sporting event).

In reading about Bruner's spiral curriculum, I thought about derby immediately. You must learn the absolute basics of skating before you can move on to anything remotely like the game of derby. A skater the mechanics of skating forward and backward, using crossovers, turning on a track and turning on a dime, stopping (and there are so many ways to stop), falling safely, jumping, turning while jumping, balancing on one leg, and so much more. Once these skills are mastered, then you can begin contact...imagine if you didn't have these foundational skills and someone came hurling at you from across the track with the intention of knocking you on your ass! So, yeah, foundational skills must be mastered before contact can be taught. Once you learn basic contact skills, then you can move on to more complex blocking moves. And this is how it goes, one set of skills stacked on top of the foundation skills, slowly building you up to be able to participate in a full bout.

The skaters who are really good are taking their skills to a whole new level. They build on their foundation and constantly innovate new moves to help them manipulate the rules of the game and to get advantages over other teams. Once that new skill gets out there, it's adopted by all the other teams and becomes a common skill within the giant repertoire of derby moves. And next thing you know, someone has invented the next big thing. It's pretty exciting and fun to watch the sport evolve.

For your reference:
http://www.txrd.com/
http://www.texasrollergirls.org/
https://wftda.com/
http://www.bostonrollerderby.com/

Using Behaviorism to Develop Ambassadors

Before I got into ID, I was a college recruiter for our company. I attended career fairs and all sort of other recruitment events in an effort to teach students about our company and of course, to recruit them for internships and full-time jobs. When attending recruitment events, I always took at least one employee, who was usually an engineer and often a former intern. Students generally want to talk with “actual” engineers and not just HR representatives, and they also like to talk with more recent graduates, who they can more easily identify with. Having these employees along was always hugely beneficial to me, especially when students wanted to have more technical conversations that I was just not qualified to have.

When selecting people to take on the road, I mostly chose people who I knew had good communication skills. On the very few occasions where I did not do this, but just took someone who happened to be an alum of the particular school, I learned quickly that communication skills and the ability to talk with (and not at) students is very important. What ended up happening, is that I would tap the same people over and over to go on these trips. I was starting to worry that managers were getting a little antsy about me taking their staff out of the office, and taking only certain staff and not others, so I began to devise a plan to solve this issue.

That plan has now morphed into a training program to develop ambassadors for the company. There will be several modules in the training to support the required knowledge/skills for each type of recruitment event that we attend. To start out with, we will be giving everyone foundational skills needed for any form of recruitment or networking when representing the company. One aspect of the training will be around Stump Speeches – what they are and how to write and deliver one. This aspect of the training will be all behavior based.

We will describe what stump speeches are, why they’re important and how they work. We will demonstrate how to deliver the company stump speech – the basics about who we are and what we do. Then we will give the learners opportunities to practice giving the company stump speech and we’ll use feedback and positive reinforcement to encourage them.

While we are still early on in the development stage of the modules, I imagine we will be using similar models to teach other communication and presentation skills to this group. Once they complete a module, learners will be rewarded by moving on to the next module and therefore moving up tiers of competency. So, after gaining skills in the foundational areas, they will be able to attend the easier events. Then they will move on to more advanced modules and be able to attend more complex events – events that require more skill to maneuver. (that sounds a bit like cognitivism, ay?)

They benefit from gaining these important leadership skills, which will help them grow at our company. We benefit from having a deep bench of ambassadors to call on for the various types of recruitment events that require more than just HR reps. Win win!