Task

Draw or find a symbol of something that gives you energy as you think of designing courses, teaching or working with students / learners

Each person will share his/her symbol and introduce her/himself

Task

Make a “hand chart” and write on it one thing you would like to have “in your hand” when you leave today

We will post them and anyone who wants to share can do so.

We will return to these at the end of the day

Key Principles and Practices of Learning Centered EducationPrinciple Description

Respect Learners feel respected and feel like equals.

Affirmation Learners need to receive praise for even small attempts.

Relevance Learners learn best by drawing on their own knowledge and experience.Learning must meet the real-life needs of the adult—jobs, family, etc.

Dialogue Learning must be two-way to allow the learner to enter into a dialogue with the teacher.

Engagement Learners must get involved through discussion, small groups and learning from peers.

Immediacy Learners must be able to apply the new learning immediately.

20/40/80 Rule Learners remember more when visuals are used to support the verbal presentation and best when they practice the new skill. We remember 20 percent of what we hear, 40 percent of what we hear and see, and 80 percent of what we hear, see and do.

Thinking, Feeling, Acting

Learning should involve thinking and emotions as well as doing.

Safety Learners need to feel that their ideas and contributions will be valued—that they will not be ridiculed or belittled.

TaskTurn to another person and discuss, based on your teaching and learning experiences other principles you would add to this list… We will add your ideas.

Key Principles and Practices of Learning Centered EducationPrinciple Description

Respect Learners feel respected and feel like equals.

Affirmation Learners need to receive praise for even small attempts.

Relevance Learners learn best by drawing on their own knowledge and experience.Learning must meet the real-life needs of the adult—jobs, family, etc.

Dialogue Learning must be two-way to allow the learner to enter into a dialogue with the teacher.

Engagement Learners must get involved through discussion, small groups and learning from peers.

Immediacy Learners must be able to apply the new learning immediately.

20/40/80 Rule Learners remember more when visuals are used to support the verbal presentation and best when they practice the new skill. We remember 20 percent of what we hear, 40 percent of what we hear and see, and 80 percent of what we hear, see and do.

Thinking, Feeling, Acting Learning should involve thinking and emotions as well as doing.

Safety Learners need to feel that their ideas and contributions will be valued—that they will not be ridiculed or belittled.

Task

Review the cards that describe the Seven Elements of Design. Each poses a question for you to answer when designing a learning event or meeting. Use the 2 questions below with your table group as a guide to further examining the usefulness of the Seven Steps of Design in your own situations.

Which of these questions are ones that you currently consider? Which ones are not usually discussed or considered?

7 Elements of Design Model

WHO (participants)

WHY (purpose)

WHEN (total time)

WHERE (locale)

WHAT (content--SKA)

WHAT FOR (achievement based

objectives-ABO)

HOW (tasks, activities)

What participants will DO with content

Tasks that will enable participants to accomplish ABOs

Bewar

e of

too

muc

h “w

hat”

for “

whe

n”

• The process of design is iterative

• Identify the “givens” before proceeding

• Check for coherence: tasks that accomplish ABOs, ABOs that are really about the content, content that corresponds to purpose and participants’ needs.

WHAT FOR?Learning

Objectives?

WHAT Content?

Facilitation

WHEN WHERE

WHO is Coming? WHY Do it?

HOW?Learning tasks

HOW?Learning tasks

Facilitation

Clarifying the WHO, WHY, WHEN, WHERE, WHAT AND WHAT FOR lays the foundation for the whole design. Like the footers of a building mixed of cement, stone, and steel bars, so to the foundation of a learning design contains the first 6 Steps below the surface of the learning tasks holding up all that the learners do in order to learn the content. Your facilitation of this strong design brings it all alive for the learners.

Study Observe

Ask

Learning Needs Assessments and Learning Needs and Resources

Assessments

“Forming” versus “Informing”

Desired level of competence or achievement

Current level of competence or achievement

Learning Needs Assessments (forming)

Study Observe

Ask

Study Observe

Ask

The “Learning Need”

Doing an adequate needs and resources assessment is both standard practice and a basic principle of adult learning. Conducting an LNRA honors the fact that while people may register for the same program, they all come with different experiences and expectations… How can we discover what the group really needs to learn, what they already know, what aspects of the course that we have designed really fit their situation? Listening to learner’s wants and needs helps shape a program that has immediate usefulness to adults. The dialogue begins long before the course starts…

How do we listen to adult learners, before we design a course for them, so that their themes are heard and respected? Today, we can use email, faxes, telephone conversations, we can use a small focus group to review the plan of a course or workshop or training, or we can do a survey. A well-distributed sample of even 10 percent of the group can give you important information for your design.

Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach: The Power of Dialogue in Educating Adults, Revised Edition, Excerpts from pages 5,6, Jane Vella, Jossey-Bass, 2002

Learning Needs and Resources Assessments (informing)

ASK STUDY OBSERVE

Ask the learners themselves. Ask people who know them/work with them

Study what “research” says they need. Study what the learners’ create or use

Observe the learners in typical situations related to the learning topic. Observe the big picture

Asking learners directly “What do you need to know?” will give you some ideas, but these can be quite misleading and superficial.

Using projective questions can yield richer fruit. For example: “When you’re at work, what kinds of situations are most frustrating for you? Most satisfying? When you’re working at what moments do you think ‘Wow, I’m not sure how to handle this!’?

Try card sorting, or picture sorting to get people’s priorities. For example, “Put these situations in order from the least to most comfortable for you. Explain your choices.”

Try sentence completion to get people’s gut responses (without too much filtering). For example, “The thing I know I do quite well on this job is….”

Talk with others, informally. When talking informally, I am always thinking: what implications does this have for the event? How should this insight into their world affect the design?

Try group discussions or participatory research techniques (such as mapping) when you can reach a number of groups and synthesize your findings.

Review the literature for what others already developed.

Study the data.

Get to know measurements of success. Remember, people learn your intent faster than anything else you have to teach them. If your intent is to teach from a place of respectful empathy, they will feel it.

Know the formalities of the organization or structure within which your learners move. If your training is done with learners from several organizations, try to learn what structures they face in their work. How could those structures enhance or limit the use of new skills or knowledge?

Study materials your learners use, and try them out yourself. I could ask: Where am I running into blocks? Where is the student running into blocks?

Note realistic situations which your learners will relate to during training.

Be there long enough to see what people do when they do not feel you watching.

Notice what happens when you get personally involved in the process. Hold on to the memory of the feelings – so that you can recreate them, for the learners in the context of their workshops. Remember: the deepest learning occurs in the affective mode.

Look for strengths and assets as well as suggestions.

Look around the space in which your learners live, or work.

See what you are not looking for.

Task

Think about a learning event you are designing or for which you already have a design.

Decide whether you want to develop a LNA (to help “form” it) or an LNRA (to help “inform” it).

Using one of the organizers, start to jot some ideas of things you might try to “ask, study or observe” learners and their needs and/or resources.

You will have a chance to seek input on your ideas.

Let me help you!

Seeking Input via the “Margolis” Wheel

Develop a short 1 minute summary of your design and note one important area for which you would like input at this point

Half of the people form a circle facing out and half form a circle facing them—with one person facing another. The inner person provides his/her summary and point for which s/he is seeking input and the outer person gives him/her a quick response or idea.

After 2-3 minutes the outer circle rotates to the right and the process repeats itself. After another 2-3 minutes the outer circle rotates one more time and the process is repeated. After 6-9 minutes each person will have input from three people.

Now the outside circle trades places with the inside circle and the entire process is repeated.

Task

Task

Read the description of three learning styles

In pairs ask each other:

• What learning style or blend of learning styles best describes you?

• How does your own learning style affect your teaching?• What does this say to you about designing effectively?

VAK Learning Preferences

Imagine 30 adult learners, selected at random and taking one of your classes. Among the 30, 22 of them would have enough of all three learning preferences to “get it,” even if they do it on their own. With motivation, they can be “teacher proof”! Two of the learners have some type of learning difficulty, usually with reading, writing, or numbers.

The remaining six learners are very STRONG in a single preference, so much so that if the class is not taught to their style, they struggle. The folks who struggle the most are the very strong kinesthetic learners for whom just sitting and listening can be a nightmare. The majority of young people who do not complete high school are strong kinesthetic learners!

We tend to teach the way we were taught – OR in the way we like to be taught. The chances are quite good that our way results in many missed opportunities for our learners who want to show us how smart they are but may not get that chance.

Rose & Nicholl, Accelerated Learning for the 21st Century

Now go stand under the learning style you probably have. You may “stand between” if a single style does not describe your style.

Task

Call out in the large group one way you will improve your own teaching, design or training efforts in the next couple of months based on what you know about the learning preferences.

C A

P

Three Learning DomainsCognitive / Affective / Psychomotor

Adults learn by thinking, feeling and doing. To promote effective learning, tasks and activities need to be arranged so that the learner has an opportunity to think about ideas, express feelings about the ideas and do something with the ideas. According to Kurt Lewin, learning takes place across three domains: Cognitive (ideas), Affective (feelings) and Psychomotor (ideas in action). Too often formal education focuses only on ideas. We know that effective learning requires more than just the study of ideas and the sharing of information. It also involves how we feel (affective) about the ideas and concepts we are learning, and what we can do (psychomotor) with those ideas. The deepest learning takes place in the affective domain. Memory and emotion are closely linked. “Based on the way the brain learns best, we should purposefully and productively engage the emotions; make the learning personal and compelling, deeply felt, and real.” Examples include using provocative open questions, music, drama, art, games, and color to enhance learning! Some activities such as dance can be both affective and psychomotor.

Adapted from Brain-Based Learning by Eric Jensen, Skylight Publishing (1996); And Jane Vella, Training Through Dialogue (1995)

Turn to another person (someone with whom you have not yet spoken today!) and talk about how you have brought affective or psychomotor elements into your teaching/facilitating

OR

How you have experienced either one as a learner in an effective way

We will hear from whomever wants to share.

Task

Four A’s Tips from Vella’s Taking Learning to Task

Anchor:Related to life

Tells the learner not only what she has to learn but also what he/she perceives she already knows. It honors their experience as true knowledge, and as the beginning of new knowledge.

Add:New content

Presenting substantive concepts, data, etc. Not as a static fact, but something for the learners to grapple with, work over, fit to their context.

Apply:Do something with the input

Invites learners to DO something with the input in the learning environment, practice. This provides accountability. Use at least one “Apply” task for each “Add” task.

Away:Move new learning into life (sends learner “away”)

May be a projection task that invites the learner to imagine integrating the new learning in their work or life. It may be a task that happens after the course, with some element of reporting for feedback.

Four “A” Task Design Model

Putting it Together…Task Assessment (Accountability) Matrix

Learning Domains Learning Styles Types of Learning Tasks

Task Description

CognitiveThinking

AffectiveFeeling

Physical, Kinesthetic

Acting/Move-ment also learning

through physical

activity and involvement

in doing

VisualLearning through seeing

AuditoryLearning through hearing

VerbalInvolves

speaking and writing may even talk to

self in learning situation

LogicalLooks for

and creates patterns,

categories and

classification systems and

likes to create logical

arguments

Social, Interper-

sonalPrefers

learning in groups,

listens well and shares learning

Solitary, Intra-

personalNeeds quiet

time for reflection

and analysis, may dislike

group learning

InductiveConnects learners to what they already

know and clarifies

where they are—based

on their experience

InputInvites

examination of new content:

concepts, skills and attitudes

Implemen-tation

Promotes doing

something with new content to

practice and give

feedback on what was learned

IntegrationIntegrates

new learning into the lives of learners (perhaps after the

training)—transfer

Learning Domains Learning Styles Types of Learning Tasks

Task Description

CognitiveThinking

AffectiveFeeling

Physical, KinestheticActing/Move-ment also learning through physical activity and involvement in doing

VisualLearning through seeing

AuditoryLearning through hearing

VerbalInvolves speaking and writing may even talk to self in learning situation

LogicalLooks for and creates patterns, categories and classification systems and likes to create logical arguments

Social, Interper-sonalPrefers learning in groups, listens well and shares learning

Solitary, Intra-personalNeeds quiet time for reflection and analysis, may dislike group learning

InductiveConnects learners to what they already know and clarifies where they are—based on their experience

InputInvites examination of new content: concepts, skills and attitudes

Implemen-tationPromotes doing something with new content to practice and give feedback on what was learned

IntegrationIntegrates new learning into the lives of learners (perhaps after the training)—transfer

Warm-up X X X X X

Principles X X X X X X

Seven Elements

X X X X X

LNRA I X X X

LNRA II X X X

LNRA III X X X X

Feedback X X X X

Learning Styles

X X X X X

CAP X X X

4A X X X

Design Time X X X X

Feedback X X X X

Closing X X

Think about a course/workshop/meeting/presentation you are teaching or currently designing…

Write out a specific piece of content (skill, knowledge or attitude) and an objective (achievement-based) that participants will have accomplished by the end of the workshop.

Using that objective, jot some ideas about a task or series of tasks that will enable them to accomplish the objective.

Use what we have discussed about learning styles, CAP and the 4 A task design model to formulate the task

Task

Share your ideas with another person and get their feedback on any questions you have. One person will share and we will switch after about 10 minutes.

Finally, take a few minutes and write yourself a note listing one thing you will do differently or that you will try out based on something you have learned or thought about today.

We will hear from any who want to share

Task

Complete these phrases

One thing that I felt was useful today was…

One thing I would like to discuss more is…

Retrieve expectations and, on the back, talk about to what extent it was met or not and what more you would like from Robb.

This will be our final evaluation.