Learning Nerd’s Diary #41
Welcome back Learning Nerds!
Really I am!
👀 Sneak peak
Here is what I have in store for you this week -
💭 Learning About Learning: 3Ps of Learning
🥜 Learning Nugget: Team vs Solo Sports
🧠 Learning Heuristics: No.04 Consistency & Culture
💥 Coolest Thing I Learnt This Week: 4 stages of Competence
🔦 Spotlight: What I do in a week!
Let's jump right in!
💭 3Ps of Learning
How to solve or learner motivation? Focus on the 3 Ps of learning - Purpose, Progress & Performance
Purpose
Purpose refers to the why of learning. This means having answers to questions like -
Why am I learning this?
How will this add value to my life?
What is the end goal?
We tend to not pay as much attention to this as we should - both as learners and as learning experience designers. But defining the purpose of learning is very fundamental to learner motivation and retention.
Progress
Progress means how far you’ve come in your learning journey. Progress requires to answers to questions like -
Where did I start? Where am I now?
How much of the journey is over?
We don’t celebrate progress as much as we should. But pausing to acknowledge how far we’ve come can go a long way in how learners feel about their own learning journeys. Not seeing progress often leads to people giving up their learning journeys mid-way.
Performance
Performance refers to your knowledge or skills at a given point in time. Performance means answering questions like -
How much do I know at a given point of time?
What can I do at a given point of time?
How do I are according to an objective standard test x?
Traditional learning systems focus a lot on performance. While doing away with performance is not the key, it is important to ask where should this come in the learning journey and what value is it adding for the learner. Without being able to gauge our performance - we don’t know if what we know is enough or not.
Whether you are creating learning experiences, or just learning something new - the 3Ps of learning can help you keep learners motivated throughout the learning experiences and create more meaningful learning journeys.
🥜 Team vs Solo Sports
Learning is team sport not a solo sport.
No learning experience should make learners feel that they’re in a zero sum game.
🧠 #4 Consistency & Culture
Consistency & standards → Consistency & culture
Culture is one of the hardest things to build in a learning experience but is the one that has the most profound impact on it. Culture comes from consistently doing something and talking about it.
Learners should know what to expect from a learning environment from the get go. How should they behave, norms, how they feel - all contribute towards culture building. And remember - show don’t tell!
Example:
Having specific rituals for the staring & ending of a session helps anchor the learners and set clear expectations
How a facilitator responds to questions from a learner is one action that can add or take-away from the learning culture in a big way. Do learners feel comfortable enough to ask questions?
💥 Coolest Thing I Learnt this Week
Four Stages of Competence
I came across this thread by Sahil Bloom where he talks about the 4 stages of competence:
Stage 1: Unconscious Incompetence - We don’t know what we don’t know
Stage 2: Conscious Incompetence - We know what we don’t know but haven’t learnt it yet
Stage 3: Conscious Competence - We have learnt something but it requires conscious effort
Stage 4: Unconscious Competence - We can do something without conscious effort
Be aware of what stage you’re at!
Learning = Habit Building
I came across this Tweet by James Clear earlier this week that said -
Learning is like habit building. Momentum can be a great tool to push yourself!
🔦 Spotlight
Last Friday I spoke about what I do as a learning experience designer at the L&D Shakers Career Expo. One of the most common question someone asks me is - “What does a learning experience really do?” I broke down my calendar to make the answer specific and easy to understand. Here is a sneak peak -
Love & Learning
Until we meet next week!
Hope you have a groovy rest of the week!
You can get this directly in your inbox!