Learning Nerd’s Diary #43
Welcome back Learning Nerds!
👀 Sneak peak
Here is what I have in store for you this week -
💭 Learning About Learning: Learning Museums 101
🥜 Learning Nugget: Marathon vs Sprint
🧠 Learning Heuristics: No.06 Application over Recall
💥 Coolest Thing I Learnt This Week:
Content is like Toys
4 Needs for Human Engagement by Tanmay Vora
Learning & Doing by Sahil Bloom
🔦 Spotlight: Design your Routine (Feedback please!)
Let's jump right in!
💭 Learning Museums 101
In 5th grade, I stepped up a craft exhibition in my living room. I’d spent my summer break making bookmarks with pressed flowers, painting cards, and making homemade candles. It was my mother’s idea to do an exhibition, invite our friends and family over and sell things I’d learnt over the summer. I was thrilled! Not because people bought what I made, but because I was able to see 2 months of work in front of me and share it with people.
Decades later, this memory is as fresh as new. As an 11 year old who taught herself new crafts that moment meant something to me. It’s something that no exam or no score could ever capture.
This is my story, but what do you think is more important -
What you know
What you can do with what you know
My guess is you picked the latter.
Traditional ways of measuring learning focus on the end result or what you know. But learning is so much more than that! How do you capture that?
Here is where learning museums can help!
Learning Museums make learning 👁️ Visible 👋 Tangible ♥️ Shareable. Let us unpack these -
👁️ Visible
Documenting learning brings alive the output and the process.
For a learner, this helps in deepening learning
For a facilitator this helps look at the learning process holistically
Here are some examples:
Exploring new recipes and teach others to cook on my Instagram page by capturing and annotating each step in the process
Asking students to make memes based on a chemistry topic they studied
Putting together a presentation for my team after attending an online course
👋 Tangible
Creating an artefact helps in applying the learning.
For a learner, this leads to better retention while building learning lateral skills like communication and problem solving
For a facilitator, this helps gauge competency & how well learners are able to apply their learnings
Here are some examples:
Creating a narrative of a foot soldier in the Mughal army as part of a history homework I got in 7th grade
An 8th-grade student reimagining Memories by Coldplay to remember science formulae
Workbooks at a live session to guide the breakout room discussion with peers
♥️ Shareable
Sharing learning with people helps in getting diverse perspectives on the same thing.
For a learner a celebration of their learning makes them feel proud and accomplished
For a facilitator, this helps in getting feedback on the learning experiences they created
Here are some examples:
The last year of design school requires you to display the work you have done over 4 years in one place
Openhouse student portfolios - a place where parents and teachers could have a look at what students were doing in class
Writing in public - a 30-day atomic writing challenge I took last year where I wrote and published an article every day for 30 days
🎪 Learning Museums
Learning Museums are a powerful tool to measure progress, achievement, effort, and competency.
So the next time you’re creating a learning experience, ask yourself 2 questions -
What are you measuring?
How can you make the learning tangible, visible & shareable?
This article was originally published in Offbeat Issue No 110. You can check it out here
🥜 Marathon vs Sprint
Is your learning a marathon or a sprint?
The answer will be different in different contexts. Act accordingly.
🧠 #6 Application over Recall
Recognition over recall → Application over recall
A large amount of learning experiences test memory or “How much we know” but learning is more than just acquiring knowledge. Instead, we need to focus on application or “How much we can do”.
With large amounts of knowledge accessible to us at the click of a button, what we do with that information has become more important.
Example:
Instead of focusing on memorising different formulae in algebra, focus on the real-life applications of the same
Instead of getting your learners to memorise the definition of Archimedes Principle, ask them what would happen if it didn't exist?
💥 Coolest Thing I Learnt this Week
Content is like Toys
More often than not we think learning is content consumption, but it’s so much more than that. Here is an analogy that really drives this home -
Every kid (read: department) needs her own particular toys. But the adults/bosses (read: C-suite) also tend to buy toys they think are “cool” or “must-have” for whatever reason.
These toys all have different functions, but, in aggregate, there are way too many toys.
Just like toys scattered all over your house, some day you’ll need to make some tough (tearful) choices and donate/throw out some of those toys (learning content).
(Source)
4 Human Needs for Engagement
I came across this post earlier this week -
Even though the context of the post is wrt retaining employees, I feel these 4 things are true in the context of learning as well!
Learners need tryst, home, a sense of worth and need to feel competent in order to feel engaged in a learning experience.
Learning & Doing
🔦 Spotlight
More an ask this week. I’m taking an online course and I’d love some feedback on my first project -
The above is a snapshot from a landing page I have made on a new course I’m working on - Design your Routine. I’d love some feedback on it - the good, the bad & the ugly. It will take you only 2 mins. Help me!
Love & Learning
Until we meet next week! Here is something to make you laugh till then -
You can get this directly in your inbox!