Learning Nerd’s Diary #70
Welcome back Learning Nerds!
You know that saying - "You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most amount of time with". I'm fortunate enough to be surrounded by some amazing people and would not be doing what I am doing without them. But how do you build that for your learners? Let's find out!
👀 Sneak peak
Here is what I have in store for you this week -
💭 Learning About Learning: Tetris vs Snake Learning
🥜 Learning Nugget: Building Learning Tribes
💥 Coolest Thing I Learnt This Week:
Ambitious People Need Each Other
Design for Belonging
Community - A Noob’s Guide
🔦 Spotlight: LxD Lab
Let's jump right in!
💭 Learning About Learning
My school was fairly radical for its time. One of the biggest reasons is because there was no competition, EVER. They believed that your biggest competition is your previous self. And as a result reimagined the whole system around that. To give you a few examples, instead of -
Revealing who came first in class → You were compared to your own previous scores
Giving a first prize in elocution → All people who did well got certificates
Racing to win → You raced to make the time-cut offs and ‘qualified’
I spent 14 years in this system and it really shaped the way I look at the world and people around me. So imagine my surprise when I landed up in college and realised that most people are actually quite competitive and you can’t really blame them. They believe in what I call a Snake Mindset to learning -
Snake Mindset aka learning to win
Most schools advocate that learning is a zero sum game - in order for me to come first, someone else needs to come second. You’re in the race to score the highest. Learning becomes an individual activity.
The real world is quite different though. In the real world, the Tetris Mindset to learning rules -
Tetris Mindset aka learning to build
The world today is built on the currency of collaboration. You build on top of each other’s ideas. You’re running in a relay not a race. Learning is a team sport.
With a Tetris mindset, build on top of others’ ideas and learn new things.
As Bruce Lee once said, “Absorb what is useful, reject what’s useless, add what is essentially your own.”
🥜 Learning Nuggets
Want to make learner motivation last longer?
Make them feel a part of a tribe. Transform personal challenges to a shared one.
💥 Coolest Thing I Learnt this Week
Ambitious People Need Each Other
Came across this article by David Perell. Here is an excerpt from the article I love:
Without like-minded peers, ambitious people become suffocated by life — chained by tall poppy syndrome and the dogmas of complacency.
As social creatures, humans need to feel validated by their peers in order to go all in on who they are. We become like the people around us, so it’s hard to sustain ambition in a complacent environment.
Design for Belonging
Designing a sense of belonging can lead to transformation learning outcomes. I came across this amazing article by Dr Philippa Hardman on how to design for belonging:
1. 🔍 Do Your Discovery: Understand your learner better
2. 💬 Design Collaborative Projects: Create opportunities to discuss/ share/ co-create
3. 📚 Diversify Your Curriculum: Challenge dominant narratives & stereotypes
Community - A Noob’s Guide
Here is a visual guide I’d put together on how I was looking at community after attending a conference. Check it out!
🔦 Spotlight
Last week Harsh Doshi & I kicked off the LxD Lab!
A small community of 20 learning experience designers based in India designing online learning experiences 💥
Over the next 3 months we plan to publish a short handbook on designing effective online learning experiences, that combines research and on-field practices. 📒
Does this pique your interest? Fill up this form & we will stay in touch!
Love & Learning
And thank you for being a part of my tribe. Until we meet next week!
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