Learning Nerd’s Diary #99
Welcome back Learning Nerds!
The word of 2024 for me is (🥁 Drumroll please?) - Serendipity. This year I want to cultivate & design for serendipity - sounds ironic right? So as I unpack this word & what it means, this week’s diary is an invitation to peek into my brain!
I should also say, I very naively thought that I was the first person to think about serendipity in learning. I was pleasantly surprised to have discovered a new rabbit hole to deep dive into!
👀 Sneak peak
Here is what I have in store for you this week -
💭 Learning About Learning: How Serendipity Shaped My Learning Journey
🥜 Learning Nugget: Path vs Maze
💥 Coolest Thing I Learnt This Week:
Designing serendipitous learning spaces to foster creativity
Structured serendipity
Assisted serendipity
🔦 Spotlight: The Serendipity Machine
Let's jump right in!
💭 Learning About Learning
Serendipity is a funny word.
I love structure. Naïvely, I used to think serendipity is anti-structure. But that’s far from true. Structure has a very key role to enable serendipity. Here are 4 examples from my learning journey -
📌 Taking over Pin-up Boards
In design school, we used to have these massive boards in our studios. While I was doing a project, I would (shamelessly) take up these pin-up boards and put everything that I was thinking about.
From sketches to brainstorming - these boards almost became an extension of my thoughts. I would sit in front of them for hours with my favourite music blasting in my ears to make connections, find patterns and see what comes out.
As I was doing this, something very interesting started happening - people would come in and start talking to me about my projects. They would ask me what I was working on, offer ideas, brainstorm together and give references. And from being just an extension of my mind, they became spaces of collaboration.
What these boards looked like!
🖼️ Blocking Studio Time
A few years back, I came across the idea of ‘Studio Time’ - an hour of unstructured productive time in a book (Which I can’t remember the name of 🙈) for creative people. I loved it so much that for years I made time for it.
The idea was simple - I would block an hour of my time every day in the morning. I would not plan what I would do at that time. On days I felt like going for a walk with my camera, other days do a bit of colouring or just read a book. It was my one hour to nurture ‘my creative soul’. Years later, when I was reading the book Artist’s Way, she talks about something similar - Artist’s Dates.
It’s crazy how much even an hour a week adds up! Time to maybe bring these back in the new year :)
My ‘Studio Time’ in 2019 - a backpacker’s hostel I was living at!
✍🏻 Posting on LinkedIn
In 2019, during the heights of the first wave - I wrote down the first Learning Nerd’s Diary. I had been what I can a ‘closet writer’ for a long time - writing articles that only existed in my drafts. The diary was very personal and spoke about what I was learning, reading and reflecting on.
I started putting out the Diary on Instagram as stories. And I was so surprised to find so much encouragement from friends & family. People told me that they looked forward to the diary every week. It pushed me further - to write more, and be consistent. And a few months later, it pushed me to write about learning and here we are!
People often ask me about my writing process and what keeps me going week after week. The answer is quite simple really - the conversations it creates. If I was still writing in my drafts, you would not be here today.
Over the years, writing in public has given a new life to random ideas, errand thoughts and musings. It has been a way to grow and sometimes even challenge those ideas. Many minds are always better than just one.
A sneak peak into the first post I did on the Learning Nerd’s Diary
🗣️ Agendaless Conversations
Another thing that came as a result of my writing in public was people reaching out to me to chat. At first, I was quite excited to talk to people. I had just made the transition from a researcher to a learning experience designer, and talking to people who were doing similar work seemed like a great way to learn!
I was lucky to grab a virtual coffee with people from across the globe. Not only did these conversations allow for a great way to expose myself to what was happening all across the globe, I also managed to make some amazing friends in the process.
I know more than anyone that calendars can be sacred - and as adults, we’re constantly struggling to find time to do everything we want to. But by designing these spaces for serendipity - I was able to learn more, grow my network and even find clients along the way!
The first conversation between my co-founder & I - an agenda-less call!
🌰 In a Nutshell
Whether you’re trying to learn yourself or facilitate learning experiences for someone - serendipity is the magic ingredient!
Plan for it, make it happen. Don’t try to over-engineer everything and plan all interactions, leave room for something that comes organically - I promise you that you will be surprised.
🥜 Learning Nuggets
Instead of a fixed path, build a maze for your learners.
It might not be the most efficient way for them to learn, but within its twists and turns lies the magic of serendipity. Transforming learning into an adventure of meaningful connections and insights.
💥 Coolest Thing I Learnt this Week
Designing serendipitous learning spaces to foster creativity
One of the first things I came across as I was researching was this Slideshare from over a decade ago 😱! The article talks about serendipity as a key ingredient for creativity.
It talks about 3 areas to keep in mind while designing for serendipitous learning spaces:
Randomness > Information
Richness > Environment
Readiness > Learner
Structured serendipity
Contrary to what you might think, serendipity can be engineered! So, what is the easiest way to engineer serendipity?
Two ways: varying what you learn and where you learn it.
Assisted Serendipity
If a building doesn’t encourage [collaboration], you’ll lose a lot of innovation and the magic that’s sparked by serendipity. So we designed the building to make people get out of their offices and mingle in the central atrium with people they might not otherwise see.” — Steve Jobs
With the world going back offline, I have been wondering how physical spaces can foster a sense of serendipity far better than online can do. But the question lies to us as designers and educators -
How might we assist serendipity online?
It’s a question I am thinking about a lot these days. If you’d like to chat about it, here is a link to my calendar.
🔦 Spotlight
I LOVE everything that Abracademy does! So it was no surprise to find a ‘Serendipity Machine’ by them. It currently conjures up Team Check-in Questions that are reflective and funny.
Love & Learning & Serendipity
Until we meet next week!
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