Future of Learning Top Reads for week of Jan 6 2020
“The Transformer CLO,” by Abbie Lundberg and George Westerman, in Harvard Business Review
“Cargill gets at the three I’s in a slightly different order, moving from instruction to immersion to introspection, in what it calls its application challenge. In this model, employees are taught a concept or small lesson, which they apply immediately. They then fill out a field report describing how things went, what they learned, and what questions they have, or they present a sample work product, such as a new type of data model they learned to build, and solicit feedback from their cohort. The idea, Dervin told us, is to ‘design an experience and integrate it tightly with the work so it’s relevant, using bite-sized content so that it’s just what they need when they need it.’ Such ‘microlearning’ is an increasingly important tool in today’s learning arsenal.”
Why does this matter to the future of learning?
CLO = Chief Learning Officer. While there are plenty of differences between corporate learning and K12 + higher ed, there are also common fundamental principles.
For example: people have not actually learned until they transfer and apply what they think they know to a new context. (Otherwise, it’s just memorization.)
At the same time, application of learning should be balanced with the more reflective development of mental models.
If corporate “microlearning” can put those two approaches together, it may become a powerful 1-2 punch. And maybe migrate from corporate contexts to K12 and higher ed contexts.
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“4 major education trends that will influence schools in 2020,” in Study International News
“Parents who choose to homeschool their kids have plenty of support nowadays thanks to technology. If they have gaps in their knowledge or are unable to teach a subject effectively, they can use online modules or face-to-face classes in a more traditional schooling environment to supplement their education.
“This is known as hybrid homeschooling, and it’s predicted to become more popular in years to come. It allows for more flexibility, particularly for parents who want to homeschool their children but are unable in one way or another to do so.”
Why does this matter to the future of learning?
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the homeschooling market nearly doubled between 1999 and 2016. As “hybrid homeschooling” evolves, we expect that number to continue to grow.
And in an age of contracting demographics: 1) the pie getting smaller; and 2) someone else is taking a bigger piece. Double whammy.
On the other hand, do under-enrolled schools have an opportunity to offer fractional services to hybrid homeschoolers for supplementary revenue?
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“The Novice to Expert Shift,” by Emily Boudreau, in Usable Knowledge by Harvard GSE
“Joyal — executive director for MEDscience — and the team noticed that as their problem-based curriculum progressed, students changed the way they approached problems. Rather than waiting for the teacher to give them answers, they made hypotheses based on existing knowledge, discussed their thoughts with their teams, and took risks — all signs of deeper-level learning. […]
“The research team found that the thinking scaffolds — the prompts and support instructors used to guide students through the curriculum and activities — were instrumental in generating a shift towards more expert-level reasoning.
“ ‘We know that experts pay attention to a very different set of patterns than novices often do. Novices get caught up in the surface features and can’t necessarily see the deep principles,’ Grotzer says. ‘It’s really important to think what kind of scaffolding helps people take steps towards greater expertise in their thinking and reasoning.’”
Why does this matter to the future of learning?
With the caveat that this was a small sample size, this study validates that:
project-based learning is highly effective, as long as…
…the teacher scaffolds the experience in ways that empowers students to move from novice to expert.
There is a big difference between “doing projects” (which keep students stuck at a novice level) and doing project-based learning (which is “deeper learning”).
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Question of the week:
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