MY LETTER TO THE WORLD ( OF EDUCATORS )
Pope Francis on
June 18th 2015 published a letter ( an encyclical entitled Laudatum Si: Praise Be to You, Lord). He
boldly announced:
This
is not a letter to the churches; this is a letter to every single human being
in the world today.
Such hutzbah! Bold indeed. As he
spoke in his letter of our need to “care for our common home” his boldness was
entirely comprehensible: This is everyone’s home – our common home.
The Pope gave me an idea and courage. As I read his bold modeling , I realized I
had to speak out. This is my letter (
Thank you, Francis! ) to the world of educators. As James E Zull , educator
extraordinaire, says
If you have children, you are an educator.
You (join) all other educators in schools, businesses, and professions, or in
our schools and institutions of higher education. This actually includes most
adults. 1
So I ‘boldly go where few educators dare to go’
and address this letter to the world of parents, grandparents, teachers, professors,
trainers in industry, the military, medicine, politics and law. As Zull says: This actually includes most adults.
So, listen up.
THE TECHNOLOGY OF
LEARNING
We know more
about learning and how it occurs today than ever before in history. I am
grateful to be alive today to share the daily returns from a stock market of
neuroscientific, biologic, epistemological and process research that goes only
in one direction: UP! No bulls and bears
here: we are learning apace about learning.
The system I designed from my years of
experience teaching in more than forty countries around the world, and from my
relentless reading and study is simple and accessible. It is now called
Dialogue Education, as we doff our hats to Paulo Freire, David Bohm, John Dewey
David Kolb and Jean Piaget and all those on whose shoulders we stand
today. These prescient visionaries saw
what the brain was doing long before the fMRI opened our eyes to the wonder
within.
A SIMPLE SYSTEM WITH FOUR MOVING PARTS
PART ONE: PREPARATION
Learn your learners. Design
for them.
Learn
Before we teach anything, we must discover the context and prior
experience of the learners. Such a
simple task: listen to them! Ask them an open question! Take them out for lunch or even for a cup of
coffee. Listen and observe. Invite their
response to the plan of the learning session.
Listen to them! Affirm their
experience and their perceptions and their hopes for the learning. Your listening will inform the educational
content and process.
Such listening
will develop a unique relationship between educator and learners. “ Are
we partners in this?” they will ask, in awe . “Indeed, we are,” you will
respond. They are the
Subjects ( decision-makers) of their own
learning because that’s how the brain works: connecting new stimuli to the experience and present context
of the learner! You have to know their
context and experience so that you can present new content in that language.
Design. This
system has a simple framework for designing a learning session: Eight Design
Steps: Who? Why? So That? When? Where? What? What for? How?
WHO: the
learners, the leader: informed by data from the LNRA ( Learning Needs and
Resources Assessment ) - described above
WHY: the situation that demands this
educational event
SO THAT: behavioral indicators of learning and
transfer of learning that the learners will manifest at the end of the session
WHEN: the time frame for face to face contact ( or online contact ) with learners
WHERE: the site : everything about it!
WHAT: the content; spelled out as nouns
showing cognitive, affective, psychomotor aspects (ideas, feelings, actions)
WHAT FOR: achievement based objectives: taking the content and using tough, productive
verbs to name what learners will have done with the content in order to learn
it. By the end of this time frame, all
will have… (The Future Perfect Tense marks a covenant with learners)
HOW: the learning tasks and the materials : shaping those achievement based
objectives into learning tasks which are tasks for the learner.
These Eight Design Steps are a checklist to assure
inclusive, comprehensive learning. This preparation part of the system of
Dialogue Education takes time, a great deal of time.
PART TWO: A
PRINCIPLED APPROACH
Every word, every thing you do in
preparing the learning sessions and leading them can be guided by these simple
principles and practices:
Respect the
learners explicitly, gently, inclusively! They are the Subjects
(decision-makers) of any educational event. This is the prime principle for
learning.
Engage learners in
all aspects of the planning and teaching: engage all learners in all aspects!
Safety: let all learners know they are safe in your
hands whether you are parent, professor or boss. Safety measures calm the amygdala in the
brain which inhibits learning when stirred by fear or intimidation.
Sequence and
Reinforcement : Move the learning process in a carefully sequenced manner: from simple to more
complex, from easy to more difficult, from small to large. And reinforce that movement consistently
with iteration and creative repetition.
Small groups of peers carry weight. I
listen to my peers. I learn from them because our context and experience is
often close. In the small group I can
feel safe to try on a new idea or skill; in the small group I can be challenged
when I am inconsistent or downright wrong.
CAP : Cognitive/Affective/Psychomotor:
This principle names the three elements in learning: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor:
ideas, feelings, actions. Every effective learning experience somehow
incorporates all three elements.
Open Questions invite
dialogue. As you ask an open question (to which there is no single answer
), push back against your chair and sit
quietly. Listen. Learners are learning, as they connect your question to their
experience and context, to their present knowledge. The open question is prime!
The Learning Needs
and Resources Assessment {LNRA} is the first step in design: Listen to the
learners and continue to listen as the course or class or workshop unfolds. The
LNRA never ends.
(cf Part One above )
Lavish affirmation
is again both a principle and a practice: authentic, generous praise puts the
sensitive amygdala at rest and enables the learner to deal with tough new
concepts, attitudes or skills with confidence. Lavish – can be seen here as an adjective or as a verb. Do
it! Do it well.
Role clarity is
essential in a educational setting: who does what, and when? Boundaries are
real: For example, the teacher has the
responsibility to design the course. Data from the LNRA informs her decisions; does not form them.
Praxis: Action with Reflection is shaped by
the open question, which invites learners to think about the content in terms
of their experience and context. This is not faithful practice, but praxis: a three fold element: do it,
consider what you did and then re-do it .
Accountability: We are accountable to learners to teach
all we have covenanted to teach in the learning design. We are accountable to all for all.
PART THREE: THE PROCESS: LEARNING TASKS
A learning task is an open question put to a small group who have all the resources they need to respond.
A learning task is a task for the learner: it shows him what
he is to do with the given content in order to learn it. A learning task is designed with verbs that demand action and reflection,
and a product for evaluation.
A learning task has four simple parts:
i. Inductive work
that connects new content to the learner’s context; This is sometimes called anchoring.
ii. Input that presents new content as
ideas, attitudes or skills. This is
sometimes called adding.
iii. Implementation that
invites learners to do something with the new content; sometimes called acting.
iv. Integration that moves the new content
into their context, sometimes called away.
For example, here’s a learning task.
Learning Task # 1 Principles and Practices
1 A In pairs, name one thing you do as you teach that
you know helps learners learn… We’ll hear all you share. (INDUCTIVE /ANCHORING)
1 B Read over the list of principles and
practices above, circling those that
seem useful to you in your work or life.
We’ll hear what you circled.
(INPUT/ADD)
1 C In new pairs,
each select one of those principles/practices that will be immediately useful in your life/work
and tell what you will do to
incorporate it.We’ll hear a sample. (IMPLEMENTATION/ACT)
I D Each, draw a picture, or write a descriptive paragraph of a scene from your work site to
show you using that principle/practice with your clients.
(INTEGRATION/AWAY)
Notice that the learning task has a title. Notice the verbs in a learning task are
actions for the learners to do.
PART FOUR: PROOF OF LEARNING: EVALUATION INDICATORS
Going back to the Design Step: SO THAT, describe what you have seen of behaviors of
learners that indicate they know they
know the content you have taught . These are indicators of learning, immediately
evident in the session.
Behavioral indicators
of transfer are what learners do when they get back to their own context,
or lives. They can send pictures or
descriptive paragraphs of their actions.
Indicators of impact show changes in systems,
families, organizations, neighborhoods that have occurred as a function of the
new consciousness that emerges from new behaviors. Impact is usually a long range result.
This is the Berardinelli Theory of Impact which is found in
the text HOW DO THEY KNOW THEY KNOW
(1998) 2
That is my letter to the world of educators. Please respond:
janekvella@gmail.com; or
comment here on Blogspot.
Sincerely,
Jane
1. Zull, James E.
From Brain to Mind Sterling, VA Stylus
(2011) p. 4
2. Berardinelli,
Paula, James Burrows, Jane Vella, How Do
They Know They Know , San Francisco, Jossey Bass (1998)
