MY LETTER TO THE WORLD ( OF EDUCATORS )

      Pope Francis on June 18^th 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)