For those of you creating workshops of your own, we found some amazing benefits to practicing what we preach. This is a major differentiator for the Institute, actually leveraging brain science, learning research, and more as we learn and contextualize. We utilized the most effective practices from cognitive science, persuasion, and perception strategies in each session. From Interleaving to pattern finding to intentional creation of norepinephrine / dopamine / endorphin moments, we saw the power behind these learning frameworks. Participants had the opportunity to review and reflect often. Attendees also networked like crazy, establishing a community of practice that will follow them home. In other words, I am confident in saying that we all learned. I am also confident that learning will stick.
Friday Campus Connections
Join us every Friday to see how connectedness shows up in “real-world” stories and scenarios. Here are 3 articles, blogs, or other resources that illustrate the power of connectedness. Of course, we’ll keep blogging away too. We hope you’ll stop back by on Monday, to see our newest post. And don’t forget to follow us on twitter (@Ice_Inst_Org). Happy Friday!
Tricksters, and Hustlers, and Cons, Oh My!
Meanwhile, educators have a captive audience of 20-2000 students, every week. You are experts with important and powerful messages of learning, critical thinking, problem solving, and more. These students need your message. These students would benefit from your wisdom and solutions. Yet, without the best practices surrounding connectedness, those same messages are seen as boring or undeserving of attention. With becoming a master teacher, your expertise does little to help these needy students. It is in everyone’s best interest to learn how learning works in every sense of the word!
Friday Campus Connections
Join us every Friday to see how connectedness shows up in “real-world” stories and scenarios. Here are 3 articles, blogs, or other resources that illustrate the power of connectedness. Of course, we’ll keep blogging away too. We hope you’ll stop back by on Monday, to see our newest post. And don’t forget to follow us on twitter (@Ice_Inst_Org). Happy Friday!
If I told you to care about something, would you?
Savvy administrators now realize that placing all of the responsibility and accountability around retention on the academic offices was unfair. For too long we told students what to connect to (academics, programs, instructors, etc), instead of allowing them choices by which to connect to things that mattered to them.
Friday Campus Connections
Join us every Friday to see how connectedness shows up in “real-world” stories and scenarios. We’ll post 3 articles, blogs, or other resources that illustrate the power of connectedness. Of course, we’ll keep blogging away too. We hope you’ll stop back by on Monday, to see our newest post. And don’t forget to follow us on twitter (@Ice_Inst_Org). Happy Friday!
Learning That Sucks…in the best way possible
If you allow a robotic vacuum to work, it will get your floors cleaner than you can yourself. Likewise, if you create a student-led model for learning, and you cultivate it, your students will learn better than through the traditional, teacher-centric model. And learning won’t “suck” either.
Asking Tough Questions (aka, did I destroy my career?)
For almost 25 years I have seen colleges and universities fail when it comes to any kind of holistic approach to the student experience. It doesn’t matter if it’s on-ground or online, students feel disconnected. (Heck, staff and faculty typically feel disconnected…) When someone needs help, it often feels like there is none. When someone is poking around on a computer at 3am trying to find support, there often is none. Why? Because education is a people business. There are only so many hours in the day and only so many channels by which to communicate. Students, faculty, and staff can go hours, days, and sometimes weeks before receiving help.
Which Are You? Professor, Lecturer, Instructor or Teacher?
I don’t want my students to say that I lecture, instruct, or profess. Those are all so unidirectional, it makes me lament. This is one of the major problems with education today – the person at the front of the classroom (and it’s almost always at the front), spewing information upon students with an expectation that they will simply soak it all up and then somehow learn. They often talk instead of listening. They seem to inform far more than creating shared meaning (leading to understanding).
Professional Development – A Better Approach?
We will get our audience to do, as we show and tell, before reviewing and asking along the way. We will not only help people understand the nuances of critical (modern) learning research specific to Interleaving, Spaced Repetition, the Cognitive Science of learning, Varied Instruction, Generative learning, and Desirable Difficulties, but we will practice these methods at the same time.