Teaching can undermine discovery.

Wired recently published an article online about research that shows how over-directive teaching can hinder exploration in children.  In one study, children were shown a toy that had three interactive portions - I assume a beep, bloop and a clunk - by a teacher.  The teacher explained that a button on the device produced the beep.  The kids played with it for a little bit and most never discovered the extra functionality.  In a second group within the study, the teacher introduced g the device and acted surprised as the button produced the beep. They commented on their surprise and then gave the toy to the kids.  The kids played with the device for much longer and most discovered all three functions thorugh discovery. The conclusion is was that over-directive teaching hinders exploratory behavior.  When kids were told what a device did, they didn't look for other possibilities. 

This article poses some interesting questions for adult education.  First, and most important, Can this be applied to adults?  Given that my practice and the activities I build education around are based on a discovery learning philosophy, I obliviously think so.  Why? The drive to explore is an inherent one for humans.  It's a heterostatic drive to expand our understanding of the world.   The wired article sounds a note of warning that is valid, though.  They suggest that all kids are scientists by nature, but warn that we eliminate that from so many of their identities.  12-20 years of education teaches children to look for the one right answer, and when they have it, to move on.  Exploration and inquisition is rarely rewarded in our schools.  

That brings up another question. How do you integrate findings like this into adult education? My answer: carefully.  Valuing exploration in and of itself can be a problem for an L&E practitioner.  While exploration is a useful skill and attitude to have, it may not be what a training program is meant to foster.  In fact, most training programs are meant to direct behavior at the end of the program.   A specific new skill, new attitude or new knowledge is the outcome of most training.  Exploration needs to be bounded to be useful. 

Boundaries of exploration are another place to take care.  False exploration is a great underminer of education.  I once facilitated a team building program where the client manager asked for "an opportunity to explore leadership and teamwork".  When the group arrived, it was clear that the manager had a different goal in mind.  His behavior showed that he wanted his team to share his own conclusions on leadership and teamwork.  He thought that exploration was a great way to create 'buy in', but he wanted a very specific conclusion.  The result? A demotivated team and a dissatisfied leader.

Exploration is a key skill when encountering novel contexts, like the children and the toy.  It is also a great way to use an intrinsic motivation to encourage learning. The key to using exploratory learning is to use it for parts of your educational program where there is no clear answer, where an open discussion is permitted, and where the participants can shape the conclusions of the learning.

All-volunteer classroom

I recently had a great lunch with Steve Mahaley from Duke Corporate Education and our talk ranged from communities to social media to games and gamification. Our most interesting discussion was about how a training program is like a game. Or, rather, how it can be like a game when its good and how the differences between a program and a game points out some of the inherent challenges to programs. 

One definition that sticks out is Bernard Suit's' - - playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles. Steve was particularly interested in this in parallel to training. We often do not get voluntary participants. People are forced to come to programs and consequently, it undermines the implementation of other game mechanics. 

How do we overcome the challenge of voluntary participation? Motivation and connection. Adult Learning models assume that engaged learning requires voluntary desire - or at least coerced desire. Andragogy suggests that we let the participants know what they will learner and why it is significant. This is why a roadmap of the program and a contextualizing from leadership are essential early in the schedule. Also, andragogy reminds educators that motivation in adult is increasingly intrinsic. This doesn't mean that extrinsic motivation is ineffective - people do participate in trainings in order to get promotions and raises - but that without intrinsic motivators, participation will not be as engaged. 

Voluntary, engaged participation is often called 'buy in' (a game metaphor from poker!). Once buy-in has been achieved, it needs to be constantly re-earned. This is true in games as well, but is often overlooked. Because games are voluntary, players can walk away at any time. Not only that, but players can ignore/break/challenge the rules at any time and still stay in the game. My son pointed this out to me recently. And by 'pointed this out' I mean he changed the rules during a game because it wasn't going the way he wanted. He didn’t buy in to the game anymore, so he changed it.  Games handle this need for regular buy-in by offering regular feedback and chances to achieve goals that break up the process.  This is another thing we can incorporate into adult education to keep people interested – What’s the prize for winning the week?  How do I know I am doing a good job during the session? 

In our lunch, Steve wondered if we could get to a point in corporate education where participants are all voluntary.  I’m not confident that will happen.  However, I think a smart combination of adult learning principles and game mechanics can really help gain and keep volunteers in the classroom.



Andragogy and Authority

I was looking at the Andragogy group on LinkedIn and the question of what makes a llearner an adult learner came up. They discussed age, social responsibility, self-determination, and economic power.  The problem with this discussion is that it looks at the question in regard to the learner all by herself.  The discussion ignores the fact that 'learner' is a relational construct.  You can't be a learner without someone else as an educator.  It may be a teacher, an author, a role model.  But learning is a social phenomenon.  And the difference between how an adult and a child interact with a teacher is the key to andragogy.  

This key is best understood through Alan Fiske's relational forms.  Fiske is an anthropologist who has developed a model of four fundamental relational forms.  Each relationship has elements of all four, but one is predominant.  These relational forms are: 

Authority Ranking - One person is the boss, father, rule-maker and protector while the other person is subordinate, child, rule-follower (usually) and protected

Communal Sharing - Two people equally own responsibility, property, affect, experience

Equality Matching - Balance is maintained on social metrics - taking turns, exchanging gifts, eye-for-an-eye revenge, one-person-one-vote. 

Market Pricing - Relationship mediated by a ratio of value - money, property, time - were parties evaluate the price and do not worry about equality in the distribution of value. 

In primary school, the Authority Ranking form is the core characteristic of the student-teacher relationship. Teachers are authorities who know more, create and enforce rules of conduct and evaluate students.  This foundation is not feasible for adult education, because the relationship shifts.  When a child meets and adult, Authority Ranking is a default relational foundation.  When an adult meets another adult, that is no longer true.  Equality Matching and Market Pricing are the relational foundation until the relationship establishes.    And establishing the authority for Authority Ranking can be a challenge with adults, for many of reasons that andragogy gives for teaching differently. 

An adult who is moving towards intrinsic motivation and has real-world experience is not easily swayed by a teacher's approval or disapproval and has a base to evaluate whether a teacher is full of crap or has relevant expertise to share.  

So when is an adult an adult?  When they no longer treat the teacher as an authority figure.  When they approach the relationship from a different form - be it Market pricing, Equality Matching or Communal Sharing.  I won't speculate here on the ideal relational foundation for adult education - I'll save that for some later time.  But I will propose this new definition for Andragogy: the art and science of teaching people who don't Respect your Authority.

 

Good Signs

Education is Design (I'll write on that soon). Specifically, design that is aimed at changing behavior in specific ways. As such, a good sign is good educaiton.

I'm testing out tumblr as a hos for a good sign phot blog. It will be the location for signs that I find particularly fine education.

Here's the link = goodsigns.tumblr.com

Self-directed learning and web design

I was assigned a self-directed learning prooject for one of my early doctoral classes.  As funny as it sounds - an assigned self-directed project - it was a good experience. 

I chose to learn how to design my business website.  I spent weeks trying to learn code.  Too hard. Trying to biuld a site with MS Office.  Too ugly.  Trying to use Dreamweaver.  Too expensive.  After all this time, looking at screens, googling for answers, reading FAQ's, watching tutorials, I produced a pretty crappy website. 

When it came time to present our learning projects, I was upstaged by another classmate. He made an amazing website for his club.  Pretty graphics, great leayout, clean lines.  How did he do it?  He wasn't a genius code monkey.  We dind't spend more hours on the work than I did.  The thing he did differently?  He asked a friend.  He looked to people he knew who knew how to make web pages and he asked for help. 

It was a revelation to me.   Self-directed learning didn't mean learning by yourself.  It changed how I saw learning.  Turns out, early reaserch in self-direceted learning found this to be true.  Allen Tough pioneered research in self-directed learning in the late 1960's.  He found that after deciding on something to learn, one of the next step that an adult learner takes is to look to who she knows who might be able to help her move forward in learning the new topic. 

This realization helped move me to loook into social network analysis and learning, the root of my doctoral dissertation. It's also why my website keeps going through redesigns.  I'm still trying to build it myself.  But at least I am using a good service this time.

Photo from mutednaryan on Flickr.