Own Your Words

I had a bright idea.

I'd pass index cards around at the meeting and have people write their personal definitions of "significant learning experiences." But I ran into a snag.

What I really wanted to do was attach them (as comments) to the earlier post "What is an SLE?" as comments.

But there was a problem.

I didn't want to allow anonymous posts or comments.

In the 90s there was a famous online virtual community called The Well. There were incredible conversations including some of the most brilliant people around. But The Well had one rule that is quite different from the Internet of today. You had to reveal who you were. "You own your words" was the oft stated principle.

I have a feeling that the Internet of today would be much better if such a rule existed. Unfortunately that boat has left the dock.

But not here. On the blogs that I administer the rules of The Well will be observed.

PS. Here are the index card definitions I picked up at the meeting. Some of them are quite good.

A SIGNIFICANT LEARNING EXPERIENCE IS:

1. Learning that causes one to see things / the world, etc ... differently, to see new/different connections.

2. An emotional intellectual and behavioral event that is life changing.

3. When the students are engaged in a risk-free learning environment and have a sense of success.

4. When I can do something I couldn't do before -- and remember it the next day or longer.

6. When I know/see/understanding in a new way.

7. Something that can be applied outside a classroom or enhance further learning.

8. Understanding a concept or information and the ability to apply that learning to future learning/ working experiences.

9. One that can be transferred between settings and reinforced in a personally meaningful way for long term memory.

10. Something that effects my mind and behavior. Involved with someone / something that is new and important to me.

11. An experience that is based on the need to know.

Opportunities for Learning and Change

In July I visited a friend in Boston who is in her last year at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Being both the nosy type and a book lover, I did my usual routine -- I browsed her book shelf. My eyes fell upon a thin green book, The New Taxonomy of Educational Objectives by Robert Marzano and John Kendall (2nd ed).

Of course, this isn't exactly bed side reading material -- but it immediately caught my interest because of my involvement with the Learning Frameworks Committee.

My friend explained that this was her professor's choice as the best update of Bloom's work. The original publication came out in 1956 and I knew that there have been many attempts to correct and revise Bloom. But given the prestige of this recommendation, I decided to spend some time with Marzano and Kendall.

To make a long story short, I was incredibly impressed.

And I instantly saw an application for Frameworks since I knew that Bloom was one of the theories included in the Russ Hodges material.

I make no claim to have absorbed the whole book. But just reading the first chapter (which is conveniently available in Google Books) was enough for me. Actually pages 10-12 were enough. The authors call it the Model of Behavior that undergirds the New Taxonomy.




I can't say for sure why it resonated so perfectly for me. It's probably because of the way that it brings motivation and metacognition into the forefront. Learning and change begin with the self-system and a decision whether or not to engage. The strength of that engagement determines the extent to which a metacognitive system is employeed, and finally the cognitive system does its work. Each of the three "mental systems" works on and with the individual's store of knowledge.

I'm an intuitive so perhaps I'm making too much of a leap here. But what I saw in this was a compelling way to organize the material in the Learning Frameworks course. Begin with the self-system, then move through the other components. There's a logic to this if Marzano is correct when he says these are steps and represent "how information is processed once a decision to engage has been made. (11)

Here's what he says about the primacy of self-system thinking.

"The self-system consists of an interrelated arrangement of attitudes, beliefs, and emotions. It is the interaction of thee attitudes, beliefs, and emotions that determines both motivation and attention. The self-system determines whether an individual will engage in or disengage in a given task; it also determines how much energy the individual will bring to the task. Once the self-system has determined what will be be attended to, the functioning of all other elements of thought (i.e., the metacognitive system, the cognitive system, and the knowledge domains) are, to a certain extent, dedicated or determined. This is why the act of the self-system's selecting a task has been referred to as 'crossing the Rubicon.' " (55)

Once the Rubicon is crossed, the next system falls naturally into place. The metacognitive system is the system of goals, strategy, and self monitoring that provides the structure which enables the cognitive functions (retrieval, comprehension, analysis, and utilization) to succeed.

Knowledge is a whole other thing probably deserving it's own separate blog post. And that's convenient because I've run out of writing steam and I expect you're probably nearing your supply of reading steam as well. :)

What is an SLE ?

The road map provided by Dee Fink's approach to creating new courses is premised on two powerful ideas : 1) Integrated Course Design and 2) Significant Learning Experiences (SLE's).

The first idea -- Integrated Course Design-- means you design all the key ingredients (goals, activities, and assessment) from the very beginning so that everything functions as a balanced system. This is rarely done. It's nearly always the case that content (what is to be taught and learned) takes precedence over everything else.

The second idea -- Significant learning experiences -- means ... Well, what exactly does it mean?

Setting aside Fink's technical definition for the moment, what does it mean to you? And what in your experience illustrates it?

If we were sitting together and wanted to enrich our understanding of significant learning experiences, I'd recommend we do one of two things (or maybe both).

First. A sentence completion using the following stem: "A significant learning experience is ... "

Or you might like this one better: "You know its a significant learning experience when..."

If we were then to share those personal definitions, we'd find that each one of them would add some small dimension to our shared perception of the concept.

Second. If some of us were willing to share a particular memory of a significant learning experience, that too would enrich our understanding and become part of our shared, constructed meaning. And if we'd put on our "analytical hats" just for a few moments and share specifically what made those experiences significant, we'd move forward a tiny bit more. The more we did this kind of thing the deeper our understanding of significant learning experiences would become.

Ummmmmm. It occurs to me that we COULD do this ... using this blog.

If you're willing to share, send your definitions and stories to garyduke.siglearningx@blogger.com. The e-mail will be immediately posted to our blog DCCCD Significant Learning Experiences. The subject line will be the post title and the text of your e-mail will be the text of the blog. This is the quick and easy way to do it.

If you want to contribute to this blog, contact Gary Duke and let him know you'd like to be an "authorized blogger." He'll send you an invitation.

PS. If you're not sure of any of this, but you'd like to comment on something here, all you have to do is click on the Comment link. The comment will appear without your name unless you type it as part of the comment. If you're logged into your Google account, your name will appear automatically.

Come on. Join in the fun. :)

Creating Significant Learning Experiences

In the summer of 2003 I was lucky enough to attend Teaching for a Change, a week long conference for community college folks focused entirely on the improvement of teaching. That year it was in Park City, Utah, a not too shabby location for a professional conference.

Though the conference is small -- Richland is one of the sponsors-- it is incredibly rich. I met people there from all over the world who had uncovered it in a web search and decided to take a shot. I talked to many of them and they were never disappointed. Lots of folks said it was the best conference they'd ever attended.

It was there that I was introduced to the work of Dee Fink.

It wasn't like there was a whole program on him. He was really only mentioned in the context of a class that Al Schroeder and I attended about "Constructing Good Tests." It sounded like a real snoozer. We only went because there was absolutely nothing being offered that hour. It turned out to be incredibly enlightening. I eventually realized it was because it was built on the principles of something called "integrated course design" which is the brain child of Dee Fink and his associates at The University of Oklahoma.

Fink started as a geographer but soon realized he loved helping other instructors improve their teaching. He founded the Instructional Development Program at OU in 1979. Most of his work these days is traveling the country giving workshops on how to create new college courses using the principles of integrated course design.

It wasn't too long after the conference that I got notice of the publication of his seminal work, Creating Significant Learning Experiences (Jossey-Bass, 2003). As always, the book provides the most in-depth, sophisticated presentation of the ideas. But there are other ways to get the basics including a powerpoint and a web site. A think that probably a close, careful reading of the 34 page A Self-Directed Guide to Designing Courses for Significant Learning is the very best way, short of reading the whole book (which I plan to do this summer). Anyone else up for the challenge ?

I consider myself privileged to serve on the Core Curriculum Committee charged with the design of the new Learning Frameworks class to begin in 2010. I think The Self-Directed Guide provides the best road map I've seen for creating a class that can be "truly significant" in the DCCCD.