Approximate Like a Champ

PROLOGUE

Mr. Crowley. There have been many in my almost six decades of life who have helped me in one way or another. This man stands out for setting me on a path that I didn’t even know I was on.

APPROXIMATE

My second trimester at DeVry Institute of Technology, Mr. Crowley taught analog circuit analysis. He taught a design technique that I use every day in my craft and elsewhere: approximations.

The design technique he espoused involved looking at a problem or solution in stages. The first stage was ideally. How does the circuit operate without losses or constraints? Each successive approximation drew closer to real-world conditions.

LIKE A CHAMP

My instructional design craft continues to take advantage of approximations. How would genius hour, a learning strategy I learned about at EdCamps, work with adult learners? First pass: It would be awesome. Motivated learners would.. The second pass through I’d add a real-world constraint like, say, a union contract that places limits on how and where workers can learn.

This, of course, guides me in identifying problems and steers me towards teaching and learning strategies that work in my environment.

“Approximations work like a champ.” I recall Mr. Crowley saying often. He was right.

EPILOGUE

How will I become someone’s champion? If it works with others like it did with me then I probably already have done or said something to help someone launch or continue boldly on their way.

Class Act

PROLOGUE

#AprilBlogaDay Day 6 is about an awe inspiring moment in the classroom today.

CLASS

I design training for adult learners. I don't get in the classroom much anymore unfortunately. Earlier today I was working with other designers on a project. My piece was coming up with instructional methods to help with engagement.

 

ACT

I'll just say it: I can't draw. This morning @ChristyCate inspired me and reminded me of something. If I don't act now, when? Let me say it a little differently. If I don't act, then?

EPILOGUE

So I acted and drew. I have to remember that the best way for me to design engaging learning experiences is to really engage in the process. I need to be fearless, ask for help, and stretch. I like to think I'm always learning. So today in my social learning classroom I was inspired.

 

Cache Shoes

PROLOGUE

I spend a lot of time in the country. Silos dot this landscape. Though I have no direct knowledge of their operation, the sort of hard-won experience earned through sweat and toil, I'm pretty sure they're used to store stuff like grain and whatnot. When I thought about what to blog on AprilBlogADay Day 5 silos immediately popped into my head.

CACHE

Silos are full of stuff. What stuff? No idea. That is to say, you have to be in the silo to know what's inside.

 

When I think about ways to move education forwards the first constraint I come up with is silos. I do instructional design. I've produced learning experiences for learners in academia, in the corporate realm (financial services and high technology manufacturing), K-12, and government. I've been able to glimpse inside some of the silos, K-12s mostly; however my deepest dive has been in the corporate realm. There's some cool stuff in there. It makes me wonder what caches of know-how are in the silos of other educators.

Through my participation in EdCamp unconferences and events put on by CUE and TCEA I've been able to skim the surface of K-12 teaching and learning strategies. There's some awesome stuff there, by the way. I like the learning and reflecting and, sometimes, figuring out ways of applying it to my craft.

 

SHOES

 

One of the major topics of discussion in corporate L&D (Learning and Development) centers on engagement. How do we, as designers, create training that engages learners so that the messages we try to impart stick more easily. But, and this is sure to upset some, the strategies and tools available to us haven't changed all that much over the years. I dread the NEXT (screen) button in elearing for example. Ditto with compliance courses that require learners to sit in front of a computer for a specific amount of time to be able to get credit.

 

EdCamp has taught me that there are things we can do to get adult learners moving and making. But to make real progress we, educators of all stripes, have to open up our silos to other educators. How's that expression go: Walk a mile in my shoes or something like that.

 

EPILOGUE

 

Sometimes when I suggest a learning strategy to a customer that's a little out there, teaching like a pirate for example, I get raised eyebrows. I immediately say that they need to suspend their disbelief for a moment. Sometimes a leap of faith is required to make real progress. I know the stuff in your silo is the result of years of sweat and toil. All I'm saying is engage educators serving learners other than yours and share what you know.

 

 

 

 

Carts is Parts

PROLOGUE

Today is day four of the #AprilBlogAday challenge on Twitter. The suggested topic is humanity -- describe a time when you connected with students in a classroom. Here's my tale.

CARTS

My first encounter with Joe Zombie wasn't during my tenure as an Intel basic fab skills training (BFST) program manager in the late 1990s. I'm certain there were many other instances before then.

Students are people. They aren't objects. They have needs. They have memories. They can move at will. You want them moving and making their learning visible.

Students aren't shopping carts. Let's get that out there. Empty vessels? Nope. Parking students in a learning space and teaching them leads mostly to boredom and disengagement. It's sleepy-time for the mind.

One of the courses in the BFST program concerned the fab's (Intel Pentium factory running P858 process) loss control system (LCS). The Level One evaluations were bad. As I recollect it, comments included stuff like "Snoozeville.", "How am I going to ever remember this?", and my personal fav "Death by PowerPoint."

Yes, it was one of those lessons where an instructor projects slides on a screen and reads them to you for two hours. Just in case you miss something you have a two-up handout with the slides that are verbatim what the instructor is displaying and talking about. A Joe Zombie moment for sure. Oh, and the students' supervisors let me know they weren't happy either.

PARTS

I asked the engineer who designed the course what she wanted the workers to do with the LCS. They needed to "Be able to record losses and near misses so we can improve factory yields." she said.

A couple years earlier I'd completed an Accelerated Learning workshop. The strategies I learned were similar to what you'd learn reading Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess. Thus armed with creative teaching and learning strategies I went out on a limb and got crazy.

Pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey: Remember that game? Hopefully you got invited to parties where you got a chance to make a fool of yourself by pinning a tail where it didn't belong. That was my activity. Students entering the classroom saw wafers (what integrated circuits like Pentiums are made on) velcroed to a fabric covered wall. They listened to an experienced fab worker describe the LCS. This lasted about five minutes. A few minutes more for questions followed.

Students were then handed out a sheet of paper simulating the LCS. They were tasked with taking a wafer off the wall. Turning it over they saw a blurb describing an actual wafer loss or near-miss. They then filled out the sheet based on their understanding of the situation.

I left Intel in 1999. I don't know if my LCS activity survives. I would guess not, given how effective Intel is with continuous improvement. For the time the LCS learning experience was part of BFST it made workers happy and able to use the system in the fab. Supervisors were happy because yields improved as problems were identified and fixed. I was ecstatic because it was the first time I used an authentic learning strategy that students could identify with, leave the safety of their chairs, and move and make. It moved me, too.

EPILOGUE

They listened. They asked. They moved and made. These are three essential parts of designing learning experiences. I continue to use these in the learning experiences i produce today.

 

Tool Time

PROLOGUE

I'm on my fifth career. I launched career number two, electronics engineering, whilst serving in the US Navy in the 1970s. It had its own language and tools. For something like 16 years in the military and after, I was deft keeping complex systems up and running. I have quite a few sea stories from that age that I share from time to time.

TOOL

Solder suckers, screwdrivers, and dice were some of the tools I had in that long ago toolbox. These days my toolbox looks a lot different. It surprises me how much my work continues to involve technology.

I love learning about and using new tools. One of them is this blog. Sharing thoughts about my craft serves several purposes. I get to practice and improve my writing skills. Blogging is deep journaling; it's cool how it helps me reflect. It also helps me connect with other educators.

A few hours ago I heard about #AprilBlogAday on Twitter. So yea! More practice time.

TIME

I'm at work nine hours a day. Family and personal time averages five to six hours per day. Rest periods eat up most of the remaining hours. I have time to blog. So why don't I blog more and regularly?

I have stuff to share. I think I have too much actually. The problem, if I can all it that, is they're incomplete thoughts. While I am intensely focused in my work my attention is a little more diffuse on other stuff. One thing that occupies more and more of my free time is the Joe Zombie effect. That's what I call learner disengagement, the result of ineffectual teaching and learning strategies.

EPILOGUE

I'm not nearly done with my research. Should I blog as I go or wait until I have a more complete picture? Maybe I'll have a clear idea by the end of the month.

 

The Ebb and Flow of Kick-Starting Creativity

PROLOGUE

Wow! Just wow!

EBB

Today I participated in the Digital Storyteller: Creative Bootcamp at Gangplank in Chandler, Arizona. Whilst I've spun a few digital stories in my day I wanted to learn this new Drafting and Crafting process. While similar in some ways to Design Thinking it differs in some significant ways.

How do I craft thee? Let me count the ways.

1. Plan
2. Checklist
3. Brainstorming
4. Drafting
5. Crafting
6. Measures

FLOW

The drafting and crafting process I learned today begins with a statement that says this is where I am. Whether brainstorming, drafting, or crafting each ends with this is what I made. It's apparent right away what happened. In the bootcamp session, facilitated by Ita Udo-Ema, there is also a timer set to count down from 45 minutes. Before and after each round there is a question: What well did you do? This is followed up with advice. Afterwards there is feedback.

KICK-STARTING

I tend to work digitally throughout my workflow. I liked filling out a checklist where I noted what I would do, what I did, and what I would do next. I did use apps. After the brainstorming I had this stack of stickies. I scanned these using 3M's Post-It Plus for archiving in Evernote.

I was reminded by how similar brainstorm, drafting, and crafting is to Design Thinking's define, ideate, and prototype.

CREATIVITY

An EdCampAwesome session encouraged me to give video blogging a try. After each iteration I recorded a few observations. They're viewable at:

1. Brainstorming
2. Drafting
3. Crafting

There were several times during the process where I felt energized. These coincided with feelings of being on the edge of my seat. It was fun. If this is creativity then I want more.

EPILOGUE

Inspired by Saturday's #WebComicChat I planned to create a comic of my own. I think I accomplished my goal. At the end of the bootcamp i noted two feelings. One, that my cartoon character looked a little like a sketchnote character. I could feel something well up in me at this point. This is the second feeling: What makes me think I can draw? The fact is, I can.

This takeaway was straight out of what I learned through EdCamp. Making really drives learning home. It makes learning visible.

 

 

 

 

Desktops, Tabletops, and Tablet-Ops

PROLOGUE

Blackboards and college ruled notebook paper: Back when I started school these were the media teachers and students wrote on. Period. Mediums have, of course, evolved since then. During last Saturday's EdCampAwesome (session notes) in Royse City, Texas I had a glimpse on how much has changed.

DESKTOPS

One of the EdCampAwesome sessions I participated in was Moving to Learn/Kinesthetic Learning facilitatedby Cheri Froehling.

One of the images she shared was of a young girl smiling over a sketch she had drawn, in marker, on the top of her desk. My immediate thought was, "Wow! Wonder how many erasers she had to clean after school?" Only of course, she didn't have to clean anything except her own dry erase markings on the desk. Said Cheri: "Naughty is engaging. Doing something you're not supposed to do in class helps learning stick more easily." Cheri and many of the teachers in the room with me had some great ideas, out-of-the-box for me, on how to engage body and mind in learning.

TABLETOPS

Which brings me to the adult learning environment I design for. Dry erase boards are everywhere in this space. Flip charts are common as well, providing places for notes to be written; hanging them on walls to be referred to later is a kind of group memory.

I wonder what might happen if the next training I develop has learners take notes or collaboratively work out problems on their tabletops? I haven't seen this done before, at least not with the encouragement of an instructor and the participation of others. I'm a big fan of the maker movement. Working out problems on something you think you shouldn't be writing on might make for an interesting learning activity.

In the adult learning spaces I design for learners working out problems collaboratively on their desktops might be a stretch. Maybe not. I don't know for sure but it's something to think about, talk about, and play with.

TABLET-OPS

Which brings me to a project I'm working on now. It involves design thinking and rapid prototyping. What would adult learning look like if learners worked out problems collaboratively using the mobile devices, smartphones and tablets, many use every day? I've learned tons from the teachers I meet at EdCamps I've been to in Texas, Arizona, and California. I'll be sharing what I've learned during my Mobile Rapid Prototyping Through AppSmashing concurrent session at the eLearning Guild's mLearn Conference in Austin, Texas this June.

EPILOGUE

The other EdCampAwesome session I attended was Flipping PD with Don Jacobs. It involved doing brief video clips, micro podcasts I guess, to share know-how with peers. So I think I'll give this a try soon. My weekend was EdCampAwesome.