learning flexibly

Using technology to help people learn is a passion of mine but one that brings so much frustration. You may have heard of the steps people going through when faced with a new topic. First they deny that they don't know it or that they need to know it - simply put they, that is WE, are unconsciously incompetent! Next we begin to realise that we might need to know and we become consciously incompetent. Now we're ready to learn!

We start to learn but still have to think to do (consciously competent) and finally we wonder why it is that other people don't know this stuff because we've forgotten what it was like not to know! It's hard to teach people things when you are unconsciously competent! There are loads of educational theories about this of course but knowing the theory doesn't change the process people need to go through. Knowing it just adds to the frustration!

So back to the plot... Learning Flexibly is fundamentally different from the way most of us have learned in the past. That is, from a teacher who led us down the path of discovery through the gate of knowledge. For many this approach has worked very well and the technique is being lauded as 'best practice' by those very same people. Traditional education techniques don't work for all and I would suggest they don't work for MOST people if the truth be known. The trouble is that those currently in positions of influence in our educational organisation who have a vested interest, consciously held or not, in maintaining the status quo.

So this lens is about how you can either learn flexibly or help your students to. I promise that if you give it a go you will wonder why you held on to those teaching and learning methods we inheited from the industrial revolution.

Enjoy the transition to conscious competence!