4 thoughts from #Learning2021
Context: This year I was selected to be on Learning 2021’s #30under30 in learning list. Every year they pick a cohort of 30 emerging leaders in the learning space doing impactful work within a range of industries like tech, development sector, healthcare, K12 and beyond.
What’s 4 thoughts: Over the next few days, I will sit at home (or hopefully outside, in a sunny cafe) attending the Learning 2021 Conference. At the end of the day, I will look through my notes and reflections and share my top 4thoughts — this will usually be a learning nugget that surprised, intrigued or confused me. I must add this caveat — many of the panels are focused on internal learning and development but I think there are valuable applications across the board. What I have done is to make the learnings more general so that it’s relevant to those of us working in schools, community learning centers, ed-tech or just curious. Let’s go!
#1 The Data Dilemma in Learning and xAPIs
The learning space has been talking about data in the context of measuring learning outcomes for quite sometime. The key dilemma here is that we still gauge learning through very surface level data points like completion rates, duration spent on a given learning experience (e.g a module / video / reading) or self-reported metrics like “how confident do you feel after reading x” or “how engaging do you think x was?” — this is obviously underlined by a much broader, sometimes more philosophical question of what does it mean to ‘learn.’ Is it when a learner is able to recall what they learned? or apply what they learned to solve a real-life problem? or teach what they learned to someone else? (internalization of learning?) or a mix of all this. Then ultimately, how can this be measured.
xAPIs don’t really help us crack this question but it helps learning designers to:
a) decide what they hope to measure in a given learning experience
b) set parameters to capture this data. For example: Lia (actor/learners) completed (verb) Module 1 (object) in 45 minutes)
c) bring all the scattered data points into one place to understand if the learning experiences we build are helping learners get to the outcomes we set about to achieve.
#2 Micro-Learning
Micro-learning refers to an educational approach that offers bite-sized, small learning units with just the necessary amount of information to help learners achieve a specific goal.
Disclaimer: I am personally a fan and I think this is one of the few buzzwords in the learning space that can actually make our lives better. I first came across micro-learning when I was working in the financial literacy place and exploring effective ways of delivering trainings on managing debt, borrowing and saving to adult learners.
I love micro-learning for three reasons:
a) breaks the myth that quality learning especially around adult learners and up-skilling/re-skilling is about volume or time duration.
b) empowers learners to curate their own learning journey by giving them the most critical information that they need to enable them to spend more time on application, self-guided research and exploration than just passive consumption.
c) super specific: for instance a micro-learning approach to teaching a topic like budgeting for a small business owner means that after they spend about 25 mins of their time watching a specific video or reading through an e-learning module they are able to go forth and create a budget for their business.
My go-to places for micro-learning inspiration is unsurprisingly Tik-Tok Instagram Reels and Twitter. For example I read this Twitter thread on sacred hours on a Tuesday and started implementing some of what I learned on Wednesday. It was literally a 5 min read. Then there’s my favorite from Instagram when it comes to bite-sized learning — Brown Girl Therapy; they use images and carousels to share resources, conversations starters and reflection prompts on taking control of your mental well-being.
#3 Game Mechanics for Learning
“Can we like, maybe, gamify this a bit?” — is probably every learning designers absolute nightmares. My personal belief is that gamification of learning works best when the learning is secretive or totally obscured. A friend from grad school introduced me to the word “secretly educational games”
As someone who built a play-based game for social emotional learning for kids — “gamifiying learning” is tough but “learn-ifying” games is often the more effective approach from a design approach.
#4 Who sets the Learning Agenda?
I am Sri Lankan by birth and upbringing, I was the first in my family to graduate from college and I worked in classrooms and informal learning settings that had no internet access or in some cases running water. The kind of perspectives and priorities I bring into how I design learning is informed by my own experiences and what I have seen in rural classrooms and communities. Dividing myself between Silicon Valley and Sri Lanka thought me something valuable — we prioritize problems that we care about or have a personal investment in. What we care about is influenced by our lived experiences. This is why in North America, you will have a startup using AI to personalize your wine cellar raising $5M in 6 days and a startup in Sri Lanka trying to make STEM learning accessible to classrooms off the grid take an year or more to raise a $3000. This is why, I always ask the question: Who sets the agenda? Who makes decision on the kind of speakers and topics we prioritize? Who makes the call on the themes we consider relevant and important in learning and beyond? When I went over the diversity and make-up of the speaker pool of #Learning2021, it made me ponder: When will WE set the agenda?
