Dan Sawada

Q1 – How sill learning change in an age when we are always connected?

In my opinion, I think that the learning experience would evolve into a form where we would have to figure out “where and how to find the best solution to problems”, rather than figuring out “how to solve the problem itself”.

Before the era of the Internet, the learning experience was more dedicated toward acquiring the skills to solve real-world problems. However, the Internet has truly brought the grand knowledge base, which contains the solution to most of the problems, within the reach of our hands. Using our smart devices, they are easy to access than ever before regardless of time or place. Even though the Internet is overwhelmed with information, Google and other tools of its kind provide us the compass to navigate ourselves in to the great sea of information to reach the destination (or solution).

However, despite the fact that the Internet can provide us with suitable solutions (occasionally from experts), the dependent on the user themselves if they can search for, select and take in account the best possible entries. I personally feel that Google and its kind is still just a map, rather than autonomous vehicle in that sense. Therefore, I think people will still need to learn how to “look for and approach high-quality solutions” in the most efficient way. No matter how sophisticated the Internet and our devices become, users would never be able to make the best out of it without this special skill.

Dan Sawada

Phase 1 – Discovery

1. Environments
   • In a car
   • In a airplane
   • In a library
2. Activities
   • While driving
   • While flying
   • While riding a bus
3. Interactions
   • Read
   • Listen
   • Fabricate
4. Objects
   • Book
   • Lego blocks
   • Web sites
5. Users
   • School girls
   • College students
   • Business person

Phase 2 – Interpretation

Normally, business persons and students have to commute from home to their work or school, either on a bus or car, or some kind of transportation device. During transit is a perfect occasion for people to get engaged in learning. For instance, students might check in on a list of vocabulary to prepare for their upcoming tests. Business persons might go to their iPad to read the latest stock market updates. Using technology to make the most out of the time in transit would be crucial, given the busy environment of our everyday lives.

Q3- What does an ideal teacher do? How could just-in-time technology be used to do some of the same? How can we motivate more people to act as teachers for each other? 

Hmmm..well it’s hard to say what an ideal teacher should do because teaching and learning are so intertwined.  Also, as each learner is different with different needs, it’s hard to come up with generalized characteristics for what is a very personal experience and process for everyone. I guess based on my experiences, the characteristics of my best teachers have been those who have allowed me to develop personal relationships with them in some way. They had always made me feel that they had a vested interest in me and that they actually, truly cared about my successes, or failures.  They provided encouragement, and guidance, but were also honest.  Another characteristic was that they didn’t give me the answer, but they guided me appropriately by asking questions, listening, and generally creating an environment where I felt comfortable enough to express my doubts, concerns, and confusion without making me feel inferior.

So, I guess I would have to say that the ideal teacher would focus first on the relationship with the individual and then guide the learner through the learning process.  Obviously, people can still learn regardless of these qualities, but I feel that these qualities instill in the learner something deeper than knowledge acquisition, which allows them to then move forward more independently and with less guidance.  It also fuels those intangible qualities such as motivation and passion for something that many teachers wrestle with in their day to day interactions with students.

Because of the highly personal nature of this interaction, I’m fascinated by what form this could take in an online community and as the question above refers to, how it could be recreated in some form with just-in-time learning.  Perhaps that could in the form of the interface itself which, in its visual design, could create that environment of comfort and ease that might not be there necessarily in the physical presence of a person. It could also come in the language expressed on the site itself.  Language could be used that invite others to share, and the site or community gives feedback that leaves room for conversation and discussion rather than shutting it down. For example, I noticed that when a Scratch programmer shares something on the community, other users can show they like the creation by clicking on a heart.  The symbolic gesture of the heart, instead of thumbs up already takes on a different form in a user’s mind.  The relevance of this really hit home, when during a live feedback session with other students in my class, one of the students who really enjoyed my creation said, “Cool, I’m going to ‘love’ your program then” and proceeded to click on the heart. Just the word “love” versus “like” took on a completely different meaning, particularly when it was about something that I had just spent hours creating.

Finally, I think more people can be motivated to mentor by first setting up a solid foundation with a community-focused feel.  Again, I think the Scratch community does an excellent job of this by providing many options for people to communicate, connect, and learn whether they be external (such as discussion forums and Scratch cards) or even through the medium itself (where students are programming tutorials for other students using Scratch). Once that foundation is set, early adopters and those who have already shown an inclination to help others could be recognized and given opportunities to do more of that.  I also feel that the learning process would be deepened if these early adopters worked with those who had an actual need, so information learned would be remembered more readily, and thus could be later shared with others.

 

What does an ideal teacher do? How could just-in-time technology be used to do some of the same? How can we motivate more people to act as teachers for each other?

Eleanor Duckworth defines teaching as “helping people learn.” For that, the ideal role of a teacher can mostly be defined by recognizing the attributes of an ideal learning experience, of which I’ll mention a few.

According to the Piagetian tradition, knowledge, understanding and meaning are actively constructed in the learner’s mind: the learner make the meaning and the connections for herself. She doesn’t simply accumulate what’s provided to her as it is. Telling and explaining play a very small part in helping people learn. The teacher shouldn’t be an authoritarian source of knowledge that determines what’s right or wrong, but rather a facilitator that supports raising questions and pursuing them.

That’s why Lisa Schneier, a student of Duckworth (and one of my teachers) says the role of the teacher has to do with the “trustworthiness of the students’ minds”, which means believing that students can approach a knowledge field building on the their own experiences and ideas.

A teacher shouldn’t be telling the learners when to stop their explorations because they had enough learning, but provide them with various possible connections that allow them to expand their explorations beyond their initial intents and feed their curiosity and motivation. I usually refer to that by saying the missing role of the teacher would be making “commas” instead of “periods”. Rather than cutting the exploration of one topic to move to another, a teacher should work on making smooth transitions between fields of knowledge and keeping the exploration process continued.

Helping the learner in making connections to facilitate her experience or expand her explorations requires knowing the learner herself and her previous experiences. I needed that only a few hours ago! I had one of these crazy moments when one suddenly decides to start learning a new thing. I wanted to learn Hebrew and started with the alphabet so I could read. I started losing my motivation in less than an hour: my native language is Arabic which have a few letters whose names are similar to Hebrew (both are Semitic languages), but the order of the letters and the script were totally new to me. It felt like going back to the 1st grade. I was looking at English resources for teaching the language, but accidentally found an Arabic book which mentioned that the order of the letters in Hebrew alphabet is the same as the letters (or actually sounds) of an Arabic phrase that had all the Arabic letter in an ancient order (which many Arab kids learn by practice). I already knew that phrase, and could in 5 minutes learn the Hebrew alphabet by heart.

I’m afraid that many of the current just-in-time technologies are about informing us but not learning. Learning is a process (or a journey if you like), not a destination. When some expert is telling you how to fix your dishwasher you’re not necessarily learning how to fix dishwashers; you’re following instructions, which’s different from learning. Learning includes taking risks and receiving feedback afterwards (from a teacher, a peer, or the environment in general). To refer to some of the characteristics of an ideal teacher mentioned above, a good technology would encourage making further explorations by referring to similar learning experiences or topics that are pursued by fellow learners, i.e. in a way similar to the way Wikipedia links to related articles. Also, one’s learning process can be teaching for others. Providing learners with the tools to document and reflect in-time helps them in being more conscious of their learning experiences, and provide other learners with a valuable resource to support theirs (an example that’s still work-in-progress is Build-in-Progress).

 

Q: How can we inspire curiosity and passion for learning in more people, and help learners make progress towards their personal goals?  How might we use the web (or other tools) to do this? Start by asking yourself, how you developed the passion for the things you are interested in today (what are they?) and then generalize from there.

I’d like to start with Clive Thompson ‘s comment that seems rather apt here: “Now if a student is interested in basketball the teacher can let him learn and explore that deeply – the psychology of it, the economics of it, the politics of it, the statistics of it. Technology has opened up the world to a small school with limited resources.”
 
Non-linear curiosity has worked for me over the years in developing passions, interests and opportunities that I would have otherwise missed. I think curiosity by definition is non-linear, yet so often it is stifled in a formal education environment that insists on a prescribed curriculum and structure.
 
Graduate school has been an eye-opening experience for me in more ways than one. There seems to be less emphasis on structure and a more open exploration of ideas and avenues. Now, the caveat is that I completed high school and some college work in India, went to Cal State for undergrad and am now at Harvard for grad school. It could certainly be the cultural differences between each institution that guide my judgement. I have had excellent teachers and opportunities in each of those. But now I am finally deemed old and able enough to chart my own course of learning. My performance is not measured in respect to everyone else’s. My thinking does not have to be toned up or down to suit the class average. My habit of jumping between topics, trying to connect the dots, going off on tangents is not shrugged off as ADD. In those blissful moments of solitude (I’m not a social networker 🙁 ) my laptop is my best friend and never lets me down with whatever information I might need…just in time. Wikipedia is my new bible. I’m happy to let Amazon have all my business, I love a good deal!  When I moved to Boston I found a temporary crash-pad on Airbnb. I found out online about open classes at Harvard: Ruby on Rails, GIS, foreign languages, entrepreneurship. Technology has increased my access to opportunities and made the information I digest relevant for my life choices and aspirations. It has made all of my life experiences that much richer and more productive.
 
I believe one way to inspire curiosity and passion amongst learners is by emphasizing interdisciplinary learning. Maybe we underestimate young students and hold back opportunities from independent learners? Maybe we subconsciously discourage students from being mature enough to pursue their own learning interests? With devices and the internet propagating just in time learning a student can revisit missed information at any point in his/her life. But it seems so important to give students the freedom to see where their interests take them, while that unfiltered curiosity still comes naturally to them. I was sharing similar thoughts with a peer who simply defined it as making a time machine available: any time, anywhere, any subject learning, about any era. It’s incredible how so few students think about the world beyond earth, how there are so few astronomy fanatics. It’s a fact staring them in the face every time they look out the window. Yet the first reaction is to ask them to concentrate on the task at hand and “refocus”. On 14th century history ?

Tweet: “How might we propagate interdisciplinary education and information sharing?”

Q2- How can we inspire curiosity and passion for learning in more people, and help learners make progress towards their personal goals?  How might we use the web (or other tools) to do this? Start by asking yourself, how you developed the passion for the things you are interested in today (what are they?) and then generalize from there.

I find the framework of self-determination theory to be pretty compelling. The theory holds that Autonomy, Mastery, and Relatedness are the keys to human happiness. In turn, this can allow people to feel relaxed and curious and free to pursue their goals. A great deal of the variance in educational outcomes can be explained by socio-economic factors. Children who come to school hungry or have knowledge of a murder that has occurred nearby are likely to do poorly in school, no matter how good their teachers are. Should their home lives be fraught and unstable, things get even worse. These children have no sense of their own autonomy, and even if they have a sense that they are related to their local communities, they may not feel very connected to the society around them.

Once we have accounted for acceptable levels of the three poles, I think perspective and meta-cognition are key to helping people follow their passions. Very often, human beings are bad at context switching, and even though they may have had an extraordinary time participating in an activity or working on a project, they may lack the awareness to notice that joy or that curiosity, let alone to follow up on it. For goodness sake, there’s empirical evidence that just passing through a doorway can make us forget things. To combat this, and to feed our need for relatedness, I think learners must be socially ensconced. Friends and family are great resources for helping people think through their goals and desires. The more of those people that have a capacity to be active mentors and the more that the setting of goals is valued and discussed, the more successful everyone will be.

Finally, the world must continue to reveal wonders and mysteries. This doesn’t look to abate any time soon.

As for the web, it can obviously bring these mysteries and wonders into people’s homes and live much more quickly and greater volume than ever before. It can also bring people together who may never have met in another time. Less romantically though, the web may be used to steer resources to the people who need them most. There is a great deal of evidence that, left unchecked, technology will widen the gap between haves and have-nots, but there remains hope that this is an early problem, and not a permanent one.

How can we inspire curiosity and passion for learning in more people, and help learners make progress towards their personal goals?  How might we use the web (or other tools) to do this? Start by asking yourself, how you developed the passion for the things you are interested in today (what are they?) and then generalize from there.

I love running, but I didn’t when I started three years ago. Learning to love it required specific conditions:

• inspiration: I was grieving and needed a release. I wanted to start running but was a terrible runner.
• equipment: To feel comfortable running, I had to buy running shoes, clothes, and a tiny ipod that fit in my pocket.
• easy access to the right environment: I was living a block away from Central Park. It was fall – ideal running weather.
• a concrete goal: I decided to train for a half marathon. I paid for the registration and plane ticket.
• encouragement: A friend convinced me running a half marathon was actually possible and helped me through the training.
• a schedule: I had a training plan that I felt obligated to stick to. At first it was aspirational (I figured I could abandon it anytime), but after a few weeks it started to seem feasible – and I started to enjoy it and look forward to the long runs.
• a result: It felt great finishing the race.

I believe that curiosity and passion start with an inspiration or need. A user might come to a learning platform already inspired to learn something, but a platform could also generate the inspiration to learn. Think of a site like Pinterest or Kickstarter — users browse through content without a specific notion of what they’re looking for, seeking something that inspires them as a starting point for engagement. When learning a new skill, learners must have access to certain equipment and environments to get started. The platform could have these elements built in or provide a way to access them in the real world. We begin to really enjoy doing things after we’ve already developed a basic competency and are able to see our progress and begin to explore further on our own. Getting to this point requires encouragement from a mentor or peers. Goals and schedules can also help motivate us through the early, most challenging, stages of learning. Finally, getting to showcase the results of what we’ve accomplished serves as a reward that makes learning feel more concrete and worthwhile. A learning platform should ideally enable the formation of a community that would both motivate us through the learning process and serve as an audience for the results of our learning.

I am not sure if I can describe an ideal teacher but to get started I’ll try to at least point out some characteristics I believe great teachers should have.

For me, a good teacher is a great instructor and a great mentor. A great instructor is somebody who can communicate the material clearly, in a way that it makes sense. Furthermore, he or she also makes an effort to spike interest in learners by using various methods, for example, by demonstrating the relevance of the material in everyday life or posing perplexing questions. This aspect is particularly important for students who are starting out with learning something new. More specifically, at an early stage of the journey, one might not be aware of the relevance of the subject matter nor has he developed effective learning strategies that are suitable the subject. Thus, sufficient guidance is vital.

However, being a great instructor does not make one necessarily a great teachers; one also needs to serve as a great mentor. A great mentor approaches students individually and finds a way to challenge every student based on their capabilities and level of knowledge. In other words, a mentor gives a student time to construct his own knowledge and provides assistance and scaffolding only when it’s necessary.

However, a mentor and an instructor do not have to be the same person. For example, instructions can be delivered by the best experts in the field through video and audio channels, which is what online learning platforms are successfully doing already. However, personalized coaching and equipping a student with tasks that are challenging enough takes in-depth knowledge of the person and his capabilities. To what extent can this be achieved outside of classroom and without communicating with the student on a regular basis? One’s learning trajectory can be established by tracking learning activity online. That is a great starting point for a mentor. However, for a mentor to succeed, he needs to have the skills and motivation for that. We all have busy schedules and often times those who are best suited for mentoring cannot find time for that and those who aren’t can. Thus, an easy approach would be financial gain. For example, in additions to a cash payment, in the start-up world, mentors often get an equity stake in the company they are mentoring. Another option is to gamify the process by allowing mentors build their level of expertise every time they mentor people. This is something that companies could take into consideration while evaluating candidates for vacancies. Also, each mentoring session could take the mentor closer to some form of recognition (e.g. a teaching certificate). Furthermore, 2 people with complementing skills can mentor each other in their respective field of expertise. Additionally, mentor and mentee can form a project-based apprenticeship relationship where the mentor teacher the mentee something new while the mentee is helping the mentor out with something else that is in accordance of his skill level – it could be a TaskRabbit type of platform where the currency is mentoring not dollars.