idealawg

"What I learned as the worst student in the class"

If you teach or train, this might be a good essay to read. The author includes five lessons she learned from not excelling in a class, the last of which I quote below. What do you think?

Write a new personal narrative.
For me, one of the most empowering outcomes of my year of climbing has been the new narrative I can tell about myself. I am no longer  “Adrianne: scholar, book lover, pianist, and Wikipedian”. I am now “Adrianne: scholar, book lover, pianist, Wikipedian, and rock climber”. This was brought home most vividly to me one day when I was climbing outdoors here in Los Angeles and people on the beach were marveling at those of us climbing. Suddenly I realized, I used to be the person saying how crazy or impossible such feats were and now I was the one doing them. I had radically switched subject positions in a way I did not think possible for myself. That, I realized, is what I want my students to experience - that radical switch and growth. It is an enormous goal and I would love to hear how others work at achieving it with their students.

Click to read the rest of "What I learned as the worst student in the class" (HASTAC).

Unfortunately here is a link to an article in The Washington Post about the essay's author Adrianne Wadewitz's recent and untimely death.

New interview with Ellen Langer: Mindfulness in the Age of Complexity

Harvard Business Review has just published an interview with Dr. Ellen Langer, about whom I have blogged here several times in the past. From "Mindfulness in the Age of Complexity," some excellent advice which specifically reminds me of mediation:

When people say, “This is the way to do it,” that’s not true. There are always many ways, and the way you choose should depend on the current context. You can’t solve today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions. So when someone says, “Learn this so it’s second nature,” let a bell go off in your head, because that means mindlessness. The rules you were given were the rules that worked for the person who created them, and the more different you are from that person, the worse they’re going to work for you. When you’re mindful, rules, routines, and goals guide you; they don’t govern you.

Click to read the rest of the interview. Worth some of your time—and mindfulness!

Will playing games help you and your clients achieve goals (while perhaps having fun)?

Because I believe the principles of gamification can be used to motivate clients to complete tasks necessary to the effective and personalized handling of their legal matters or conflicts, I have been slowly researching the ways games are created and designed. Two recent events came together in such a way that I am now wholly reinspired to master gaming—soon.

First was reading the book The Game of Work by Charles Coonradt, one of the original gurus of taking what works in games and applying that to work. (He's been called the grandfather of gamification.) Coonradt believes there are five principles that are the basis of the transfer of success and motivation seen in the game arena to work:

1. Clearly defined goals
2. Scorekeeping and scorecards
3. Frequent feedback (and he adds that the impact of the feedback is greater if illustrated on charts and graphs)
4. Personal choice of methods
5. Consistent coaching

Other gurus of gamification present lists of principles that are a bit different. After reading some of those gurus, I think the principles I find most compelling are: clearly defined goals, frequent feedback, and personal choice. More about those in a minute . . .

The second event that increased my commitment to learning gamification was coming upon Mediator in a Box, a tool created by a Colorado lawyer Clare Sprowell and her sister Marla Sloan, a conflict coach who lives in British Columbia. From what I can see at their Website and in this article, they have made conflict resolution into a box game. A creative idea! I don't know if they include the principles of gamification in the design but their concept sparked my imagination about applying gamification to transactional areas of the law.

In order to gamify a process, whether it be writing a will, estate planning, exercising, or drinking more water, one needs to have clear goals. The thinking required to clarify the intention or objective is a big advantage in achievement, and a necessary ingredient in a game. If I

New way to study for the bar? Or learn other material? Benefits of being spaced

If you are interested in how we take in new information and then retain it, you will want to read this new article: "Making long-term memories in minutes: a spaced learning pattern from memory research in education" (Frontiers in Human Neuroscience). The article describes a method, Spaced Learning, that may make learning relatively quick and long-lasting. The authors also describe the probable underlying neuroscience. (Basically the technique involves brief bursts of exposure to content interspersed with activity unrelated to the lesson being learned.)

In addition, lead author Dr. Paul Kelley has written a book titled Making Minds: What’s Wrong with Education - and What Should We Do About it? in which he also describes the technique.

I found the reasons cited in the article that teachers resisted the technique to be telling and somewhat disconcerting:

Teachers reacted differently to Spaced Learning though some responses were common to many teachers. Many found Spaced Learning fun, different, and felt it was a positive learning experience for both teachers and learners. Negative responses included rejecting the underlying neuroscience out of hand, a concern about greater workload, and a fear of school inspectors judging Spaced Learning sessions harshly because they did not match recommended teaching methods. 

The students often had a different response: "[They] on the other hand were very positive, asserting Spaced Learning helped them learn rapidly."

To read more from students' responses to Spaced Learning, look at the article and also read this post from Kelley's blog.

Next time I need to learn a body of information, I plan to give this method a try. If you give it a test drive, let me know how you fare, please.

The agony of victory, the thrill of defeat: Winning the gold by being the worst you can be

Mischief? Me?

Being wrong was so much fun. So delicious. Such a relief. The smiles in the room got bigger and the enthusiasm grew. I first participated in this energizing exercise decades ago, and have used it for the same positive effect (and affect) in several trainings I have presented over the years since.

What mistake was it that made all of us in the room so happy? Gary Friedman requested of a group of lawyers attending his seminar that we demonstrate being the worst mediator imaginable. All the shoulds and got-tos and rules and philosophy and models dropped away and, wow, did we have fun!

It is probably not a surprise that the majority of mediators participating in this exercise become directive—to the extreme. Often downright dictatorial.

That same feeling of devil-may-care freedom was triggered when I read of FailCon, a conference focused on failure. That event I would like to attend. The notion of sharing mistakes seems so much more compelling and juicy than listening to a slate of motivational speakers. Yes, most motivational speakers detail challenges they have faced and overcome but the focus is their victory. Although their talks can be inspiring, they often are so buttoned-down, cuff-linked, dry-cleaned spotless. So tame and acceptable.

I want spicy, vivid misbehavior. That's where lots of my motivating action is. And from the way the energy rises in the room when I use the be-your-worst exercise, I think lots of other people get motivated by being fully and audaciously wrong.

But you don't get to stop with the mischief.

In the exercise described above, Gary, after commenting on the spirited focus, interest, and action in the room, asked us to look for the elements and sources of that energy and then harness them for future mediations. Because that second part of the exercise occurs when the participants are uplifted as a result of the mischievousness and mistakes, it is typically extremely valuable and enlightening.

FailCon is not going to be simply a failure fest either; it too will garner lessons and gems from the foul-ups. But it will lead with the blunders. I bet the get-together will be uncommon, fun, and constructive.

How about you? Are you ready to go forth and botch?

H/T: Steve Piscitelli's post on "worst practices" in which I learned of the FailCon conference.

What's your story, learner? Teacher? Trainer? Some reasons to write your memoir of learning

Photo taken in Annapolis, MD

If you are working with clients who are parties involved in disputes, writing or relating your conflict story is often very important to clear, conscious, and careful client service. Deep wisdom and finely attuned judgment are derived partly from self-knowledge, and writing our conflict story facilitates invaluable awareness.

And if we are working with clients making decisions about money, it is important to recollect our money story, our money history, too. As I wrote last year:

Most of us have strong feelings and attitudes about money. Some of us are very aware of those feelings; many of us are not. For those of us in the ranks of service professionals (e.g., lawyers, mediators, accountants) unawareness can impact how we work with clients who are making money-related decisions. Might part of excellent client service be our own clarity about the way we perceive money, wealth, and monetary earning? To have an unclouded view of our underlying assumptions? Our values? Our prejudices? Our biases? Our personal money stories?

The benefits of this degree of clarity applies to many topics. Even beginning or experienced photographers! In fact, earlier this month I recommended to attendees at a program that I presented on photography that they write their photography story. I gave them a long list of questions to help them get started and was pleased and admiring of their introspection as they applied it to the process of using their cameras in new ways.

I just learned of another use of this kind of themed memoir and doing so resulted in a slap-my-forehead-and-say-duh moment. Why wouldn't those of use who are interested in improving both how we learn and how we teach write our learning history?

The idea came to me from Well-Chosen Words. In this book, the author recommends to teachers that they recall report cards and other instances of assessments from their own schooling. This exercise can assist teachers in considering what might be helpful when communicating assessments of their students.

I began to think of my own learning history: the good, the bad, and the ugly. I revised some questions I use for money, conflict, and photography stories in my training programs (see a few below), and thought about my answers. Just as recalling and pondering my conflict and money stories have helped me in work with clients, I think the process of recreating my learning story will help me to be a more self-aware teacher, trainer, and adult learner. If you write or in other ways memorialize your learning story, I would enjoy hearing from you.

A dozen of the many questions I asked myself:

Being productively dangerous by ignoring perfectionism: Learning bold from a story told

Defeat, my Defeat, my deathless courage,
You and I shall laugh together with the storm,
And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us,
And we shall stand in the sun with a will,
And we shall be dangerous.
From "Defeat" by Kahlil Gibran [should be centered on the page but that function of Typepad is not working today]

In skimming the new book The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything . . . Fast!, I ran into a story that has influenced me ever since. Not a day has gone by in the week, plus a day, since the reading that I have not found motivation in the story. As I learn new things such as iPhoneography, I now jump in more quickly and easily, making an ever-wider detour around perfectionism. I hope the story's influence does not wear off but instead lasts until the jumping-in attitude and skill is mastered by me at the level of unconscious competence.

Another lesson I learned from this story: The effects of a story, even a short one, can be potent. Actually I relearned that lesson, as I am already convinced of story's clout. And now here's that story:

The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the "quantity" group: fifty pound of pots rated an "A", forty pounds a "B", and so on. Those being graded on "quality", however, needed to produce only one pot -- albeit a perfect one -- to get an "A". Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the "quantity" group was busily churning out piles of work - and learning from their mistakes -- the "quality" group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

Like the story?

Two signs: Two ways to turn

 

Another app for creating photos for training programs and presentations

I recently learned of an app that allows me impose one photo on another. It's called Superimpose. Below is my debut attempt. As you can see, I have lots to learn but the app is definitely master-able. In my research, I learned that this may be the easiest app of those that combine photos.

As a demo of how the app works, I decided to play with a very old photo of my Springer Spaniel Scipio looking at a friend. (Both the dog and the friend are long dead.)

Below I have posted the original photo, then the version on which I used another app called Popsicolor, and finally a floating photo made with Superimpose. You will need to click the last photo to see the full version or you will miss part of the effect.

What apps do you recommend for photos?

The friend holding the food which is of such great interest to my dog is Mike Sparrow. Click to read his obituary.



Be sure to cllck to see the entire photo or, because of Typepad sizing, you will only see a view that is incomplete.

For a friend, I wrote this caption about the last photo: I think Scipio may be somewhere still, coveting someone's hamburger and fries.

Renaissance Souls meet to sharpen Sketchnotes skills and practice the pictograph path

Once in a while, a meeting occurs that leaves me grateful for the truly thoughtful, innovative, and resourceful people I have in my network. Yesterday I had one of those meetings. Because I took a few photos (see below), you can briefly come in the room (actually the music studio of Colorado Jazz Workshop) with us.

The purpose of our meeting was to practice a form of visual communication called Sketchnotes. (Click to read about the guidebook to this process of visual notetaking and to read a book excerpt.) The practicing did occur (see photo of an example above drawn by Susanne Hoogwater; click on it to see a larger version) but just as valuable was our free-wheeling conversation (freewheeling is what you'd expect from a group of Renaissance Souls). We considered the roles of cognitive development as well as of innate aptitudes in discussing the kinds of visual communication that would be most helpful to different people; visual communication generally and Sketchnotes specifically are not one-size-fits-all.

Among many other engaging topics, we talked about how templates* or patterns could drive the processes of information gathering, organizing, planning, and communication, and some pros and cons of those effects.

The get-together was very beneficial: A valuable way to learn, a prime way to provoke thinking. We will be gathering again for more mental drilling (and frolicking) and continued pictograph path practicing.

And here are the photos I promised (click on them for larger versions).

Ever heard of a lawyer playing games? Learn how from a gaming lawyer beginning Monday

This graduate of Harvard Law has written the book on game playing. Kevin Werbach not only wrote For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business but he also teaches about gamification through Coursera; the last time he gave the seminar, thousands attended from around the world. Because I am very interested in how gaming can enhance learning, I have signed up for this course which begins Monday. Are you registered? It's free.

Note: Click to read a past post with lots of links related to the benefits of gamification: Using games to educate and solve problems: Playing with conflict and brains. Another related post: Are you an achiever, explorer, socializer, or killer: Is conflict resolution a game?