Will Richardson

Speaker, consultant, writer, learner, parent

The Learners We Need

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So, the whole MOOC thing has been on my brain of late for a variety of reasons…the Coursera announcement, the  figuring out of which of the many MOOC-ish variations is really a MOOC, and the implications of all of it (if any) for the K-12 set. Let me just say at the outset that I’m most interested in the Canadian style MOOC (a la Siemens, Downes, Cormier, Couros, et al.) which fully puts the onus of learning on the learner and the community of learners that form around the topic. As opposed to the Coursera model, there aren’t any canned videos being flipped, just big questions and interactions among the participants attempting to answer them.

What interests me is what qualities it takes to be successful in a true MOOC environment, and what qualities it takes to be a successful self-directed, more-or-less informal learner online in general. To that end, Peter Gow has an interesting reflection on his experience in the MOOCMOOC class that is looking at the MOOC experience as learners experience it. (Meta, I know.) . As Peter says, the learner is in charge:

The MOOC MOOC is all about “connectivist” learning—a model that puts a considerable burden on the “learner” for figuring out what’s going on and for developing the skills and tools for using all the amorphousness of the cloud and a wealth of social media to bring a connected structure—it’s sort of pattern recognition, sort of gestalt—to the learning process…

But that takes some qualities that we don’t cultivate very well, imho, in the current education systems we put our kids in. Here’s Peter’s shortlist of requirements for success:

Genuine interest. I have to care enough about the course material to wrestle with the big ideas and small details—and the homework—all on my own. If I don’t actually care that much about what I am supposed to be learning, each task becomes drudgery. Without this, the rest is irrelevant.

A certain amount of online extrovertedness and confidence. I’ve got to be able to jump into conversations, offer critical analysis and even critique, in multiple online media. The inherent risks in online commentary—that my dry sense of humor won’t be understood and that we’ll all just say nice things to get our participation “checked off” with no troubling downside—are all present, and I’m working on this.

Comfort with the medium. This may mean downloading, installing, configuring, and learning how to use new software or new online tools. Fortunately I’m more or less okay here, although I’m not ready to code, which seems not to be even a possibility.

Dedicated time. This is not a pop-in, pop-out activity; I need to clear a bunch of time to get through each element of the work. This is more of a challenge than it should be, given the time of year, but it’s not insurmountable—where there’s a will there’s a way (see #1 above).

It’s actually that second one that has me thinking more than the rest. It begs the question “Can kids, or adults for that matter, who are not disposed to transparency and interactions in public social spaces be expected to succeed in the types of learning opportunities that MOOCs offer?” And, further, if we find that quality to have significant value in a person’s learning life, is that something we can help students cultivate in our K-12 schools?

I don’t think anyone knows exactly how this all plays out, but is it fair to say that if we’re not shifting our emphasis to helping kids develop as learners who can take advantage of these informal (perhaps soon to be accredited) learning experiences, we’re shortchanging them? 

The Talent Divide

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Thomas Friedman quotes John Hagel III in his column today, talking about the “Big Shift” that he wrote about with John Seely Brown in their book The Power of Pull. What resonates here is the idea that to be successful in the “flow of ideas” that we are now a part of, we need to be constantly growing our talents. (Read: Our kids need to be constantly growing their talents.) Here is the snip:

In their recent book, “The Power of Pull,” they suggest that we’re in the early stages of a “Big Shift,” precipitated by the merging of globalization and the Information Technology Revolution. In the early stages, we experience this Big Shift as mounting pressure, deteriorating performance and growing stress because we continue to operate with institutions and practices that are increasingly dysfunctional — so the eruption of protest movements is no surprise.

Yet, the Big Shift also unleashes a huge global flow of ideas, innovations, new collaborative possibilities and new market opportunities. This flow is constantly getting richer and faster. Today, they argue, tapping the global flow becomes the key to productivity, growth and prosperity. But to tap this flow effectively, every country, company and individual needs to be constantly growing their talents.

“We are living in a world where flow will prevail and topple any obstacles in its way,” says Hagel. “As flow gains momentum, it undermines the precious knowledge stocks that in the past gave us security and wealth. It calls on us to learn faster by working together and to pull out of ourselves more of our true potential, both individually and collectively. It excites us with the possibilities that can only be realized by participating in a broader range of flows. That is the essence of the Big Shift.”

How long it will take for the larger population to recognize the dysfunction of the institution of schooling remains to be seen. But this idea of constant upgrading resonates and begs the question (once again) how are we preparing our kids for this? How are we helping them learn faster and work with others to pull out their true potential? How are we acclimating them to a world where skills and dispositions are more important that carrying around “knowledge stocks” in their heads?

Unfortunately, right now the answer appears to be “not much." 

In all of this, I can’t help but think of Steve Jobs, who by any stretch was a visionary and in many ways an outlier. But he’s also a model for what Hagel and Brown are talking about.