Design learning experiences: what IS experience?

I've begun to build a 'voice' on this topic, one which I'd like to research further.....

To me, learning is about experience. I'd like to present this topic at a conference later this year (if accepted) and explore the literature more deeply in the areas of Experience Design, Information Architecture, Educational Design and Experiential Learning...to name some starting points and areas of interest.

So this post and subsequent others will hopefully help to refine some ideas for my presentation...

I concur with Brian at the EDN on his thoughts about learning and experience and our experiences of learning:

Learning is unavoidable in all human experience. This means that learning is, by default, a worldwide phenomenon in which no one individual, tribe, society or nation can claim superiority. By this I mean that learning is a fundamental interface with the confluence of everyday life, regardless of a person's status or location.

This is a good starting point for my discussion on designing authentic learning experiences I think. I'm also reminded of the work done by Gubrium and Holstein in their book, Postmodern Interviewing, which through the interviewing process we might subvert the notion of the master narrative, and consider more "democratic" action methods of inquiry (well, learning is about inquiry is it not?). While G and H discuss the master narrative and its demise in relation to postmodern theory, their discussion translates well to the way we might discuss the learning environment. That is, in a postmodern reading, the interview moves away from a 'master narrative' paradigm to a more dispersed nature consisting of many voices situated strongly within contexts, socio-political and personal roles. Again this resonates with Brian's thoughts somewhat.

So nowadays, with a more diverse learner group in higher education for example (which includes distance, off-campus and overseas students), together with the dispersed role of teachers (especially with the increasing use of e-learning technologies), the landscape in which we formally learn is dynamically spreading and changing. Rather 'postmodern' don't you think?

So, with this dispersion and diversity, how might one design for authentic learning experiences? How might such design concepts look, for example? In reading Krishnan and Rajamanickam's (2004) piece on "Experience-enabling Design", I was buoyed by the way the authors asked questions about designing e-learning, in ways I could not. So, I've moved from frustrated designer to a clearer idea of, firstly, what do I need to ask?!

My questions then, are shaping into something like this:

1. How do I design for something that has not yet occurred?

2. How does my own experience translate to designing for others' experiences?

3. How do I bridge the gap between what I assume the learner should learn and what the learner assumes they will learn?

These are for starters...and Krishan and Rajamanickam provide some decent pointers to extend expereince design for e-learning.

I sense too, a difference between learner expectation and learner perception, in relation to their learning. In pursuit of this, I've looked through articles and books about research on the psychology of experience and perception, much of which is based on sense-data and not really my cup of tea! (see Follett 1924, 1951; Swartz, 1965). However, Boud, Cohen and Walker (1993) provide a glimpse of experience and how it is we learn through a series of essays they've edited in Using Expereince for Learning. In their introduction, they provide a brief digression in to the nature of experience and its intangibility:

In writing about learning from experience, we have been mindful of the difficulty of writing about 'experience'. It is a term which has preoccuppied philosophers and which many have tried to avoid. It contains ambiguities, it acts sometimes as a noun, at others as a verb, and it is almost impossible to establish a definitive view with which to work (p.6)

So, in the first instance it is obviously hard to design for something that is not easily defined! Again how does one design authentic leaerning experiences when individual experience contains many intangible variables?

Next, I'll talk about the design framework, using some of my recent experiences in designing subjects in higher education. I'd also like to return to Brian's thoughts once more...especially his thoughts about our use of story....

Getting students to become productive bloggers!

DK Robinson (at To-Done!) makes some deft points about productive blogging, which are useful both to the novice blogger and to students using blogs for learning. Just as we have tips for online moderation, so too it would be useful for teachers to learn and then pass on this list of tips to their student bloggers!

I would also add:

"Know your audience".
Who do you want to write for? For example, I have multiple blogs, and have tried to maintain some sort of continuity of 'character' (?...if I can call it that!) between my blogs, yet maintain an awareness of who might be interested in reading what (and how they can find it to read it!).

"Think about your peers".
Should your thoughts/work/articles be accessible in such a way as to be 'peer reviewed'? or do they help to extend an area of research? or simply connect with thoughts and articles of likeminded people just for fun?

"Know your sources".
This is something we constantly remind our students of; so when blogging we should encourage the same practice to combat plagiarism and mediocrity! This way students become discerning information architects and knowledge managers! :o)

These points may be 'secondary' points to Robinson's list, but worth reviewing if you're thinking of using blogs in education especially, or for business purposes.

What do you think of Robinson's list? What of my additions? Any others you can think of?

Influenza and coping with a cloudy mind...!

I've been 'off air' for a bit due to a decent bout of flu, which I haven't had for a couple of years now! I noticed a couple of things while I languished in bed (mindlessly sifting through the day drinking lemon tea and eating toast...!) about how:

1. a cloudy mind can stifle creativity and awareness
2. mind and body are indeed intricately linked through memories
3. much benefit sleep offers when you give yourself (mind and body) over to the joys of sleep to speed up healing and recovery!

I did indeed feel removed from the world around me, or more that my world closed in on me to do some fixing! Cloudiness though is an odd experience, that is, to not be able to do and think and react in the ways you are used to! I mean cloudiness in the sense that things are foggy, muffled, almost surreal. And in thinking about this I wondered if the refugee experience was like a "cloudiness"? Surely there must be a sense of feeling not only depressed, anxious, frightened, but also to feel silence (silenced?), foggy about the future, about the process of applying for refugee status, and of dealing with systems of which you have no comprehension! These systems also include cultural systems, that you have never experienced yet are often left to deal with.

Deeq Yusuf's (2001) online article about the refuge experience and their coping strategies is brief, but interesting. This quote particularly caught my eye.

Refugees have experienced the most complete dislocation of their social world and are deprived of power as social actors both in the country of origin and the country of reception (Joly, 1996). They have often suffered a severe defeat.

Being dislocated, deprived, powerless, when everything about being human concerns location, privilege and provision, and power in its myriad forms!! But also, in being human (and in nature too), is the sense of the balance of things. Yusuf describes how refugees often manifest a range of coping strategies both individually and in groups and

are active agents who, despite unfavourable conditions, will try to utilize the options open to them like anyone else (Jackson, 1987). Given their limited resources and predicament, coping is the best alternative that the individual can achieve resulting in varying degrees of individual and social adaptation.

We are a resilient lot! But in 'fixing things' we need to be aware of clearing the fog in a way that enables refugee groups to rebuild based on their "knowing" - past experiences, connections, beliefs and cultural identity. Some last words from Yusuf on the matter:

[T]here is a serious need for a humanistic approach that holistically views the issue as social healing and reconstruction of valued ways of life and institutions cannot be managed by outsiders.

So what is the Howard government doing to ensure this is happening on Aussie soil? ...and what do others think is currently happening???

How can we ensure the safety and security of ALL people to foster wellbeing in individuals and as a community?

HEWRR...Get a bus to town and be heard!!

You will have heard about today's National Day of Protest to changes to Workplace Rights at universities, that is, the Federal Government?s Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements (HEWRR).

If you're heading to town, make sure you go along to support the protest!

Jenny Macklin voiced Labor's stance against the HEWRR, in a media release earlier today. Here's a snippet from that release:

...The Howard Government has announced unprecedented workplace relations conditions for university and TAFE funding that have nothing whatsoever to do with the core function of universities and TAFEs to provide education and training. ...... The Howard Government?s conditions will mean:

• Australian Workplace Agreements to prevail over certified agreements that must be offered to all staff
• Threats to existing conditions including current levels of redundancy payouts and maternity leave
• The removal of limits to casual employment levels.

...and so the pendulum swings...

"Telling Our Stories"....Conference Coming Up!

You might be interested in this upcoming Action Research/Action Learning Conference organised by ALARPM, supported by the Centre for Popular Education, UTS, Sydney.

The Conference runs from September 30th to October 2nd, 2005. Call for presentations are due July 1st!
Info should be on the ALARPM site fairly soon, or try UTS.

I love the idea of performance rather than standard conference presentations! I look forward to this conference particularly! Maybe this is a sign of things to come at conferences.....moving on to engagement and embodied experiences, rather than simply returning with a head full of words and information!