As life happens, I consciously or unconsciously choose to respond to life in ways that I repeat over and over until they become habits.   If I’m unconscious, my choices often trigger unhealthy responses (formed earlier in my life) that turn into bad habits. If I’m consciously aware, I’m able to choose and develop good healthy habits.

I have a set routine that I go through each week. I can change my life by choosing to consciously change in ways that will help me form good habits. At first this is  difficult.  I often don’t know what I’m doing. I struggle through this period “pretending” until I begin to form some understanding.  I keep at it, and after a month or more, I begin to form new a healthy habit.  How do we teach learners to form healthy habits?

Filed under: Blogging

According to Daniel H. Pink, in Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us , rewards, by their very nature, narrow our focus. That’s helpful when there’s a clear path to a solution.  But terrible for solving complex conceptual problems.  When rewards (i.e, grades) narrow our focus we are kept from seeing the wide view that allows for new solutions to old ways of doing things.

Researchers such as Harvard Business School’s Teresa Amabile have found that external rewards and punishments — both carrots and sticks — can work nicely when a task is one in which you follow a set of established instructions down a single pathway to one conclusion. But they can be devastating when you have to experiment with possibilities and devise a novel solution.

Those sorts of challenges — solving novel problems or creating something the world didn’t know it was missing — depend heavily on … the intrinsic motivation principle of creativity, which holds, in part: ‘Intrinsic motivation is conducive to creativity; controlling extrinsic motivation is detrimental to creativity.’!’ In other words, the central tenets of Motivation 2.0 [external 'carrot and stick' motivation] may actually impair performance of the heuristic, right-brain work on which modern economies depend.

When we begin to realize that teaching and learning is not about grades but about solving problems and creating in different meaningful ways. When we touch the learner’s inner desire to do something because they find it deeply satisfying and personally challenging we inspire them to the highest levels of creativity.

Filed under: Blogging

Image from deeplifequotes.com

Recently I heard a faculty member discussing how during final exams students were made to turn their baseball caps around and not bring water bottles to the exam God forbid if they write an answer on their cap or have magic water that gives them all the answers. Final exams, based on whatever the authoritarian wants them to regurgitate, are taken in sterile no talking environment with  correctly spaced desks designed to stop cheating criminals. This is a  learning experience based on doubt, fear and resentment. When you think of how you learn, what kind of experience do you visualize? A learning experience based on doubt, fear, and resentment? Or a learning experience based on faith, courage and love?

Parker J. Palmer, in the The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life points out if we want to grow we need to go beyond our fear of the personal and make connections to learners’ inner lives.

If we want to grow as teachers — we must do something alien to academic culture: we must talk to each other about our inner lives — risky stuff in a profession that fears the personal and seeks safety in the technical, the distant, the abstract.

The best learning experience is based on faith, courage, and love. How do you teach, with your heart or a stick?

Filed under: Blogging

image by deeplifequotes

According to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, our emotional responses to the stresses of daily life may predict our long-term mental health. One of the most important life lessons, for me, is to learn not to react immediately to stressful situations and make impetuous decisions.  Often my initial thoughts and reaction is negative. I get so emotional I’m unable to concentrate on what I’m doing. When I dwell on negative thoughts or or past events, I only get more upset. It’s human nature. When I learn to observe my thoughts I stop needless mental distractions and focus on what is important. 

How are you teaching learners the importance of reacting to stressful situations by observing their thoughts as they come and go, and by watching rather than reacting? The Internet provides instant access to all kinds of stressful situations as they occur. As events unfold, related to whatever subject you teach, you can create just in time problem based case studies, where learners observe their thoughts as they focus on solutions. Of course this will not work if your intent is follow a rigid schedule of covering content aligned to the textbook chapters.

Filed under: Blogging

Image from quotes-lover.com

Learning in the classroom or online is not about just listening or reading and regurgitating exact answers. When courses consist mainly of lecturing to learners we are failing to provide students the tools they need to thrive in a constantly changing world. Learning in the “real world”  is about creating and sharing what you created with others.  That’s the essence of life. 

Carl Gustav said Jung , “You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.” If you are a teacher, then you must teach. If you are a singer then you must sing. If you are a writer, then you must write. Do what you are purposed to do and God will send the student, the audience, the outlet. But when you stop the pursuit, failure is inevitable.

How are you helping your students to do what they do, not what they say they will do?

Filed under: Blogging