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?

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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?

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To do anything worth doing, I must reject the false scenarios I play out in my head, go for it, and work through the struggles as best as I can. This is my daily learning process.  It’s not even a close to how I have taught and learned in traditional structured learning environments.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, in his interview with the Guardian, explains his reasoning for what he did, ”I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions,” but “I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant.”

It doesn’t matter what your views are on this subject. This “real life” example is an opportunity for learners to explore how someone is following their inner voice, to be more than they thought they could be, despite what others think and say. What a great teaching moment this can be if you are willing to make this connection.

Are you creating learning opportunities to help students do what they feel is worth doing?Are you guiding them through the process as they struggle? Are you open to letting learners be vulnerable in a way that leads to connections and embracing fear (Godin)?

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The typical college course I designed and taught required students to  create projects or write papers on topics that were meaningful to them. Completed products were turned into to me. I provided feedback and rankings (gave them a grade). This model seems insufficient to me now. I had 20-30 students in each course. They were quite active creating multiple projects and papers. I was the only one providing feedback on everything.  And no one else saw their work. This was a learning prison where feedback was minimal and hidden.

The Internet has opened the world to opportunities for each of us to be artists. We can display our work in the open, and improve from the feedback we receive, and the connections we make.  

However, this is not easy to do. It takes practice to learn in this new open world of learning. When I approach faculty with the idea of learning in the open they are often full of fear. Afraid of being exposed as frauds by saying something incorrect. Afraid they may be doing something else wrong. Afraid their students will cheat. Afraid of the technology. Afraid it will be to much work. Afraid their students will say something inappropriate. Afraid of change.

When I create and share, and let my own light shine, I unconsciously give learners permission to do the same. This act of sharing liberates me from my our own fear, and the connection I make with other learners liberates them.

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The League for Innovation in the Community College identified outcomes for twenty-first century learners. These outcomes included communication skills, diversity and pluralism, critical thinking and problem solving, interpersonal skills including teamwork, relationship management, conflict resolutions, workplace skills, and personal skills for management of change, learning to learn, and personal responsibility.

How can we reach these outcomes in a hierarchical closed learning environment where student s are competing against each other and ranked by grades? This type of learning environment doesn’t make sense and will fail to meet the stated outcomes.

Giving and receiving is such a fundamental part of life. If we wish to receive, we must first give to others. The more we give, the more we will receive.  When we give it makes us happier, improves our health, and lengthens our lives. Success is is not about competing to be better than someone else. Success is the by-product of the preparation of learning  from others, and trying to be the best you can be (John Wooden).  When we give to others we are trying to be the best we can be.

When educators begin to give learners what they really need they will begin to receive the outcomes they truly want.

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Oprah Winfrey was the the principal speaker at the Afternoon Exercises of Harvard’s 362nd Commencement on May 30, 2013.   She stated there is no such thing a failure. Failure is life just moving us in another direction. The lesson from failure is to learn from every mistake. Failure is teaching you by forcing you into being more who you are. if you’re willing to listen to, be guided by, that still small voice. When you connect with your inner consciousness, that still small voice, you are ready to figure out the next right thing to do.  

It doesn’t matter how far you might rise. At some point you are bound to stumble because if you’re constantly doing what we do, raising the bar. If you’re constantly pushing yourself higher, higher the law of averages not to mention the Myth of Icarus predicts that you will at some point fall. And when you do I want you to know this, remember this: there is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction. Now when you’re down there in the hole, it looks like failure. So this past year I had to spoon feed those words to myself. And when you’re down in the hole, when that moment comes, it’s really okay to feel bad for a little while. Give yourself time to mourn what you think you may have lost but then here’s the key, learn from every mistake because every experience, encounter, and particularly your mistakes are there to teach you and force you into being more who you are. And then figure out what is the next right move. And the key to life is to develop an internal moral, emotional G.P.S. that can tell you which way to go.

From time to time you may stumble, fall, you will for sure, count on this, no doubt, you will have questions and you will have doubts about your path. But I know this, if you’re willing to listen to, be guided by, that still small voice that is the G.P.S. within yourself, to find out what makes you come alive, you will be more than okay. You will be happy, you will be successful, and you will make a difference in the world.

It seems odd that college students are presented with these words of wisdom AFTER they have earned their degrees. Students need to absorb, practice, and begin to develop their moral and emotional life path during their college experience.

Are you just covering  content or are you helping your students to prepare for life by helping them to develop an internal moral, emotional G.P.S. ?

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/05/winfreys-commencement-address/

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One of the common problems I have experienced teaching college courses is the conflict between”covering content” and the need for students to learn by actively engaging themselves in the content by creating and reflecting.

Covering content works if you have a photographic memory. Otherwise, to me, it’s not only insufficient but also a form of mental torture. You can try opening their minds by pouring content into the learner but it won’t work if they’re not engaged. Sure they will follow, but they won’t really understand why they are doing what they are doing. The new wired world requires us to help students learn to create, reflect and share the hows and whys through connected learning.

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