Educational challenges... This trip takes you to a reflection on the use of learning outcomes, the role of the learner, quality assurance, sparkling learning environments and interconnection... 5 stars, 5 recommendations!

1. - a short reflection about educational challenges for 2013 -
Up to a 5 star
learning environment!

2. Check out with me 5 major changes/suggestions to create
a future proof instructional and curriculum design…

4. Is this familiar to you?

5. Honestly, I’m bored… to hear about learning outcomes. For too many
years now, people have been focusing on this as if it is or can be the
(only) drive for good education!
From the Ministry of Education to universities to headmasters and
teacher trainers... everybody worries about refining, updating,
implementing learning outcomes.
Well, enough,… forget about learning outcomes!
FORGET ABOUT…

6. In my opinion,
learning outcomes are
• pretentious
• unrealistic
• endless listed
• useless
• and simply creepy for students
Why forget about…?

7. What is feasible…?
Not everything that can be counted, counts.
Not everything that counts, can be counted.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Competences/learning outcomes:

8. Don’t waste your time and
just draw some general competences
based on the well-known BLOOM-matrix: goals, aims for knowledge,
skills, attitudes…
linked to your discipline / course / training.
Put your energy in what really matters, the next stars,…
… so what’s up?

9. Try to engage the learner
in the whole cycle of the learning process.
Nowadays it’s very common to engage the learner in the learning
activities with assignments, group work, collaborative tools and
tasks.
Good! Of course!
“ENGAGE ME OR ENRAGE ME”

10. However, 3 interesting challenges remain
and they are situated,
where you would less expect them:
in the preparation and the tail of the learning
event*…
* let’s call it an event: the course, training, methodology, interaction,…
Engage…

11. Take your time to draw together,
at least:
1. some essential competences / L.O.
2. the design of the learning event
3. the assessment
Engage…

12. • Use the Deming circle,
Plan Do Check Act/Adjust, to design the
curriculum and to engage the learner in each step
you make.
• This model for reflection is well known in its
applications of Quality Management but it is a
perfect and in fact a wonderful basic tool for the
instructional designer.Think PDCA!
THINK DEMING

13. Think PDCA ánd link, connect,
realize each step of the PDCA
with the learner.
- see 4 and 5 too -
THINK DEMING

14. Creativity is the drive to
establish an attractive
learning environment.
MAKE LEARNING EXCITING

15. Books and books have
been written about the
added value of using
new media. Well, OK.
Although, don’t get lost
in games, social media,
learning management
systems and other
digital torture…

16. Books and books about new methodologies.Well, OK. Very
inspiring but once again, some trainers get dragged into a flashy
whirlwind of methodologies…
and so do…
the learners!
Don’t get lost in the wood,
never able to find the treasure…

17. • is not about trying out as much as possible, using loads of
tools and methodologies you don’t connect with…
• is all about the right and well-balanced
cocktail of approaches and methodologies!
not flashy but eclectic
So… making learning exciting …

18. Try to connect.. or even more: interconnect!
Star 1 – 4 are about connecting too, but there is more…
INTERCONNECT
There are 2 dimensions
and 3 different layers in this connection.
That’s how it became… an interconnection.

19. Connect with the learners’
1) Experience:
what are the experiences related to…
2) Talents*:
what are his/her strengths, natural talents/gifts,…
3) Learning style:
how he/she learns the best
Interconnecting, dimension 1…
* Recommended literature: Luk Dewulf

20. Connect with the learners’
1) Experience:
what are the experiences related to…
=> is obvious, it is basically
thought in every teacher training

21. Connect with the learners’
2) Talents*:
what are his/her strengths, natural talents/gifts,…
* Recommended literature: Luk Dewulf

22. Nature x nurture
But… “use it or loose it”…
=> Do we use this in education?!
Competence based vss a talent orientated education

23. Connect with the learners’
3) Learning style:
how he/she learns the best

24. rememberVygotsky…
Now, just connecting…
is not enough…
zone of proximal development
=> we should be challenging

25. … let’s put him
in a slightly updated version…
zone of proximal development

27. You
should
be here

28. Flowis the mental state of operation in which a person
performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of
energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the
process of the activity.
Proposed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the positive
psychology concept has been widely referenced across a
variety of fields.

29. Vygotsky,
Mihaly,
AND the theory of connectivity, dimension 1,
We can replace the skills in this model,
relating the challenges
to the experience, talents and learning style
summarising

30. experience, talents
& learning style
The
perfect
match…

31. Connect with your own
1) experience
2) talents
3) learning style
Interconnecting, dimension 2…

33. Relating and macro connecting star 1 – 5 we can summarize that the right way to
a 5 star learning experience involves also
connecting your strengths
to those of the learners
This will generate the best basic conditions for learning:
support, feedback and challenges
in search of the right learning leverage

34. Individual matches. That’s when learning becomes really exciting,
for both, the teacher/trainer and the learner. And that’s exactly
how it should be. In the end, both are learners 
up to a 5 star learning environment…

36. Reflected?!