Reflections on my role as a learner in this course

Reflections on the role of learner: 

As I look at the blogs of others in this course, it is not surprising that I relate most closely to those who work with adult learners.   Learning theories apply to all ages, becoming richer as cognitive and social capacity increase but it has been many years since my early schooling. It is fascinating to see the development in theory and pedagogy over the intervening years (which will remain unspecified in number).

Like Paul and Cheryl and Marina I work in the health care industry.   Although working in private practice, it seems I have less system restraints and greater freedom to propose the direction our training should take. 

We do share the challenge of building multidisciplinary aspects into learning, largely due to constraints on the availability of other health workers, particularly when this relates to a large team.  Asynchronous activities and embedding of recorded media may be a key to doing this.  It also provides the opportunity to require individual learners to participate in creation of that knowledge, to approach a health professional from a different field then share their findings back to the group.  As I usually only have a small number of learners at any one time, this could be saved as an ongoing resource.

Like Hazel, the nature of my industry means that a blended learning approach is preferred.

A major challenge in my situation is the availability of resources – including the time of the learners – what we sell is our clinician’s time.  It also means that when it comes to developing training, I’m ‘it’ and creating networks of support outside the Company has been important.   It is perhaps ironic that to date my networks are primarily outside this course. Largely I suspect, because they’ve been created gradually over time, triggered by a specific commonality or recommendation by someone I was already connected to, and I was able to select the timing of establishing the links. There is an implicit understanding that there will be marked fluctuations in our involvement and availability to each other, according to what else is going on in our lives.  Most of my professional networks are not related to education. Training is an important aspect, but only one part of my role and at times it has to be set aside somewhat to focus on urgent demands from other aspects. 

I’ve experienced optimism bias, which Maria Anderson describes as a natural overextension of the expectation for what one can learn – also evident in the number of cookbooks on my shelf. At times I’ve experienced decision fatigue in starting to explore the range of technologies available, the number of aps for creating, manipulating and sharing media.  But then I remind myself that I’m not dealing with information overload, I’m dealing with filter failure, and that is within my ability to control. Realising that is part of understanding my strengths and limits (one of the 15 key capabilities of a professional I refer to in my video).  Reading the forum showed me I was not alone in this, and positive responses and suggestions, from other learners and from Wendy meant that I didn’t feel any concern about ‘transactional distance’.  The greater issue has been dealing with feelings of guilt about not engaging more with the blogs and forums, when a failure to do so reduces the opportnities for collaboration for other learners, particularly when it in a small group.

There is a challenge in running parallel systems – curating (and aggregation) tools, blog subscriptions, forums and email accounts.  In many cases the pre-existing tools will be the ones I continue to maintain after the course is completed, but I’ve also discovered new and exciting tools that I’ll use on an ongoing basis, both at work and in working as a Bible class teacher at church. Just love Videoscribe and Vittle!  Have discovered new ways of using Powerpoint, and the beauty of Prezi to minimise the linearity of presentations.   Because they are digital natives the children embrace the interaction without hesitation, and for them publishing their creations, either electronically or in hard copy, is one of the most rewarding aspects of the process.  This contrasts with some of my adult learners who may be hesitant to make their thoughts, speculations and analysis so publicly available to others, who may in fact feel exposed by the process. 

I was discussing this with a colleague recently.  We have many things in common, our office, our age, even our first initial.  What we also share is a preference to communicate with staff orally and in person.  We hypothesised that there is a generational element to this.   When dealing with something more than the minutia of work, our natural reaction is to pick up the phone and call the person, rather than sending an email.  If they work in the same office we’ll go and talk with them in person rather sending them an email.  When clinicians call or email seeking advice or support in managing complex cases, my immediate preference is for synchronous verbal communication.  I can immediately seek and provide clarification, jointly explore alternatives and tailor the scope, levity and nature of my feedback to what they’re feeling at the time.

When I write emails, particularly if related to performance issues, I review them several times to check the tone and to consider if there are multiple ways they could be interpreted by the recipient.  This also applies to blog reflections.  However the phone approach becomes less appropriate as issues of scalability start to arise.  This is where asynchronous communication becomes so much more important.

The fact that we each have communication biases is something I will need to keep top of mind when asking my adult learners to create media as part of collaborative projects and to engage in a deeper level of reflective practice.  For many of them this may be a new skill, which feels uncomfortable or unnatural at first, and in some cases I expect it will be viewed as an imposition on their already packed workday.   They may be hesitant and spend a greater time composing and reviewing their early reflections until it becomes second nature to them.  For these reasons I intend to make small progressive changes.  Using my preferred pedagogical base in designing new learning activities, and working back to incorporate elements of reflection, networking and knowledge creation into pre-existing programs.  I’ll need to ensure that each time I introduce one of these changes I communicate continually and make myself available as a support for the learner, their mentor and their front line manager, although often the last two roles are combined.  I need to ensure that feedback is  thoughtful, personalised, meaningful and timely.

One of the greatest values I’ve gained from taking the courses has been the opportunity to ‘live the journey’ that I’m intending to ask my learners to take.  I appreciate the way that Wendy has structured the courses so they provide an example of learning pedagogy in action. The course materials have demonstrated, by their breadth, depth and scope, the depth of instructor knowledge and preparation required to provide support to learners with widely divergent experience levels and background.  (This is one of the reasons I plan to start with small changes…)  The engagement tasks – those I’ve completed and those I haven’t - have modelled ways to guide the learner in skill acquisition.   The most powerful example I take from the course though has been how Wendy modelled the role of ‘guide on the side’, in particular the way in which she made herself available via multiple means and over very extended hours.

My 'notes to self' list on this is:

• Clearly communicate your expectations of the learners and your availability to them.
• Plan your commitments so that you are almost constantly available to learners in the initial weeks of their learning program, when they are first engaging with new systems and unfamiliar processes and when their other support networks have not yet been established.
• Passionate educators do not allow themselves to be constrained to the standard expectations of the organisations they work within, but employ practice driven by pedagogy and informed by sound learning theory.
• Get to know your learners early in the course so you can highlight the relevance of materials to their specific situation and suggest directions for investigation.
• Acknowledge the value of prior experience that members bring to the group learning experience, and encourage sharing.
• Recognise that sometimes the constraints of the learning environment may mean that you are not modelling the interaction of naturally occurring social and learning networks, but this can still serve as scaffolding to develop skills that will translate to other learning environments.