I’ve seen this video a couple of times, really enjoy it and think it means something for education design.
What I find interesting about this are the following points:
- Take a mundane experience, and apply some creative thinking to make it new and fun. As we think about designing learning experiences, can we take something that has become run-of-the-mill (boring) and reinvigorate it with this kind of thinking? For example, mundane experiences in learning might be getting a reading list, or access to a list of other program participants, reading bios of faculty, traveling to a classroom-based event. Could we connect the reading list to a mystery, or some kind of challenge? Could we have participants comment on each others’ and faculty profiles? Could we use the traveling time as an opportunity for participants to gather data?
- Question the conveniences we have put in place that allow us to be lazy, and offer a fun alternative that puts us back in the driver’s seat. From a learning standpoint, and examining my own ‘lazy’ behavior, I’d say we have an opportunity to arrest the convenience of classroom-only delivery models, and apply greater discipline to how we can support learning over a natural span of time and contexts. It’s entirely UNnatural to think that the unconscious incompetence to conscious competence (and behavior shift) can be accomplished inside of a classroom-only event.
Be brave, fellow educators! Let’s find the way to turn the staircases of our designs into unusual and enjoyable experiences.
Related articles: Purposeful Fun (elearnmag.org); Learning Spaces (e-book, Educause)
