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Bert's Last Lecture - Habits of highly effective learners
1. Habits of highly effective learners Bert De Coutere’s last lecture
2. Welcome! This lecture contains: 3 confessions 3 pieces of good news Something sweet 5 slider buttons No bullet points 1 piece of bad news Why am I doing this? Why this topic?
6. Start Remember the last skill you mastered? Learning at random might work, but it is far from optimal. Can you recall how you got good? What if you could shape your learning agility for your next skill?
7. Our tasty and imaginary journey: Become good at this Exercise: What are the activities you’d do to become good at this?
41. Thanks for almost 14 wonderful years! Bert De Coutere has left the building.
42. Me, myself and I You never walk alone Allatonce S p a c e d in time Nuggets All you can eat Theory Experience Comfort Zone To boldly go
Notes de l'éditeur
I cant play the saxophone, and I can hardly collect stamps live on stage. Over the past 13 years, 11 months and 2 weeks in IBM, I’ve been teaching classes for most of that time. I started in 1998 teaching Windows classes, and only stopped lecturing when I took the job of Business Area Manager for our elearning unit 5 years ago. So when I thought about what to do as my final action, I decided to have a last lecture.
The professor’s curse: I like to explain things. With finger and everything.
Too often in my job, I’m on the side of the organisation, of HR and the training department. Important as that is, it has always been really about us, the competent people of the network age. So this lecture is on the flip side, it is not about what organisations should do, it is about how WE learn best.
As IBM is a technology company, and I’m part of a unit that mainly deals with elearning in all its forms and shapes, I have been sidetracked by technology a lot. Boys and their toys. But some things haven’t changed. Like our human brain. That still operates largely as it did thousands of years ago. We just understand it better now. So while technology can enhance our learning a lot, this lecture is about the naked learning: how it happens in our black box.
This lecture works best when we make it real, or real like, or fake real. So this is something that noone here will master or even have an idea about. Keep it in mind for the rest of the lecture. And have some too. Little exercise: what could you do to become good at this?
Trust, creativity, leadership… all can be developped. I haven’t encountered a single competence domain that could not be learned, independently from your born abilities. Those are headstarts rather than limitations. This is not a Hippie statement: it doesn’t say everyone can become good enough. That is something else.
Unless you are death. Which you are not. For those that did not think about activities: good news. It will work like that too. Just not as good. You can learn the wrong things. Wrong direction, too slow, unfocussed, …
So most of this will be applicable. So most of the following will be useful to you.
Here is the thing: we will construct a personal learning agility dashboard I’d call it Learning DNA, but that would be wrong. DNA is something fixed. Your learning capabilities are not fixed, they can be shaped like other competencies. This is the mother of all competencies.
We have 5 of these switches. The world is not black and white. Everything comes in shades of grey and slide buttons. For each, think of where you would put the lever for your own learning. Then we present only 1 piece of evidence (research, project, rule of thumb etc), and only one piece of how we could do it. Up to you to adjust it for your own list of chosen activities. For this one: at the one hand, ultemately it needs to end in your head. At the other hand, learning is an intrinsically social activity. At the one hand again, too much social distracts. So where to put the handle?
4 is the magic number
Remember: most of this works for most people so this will mostly work for you too
Status update, tap into your network Serendipity
So how would you apply it for the cuberdons?
At the one hand we could do crash courses. At the other hand, we could do it piece by piece. But that takes so long.
Or the Ebbinghaus remembering curve
So most of the following will be useful to you.
Space in time, eg read a chapter of a book every evening, instead of the whole book at once.
How could you apply this principle to your activities?
At the one hand, little pieces of learning, or a big fat complete menu?
Attention span and cognitive overload.
So most of the following will be useful to you.
Chunk it up in manageable chunks. Information is abundance, our attention span isn’t.
At the one hand, learn it first. At the other hand, do it. Learn by doing or do by learning?
Learn from experience: almost right. Reflection needed.
So most of the following will be useful to you.
Watson’s quote : the problems of the world could be settled easily if only men were willing to think. Build in your reflection moments. Let it not go to waste, to your automatic garbage collection.
Not all activities are equally developmental. In or outside your comfort zone?
Stijn is a good teacher. It’s because he had many bad ones himself. Extremes and emotion are more developmental.
So most of the following will be useful to you.
Just do it. It is called comfort zone for a reason. You can learn from the worst.
How to apply on your list? Are they by chance all in your comfort zone?
So most of the following will be useful to you. How does your dashboard look like?
Eg feedback.
Learning ROI and impact is a harsh bitch: learning has only taken place when performed or behaved. So, do us both a favor: use some of this for your next skills. A real one, not the cuberdons.