“Perfection is a stick with which to beat the possible.”
— Rebecca Solnit
It’s so cold here that I’ve practically become one with my heater, and I’m seriously considering some battery-powered clothing. But if Monday night’s national championship game turns out the right way, nobody will care the slightest about the temperature, and Columbus will be an inferno of scarlet and gray.
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The Rundown: Emotions significantly influence adult learning by guiding attention, enhancing engagement, and affecting memory retention. However, their intentional incorporation into learning experiences is often overlooked.
The Context:
Role of Emotions: Emotions are biological responses to significant events, shaping our cognitive processes. Negative emotions, like fear and anger, narrow focus to address immediate threats, while positive emotions broaden our openness to new experiences.
Impact on Learning: Positive emotions enhance engagement and creativity, leading to better problem-solving and knowledge retention. Conversely, negative emotions can hinder learning by limiting cognitive flexibility.
Strategies for Educators: Incorporating storytelling, humor, and varied activities can evoke positive emotions, making learning experiences more effective. Additionally, creating a safe environment allows learners to express and manage emotions constructively.
Why it Matters: Recognizing and harnessing the power of emotions in educational settings can transform passive learning into dynamic, memorable experiences. By intentionally designing with emotions in mind, educators can facilitate deeper understanding and long-term retention of information.
Rundown: Anna Maria Dorgo has a conversation with Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner, which focuses on building and sustaining successful Communities of Practice (CoPs) and social learning spaces. It highlights the importance of collaboration, storytelling, and leadership for shared learning and problem-solving.
The Context:
Strong leadership is crucial. Successful CoPs often start with an enthusiastic leader who fosters open communication and a shared purpose.
Facilitators should encourage participant ownership and storytelling rather than simply providing services. Stories help members understand challenges and adapt solutions to their specific situations.
Sustaining a CoP requires ongoing learning. Regularly review past discussions to evaluate real-world outcomes and adjust based on shared experiences.
Why it Matters: CoPs offer a human-centered alternative to traditional training. By emphasizing storytelling and collaboration, they create dynamic environments for professional growth. This empowers practitioners to navigate uncertainty and drive innovation.
Scaling Evidence-based Instructional Design Expertise Using AI
The Rundown: Philippa Hardman summarizes recent research on using AI to scale evidence-based teaching approaches that have traditionally been too resource-intensive to implement broadly.
The Context:
By creating a single “perfect” template and using it to generate multiple variations with AI, instructional designers can significantly reduce development time while maintaining quality.
Designers can start with one high-quality module, perfect their AI-assisted approach, and then scale that success across the entire course. This iterative process allows for continuous refinement and maximizes the impact of AI.
Implementing structured human review processes that complement AI’s capabilities is crucial. This might involve multi-stage reviews focusing on factual accuracy, pedagogical effectiveness, and inclusivity, with continuous improvement of the review process itself.
Why it Matters: Using AI-powered language models in teaching offers a way to apply what we know about effective teaching methods on a large scale. This has the potential to improve learning outcomes for students in many different educational settings.
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Do learners understand your instructional graphics?
Are we all a little over-confident about the graphics we use to promote learning? Elizabeth Boling has done research that demonstrates we are. We assume people can understand our intent in the instructional graphics that we or others produce. But this is not always the case.
What do you think of book clubs for professional development?
I’ve seen them transform reading into collaborative learning in tech, marketing, and leadership. I’m thinking about developing a toolkit to make these experiences more impactful and would love your input! Share your experiences: What worked? What didn’t? How did you structure discussions? Let’s learn together!
If you or your event needs a speaker or workshop that is highly interactive and super practical, we should talk.
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Friday Finds is an independent publication that I produce in my free time. You can support my work by sharing it with the world, booking an advertising spot, or buying me a coffee.
Born with a life-long passion for learning, I have the great fortune to work at the intersection of learning, design, technology & collaboration.
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Mike Taylor 