At our community meeting last week, we used the structure of a "how to" course to think about how to survive and thrive under conditions of extreme uncertainty, specifically, the current conditions due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
We decided that the "target audience" for the course we are creating together, will be us, ourselves... this Learn and Get Smarter community of experts and entrepreneurs who are focused on creating quality online courses.
Since we are designing the course for ourselves, we will be able to test its usefulness to us, once we have it developed.
At next week's meeting (on Saturday, April 18th, at 9 AM Pacific/ 12 noon Eastern) we will put the work we've done over the past two weeks together, to create a cognitive strategy course. The learning goal for the course will be to help us think about what we need to learn (and how best to learn it) in order to cope with the current pandemic on all levels of our lives and society.
We decided to focus on using Maslow's hierarchy of needs as an organizing framework for thinking about how to survive and thrive at each level.
If you have my book, you can read about how to structure a cognitive strategy course on pages 156-157 of the paperback.
During the meeting, we will use the work we've done over the past several weeks, to figure out what the cognitive strategy (or strategies) should be. We've looked at both mindset changes and practical skills that will be helpful.... now it's time to put this all together in an effective and engaging way.
Come join us next Saturday!
We will design a
cognitive strategy ("learning how to learn") course
for adapting to change
in the face of the current pandemic.
As these meetings evolve, my goal is to help you understand the different types of course design structures you can use to support different types of learning.
As a community, we are gaining hands-on practice and experience in building something new together, from the ground up.
When you design a course in your own area of expertise, you are, by definition, an expert.
The Course Design Formula® can help you overcome the "expert blind spot" that makes it hard for experts to see what non-experts (your future course participants) must understand in order to benefit from participating in your course.
During our Saturday community meetings, we are using aspects of the Course Design Formula® in a different way, though.
In this case, we are dealing with a situation where no one in the world yet has the expertise fully needed to deal with a novel and unprecedented situation. We are living in what I refer to as the "fractal zone"...an area of swirling chaos and uncertainty, that is part and parcel of chaos theory.
In fact, chaos theory may be a useful organizing principle to help us think about these chaotic conditions and uncertain times.
This Saturday, we will work on developing cognitive strategies for dealing with the uncertainty and risk inherent in chaos. Our goal is to optimize our own and each others' abilities to survive and thrive in unpredictable complex conditions.
Come join in the conversation and share in the synergy!
