Tag Archives for " online learning "

On May 26, 2021 a Google Doodle was unveiled that is absolutely brilliant.

The Doodle commemorates the historic Savoy Ballroom in New York City, and pays tribute to the Swing and Lindy Hop dancing the ballroom was famous for.  You can read about the Doodle itself, its historical meaning, and how it was created, on Google's blog.

What I want to focus on here,  is the Doodle itself, because it provides a brilliant example of how to teach motor skills online.

Motor skills are one of the five "domains of learning" described by educational researcher and theorist Robert M. Gagné.

Motor skills are physical movement routines such as the physical steps involved in touch typing, driving a car, hand motions used in surgery or manufacturing,  or sports.

What makes the Savoy Ballroom Google Doodle so exciting (to me, and I hope also to you, by the time you get done reading this article) is that it is an absolutely brilliant demonstration of how people can teach, and learn, motor skills entirely online.

If you watch and listen to the Google design team discussing how they created the Doodle, you can learn a lot about the creative inspiration they put into it, based on physical dance movements. 

When you follow the movements of the Doodle, even though using only your fingers, you can actually FEEL those dance movements on a sensory whole-body level. 

As the speed increases and you start having to press multiple letter keys at the same time, one's first experience is that of complete overwhelm.

For me, there was no way I could even SEE which key to hit next, let alone get there fast enough to avoid making a mistake.

How can anyone do this?

Then I discovered a thread on Reddit where a group of dance experts were talking about how they had nailed all the levels (including the top secret BONUS level.. who knew there even WAS one?).

These experts had mastered  all the levels.

First of all, that told me that IT COULD BE DONE. Not that I could necessarily do it.. but SOMEONE could.

The redditors served as inspiring role models for me. Their chat in the thread made me aware that what I was trying to do was not impossible, since others had done it. (Inspiring role models are  a feature of mindset change learning. Mindset or attitude change is a different type or domain of learning than motor skills. But it's clear that having the right mindset is important in order to keep trying long enough to master a motor skill.)

SO.. inspired by the redditors... and intensely CURIOUS about this new secret bonus level I'd now been made aware of... I returned to practicing the game. I practiced pretty obsessively for several days... it is indeed addictive (but in a good way). 

Why could some do easily, what was so hard for me?

They had something I lacked: relevant PRIOR KNOWLEDGE 

(one of the "Nine Events of Instruction" described by Gagne).

Their relevant prior knowledge consisted of:

Motor skills are a SPECIFIC type of learning, and there is something very special and unique about learning them:

we have to develop muscle memory and internalize a smooth movement routine

by putting together individual movements one step at a time.

And then we have to PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE

until the smooth movement routine becomes an automatic habit

 that we can perform without having to stop and think about it.

Motor skills learning is hardwired into our most basic survival mechanisms. 

The ability  to flee a predator, climb a tree to pick a piece of fruit, or securely navigate rugged terrain, 

are motor skills that have often meant the difference between life and death to humans throughout history.

I was struck by how driven I felt to achieve self-efficacy in performing the motor skills needed to master the Doodle.

It was important to my sense of self-esteem to be able to DO IT MYSELF.

The redditors served as role models showing me it COULD be done...and that in turn improved my mindset enough to keep trying.

The motivational factors of CURIOSITY, SELF-EFFICACY, and (eventually) ACHIEVEMENT,

 kept me going long enough to practice and master the skill.

The Google Doodle provides us with a direct,  tactile, sensory experience of learning motor skills online.

It provides us with the opportunity to reflect more deeply on how humans learn movement routines,

and on how we can  create effective learning of all kinds in our own online courses.

If you get a chance to try out the Google Doodle, drop me a note and let me know your own experiences of, and reflections on, learning and teaching motor skills in an online environment.

Write to me at Rebecca@learnandgetsmarter.com or join us on Saturdays on Zoom for the Learn and Get Smarter community meeting...where we talk about how to survive and thrive with online learning and online courses in these challenging times.

Education removes the obstacles that prevent people from achieving their dreams.

The difference between failure and success often comes down to learning... whether learning to change one's mindset from "I feel like I can't" to "I know that I can" or learning how to perform a new skill.

Times of accelerated societal change, like the present, call for accelerated learning. This is a time of unprecedented growth in online learning  as we are called on to meet the needs of those we are here to serve.

You might also enjoy watching my on-demand webinar

which teaches three secrets of online course design

 (secrets we go into in much more depth, in the Master Course).

Whether the course is right for you at this time or not, I'm here to support you in your online teaching journey. 

How do YOU want to change the world in 2021 and beyond?

These dilemmas have business implications, because if you have to be personally available in order to ensure a good learning experience for every learner, then the number of learners you can serve at any one time is limited by your own time, energy, and capacity to address whatever comes up.

As I see it, there are four qualities that an online course business should aim for,  in order to  fulfill the promise of online learning (a promise that many are feeling has NOT been fulfilled, right about now).

Ideally, we want our products and services to be:

These factors are CONSTRAINTS…limits or guidelines we must address in order to make an online course business work for both our learners and ourselves.

And the challenge is making all those components work together and stay in balance, all at the same time.

Reducing navigational complexity (while maintaining as much engagement and variety within the course as possible) will make a course more scalable.

The challenge is how to do that without also removing engagement and interactivity.

What is the sweet spot where each of the factors is optimized?

My sense is that it’s not necessary to optimize all four factors in the SAME version of a course, as long as we are able to optimize all four factors in our BUSINESS as a whole.

You can offer a high-level mastermind (that is not scalable, but provides tremendous value) to a very small number of select, highly motivated learners.

That course can have a lot of interactivity even at the cost of adding complexity to the navigation,  because you will be available to help shepherd people through.

You can also have a different course, with simpler navigation and little or no personal interaction with you, that is infinitely scalable. 

A  friend and fellow entrepreneur shared an interesting experience the other day. She mentioned that she had been feeling stuck about how to move forward in her business, until someone asked her the right question. 

Once the right question was asked, the answers to what she needed to do to grow her business, became clear.

Answers that had been eluding her suddenly came to her easily. Processes started unfolding organically and naturally. The barriers to growth in her online business had been removed.

You are here to make a difference in the world, and  I am here to help you make that happen.

My students and clients are out there doing that every day, and I am so honored and thankful to be able to work with them.

Meanwhile, how are  YOU feeling? 

Are you struggling to find an even footing in these challenging times, looking for ways to grow, or some combination of the two?

As my colleague so eloquently put it, each of us in our own sphere as online educators, is here to help others know that what they want to achieve is do-able.

How will you make that happen for your clients and customers?

Let's talk about it!

Let’s say you’ve done a great job of optimizing your course, using the Course Design Formula®:

    Many of your students come to class enthusiastically, do all the work on schedule, and are getting amazing results.

It’s hard to impossible to get inside someone else’s head. The very fact that a student is NOT coming to class, or responding to your email, means you have no way beyond pure conjecture (which isn’t very effective) to actually know what their reasons may be, for not participating fully in your course.

You could spend every waking minute creating unlimited customized versions of your course to address the needs of every single learner, but you’d never be able to make it perfect for everyone.

That’s why I adhere to the adage “Done is better than perfect”.

Remember when I said that if completely individualized customization is a requirement, then one-on-one coaching is the solution?  True...but  coaching is not scalable either. From a business model perspective, you as a teacher can only coach for as many hours as you have available. An online course on the other hand can be sold to an unlimited number of students.

That’s good in terms of making money for the course creator, but unless the course is custom-tailored to each student’s learning goals, preferences, and needs, it may not work ideally for the learner.

As an online instructor, if you have a large number of course participants, there's no way you can customize, adjust and adapt the course to each individual student's unique learning needs.

You know who CAN achieve that level of customization though? Each student individually.

If you've ever crammed for a test, done well on it, and then promptly forgotten everything you'd learned, you are familiar with what happens when those packets of information don't get properly stored on the long-term memory shelves.

It's possible to do well on a test or otherwise parrot back information, without having truly learned it in the deepest sense of the word.

If you've truly learned something, you can recall and use it later... even much later.

What makes many online courses less effective than they could be, is that not enough attention is paid by either the instructor or the learner, to this process of semantic encoding.

As you can see, there are a lot more steps involved in actually learning something, than just presenting information (on the teacher's part) or superficially taking in information (on the learner's part).

The Course Design Formula® was designed to help course creators optimize the way they teach, to facilitate learning.

The formula can also work to help learners optimize the way they learn, to get more out of any course by creating a customized learning experience tailored to their own unique learning preferences and style.  

We'll explore this topic more in future blog posts. I'm creating a cognitive strategies course (learning how to learn) that each student can use to customize and optimize their own learning in any online course they take.

While you as an instructor can't customize  your course for every single student, you CAN make it easier for every student to optimize their own learning experience as they go through your course.

That's what I'm working on next... creating a way for  course participants to optimize their own learning using the Course Design Formula®.

How can you make  your course work for EACH learner, when each learner is so unique?

It's relatively easy to  create a customized experience and ensure that each of your learners is engaged, learning, happy, and getting what they need out of the course, when your course is small.

The key there is to build FEEDBACK MECHANISMS into the course at every step of the way, so that your course participants know they can always reach you and that you will hear and respond to their challenges, issues, and concerns.

But many people create online courses with the goal of having an evergreen, "set it and forget it" way to "teach while you sleep".  That goal is the gold standard of online course design... but is it effective in terms of getting learners real results?

The ONLINE LEARNING situation makes it relatively easy to use digital media to create an evergreen "set it and forget it" course that puts money in your bank account while you sleep.  

However, the requirements of HUMAN LEARNING often demand real-time (or at least, semi-synchronous)  interaction and monitoring from an actual human (ie, YOU).  Ensuring that  learning gets  into each of your learners' minds in the way that works best for them requires ongoing,  dynamic participation from an instructor who is awake.

How does one reconcile these two things?

If you put your course online and then "set it and forget it", how can you be sure that each of your course participants is getting real results? 

I've been thinking a lot about the above scenario, which I've seen happen far too many times in too many online courses. If that's happened to you (it has to me, and to pretty much everyone I know), here are some things to consider:

What do I mean by that?

I mean that the online learning space makes it fast, easy, and tempting to create learning materials that can be sold to an unlimited number of people.

But the way human beings learn requires personal guidance, fine-tuning, and hand-holding, often at an individual level, especially if the learning is complex and needs to be applied in practical ways.

From a business-model point of view, the online learning space makes it possible to earn a lot of money, as many have done and are doing, by creating a product that can be sold to many people at one time and that requires little to no maintenance, supervision, or upkeep once it's been set up.

From a learning-model point of view, however, learning something new in a way that works for YOU as a learner, may require in-depth focus, attention, wisdom, guidance, understanding, and personal interaction.

 This is more true for some learners than others, and more true at some points along the learning journey than others.

I'm working my way towards developing a  new, integrated business + learning model focusing on the touch-points that require  in-depth and customized focus from the instructor.

My goal is to help all of us optimize both the impact and the reach of our online courses.

I'm working towards creating a high-level understanding of how each of us can structure the entire "universe" of our course offerings (our "whole cow") in ways that optimize the "set it and forget it" aspects for things that DON'T require in-depth guidance from the instructor, and also optimize the "high learning impact" aspects for parts of the learning curve that DO.