Figuring Things Out

Professor Eleonor Dockworth, cognitive psychologist and pedagogue, describes learning in a perfect Deweyian manner: "figuring things out".

We all shouldn't forget that figure is synonym of design, so to figure out (which means understanding, learning, thinking) means in some way designing, designing in our minds. Any more proofs needed of the connection between designing and learning?

Universal Design for Learning

UDL is design applied to meet true diversity in education as learning skills in each individual are as different as their fingerprints.

There are three main principles for this pedagogical strategy:

• Present the students the subjects in multiple ways
• Allow them to express themselves in multiple ways
• Create multiple ways of engagement

In all cases, the students are at the centre of the experience. CAST is a nonprofits organization that has been working for more that 25 years now and it's doing its job very, very well. They have many free interactive tools for students and teachers. An example to be followed.

Learning Revolution at Harvard

The only way to go ahead changes is improving learning.

Harvard, again, has taken the lead: transversal knowledge among the whole university, ICT, Mobile Learning, etc. It is not just a matter of having funds: those 40 million dollars could have been spent in so many fashionable items far away from pedagogy.

Reflexive Organizations

Organizations of any kind, social, educational, political, business, etc., tend to remain the same. They are all characterized by what Donald Schön called "dynamic conservatism". That is not a hundred per cent bad: it makes institutions and companies reliable. Nevertheless, at times of uncertainty and big changes, like today, the exageration of this tendency can be lethal.

Reflexive organizations, that means institutions able to understand and react in front of changing realities, is the solution. The "Knowledge Based Society" should be renamed as "Learning Based Society".

Maybe one of the best texts on reflexiveness and society is Schön's Beyond the Stable State, published in 1973.

A learning system… must be one in which dynamic conservatism operates at such a level and in such a way as to permit change of state without intolerable threat to the essential functions the system fulfils for the self. Our systems need to maintain their identity, and their ability to support the self-identity of those who belong to them, but they must at the same time be capable of transforming themselves. (Schon 1973: 57)

The link has a good and comprenhensive information on Schön's learning approach.