Learners can feel the difference
Learning design is fundamentally connected to the creation of a hospitable learning environment. Educational institutions that ignore this warning do so at their own peril.
We live in harsh economic times. The mantra 'more for less' is surely the virtuous life-goal for every aspiring manager. At every point people are increasingly aware of the tension to stay afloat while cutting corners. The solutions aren't obvious much of the time and there's always the present danger of losing something essential to the buoyancy of whichever life raft you are sitting in.
“More for less” has one or two issues, believe it or not.
Figuring these things out is where learning design comes in. What can you let go of? What should remain at the heart of this thing? Movable feasts vs immovable objects. It takes wise reflection and prudent application to find that peculiar 'sweet spot' in any context that gets you more bang for your buck. There was never a greater need for careful observation and thought when it comes to setting up outstanding learning opportunities.
In the many schools I have worked, I felt that peculiar first hand pressure to get traction in the classroom when everything was usually stacked in the opposite direction: unwilling participants, biological factors,¹ strict time slots, multiple distractions (from all angles) and then your own personal energy limitations as an often lonely figure without support in a sea of expectation (it's okay, I am laughing a little as I write that overly tragic description - but you get the idea). Education is never conducted in an idyllic vacuum - there are always contextual factors to be negotiated and used to find the best possible options for effective learning.
In a nutshell, I think you need the following things as a minimum:
Skilled instruction
Accessible resources
A trusting, hospitable environment
I want to focus on the third with the full recognition that the first two lean heavily into its success.
Dr David I. Smith is a Professor of Education in Michigan who has written some really helpful words on this subject.² His book 'On Christian Teaching' picks up on something so important I made a short video about it:
In any teaching context there are going to be peculiar factors which require careful handling to get the correct balance. You won't always get it right but it's important to recognise what you are or aren't aiming for. (Borrowing from Dr Smith) I am convinced that the curation of a warm and trusting environment is absolutely essential.³
This will of course look different in one million ways but learners know the difference between being a mere data point on a conveyor belt and a person making a valuable journey of discovery.
One example from recent years has been the GCSE exam system.⁴ In the best cases, a well-connected, holistic department would deliver inspiring material and lead students forward with a sense of excitement about what was emerging on the journey. Unfortunately, I saw many examples of dead-eyed and fed up teenagers who had lost enthusiasm because it was all so exhaustive. At some point, somewhere, all the efficiency dots had been joined up by relentless managers. Aspiring high schools now resemble F1 pit-crews where every split second counts.⁵ All of these students knew they were doing something worthy but the spark of life had gone. I could go on to talk about the many online courses I have endured as an adult where my own spark was progressively being snuffed out but I think I'm in good company here.
This is where the curation of a hospitable learning environment becomes a crucial priority. Remember that a successful restaurant isn't just sending you a plate of food through a metal hatch. There is an entire framed experience that means people will wait to get access for its trusted quality and care.
In the same way learning organisations must think carefully about those details which communicate a similar sense of security. Does every learner feel known in some way? Are their needs noticed? Is the course content appropriately challenging enough to provide a fulfilling experience of growth? Or is it carelessly administered - making it a frustrating time of failure - or boredom?
The choice of courses being offered, the pace of completion, the level of accountability at play. These are all coded aspects of the environment that learners are stepping into.
Factory conveyor belts run and run with little care for what they are conveying. They don’t care where they send it or if it falls off and smashes. A learner feels the difference between being an object shuttling down a one-size-fits-all factory line and something more carefully prepared.
What do your learners feel about the environment you are providing?
When I was a high school teacher I worked hard to forge meaningful unique connections with classes - occasionally renaming groups who had been designated impersonal timetable codes (I chuckle at how 10x2 became The Pineapple Gang... I remember the satisfaction of getting them to write it proudly on the front of their books). Straight away there was a sense of personal connection which challenged any sense of being cells in a spreadsheet. I never wanted that dead-eye stare to infect my classroom. It was a warm home for learning, not an impersonal delivery system.
More recently, working for Crosslands - where most of my efforts are focussed online (surely the most impersonal of all possible environments?) I have to find other kinds of solutions. For a start we work hard to push against the sense that users are logging into an impersonal 'platform'. Each course has carefully considered resources - hand drawn illustrations, clear explainer videos carefully located, opportunities for meaningful reflection. We also work hard to emphasise the importance of participating in learner communities alongside our digital offerings.
There is an unexpected richness in connecting, sharing and listening to other learners who are on a similar pathway. Solitary study - however well resourced - is not enough. Therefore a fundamental characteristic of the Crosslands offering is that the learning is offered as a means of growing existing communities - not as an end in itself.
¹ Puberty, dear reader, puberty.
² Although Dr Smith is speaking into an explicitly Christian educational context in the US, his observations are wide-ranging and well worth considering. I have taught in numerous so-called 'secular' settings here in the UK and pretty much everything he says in this book has been immediately applicable in my mind.
³ I realise that there's a lot more that Dr Smith unpacks in his book about the often ignored link between pedagogy and ideology.
⁴ For non-UK folks: a General Certificate of Secondary Education across multiple subjects taken at around age 16. Everyone has to do it by law so you can imagine the best and worst of this.
⁵ Of course there's wholesome truth to this - who wants a poorly run school - but the pendulum has swung so far the other way that it has wrapped tightly around the breathing chords of an entire generation.
