Scaffolding Learner Expectations
Each year around the end of January, Crosslands host their annual Winter Conference in Newcastle. This is the main event across the year, typically folding multiple layers of activity into one physical location.
I had the pleasure this year of working with a colleague and friend, Dr. Jonathan Norgate, to design a learning experience for our first and second year seminary students. This short article outlines some of my thinking as I assisted with the planning and delivery of the material.
Initial considerations
A lot of the learning design I do for Crosslands can be helpfully described using a baking analogy: I take a substantial cake and give some thought to how it might be sliced and iced well for the sake of the learners. This means sitting inside the material and asking key questions about the entire learning journey. This will include things like:
where will it take place (online/in person)?
what might be unique to this learning experience which needs paying attention to?
are there any pitfalls or difficulties which may impede the experience?
Most effective learning experiences are built on trust. At Crosslands we have worked hard at fostering healthy feedback loops across strong relationships, so it wasn’t surprising that the planning (and eventual delivery) of this particular course went really well.¹ In our initial chats, Jonathan and I identified several important things:
This course was to be delivered in-person, the material consisted of dense theological material and it was going to last approximately 7 hours.
There was the potential for some students to struggle with this experience(!).²
Jonathan wanted the students to not only absorb theological ideas, but to experience sifting through and evaluating some important theological writers.
Jonathan wanted to introduce ‘six principles of systematic theology’ which would form a recurrent ‘spine’ to the learning experience.
Resource solutions
We created a resource pack which had a very specific design to it. It was a fifteen-page A3 document (black and white, single-sided design, with one huge staple in the top left hand corner). The front page had a clearly-mapped structure for the series of lectures:
(notice the moments of humour - “Plat Du Jour” and “Fun Facts” - more on humour in a bit…)
In addition to the front page, I created a diagram which was repeated throughout the booklet and to which Jonathan kept referring throughout.
(this was produced after several conversations and edits - it had to be something Jonathan felt comfortable with as a frame)
These two initial tools meant that the learner had very clear expectations going into the seven hours. The one thing we wanted to emphasise was that they were in safe hands and that this was going to be a journey worth taking - in other words the resources were essential to building hospitable trust.
The A3 format was important because the essence of this learning experience was working with theological extracts and making evaluative judgements about them. Here is a screen shot of one page consisting of two extracts:
(it is also worth noting that Jonathan had created a simplified version of each extract which could be downloaded using the embedded QR code)
As students worked their way through each section this page was intended for annotation and reflection - something which most in-screen experiences can’t match.
(notes, wonderful notes)
Delivery
It is absolutely true that this course could have been delivered in a mechanistic way with the resources and Jonathan speaking in a dead-pan robot voice. But my friendship with Jonathan was surely something to lean into, right?
(humour has always been key to our friendship - Top Gun meets Top Sandwich)
So, what better way to counter the possibility of study fatigue across the seven hours than to co-host different sections and shift pace and tone? This is exactly what we did with the structure moving through clearly-signalled sections:
friendly introductions with honest acknowledgements about the length and difficulty of the next section
serious, well scripted mini-lectures (which we called ‘Springboards’ in the notes)
student study time - using the resources - in groups or alone
joint feedback with me chairing and Jonathan being drawn in to offer detailed responses
Learner expectations
When I was a high school teacher I used to work hard at naming difficult moments in the school day as a sneaky way of managing teenagers through times of potentially hard slog. Here is an actual photo from one of my classrooms of something I referred to as the ‘dead zone’:
(yes if you look closely you will see a dashed line hand drawn using a board-marker to define the moment where students usually lost the will to live)
By working hard at understanding the learning experience we were offering our first and second year students, it became obvious that we needed to build in some kind of relief and expectation. So we worked hard to make seven challenging hours feel like a manageable and rewarding challenge. By the end, I think the scaffolding - some explicit, some more subtle - helped them get through without fatigue setting in.³
We can do better than impersonal formulas
There is a way of approaching learning design which assumes a formula will simply work. It follows a list and learners are dumped onto the conveyor belt with the material being projected at them. This might work in many situations, but it isn’t good enough.
¹ I think it’s important to say this at the outset because ‘how-to’ online articles often ignore the significance of interpersonal relationships.
² I am sure that some lecturers (and perversely, students) like the idea of launching into a hardcore, seven-hour session on difficult theological ideas where the background motivation is all about ‘mastery’ and ‘knowledge acquisition’, but Jonathan was emphatic about writing this material with a focus on life application. The short contextual bios on each page explicitly drew attention to the situation (usually linked to suffering) that these extracts were written in/for. This is one of my reasons for loving working for this organisation - it pays attention to how ordinary people live out healthy ideas.
³ I am now in possession of a kazoo which Jonathan gave me. At a very key moment (I think it was about hour six of seven) we marked the passing of one of the most difficult sessions with a live twin-rendition of the theme to Coronation Street using this magnificent instrument.
Apple Fitness: a personal feedback loop that bridges the virtual divide
In a previous article I laid out a few thoughts about some of the key principles I bring to bear in my day job working at Crosslands as their learning designer. I spoke a little about the process involved and the kind of stages I might typically go through when I work on a course. Now in my fifth year I am still using these.
Then more recently I put together some personal reflections on how learning design is fundamentally linked to the curation/creation of a hospitable environment where expert skilled instruction makes effective use of accessible resources.
In this post I am going to underline this point with something I have been reflecting on from a sweaty yoga mat in my kitchen.
Apple Fitness
After several recurrent jogging injuries I swallowed my pride and took the advice of my wife seriously¹ to give some time to weekly core exercises and begin to strengthen my body in less damaging ways than road running. This was about three years ago.
I already had an Apple Watch so the relative convenience of enrolling in the Apple Fitness programme seemed like a no-brainer. For about £80 for one year I could access something that would fit in with my timetable² and save me a lot of money compared to the local gym offerings. So I went for it.
Does Apple Fitness exemplify 'skilled instruction and accessible resources within an hospitable environment'?
Well, the environment I 'entered' is made up of several components:
a yoga mat in whatever undisturbed space works for you (for between 10 and 30 minutes)
a screen/speakers/headphones that can project the Fitness app (TV, iPad, Mac or iPhone will work)
an Apple Watch
I look exactly like this.
The visual/ergonomic design across these elements is incredibly polished and holistic. At the core of the experience are Apple's three fitness rings (standing, movement and exercise) that gamify your physical existence in peculiar ways (anyone else gone out for a walk at 10pm to complete the red movement ring?).
Tell me how I am doing
One key characteristic you will see in any excellent learning environment is the use of personalised feedback - the Watch operates as a highly personal specific data source which is then represented on screen or with a haptic 'tap' on your wrist when those completed moments are reached. It couldn't feel more personal (I should also say that cocoon-like intimacy of AirPod headphones really cements this extraordinary experience).
You new imaginary coach
Let's just get the obvious thing out of the way here: the grand illusion is that these are real people serving you a real fitness class in real time, which of course they aren't. It's all professionally pre-recorded, performed and sliced up in ways that the Worthing Fit4 Membership can't compete with. It's your new imaginary coach!
I came across this excerpt from a post by Brace Belden³ on the rise of podcasting. He speaks directly into my last point:
"...parasocial relationships—that two-dollar phrase for people who are also excited to write things like “ontology”—are so popular now, being simulacra that work just good enough to replace the real thing. The “friendship simulator” element is crucial in all this, and also its most sordid part. The hugely popular shows have a familiarity to them, the host drawing listeners in such that you feel like you might just be a shy participant in an exciting conversation.
…Shows like this have a flow that the listener doesn’t actually participate in—the hosts have gone home, you’re the only one in the room, and it’s a dead conversation that’s already happened—but, given the intimacy of how the product is consumed, can get the same psychic impression. On your commute, while you do laundry or cook dinner, your best friend lives in your phone."
(Belden is himself a podcast host which makes this even more fun to read). Apple is providing a personal fitness trainer at the fraction of the price, providing challenging routines and just in case you felt like this as an impersonal experience - is providing the most intimate feedback you could get.
Scaled-up Diverse Hosting
Each of the instructors have been carefully 'curated' to encourage wider learner participation. During my time of taking these classes I was glad to be instructed by a woman who was clearly in her 70s, another who might be described as 'rotund' or others chosen from a range of diverse ethnicities. One class was led by a man with a prosthetic limb - I loved how normal this diverse bunch of coaches felt to be around. And by being at ease with them meant that I was at ease with myself - surely the goal for anyone who is out of shape or slightly embarrassed about their physicality, right? I was being generously encouraged by a caring inclusive community - and not implicitly body shamed within some evolutionary ‘survival of the fittest’ space.
These are important considerations for the way a fitness program is framed. Many YouTube equivalents out there unwittingly get this wrong. An organisation as large as Apple has done well to invest in this framing especially as they look to scale things up for lots of non-fitness types. It reminds me a little of the inclusive success of ParkRun, but maybe I will leave that until another time.
You’ll notice that these observations aren't getting into the specific classes. What I am doing is pointing out that effective learning requires a curated setting.
How effective was it, and can it improve?
Well - I think it's important to say that I participated in this for two years and then unsubscribed. My reasoning was that it had provided me with some helpful scaffolding, but then I needed to move away and do my own thing (I also wanted to save some money).
Positively, this had been a guided opportunity to develop a clearer idea of how to DO core exercises. One of the key principles behind effective learning is making space for deliberate practice - you can’t simply tell someone about the thing - you really need to give them practice time to develop habits and patterns of familiarity.
Apple bean-counters might argue that this was a failure because I'm not coughing up the dough any more, but I would argue that another perspective: that effective education always results in removing scaffolding. That might not sit with the capitalist dream of deeper wallet commitment, but I certainly made progress into great physical fitness - and with it - independent, confident practice.
I suppose my growing conviction is that online virtual education provision can only get you so far. One of the benchmarks for our work at Crosslands is that serving mature participation in a local community must always be the focus. The wonderful era of virtual tools is not an end in itself.
Maybe Worthing Fit4 is the best way forwards after all...
¹ Finally.
² Let me say straight away that I am a strong believer in the power of embodied communal activities - they break the trend for extreme individualism that late-capitalism has certainly infected us with. Isolated 'mastery' is poisonous to mental health and the apparent inefficiency of gathering with others in specific places, at specific times, for specific activities that can't be done anywhere else is a great thing that should be taken advantage of at every opportunity. There, I said my thing.
³ Source here. Thanks to Charles Arthur for linking to it with his excellent Overspill newletter.
The National Speed Awareness Course: an example of mostly great learning design.
In a previous article I laid out a few thoughts about some of the key principles I bring to bear in my day job working at Crosslands as their learning designer. I spoke a little about the process involved and the kind of stages I might typically go through when I work on a course. Now in my fifth year I am still using these.
Then more recently I put together some personal reflections on how learning design is fundamentally linked to the curation/creation of a hospitable environment where expert skilled instruction makes effective use of accessible resources.
In this post I wanted to expand this point using a painfully personal example…
The National Speed Awareness Course (NSAC)
Hands up: I recently attended an online course run by Hampshire Police when I received an automated speeding ticket. Apart from being a useful refresh on road safety it was also a fascinating moment to observe a learning provision outside of my own day-job, and to unpick it a little.
A cynical view on speeding tickets is that they are easy money for local cash-strapped authorities - I confess that I have thought this from time to time. Speed awareness courses feel like a positive alternative - a chance to keep your driving licence clean(er) and those insurance premiums intact while also becoming a better driver.
The group I was with were very friendly and compliant, but I have been reliably informed by a family member that other ones aren't so smooth! In this case I am going to comment on my own experience and I can't speak for every NSAC event.
Did this course exemplify 'skilled instruction and accessible resources within a hospitable environment'?
My initial observation is that there is significant buy-in from the participants with the 'get points or educated' framing. This deep structural design choice solves a lot of potential issues - people only attend (to learn stuff) if they want to.
Reinforced by the tangy £90 entry fee, even the most reluctant learner is invested to make the most of this three hour session. My personal reading of the zoom-room was that the participants ranged from the fresh-faced to cagey-compliant.
YOUR room
As a newly qualified teacher I remember one of the most important principles that I received was that the classroom was YOUR room. With teenagers there was always some kind of ownership tussle (often with amusing results¹). The thing I took away from that early wisdom was golden: establish your territory and invite them into it - without that basis you can’t expect to teach effectively.
At no point did I feel that the NPAC event was anything other than Yvette's (the instructor) room. It's worth pointing out some other implicit features that helped us to trust her:
we each had a pre-entry greeting where ID was checked and zoom surnames were removed
there was a clear warning about the use of respectful language
we were told to NOT upload screenshots of the group
These details were handled in a friendly yet firm manner which meant that everyone in the space was both safe and sitting up. We could see each other and were often encouraged to participate in discussion (no complacency).
These basic design choices set the tone of the entire three hour session. Yvette was good at talking to everyone and gave the impression that this was a good thing to do. By the end it felt it had been a reasonably effective experience lacking in cynicism.
Virtual spaces for real learning
Hospitable learning environments don't need to be literal spaces like the brick and mortar classrooms I fondly endured in the past. In this case it was a virtual space but still very real. Part of the definition of the space was the time keeping. We started promptly, and then broke for a 15 minute break half way through, ending at a time that was well flagged in advance. Simple things like this amplify trust and give a sense of confidence that the people running it know what they are doing.
I am not going to say much here about the specific course material apart from this: it was a well-trodden set of activities with clear videos, slides, discussion points and an accompanying worksheet. At no point did I feel it was lacking. It felt like something that had been done lots of times, works well enough and will continue to do the job.
Improving the provision?²
Targeted accountability would improve this course, but I suspect the additional cost would be significant. As it stands this is a general course with a friendly instructor who runs it well - possibly many times a week - to the point where they could probably do it in their sleep.
However I have some beef with this. Just because something works okay, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be honed to something much better!
In the latter stages you are expected to form some 'next steps' or personal application points for yourself. You are encouraged to think through ways of becoming more aware so it doesn't happen again. The application is left up to each participant to figure out with a bit of basic encouragement from the instructor.
In my mind, skilled instruction implies skilled feedback - if you are going to have an in-person session with this level of intimacy then I think you can probably be a lot more targeted. Although I had benefitted lots from the course as a whole the final application points were slightly fudged and became something vague like: “be more aware”.
Jack was skilled at inflicting pain
When I was learning to drive I failed the first time. Eventually I found a superb instructor called Jack who was painfully personal with his feedback - I passed quickly because he was good at picking up on what I needed for my own tendencies as a flawed driver. For this well-established course to go to the next level I think a three hour commitment ought to land somewhere similar.
I understand that this suggestion comes with all sorts of deep changes which would cost a huge amount in terms of time and money but part of me thinks... driving safely is one of the most important activities you can learn - so why not make the experience the best it can be?
¹ Perhaps my favourite story ever was when a 14 year old brought in a giant bag of frozen carrot slices and threw hundreds of these discs at a particularly ineffective teacher. By the time a senior manager intervened the floor covered in thawing orange debris. I salute that child for raiding his mum's chest freezer and then having the organisational gumption to bring it all the way to school.
² There is a grand tradition of online armchair critics speaking easy advice whose ranks I have no intention of joining.
Scott’s Bass Lessons: hanging out with positive older bass-brothers.
In a previous article I laid out a few thoughts about some of the key principles I bring to bear in my day job working at Crosslands as their learning designer. I spoke a little about the process involved and the kind of stages I might typically go through when I work on a course. Now in my fifth year I am still using these.
Then more recently I put together some personal reflections on how learning design is fundamentally linked to the curation/creation of a hospitable environment where expert skilled instruction makes effective use of accessible resources.
In this post I wanted to underline this point using an example recently spotted out in the wild.
Scott's Bass Lessons
I have been playing Bass since I was sixteen years old but had a ten year break until very recently. I think it's fair to say that I had got a little bored and stopped caring. In stepping back I was determined to sharpen my fluency with applying musical theory (I also decided to give up on the dream of slapping but that's another story).
Oh you know, just hanging out playing fretless with a pal in the larder.
After a bit of research it’s obvious that there are whole host of impressive teachers on YouTube¹ with connected subscription-based online schools. All of them offered regular weekly 'freebies' online (also known among marketeers as a ‘lead-magnets’) which I enjoyed immensely. What a time we live in!
In the end I coughed up about £100 to go with Scotts Bass Lessons for a year and to see if it would make much of a difference. I am only about a month into it, so a discussion on the value will have to wait a few months, but I can comment on the learning environment I 'stepped' into.
Hospitality
The tone of the 'freebie' offerings online were just right for me. Usually co-hosted by (the Leeds-based founder of SBL) Scott Devine with skilled sidekick Ian Allison, there is a friendly and fun atmosphere as they travel through numerous legendary examples of bass playing.
At each episode they bring in some history, analyse and demonstrate some technique, giving valuable contextual insight into great players and numerous genre-related details.
In short it's a lovely way of hanging out with a gang of older bass-brothers who want you to succeed. This framing and invitational tone were what got me to the front door. The SBL substantial resource offerings and cheap subscription price got my wallet out.
A line I have been pressing in my recent posts about learning design has been that excellent educational provision focuses on curating hospitable learning environments where skilled instruction and accessible resources can be effectively used.
Resources within a trusted environment
SBL has invested in a whole team of instructors to support activities around a set of core-curriculum areas. From the outset a 'players path' is identified and you are encouraged to engage with it in various ways.
The clarity here is really impressive. My sense here is that Scott Devine started off as a great local bass teacher with a solid idea of how to help his learners progress. He then scaled it up in obviously effective ways. Looking at that set of three standards/nine paths I have an immediate idea of where I currently am, where I’d like to go and some of the steps involved in getting there. This counters the usual thing where you get lost in your own ego because you can play a fancy funk riff in your bedroom at night.
The other feature that I think works well here is something similar to how Crosslands works - the integration of streamed digital learning with live-community.
This was the latest zoom-practice session. If you clicked through there were many players participating. It was lovely.
There are several active and genuinely helpful discussion boards.
What I love here is that SBL have engaged with solid learning design principles - cultivating a live community like this is not a cheap to set up and maintain, but it makes a huge difference to those seeking further feedback and support.
Each of these is consistent with the spirit and tone of those 'freebies' I originally saw on YouTube.
Deal-breaker or deal-maker: too aggressive marketing?
Someone somewhere inside SBL has certainly done their marketing homework, although I would argue that it is a little too aggressive at times. I was already leaning towards joining but in the end the emails I was getting were erring a bit too far into being emotionally manipulative. If the hospitality of the 'freebies' won me over, the guilt-pressure nearly shut the door in its own face. I suspect that this is where the weakness lies - a beast that is in danger of being crushed under its own inherent hubris, perhaps?
I got into a discussion with my nearest and dearest about this and she said that this was a common thing among the marketers that are most successful. People are too busy and need reminding - but it’s important to maintain the sense of service rather than wanting to make a sale.
I shall come back in maybe a year to say how this is going, but so far it’s great.
¹ Among the most impressive - and well worth linking here: Mark J Smith’s Talking Bass channel and Dan Hawkins’ Online Bass Courses. Both are terrific teachers that I have a lot of respect for.