Learning Definition and Pace
your Saturday roundup
Professionally, I focus on creating social benefit startups. In my Saturday morning emails I share what I’m learning and thinking. Topics range from better living and parenting to business and philosophy.
Today I’m headed to a friend’s funeral. I’m reminded to focus on what matters and that each moment is precious. Easy to say but a hard lesson to keep in the front of my mind.
Past Time for CBE. I heard Paul LeBlanc on podcast say that we use Competency Based Education (CBE) when our lives depend on it. For certain professions, we award a license only after demonstrated knowledge and application of skills. We did not expect that learning is complete merely by counting the number of hours spent studying or in a classroom. I also heard Malcom Gladwell assert the world is becoming more dependent on the lowest performing member of teams. With a shift to knowledge work and increased complexity, mistakes by any member of the team threaten team performance. If that is the case, does that mean it is well past time for CBE?
About Go at Your Own Pace: People describe CBE as learning at your own pace. Do we each have our own learning rate? It sounds true. But here is a (single) study that raises the possibility that students learn at similar rates. “Our primary question was why do some students learn faster than others? Or do they?...These findings pose a challenge for theories of learning to explain the odd combination of large variation in student initial performance and striking regularity in student learning rate.” Even if similar input of time and effort results in similar amounts of learning, CBE still has advantages. For example, CBE allows for different starting points, leaves room for students to focus on their own gaps and still has clear standards for when learning is complete.
Definition of Learning. I read somewhere that “Learning is changing behavior”. While not a complete definition, it stuck with me. What have you learned recently that changed your behavior?
Until next week,
Miles
PS You might enjoy our new blog posts at Purpose Built Communication Debt: What It Is and Why it Matters and How to Have Hard Conversations
If you are building/managing a team and find that it is critically dependent on the lowest performing member, isn't it incumbent upon the leader to "fix" this problem? I would think redundancy/decentralization would go a long way to reducing any key person risk, particularly such a risk endowed in the weakest member of the organization.