When Sabrina asked for feedback on the Sprint program this week, i said something like this:
"Great content, but can't we each view it before the sesssion, and then use the session as a workshop to figure out how to apply it?".
That was because what I found was that after being given a presentation on, say, Minimum Viable Product, I just wanted to talk to people. I wanted to talk to Mike Skinner about how I should apply the general concepts he presented. I wanted to talk to the other sprinters about how they would apply them.
That was before I saw Khan's awesome TED presentation in which he shows how his startup, khan acadmeny, has "flipped" the conventional education model. Conventionally, education would proceed just as is done on Sprint. Leaners turn up to class, the experts present to them and then the learners go away and figure out to use what they've been taught on their own.
The flipped model changes that. The content is delivered to each student at home, or whereever, on their own time. The learner can pause, rewind, lookup related information and generally process the content the way they need to. Then the class room time is for workshopping the material. Learners ask experts questions, and work through the answers. Learners work with other learners, and both come out better off for it.
I've since learnt that there are three key interactions with learning, and that all of them are needed to efficiently learn complex subjects:
- Learner and content
- Learner and expert
- Learner and learner
The traditional approach favours learner and content over both of the others, with the unfortunate aspect is that often the only opportunity for interaction with other people is in class time, but thats used exclusively for presenting content.
Learning is social...
...but most education systems, and virtually all e-learning systems, are not!
I think this is where khanacademy.com has had an advantage over everything else. Right from the start it was in youtube, giving it the benefit of social media to permit learner and expert interactions even when online. By freeing up class time for workshopping its advantage is multiplied even further.
Of course, it has to be said, that Khan Academy's success has also been driven by the quality of its content, and that is absolutely essential to any teaching activity with any technology - or no technology at all. I don't think I have much to offer with regards to producing training content, but can I help deliver it in a tool which enables flipping the education model? Yes, I think so.