Err to be Educated

Sorry for having been inactive for a long time. Just that blogging regularly requires a lot of discipline and I seem to lack that completely.
Here is my latest technique to ensure better retention.

Preamble
Can you recollect the day when your friend touched the loose end of a live wire and learnt what electricity can do to human tissue?

Do you remember the day when you first broke that glassware when you were a kid, withstood the stare your mother gave you and learnt how to handle brittle items?
To err is human, but the impact these events create, translates into fast learning (not referring to speed here).

Effectiveness of learning is measured in terms of comprehension and application of the subject by the learner. Retention of what is learnt is the key to successful learning. Long-term retention cannot be achieved merely through rhetoric-study techniques. Applying concepts and principles to solve problems or to analyze specific situations could offer better retention.

Ty Johnson, the award winning e-learning designer, states in one of his papers, “We rarely forget our mistakes. So, do we give our learners plenty of opportunities to mess up in our courses? If not, perhaps we should.”

Essence
Allowing your learner to err is not to encourage learners to just commit mistakes, but to enable them to learn from them. There are two parts to this thought.

• Allow learners to commit common mistakes without causing embarrassment.
• Provide timely feedback that explains why it was a mistake and what the correct procedure/answer is.

The situations in the course may allow the learners to commit mistakes, but they should not cause emotional set back or aversion to the subject. Secondly, the feedback should not just inform the learner that he/she has committed a mistake. Rather, the feedback should be constructive. It should explain why the action performed by the learner is incorrect and provide a clue to lead to the right action. This way, the learner will never feel lost at any point in time during the course.

Deliverance
The technique could prove beneficial to present procedural content or create awareness on adherence of codes, policies. This style can also be used to assist problem-based learning. Scenarios can be built to simulate a typical situation where the learner could go wrong and then provide appropriate feedback to guide the learner to the right path.

For example, if the learners were to learn about Disaster Recovery, they may be presented with a list of typical disasters, which the recovery policy addresses. The learner chooses to be amidst a hypothetical disaster situation. The situation can be narrated through simple text or audio, and options to recover from the disaster flashed for the learner to choose from. The learner’s choice can then be validated, suitable feedback provided and remediation suggested if required.

Measure
The outcome of this style of learning should be measured through gauging the practical knowledge that the learner has acquired. The immediate effectiveness of the course can be measured through an immediate feedback collected from the learner. However, the actual effectiveness would surface only at the time when the learner applies his/her knowledge to solve problems and through sustained level of retention recorded over a period in time.