Informal Teaching: What are you teaching?

I talked about informal learning in my last blog. We learn more informally than formally. Informal learning transpires in everyday life events, work, conversations and collaboration of people.

The natural accountant in me thinks about debits and credits all the time. Wait, wait, don't run and hide this is not about teaching you accounting. But let me put forth just this one lesson from accounting: for every debit there is a credit.  This is really not an unusual idea. The Chinese have a philosophy called the Yin and the Yang. That is contrasting forces complement each other.  One needs the other. A debit is not complete without the credit, a yin is not complete without the yang.

So it is with learning. If we learn informally, that is with out the structure of a formal place of learning like a school or college, who is the teacher? We have teachers roles clearly defined in formal learning process. They organize the learning activities, provide material to achieve outcomes of intended consequences, and measure it.  If you are at university you can look up teachers in a database to determine if you want to take their class, or not. So it is clear we know the teachers of our formal learning experiences. Who is the teacher of your informal learning experiences?

Informal learning has it good side and bad side. We can learn good character from good teachers of character or we can acquire bad character from our informal teachers. For example, just about everyone agrees that racism is bad. Yet people learn racism to this day. There is no Racism 101 offered at universities that formally teach people to be racist (far as I know, so help me God). It is part of that 80% of informal learning. Someone teaches it to others, some collaborate with others in the workplace to teach and learn the ways, some see demonstrations and model the example when they learn racism. Funny all those examples sound just like philosophies of teaching (Pratt).

How we know if we are informally learning good or bad is a function of critical thinking and mindfulness. Simply asking questions and being aware of what you are learning.

I was at a Pastoral Migratoria meeting one day. The US Senate was still debating immigration reform. Someone mentioned a negative comment from an opponent of immigration reform. In my past, I have come to despise a few of these opposition leaders. Mere mention of the name John Boehner conjured up negative emotions, rejecting all his policies and perspectives. But this time I hear a voice say " He is opportunity for prayer." I turned to see Elena Segura, from the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese. My friends around me said "yes, she says that often."

I recognized this as an informal learning experience. What a wonderful perspective it is to think of the "enemy" as one in need of prayer. All the lessons from the Bible streamed into the critical thinking, Love thy neighbor, love thy enemy, love conquers all, love never fails. I am not one of those people that pulls chapter and verse out of my hat, but I recognized the teaching. Opportunities for prayer seemed to embody the spirit of love and hope that through prayer that person will come to see mercy and treat humanity with mercy. That day Elena was my teacher. I have used the 'opportunities for prayer' many times since then.

Now when someone does something disagreeable, like lying or misrepresenting the truth, I just respond with they are an opportunity for prayer. And the best prayer for that opportunity, in my opinion, is the Lords Prayer.

 

What will you teach today?

Informal Learning from an Online MOOC

It's summertime officially. Yea, we can go out to play. My memories of summertime involved lots of play time in a vacant lot next to our house. We organized our own games and sometimes played neighborhood legacy games. We taught each other the rules and strategies of games like kick the can, flashlight tag, and SPUD.

What actually was transpiring was informal learning.

Through my research I discovered that we learn 70% to 80% of our knowledge via informal learning. We learn 20% to 30% in classrooms, schools, and universities. Wow, that's a lot of learning going on over the summertime. But it is so much fun, how could we be learning?

Informal learning is intrinsically motivated. We do it because we want to do it. Makes a big difference is how deep we learn. We might be able to remember games of SPUD learned 30 to 40 years ago, but fail to remember our third grade math teacher's lesson plan. Often if we are intrinsically motivated we will remember what we learned longer. (For the record Sister Matilda was my third grade teacher and I will never forget that ruler she used to rap our knuckles)

Wondering about what you would like to wonder about more this summer?

There are plenty of MOOCs online. MOOC stands for Massive Online Open Course. A popular course may have students from all over the world, have hundreds even thousands taking the course. Some course are taken at your own speed, some are guided over 8 to 10 weeks. There is usually no credit given for the course, but you can pay extra for a certificate that you completed the course. A nice thing to hang on your wall. At the end of the course you know what you know. You use what you learned in your life or in your job. Or perhaps you just take a course out of curiosity about something. MOOCs can help you become a smarter person who when tested in the formal school earns better grades and higher credentials.

There are plenty of offerings available online for FREE. Kahn Academy has a great math section. They do a good job determining what you need to learn and what level of math you are competent. Coursera has a number of offerings from prestigious universities all over the world. I will be taking a course to help me get better organized called Get Organized: How to be a Together Teacher.  EDx is a joint effort between Harvard University and MIT. I took Leaders of Learning last summer and was really impressed. This summer I plan to take Introduction to Data Wise: A Collaborative Process to Improve Teaching and Learning. It is weird to take it alone, since it is all about getting a team of teachers together to use data correctly to improve instruction. Data is a new horizon and I will be getting new data tools for analysis at work. So this course could benefit my instruction and the institution. EDx is also offering a course called Design and Development of Games for Learning. This sounds interesting if you want to create an application to present a learning game for your students. Udacity is another source for engaging online courses in the area of programming, data development and computer science.

Open Courseware is online courses mostly for free from the top universities. You could take a history class at Yale or a class in Managing Refugee Healthcare from John Hopkins University. You could invent a money making smartphone app in a free online course from MIT.

What will you find to learn informally this summer?

How do we learn things?

I was introduced to several models of learning during my exploration in how to teach accounting. The one model that stood out for me was Taylor's learning cycle.

In my first few attempts at teaching accounting at the college level, I asked students if they knew how they learned. "Nope" was the typical answer. I energetically teased with a "you are all the way up to college level and no one told you how you do it?"  They leaned in as I explained the Taylor Model.

Learning begins with a disorienting event. Something is said or done that does not match up to what you already know. You get a disorienting feeling. A deer in the headlights feeling. It is uncomfortable to be disoriented. Some have stress and anxiety. What the mind then does can be to respond to this stress with a fight-or-flight reaction. Fight reactions would be similar to "I hate this topic, this is stupid, stupid textbook, the teacher is dumb, what do I need this junk for..." Then I observe students nodding heads and giving nervous laughs as they recall and remember. A flight reaction would be something like procrastination.  "Oh I can just watch this game first then I learn this junk, or my friend just called to go to a party, or I have to go shopping first, then I'll get to this later"

Instead of letting the negative stress and anxiety lead you into fight-or-flight responses, embrace the disorientation feeling, say to yourself "I am feeling disorientation which means I am on the way to learning something new." Encourage yourself to approach it in a positive manner. Getting past the reaction to disorientation is the biggest challenge to learning.

If you live in the City of Chicago, like I do, there really are shootings and people getting shot on your street corner. Police leave the blood on the streets after the body is off to the morgue. One time my Alderman, Joe Moore, got a mop and pail out of a nearby building to wash the sidewalks of a drive-by he witnessed. Violence is real to those living in the city. We don't have "post" traumatic stress disorder, we have "constant" traumatic stress disorder.

We have an overactive amygdala as a result. That amygdala is the part of the brain that does the split second flight-or-fight response. The amygdala has a role in emotion, learning and memory. This is only one of the many factors challenging learning, but is core to many challenges.

Once we recognize the disorientation, we seek to resolve the situation by exploring and searching for information, facts, processes, solutions to problems, and knowledge to match up to the layers of what we already know. This phase uses curiosity. Curiosity needs time to roam around. Curiosity needs space to perform trial and error. We need to experiment. We need to ponder. What happens to many in this phase is the "Efficiency Sargent" takes over.  The learner finds themselves trying to gather and assemble all the knowledge in the easiest (most efficient to them at the time) manner possible. Even if searching means finding the answers on the internet. This produces a very slim level of knowledge. Most likely just enough to pass a quiz or test.

Deep learning occurs during a messy, search for information and many trials and errors. Deep learning occurs when "time" gets lost searching and exploring learning. Have you ever got so deep into a project that 2 to 3 hours passed and you realize you have not even stopped for lunch or dinner? Deep learning happens when the learner is "in the flow." Athletes performing in the "zone" are in a flow state. According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who named the process, the flow produces a sense of joy in the person. Things take place effortlessly and pleasure is the response in the flow state. 

Could my students be getting high in the flow state? The reorientation phase of the learning cycle is a satisfaction of stress that caused the disorientation. We now close the circle by progressing to the state of equilibrium. Everything is cool in the equilibrium state. Now is the time to go out dancing at the club.

Thinking, visualizing and meditating

Lately I have been thinking about thinking, wondering about visualization, and meditating on things.

Thinking can be a powerful tool. I remember reading books when I was younger like Think and Grow Rich and I collected Horatio Algiers books for inspiration. Apparently it was not just a fad and many authors still write on the topic and many more still practice Positive Thinking. The Laws of Attraction are used by many authors, speakers and TV talk show hosts. Gee it works for them they manage to attract money by selling the theme to people who really want to believe.

This much I know about positive thinking, If someone around you is cranky, whining, dull, negative, complainer or just a Debbie Downer, you will want to go off in another direction and rid your self of these people. If someone is a charismatic, trusting, forthright, positive, inspirational leader, you are more likely to follow that leader. You will listen to positive news more readily than negative.

Can we really change the universe with the sole power of positive thinking? Under the umbrella of first do no harm, what can it hurt? If we think that change is positive, say at a job, and we openly embrace the change, will we have a less stressful time accepting and changing technology. I seem to think so. If I look at a new technology and say this will work, I see my self using the new technology for everything the innovators and implementers intended. I visualize myself having success with a new program or new technology, I seek out the positive contributions that new technology will enable. It works for me.

Of course I have observed those that do the opposite. They have negative thoughts about technology change and think technology will fail them. Low and behold, they hit the wrong key and it fails. Some call it Manifest Destiny. When I observe the Refuseniks of change, I recall a book on change Who Moved My Cheese. Sure enough they stay by the old cheese till it gets stinky. Refuse to read the writing on the walls. Sometimes it is just amazing to watch, other times you want to reach out and ask them what are you afraid of doing?

What else can people visualize? Where else can the Law of Attraction be utilized? Can we have positive thoughts about a person and then they become an ally, friend, or partner? Only if we can persuade their pathway of thought. It could do no harm.

Can we hope and pray, (a powerful form of visualization and meditation) that a sick friend or relative gets better? This has been know to happen or at least attributed to prayer. Researchers have interviewed doctors and found that there seems to be something to it.  Under the first do no harm doctrine, what can it hurt?

Today and everyday after, think positively that you can achieve better health and look stronger and appear younger. Visualize yourself doing things as a younger person would, moving in a stronger walk or gait, see yourself in the mirror looking younger.  Do it everyday.

Just for the helluva it see if it works.

Living in the truth

How difficult is it to live in the truth?
I am not talking church stuff here. Just plain being honest with yourself? Have you been using people? Do you manipulate people with half truths and outright lies? How much time do people spend creating the false image of what is happening with them or around them? The maintenance time alone is extraordinary. When you live in the truth you have tons of time to accomplish things. Some great things some just simple meaningful things that have a positive impact on humanity.

I have encountered people who create entire holograms of their reality and it saps their energy of everyday life. Holograms of reality take energy to stay up or they will fade away. I have always wondered what that person could be or become if they were not so plugged into an energy wasting hologram?

Problems occur when you live in the truth and you begin to see truth and light shines on the real reality you are observing or par-taking. For one thing, those who are spending energy on false realities are really adamantly opposed to hearing your truth as it might cause their hologram to collapse.

Being truthful is different from having beliefs. We can and do, have beliefs in what we cannot see, touch, or hear. If we believe in God, everlasting life, spiritual souls, even positive energy healing, we have beliefs in something that is unseen. We rely on testaments of others to believe.

When you do not live in the truth how do you expect people to ever believe in you? Question reality was an old saying from the 60's. I guess it is ok to question reality, but to try to destroy someone's false hologram of their reality is unproductive. So many of us do service to people who by reinforcing and playing along with their manipulation of people and reality. It's really not worth the energy in some cases. But will people ever believe in them? Will people acknowledge them as leaders? Will they ever be able to put their energy to good use to be so recognized that others will give testament. That is the sad part of a false reality. We die without ever really being known.

Right Brains Left Brains, Multiple Intelligences
As I plowed through a master in educating adults, I gathered all these applications to our cognitive sphere called our mind, brain, or just plain noggin. We know we have two separate spheres that communicate with each other but one usually dominates the other. Creative people are not math geeks, and analytical people are not artists. We can feed and nurture the other side of our predominant side of the brain with exercises. Why does it seem analytical brains want to exercise creative side but I do not see many creative people exercising the inner geek in themselves? Innovation occurs when the right brain communicates with the left brain. Or is it the other way around?  Daniel Pink influenced my approach to left brain work. If the skill is a repetitive skill it will be shipped overseas to be done. I thought about that as I saw my job become more repetitive and less creative. I purposefully developed keen lines of strategies for business situations that kept my job from being exported. Once the strategy is in place and executed, the job of recording , be it a financial or tax return, can go overseas.  What about this job of teaching? Can this job be so generic, or commoditized that the job of teaching goes overseas? Well, I can teach online from anywhere in the world. Stands to reason that someone anywhere in the world can take over teaching online courses here in the USA.  How do you stay in Daniel Pinks definition of jobs of the future?  Innovate, create more courses and programs that are well suited for online learning. Not all students and not all courses are suited for online learning. But I we borrow our right brain for curriculum development that delivers engaging courses that provide credentials of value to students in left brain functions like accounting, we can stay ahead of the game. Eventually, if not sooner, online courses will be taught by Masters and PhD's from India and China. After all, we educated them and refused them a home  and a free life in the USA with a legal immigration document.

The next most important brainology thing I learned about our noggin, was this multiple intelligence perspective. Howard Garner developed much of it and many scholars have contributed to it's development.  Folks have various interests and talents in different areas. We reward the Logic and Word smart intelligences in almost all thing academic. We rave on those Music and Body smart when we go to concerts and ball games. Politicians make good on People smart and what would we do with out the aesthetic smart people with Picture and Nature to please our visual curiosity? Fact is we need people with smarts in all of these categories. Recognition and awards are needed for students with all of the various multiple intelligences. We reward those that pay great wages and craft good careers. What is your area of multiple intelligence that you do for love and not for pay?  For me it is nature intelligence. Growing plants and gardening is something I do for love and not for pay. I'd rather be gardening on a good day. Bicycling is body smart, and I would rather be on the bike than anything in the world.

Mama said ther'd be days like this,  ther'd be days like this.....

Singing in the rain, just singing in the rain. What a glorious day the Lord had made and we drove right through it. Beautiful high ceiling clouds building white, grey, and black across the beautiful green plains of Illinois.

I love the look of the red barn against newly plowed fields in fresh spring time rains.

Nope that's not red barn on rolling fields that's the beach, the sun, and warm weather. I guess it will have to do. Heading over the river and through the woods to Moms house we go. I wonder if those bucolic red barns next to the classic white farm house have owners who long for pictures of the city?

Returning to my blog after a long break.

I am returning to my blog after a very long absence.

I went away so to speak. Buried my self by working full time as a CPA, finishing up a Master of Art in Educating Adults on the weekend and then topping that off with a MBA with some additional Master work in Accounting. I was overbooked and overworked. I managed to finish the program to change from a career in accounting to teaching accounting. I managed to see, nearly blind, my way through one of the most difficult relapses of my mild MS situation. Recovered and thanks be to God, I am back to full steam ahead. Well at least for another 7 to 8 years.

Looking back on the blogs from 2010, there are still postings that are very true and relevant still in 2015, 5 years later. Mom is now 85 and still the most devoted  lifelong learner I know. My electronic subscription to the New York Times came with a free Sunday delivery. You know that print version. I took NYT up on the deal and had the newspaper delivered to mom in Florida. She is a long  lost New Yorker and so far loves the Sunday edition. Mom considers the fashion section to be her "comic section."

Five years ago I entered the world of online learning with enthusiasm. Over the past 5 years, I have taught online and in person. Both are worthy of being legitimate learning  platforms. I took a MOOC from a Harvard Professor and had fellow students from all over the  world. Online learning is great for credentialing learning  from the informal world to the  formal world.

My research eventually supported the 80/20 rule relative to informal and formal learning. We actually do learn 80% of what we know from informal resources. Freebies if you like. We learn 20% of what we know from formal credentialed learning. Mostly paid for and sometimes overpaid for education.

It struck me that five years ago I said" If I were to really make an honest assessment I would say that character was a winner this year.  In the end, people can lose their business, lose property, lose wealth in a time like now.  But one thing is certain, the character, will and the intelligence that is the backbone of so many entrepreneurs in America is never lost.  Small business owners were smart people when they built their successful businesses and after these "Loss Years" , small business owners will still be smart capable people." This has become so true, so true. Some people might not see it that way and still maintain discriminatory practices against people who have experienced failure. But they will learn, hopefully, that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Till then, you have a  stronger case than those that discriminate.

Reflecting on the past year and the past five years, so much growth, so much learning, so much yet to do! I became the educated teacher of accounting and began to practice as a teacher. Funny how we say we are practicing a profession like Certified Public Accountant. We build a practice when we build our business or book of business. But to say we are practicing as a teacher, well that seems unprofessional. Should we practice on the lives of our college students?  I think that is why we like to call it research. Sounds more academic to research and employ continuous process improvement in the accreditation process.

Well this has just been an update to let you know I am back and do intend to keep posting my reflections on teaching and learning in accounting in this blog space. I will address topics like lifelong learning, problem based learning, competency based models, online learning, CPA Examination programs, and numerous other topics in accounting.