Photo: not me in the 70’s but pretty close! I wore those turtlenecks and crocheted vests. I had that Dorothy Hamill haircut after the 1978 Winter Olympics! I had streamers on my bike handles!
This is a Week 1 assignment for my LDT100x Instructional Design and Technology: Learning Theories course on edX. We are required to describe three learning experiences during our lives.
- Elementary school: I remember teaching myself long division. I was self-sufficient and ahead of the rest of the class, so the teacher explained the basic principles and assigned me loads of problems to go practise on my own. I literally did arithmetic problems over and over on paper until I learned the skill. I understand the method we used back then is considered to complicated for kids now and they learn shortcuts…but long division is one of those skills you just have to learn in life!
- High school: Switch to 4th year French. We needed to memorise the verb etre (to be) in about 20 different tenses and often our homework would be simply to conjugate the damn verb for all subjects and all cases on a piece of paper. Then we would review it in class on the blackboards together. This is a very necessary, yet boring skill required to speak proper French.
- As an adult, I’ve had to learn several software systems like the one I work with today. In my most recent learning experience, the training I did was all online. It was a combination of structured e-learning courses, recorded “deep dive” descriptions of each feature, and finally a “scavenger hunt” to encourage experimentation and building functionality in the system. I could submit questions to the instructor, as well as join a call to ask questions. The hunts were my favourite parts of the training. I needed to learn this skill to do my job, which is helping clients configure a good user experience in our system. This hopefully helps them achieve their business goals, which I also work with clients to help them define.