Turning Learning on its head

The human brain was never meant to learn sequentially. As humans, we learn best when the need arises and the proverbial heat is on. However, we persist with an education system as old as the dawn of the industrial age. Why the industrial age analogy?

A manufacturing facility is compelled to work in a series of successive steps. Raw material comes in from one side, a number of steps are performed on that raw material one after another and a final product comes out of the facility. Do we really need to mimic this process for learning?

Any education program, textbook or course begins with the first chapter that is needed to understand the second chapter and so on. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this approach and in fact is required for processes that are highly repeatable where missing a step could prove expensive in terms of time, money, resources and maybe even the difference between life and death.

However, the sequential methodology to learning is not for everybody and not for everything that needs to be learnt. A person is not the same as raw material being processed in a factory. Neither are all individuals the same. People learn various skills in different ways and with different techniques. Just think of the various ways that you do simple arithmetic (addition, subtraction, division, multiplication) in your head. There are techniques you use that make it easy for you to do these arithmetic manipulations which might make no sense to someone else.

One approach to personalize and optimize learning is called non-linear learning. A simple example is how one learns to ride a bicycle. You do not pore over a complex bicycling manual and memorize all the steps before putting your foot on the pedal for the first time. You pretty much hop on, and if someone is so kind as to hold the back as you try and get your balance, you start pedaling. Slowly, you learn to balance. You fall a few times, figure out what you did wrong and go again. This is the gist of non-linear learning. You do not learn upfront on what to do if you lose balance - you course correct as you progress. Eventually, you handle sharp curves and if so inclined to get into stunt bicycling, you are able to do mind boggling maneuvers with the cycle you never dreamt was possible the day you first laid eyes on a bicycle.

Technology can be taught the same way. Throw a person at a use case/technology challenge/business problem and have them figure out the what and the how. Provide help and course correction when the need arises instead of having them drink from the firehose with a whole bunch of concepts, terminologies and systems before they even have a chance to know what they need to work on.

For software development specifically, let people experience the problems of multiple developers updating a single piece of code before introducing the concept of version and source control. Let them face the challenge of two or more people attempting to update a database table concurrently and then talk about database concepts. There is a lot more retention this way and the learning is now reinforced with immediate results.

Thiagi’s Four-door model is an excellent tool available to practice non linear learning where learning is split into the Library, Playground, Cafe and the Evaluation Center. And the best part of non linear learning, the coach or the ‘learning enabler’ (not a ‘teacher!’) learns much more than the learner thus constantly refining and bettering their techniques for future learners to benefit from.