#13 Conceiving Systems of Learning

How are you conceiving of the learning experience as a system and what facet(s) do you aim to realize as a first step?

Overview

In preparation for our classes activity all teams were encouraged to read the posts we have made thus far. This would mean all eleven posts that have led to this activity. From there the class was informed that we had passed beyond learning new theories/frameworks. Our next activity was a summative one that involved us highlighting all nine of the different lessons we had been taught. By this I mean we highlighted the most key learnings from each stage, partially as a summation but for the most part to cement the key findings of each step and begin constructing a structure for learning.

The Process

As our team went through this exercise we began realizing various themes involved in each step of the process. There was a certain amount of redundancy that stood as a potential barrier to further learnings in this activity. Stages such as 1, 2 and 9 covered well trodden ground but helped support understanding in other areas of this process. Other sections when being filled out naturally began building off of eachother. For instance sections 3, 4 and 6 had strong ties to each other (these being knowledge, skill and structure).

Systemic Learning

As we went through this activity, especially at the prompting of step 6, we began to make plans for how we might scaffold this topic and introduce minor and major arcs. One potential way to think of scaffolding in finance was the ability to evaluate situations where finances may come into play was a needed theme throughout the learning experience. From there we went about the process of identifying major and minor arcs to learning as an established framework. Personal budgeting felt like a logical first choice followed by debt management, credit and investment. If recognition of situations is the larger arc then it would hold these four arcs underneath it with several even smaller arcs under each of them. These four arcs of learning could be mapped to the four topics to the four years of undergrad. Through this our team could continue to reinforce the learning needed and build off of the other aspects of the learning process over a longer period of time.