Three pillars for your ‘adaptive’ learning philosophy

Enrol Yourself has had the lion’s share of my attention for over 2 years now, and to put it bluntly, I’ve been crap at sharing the learning. The irony is not lost on me.

I remember roxanabacian and I writing galant statements at the beginning about developing and sharing ‘everything’ we learnt along the way! Well that certainly hasn’t happened, but for defence I’d say that I’ve been rather busy with six Learning Marathons (which is as heavy as it sounds).

Four of six Learning Marathon peer groups

With six Learning Marathons comes plenty of learning, as you would hope. So, plenty of material with which to address my bad sharing habits. In this post I’ve attempted to capture the three key pillars of Enrol Yourself’s learning philosophy, and the context they sit within. These pillars underpin the design of the Learning Marathon, and therefore, our approach to reaching our goals.

Why ‘adaptive’?

The word adaptive means ‘characterised by or given to adaptation’. Most of us will have heard about how the changing world of work will continue to demand that more and more people make a lifelong habit of continual learning and development. Some of us will already experience this shift.

But this is only the tip of a much bigger (melting) iceberg of change which is being driven by the ecological crisis. Whilst the severity of the impacts are being experienced radically differently in different parts of the world, even here in the UK (where we are almost as shielded and protected as it is possible to be) the effects are being felt by ordinary people, in the form of ‘eco-anxiety’. Research shows that this is particularly prevalent amongst young people, who understand to wildly varying degrees what is causing their sense of foreboding when it comes to the future.

It feels safe to say that we will experience more transitions, disruptions and changes. Some we will instigate ourselves, and many that will happen to us that we have less control over. These moments of transition are when systems (whether we’re talking natural systems, social systems or the closed loop system that is an individual person) are most vulnerable.

“There is a need to support people so that they are able to face more profound change. A form of transformative learning that focuses on developing competences to deal with complexity, uncertainty and ambivalence, and strong emotions of worry, sadness and anger, is a major new area of research.” — Maria Ojala, associate professor in psychology at Orebro University

I think there are implications for educators, coaches, teachers, learning designers— and anyone else involved in helping others learn and develop. That whilst information will remain an important aspect of power, we might expect to see a new phrase coined along the lines of ‘adaptivity is power’.

Increasing the resilience, adaptivity and capability of an individual usually requires a large investment of energy. This might be monetary energy, sheer will and determination, or something else. Either way, not everyone has equal resources to invest. I cannot overstate how challenging this ‘truth’ is.

Through Enrol Yourself we are trying to understand how we can organise people and resources in a way that both enhances in people what they seek to enhance and reduces the investment required to do so. Our learning philosophy reflects the best way we know how to do this, and the baseline from which we are learning from.

Vertical development and adaptivity

Horizontal development is the functional development of knowledge and skills, developed at your own particular level of cognitive, emotional and relational complexity. Vertical development is the transformation of how you think, feel and behave in the world, to increase your cognitive, emotional and relational complexity.

In much simplified terms, increasing these complexities increases possibilities. When someone wants to change something, or has to deal with change inflicted upon them, they can draw on more possibilities for how to respond, and more strategies for coping. Which amounts to greater adaptivity.

You can think of horizontal development as similar to downloading a new app to your device and vertical development as similar to upgrading the operating system. Vertical development is interdisciplinary by nature, requiring integration of knowledge, skills, capabilities and attitudes.

Enrol Yourself’s capabilities framework

So with this goal in mind — enhancing vertical development and adaptivity— here are our three key pillars. Learning is peer-powered, self-directed and design-led. I think these can be seen as a strong combination for adaptive learning because together they span the social, the personal and the professional. This integration of capabilities, knowledge and resources is at the heart of vertical development. But also brings it’s own challenges, which I have also tried to outline in more detail.

1. Peer-powered learning (peer-to-peer, collaborative, co-operative)

Peer-powered learning is all about people co-operating to meet their needs, through pooling the best of their energy and resources, and through taking on various roles at different times, such as teacher, facilitator, accountability buddy etc. Ross and Smyth (1995) describe successful co-operative learning tasks as intellectually demanding, creative, open-ended, and involving higher order thinking. According to Johnson and Johnson’s meta-analysis, students in co-operative learning settings compared to those in individualistic or competitive learning settings, achieve more, reason better and gain higher self-esteem.

Our view is that peer-to-peer learning, when driven by purpose, is an act of civic participation. This is particularly true in the lifelong learning space where learning is a lifestyle choice and a reflection of personal values — as well as an increasing economic necessity. Civic participation means individual and collective actions designed to address issues of public concern.

The act of co-operating with others to meet your own learning needs can be seen as a form of grassroots organising, and also manifests aspects of self organisation that are mostly absent from traditional pedagogical models of teaching and learning. Self organisation is an attribute of social movements, a fundamental entrepreneurial attribute which employers increasingly look for, and a quality of sustainable systems (which sustainability experts reference as a key difference between human and natural systems).

Peer-to-peer learning relies on the assumption that everyone in the group has experience, knowledge and presence that they can share, and that will be valuable to others. Most likely this is why peer-to-peer learning is associated with increased feelings of wellbeing.

Prizes

• A stimulating and safe space for exploration and experimentation. Experimentation is an accelerant of learning and both stimulation and safety are accelerants of experimentation. Perception of safety is often higher in a peer-to-peer, non-hierarchical environment.
• New relationships and meaningful friendships.
• Development of cooperative and collaborative skills, and new understanding of how to organise in a non-hierarchical and equitable way.

Challenges

• If learning is peer-powered, participants are contributing to the content of the experience, as well as participating in it. This means that the roadmap cannot be entirely laid out in advance and learning cannot be fully scripted. We’ve found this to be predominantly a communication challenge. In practice it’s a huge opportunity for development.
• Maintaining a sense of accountability to your peers as you become friends. Peer-to-peer accountability is strong when people don’t know each other well, but this can wain as relationships develop, so other accountability mechanisms can be necessary.
• It requires less cognitive energy to know that your one teacher is a source of all the knowledge you’re looking for! It is more complex to understand how a group of people can effectively map, exchange and share their skills and ideas in a mutually beneficial way. We have developed some approaches but would love to hear from others doing something similar.

Further reading and exploration:

• The P2P Foundation Wiki
• My blog for the P2P Foundation about using peer-to-peer approaches to reimagine lifelong learning
• ‘5 reasons to build a network of small groups rather than a mass movement of individuals’ by Richard D. Bartlett

2. Self-directed learning (self-led, autodidactism)

An autodidact is simply defined as someone who is self-taught. A self-directed learner is one who takes the initiative — with or without the help of others — in diagnosing their own learning needs, formulating goals, choosing materials or activities, implementing strategies and evaluating results. This emphasis on holding the whole process makes self-directed learning appropriate for vertical development.

Typically an autodidact chooses their subject, their studying materials and the rhythm and time commitment (as opposed to a taught learner who might only choose their subject). At Enrol Yourself we provide the rhythm and structure — but not the curriculum — to support more individuals to become self-directed learners. Most adults have many priorities and maintaining a habit of lifelong learning alongside a job or career is a challenge, and probably impossible for many without a helping hand.

Self-directed learning does not mean you don’t have external input or teachers, but that you hold the vision— and set your own bar for success. The onus is on you to find the teacher that you need and you have the freedom to reject some teachings, gravitate towards others, intersect ideas from different fields and disrupt the status quo. Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist, is one of many high profile individuals to claim publicly that learning how to learn will become the most valuable tool of the future as workers continually have to upgrade their skills and capabilities to adapt to the rapidly changing workplace.

Directing one’s own learning will become more important, not only because of the need to upskill but also because these rapid changes will make it harder and harder for educational institutions to pre-prescribe courses of content for rapidly changing fields and disciplines.

Prizes

• Development of cognitive flexibility, strategic problem solving and comfort with responsibility, leadership and the uncertainty of not always knowing whether you’re doing it ‘right’.
• Development of a truly unique portfolio of work as you are to a greater extent selecting the inputs and influences which shape your route forward, and therefore what you produce as well.
• Setting your own bar for success or achievement can be a truly empowering experience, as long as you still seek feedback. This is because it brings your motivation closer to you. In other words your motivation becomes intrinsic rather than extrinsic.

Challenges

• As mentioned above, holding the vision for your learning alongside other priorities is hard, and is a skill in itself which will only strengthen with practice.
• It can feel lonely at times to be responsible for your learning, and you may face some rejection when seeking a mentor for example. By combining self-directed learning with a peer-to-peer approach the loneliness of self-directed learning can be reversed, and you can find the resilience you need to cope with setbacks.
• There is a risk that you will be repeating (rather than building on) the work of others. This is why support for self-directed learning should always emphasise the importance of seeking advice, mentorship, support and feedback so that it doesn’t happen ‘in a vacuum’.

Reference people/orgs/books

• Hayy ibn Yaqdhan by Ibn Tufayl — A classic of medieval Islamic philosophy whose titular hero is considered the archetypal autodidact.
• Hacking your Education by Dale J. Stephens
• The Ignorant Schoolmaster by Jacques Rancière — describes the emancipatory education of Joseph Jacotot, a post-Revolutionary philosopher of education who discovered that he could teach things he did not know.

3. Design-led learning (project-based, experiential, challenge-based, action learning)

This type of learning is defined by active exploration of real world challenges or issues to acquire deeper knowledge and produce new interventions, responses or solutions. Design-led learning can help you build and maintain motivation for learning by imbuing your life with purpose and creating all kinds of opportunities to participate in the world. A design-led approach is inherently project-based and every project must be designed and managed. This means that there is much common ground between peers who are applying the same process — even if their projects are quite different.

Running a project is a bit like running a business and requires multiple skills woven into one practice. A project is real and therefore a ground for experimentation and feedback. A project implies an extended period of time and extended inquiry which mirrors the nature of professional work and reflects the complexity of challenges which don’t simply divide down into disciplines.

Enrol Yourself projects are titled with open ended Learning Questions designed by participants to frame their goals and guide exploration. This type of learning has been found to have many benefits for learners and their communities including a positive impact on self-worth; high levels of active engagement; relationship building; and tackling real issues in the community. The promise of seeing a very real impact becomes the motivation for learning.

Project-based learning emphasises activities that are long-term, interdisciplinary and student-driven. Unlike teacher-led learning, project-based inquiry emphasises collaborative or individual artifact construction to represent what is being learned. This focus on creating something of value means the learner is able to prove their capabilities — without exams or tests.

Prizes

• Development of transferable skills that will be applicable to tackling varied challenges.
• Invariably this approach requires collaboration at various stage of the design process or project development process. Through collaboration supportive relationships develop, as do collaborative skills.
• Having the autonomy to choose a problem to tackle helps develop intrinsic motivation, a sense of purpose and personal agency and confidence.

Challenges

• It is natural that project goals will extend way beyond the learning experience or programme, so it can be hard to measure achievement or understand whether participants have achieved what they wanted to achieve. A design-led approach often results in pivots as you understand more and experiment.
• Whether learners are tackling personal challenges or lofty societal problems, it is likely to be important and worthwhile because it is difficult, and likely to take time. This can be emotionally draining and deflating at times.
• Learners may have skills gaps which make certain aspects of their project hard to progress until they fill that gap.

Reference people/orgs/books:

• The Toolbox Toolbox: A comprehensive collection of design-led toolkits.
• Report: A teacher’s guide to project based learning.
• School 21: An example of a school using project based learning across their curriculum.

So that was a lot of writing and not too many pictures.You can reach me at zahra@enrolyourself.com — I’d love to know what you think.