Thinking Inside of the Circle May Be Just What You Need

Okay, so the real saying is “Think Outside of the Box”, but two postings I saw this recently were so far out of the box for me that I started to wonder if it’s a way of thinking I can every accomplish.  Maybe my thinking is outside sometimes, but the real genius is inside the circle or tip-toeing around the triangle or maybe skipping around the hexagon.  Whatever the phrase might be, these two gentlemen displayed some great ingenuity.

Bruce Graham is one of these gentleman.  He’s a frequent responder in the Articulate Community forum (a place where users of Articulate can gather help on the product in general, but more specifically on elearning design and delivery tips, tricks, and general idea sharing).  Recently someone (Jenise Cook) asked about her course on protecting your SIN#.  She was just looking for some different ways to perhaps present the material.  Various ideas were shared by a few different community members, but the one that stuck out for me was Bruce’s.

His thought, which again I thought was brilliant, was to present the material back to the learner in a completely sarcastic manner.  In a way this would showcase to the learner that the main points of the lesson should be “so obvious” to the average user that there should be know doubt in their mind that they should know and remember this information.  The “over the top” course would reinforce the lesson, most likely, in a humoristic manner that would stick to the learner.

Identity theft is one of the fastest growing hobbies in America. Anyone who has your Social Security number can use it to get other personal information about you. But HEY!. That’s OK – we’re all friends here.  Lesson One – DO NOT MAKE EFFORTS TO PROTECT YOUR NUMBER

The lesson is filled with humour and sarcasm (maybe way I like it so much), but the overall summary or morale of each lesson is solid and factful.  A brilliant twist on a normal lesson delivery.  Spin the tale into a way the learner would never imagine.  Shock them with the material and it will stick.

The other example of ingenuity was from Thomas Baker (and if you haven’t added his blog to your readings you should – an incredible and fun interactive teacher).  How much do you love this pic?

At Universidad de los Andes in Santiago, Chile. Thomas Baker having fun in class doing Limbo. Students waiting on their turn. (Source: La Tercera newspaper) via Final: The 80-20 Rule Re-Visited: Implications for Teacher Talking Time #ELTchat (blog posting)

His example to think differently about how to present material came from a posting he did on his blog 23 Educator Roles an Imagined Interview with Stephen Downes.  We’ve been taking CCK11 together this year and Stephen is one of the co-facilitators of the “course” (MOOC).  Thomas took an article (The Role of the Educator)  from the Huffington Post written by Stephen Downes and then re-wrote it into his blog as a series of questions and answers.  As if he was the one giving Stephen the interview.  Asking him questions of the material that was in the article and then using the article material as the answer to the question.

What a simple yet ingenious way to present material back to a learner in a different format.  It broke a long article in to manageable chunks.  It place that bit of human interaction back into what was just text and from, originally, one perspective.  More importantly it was well received by Stephen as well.

These two examples have me looking for more and more ways to think very differently about the way I would  like to present courses to learners.  Give them something they don’t expect and look at the material from a completely different point of view.  I will be watching, reading and learning from these gentlemen for many years to come.  I thank them both for opening my mind to new and different possibilities.