One thing that a learning-centered approach helps learners do is connect. It is with this connection that learners can more fully and easily learn. It is with this type of connecting that we maximize the possibility of real change.
I could sense around me that I was losing my learners. It was during an early experience of me training them to use software to help with language learning. But these learners had very different levels of experience of using software and while I was helping some who...
The valedictorian stands at the podium, in front of a row of beaming adults (I can only assume they are her teachers and administrators). She begins with this fable of a Zen student who is disappointed when his teacher says it will take 10 years of study to find Zen....
In preparing for a one-to-one situation, we have found the principles and practices of Dialogue Education to be sound and reliable. Based on experience, here are our suggestions. Use the structure of the 8 Steps of Design to prepare for both the overall one-to-one...
It’s true, my friends! Teachers are neuroplasticians. In The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science, Norman Doidge M.D. coins the word neuroplasticians to describe those who – quite literally – change the brain. I...
Today begins a new series called Blogging Towards Baltimore. Why Baltimore? Because that's where we'll be learning together at the International Dialogue Education Institute, Oct 24-27, 2013. Each post will help to set the stage for the Institute. Dialogue Education...
I suppose every age has its excitements and its promise, but it sure does seem as if our present times are bursting at the seams with robust possibility, particularly in the field of learning. Here are a few things that caught my attention in the past two days alone...
Lately, I can’t seem to get enough information about multi-tasking. A comment on an earlier post got me thinking about it. Dwayne Hodgson wrote: I wonder if there is a generational thing at work here? Many of my younger colleagues are very adept at handling multiple...
Awhile back we published a Voices in Dialogue issue on the idea of how we meet and plan for resistance and I’ve found myself thinking about it ever since. What is this thing called resistance and what is it’s value for facilitation and teaching? In one article in that...
It seems to me that DE offers a systems-approach to adult learning. This is different than a system for adult learning, although I think DE provides that too, to a point. But you decide! Often when we think of a system, we think of linked items, perhaps we might even...
A key practice of both Dialogue Education is reflection. This week, I’m asking: Just how important is reflection to learning, development and performance? Why do I ask this? THE PRAGMATIC: I am interested in continuing to deepen learning so that is meaningfully...
Be forewarned: Dialogue Education can spoil you for the average professional conference! Those of you who’ve been involved in Dialogue Education learning events know what I’m talking about: you attend a conference full of talking head panel discussions and you end up...