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Each day after daycare, my Mum would arrive just before closing, tell me to gather my things, and ask me the same question, “what did you learn at school today?” To which I would respond with the same answer: “nothing.” I spent years excelling at nothing, I got pretty okay grades in nothing. My teachers even spent hours and hours preparing nothing for the next day’s class.
I know now that I was privileged enough to have absorbed information in all those years, enough nothings have created a life full of somethings, and I’m grateful. However, for many people, translating their experiences into know-how isn’t easy—and it doesn’t come naturally over time.
We’ve been focusing in on Adult Learning for the past while, in both our Kudoz and Fifth Space Prototypes. Looking at Kolb’s Theory of Learning, and trying to get a better handle on how to curate experiences that lead to self-regulated learning.
Self-regulated learning refers to one’s ability to understand and control one’s learning environment. Self-regulation abilities include goal setting, self monitoring, self-instruction, and self-reinforcement (Harris & Graham, 1999; Schraw, Crippen, & Hartley, 2006; Shunk, 1996).
Our learning also comes from a place of believing that we can learn. When a learner is able to gather evidence that they are capable of understanding a subject, they’re better able to absorb the information without mental barriers the next time that subject comes up.
It shows my ridiculous frame of reference, but I’m choosing to quote YouTube rapper George Watsky at this time: “Yeah, I’m getting older, and I’m getting dumber, or least I know less, than I did when I was younger, I used to profess, now I’m more pro-wonder, I used to fear death, now I’m set to go under.” This used to always jump out at me, the more we learn the more we realize what we don’t know. In an effort to understand more, we self-regulate our learning, find new ways of understanding, researching, and experiencing new information. And then we never stop.
I’ve been focusing on the Kudoz project: how do we make these “Hundreds of Splendid Experiences” more than just fun activities? How do we make this about learning goals, and what one achieves while they are trying something out for the first time? And make sure that the learning is internalised?
By meeting with Hosts of experiences and planning both what the experience will entail, and what people could be learning from it, we’re offering a set of goals. Goals that aren’t just designed for people living with a disability. For instance, if someone is on a Photography Kudoz Experience there are psychometric, affective, and cognitive goals. Psychometric are physical or kinaesthetic goals. Affective goals are about emotions and feelings. And cognitive goals are about facts, knowledge, and thinking.
But our takeaway is this: we believe that everyone is a full person, who is capable of learning, and meeting some learning goals.
We’re making an offer with Kudoz: to understand more about one’s self, experience new things, and start to build up the ways in which we learn. So that at the end of the day, people aren’t just excelling in nothings.
–Laura Cuthbert, Experience Curator