Archives For EDLD 5304

Musician to Physician: Why Medical Schools are Recruiting Musicians

Dwayne Harapnuik —  August 7, 2018 — Leave a comment

Musician to Physician

A recent CBC news post reveals that Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN), as well as other Canadian universities, have discovered that a musical background is a good predictor of success for medical students. Why? Constant, continual improvement is central to being a musician and this skill is crucial and transferable for future physicians. The study of music helps the learner to:

  • Avoid complacency
  • Constantly reassess what you are doing
  • Reflect on how to continually get better

Doctors have to continually reflect on how they can improve and continually get better especially if they are surgeons.

This post also confirms the research on deliberate practice by Anders Ericsson. According to Ericsson (2016), deliberate practice is much different than traditional practice because instead of just doing the same thing over and over again the learner focuses on the continual pursuit of personal improvement that is directed by well-defined, specific goals and continuous feedback that drives incremental gains. A skill or ability that a person is working towards is broken down into small enough components where feedback on the performance is used to help the learner make small adjustments that will lead to incremental improvements. The feedback can come from a teacher, mentor, or coach who observes where the adjustments need to be made. The continuous feedback can also come from peers, video, timing devices and other technologies that can provide the learner data that helps map their progress. As the learner gains experience and expertise they can also are able to see where they need to make the adjustments themselves—this is one of the key differences between amateurs and experts.

Another key aspect of deliberate pracitices is that the learner must constantly practices outside their comfort zone. Just far enough to push the boundries but not so far to cause fear and immeidate failure. This is where a few percentage points of pushing the boundry can cointribute the continous incremental gains that are so important to improvement. These incrimetnal gains can add up over time to enable one become an expert. Ericsson’s research into how long it takes one to become an expert was miscontrued and popularized by Malcom Gladwell in his 2008 book Outliers: The Story of Success where he posited the10,000-Hour Rule. Gladwell suggested that the key to achieving world-class expertise in any skill simply practicing the correct way, for a total of around 10,000 hours. Ericsson refuted Gladwell’s claims and pointed out that in some disciplines expertise can be achieved in as short as 5,000 hours and in other,s true expertise is achieved in over 20,000 hours. Furthermore, attaining the level of expertise is only the beginning because the world’s best continue their discipline of deliterate practice throughout their tenure of being at the top of their field. Regardless of how much time is conmitted, the key is deliberate practices with continual feedback that leads toward incremental gains.

Getting back to the story about musicians becoming good physicians because of their ability continually improve it is important for us to understand as educators are that there has to be a purpose for one to commit years of deliberate practice. Whether it is to become a Chessmaster, a world-class musician, a world-class athlete or to be the leader in a particular field the drive toward this end goal only happens if the goal is real world or authentic.

It takes real world or authentic learning opportunities to provide the context for learning and to drive the intrinsic motivation for the learner to persist in making those continuous incremental improvements over time. This is why it is so important as educators to recognize we must not only prepare our learners for the test but we need to prepare them for life. We can do so by creating a significant learning environment in which we give our learners choice ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities – the CLSE+COVA framework.
We need to continually ask – are we preparing them for the test or are we preparing them for life.

Additional posts exploring deliberate practice:

References

Ericsson, A., & Pool, R. (2016). Peak: Secrets from the new science of expertise. New York, NY: Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The story of success. New York: Little, Brown and Co.

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The Human Mind is a Story Processor, Not a Logic Processor

Dwayne Harapnuik —  April 10, 2018 — 2 Comments

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
—Ernest Hemingway, 1920

Whether or not the short and impactful six-word story was penned by Hemingway there is no denying that it evokes a great deal of emotion. It is almost as if there is something in us that makes a connection beyond the six simple words that we read.

Jonathan Haidt argues that “the human mind is a story processor, not a logic processor.” (p. 328). Haidt points to the work of the psychologist Dan McAdams who is recognized for identifying that we each have a story of ourselves that we use to reconcile our place in the world. McAdams argued that psychologists must connect the qualitative data that they gather on their clients with the qualitative perspective of the narratives that people use to make sense of their lives.

We go to movies, binge watch TV series on Netflicks, read fiction, and sit around the campfire listening to our friends and families stories because we just like stories. Why? In their essay Knowledge and Memory: The Real Story, Roger Schank and Robert Abelson argue that “stories about one’s experiences, and the experiences of others, are the fundamental constituents of human memory, knowledge, and social communication” (p. 2). They posit:

  1. Virtually all human knowledge is based on stories constructed around past experiences;
  2. New experiences are interpreted in terms of old stories;
  3. The content of story memories depends on whether and how they are told to others, and these reconstituted memories form the basis of the individual’s “remembered” self”.

Connecting new experiences with old experiences or in this context “old stories” is central to the notion of making meaningful connection which is foundational to the constructivist definition of learning. Stories help us to make meaningful connection which means that stories help us to learn. We can use stories in our learning environments in several ways of key ways. The most effective way is to create a significant learning environment in which a learner is given choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities. This referred to as the CSLE+COVA approach and The authentic learning opportunity or a real-world problem that the learner chooses to resolve can provide the story and the context for learning because it requires that learner to face a sequence of real-world situations. As the learner works through the real-world or authentic learning opportunity they are challenged to develop knowledge, skills, and abilities that are necessary to address the challenges that the authentic learning opportunity present.

If an authentic learning opportunity is not available then using Roger Schank’s Story-Centered Curriculum (SCC) is the next best option. SCC is a:

carefully designed apprenticeship-style learning experience in which the student encounters a planned sequence of real-world situations constructed to motivate the development and application of knowledge and skills in an integrated fashion. A realistic story, at the core of each SCC, provides a meaningful, motivating role for the student, designed to ensure that the student faces exactly the right progression of challenges to stretch and build his or her abilities (Shank, 2007).

While the SCC can provide an effective simulated model the power of choice, ownership and voice will have a more significant effect on the transformative effect of the learning and should be the first choice. This is especially important if we want to have a lasting effect and really enable our learners to learn how to learn and not just work through a simulation.

Stories help us to make sense of the world around us and enable us to make the meaningful connections that can help us also make sense of our lives. It only stands to reason that stories that will come from real-world or authentic learning opportunities will also help us make meaningful connection and help us to learn. Are you taking advantage of this in your learning environment?

References

Haidt, J. (2012). The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by religion and politics. Pantheon, New York.

McAdams, D. P. (1993). The stories we live by: Personal myths and the making of the self. Guilford Press.

Schank, R. C. (2007, April). The story-centered curriculum [Blog]. Retrieved from https://elearnmag.acm.org/archive.cfm?aid=1266881

Schank, Roger C. & Abelson, Robert P. (1995) Knowledge and Memory: The Real Story. In: Robert S. Wyer, Jr (ed) Knowledge and Memory: The Real Story. Hillsdale, NJ. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 1-85. Retrieved from: http://cogprints.org/636/1/KnowledgeMemory_SchankAbelson_d.html#fnB0

In Authentic Learning, EDLD 5304, EDLD 5305
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How to Listen for Understanding

Dwayne Harapnuik —  October 20, 2017 — Leave a comment

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Knowing Your Why?

Dwayne Harapnuik —  August 23, 2017 — Leave a comment

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What is Your Guinea Worm?

Dwayne Harapnuik —  January 31, 2017 — Leave a comment

In the Influencer: New Science of Leading change, Joseph Grenny (2013) and his colleagues point to the example of how the eradication of the Guinea worm was accomplished through three vital behaviors and the supporting six sources of influence. The Guinea worm is a parasite that infected 3 million people in 23,000 remote villages in 20 countries. The Guinea worm was spread through the water supply for all these villagers. Once the Guinea larva was ingested a Guinea worm would hatch out of the larva and start to work its way out of the host’s body in whatever way it chose. This caused immense pain that was temporarily lessened when the infected person immersed themselves in water. The worm would then inject thousands of eggs into the water perpetuating a cycle that had lasted for thousands of years.

The goal of Dr. Hopkins from the Carter center was to stop the spread of the Guinea worm and ultimately eradicate the this blight on humanity. For the sake of using this example in EDLD 5304 this goal would be referred to as the result.

Three vital behaviors were identified that would prove to lead to the near eradication of the disease:

  1. People were required to filter their water.
  2. An infected person must not make contact with the public water supply.
  3. If a villager is not filtering water or becomes infected the villagers must confront them.

The Introductory section of Part 2 of the the book (pages 67-75 in the paperback version) offers a wonderful summary of the whole Guinea worm scenario and also provides a detailed explanation on how the six sources of influence came into play in helping to change behavior that ultimately lead the eradication of the Guinea worm.

This is a very helpful example to use in assessing your Guinea worm (your situation) and identifying:

  • Results you want to achieve and how you will measure them.
  • Vital behavior(s) you are trying to change.
  • Who are you organizational influencers.

Using this section of the book and the six sources of influence matrix from the 10x Your Influence Research Report should put you on the right path to building your own influencer strategy. So what’s your Guinea worm and what are you going to do about it?

View the status of the eradication of the Guinea Worm – https://www.cartercenter.org/health/guinea_worm/case-totals.html

Reference

Grenny, J., Patterson, K., Maxfield, D., McMillan, R., & Switzler, A. (2013). Influencer: The new science of leading change (2nd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill Professional.

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