It's About Learning

Benefits of Life Long Authentic Learning Opportunities

Dwayne Harapnuik — January 9, 2019 — Leave a comment

The other night my two sons and their former youth pastor and his wife got together for their annual GingerBread build off and the results this year have surpassed all previous years. When you combine active imaginations and creativity with 5 Ginger Bread kits, a hot glue gun and lots of good conversation and laughter you get the following:

GingerBread Pirate Ship

GingerBread Pirate Ship Close-up

All the builders agreed that this year’s creation will be difficult to beat but they also agreed that they are up to the challenge for next year.

While the building of a GingerBread pirate ship may be viewed by some as an expression of creativity and artist voice, I see this as a benefit or result of a life filled with creativity and expression that comes with authentic learning opportunities. For my two boys, this is the norm; they spend most days, designing, creating, building, problem-solving, and working toward big dreams and goals. Both my boys are aspiring professional downhill mountain bike racers so they also significant portions of each day preparing for the race season.

In addition to being athletes, they are also entrepreneurs who are building their personal and business brands on the road to establishing themselves as leaders in their respective fields through their websites, Instagram and Facebook.

Caleb Instagram Story Pic

Whether it is my older son’s writing sponsorship proposals and creating a new promotional blog/vlog and podcast to promote his place in the biking industry or my younger son’s Instagram and Facebook promotions of his latest build as part of his new auto styling business, they have both learned to share their passions and their voice with their audience.

Levi Wish I Knew Series

That creativity, passion, and voice were nurtured through years of their taking ownership of their learning that comes from authentic learning opportunities. As my boys strive to improve their world they are improving the world around them and are having a very positive impact on their communities and spheres of influence.

If we consistently create a significant learning environment in which we give our learners choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities (CSLE+COVA) then we can honestly say that we have done our part to change and improve the world one learner at a time. Are you doing your part?

In Creativity, CSLE+COVA authentic learning, authentic learning opportunities, choice, ownership, passion, Voice

BE BOLD | Parkour Athlete Vinnie Coryell

Dwayne Harapnuik — September 23, 2015 — Leave a comment

https://youtu.be/SRQkGnF3-h0

In Motivation, Video - Wednesday Watchlist inspiration, motivation, parkour, passion, work

Commitment takes Heart

Dwayne Harapnuik — March 19, 2015 — Leave a comment

In his daily blog post The difference between commitment and technique Seth Godin makes the argument that we (society) would be a lot more successful if schools created an environment where teachers used commitment as a foundational part of the learning environment. Students with access to resources are almost unstoppable if they are committed to learning.

Instead we have created an environment where learners can say:

“teach me, while I stand here on one foot, teach me while I gossip with my friends via text, teach me while I wander off to other things. And, sure, if the teaching sticks, then I’ll commit.”

This is another example of the principle of “The head won’t go where the heart hasn’t been.” Genuine commitment must involve the affective domain and until we are willing to engage emotionally our heads will not follow.

I agree with Godin that “great teachers teach commitment.” I would add that great teachers use passion to teach commitment.

In Learning head, head won't go, heart, passion, teaching

Want to Change the World – Tell a Good Story

Dwayne Harapnuik — October 6, 2014 — 1 Comment

I have been subscribing to LifeHacker even before it was popular because they consistently point to some of the most interesting and useful information. I have also been watching TED talks since they first went online back in 2006 and over the years I have lost count of the number of full TED and TEDx talks that I have watched. Some are amazing like Ken Robinson’s Why Schools Kill Creativity or Simon Sinek’s, How Great Leaders Inspire Action, and others while others are simply informative.

So when the post Transform Your Life In One Month: The 31 Best TED Talks Of All Time That Will Inspire You I immediately checked it out to see if there were any TED talks that I needed to watch. I was surprised to find that out of the 31 recommended talks I missed only David Blaine’s How I held my breath for 17 minutes. But had added this talk to my Evernote “to watch” list so I was planning on getting to it. I then followed another link on the Lifehacker page to the post 10 Inspiring TED Talks That Will Completely Refresh Your Perspective On Life and I learned that I had watched all these TED talks as well. Noticing a pattern I went to the TED site and looked at The most popular talks of all time and found that I had watched all these TED Talks as well.

What makes TED talks and these talks in particular so appealing? I have my suspicions and to confirm them I did some research and found Mark Fidelman’s Forbes post and infographic Here’s Why TED and TEDx are So Incredibly Appealing (infographic) which I believe offers a couple of key reasons so many of us watch so many of the same TED talks. TED’s philosophy of “simplified authentic storytelling” works so well because we (humanity) all love stories. We all respond to a well-told story. Equally important and perhaps even more transforming is TED Director, Chris Anderson’s passion for and commitment to the TED mission of “ideas worth sharing” he has surrounded himself and all of us through the TED talks with people who want to change the world.

We are drawn to TED talks because we are moved by powerful stories about how humanity can change the world. This passion to change the world is best summarized in Steve Job’s narration in Apple’s Think Different campaign.