Two Exceptional Development Opportunities for Chicago-Area Learning Professionals (plus a bonus!)

If you are interested in expanding your professional knowledge base, I recently attended two programs you might want to consider: “Learning in a Competence-Based World” and “Learning Agility and the Brain: Fostering Learner Success in a Changing World.”  The programs, described below, are offered through DePaul University’s Center to Advance Education for Adults (CAEA) as part of its Adult Learning Innovation Institute. Early Bird Registration is now open for the fall session: Learning in a Competence-Based World: Mindsets, Models and Methods. For more details and to register, visit: https://cblinstitute2016.eventbrite.com

"Learning in a Competence-Based World: Mindsets, Models and Methods"

This interactive, two-day workshop, facilitated by Catherine Marienau, Ph.D. and other leaders in competence-based learning (CBL), clearly defined the term and reinforced the theories and concepts that underpin the concept: how people learn from experience, whether the setting is informal or formal. The program is especially geared to higher education faculty, training and development professionals, human resources administrators, coaches and mentors, and members of associations and agencies that promote adult learning. Topics included developing learning objectives, constructing competence statements, and assessing learning.

“Why should you care about competence-based learning?  That question served as the focus as the program leaders guided the participants through the steps that move learners to identify and demonstrate a competence. By explaining how to construct competence statements and define assessment criteria, the leaders linked CBL to all aspects of development.

Catherine Marienau, whose name is practically synonymous with adult education, and her colleague Kathleen Taylor recently published a book titled, Facilitating Learning with the Adult Brain in Mind: A Conceptual and Practical Guide .  The authors effectively tie neuroscience with the concepts of adult learning.

“Learning Agility and the Brain: Fostering Learner Success in a Changing World”

The VUCA Model (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) served as the springboard for this interactive, two-day workshop.  Recognizing, understanding, leveraging and developing agile approaches to successfully navigating our VUCA world was the program’s focus. 

Pamela Meyer, the program’s leader, addressed many important topics, including “Agility Awareness,” “Behaviors and Dispositions,” “Learning-Agile People,” “Personal Learning Agility Reflection,” and “Lessons from Agile Teams: Learning in Action.”

Before attending the program I had already read Pamela’s book, The Agility Shift: Creating Agile and Effective Leaders, Teams, and Organizations (you can download the first chapter here: http://pamela-meyer.com/the-agility-shift/), and came to the session with high expectations. I was not disappointed. By the end of the second day, I had achieved a deeper understanding of learning agility and the components of the “Relational Web” that supports the concept in action: Relevance, Responsiveness, Resilience, Resourcefulness, and Reflection.  

Bonus for my students (and my LinkedIn connections)!

Both Catherine Marienau and Pamela Meyer have graciously agreed to be interviewed this fall for the classroom and online leadership teaching/learning series, “Conversations with 21^st Century Leaders.”  The interviews will be announced through LinkedIn. It will be a privilege to talk with these leaders and gain their insights on current thinking in adult education.  Stay tuned for more information.

 Announced through LinkedIn 8/8/16

Reflections: Holiday Celebrations in Childhood

Events of the morning led me to a memory of my family’s holiday traditions and inevitably to thoughts about Santa, aka my dad.

 

It all started with my posting to Facebook a photo of this year’s tree—illuminated with tiny, white lights and cherished ornaments (memories of Christmases gone by)—and a simple message wishing friends a happy holiday and a prosperous 2016.  Then, with a stack of unwrapped holiday gifts awaiting my attention, I climbed my trusty step stool to search the top shelf of the hall closet for leftover wrapping paper.  While my paper hunt came up short, I found something that meant so much more.  There they were, stacked neatly on the shelf: children’s books too special to pass along or give away—books that contributed to shaping my young children.

Among this beloved treasure trove of children’s literature was a United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) book titled Celebrations! Festivals, carnivals, and feast days from around the world.  Fresh, innocent faces of children from all over the globe graced the cover, their celebrations warmly conveyed through stories and photos.  The book’s authors, Barnabas and Anabel Kindersley, traveled for a year to 18 different countries, and the celebrations featured are unique to a particular country, culture, or religion.  Page after page served as a reminder of the similarities and the differences among countries, cultures, and religions.

As I leafed through the book’s pages—country after country—I wondered about the various cultures, traditions and childhood memories of my LinkedIn and Blog followers and wanted to know more.

So, with the holidays upon us, I invite you to share a memory of your family’s celebrations—good or bad, poignant or silly, sacred or secular.  I’ll begin by recounting one of my own.

It was days before the holiday and I was sitting on the bottom step of the stairs just outside my family’s living room.  I was perhaps just four years old.  The doorway was covered with a white sheet, enabling Santa (my dad) to construct the three-tier platform that would become a charming Christmas village laid out beneath the tree on Christmas morning. 

“Santa” and I talked all during the mysterious construction phase.  “But why can’t I help you, Santa?” I asked.  “Ho, ho, ho,” he answered in a very deep voice. “I’m working hard to surprise you on Christmas morning. If you help me, it won’t be a surprise.”  Exhausted by my unending questions (yes, I questioned everything, even then), Santa finally said, “Let’s be quiet now—I need to think about making Christmas fun for you and all of the other children on my list.”

My father handmade the elements of the Christmas village—the houses, the grocery store and the church, even the train trestle and the exterior fencing that prevented the authentic-looking, plastic snow from falling on the carpet.  Dad built mountains out of brown paper—perfectly crunched to represent a rugged terrain towering behind the village.  He “relocated” the wall mirror from my parents’ bedroom to create a skating rink, complete with skaters, and used one of my mother’s kitchen pans for a swimming pool, also complete with swimmers. The village was populated with small, metal people, pets, cars, taxis and busses. The noisy, electric train that traveled the circumference of the village—circling the tree over and over again—was great fun to operate. 

    

Although photos of that Christmas village have long since disappeared, the memories of my dad and my childhood Christmas tree remain in my heart.

If you are celebrating a holiday this season, I wish you a happy holiday, and a new year filled with all good things.

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Posted on LinkedIn 12/23/15 

            

Serendipity . . .

Unity in Diversity . . . Hanukkah thoughts
at the time of Rosh Hashanah

During a recent catch-up session with a friend of Jewish heritage over a late afternoon coffee, she mentioned the upcoming “holidays.” By the context of the conversation, I knew she was referring to a religious holiday—not the upcoming Labor Day weekend. “Which holiday is it,” I asked. “Rosh Hashanah,” she replied. Rosh Hashanah, a celebration of the Jewish new year, begins on Sunday, September 13.

My friend and I moved quickly to other topics, but later that evening while sorting through a pile of papers I found a poem given to me a few years back by another Jewish friend—an energetic and enthusiastic woman, now in her early nineties. The poem was written by her husband before he passed away almost a decade ago.

As I reread the poem—clearly written for the holiday of Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of Lights—my thoughts flashed on recent media broadcasts depicting a climate of violence, injustice, bigotry and separation. But the poet suffused his work with a passionate love of humanity—a mind’s reach for unity in diversity—and it kindled in me a light of hope.

No matter what holiday you’ll be celebrating this month, the poem is published here with the hope that it will touch others as it did me.

As we celebrate together in a season of light,
may we see in that light the beauty of our common humanity.

May we also see, reflected in that glow,
the light on our differences and the beauty of man’s diversity.

For these are the lights lit not by one man, but all men—not by one faith,
but by all faiths, not for the freedom of one—but for the freedom of all to worship,
or not to worship, each according to his belief, his heart and his conscience.

May the light that glows in that diversity illumine
the miracle and wonder of creation.

But may we also see in the bright glare of light,
the evil of bigotry, injustice and indifference
that thrives in the darkest recesses of man’s soul.

                 As we celebrate together, may we look into one another’s eyes
                    and see a light reflecting love, understanding and caring.

                                                                ~ by Dr. Edward Osran ~

                                                                (Permission:  Lillian Osran)      

I didn’t have the privilege of meeting Ed Osran—I would have appreciated knowing him.

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Posted on LinkedIn 9/2/15