- Participants need to understand WHY they are doing things (What’s in this for me?). It must be structured so that participants can see where they are going and the purpose for activities. That means organization, clear purpose, and spiraling of material so connections are made between ideas. Learning should be ongoing where concepts can be connected, reinforced and expanded.
- Learning needs to relevant to the LEARNER and must be practicably connected to their own life experiences. That experience must be accepted as valid, and respected as a potential resource for learning. We all need our stories to be heard so that we can better learn from other’s stories.
- Participants don’t HAVE to be there. They need a good reason to stay and we need to find what motivates them to get through the door every day. Increasing and maintaining a sense of self-esteem and having fun are strong motivators for engaging in learning experiences.
- Participants need to be actively involved in learning. That means it’s more about solving problems and doing projects than learning about topics. It means more doing than listening. More practice and less telling you about it. The important thing is that all activities create an active search for meaning where new tasks are somehow related to earlier activities.
- Learning is more effective when individuals can assess their own skills and strategies to discover strengths and gaps for themselves. Self-reflection and self-assessment matter.
- Learners need to feel a sense of control. Portions of all learning activities need to be self-directed and participants need to have a sense of responsibility for their own learning journey.
- Learning is facilitated when activities don’t rely on finalized, correct answers and closure. Activities need to express a tolerance for uncertainty, inconsistency, and diversity ; and promote both question asking and answering, problem-finding and problem-solving. This is a really important part of active learning.
- Participants must have time to voice opinions and personal experiences. They need to feel that they are helping to shape the direction of the program. This means the Facilitator needs to give up some control over processes and planning activities and can share these with learners.
- People learn best when they are challenged (or stretched) a bit, but do poorly if they are stressed and their anxiety is high. We need to find the sweet spot (or the Zone of Proximal Development, if you want to get fancy). It’s also important to create an atmosphere that is nonthreatening and supportive of trying new things. This is where the growth happens.
- Collaborative ways of learning build self-concept and result in more meaningful and effective learning. Provide time for participants to actively work together, find common ground and build shared meaning. Collaborative learning builds teamwork skills, communication skills and more.
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