To Dispel Illusions of Competence in Teaching and Learning, We Have to Launch Out into the Deep

Peripheral drift by Paulnasca (Wikimedia Commons)

You can have all the incredible visuals, dynamic content, and interactive learning objects you want, but if someone is not motivated to learn or doesn’t know how to learn, they are not going to learn.

When working with teachers and students, two of the most difficult things to do are 1) help someone see what they don’t know and 2) inspire them to learn it. Many instructional design theories emphasize the importance of students’ demonstrating evidence of learning, however, they don’t address the challenge of designing learning to overcome hurdles of over confidence in the teacher, instructional designer, and the learner.

Another fact that frequently gets glossed over in instructional design is that learning is hard.

In my V-Log post, “Dispelling Illusions of Competence in Teaching and Learning,” I stress that “instructional design at its core is a teaching profession.” Integral to the complex science and art of teaching is the ability to “see” the learner, help the learner “see” themselves, and help the learner overcome obstacles to learning. Unfortunately, many of us at times, (myself included), suffer from illusions of competence that prevent us from seeing when we’re just fooling ourselves about what we really know.

The following insights about learning were inspired from lessons taught by Barbara Oakley and Dr. Terrence Sejnowski in their course “Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects.” (Please note: I am not an employee of Coursera and did not receive any compensation to mention them.)

How do you know if you’re suffering from illusions of competence?

• You confuse the ability to recognize the right answer with being able to recall it.

• You think when you highlight or underline something, it gets in your brain.

• You believe that “Googling” is as good as knowing.

• You can’t do something you thought you knew how to do.

• You’re never wrong.

Techniques for dispelling illusions of competence

• Practice solving a problem without looking up the answer.

• When learning something, focus on material you find the most difficult.

• Embrace your mistakes and see them as opportunities to repair flaws in your thinking.

• Be able to explain something by using a metaphor.

• Explain a complex concept on five levels (See Wired’s "5-Levels" for inspiration.)

When it comes to learning, we all need to stop fooling ourselves.

Get out of the shallows, and launch out into the deep.