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Unleashing Your Remarkable Potential
Issue 3.3 - January 16, 2006 - ISSN: 1551-6571
Fun and Learning – A Deeper Connection
Over the last few days I have been examining the connection between fun and learning.
For 15 years I’ve taught trainers and leaders and instructional designers the importance of making any learning event more fun. I’ve given them reasons and ways to do it. I’ve written about it many times including HERE.
All of the things I have taught and techniques I have used are valuable and helpful.
And they aren’t enough.
The training techniques and ideas all focus on the learning process. And while the process is important; when we focus too closely on a process we can lose sight of the result.
It is like when you tell someone their form is wrong and ignore that they still out bowl you by 30 pins. Or when you tell someone they hold the pen wrong when they write, but they still have pretty handwriting. Or they seem to do something in an unconventional but successful way.
In all of these cases, the focus on process keeps our sight away from the desired result.
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So it is with fun and learning.
Will our learning be deeper and more lasting (as well as more enjoyable) if we do things to make the process fun? Of course.
But as I already said, that isn’t enough.
If the person leading the training doesn’t understand why those techniques work, or believe that they will work, they will just be “using techniques” and it will feel just like that to both the teacher and the student. It will be like putting a band-aid over a wound far too big – helpful perhaps, but not really a solution.
So what is the deeper connection?
The Deeper Connection Between Fun and Learning
It is simple. The result of learning is:
- Satisfaction
- Happiness
- Success
- New skills
- Greater confidence
- More security
- Enjoyment
- Fun
The result of our learning something new is supposed to be fun.
This fact is largely why the techniques work – they are putting the process of learning in alignment with a deep human truth. When we learn we are expressing a deep human need and exercising our greatness. When we learn we are doing what we know subconsciously we are supposed to be doing. And when we put our actions in alignment with those needs, it makes us happy.
The result of learning is deep fun, enjoyment and satisfaction.
Too often we forget this – both as students and as teachers. Learning is fun.
Perhaps this article helps you understand why the best trainers seem to make the learning process fun and engaging. Perhaps now you understand why you use those types of ideas. Perhaps you even see ways you could teach coworkers, peers and your kids things more effectively.
I hope so.
But my real hope in sharing this article with you is that you think about your personal experiences and beliefs about learning.
This deeper connection between learning and fun matters to us – and not just because we might be teaching someone else - but because we are learners too.
And we’ll be more effective learners, more productive learners and more successful in our lives when we recapture the joy and yes, fun that inherently comes from learning new things.
| Kevin's Blog |
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Learning and Fun (what led to this week’s article)
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Kevin's Recommends
LibraryThing.com
I recently ran across this website and it is very cool.
If you like books, like to know what other people read or have read, or just like to see interesting web applications, you need to see http://LibraryThing.com.
Part list, part personal library, part database, part book recommendation engine, and part networking tool, LibraryThing.com defies any single description and wouldn’t be possible without the web.
You can setup an account for free (for up to 300 books – you can add an unlimited amount for a small membership fee) and begin to enter the books in your library. Entering them couldn’t be easier. Enter a title, ISBN # or just about anything thing else and the site searches Amazon.com and other locations to find the book. Select the correct book and it has been added to your library, complete with cover and complete bibliographical information. You can then add a review, rating and more – including tags. When you tag your book (with anything like non-fiction, biography, author’s name – whatever you want) it begins to automatically set up ways for you to sort your information.
You can then look at your books in a variety of ways – by tag, author, etc. But you can also make your library open for others to view. Plus, you can link to other public lists based on common books or common tags.
For example, I have Blink by Malcolm Gladwell entered into my list. I can quickly see that there are 272 others who have this book on their list – and I can see what other books are popular among readers of Blink, other books with similar tags, and I can actually look at the lists of those other owners of this book.
This is a great global way to find other books you might be interested in, connect with fans of your favorite author, or just keep track of the books you are reading.
I loaded a very small, somewhat random selection of my library into LibraryThing.com to learn how to use it and so you would have something to check out.
You may think all of this is silly (I showed my Mom and she said “I could read another book while I was putting that stuff in there.”) and for many people, maybe it is. But it is cool and is worth looking at, if only to see what others are doing.
You start on the home page or see my starter library and browse from there. It is worth visiting even if you never plan to put books of your own in – but just to see it!
To me it could become addicting! I expect to at least add all of he books I have recommended and will recommend here in the future. I’d love your ideas and thoughts – just send me an email.
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