Amy Potthast | Instructional Coach & Designer | Learning Design Studios

Left brain goes offline, Nirvana ensues

September 18, 2012

Last night I watched Jill Bolte Taylor’s TED Talk from 2008 (seems I am a bit behind the times) and loved it so much.

Taylor suffered a stroke in her late 30s, and because she’s a neuroscientist had a very unique perspective on the experience, even while her (left) brain was still hemorrhaging.

Here’s the talk:

After you watch it, what questions does it bring up for you?

For me, questions arise such as:

Implications for Icebreakers and Energizers?

If it’s the right brain through which we feel most connected to others and most aware in the present moment, and it’s the right brain that governs our kinesthetic experience of the world, what does that mean Read the rest of this entry »

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Cool Things I've Found, General Instructional Coaching and Design for Adult Learning Environments

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Attention and Learning

September 14, 2012

Some things we know about attention:

This graphic includes the image and the explainer text together, focusing the learner’s attention.

1. Attention doesn’t multi-task.

I might think I’m multi-tasking when I am “listening” to the Slate Political Gabfest and writing a blog post at the same time, but I’m really doing one thing…then forcing myself to stop…then focusing on the other thing. John Medina says in Brain Rules that it takes 50 percent longer to do anything if you’re trying to split your attention with something else.

Of course you can multi-task — for example, you can walk and talk. Your working memory isn’t engaged in walking so it’s free to help you keep track of what you’re saying.

2. You can learn only when you’re paying close attention.

Ever been to a workshop with side-talkers? People who chat throughout the workshop, then complain they’ve not learning anything?

Well, there’s actually a scientific reason that they didn’t learn anything.

Turns out, you have to pay attention in order to learn.

When you learn something new, your brain’s wiring changes a bit to accommodate the new thing you learned. But if you’re not really paying attention while you’re learning, your brain’s not really going to rewire itself.

The learning you do while your attention is divided might stick with you in the short-ish term but not in the long term.

Norman Doidge writes in his book The Brain that Changes Itself about Merzenich and Jenkins‘ research on monkeys’ learning. They found that automatic learning did result in some remapping of neuropathways, but the remapping didn’t last long unless the monkey paid close attention during Read the rest of this entry »

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Adult Learning Strategies

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Workshop pilots – good for learners, good for educators

August 16, 2012

Next Thursday, Aug. 23, I’ll be piloting a new workshop called What’s Your Story that I designed for a San Francisco-based career services company.

Thanks to Sustainable Sanitation's Flickr stream

Thanks to Sustainable Sanitation’s Flickr stream

I’ve invited job seekers and adult educators in my networks to participate, and in two days we’ve almost filled all 15 workshop seats.

Why pilot a workshop?

Though piloting may be a luxury in terms of money and time, it is incredibly helpful when it’s possible to do it!

Both educators and learners benefit from pilot workshops —

  • Instructional developers test out a new lesson plan, assessing timing and flow, and evaluating holes in content and practice — and then revise the workshop’s design and materials before distributing it!
  • Pilot facilitators get to hear feedback from a friendly audience who have volunteered to give feedback.
  • Pilot participants get to learn for free, network, and hopefully have some fun — plus a chance to influence the final version of the workshop!
  • Future facilitators get to deliver tried and true materials, even when they’re relatively new.
  • Future participants (ideally) experience stronger learning outcomes as a result of workshop revisions!

Finally, just like a comic who tries out new comedic material on audiences in smaller markets, educators who beta testing their instructional materials can risk learning in public Read the rest of this entry »

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Instructional Advice

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5 ways to learn online — for free

July 29, 2012

 

Laptop keyboard for online learning

From baddog_ on Flickr

Having just finished grad school, I am in the habit of studying at the feet of masters, and learning amazing new things. So I am thrilled to discover a surge in new elearning platforms whose aims are to expose me to new knowledge.

Coursera:

Coursera.org is a platform offering over 100 courses from major universities on a wide range of topics. With Coursera, you register on the site, then you can sign up for any courses — most of which look to be five to eight weeks long, and are scheduled through mid-2013.

For example, I signed up for a stats course that’s to begin in September.

What’s refreshingly unique about Coursera is that you actually get readings and homework — in addition to watching lectures by your professor.

Some courses even send you a certificate of completion at the end.

iTunes U:

Many universities have uploaded audio and video recordings of course lectures on a huge Read the rest of this entry »

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Learning Technologies

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5 ways to help learners discover what they already know

July 26, 2012

One key to helping adults learn is getting them connect new information to what they already know.

As educators, our role then is to get our learners to realize what they already know — through written and oral reflection.

We can do this in lots of ways — here are a few:

1) Pre-workshop questionnaires.

Learners can start reflecting on their own prior experience with a topic (and you can whet their appetite for rich content) when you ask them to answer some questions before the workshop.

Using a free online survey site like SurveyMonkey, you can ask learners to respond to Read the rest of this entry »

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Adult Learning Strategies

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Revisiting the panel discussion

June 18, 2012

This spring I’ve had the privilege of taking part in several conferences.

Towards the end of one conference I heard heightened evidence of Panel Fatigue.

I can see why conferences rely on panel discussion — why people propose them, and why conference organizers select them:

  • Panels ask relatively little of the speakers (unlike other speaking or training sessions),
  • Several big names on a panel look great and attract participants, and
  • People like to hear from experts — the more the better.

Why Panel Fatigue?

After listening to a series of experts — and another series of experts — and another series Read the rest of this entry »

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Adult Learning Strategies, Instructional Advice

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Subject Matter Experts teach, train + present better as a result of working with me

May 17, 2012

Greetings! I’m Amy Potthast — instructional coach, training program designer, and podcaster.

Amy Potthast and VISTA trainees, Oxbow Park

Amy Potthast

I work with social justice, nonprofit, and philanthropy professionals to:

  • establish workshop or course goals,
  • plan meaningful and novel activities that support evidence-based learning theories,
  • review & evaluate or design teaching materials,
  • set up pilot workshops to test new materials, and
  • give actionable feedback on rehearsal.

Additionally, I design custom training programs on a range of issues by working in tandem with subject matter experts and the client organizations which sponsor the projects.

This is my portfolio, a work in progress. Feel free to poke around. And contact me by emailing amy.potthast [at] gmail.com.

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General Instructional Coaching and Design for Adult Learning Environments

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Fonts and dandelions – exploring the looks of things

April 8, 2012

My final course in grad school Creating Training Documents is a crash course in graphic design. We’ll be crafting smart-looking facilitator’s and participants’ guides for various projects — mine will be for the EPIP program I’m developing.

In preparing a design brief for my project, I have spent the last hour browsing free fonts & downloading them to inDesign. You can see some of the fonts I found to the left.

Also I’ve been following links to sites like I Love Typography, reading about a Canadian blogger Todd Macfie’s trip to TypeCamp India. And Smashing Magazine out of Freiburg, and reading PresentationZen, Design Basics Buttercups, coffee cup, design booksIndex, and Logo Savvy. I’ve been looking under the hood of websites to see what fonts they’re posting in.

As I’m plugging away on coursework today, I glanced at the bed to see a little bunch of dandelions my four year old picked for me this morning — sweet thing for him to do, bringing a little sunshine inside on this great spring day. But I’m also loving the aesthetic of it. Saturated with imagery, to see a still life here in my room.

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Reflection on Instructional Practice

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Public identities, authentic reputations, professional brands

March 3, 2012

In a couple weeks Russ Finkelstein* and I will head down to San Francisco and LA to pilot our first workshop in the training program we are creating for EPIP (Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy).

Our affinity process highlighted the potential of so many workshops we could develop, but the first four we’re prioritizing include personal/professional branding, networking, leadership self-assessment, and facilitation.

In addition to creating the lesson plan and handouts, we’ll create pre-assessments, post-workshop evaluations, facilitator materials, and a webinar for each topic.

In California, we’ll pilot the personal/professional branding workshop. In preparation, I’m reading Reid Hoffman’s new book The Start Up of You. In it he articulates something I’ve been trying to find language for — about keeping your identity separate from your employer. It’s such an important point at a time when people shift jobs every couple years.

Inevitably people ask about whether their Twitter feed is their own or their organization’s voice. I think that is hard to answer, and I know that you can lose your job or face other real-life consequences for something you say on your own Twitter feed because that’s happened to people — journalists, politicians, etc.

The point is that you can write about your world outside of work; use your blog or LinkedIn profile or Twitter feed to discuss your independent projects, reading, networking, etc. Representing yourself as a professional is, I guess, an unspoken expectation.

I’m excited about the chance to work with young foundation professionals on these issues and to learn from them how these concepts play out in their own careers.

* Russ is my old boss from Idealist, and my collaborator on the EPIP project now.

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Reflection on Instructional Practice

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Evaluation and meta-evaluation

March 2, 2012

Program evaluation. So many options and moving parts. So many potential approaches that evaluation looks kaleidoscopic.

We recently undertook meta-evaluations, at the planning level, within my grad school cohort. I loved reading about the diverse projects my colleagues are designing, and thinking about how we’ve devised diverse evaluations in response.

There’s no one-size fits all eval because the programs themselves are complex and varied. Evaluations reflect the programs (“evaluands”), the questions that stakeholders are asking, the skill and knowledge of the evaluator, resources like money and time.

Reading through several eval plans helped me realize how essential evaluation skills are for building the capacity of individuals and organizations.

Although I’m not aware of a professional association for nonprofit program directors, I imagine if there were one, evaluation skills would be an central skill set to help directors develop, alongside the better-attended-to worlds of budgeting, fundraising, communications, people and project management, etc.

Participatory eval models like Fetterman’s Empowerment Evaluation seem perfect for such a purpose, equipping program directors with the feedback they need to make sharp planning and management decisions on an ongoing basis.

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Reflection on Instructional Practice

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