You can stimulate curiosity for self directed learning

For this type of online learning you need a certain level of capacity for self direction.
How to stimulate the second group who will not spontaneously engage in a SPOC? How to stimulate self directed learning?
Is everybody (unconsciously) a knowmad?
“There’s a strong positive relationship between how much people learn on the job and how much they love their job”
Curiosity: the book
What makes us curious? – excitement versus anxiety
- New may be a new phenomenon such as a new species
- Complex is when something follows an unexpected pattern
- Uncertainty is when you can not predict the outcome
- Conflict is the fact that new information is contradictory to old information, this makes you feel ‘ignorant’ and to remove that feeling you will look for additional information
Two different types of curiosity
Source: Siobhancribbin.wordpress.com
Interesting: brain research has revealed that these two types of curiosity reside in different parts of the brain.
Strategies to satisfy curiosity: overview and from easy to difficult
Jacqueline Gottlieb has researched the strategies of the brain to satisfy curiosity through open exploration. 52 people were asked to choose a short computer game to play. There were two different series of games and the level of difficulty varied. The strategies of the 52 people were strikingly similar: they started with the easiest games and proceeded to the more difficult ones. In addition, they looked for an overview of all games. The games from medium to high degree of difficulty were played several times. Interesting for epistemic curiosity: people like to see the whole landscape. This phenomenon is called ‘knowledge-based intrinsic motivation’.
You can learn to be curious or stimulate people to be curious
What is my conclusion? That every professional is curious, but the extent to someone is curious may vary. What I learned from reading Why is the focus on emotion. Ask people what they are curious for in their work, what new information makes them feel excited? What makes you feel uncertain in your work? This is a different set of questions than: what would you like to learn?
You can actually trigger curiosity in professionals and I believe with curiosity comes self directed learning, provided people have the information processing capacities. If you look at Berlyne, the perceptual curiosity is easier to stimulate than epistemic. Examples:
- Introduce something completely new, for example a new theory or a new technology that will be of influence
- Present data that shows an unexpected pattern. An example of this approach is benchlearning
- Let professionals put their teeth into a wicked problem, a challenge for which the outcome is unpredictable
- Look for information that is contradictory to what people believe in the organization
- Encourage curiosity.
A side idea: after reading this book I got a huge question mark doubting the usefulness of adaptive learning systems: within these systems, the learner will automatically receive new information or assignments. From the need to get an overview of the whole field (from easy to difficult) this can be rather frustrating. It coincides with a remark that I heard from users, that they would like to know what the subjects are that they have not received (because of the fact that the content was adapted or personalized for them).
Overall, it reassured me that everybody has a native type of curiosity and that with the right stimuli this can lead to self directed learning.
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