Design Dilemma #1 : Creating Authenticity Combat Vets – Embracing Stories iteration 2

How authentic do we want this experience to continue to be?  During boot camp nobody receives choices other than to do what’s being instructed in the military.  Why should we give our learners choices when our combat veterans had none?  What do we do?  Is it possible to recreate this feeling of loss of choices?  We’re mirroring an experience many of our learners, future social workers and helping professionals, may not ever experienced in their life.  There needs to be a learning balance.

Working on this problem of how authentic our simulated experiences should be is tough when designing.  As an inclusive designer, I love to give learners choices on how they submit their assignments to help increase the engagement yet should they have a choice on what they do during boot-camp?  The die heart immersive designer in me says NO!  I always ask, What would Chris say (My brother from another mother).  It would be no lol  yet I’m glad Emily brought up these question during our work time.  Early this week we came up with some amazing ideas on how to give our learners choices on what to do during boot-camp and assigning points while creating a leader board to view the points.  lol  We go big all the time.    Now…we’re back to the basics on allowing no choice in what they do for boot-camp but choice in how they submit.   The boot-camp assignments are to build camaraderie.  The only way to do is have all of them go through the same thing and share.

Dilemma solved.  Love to hear your thoughts.

Resources:

• Immersive Learning – Designing for Authentic Practice
• Authentic Learning for the 21st century
• Authentic Learning on wikipedia
• Authentic Learning Environments in Higher Education:

higher ed higher pledge…

Higher ed

Higher pledge

between the threads

you teach

you propel

you dispell

you dish out

how you were lead

how you were shaped to be

through warped ideas

of ideologies

of inferority

of exclusive dominance

as you continuously

chok… the… fuck

out of all the creativity

from me

out of learning

What’s your intent?

Where’s your nobility

in nuturing minds

in loving

in  living

to the passion and desire of

shaping better people

for the greater good…

to create a better existence

yet what I feel, look, see, and touch

are  hidden touch points

of bias viewpoints

of top down culture

focusing on subsets, subcultures, subprofit, subdominance

compartmentalizing

the differentiation

of all thoughts

aspirations

dreams

playfulness

curious tinkering

as a detour

to maintain

the supremacy of nineteen hundred year old thinking…

Higher ed,

Higher pledge

to what?

group thought

group walk

group thinking

silos of shame

who can I blame

and non ethical lenses

what are you running from higher ed?

what cards are being played?

while you’re marginalizing

who am

as a disable person

as a veteran

as an immigrant

as a woman

a black woman

a creative

a polymath

of new thinking

what happened to those 21st skills sets you wish to teach and bring forth

through experietial learning

What happened to that entrepreneurial mindset that you wish all your students to seek

as I am here

you exist in fear

So when I say who I am

you then tell me what I can’t be

Higher ed

Higher pledge

                            between the threads

the lines of the lies

marginalizing creative thought

creative thinking…..

photo credit:  @mahanypery by @lucasmennezes for @maybellinenybrasil

An ode to Ed Technology

what mask shall I wear?

What pedagogical approach is right for the day?

Which identity should I choose

As a walk into “the game of orgs” that see’s

no value

in me

no respect

no love

harsh realities with fresh scars all in the name of  learning

Shall I stay silent today past the judgmental stares of inadequacy

Or …shall I take the path of bearing the fruit of my exuberance

while the distant light

of 19th century dominance (theory) runs from

the glare of me

who am I as a little black girl

to state boldly what I represent, what I create

to be more than what they call me?

what I’m designated to be within old hierarchy

my question

who am I not to be.

playing small with the light doesn’t suite me

living life  is not a game

I was born for a purpose

interstellar  transdisiplinary intentions

yet everyday I  walk into a field of discipline specific minds

where there is no consciousness

no ethical layer of honesty

Decisions are made within closed minds

closed doors

with no emphatically lens

no hope of inclusion or visible diversity

other than who wins?

who really wins…

within this game

of no valor

Trust is of little value

Thus the game of thrones is playing out

So therein lies

the life within Higher Education

Which mask shall I wear?

which pedagogical approach is best for you today?

Which identity shall I choose?

References

• http://www.crunkfeministcollective.com/2014/11/11/working-while-black-10-racial-microaggressions-experienced-in-the-workplace/
• http://awljournal.org/Vol35_2015/Nicole_West_In_Our_Own_Words.pdf
• https://www.nea.org/assets/docs/TAA_07_13.pdf
• https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/dear-marginalized-people-coming-into-tech

Image Credit :  by Diane Morgan http://www.nitrobeat.co.uk/news/unleashing-imagination-and-alternative-visions-fut/

 

 

 

a quick reflection on my day…

Today was a day of tremendous information overload and processing.  My attempt to move past this information overload  is that I’m choosing to experience more than just taking information from the center to my peripheral view.  Hell I live!  I go out explore, interact, take chances, risks, give back thru service, travel, and I’m semi ok with the failing concept.  See many within a dominant culture theory don’t understand the context of the word failure within the African american perspective.  There’s a severe cognitive dissonance of expectation and learning when looking from this extreme lens.   I, being a feminine spirit, that’s creative, and a black queen.. thrive in a world where everything is set up for me to fail (emergence theory).  So when we talk about experimentation..hell I do that every single day I get up and come to work in an environment that’s not shaped within my cultural perspective of being a human being.   Who I am, what I’m shaped from, and my intentions are all purposeful.  Yet within the system,  failure within work culture =  I don’t get projects.  So I have to be exceptional even if the powers of be don’t value what I bring. To be who I am and do what I do I have to be beyond exceptional on every accord.

So back to information overload…I experience life as a self care technique due to me being nerd chic within technology, an avid learning coupled with the creative gift of deep empathy.  I can take on a lot from others if I’m not mindful of my intentions for the day.  I can get easily distracted from the energy people bring to an experience.   So I am very thoughtful (picky) about who I choose to engage in conversation.  Call it how you choose.  I live life as truthful as I possibly can so I’m being honest about avoidance.  lol  It’s real!  It’s even noted as a contingency tactic when developing projects within Project Management Institute (PMI).

With that said, I create many beautiful things with people I don’t like.  Crazy right..or is it?  My main goal in life is always love and understanding.  LOVE=LEARNING.  LEARNING=LOVE.  Learning can happen at anytime, anyplace, and with anyone.  You never know what the universe may send as a messenger.  So I grow through the lessons I receive through this journey.

Currently I’m working through a reflective process with my design partner, Emily.  We’re attempting to wrap our minds around the first iteration of a immersive learning design experiment we just finished up in December.  We also have two other teammates we see once a week Tina and Glenn.  I love them as family.  We’re an eclectic bunch I tell yah!!

So to wrap up my thoughts..my day went like this:

• got my babies ready for school.
• made sure bills were paid for the month
• attended a branding workshop
• Pitch meeting for blog posts on the Hub website
• shared some diagrams on Buzz words used within industry and academia
• asked a whole bunch of questions
• listened for  a different perspective
• wrote a bio for an event where I’m the keynote
• Figured out 4 different learning paths for a course
• Collaborated on documentation
• updated a course I’m co teaching.
• Wrote a proposal for an article on reflection in learning
• Created specs for image submission for a journal

Then finally the best…attending a event at the Kellogg center for a Entrepreneurship and Innovation Minor.

Critique of the day:

• Don’t shush your Inner VOICE.  It’s who you really are.
• If people are uncomfortable with your exuberance.  That’s their shit.
• write and get your thoughts out

Still processing some stuff..oh well.  Just finishing sending emails and scheduling meetings.   My OCD bestie Octavia talks about my inbox every time she looks at my phone.  Lawwdddd..    oh well I’m about to watch the New Edition mini series on BET to relax!!

Until next time.

P.S  I LOVE my life.  (smile)   Still tired as hell though lol

 

A change of …

I decided many moons ago within my soul to now only study and pursue African theory, literature, philosophy, and theology.   From 15+ years of colonial education, indoctrination, and self deprivation, this feels right to my soul.  Yet I won’t follow it under a prescribed curriculum.  The curriculum of my learning hasn’t been created yet and if I choose one it will be something that will evoke change in our current systems.

While thinking loudly, I believe my sensibility and pedagogy on how I learn directly evolved from the theory and practice of engagement, questioning,  unorthodox approaches, creativity, spirituality of choice outside theology yet within the history of its existence, and of intense immersion of love. Why wouldn’t I want to create something that has more fire than the sun?   In the essence of what I share, I am who I am due to having the most loving mother that was ever created.  Anyone who has been in her presence will say she is the most giving and nurturing person in the world. So in summary,  she taught me love.  As with many black people on the earth especially in america you mother is like your best friend in a particular way.

who I am right now, is a portrait within time, framed from a small black congregation of southern thought leaders who migrated  up North due to job shifts to Muskegon, a small industrial town near the vibrant shores of lake Michigan.   The water taught me fortitude persistence, quietness, and with direct intentions of every wave and thinking that comes out of me.  I’m more than Greek mythology, English prose, Capitalism, imperialism etc.., and I am not ever losing sigt of love.  My world hasn’t been without strife yet I persist within the bleeding lines of innovation, exuberant wisdom, and continuous insights.

I am the future and beyond.

I am learning in its authentic state.

I am more than the eye can see

I give of myself daily to high wave lengths of existence

I follow my passion and desires with intentionality.

I am strategic in every breath that I take

I am more than my breath can fill within the atmosphere of impurities

I create new universes within the realm of the  living

I am a mother of new thinking

I am a facilitator of creative systems

I am love.

In its purest essence

and so forth love what it is….is my life journey and lesson.

This world is a matrix of paradoxes

Its old. it only seeks to recreate itself.

It is time, my people to love.

welcome to my narrative art.

 

#mylifeasalearningdesigner