Otherwise, the discussion post about the sandboxes was very relavent. This was the first year my children, proactively, wanted to build sand castles. They had enough knowledge of how to contruct in sand. They scoured the beach for drift wood and pieces of trash (which mom took away) to build with. They watched water and decided a mot was a good idea. There were no walls, no boundaries. We built large ones some days, and small ones other days. When my father joined us, as a contractor, he built a massive one, with mutliple buildings and levels. There expectation was set, and they wanted me (with my limited skill) to build this). All in all, each day it was different. Each day they surveyed their surroundings, reflected on the previous day, and sought out to build bigger and better.

I watched and considered the act of constructivism in the purest sense, and enjoyed the act of innocence in the best sense!

Other than that, I just had one week of work.  Catch up from a week of travel and prep for a week of vacation.

I landed on the runaway just short of the end of class. I did not get to attend, yet was very happy to read the dialogue and blogs from everyone, which brought me up to speed on the 9/20 class.

I did however, have a wonderful time in Italy, for professional purposes. I did not have time for the personal purposes. There is one conversation that particularly interested me, and I would like to share.

The Director of the Center of Excellence in Europe is a woman from Germany. She is known to be a very intense, stern individual She sent me a very direct email on Friday, before I left, which had me a slight bit nervous in meeting her. I was nervous to meet this powerful woman, in front of the training managers of all the countries in the Europe diagnostic market.

On Wednesday, I introduced myself at her meeting. She is an attractive woman, that dresses very conservatively. She shook my hand with a very strong hand shake, and started the meeting. She rapidly progressed through the meeting, making everyone accountable and responsible for deadlines. We flew through the day and advanced onto dinner.

At dinner, she told me a story of a workshop she attended before she was promoted. It was a cultural awareness workshop. She was with about 10-15 people who were all Germans. They pride themselves in being prompt and direct. The facilitator was 30 minutes late, purposely. The facilitator watched from a balcony as the participants became enraged. Once the facilitator entered, the participants questioned her motive, then acted like nothing was wrong.

The facilitator was German and understood the stress the participants endured, due to cultural practices and habits. Throughout the length of the workshop, they were introduced to Spanish siestas and Italians customary lunch with wine or beer.

At the end of the dinner, I not only appreciated this woman for her strength and intellect, but for her directiveness, and her ability to understand the other managers for their cultural differences and bring them together as a team.

Constructivism at it’s finest!

This seems to be a tool I could use with my colleagues. I am very interested in any tools we can introduce into a corporate environment first, and then a technical environment. As I have said on occasion, I work in the diagnostic industry, and the information is very precise, procedural and technical. I see application in software and troubleshooting areas, where people can learn through problem solving. Since must of the instrumentation is very delicate and expensive, I do not think “constructing” learning would be very applicable.

I do see this application available in the Sales Training. We have just been engaged by the Sales Training organization, so we may have the opportunity to advance in these constructivist and discovery learning practices.

I am also interested in how to sprinkle this into classroom instruction with tenured trainers who are set in their ways. I have a hard time trying to get instructors understand the use of a Parking Lot, when they are struggling with Group Dynamics. Just as Dr. Ackerman explained ANGEL was difficult for one person, these abstract concepts are difficult for some to grasp.

I looked into the Web 2.0 social software and found that not only is this a great method of building communities of practice, but there is four levels of hierarchy defined for these tools. Some of the tools I have been using daily were listed in the higher levels.

I do want to offer support to any and all who are willing to ask for help. I am comfortable and confident in ANGEL. I have also completed a Webquest. I often on-line in the evenings (after the kids bedtimes) if you want to chat live.

Well, as we are all off to our homes and families for what is left of the weekend, I will enjoying (weather permitting), the Kennett Square Mushroom Festival. And if you know anyone in need of therapy, please recommend they look into The Barn at Springbrook Farm, which offers animal based therapy to children with disabilities and diseases.

See everyone next week.