Free-Range Drama Farm

One of the things I keep coming back to after reading Informal Learning is the idea of a “learnscape”. Here’s an excerpt from an article Jay Cross wrote, explaining the concept:

Informal learning is about situated action, collaboration, coaching, and reflection, not study and reading. Developing a platform to support informal learning is analogous to landscaping a garden. A major component of informal learning is natural learning, the notion of treating people as organisms in nature. Our role as learning professionals is to protect their environment, provide nutrients for growth, and let nature take its course. Self-service learners connect to one another, to ongoing flows of information and work, to their teams and organizations, to their customers and markets, not to mention their families and friends.

Because the design of informal learning ecosystems is analogous to landscape design, I will call the environment of informal learning a learnscape. A landscape designer’s goal is to conceptualize a harmonious, unified, pleasing garden that makes the most of the site at hand. A learnscaper strives to create a learning environment that increases the organization’s longevity and health, and the individual learner’s happiness and well-being. Gardeners don’t control plants; managers don’t control people. Gardeners and managers have influence but not absolute authority. They can’t make a plant fit into the landscape or a person fit into a team.

A learnscape is a learning ecology. It’s learning without borders.

The idea of creating a nurturing environment for our students to thrive in, while they find their own way to the knowledge they need, is what got me started on this project in the first place. How do we create a learnscape that will allow them to do the best they can, giving them all the resources they need to find the answers, and making sure they know where to find them?

Two major things struck me as vital as I read through the book:

1. The working space has a huge impact on people’s ability to interact and learn from each other. You can’t cut them off - or allow them to cut themselves off - from each other; you have to encourage the conversation, because conversation is a huge part of informal learning. These are just random thoughts off the top of my head, but here’s a few ways we could do this with the Farm:
   • The physical environment - make sure there are lots of spaces that promote collaboration and conversation. Lounge areas to sit and chat, whiteboards and scratch paper to draw on and share ideas. Jay calls these shared spaces - media through which people collaborate, so that they’re seeing the same thing as they talk, and working in the same space.
   • The relationship between advisors and students - making sure the advisors are a presence, so the students are comfortable going to them with questions, without making the students feel as though their advisors are hovering or checking up on them. Keeping the advisors physically close to their area of expertise would help with this. No cluster of closed-off offices: the Acting advisor’s office should have a window that opens onto the rehearsal space; the Technical advisor’s office should look out into the scene shop; all of the offices should be conducive to sitting around and chatting.
2. Easy access to resources is another important part of the learnscape. You have to make it easy for people to find the right source to answer their questions, so that the learning doesn’t impede the work. A few possible ways to do this:
   • Keep a well-stocked library that’s open to students whenever they need it. Keep it up-to-date, and let the students make their own additions to the library - the best place to learn is from our peers.
   • Have computers available for students to do internet research as needed. Set up an online database of information for students to add to as well - possibly a wiki?
   • Keep everyone informed of what everyone else is doing. Instead of - or in addition to - a typical production meeting once a week, maybe we have a more informal chat about what we’ve been working on and the problems we’ve encountered. Sometimes someone has already found the answer to your problem, and you don’t know it until you talk to them.
   • Build relationships between everyone involved - staff and students alike. Talk about where we’ve been and what we’ve done - otherwise, how would you know that your Lighting advisor was once the rigger for a travelling circus show, and can help you work out how to hang that trapeze? Maybe we could have a weekly round-table discussion - topic of the students’ choosing - just to get the conversation going and build stronger relationships.

When it really comes down to it, creating a learnscape is best summed up by another quote from Jay:

“The best you can do is to establish the context, provide a purpose, and nurture the group.”

These are just my first thoughts on the matter, but I’ll continue to post things as they come to me. Until then, leave a comment and let me know if you’ve got other ideas on this - and if you’re interested in finding out more about learnscapes, you’ll find everything you need on the Internet Time Wiki learnscapes page. Have fun!