Know Your Learner

People construct new knowledge and understandings based on what they already know and believe (e.g., Cobb, 1994; Piaget, 1952, 1973a,b, 1977, 1978; Vygotsky, 1962, 1978) 

The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft, written in the early 20th Century, follows the tradition of works like Conan-Doyle's 'The Lost World', Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Merian Cooper's King Kong in which the artists create a sense of mystery and horror for a colonial audience by describing far off lands and strange natives that inhabit them. These peoples are depicted as savages, brutish and backward as their rituals, beliefs, and traditions are incompatible with the scientifically minded protagonists' own. Lovecraft's tale of horror, seen through a modern lens, can be seen as an allegory of the major challenges in education.

In psychology, the acronym WEIRD is used to describe subjects most commonly used for studies and research: western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic. This small population, usually college students, represents less than 12% of the world's population (Brookshire, 2013). Educators, policymakers, and teachers, just like these researchers, have made decisions for centuries based on their own biases and misconceptions of the learner. We've know that being an expert does not allow one to become an effective teacher or enable students to build rich, meaningful knowledge structures and transfer their learning. In fact, experts often succumb to the "curse of knowledge" when trying to introduce novices to their area of expertise (Mack & Rock 1998).

So, with this in mind, what are the implications when creating meaningful learning experiences for a group of learners who we don't truly know? Firstly, it's important that we first activate their own prior knowledge. With the learner's prior knowledge, the instructor can contextualize student understanding and surface any misconceptions. This crucial information leads to informed and meaningful design choices and personalization. For the learner, this exercise allows them to measure their own level of understanding, identify gaps in their knowledge which then enables them to be more active agents in their own learning. 

The major challenge in online learning is that design decisions need to be made before the learners interact with the experience. When prototyping a new learning experience, the best learning designers can manage, in many cases, is to make informed assumptions about the learner. Two tools used for this purpose are the learner analysis and the learner persona, each of which gives the designer an anchor for building the experience and something to return to throughout the design process to ensure they're making good choices. This process also forces designers to question their assumptions and move past their own implicit biases to build a foundational understanding of the target audience. In my current work creating an online learning experience for MIT Solve I found that this analysis process changed my initial understanding of the target learner completely from a WEIRD framework to a more globalized view. It helped the team get on the same page and has enabled us to challenge our own work throughout the process and ensure that we are meeting the needs of that learner.

Brookshire, B (2013, May 08) Psychology Is WEIRD - Western college students are not the best representatives of human emotion, behavior, and sexuality. Slate. https://slate.com/technology/2013/05/weird-psychology-social-science-researchers-rely-too-much-on-western-college-students.html

Mack, A. and Rock, I. (1998). Intentional Blindness, MIT Press.