5.1.3 Learning to Learn Core Report -- Gaia: Designer, Learner & Leader

I am grateful for many key aspects of cultivating myself as a learner and a designer that Gaia has helped me articulate:

• Learner (unlearner) — action learning through what we are actually doing is magnified by reflection and documentation.
• Leader   — conscious leadership is powerful, so too is conscious following.
• Designer — Utilize design methodologies to become aware on a more conscious level how I design.
• Presenter — If I hope to share my life, my experiences, my learnings — I need to reflect upon how I present them.
• Organizer  — Organization encompasses design, implementation and reflection: it includes structured design, solid MTMP, careful layout during presentation, and effectively leading well
• Documention — Keep a journal and write down experiences immediately after I have them. 
• Inter-Intra Personal Communication  — RC, NVC, empathy are tools for connecting more facilely with others and ourselves
• Worldview/Patrix — Become aware of my worldview and the worldviews that populate/control my communities including the all pervading patrix which is hard to tease out of any belief system (you can't tell a fish about water).  

These are articulations of beneficial perspectives that Gaia has helped me recognize.  I intend to utilize these more in my life and projects in my Capstone year.

Action learning can emerge from many experiences: listening, reading, installing, playing, building.  Action learning incorporates reflection as a key tool to acknowledge and articulate the learning.  It expects the learner to first go beyond regurgitating as in traditional school settings.  Action learning demands that the learner actively engage with the material through note-taking, discussion or problem solving.  Secondly, action learning encourages the learner to consider the process of learning through analysis and synthesis.  We are even learning about how we learn to empower our learning.   Admittedly, I love book learning and thrived in academia.  I am grateful that my thinker (who often runs the party) is smart enough to know that I have significant room for growth through other tools related to action learning.  It has taken me most of this year to fully grok action learning. And I see massive room for growth in more Active Experimentation.  Beyond having a strong “Thinker” I am recognizing that I like to have a framework, a structure, a starting point from which I can diverge.  It is somewhat difficult for me to create this starting point.  It is easier for me to edit a paper than to write the first draft.  It is easier to build a cobb oven after I have walked through that experience once.  This is my challenge with Active Experimentation (where to start), and I hope that now that I have named it, I can release it and Just Do It. 

Just as journalling or reflecting after a new experience (whether a book, an installation or a game) instills greater learning/retention so, too, reflecting upon styles of learning as Kolb does in his Learning Styles Index is a valuable tool to make us more effective learners.

Kolb’s  model of experiential learning has helped me put language to what I see as some of my strengths and weaknesses in how I learn.  Understanding Kolb's kite in a cyclical manner helped me see that Concrete Experiences naturally digest through Reflective Observation yielding fuel to Abstractly Conceptualize which can ultimately foster Active Experimentation.  My thinker takes over during Abstract Conceptualization and I become paralyzed prior to actively experimenting.  I am grateful for the concepts of rapid prototyping and tools to just Get Things Done as I recognize the paralysis of my conceptualization.   Strategically discovering how I learn is the first aspect of designing learning intentions.

• Concrete Experience — I love learning through experiencing.  I appreciate a mentor during concrete experience to shine the light on significant features of this topic/experience.  This year I have been introducing many experiences as a nice way to begin allowing CE into my body: herbalism, tincture making, desiging, action learning, tree pruning, grafting, starting seeds, computer literacy, project management.   I believe that CE is a great way to let things into the body to stew for days or years so that when the time comes to actively experiment, there has been significant digestion/reflection.  The more hands on experiences I can have allows my thinker to reflect and conceptualize and understand the vocabulary when others discuss this. 
• Reflective Observation — Gaia has reinforced in me the value of journalling and documenting.  I am a firm believer in reflective observation and quite good at it.  Gaia has reinforced the practical aspect of recording this reflection.
• Abstract Conceptualization — I perhaps err into analysis paralysis as the thinker.  It has been quite helpful to acknowledge that my thinker often runs my show.  I have navigated/designed around this controlling thinker in my life by taking professions (chef, massage therapist) that keep me in my body and hands.  Gaia has helped me realize that utilizing the thinker in the design process is useful and then allowing the creative craftsman that I can be to Do his thing.  Mindmaps are a great tool that I learned to aid abstract conceptualization
• Active Experimentation  — I am wrestling with this the most these days.  There are parts of me that see myself as a great experimenter; however, I think only after numerous conditions have been established.  I personally can't actively experiment until I have some concrete expierence, observation, conceptualization (and ideally a mentor that shines a light on the significant  aspects).  I have come to realize that I think outside of most boxes so Active Experimentation can feel like “well, where do I begin.”  So I appreciate a structure in which to actively experiment.  Self exploration seems laborious without parameters.   Recently, I have been working on my digital literacy and the facilitators at the Apple Store keep telling me that I just need to play with it.  And I recognize that I get very frustrated just playing when I don’t even know how to begin playing.  It’s like putting kids on a field and telling them to play football without giving them rules.  And perhaps they invent Calvinball and all is perfect or they just are frustrated that they want to play like the guys on TV but don’t know the rules (admittedly arbitrary).  Mastery of almost any discipline through 10000 hours of active experimentation fosters implicit and intuitive understanding.

This year has supported me in recognizing the myriad ways I do design.  The recognition of some of the skills, tools and challenges of project management has increased by capacity to proactively design systems and effectively communicate and record this design in order to implement my visions.  I recognize that Design is one of the most critical aspects of a good project manager; and presentation, organization and communication are equally essential leaderful qualities in a project manager.   Learning to communicate/present/delegate our designs is a hugely useful aspect within the values of community building.   Conscious awareness around leaderfulness, communication, reflection, presentation, organization also helps facilitate my process of learning.