{"id":42,"date":"2014-10-01T03:33:19","date_gmt":"2014-10-01T03:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/sarahalvanipour\/?p=42"},"modified":"2014-11-15T01:40:05","modified_gmt":"2014-11-15T01:40:05","slug":"going-back-to-kindergarten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sarahalvanipour\/2014\/10\/01\/going-back-to-kindergarten\/","title":{"rendered":"Going Back to Kindergarten…"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have always thought that to learn something (a skill, an instrument, a language, you name it), you needed to be methodical about how to approach it. I always envied those who could learn to play an instrument by simply doodling with it or playing “by ear.” The same goes for languages. I could never really grasp those skills organically. I always need to have an empiric approach.<\/p>\n

Part of my learning journey is to come out of that comfort zone and simply try to learn by doing…not over-thinking.<\/p>\n

As part of a Harvard class,\u00a0“Designing for Learning by Creating,” taught by MIT alum Karen Brennan, my class had the pleasure of hearing Mitch Resnick speak about the Scratch program<\/a> he helped develop at MIT. This was on the heels of our class creating and presenting our own Scratch projects. Here’s a\u00a0link<\/a> to mine…don’t expect to be impressed, but at least I tried.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0\"Mitch<\/a><\/p>\n

Mitch Resnick and Karen Brennan at Harvard Graduate School of Education<\/p>\n

I wondered how children were so adept at learning this program and yet, it was taking some of us hours to create a 30 second game or simulation to present. Then I heard Dr. Resnick speak about the learning that takes place in children and the mode in which he learn. He likened the ease of learning children possess\u00a0comes from their approach: lots of experimentation, color, activity, creation, and a lack of fear of failure. We should all go back to kindergarten! Right…<\/p>\n

\"mitch<\/a><\/p>\n

Maybe my problem is that I never went to kindergarten–I started first grade at age 6 in England, not speaking a word of English. Note: a moment of epiphany…this explains so much about me. I did not play with blocks, draw, or play. Perhaps I missed out on one of life’s great rights of passage?<\/p>\n

Time for redemption! Lots of this happening in Karen Brennan’s class in T550.<\/p>\n

\"T550<\/a>

Student discussions behind Longfellow Hall, from the T550 Flickr Page <\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you missed Dr. Resnick’s TED talk, it’s available here on YouTube.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have always thought that to learn something (a skill, an instrument, a language, you name it), you needed to be methodical about how to approach it. I always envied those who could learn to play an instrument by simply doodling with it or playing “by ear.” The same goes for languages. I could never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6510,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sarahalvanipour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sarahalvanipour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sarahalvanipour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sarahalvanipour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6510"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sarahalvanipour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sarahalvanipour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":153,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sarahalvanipour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions\/153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sarahalvanipour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sarahalvanipour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sarahalvanipour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}