The Highway Code: A Metaphor for Learning

In discussing the importance of self-belief in learning I have described the learner’s beliefs about what they can and cannot learn as a “learning map“. A suitable metaphor for the way learners see the learning landscape built by them as a result of their experiences, emotional responses and successes or failures. Each time a new learning challenge is presented out comes the learning map and decisions made about how possible the learning journey is. How we view this map, our mindset, also influences the decisions we make about learning challenges. If we take this metaphor a little further we can use a form of the Highway Code,  a Learning Highway Code, to describe a set behaviours we may exhibit. This is what I have done using either a “Limiting” or “Empowering” mindset in interpreting the signs we may establish on our learning map.

 

 

You can see the full chart with five signs that give orders and seven that are warning signs here: ace-d learning highway code graphic

You may consider using this idea in your classroom to show the advantage of a empowering behavioral response, a growth mindset, as opposed to a limiting or fixed mindset one.  Perhaps  you could get the learners to write their own descriptions. If you do I would love to see them.

Whilst I can not lay claim to the highway code I do hope you will recognise the idea of a learning map and the Learning Highway Code as being one from Advocating Creativity.

The Learning Highway Code is part of the concept Learning Intelligence or LQ. You can read the first article about LQ here: LQ Introduction 

Comments always welcome.

 

 

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