Submissions:2014/Lessons Learned in Nurturing Learning


 * Title of the submission:

Lessons Learned in Nurturing Learning


 * Themes (Proposal Themes - Community, Tech, Outreach, GLAM, Education):

Education, Outreach, Education, Tech


 * Type of submission (Presentation Types - Panel, Workshop, Presentation, etc):

Workshop


 * Author of the submission:

Sumana Harihareswara


 * E-mail address:

sumanah@undefinedpanix.com


 * Username:

Sumanah


 * US state or country of origin:

New York


 * Affiliation, if any (organization, company etc.):

Wikimedia Foundation


 * Personal homepage or blog:

http://harihareswara.net/


 * Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal):

Now that I've run WMF's participation in Google Summer of Code and Outreach Program for Women, and studied at Hacker School, I've learned some lessons about how to create nurturing environments for learners, how to mentor new contributors, and what Wikimedia ought to be improving and doing to help both new and experienced people learn.

I'll draw on engineering learning styles and educational psychology research by Mel Chua, as well as my own experience; I've mentored new learners and run training and education programs in my communities for many years, inside and outside of classrooms. I'll share lessons for Google Summer of Code, workshops for learners at all levels, events, internships, and so on.

Some people learn best when we're around other curious, passionate, and respectful people whom we can teach and learn from and brag to, and in a physical space we dedicate to that activity for big stretches of time. Cognitive apprenticeship theory can help us see how and why some mentorship programs or learning resources fail to meet their targets; in this session I'll share data and stories about things that have worked and things that haven't worked, in Wikimedia and adjacent communities, so we can make better choices in the future.


 * Length of presentation/talk (see Presentation Types for lengths of different presentation types): This could be half an hour, and would fit into a longer session about outreach, or about education, or about diversity. Or it could lead to a "what shall we do next?" learning session.


 * Will you attend WikiConference USA if your submission is not accepted?:


 * Slides or further information (optional):

An expansion of my PyCon poster session and other private and public discussions I've had about this topic in the past year (e.g., this post).


 * Special request as to time of presentations:

Interested attendees
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