Wicked Problems

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Month

WICKED PROBLEMS: How to Engineer a Better World by Guru Madhavan. This ingenious and important book is about the cloudiest, most difficult-to-solve of all the problems we encounter–the “wicked” problems.

The author Guru Madhavan, a systems engineer and the Norman R. Augustine Senior Scholar and Senior Director of Programs at the National Academy of Engineering, helpfully frames his book’s topic in terms of different levels of problem complexity. Some problems, Madhavan notes, are “hard problems,” bounded and boundable, like self-checkout at a grocery store, or the development of the smartphone. Next up, and far more difficult to solve, are the “soft problems” relevant to human and organizational behavior, which involve both political and psychological factors. Even the seemingly simple task of designing and building a bridge can be a soft problem—the solutions can differ broadly depending on what country and city you want to build in. The third class are “messy problems,” which are problems that entangle differences and divisions created by our value sets, belief systems, ideologies, and convictions.  Trying to grapple with a disease like Ebola, with its implications for traditional funeral values among other delicate religious sensibilities is a messy problem. 

So where does this place wicked problems? 

They emerge from the interaction of hard, soft, and messy problems. As Madhavan puts it “If they were works of art, hard problems would be photographs, offering clarity and directness. Soft problems are like blurry brushstrokes of impressionism, and messy problems are spilled and splattered abstractions. A wicked problem emerges when hard, soft, and messy problems collide. Think of them as a cubist collage where the truth is simultaneously sharp, shaky, and squiggly. All three are required for wickedness.”

And off you’ll go in Madhavan’s wonderfully engineered double-track book to learn about wicked problems–and about how the development of pilot training and flight simulators might help guide us to better engage with these problems. This book is profound and phenomenal!

An Inside Look at How Barb and her Team Create Online Courses

Ever wondered about the creation process behind great online courses like Learning How to Learn and the recent three award-winning MOOCs in the Uncommon Sense Teaching specialization?  Wonder no more!  This detailed paper: “Uncommon Sense Teaching: A 3-Course Online Specialization on the Coursera Platform to Share Advances in Effective Teaching” in the International Journal of Advanced Corporate Learning gives an overview of the creative process, construction and costs of the specialization. (If you download the pdf instead of viewing it in the browser, you should be able to play links on the videos within the pdf, which bring the ideas even further to life!) This specialization has received a rare 5.0 out of 5.0 rating, eliciting comments like “It is the best course I have taken on Coursera and many other face-to-face ones. The instructional design is wonderful. They take you by the hand at every step with appropriate techniques and excellent quality content.”

If you’d like to take the specialization, follow the links below. 

• Uncommon Sense Teaching: Teaching Online (Take first if you’d like!)

• Uncommon Sense Teaching Part 1

• Uncommon Sense Teaching: Part 2 

Everest Memory Masterclass

Our friend Nelson Dellis, 5-TIME USA Memory Champion and Guinness Record Holder, is launching his 2024 cohort for his amazing Everest Memory Masterclass. If you’ve ever wanted to transform your memory, now is the time to do it! The course will teach you how to memorize names, learn languages, remember your todo lists and calendars, and tons of other practical things! Nelson usually limits the size of his cohorts, so make sure to jump on the waitlist so you can access the class when it goes live in late April! https://www.everestmemory.com/waitlist

Barb in Ulaabaatar, Mongolia in April

Barb will be presenting “Learning how to learn,” a three-hour lecture for the delegates and teachers of National Convocation on Education in affiliation with the National University of Mongolia. This talk will include highlights about learning with generative AI, insights on teaching and learning from movie-making, and much, much more.  The venue is the Corporate Convention Center in Ulaanbaatar Wednesday 10 April 2024, from 14:00-17:00. She will also be speaking at the Mongolian University of Science and Technology on April 12, from 10:00 am -12:00 pm.

Don’t Forget the Live Webinar Event with Robert Plomin, Barb Oakley, and Olav Schewe!

If you’re interested in finding out more about genes in defining our identities and learning capabilities, join Barbara Oakley and Olav Schewe as they explore this intriguing topic in a conversation with Robert Plomin – and pose your own questions directly to Dr. Plomin as well. Sign up now for this free webinar on April 3rd to save your seat and receive a link to the recording. Note that there is an attendance capacity in Zoom for this event of 1,000 participants, which means that some participants might be forwarded to watch the webinar from a streaming page.

That’s all for now. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

• Uncommon Sense Teaching—the book and Coursera Specialization!
• Mindshift—the book and MOOC
• Learn Like a Pro—the book and MOOC
• The LHTL recommended text, A Mind for Numbers
• For kids and parents: Learning How to Learn—the book and MOOC. Pro tip—watch the videos and read the book together with your child. Learning how to learn at an early age will change their life!