Assignment 3.1: MAKE A MOD MITx: 11.132x Design and Development of Educational Technology

by MillaKiss07/11/2014, Milan

how to teach (better) being kind, mindful, grateful?

WHY THIS TOPic?

One big issue of 21st century society is that empathy, compassion, mindfulness is disappearing from the “emotional portfolio” or “emotional skill-sets” of people giving space to greed, angst and stress that are very destructive not only to our social setting, but also to each individual’s mental and physical health, and subjective well-being.

New generations of children (also called by researchers as Centennials and Gen Z) are already reported to be acting more entitled, aggressive and are expected to be the most technologically connected, yet the least socially connected generation of all time (i.e. they will feel lonely and isolated as adults).

Sociologists and social psychologists have been studying the issue since decades and made some ground breaking conclusions: greed/meanness is reversible, empathy, compassion can be reacquired with due practice and the practice of these emotional skills have a substantial positive effect on human health, longevity and subjective well-being.

teaching people about kindness, mindfulness, gratitude

for more details please watch: http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_piff_does_money_make_you_mean?embed=true#t-14847

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc6WW1GGjbk#t=55

WHY THIS TOPic?

Positive psychologists around the world have been studying for decades the scientific aspects of happiness and happiness practices on a social, psychological, evolutionary, neurological and even cellular level. Their findings are extraordinary. Happiness practices, like the 21-day kindness/gratitude challenge or regular meditation, significantly increase our mental and physical health activating the same reward circuits as doing sports (think about the cyclist and running “mass sport revolution”), or having sex. These practices efficiently counter balance the destructive effects of stress, angst and fear on all levels of modern life. People doing these practices live longer, happier and manage to respond more positively when faced with personal or professional obstacles.

These findings, and consequently the practices too, start to receive more and more public attention, thanks to major university research projects, foundations and non profit organizations like Kindspring/21-day Kindness challenge, the subject of my “mod”.

teaching people about kindness, mindfulness, gratitude

background info & studiesteaching people about kindness, mindfulness, gratitude

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_compassionate_instinct

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_trick_your_brain_for_happinesshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VH-RNYGzxo

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/compassionate_mind_healthy_bodyhttps://www.edx.org/course/uc-berkeleyx/uc-berkeleyx-gg101x-science-happiness-1497#.VFyaUIeUfds

Sources:All research information reference is from the 9-week mooc “the science of happiness” of berkley university on edx, and the greater good science center.

Sorry for not elaborating more on this topic, but a 9 week course is hard to summarize in a few pages. For more info please read the essays/articles published by the GGSC.

http://www.actionforhappiness.org/why-happinessother Sources:

http://www.actionforhappiness.org/about-us/the-happiness-challengehttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/03/ten-easy-steps-that-will-make-you-a-happier-person?CMP=fb_gu

LEARNING INTERVENTION - what is it?

Kindspring is a non-profit, volunteer-run community of people who practice, spread and teach each other how to be kind, mindful and grateful in our daily lives. With the help of their many areas of intervention (pay-it-forward game, smile cards, inspiring kindness stories of the community, karma bank account) they try to raise awareness of a serious social issue: the lack of empathy and compassion, the raising stress levels and frequent interpersonal conflicts in daily life. The 21-Day Kindness challenge is a 3 week long program that lets participants experience the social, emotional and health benefits of being kind to each other aiming to make a long-term habit out of this exercise.

21-day kindness challenge by kindspring

LEARNING INTERVENTION - how it works?

By registering to the community of the challenge users create their own Kindspring home page where they may share their kindness experiences (received/given), track their “karma bank” developments and read inspiring kindness stories of other users. When the 21-Day Kindness challenge starts, users receive on their indicated e-mail address hints/suggestions of small acts of kindness to complete that day and share their experiences with the community via kindness status updates. These kindness updates are then “monetized” in the karma bank.

Kindspring reports 30,000+ participants in the challenge, 60,000+ shared kindness stories.

21-day kindness challenge by kindspring

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other info - how it works?kindspring.org

LEARNING INTERVENTION - weak points & opportunities 4 growth

The weak point of the Kindspring 21-Day Kindness challenge is that the challenge tasks/suggestions are delivered via e-mail, and since these are automated messages, often land in the spam/trash or promotions section of mailboxes. These mechanics make it difficult to keep up with the challenge as it requires the user to constantly search for the tasks in the spam, trash or amongst zillions of promo DEMs. This might result in users abandoning the challenge at an early stage for lack of time, lack of enthusiasm/motivation.

Also the timing of the “task send-off” does not factor in eventual time zones either, which again makes the tracking of challenges difficult at times confusing, and looses out on the possible bonding-effect of the community (i.e. people are not doing the same kindness acts in the same time).

21-day kindness challenge by kindspring

LEARNING INTERVENTION - my mods

My modifications to this experience based active (emotional/non-cognitive skill) learning tool are as follows:

- upgrade the platform from online community on a web site to a mobile app

- upgrade the daily challenge delivery via e-mail to push notifications

- deliver the daily challenge based on time zones

21-day kindness challenge by kindspring

KindSpringApp

LEARNING INTERVENTION - my mods

The learning theory at the core of the original 21-day kindness challenge is already experience based active learning given that the skill it is meant to teach is emotional/non-cognitive: kindness, empathy and compassion must be felt and experienced with a certain frequency. The program in itself is an efficient one, however the technology behind it could be improved to reach and engage more people and train them more efficiently, also making the process more fun.

21-day kindness challenge by kindspring

KindSpringApp2. read daily challenges on a mobile phone (via push notifications) will

1. upgrade to a mobile app will- make users feel more part of the community (instant newsfeed update, instant reactions and conversations)

- facilitate instant sharing of their kindness experiences, and thus boost engagement, motivation and inspiration

- amplify the challenge/experiences integrating with other social media

3. time zone set challenge delivery will

- make the challenges feel more “personal” (mobile phones are life companions)

- allow delivery of subtle but efficient challenge reminders (based on user actions)

- track more efficiently user behavior (be a scientific research tool too)

- enable the program to be top-of-mind at the right time (day start)

- enable reminders at the right time (lunch break, free-time etc.)

thank you for your attentionby MillaKiss

07/11/2014, Milan