50,000 years of L&D

So you want to design amazing workshops? Let's talk about the world’s most effective process for creating learning experiences that shape sustained behaviour change. The concepts have been iterated upon and peer-reviewed for tens of thousands of years.

I’m talking about Aboriginal ways of learning.

Before there was ADDIE, or HCD, or SAM,

When Storyline was a way of communicating, not an eLearning tool.

When Adobe was clay, not a multinational corporation.

When they weren’t called SMEs, but Elders…

…the original instructional designers gathered on Country.

They created learning experiences that:

- mapped out learning pathways

- centred around hands-on knowledge

- connected learners through storytelling

- used images and symbolism to explain concepts

- employed backward design, modelling, and scaffolding

- involved lateral thinking and innovative combinations of ideas

- linked learning to real-life purpose within the individual and community

- were deeply contextualised and tied to personal relationships with the land

By default, education was relevant, problem-oriented, and grounded in life experience. There was no need to memorise pedagogy or adult learning principles. These exceptionally engaging and meaningful processes have existed - and continue to exist - without pretty slides, interactive scenarios, or feedback forms. Culture is feedback.