Malcolm Gladwell Keynote at #NECC09
Malcolm Gladwell, bestselling author of the Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers, kicked off the NECC 30th anniversary conference in Washington DC yesterday.
The topic of his speech: What it means to create meaningful learning environments.
Citing several examples from his book Outliers of people that became great successes in music, business and art, Gladwell's key points were that learning happens best when students maintain:
- A positive attitude and ceaseless effort
- To Gladwell, it takes 10,000 hours of practice before anyone can become a true expert/genious (Ex: The Beattles played together 1200 times before ever playing in the States and ever becoming famous).
- To Gladwell, it takes 10,000 hours of practice before anyone can become a true expert/genious (Ex: The Beattles played together 1200 times before ever playing in the States and ever becoming famous).
- Respect for difficulty
- Gladwell discussed the trials and tribulations of Fleetwood Mac and the number of albums it took before they got a hit (16).
- Gladwell discussed the trials and tribulations of Fleetwood Mac and the number of albums it took before they got a hit (16).
- A belief in the importance of experimentation and feedback
- To Gladwell, failing and feedback is crucial to learning. (Ex: It took Mark Twain 9 years to write Huck Finn… It took him that long before he got the ending right!)
