After the last post, a few people discussed in the comments about how you actually go about adding friction to learning. Kathy Sierra in particular referenced Dan Meyer, a math teacher/blogger, who is my favorite resource on this. He doesn’t specifically reference friction, but he talks about how to “be less helpful” for learners.
This is a really nice short video where he explains some of things he does to create interesting challenges for his learners:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRMVjHjYB6w
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRMVjHjYB6w]
I spent 20+ years on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation taking numerous classes on how to reach the students and teach them in a way that connected to their culture and their life. I have learned methods similar to this but there was always something missing in each method. I can see this working wonderfully. Thanks, I will spend my night making the connections so I can share with my colleagues still on the Reservation.
Carol — it’s wonderful to hear that this is so helpful. There’s all sorts of great stuff on his blog, and this longer video gets into quite a bit more detail as well. http://vimeo.com/8129732