I Made Cake Pops - and Learned Something About Myself

During week 13 of my Adult Learning course at Colorado State University in Spring 2018, we discussed adult learning in the age of technology. It was a team session facilitated by two of my classmates, and they had some excellent discussion starters, one in particular that really sparked my interest. One of their suggested activities was to view a video, one on how to install a sump pump, and the other on how to make cake pops. Watch and discuss - is just the video enough to actually do? After watching the cake pops video, I figured I might as well put some of that into action to see how well it worked. The first part of the process, baking the boxed cake, was easy. The rest of it was a bit of a challenge, especially since I’d never done anything like this before, but it was still doable.

I'll say this: it’s so messy. I mentioned that on the discussion board as well, but there were no words to describe the state of my kitchen once I'd finished. That said, however, I was able to make cake pops after viewing the video. Perhaps not as well as a professional, but passably well for an amateur, at least! (The more I look at it, the more I think it's those pops in the foreground that make me judge them so harshly. I was going for something artistic and definitely need to work on technique - but those at the back that are simply dipped in sprinkles or toffee bits look pretty good.)

The ‘teacher,’ the person who made the video, though she may not have been a teacher by design, still did a pretty good job explaining everything. I looked at the recipe once, just to make sure I was doing the right thing, and then followed the video completely, since that was really the spirit of the exercise. Attitude and all, the person who made the video gave good information on how to make cake pops – enough so that someone who had never done it before could at least make a passable first attempt. One of the things that I liked best about the video was that she was really straightforward and to the point. I’ve watched videos on other topics that end up dragging on a little bit, but her tone was light and entertaining, and her material was delivered well, all things that would be good to emulate when putting together that type of content for a larger audience. It lacked guidance around the candy coating, which is where I struggled the most, and ultimately, that’s the reason for my incredibly messy kitchen. But it gave me a great lesson for my own teaching, both for my job and elsewhere: there’s a fine line between over-explaining to your learners, and assuming that they already know something. I think that’s one of my biggest challenges as an educator – remembering that there’s knowledge in my head that my learners aren’t privy to. What’s worse is when I run into those scenarios that I make some kind of logical leap based on what I know - and have known for a long time - and I’m unaware that I’ve done it. That’s the trouble with the idea of being unconsciously competent: remembering that not everyone feels that way, and ensuring that you’re not leaving behind anyone who can’t make those same leaps. (On the other hand, there’s always one person in my classes who can make those same leaps, so now it becomes a question of balance – how does one make sure that the entire audience is happy?) How many times have I made some leap in logic because I know my product perhaps a little bit too well, and left my learners behind with it? I’ve noticed that I do the same thing in regular conversation sometimes, so being made to think about that in terms of how I present myself in the classroom was a revelation.

Update: In the few weeks since this happened, I’ve really tried to make an effort to slow down, to encourage people to ask questions, to try and make sure I haven’t left anyone behind. That tends to be difficult when it comes to distance learning, which has been the majority of my sessions since February, but still, being able to recognize that and work to fix it has been a great and unexpected benefit to this particular exercise - so, perhaps the messy kitchen was worth it!