Learning through Experience
How can we learn from the experience we have to create a future that we want? This is the realm that much of Dr. Heidi Brooks’s work explores. As we navigate through life, she invites us to cultivate the capacity to learn through experience, and to apply the wisdom gained to co-create a future that is worth fighting for.
In season one of the Learning through Experience Podcast, Dr. Heidi Brooks focused on one of the most impactful ways to learn through experience: learning with mentors. She spoke with some of her mentors and they reflected on what brought them to where they are today in their own work, life, and play.
But in a podcast that proposes that learning can not only happen through conventional exposure to concepts and theories but also through what we experience in life, this second season is all about the HOW.
How do we learn through our own experience?
Dr. Heidi Brooks talks to artists, authors, professors, and even yoga instructors about four practices you can lean on to learn through experience. These four practices are: How to challenge your perspective, how to stretch yourself and build range, how to direct your own learning, and finally, the importance of reflection.
I hope you follow along and join us for season two of Learning Through Experience.
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Heidi Brooks
Senior Lecturer in Organizational Behavior
Bio
Heidi Brooks teaches and advises on the subject of everyday leadership: the everyday micro-moments of impact that shape our lived experiences. Creating more courageous communities—especially within organizations—is a particular passion of hers. Dr. Brooks specializes in large-scale culture change projects focused on individual and collective leadership effectiveness in organizations.
Interpersonal Dynamics, the MBA elective she has taught for 15 years, is one of the courses most in demand at Yale School of Management. Dr. Brooks pioneered the Everyday Leadership course at SOM, where she first taught the Principles of Everyday Leadership. She has also taught Emotional Intelligence, Power & Politics, Managing Teams and Groups, and Coaching Skills for Managers. Dr. Brooks received her doctorate in psychology from the University of California at Berkeley and a bachelor’s degree from Brown University. She is a lifelong experiential learner; you can find her as a student in classrooms as far-ranging as improvisational theater and immersion language lessons.
Episodes
The Need for Mindfulness, Reflection, and Inquiry in Our Busy World
Can a mindfulness practice help us at work? In a season focusing on how we learn through experience, I wanted to make sure that we heard about some of the social science that supports the practices. My guest on this episode has lived a fascinating life and has so much wisdom to share on this topic.
Learning Is A Superpower When Change Is Constant
How can we change and transform the education system through leadership? The Broad Center at the Yale School of Management fosters the ideas, policies, and leadership to help all students in K-12 public schools — particularly those from underserved communities — to learn and thrive.
Reflective Practice Through Writing
This podcast season is all about the HOW of learning through experience. We learn through experience using four core practices: challenging your perspective, stretching and building range, directing your learning, reflection and inquiry. The core practice that we are paying attention to in this episode of Learning Through Experience is reflection and inquiry.
Find A Way… Letting Life Experience Call You in
This season we've been taking on HOW to learn through experience which fundamentally challenges the brain-bound assumption that learning starts and stays in the brain. We aren't so great at honoring the wisdom, expertise, and leadership that emerges from lived experience, but our own life may guide us – especially if we tap into learning practices, like reflection and challenging our perspective.
Learning through The Extended Mind
Since this season of the podcast is all about the HOW of learning through experience, I wanted to talk to Annie Murphy Paul who basically wrote the book on learning outside the brain.
The Power of Art to Cultivate Joy
I love how art can take us on a journey to another way of seeing things. And, I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that the human condition is a little rough and rocky these days — so I feel drawn to opportunities to cultivate joy.
What Legacy Do We Want to Leave Behind? Practices To Access The Best of You
In this first episode of season two, I talk with Tracee Stanley about how to have an experience of yourself through skilled and intentional rest, self-inquiry, and aligned learning.
Introducing: Season 2 of Learning Through Experience
I’m Dr. Heidi Brooks. Last season of the podcast, Learning Through Experience, I focused on learning through the experience of mentorship and the guests were all my mentors in one way or another.
A Reflection on Season 1
Ok, Season 1 of Learning Through Experience is a wrap. (Woohoo!) I am learning a ton through the experience of podcasting- it’s much more fun and definitely more work than I expected!
Maybe You Can Go Home Again
I love this episode with Rhona Weinstein! It’s about coming full circle, working for what you dream about and how all people exist in context. Part of that context can include the experience of inspiring mentorship.