Black Swan Learning: When you absolutely positively need to learn it
The success of many high-tech companies depends on their ability to educate their staff and their customers about complex technology, such as manufacturing processes, computer software, or advanced microbiology. Trainers bearing Powerpoints is the standard solution, but is not effective in many cases. When you need people to quickly and completely understand what amounts to a new “language of discourse,” we can help.
Black Swan Learning uses software to deliver learning experiences that guarantee mastery learning. Our software is powered by what we call “Black Swans of Learning” — methods of learning so powerful that most people don’t believe them until they experience them for themselves. Over the past few years we have discovered and developed black swan methods for reading, arithmetic, second languages, and systems thinking, and are now using the black swan methods to develop Black Swans of Learning in other domains. If you or the people who work for you absolutely positively need to learn something, we can help.
We know powerful things about learning that few others know, especially about teaching. For most of the last century, the act of teaching has been devalued in favor of “constructivism” and “discovery”. Teachers have been told not to teach, but to place learners in appropriate environments where they will automatically construct knowledge from experiences through discovery. Some learners succeed in discovery environments, but many do not. The non-learners may not have the necessary combination of knowledge, skills, and motivation to effectively self-initiate the learning process. Educators call these learners “learning-disabled”, and grant them extra attention, but ultimately apply the same philosophy and pedagogy.
Over the past decades, however, a few brilliant educators, mostly without education credentials, have reinvigorated teaching through methods of instruction that are so powerful they defy belief. In the late 1950s, a language teacher figured out a way to teach ordinary people to speak a new language in three days. For 50 years he made a good living charging people $20K to learn a new language at his Rodeo Drive office. He was otherwise ignored. In the 1960s a former advertising executive figured out a way to teach children reading and math better than any other method. He too was ignored. In the 1990s a Canadian playwright developed another powerful way to teach math. Though he’s gotten some traction in Canada, he has been ignored in the U.S. In recent years, a former Air Force language teacher and a former speech pathologist independently developed new sounds-based methods of reading that will blow your socks off. You’ve never heard of them. In the past few years, a couple in upstate New York developed a method of teaching advanced systems thinking to anyone, from kindergarten to CEO. It’s highly unlikely you know their names or the name of their method.
Black Swan Learning makes it a point to understand the best methods of learning, and especially the best methods of instruction. We have experience in learning through these methods, teaching with these methods, and developing software to support these methods. We are now prepared to put the world’s best methods of instruction to work for your company.
Black Swan Learning Corp was founded in May 2016 to make improbably powerful learning methods available to everyone. Founder/CEO Dr. Byron Davies is a lifelong learner, having had the privilege of attending Caltech, MIT, and Stanford University, where he earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering. His other learning venues included Texas Instruments (where he helped establish one of the first industrial AI laboratories), Motorola (where he led the development of a semiconductor wafer fab scheduling system), the Arizona School of Health Sciences (where he taught graduate-level medical informatics), a Phoenix charter school, and several start-ups.