This is an audio version of the blog post 'Learning in the ugly zone: the importance of play and exploration.'

The out-take at the beginning is Snoopy (my border collie) helping me by highlighting play and exploration with his 'squeeky piggy' Christmas present.

The full blog post including the diagramme of the Ugly Curve can be found on the Dynamics Coaching website by following this link https://dynamics-coaching.com/articles/learning-in-the-ugly-zone/


Dynamics Learning (ugly) Curve (Davies and Davies, 2019)

The dynamics challenge-performance learning curve, adapted from Davies and Davies (2019) is an ecological dynamics model of optimal challenge for learning. It is based on the self-organising properties of movement dynamics (e.g. Kelso, 1984) the ‘cusp catastrophe model’ (Thom, 1923; Hardy & Fazey, 1987) the ‘challenge point framework’ (Guadagnoli & Lee, 2004) and Dave Alred’s (2015) concept of the ‘ugly zone’..