Archives for December 2021

Reflecting (on 2021)

28 December 2021 by Clark Leave a Comment

I don’t think I’ve made a habit of it, but it occurs to me that it might be good to reflect a little on this past year. In particular, I want to revisit the areas I’ve been focusing on. There’ve been some emergent themes, and it’s worth it (to me, at least ;) to think a bit more about them. So here’s what I’m thinking about while reflecting on 2021.

Obviously, the cognitive and learning sciences have been a theme. The publication of my book on learning science this year was a catalyst, as you might expect. In it, I covered not only the basics, but some of the extended areas. These extended areas include thinking about situated learning and the importance of context, distributed cognition and the use of external representations, and an area new for me, embodied cognition including gesture and motion. Annie Murphy Paul’s The Extended Mind covers these nicely.

Another topic is talking about engagement (including four posts on the topic, starting here). Which I view as the complement to the learning science side. I think of learning experience design as the elegant integration of learning science and engagement, and am continually working to create a definitive approach to the latter as I’ve done with the former. (Stay tuned.)

Coping with change is another recurrent theme. As we are facing increasing chaos, the ability of organizations to adapt requires innovation. Which, really, is a form of learning. I argue further that it’s an area L&D should be engaged in. Agility will be a critical differentiator for organizations, and it’s an opportunity to be more central to organizational success.

I’ve also been on about how the transformation organizations need shouldn’t start with digital. I think this is an increasingly important realization in this era of change. To be successful, organizations need to work in coherence with how their people think, work, and learn. If you get that right, digitization can facilitate outcomes. However, if you digitize some of the old approaches that are holdovers from prior eras, you can limit the effectiveness of the investments.

Reviewing my past year’s posts, there’s a mix of other topics. I’ve continued my usual ‘takedowns’ of myths, shared thoughts on education, and unpacking nuances of learning design. A mixed bag, but then this blog is about my various ideas. So that’s my current reflections.

Take note, there will be some changes to announce come the new year. Until then, please have a safe and happy holiday season, and best wishes for the new year.

Time for Reflection

21 December 2021 by Clark 1 Comment

My dad used to regale me with this tale of his best friend, who told his new employer when he started: “If you see me with my feet up on my desk and it appears I’m sleeping, I’m not. I’m working. I’ll still do the work of 2 other engineers.” And he did! I love this story, because it brings out an element that we seem to be losing, the value of taking time for reflection.

Now, he may actually have been sleeping, yet that doesn’t concern me; sleeping is a mechanism for processing, too. What concerns me are folks who can’t be seen to be taking time off from ‘the work’. We’re in a mode where we push people to work harder and faster. We say “work smarter” but don’t tell people what that means!

I’ve spent time in a job early in my career reading (relevant) magazines like Byte, with my feet up on the desk. Yet, I immodestly suggest I cranked out work at least as fast as my colleagues. I found reading, and now searching for answers, to be a valuable use of my time. Why? Because I’m learning. I reflect on what I do and how to do it better, learning to do new things that I need to meet my current challenges.

Sure, I do the work. However, I also take walks, put my feet up and ponder, and more. I blog, for instance ;). There are other ways I write as well, and experiment, and look to refine my thinking. Also, I look things up, read books, and generally track my field and answers to specific questions. My work improves as a consequence. Moreover, we all benefit from taking time to reflect. It’s documented in the work conducted by Garvin, Edmondson, & Gino as one of the elements of a learning organization.

So, I’ll keep promoting, and practicing, taking time for reflection. I hope you can, too. Moreover, I hope you can help get such time recognized as valuable in your organization. We focus too much on the fast, and as they say: “fast, cheap, or good, pick 2”. I’m not sure fast is always the best solution. Certainly for learning. After all, it is about learning…

Relevant and anchored

14 December 2021 by Clark 3 Comments

In reviewing my forthcoming book on Make It Meaningful, I’m poring over my Education -Engagment Alignment (EEA). I’m rewriting part to revisit it. Which I’ve done, but in doing so I had a revelation. I’ve maintained that they’re independent elements. However, I now see Relevant and Anchored as complementary components.

‘Anchored’, in my terminology, is ensuring the learning outcome meets a real need. It’s about the relationship between the learning objective and the performance gap. If you’re trying to get better at something, for instance, the objective is specifically related. If you’re learning about dealing with customer objections, you’ve got a specific objective to use a particular approach. It is not ‘understand’ but ‘do’. You’re not anchoring if your root cause of the performance gap isn’t a lack of skill. If the learning covers information that’s ‘nice to know’, you’re not anchored. This is determined, by the way, by a performance consulting process.

‘Relevant’, again the way I term it, is about whether the learner cares about that learning objective. If learners don’t care about being a repair tech, having an objective about the problem-solving process can’t matter. This is something we should design into the experience. That is, we should be helping learners ‘get’ that the consequences of acquiring this skill matter to them. We can use curiosity, or consequences, or…but we should not leave it to chance!

Using the usual present/absent two-factor diagram, it looks like this:

That is, if you have neither the effort is worthless. Which is like a lot of what we see! When you’re anchoring, but not being relevant, the solution is likely to be moderately effective (tho’ not as much as it could be). People stay away if possible! If it’s relevant but not anchored, it’ll be engaging, but not effective and not meaningful. This is the typical tarted up stuff, aka well-produced but not well-designed and produced. However, if you get both in there, you’ve truly made it meaningful.

I suggest you want relevant and anchored. If we’re putting in the effort, we should be aligning both. I suggest LXD means the elegant integration of learning science with engagement. It sticks better! We know how to do this, reliably and repeatedly. Our learning doesn’t have to be dull nor ineffective, and we owe our learners this.

The case for good timekeeping

7 December 2021 by Clark Leave a Comment

It occurs to me that maybe not everyone has the same view of timekeeping that I do. So I thought I’d make the case for good timekeeping. To me, it’s about coping with change.

To me, it starts with respect. This includes respect for the audience, the speaker, topic, and context. There are times when timekeeping should be lax, I believe. My first take is that the defining circumstances are when there are no people involved who aren’t already part of it, there’s not a fixed time agenda, speaker times aren’t set, and the outcome is more important than punctuality.. In other words, rare for a public event.

When an event is public, there tend to be some other constraints. Most importantly, there’s liable to be a schedule. People need to know when to arrive. If it’s a more than one event in the schedule, extending beyond 1 hour, and the audience is diverse (e.g. not just one company), time becomes increasingly important.

Why should we care? Back to the starting point, people might be coming in to see someone in particular. If the schedule isn’t adhered to, folks who were counting on a particular time could be disappointed. If there’s a start and end time, and block, speakers further down the agenda could be impacted if someone runs long. Neither is fair.

I have experienced folks who seem to be unaware of time. In my personal experience as a speaker, I was on a joint presentation where the leadoff presenter seemed to forget that there was anyone else on the agenda! He was gracious once it was pointed out, but it was uncomfortable for me to have to break in and remind him. I’ve also seen people unaware that they were running long, and others unable to amend their presentation on the fly when they did become aware. I’ve literally seen someone have to stop where they are instead of finding a way to wrap up!

Having had early experience being a moderator, after being the victim of such sessions, I made a commitment (in line with the event organizer’s intent) to be rigorous. I’ve now no qualms about, after giving fair warning, stopping someone who hasn’t maintained control. To the contrary of a possible position, I think it’s rude not to! It’s the speaker’s fault, no one else’s. They aren’t being professional and respectful of the audience and the other speakers. That also includes getting out of the way in a timely manner if it’s a scheduled room, leaving time for the next person to set up.

So my guidelines for timekeeping:

Designate someone as the timekeeper; there can’t be a question over who’s job it is.
Warn speakers ahead of time about the rigor and practices. No excuses!
Have a practice for signaling if things are getting close, e.g. signs for # of mins left, colored lights, messages in chat (tho’ some people seem unable to process them; beware), what have you.
As a presenter, if you don’t have a good basis for assessing your likely length (e.g. I’m about a slide a minute, though with some quick builds it can be faster), practice and check your timing! Realize that live it’s likely to go a bit longer than your practice. Trim if necessary.
Also, have enough awareness of your material that you can adapt on the fly. Sometimes other things happen (once the power went out in a presentation), and you have to adjust.
Be firm; interrupt and stop speakers when it’s time.

That’s off the top of my head; I’m sure there are more comprehensive and thorough lists. My point is to be aware, and prepared. As a speaker, I appreciate it. As an audience member as well. That’s my case for good timekeeping. What do you think?