One of my favorite things to do is to help people apply the cognitive and learning sciences (under realistic constraints). That can be to their practices, processes, or products, via consulting, workshops, writing, and more. One thing I’ve done over the past few years is doing this for a particular entity. I was found via a workshop, and ended up coming on as an advisor. They’re now about ready to go live, and it’s time for me to tell you what they’re doing, why, and how. So here’s an application of applied learning science.
It starts with a problem, as many good solutions do. The issue is that, in L&D, too often they’re delivering live sessions to address a particular situation. Whether someone’s said “we need a course on this”, or there’s been a deep analysis, at some point they’ve pulled people together. It could be a day, several days in a row, or even spaced out every other week, every month, what have you. And, we know, that by and large, this isn’t going to lead to change!
Research on learning tells us, quite strongly, that to achieve a persistent new ability to ‘do’, we need to strengthen the learning over time. New information gets forgotten after only a day or two, according to the forgetting curve! So, we need to reactivate the learning. That can be reconceptualization, recontextualization, or reapplication. It can also be reflection, and even planning, and evaluation.
However, it’s been tough to do this reactivation. It typically requires finagling, and faces objections; not just the learners, but also the stakeholders! Such interventions need to be small but effective. That’s what this solution does. Other approaches have been tried, and some other solutions do exist, but this one has a couple of advantages. For one, a clear focus. It’s not doing other things, except reactivating learning.
Ok, one other thing, it’s also collecting data. Too often, there’s no way to know if it learning’s effective. Even if there’s intent, it’s hard to get approval. So, this solution not only reactivates learning as mentioned, it tracks the responses. In practical ways.
What’s been my role? That’s the other thing; we’re applying this in ways that reflect what learning science tells us. Ok, we have to make some inferences, that we’re testing, but we’re starting from good principles. So, I’m advising on the spacing of the learning and the content of the reactivation. We call those prompts, that ask learners to respond. These prompts then gather into small chunks called LIFTs (Learning Interventions Fueling Transformation). (Everyone’s gotta have an acronym, after all, and this plays along with the company name, Elevator 9 ;). The sequence of LIFTs makes a learning journey.
What’s important is how many we need, and how frequently we deliver them. It’s dependent on some factors, so we’re asking about those too: frequency of application, complexity, importance, and prior experience. Hopefully, in clear and useful ways. They’re actively looking for companies that are keen to help us refine this, too (in return for the usual considerations ;).
The end result is a product that easily supplements your live events. Your learners get reactivations, and you get data. Importantly, you get better outcomes from your interventions. This capability is possible, the goal is just to make it easy to do. Moreover, with a solution that not only embodies but shares the underlying learning science, improving you as it does your learners. Win-Win! I generally don’t tout solutions, but this one has actively put learning science (tempered by reality, to be sure) at the forefront. Applied learning science, and technology, the way it ought to be done. It’s been an honor to work with them!
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