Learnlets

Secondary

Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

Search Results for: quip

Quip: Systematic Creativity

16 November 2021 by Clark Leave a Comment

I’ve documented some  quips in the past, but apparently not this one yet. Prompted by a nice article by Connie Malamed on creativity, I’m reminded of a saying, and the underlying thinking. Here’s both the quip and some more on systematic creativity. First, the quip:

Systematic creativity is  not an oxymoron!

In her article, Connie talks about what creativity is, why it’s important, and then about steps you can take to increase it. I want to dig a wee bit further into the cognitive and formal aspects of this to backstop her points. (Also, of course, to make the point that a cognitive perspective provides important insight.)

As background, I’ve been focused on creating learning experiences. This naturally includes cognition as the basis for learning, experiences,  and design. So I’ve taken eclectic investigations on all three. For instruction, I continue to track for insights from behavioral, social, cognitive, post-cognitive, even  machine learning. On the engagement side, I continue to explore games, drama, fiction, UI/UX, roleplay, ‘flow’, and more. Similarly, for design my explorations include architecture, software engineering, graphic, product, information, and more.

One of the interesting areas comes from computer science, searching through problem-spaces for solutions. If we think of the solution set as a space, some solutions are better than others. It may not be a smooth continuum, but instead we might have local maxima that are ‘ok’, but there’s another elsewhere that’s better. If we are too lax in our search, we might only find the local maxima. However, there are ways to increase the chances of exploring a broader space, making a more global search. (Of course, this can be multidimensional.)

Practically, this includes several possibilities. For one, having a diverse team increases the likelihood that we’ll be exploring more broadly. (On the flip side, having folks who all think alike mean all but one are redundant. ;). For another, brainstorming properly keeps the group from prematurely converging. We can use lateral random prompts to push us to other areas. And so on. I wrote a series of four posts about design that included a suite of heuristics to increase the likelihood of finding a good solution. Connie’s suggestions do likewise.

I also suppose this is a mental model that we can use to help think about designing. Mental models are bases for predictions and decisions. In this case, having the mental model can assist in thinking through practices that are liable to generate better design practices. How do we keep from staying localized? How do we explore the solution space in a manner that goes broad, but not exhaustively (in general, we’re designing under time and cost constraints).

Creativity is the flip side of innovation. It takes the former to successfully execute on the latter. It’s a probabilistic game, but we can increase our odds by certain practices that emerge from research, theory, and practice. We also want to include emotion in the picture as well, in our design practices as well as in our solutions. When we do, we’re more likely to explore the space effectively, and increase our chances for the best solution. That’s a worthwhile endeavor, I’ll suggest. What are your systematic creativity approaches?

 

 

 

Quip: Learning & Development

5 June 2018 by Clark 4 Comments

I’ve used this quip quite a bit, as it’s essentially the rationale for the Revolution book.  And I want to make clear what I’m saying, and then qualify it.  It’s about the state of Learning & Development, and sums up one perspective fairly succinctly:

L&D isn’t  doing near what it could and should be, and what it is doing it’s doing badly. Other than that, it’s fine.

It’s meant to be a little flip and ‘in your face’, but it’s because I think there’s such potential for L&D!  This is my way of characterizing the situation that might spark some reflection, and even action.

L&D is, largely, about courses.  And unfortunately, too often they’re about content-dump, and an experience that will rank highly on a smile sheet. Which is historically understandable, but scientifically bereft. Compliance aside (and here’s to a competency shift, away from ‘1 hour / year’ or whatever other time-based basis we might find), our courses should be focused on applying knowledge to meaningful tasks, and meaningful feedback. Sufficient, varied, spaced, and deliberate practice!  Of course this isn’t everyone’s L&D, but it certainly appears to be all too present.

The second thing is that L&D could be so much broader!  If we’re really worry about organizational performance and continuing improvement (why I suggest L&D should shift to P&D, performance and development), we should do more. Performance support, for instance, should be under the purview of L&D. Otherwise it gets left to chance or those who don’t have the necessary background.

And, then there’s coaching. Recognize that learning takes time, and that we need to continue development beyond the classroom. Thus, coaching’s critical to continued improvement. Again, L&D has a role to play here: developing coaching skills, providing guidance, and tracking.

Then we go beyond formal learning: optimizing the ongoing learning in individuals, teams, and communities. This is organizational learning! There’re processes for individual improvement like PKM, team processes like brainstorming, and community interactions. Leaving these to chance is a mistake, as we can’t assume these skills.

And the outcomes of helping the organization get better beyond the course are big. Not just individual learning, but the organization is learning faster. And that’s a necessity for success, going forward. In short, there’s a lot L&D could be doing that would help the organization that it’s missing now.

Now, complaining as my statement does isn’t necessarily useful, unless it’s constructive, and the point is that we have very comprehensive and specific things we know about doing better.  By this quip I don’t mean to criticize; I want to inspire action and improvement. So here’s to revolutionizing L&D. I hope you’ll join us!

Quip: learning & instruction

15 May 2018 by Clark Leave a Comment

I spoke at the ATD International Conference last week on myths. I said a number of things (and a number were said about it, too :). However, one comment seems to be getting more traction than others. Moreover, it’s something I say regularly. So I thought I should add it to my collection of Quinn Quips.

The statement is simple:

Learning is action and reflection; instruction is  designed action and  guided  reflection.

What do I mean here? In life, things happen. We make choices, and there are consequences. When we observe them, and reflect, we begin to notice patterns. Some of this  can happen unconsciously, but if we want to improve fastest, reflecting helps. This can involve just thinking, or writing, or diagramming, or other ways of representing the contingencies and emerging models.

However, when we want to guide learning, e.g. instruct, one of the tasks we can undertake is creating a problem, and asking the learner to solve it. If we provide resources, and support the thinking afterwards, we increase the likelihood of learning outcomes.

A critical feature of this statement is that the choices of action that we design, and the choices of resources to support reflection (content  and representation tools), are critical. And, of course, we might need a series of activities (or application opportunities) to support learning.

An interesting option that emerges here is the opportunity for contextual learning. When an individual is engaged in a task relevant for learning, we can take advantage of it. With resources and reflection facilitation, a performance requirement becomes a learning opportunity!

It’s important that we understand the difference, but recognize (and reflect) the core.

Quip: tuning

1 March 2011 by Clark 2 Comments

You can’t declare it’s a game, your learners will tell you if it is or not.

I found a game for my iPad that I really liked.   A casual gamer, so that while it has a story, I can play it without having to get too crazy about learning timing issues or complicated commands.

I played it through, and several different times again with different characters, and eagerly awaited the sequel.   Which finally occurred and I was again progressing through the game.   Er, until the end, and that’s where this story begins.

When I got to the last boss, suddenly I couldn’t finish.   I couldn’t beat the boss!   Instead of happily progressing, suddenly I was grinding to get my character to level up, and trying again, while looking for more special equipment.   It was suddenly frustrating, not fun.

Now, I’d pretty well just bashed my way through: no finesse in movement.   But that had worked.   So if I was supposed to pick up more nuanced movements and commands, there had been no incentive. Well, I finally beat the boss after numerous attempts, and then the game was over, but I hadn’t really found out what I’d done that worked.

Again, I started with a different character, and again it was fun. Up until the end, and again I was faced with the unbeatable boss. Again I ground, and again I finally succeeded, but it was still an anti-climax after so much fun prior to that point.

The point here is not to complain about this particular game, but to point out that getting the experience right matters.   When I run my game design lectures and/or workshops, I point out that as Will Wright once told me, tuning is 9/10ths of the work.   And it’s got to go all the way through, with the right audience.   It may be that they didn’t test the end with a casual gamer like me, but it was a jarring ending to what had been.

Now, in most of the formal learning situations we design for, we have sticks as well as carrots, so we aren’t expecting our learners to pay for the privilege of completing our learning experience, but it’s important to understand what learner experience we think would be reasonable and shoot for achieving that.   It’s subjective, so asking them is just fine, but you want to set metrics for the user experience (tested for after you ensure usability   isn’t a barrier and you are achieving your learning outcomes) and then tune until you get them. Or, of course, until you find out you won’t on your current budget and adjust your expectations, but doing so consciously.

As I say, you don’t turn a scenario into a game, you tune it into a game.   And even when you are not shooting for a game, this applies to learning experience design as well.   Emotions and subjective experience matters, so do consider testing and tuning until you achieve the experience you need.

Quip: limits

21 February 2011 by Clark Leave a Comment

The limits are no longer the technology; the limits are between our ears (ok, and our pocketbooks).

My old surfing buddy Carl Kuck used to say that the only limits are between our ears, and I’ve purloined his phrase for my nefarious purposes.   This comes from the observation that Arthur C. Clarke made that “any truly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic“.   I want to suggest that we now have magic: we can summon up demons (ok, agents) to do our bidding, and peer across distances with crystal balls (or web cams). We really can bring anything, anywhere, anytime. If we can imagine it, we can make it happen if we can marshal the vision and the resources. The question is, what do we want to do with it?

Really, what we do in most schooling is contrary to what leads to real learning. I believe that technology has given us a chance to go back to real learning and ask “what should we be doing?”.   We look at apprenticeship, and meaningful activity, and scaffolding, and realize that we need to find ways to achieve this.   (Then we look at most schooling and recoil in horror.)

So, let’s stop letting the ways in which our cognitive architecture limits us (set effects, functional fixedness, premature evaluation) and think broadly about what we could be doing, and then figure out how to make it so. I’ll suggest that some components are slow learning, distributed cognition, social interaction, and meta-learning (aka 21st Century skills).   What do you think might be in the picture?

Quip: innovation

18 February 2011 by Clark Leave a Comment

Optimal execution is only the cost of entry; continual innovation is the necessary competitive differentiator.

When I talk strategy, I channel my colleagues in the Internet Time Alliance about the changes being seen in the workplace.   The rate of change is increasing, and the patterns we imagined we saw (and explained away when violated) are more clearly representing the chaos seen in a fractal world.   As a consequence, organizational nimbleness is a necessity.

In a time when competitors can copy your innovation in a matter of months (or less), you can’t just plan, prepare, and execute optimally any longer.   You now have to continually innovate in products and services, problem-solve faster, avoid repeating mistakes, and in general learn (big ‘L’ learning) faster than your competitors.

The learning doesn’t come from more hierarchy, bigger incentives, or more systems.   Counter-intuitively, perhaps, it comes from being more open, taking time for reflection, having better conversations,   finding ways to give people meaningful goals and giving them the space and support to accomplish them.   It’s more than a process shift, it’s a culture shift, but it can be done, and it works.

Yes, there’s formal learning, and performance support because you can’t neglect the optimal execution, but there’s also community-building, because you need the continual innovation too.   Neglect either, and you’ll fail.   It’s not about more resources (yeah, as if), but about more sensible allocation of them.

My suggestion: use technology and people in ways that maximize their contributions. People can be really good problem-solvers, particularly coupled with complementary technology, but they’re really bad at rote tasks.   However, technology, properly designed and developed, is really good at rote tasks.   Need I say more?   Hint hint, nudge nudge, wink wink.

Quip: conversations

14 February 2011 by Clark 1 Comment

Conversations are the engine of business.

Seriously.   How many problems are solved by saying “go talk to <so-and-so>”, or ideas sparked by conversations around the water cooler? How many times has a chance conversation ended up leading to a new product, service, acquisition, or more?   The conversations can be of many types: with co-workers, managers, subordinates, customers, stakeholders. We may execute individually, but the innovations, the changes, the needed learning happens by dialog. The important work is done in conversations.

Consequently, we need to ensure that we have the tools to support conversations, and a culture that promotes them.   It’s got to be valued to be helpful, and part of the culture.   We have had tools for interaction before, from talking, through phone and email, but now we have the opportunity to look at, and support, a richer suite of interaction.

You need mechanisms to ask questions, find people, share thoughts.   Microblogging (e.g. twitter) allows you to follow people who spark thoughts, and ask questions of your followers. Blogging lets you put out more formed thoughts and look for feedback. Profiles let you search for people who have knowledge you   need.   Forums provide opportunities for open and ongoing dialogs.   IM chats provide an open channel to have a continuing presence.   And so on.

And don’t assume conversations are optimal, ensure it.   One of the coming roles for learning designers is facilitating the informal learning as well as the formal, I suggest.   This includes both individual skills and organizational culture.   Make the principles of good conversation explicit, model it, encourage it, and develop it.

Don’t starve the engine, ensure that it’s tuned and getting adequate fuel.   Facilitate business performance and make the environment conducive to good conversations to unleash your organization’s potential.

Quip: design

11 February 2011 by Clark Leave a Comment

If you get the design right, there are lots of ways to implement it; if you don’t get the design right, it doesn’t matter how you implement it.

Too often, people under design and overproduce, resulting in great looking products that are worthless.   This is certainly the case in elearning, but you see it in other fields, too.

Similarly, I’ve found that if you get the design right, you don’t need lots of production.   In an example cited in my Engaging Learning book, we designed a game for kids that need to learn how to live on their own. The first version looked like it was done by lame 3rd graders, but the play was right; as a consequence, we got some funding to tart up the graphics.   On the other hand, if the play hadn’t been right, it wouldn’t have gotten used.

One of the reasons to tout this is so many people are concerned about what tool to use.   I don’t really systematically study tools, because once you’ve got the design, you can probably implement it in a variety of tool solutions. And the tools will change, but the need for quality design won’t.

The focus has to be on the learning experience design first, and then you can worry about how you might build the delivery environment.   So, please, get design, and get the design right.   Then we can talk about how to develop it.

Quip: tradeoffs

10 February 2011 by Clark 1 Comment

There are no right answers, only tradeoffs.

This is something I frequently say in my design workshops (games, mobile, whatever). When you are doing a design, there are many factors to be considered, and many alternatives.   The question is not “what is the right answer”, the question is “what is the right answer for now, in this context”.   The reason being that there are many possible answers, and you will have to consider several alternatives.

When we do an analysis, we have to decide whether it’s a skill, knowledge, attitude, or something else.   Then we can decide whether to address it with training, job aids, interface redesign, or something else.   And usually it could be one or the other but we eventually converge on a solution.

In the interface design space, there arose an approach called a ‘design rationale‘ just to keep new folks on the team from revisiting prior decisions.   There were even tools created to document these.   There are a lot of factors that affect a solution, including audience, current environment (tech, sociocultural, resources, etc), and goals.   There will be tensions between them, and the solution will end up being a compromise that is the best guess at a solution space.

Or, as I depicted it a while ago, the potential solution space is large, and various factors end up constraining that space down to a solution (if we end up with the empty set, we have to relax one or more of the constraints).   It helps to have constraints.   Some of the solutions are better than others, but seldom is any one so dominantly optimal.   Just think of the problem of what car to buy?   Economy, style, reliability, current sales incentives, there are lots of factors, and   you probably ended up choosing among several possibilities.

On a side note, this is an important way the real world differs from ‘schooling’.   I like what David Jonassen says about how the problems we give our kids in class don’t bear any relation to the problems they face in the world (and his focus on changing the problems seen in schools).

And, as m’lady likes to say, there should be no ‘coulda shoulda woulda’s.   You made the best decision at the time (right?), and then if it later turns out to have been wrong you had no way to know or you would’ve factored it into your decision at the time.   Unless you missed something you could and should have seen then, you still made the right decision.

This is why consultants typically answer with ‘it depends’ when asked for specifics beforehand (much to potential customers dismay).   When the expert realizes the myriad factors that could affect the choices and outcomes, it’s naive to give a pat answer to the client who needs help.   There are likely parameters that affect the decision and may help to constrain it to a range,   and the experience may allow a qualified guess, but don’t expect a binding agreement until a scoping exercise has been performed.

It is important to be explicit about this, rather than assume you can make a perfect decision.   Recognizing the process allows you to be open in your evaluations and honest in your assessment of the solution.   Make the best tradeoffs you can, recognize that you can be wrong, and move ahead.

Quip: Quality

4 October 2010 by Clark 5 Comments

I had the (dubious) pleasure of picking up an award for a client at an eLearning awards ceremony a number of years back. There’s been some apt criticism of the whole awards industry thing overall, but it did give me a chance to see what was passing as award-winning content.   And I was dismayed.   One memorable example had traditional HR policy drill-and-kill tarted up into a ‘country fair’ theme. It was, frankly, quite well produced and visually attractive.   And complete dreck, instructionally.   Yet, it had won an award!

My client typically fights the good fight when they can (hey, they use me ;), but sometimes they can’t convince the client or know not to bother. In another instance, I actually took on the design for a project, and at the end the client’s manager asked what was so special. After I walked him through it, he was singing the hallelujah chorus, but there’s an important point here.   I’ve heard this tale from many of my colleagues as well, and it indicates a problem.

Quality design is hard to distinguish from well-produced but under-designed content.

To the layperson, or even perhaps the ordinary instructional designer, the nuances of good content aren’t obvious. If the learning objective is focused on knowledge, it’s because that’s what the SME told us was important. So what if the emotional engagement is extrinsic, not intrinsic, it’s still engaging, right?   We cover the content, show an example, and then ensure they know it.   That’s what we do.

SO not.   Frankly, if you don’t really understand the underlying important elements that constitute the components of learning, if you can’t distinguish good from ordinary, you’re wasting your time and money.   If that were the only consequence,well, shame on the buyer.   But if there’s a Great eLearning Garbage Patch, it gets harder to pitch quality.   If you don’t care that it ‘sticks’ and leads to meaningful behavior change in the workplace, you shouldn’t even start. If you do care, then you have to do more.

Hey, low production values aren’t what make the learning occur, it’s just to minimize barriers (“ooh, this is so ugly”).   Learning is really a probability game (you can’t make a learner learn), and every element you under-design knocks something like 10-50% off the likelihood it’ll lead to change.   Several of those combined and you’ve dropped your odds to darn near zero (ending up working only for those who’ll figure it out no matter what you do to them).

And the problem is,   your client, your audience, doesn’t know.   So you can lose out to someone who shows flashy content but knows bugger all about learning.   You see it everywhere.

So, we have to do more.   We have to educate our clients, partners, and the audience.   It’s not easy, but if we don’t, we’ll continue to be awash in garbage content. We’ll be wasting time and money, and our effort will be unappreciated.

If you’re a designer, get on top of it, and get good at explaining it. If you’re a customer, ask them to explain how their content actually achieves learning outcomes.   Or get some independent evaluation.   There are still vulnerabilities, but it’s a push in the right direction.   We need more better learning!

Next Page »

Clark Quinn

The Company

Search

Feedblitz (email) signup

Never miss a post
Your email address:*
Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide

Pages

  • About Learnlets and Quinnovation

The Serious eLearning Manifesto

Manifesto badge

Categories

  • design
  • games
  • meta-learning
  • mindmap
  • mobile
  • social
  • strategy
  • technology
  • Uncategorized
  • virtual worlds

Blogroll

  • Charles Jennings
  • Christy Tucker
  • Connie Malamed
  • Dave's Whiteboard
  • Donald Clark's Plan B
  • Donald Taylor
  • Harold Jarche
  • Julie Dirksen
  • Kevin Thorn
  • Mark Britz
  • Mirjam Neelen & Paul Kirschner
  • Stephen Downes' Half an Hour

License

Previous Posts

  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • March 2006
  • February 2006
  • January 2006

Amazon Affiliate

Required to announce that, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Mostly book links. Full disclosure.