Quinnovating

Model learning

8 April 2009 by Clark 4 Comments

On Monday, a hearty Twitter exchange emerged when Jane Bozarth quoted Roger Schank “Why do we assume that theories of things must be taught to practitioners of those things?” I stood up for theory, Cammy Bean and Dave Ferguson chimed in and next thing you know, we’re having a lively discussion in 140 characters. With all the names to include, Dave pointed out we had even less space!

One side was stoutly defending that what SMEs thought was important wasn’t necessarily what practitioners needed. The other side (that would be me) wanted to argue that it’s been demonstrated that having an underlying model is important in being able to deal with complex problems.

So, of course, the issue really was what we mean by theory. It’s easy (and correct) to bash conceptual knowledge frameworks that don’t have applicability to the problem at hand; Dave revived the great quote: “In theory, there’s no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is.” He also cited Van Merrienboer & Kirschner as saying that teaching theory to successful practitioners can be detrimental. (BTW, see Dave’s great series of posts ‘translating‘ their work.) On the other hand, having models has clearly been shown to be valuable in adapting to complexity and ambiguity. What’s a designer to do?

So, let me be clear. If there’s a rote procedure to be followed, there’s no need for a theory. In fact, there’s no need for training, since you ought to automate it! Our brains are good at pattern matching, bad at rote repetition, and it seems to me to be sad if not criminal to have people do rote stuff that could be done better by machine; save the interesting and challenging tasks for us!

It’s when tasks are complex, ill-structured, and/or ambiguous with lots of decisions, that we need theories. Or, rather, models. Which, I think, is part of the confusion (and I may be to blame! :).

I’m talking about an understanding of the underlying model that guides performance. Any approach to a problem has (or should) a rationale behind it about why that’s the reason you do it this way, not that way. It’s based upon some theory, but it should be resolved into a model that has just enough richness to help you decide when to do X and when to do Y. As I said many years ago:

I see mental models as dynamic. That is, they’re causal explanations of system behaviour. They are used to explain observed outcomes and to predict the effects of perturbations.

It’s the explanation and prediction capabilities that are important. The problem is, if the situation’s complex enough (and most are, whether it’s controlling a production line, or dealing with a customer, or…), you can’t train on all the situations that a learner might face. So then you need to provide guidance. Yes, we’ll use example and practice context to support transfer, but we should refer back to a model that guides our performance. And that’s useful and necessary.

Cammy noted that it’s extra work to develop that model, and I acknowledge that. I’ve said that good instructional design requires more work and knowledge on the part of the designer than we typically expect, which is why I don’t think you can do good ID without knowing some learning theory. (BTW, my Broken ID series addresses a lot of the above.)

So, let me be clear: in any reasonably complex domain (and you shouldn’t be training for simple issues: just give a job aid or automate or…), you should present the learner with a model that you reinforce in examples and practice. It should not be an abstract academic theory, but a practical guide to why things are done this way and what governs the adaptation to circumstances. As that model is acquired through examples and practice, you provide the basis for self-improving performance.

That’s my model for designing effective learning. What’s yours?

On a side note, what I recall as to the various tweets, and what Twitter shows from each person, doesn’t have a perfect correlation. While I acknowledge my memory failing more frequently (just age, not dementia or Alzheimer’s, I *think*), I’m pretty sure that Twitter dropped some of those messages from the record (the same time they acknowledged having trouble with dropping avatar images). Tweeter beware!

Real Community?

5 April 2009 by Clark 8 Comments

I’ve been reading John Taylor Gatto lately, and one of his points is interesting to me from the perspective of social media. His claim about schools is that they’re dehumanizing (deliberately). He claims that many of our institutions (and he means more than schools, but groups, organizations, etc) are really networks, not communities, and can’t provide the nurture we need from others: “Networks do great harm by appearing enough like real communities to create expectations that they can manage human social and psychological needs.”

This got me thinking about social media, and how often we call them online communities, but the question is: are they really? At the same time, Marcia Conner was asking for examples of how someone’s Twitter/Facebook (T/FB) comments have changed your opinion of them. Personally, I have to say that, in general, the extra ‘human’ bits that show through in T/FB have fleshed out some people I haven’t met and now want to.

Blogs tend to be more formal (tends, mind you), while Twitter and Facebook cross the boundary into informal. LinkedIn and Ning networks that I’ve participated in professionally are just that, professional. And maybe then not worthy of being called communities? What’s critical in making the transition from network to community? Certainly people will help one another out (Tony Karrer talks about how he uses networks to ask questions), but you might not ask for help on a personal issue there. Or would you?

Your mileage may vary, of course. So two questions: is there a difference between a community and a network, and is it important? And, if so (and I’m not certain, but leaning to the answers being yes and yes), should we keep them separate, have different ones for either, and can we have real community virtually? I’m inclined to believe that you can have real community online, but it’s not the same as a network, and that may not be a bad thing. You have to work with lots of people, but only with some of them will you want to share your problems, beliefs, and values. It’s the latter that’s a community. And while networks are valuable, communities are precious.

Getting Revolutionary: LC Big Q

3 April 2009 by Clark 1 Comment

The Learning Circuits’ Blog Big Question of the Month is whether and how get ‘unstuck’, when you’ve got a lot to offer and it’s well beyond what they expect you to do in your job.

This actually resonates with two separate things, some thoughts around ‘being revolutionary’, and a previous post based upon a similar complaint that triggered this month’s question (must be a lot of understandable angst out there). The previous post was about trying to meet unreasonable expectations, and the individual wasn’t getting the support they needed to do the job the way it should be done. Similarly the big question was triggered by someone knowing what should be done but feeling trapped.

The thread that emerges, for me, is that training departments can’t keep operating in the same old way, despite the fact that formal instruction doesn’t have to die (just improve). Incrementalism isn’t going to be enough, as optimal execution is going to be just to stay in the game, and the competitive advantage will be the ability to innovate new value to offer. It’s just too easy to copy a successful product or service, and the barriers to entry aren’t high enough to prevent competition. You never know when a viral or chaotic event will give someone a marketing advantage, so you’ve got to keep moving.

Trying to keep to the status quo, or slowly expand your responsibility is going to fail, as things are moving too quickly. You have to seize the responsibility now to take on the full suite of performance elements: job aids, portals, social learning, content and knowledge management, and more, and start moving. It still has to be staged, but it’s a perspective shift that will move you more strategically and systemically towards empowering your organization.

And back to the tactics, what do you do when your clients (internal or external) aren’t pushing you for more and better? Show them the way. While I’ve learned that conceptual prototypes don’t always work (some folks can’t get beyond the lack of polish, even when you’re just showing the proof of concept), try and mock up what is on offer, and talk them through it. Help them see why it’s better. Do a back of the envelope calculation about how it’s better. Bring in all the factors: outcomes, performance, engagement, learner experience, whatever it takes.

Then, if they don’t want it, do your best within the constraints to do it anyway (write better objectives, practice, etc. even if they won’t appreciate it), and live with what you can do. And, truly, if you’re capable of more (not more work, better/smarter work), and it’s on offer but continually not accepted, it probably is time to move on. Don’t give in, keep up the fight for better learning, your learners need it!

Social Media Goals

2 April 2009 by Clark 7 Comments

I spent yesterday touring the Web 2.0 expo (part of the time with fellow miscreant Jay Cross), and it led me to think a bit more about social media tools and approaches. After touring the floor, having lunch, and touring the floor some more before the keynotes, my reflections have to do with hybrids and implementation.

We were prompted to visit Blue Kiwi, which is probably the leading European social media platform. Talking to them, and the others there (Vignette & Lithium) has me reflecting more broadly. Mzinga is clearly targeted at the learning space, being integrated with an LMS. Vignette, on the other hand, started as a CMS for KM, but then added social media around it. Drupal is an open source CMS that’s been used for social media, and Elgg similarly started as an open source portfolio tool but has expanded.

It’s an interesting question about whether to keep your social media separate from your other tools, or to couple them with some other core functionality. Vignette’s story about building on their core content management system supporting knowledge management makes sense from the point of view of mining value out of the discussions. Yet, for a learning group, Mzinga’s integration of formal and informal learning is also plausible. And, of course, there’s now Sharepoint’s integration of social tools around resources.

On the other hand, a pure focus on social networking may be the more natural framework, but how do you get power to leverage the content generated? Coupling them makes sense if you’re coming from one direction or another, but I’m trying to integrate formal, content management, knowledge management and more into a seamless ecosystem. Do you integrate, or do you have APIs to couple capabilities? On one hand, an integrated solution is less work than an integration exercise, but on the other hand, I don’t expect there to be one all-singing-all-dancing solution. Tony Karrer, riffing off of BJ Schone’s post which emphasizes making things work and play well together, looks to LMS vendors partnering more, and I reckon that loose coupling makes sense. However, I don’t know if having a separate app for blogs, wikis, and all works, as you want profiles and discussions to be integrated, so reckon you do want a social media environment, or you’ll have to use a lot of glue. I’m still wrestling with this.

What definitely makes sense is having an implementation strategy for success. Lithium was advertising ‘successful’ communities, and so I naturally inquired about their approach. They said that they don’t start small, because to succeed you need critical mass. I asked about incenting the connectors and content producers, and they indicated that was part of their strategy as well. They indicated that there was a VIP room exclusively for big contributors where they could hobnob with the C-suite. Getting the C-suite to actually play struck me as a success factor, but hard to guarantee a priori. They almost seemed more a services firm though they did claim to have a solution as well. (I have to admit that their firm’s title, however, makes me think of chemical psychotherapy, not a great mental image.)

As a contrasting approach to success, Blue Kiwi’s pricing model is based around the activity in the system: if you’re not using it, you’re not getting value, and consequently you shouldn’t pay. Their threshold seems low: 2 accesses a month constitutes chargeable activity, whereas I would say 2 a week would be more indicative, but the cost for that activity is relatively low. What excites me, however, is the notion of measuring and trying to charge for the activity as an indirect measure of value. A more direct measure, the knowledge grown, seems to be a really exciting opportunity.

I’m realizing that what’s really important is the knowledge shared, and grown. I reckon that optimizing performance is going to be just the cost of entry, and the competitive advantage will be the generation of new opportunities. The key, then, is accelerating the growth of accessible actionable knowledge. So that’s what I’m focusing on. How about you?

Dispositions of Productive Inquiry

29 March 2009 by Clark Leave a Comment

In my last post, I referenced John Seely Brown’s mention of dispositions, and I think it’s worthwhile to try to represent and discuss his point here, as it’s relevant to social learning, organizational culture, and success, topics I’ve mentioned in the past.

In The Power of Dispositions, JSB & Douglas Thomas (Ubiquity) argue that we need more than skills for 21st century education. They suggest that there exists an innate disposition of productive inquiry, an inclination (in particular contexts) to engage in a continual cycle of questioning and answering that leads the individual through a process of ongoing learning. It’s about knowing, not about knowledge. They suggest: “more basic than a skill; it is an embodied element of how we understand and perceive the world”.

They argue that by placing questions of meaning, and focusing on contexts and inquiry rather than content and results, we make environments conducive to these dispositions. Naturally, some of their observations are based in computer games, where I’ve argued contextualized challenge creates the most meaningful exploration and, consequently, learning.

I believe there’s something fundamental here, but am also left a bit dissatisfied, as there’s no obvious prescription, and I’m impatient to change the world. However, I have to agree that what I see in the schooling my children face, specifically in the transition to middle school, is that the teachers are not providing any context about why it’s important, nor working to make it meaningful, and focusing on product and not process. (This is true of too much of our learning, organizational as well.)

I do believe that if we put up interesting challenges and support the process of exploration we can make more meaningful learning, and if that leads to a development of disposition, we’ve had a good outcome. I certainly know that we need to make our learning more meaningful, even when the outcome is known, if we want it to stick. That we could create a culture of productive and continual inquiry, however, is the bigger opportunity on the table, for schools, organizations, and society. And that’s worth shooting for.

Transformative Experience Design

28 March 2009 by Clark 6 Comments

As part of the continual rethink about what I offer and to who (e.g. training department rethinks to managers, directors, VPs; experience design reviews/refines to learning teams), my thoughts on learning experience design took a leap. I’ve argued that the skills in Engaging Learning (my book) are the ones that are critical for Pine & Gilmore’s next step beyond their experience economy, the transformative experience economy. But I’ve started to think deeper.

John Seely Brown challenged us at the Learning Irregulars meeting that what fundamentally made a difference was a ‘questing disposition’ found in certain active learning communities. This manifests as an orientation to experimentation and learning. My curiosity was whether it was capable of being developed, as I’m loath to think that the 10% that learn despite schooling :) is inflexible because I believe that more and better learning has a chance to change our world for the better.

I hadn’t finished the article he subsequently sent me (coming soon), but it drove me back to some early thinking on attitude change. I recognize that just learning skills aren’t enough, and that a truly transformative experience subjectively needs to result in a changed worldview, a feeling of new perspectives. This could be a change in attitude, a new competency, or a fundamental change in perspective.

Which brings me back to looking at myth and ritual, something I tried to get my mind around before. I was looking for the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Ritual, and the closest thing I could find is Rapport’s Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity, which is almost impenetrably dense (and I’m trained and practiced at reading academic prose!). However, the takeaway is that ritual is hard to design, most artificial attempts fail miserably.

Others have suggested that transformation is at core about movement, which takes me back to ritual. Both a search on transformation and a twitter response brought that element to the surface. The other element that the search found was spirituality (not just religious). Which is not surprising, but not necessarily useful.

Naturally, I fall back to thinking from the perspective of creating an experience that will yield that transformational aesthetic, but it’s grounded in intuition rather than any explicit guidance. Still, I think there’s something necessary in the perspective that skills alone isn’t enough, and as I said before, as much of our barriers may be attitude or motivation as knowledge and skills.

I’ve skimmed ahead in JSB’s article, and can see I need a followup post, but in the interim, I’d welcome your thoughts on designing truly transformative experiences, not just learning experiences.

Learning irregularly

26 March 2009 by Clark Leave a Comment

I’ve affiliated with the Learning Irregulars, (“committed to making the world a better place by accelerating innovation in organizational learning. We are open, inquisitive, non-profit, impatient, and feisty”) As our first public outing, we held a meeting this week.

The approach we’re taking for now is that we conduct activities, like meetings, webinars, and the like, asking interesting and important questions, making them public and collecting artifacts including pictures, reflections, etc. that we also make available. I like to think of it as ‘learning out loud’. We’re looking to create a dialog around how to accelerate (and improve) organizational learning.

I conducted the part of the meeting where we told stories, and I’ve written those up over at the site. There were some interesting themes that emerged about how we’re not facing up to the large problems that confront us, though there are some great ideas that we really need to take advantage of. Some great memes included ‘positive deviance’ and ‘questing disposition’.

I’ll quote here the takehome that I took from the meeting:

There was some consistency about needing to be more open and flatter, less hierarchical, that we could learn much from other areas in many ways …, and that we need to provide tools, models, ideas, and examples.

There should (fingers crossed) be an archive of the meeting, and we’ll be holding more. Stay tuned! I welcome your thoughts.

A positive direction

23 March 2009 by Clark 2 Comments

After having been on the board of a not-for-profit (NFP) for several years, essentially because they’re in education and weren’t using technology, we’re finally seeing some progress. An update call today with their internal IT strategy team had me finally feeling like we’d turned the corner.

It’s taken several steps, as just advocating wasn’t enough. While I had to educate some of the board, they were supportive enough, but it wasn’t enough to penetrate the leadership of the NFP. An outside initiative that would’ve made significant progress didn’t occur, but raised enough awareness that things got easier. Along the way, several initiatives were started, but lost focus and died.

The final step was the Board finally choosing to have, as one of it’s standing committees, an IT Committee. For obvious sins, I chair the Board’s IT committee, and raised the NFP’s awareness that the Board was serious. Finally, the Board’s IT committee asked the NFP to create an IT Strategy, and that catalyzed effective action. It took some work to get them to identify what an IT strategy should be (despite resources like TechSoup, though their original good document disappeared), but led to them hiring a key person, and things have really turned around.

A team of young folks along with the existing IT staff, savvy and scattered around the NFP have been selected to lead the initiative. They’re thinking strategically now, and today on the phone talked about the success one portal is having, about their three phase plan to redevelop the website and IT infrastructure, and their thinking about how to leverage technology more effectively.

I really felt that they’re finally pulling a) together and b) in the right direction. I can’t take credit for it happening, but I reckon I played a role in catalyzing the work and in coaching the direction, and it’s wonderful to see the outcomes. It’s been frustrating at times as it seems to have taken so long, but my learning is that these things take time when you don’t have direct control.

The nice thing is that the culture of the NFP is positive and supportive of learning, it’s just that they’ve been so successful with the old model that it’s hard to see a need to change. But change happens, and fortunately it’s happening here, now.

There’ll be some missteps, undoubtedly, and some waste of effort, but I do believe they’re on the right path. Now, to get the Board to start using IT more effectively…

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