Learnlets

Secondary

Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

You are here: Home / Archives for design

Addressing fear in learning

by 4 Comments

One of my mantras in ‘make it meaningful‘ is that there’re three things to do. And one of those was kind of a toss away, until a comment in a conversation with a colleague brought it home. So here’s a first take at addressing fear in learning.

The mantra, to be clear, is that you have 3 major hurdles to overcome in getting someone to ‘buy in’ to learning:

  • I do need this
  • I don’t know it already
  • and I trust this experience will address that

I’ve focused mostly on the first, to date. The second is for the case where someone’s overconfident in their own abilities. However, the latter one was a toss-away, until…

My colleague mentioned how in trying to train data analysis, you could be coming up against decades of a belief such as ‘I don’t do well at math’. And I saw how you could have anxiety or a lack of confidence that this learning could address it.

Which makes it clear that you need to know the audience, and anticipate barriers. How can you address such a situation? I think you have to make sure that you make it steady and slow enough, or that it’s misperceived. So here, I could see either suggesting “we’ll take it slow enough and make it simple enough that you’ll find it easy” or “you may think data analytics is about math, but that’s the least part of it, it’s really about asking and answering questions”.

The point being, you need that trust, and that means addressing any barriers. It’s addressable, but you need to be aware. I also wonder if the typical elearning experience might have undermined trust such that there would have to be a series of successes to reestablish the trust that a learning unit should have. However, if we start regularly addressing all three, we have a start. That includes establishing the need, removing false conceptions, and addressing fear in learning. Those are my thoughts, what are yours?

The plusses and minuses of learning science research

by 1 Comment

A person who I find quite insightful (and occasionally inciteful ;) is Donald Clark. He built and sold Epic, an elearning company, and now he leads a learning AI company, Wildfire. He’s knowledgeable (for instance, having read up and summarized centuries of learning theorists), willing to call out bad learning, and he’s funny. And so, when he reported on a new study, I of course looked into it. And I find that it points out the plusses and minuses of learning science research.

To be clear, this is about his product, so there’s a vested interest. However, he’s got integrity; he’s not going to sully his reputation with a bad study. And, it’s a good study. It rightly demonstrates an important point. It’s just that it stops short of what we need for full learning.

So, his product does something pretty amazing. You give it content, and it can not only answer questions about the content (as, for instance, some chat tools do), it can turn the tables and ask you questions about the content. That is, it can serve as a sort of tutor. Which is all to the good.

What it can’t do, of course, is design meaningful practice. As Van Merriënboer’s Four Component Instructional Design (4C/ID) points out, you need to know the information, and you also need practice applying it. And I reckon we’re still far from that. So, while this is part of a whole solution (and Donald knows this), it’s not the full solution. He’s subsequently let me know it can do language tasks, which is impressive. I’m thinking more of contextualized scenarios, however.

The study demonstrates, as you might expect, that breaking up a video into reasonable chunks, and having system-generated questions asked in-between, led to 61% better retrieval, going from getting 8 to 14 questions right. That is a big improvement. it’s also impressive, since it’s generating those questions from video! That is, it parses the video, establishes a transcript, and then uses that to generate a knowledge base. Very cool.

And it’s a well-designed study. It’s got a control group, and a reasonable number of subjects. It uses the same test material, for an AB comparison. Presumably, the video chunking was done by hand, into four pieces. The chunking and break might account for the difference, which wasn’t controlled for, but it’s still a big improvement. Granted, we know that watching a video alone isn’t necessarily going to improve retention (except, perhaps, over some other non-interactive way of dumping content). But still, this is good as it’s an improvement and a lot of work was saved.

What I quibble about, however, is the nature of the retrieval. The types of questions liable to be asked (and it’s not indicated), are knowledge questions. As suggested above, knowledge is a necessary component. But using that knowledge to make decisions in context is typically what our goals are. And to achieve such goals, you basically have to practice making decisions in context. (Interestingly, the topic here was equality and diversity, a topic he has complained about!)

Knowledge about a topic isn’t likely to impact your ability to apply it. What will make a difference are actually doing things about it, like calling it out, having consequences, and actively working to remedy imbalances. And that requires separate practice. Which he’s acknowledged in the past, and rightly points out that his solution means you can devote more resources to that end.

Thus, the plusses of learning science research are we nibble away at the questions we need to answer, and find answers about the questions we ask. The minus, of course, is not necessarily asking the most important questions. It’d be easy to see this and say: “we’ve improved retention, and we’re done”. However, it won’t necessarily lead to reducing the behaviors being learned about, or building ability to deal with it. There are plusses and minuses of learning science research, and we need to know the strengths, and limitations, of it when we hear it.

The case for learning science

by Leave a Comment

In a perfect world, we’d spend all the time we want on learning. However, we don’t live in that world, we live in the real world. Which means our decisions are about tradeoffs. Which means we have to evaluate the case for paying attention to research. So here’s a stab at the case for learning science.

Learning is a probabilistic game. That is, there’s a probability that anything we’ve invested in learning will arise at the appropriate time. I’ll suggest that our brains have some randomness built into them, so there’s always a chance we’ll do things differently. Thus, in a sense, learning design is about increasing the probability that the right thing will occur.

And there are consequences. Say, for instance, that we want people to wash hands sufficiently. Then we might rightly work to increase awareness (along with making sure there’s soap, water, sinks, towels, etc) and the proper procedure. To do that sufficiently, say, takes X minutes of instruction.

Yet we may not have X minutes. Given the drain on resources, allocating that much time means the cost of the washing may be more than the cost of not. People not on the job for that time are an expensive resource. What’s a manager to do?

What we do all the time is make a probabilistic decision. We provide the rules in places where people might get their hands dirty, and we provide support materials (e.g. signs on the walls) in the places you wash your hands.

Most importantly, however, we make a determination of what’s a level of time that is going to likely do ‘good enough’. We’ll spend X-Y minutes, and make essentially a gamble that we’ll get 80% there, and the support materials will do the rest.

What this means is that since we’re not allocating sufficient time, we should be optimizing the quality of the learning design we apply. If they’re only getting X-Y minutes, that time should be as effective as possible. Which means we practice serious learning design, reflecting the best practices.

Quite simply, if you do less than use the best learning design principles derived from research, you’re decreasing the value of your investment in design time and learner time. And there are lots of ways we go wrong, whether it’s myths or just underinformed design. It’s a matter of professionalism as well. So let’s be smart and design smart. That’s the case for learning science. We owe it to our learners and our organizations.

Tips to Avoid Millennials Marketing Hype

by Leave a Comment

I received, in my email, a solicitation for a webinar titled 5 Tips to Engage Gen Z and Millennial eLearners in 2020 and Beyond. And, as you might imagine, it tweaked my sensibilities for the worse. My initial reaction is to provide, as a palliative, tips to avoid millennials marketing hype.

The content starts off with this scintillating line: “if you’re searching for current, new ways to engage people online and keep your business thriving, look to your youngest learners.” What? Why do you want current and new ways to engage people? How about the evidence-based ways instead? Tested and validated ones. And why your youngest learners? Organizations need to be continually learning across all employees. Why not just your newest employees (regardless of age)?

So, your first tip is to look for phrases like ‘new’ as warnings, and look for “research-based” or “evidence-based” instead. “Science-based” is likely okay, as long as it’s not neuroscience-based (wrong level) or brain-based (which is like saying ‘leg-based walking’ as someone aptly put it.)

Second tip: don’t be ageist. Why focus on their age at all? Deal with people by their knowledge and background. It’s discriminatory, really.

The ad goes on: “To future-proof your learning program, make sure your content is designed with these young professional learners in mind.”  What’s different for these learners? Their cognitive architecture isn’t fundamentally different; evolution doesn’t work that fast. So why would you do something just for them (and discriminate against others) instead of doing what’s right for the topic?

Next tip: avoid any easy and inappropriate categorizations. Don’t try to divide content or experiences in trendy ways instead of meaningful ways.

You should already be leery. But wait, there’s more! “On one hand, they can be distracted, overwhelmed, and impatient. On the other, they are highly collaborative, technically-savvy, and driven by fairness and storytelling.”This is like a horoscope; it fits most everyone, not just young people. We all have distractions and increasingly feel overwhelmed. And our brains are wired for storytelling.  These describe human nature! And that ‘tech savvy’ bit is a clear pointer to the digital native myth. Doh!

They then go on. “With this in mind, how can you effectively engage this digitally dependent group to attract, train, and retain them?” Um, with what attracts, trains, and retains humans in general? That would be helpful!

Thus, another tip: let’s not make facile attributions that falsely try to portray a meaningful difference. Let’s focus on design that addresses capturing and maintaining attention and motivation, and communicating in clear and compelling ways. And skip mashing up myths, ok?

We’re not quite done with the pitch: “how to level up your existing learning strategy to meaningfully engage your Millennial and Gen Z learners.” This is just a rehash of the tips above. Meaningfully engage all your learners!

There’s also this bullet list of attractions:

  • What motivates Millennials and Gen Z and how to tailor your learning strategy to keep them engaged
  • Ways in which traditional learning programs fail younger learners and how you can prevent these common mistakes
  • A step-by-step process for evaluating your instructional content, providing you with an actionable blueprint on transforming your content

This could easily be rewritten as:

  • What motivates Millennials and Gen Z learners and how to tailor your learning strategy to keep them engaged
  • Ways in which traditional learning programs fail younger learners and how you can prevent these common mistakes
  • A step-by-step process for evaluating your instructional content, providing you with an actionable blueprint on transforming your content

And, for all I know, that’s what they’re really doing. That would be actually useful, if they avoid perpetuating the myths about generational differences. But, as you can tell, they’re certainly trying to hit buzzword bingo in drawing you in with trendy and empty concepts. Whether they actually deliver is another issue.

Please, avoid the marketing maelstrom. Follow these tips to avoid millennials marketing hype, and focus on real outcomes. Thanks!

Curious about Curiosity

by 3 Comments

Looking into motivation, particularly for learning, certain elements appear again and again.  So I’ve heard ‘relevance’, ‘meaningfulness‘, consequences, and more. Friston suggests that we learn to minimize surprise. One I’ve heard, and wrestled with, is curiosity. It’s certainly aligned with surprise. So I’ve been curious about curiosity.

Tom Malone, in his Ph.D. thesis, talked about intrinsically motivating instruction, and had curiosity along with fantasy and challenge. Here he was talking about helping learners see that their understanding is incomplete. This is in line with the Free Energy Principle suggesting that we learn to do better at matching our expectations to real outcomes.

Yet, to me, curiosity doesn’t seem enough. Ok, for education, particularly young kids, I see it. You may want to set up some mismatch of expectations to drive them to want to learn something. But I believe we need more.

Matt Richter, in his well-done L&D conference presentation on motivation, discussed self-determination theory. He had a nice diagram (my revision here) that distinguished various forms of motivation. From amotivated, that is, not, there were levels of external motivation and then internal motivation. The ultimate is what he termed intrinsic motivation, but that’s someone wanting it of their own interest. Short of that, of course, you have incentive-driven behavior (gamification), and then what you’re guilted into (technically termed Introjection), to where you see value in it for yourself (e.g. WIIFM).

While intrinsic motivation, passion, sounds good, I think having someone be passionate about something is a goal too far. Instead, I see our goal as helping people realize that they need it, even if not ‘want’ it. That, to me, is where consequences kick in. If we can show them the consequence of having, or not, the skills, and do this for the right audience and skills, we can at least ensure that they’re in the ‘value’ dimension.

So, my take is that while we should value curiosity, we may not be able to ensure it. And we can ensure that, with good analysis and design, we can at least get them to see the value. That’s my current take after being curious about curiosity. I’d like to hear yours!

Mythless Learning Design

by 1 Comment

If I’m going to rail against myths in learning, it makes sense to be clear about what learning design without myths looks like. Let me lay out a little of what mythless learning design is, or should be.

Myths book coverLearning with myths manifests in many ways. Redundant development to accommodate learning styles, or generations. Shortened to be appropriate for millennials or the attention span of a goldfish. Using video and images for everything because we process images 60K faster. Quiz show templates for knowledge test questions because they’re more engaging. And all of these would be wrong.

Instead, mythless design starts with focusing on performance. That is, there’re clear learning outcomes that will change what people do that will affect the success of the organization. It’s not about knowledge itself, but only in service of achieving better ability to make decisions.

Then, it’s about designing meaningful practice in making those decisions. It’s not about testing knowledge, but ability to apply that knowledge to choose between alternative courses of action. It can be mini-scenarios (better multiple choice), branching, or sims, but it’s about ‘do’, not know.

We reinforce practice with content that guides performance and provides feedback. It does use multiple media, because we use the right media for the message. Yes, we look to engage multiple senses, but for comprehending and encoding information. And variety. We use visuals to tap into our powerful visual processing system, not because they have any particular metric improvement. We also use audio when appropriate. And while text is visual, we use it as appropriate too. To address learning outcomes, not learner preferences.

Mythless learning design may use small amounts of content, but because minimalism keeps cognitive load in check, not because our attention span has changed. We need appropriate chunking, as our working memory is limited, so we want to make things as small as possible, but no smaller!

We design meaningful active practice not because any generation needs it, but because it’s better aligned with how our brains learn at pretty much any age. There are developmental differences in working memory capacity and experience base, but everyone benefits from doing things, not passively consuming content.

There are good bases for design. Ones that lead to real outcomes. Starting from a performance focus, and reflecting what’s been demonstrated in learning science research, and tested and refined. Evidence guiding design, not myths.

There are also bad bases for design. Dale’s Cone, shiny object syndrome, the list goes on. Gilded bad design is still bad design. Get the core right. Let’s practice good, mythless learning design. Please.

 

Practicing the Preach

by 4 Comments

I’m working on my next plan for global domination. And as I do, I’ve been developing my thinking, and there are some interesting outcomes. Including a realization that I wasn’t doing what I usually recommend. And I also believe that you should ‘show your work‘. So here I’m practicing the preach.

First, I’m developing my understanding, getting concrete about it. I usually use Omnigraffle as a diagramming tool, to represent my conceptual understandings. And I started doing that as part of the ‘developing thinking’ part. But I started with a diagram, and took the elements out and mindmapped them, and threw in other bits. In short, the ‘diagram’ has become a visual place to store bits and pieces of different diagrams, representations, mindmap, prose, or more. As well as outlining elsewhere. But it’s working out for me, so I thought I’d share.

The overall visualization gives me a place, like a business canvas, to drop stuff on and rearrange. It’s a ‘thinking tool’. I’m also copying part of the the activity map and linking things together to capture the actual flow between content and activities. Etc. A virtual whiteboard, I guess.

Second, one of the things to represent was how this would be communicated. Whether a course, or interactive ebook, or whatever, I want to create a flow. And I realized an activity map might make sense. I haven’t done this before (I’ve used storyboards and diagrams), but I find it interesting. Here’s the current status.

Across the top are the various stages (Introduction, the Principles, the resulting learning Elements, the associated Process, and the Closing). Your stages may vary.  Along the side are the different components (the Content topics, the associated practice Activities, the Emotions I to be evoked, the Stories to tell, and the Tools). I think putting in ’emotion’ is an important step! And then I can drop text bits into the intersections.

Finally, as I started developing the associated content, I realized one thing I advocate is backwards design. That is, envision the performance and how it’s distributed across tools and brains. Then, I realized I hadn’t designed the tools first! I’m going back and doing that. So it’s now in the activity map as well ;).

Just thought I’d share this, practicing the preach, and hope that you find it interesting, if not useful. Feedback welcome!

 

A little silliness

by Leave a Comment

So, this was a little silliness I did in the 99 second presos at the Learning & Development Conference. It was the second one (the other was more aspirational). I’d put it together and then wasn’t sure, but there was time and space. It’s just for fun, nothing serious, along the lines of others I’ve done. FYA (allegro):

Hi, I’m Dr. Quinn, Meaningful Man, and have I got solutions for you! We’ve got learning experiences that are certain to be new. And, they’re based on the latest neuroscience, so we’re using visuals along with text, and asking questions that require answers!

We’ve developed in multiple media to make sure that we’re matching learners’ learning styles. And we’re using all the latest interaction types to make sure that your digital natives feel right at home. You can view the presentations in virtual reality!

Don’t worry, we’re also catering to all the other generations by ensuring that the presentations are the same whether on screen or ‘in world’; not a bullet point differs. And the quizzes are still multiple guess with trivial and silly alternatives so no one is bored and everyone’s self-esteem is maintained.

We’ve taken a microlearning approach, with each chunk shorter than the attention span of a goldfish. Your learners won’t be overwhelmed with content at any one time.

And with the visuals, we’re communicating 60000 times more content, giving you more value for money.

We’re also Dale’s Cone compliant, because you’ll spend 10 percent of the time reading, 20 percent of the time listening, and 30 percent of the time viewing. Which means we’re 40% shorter than anyone else!

We’ve used gamification to keep it lively. No more boring drill-and-kill, it’s all packaged up in themes like racing, circuses and more, so you are earning points that aren’t confounded by any relation to the material.

Look, you have to justify your decisions. So we’re buzzword compliant, because we know our business depends on your business, and you depend on matching the latest marketing to justify the expenditure.

So come, get the latest and greatest. Call now, operators are standing by. Thank you.

So there you have it, a little silliness. Please, all in fun. (Ok, maybe with a wee bit of ‘caveat emptor’. :)

An L&D Challenge?

by 1 Comment

A colleague and friend posted about masks, and I weighed in. He suggested that it’s really a learning issue. I’m not sure I agree, but I thought it might be interesting to explore. So here’s an L&D challenge to consider.

First, masks make sense, scientifically. They reduce the chance that someone might contaminate someone else. Given, specifically with COVID-19, that there’s a significant period of airborne contagion before the infected person is symptomatic, wearing a mask is a simple preventative measure.

Now, there are some complicating factors in our current case. My friend suggested mixed messages in the media are a confounding factor. Some leaders, for instance are not wearing them. And, other responsible individuals have provided unclear information about their value.

And, wearing masks has become politicized. Some are seeing not wearing masks as a sign of rebellion or resistance to a perception of government intrusion. For some reason, wearing masks upon request is seen as different than wearing, for instance, foot coverings in food establishments. From a scientific perspective, this is inappropriate.

Now, I recently took Ashley Sinclair’s marketing for L&D course at the Learning & Development Conference (#LDC2020, learningdevelopmentconference.com). In it, she reminds me that we buy on emotion. That is, we make our decisions emotionally, and then justify the choice with logic. So, the choice isn’t necessarily a rational one.

So this creates an L&D challenge, if we want to consider it as a design problem. What can and should we do? If we had the opportunity, how would we do it? What could we do to help make mask wearing more acceptable?

We could try education, with statistics, or horror stories. There’re are statistical arguments about the likelihood of infection of each party if one, the other, or both wear masks. Or we can tell tales about the horrible effects the virus has on the human body.

We could try sarcasm. I’ve been struck with the Queen lyric revisions (“no mask on your face, big disgrace, spreading your germs all over the place”), for instance. But that’s not necessarily going to work (even if it is fun). Sarcasm can be inappropriate in the face of entrenched viewpoints.

Or we can try guilt, about carrying risks to family members or friends. If you get it, even if the effects are mild or unnoticeable, you could still infect someone you’re quaranteaming with. Raising awareness about the potential consequences can change people’s behavior.

Finally, we can appeal to better nature. Like being someone who takes the grocery cart back to the collection area, or using your turn signals, it’s just polite. It’s considerate of others, and that’s what makes a society work.

By the way, I wear a mask to the store (it’s required where I live, to be fair). I also wear a (microfiber) bandanna when I walk around the neighborhood that I pull up whenever I’m passing someone, even though we’re almost always more than 6 feet apart. I don’t do it for me, I do it for others. Because while I’m not high-risk, I could get infected and not know it for a few days, and I’d hate to be responsible for someone else getting it from me. Not that I’m keen to find out how I’d react to the virus, either.

So, how do we do it? How do we get people to stop viewing it as an imposition, but as a social obligation that benefits everyone? This is what I mean by an L&D challenge: this is the type of thing we should be able to solve. Now, I know it’s not in our control, so this is a thought exercise, but one that’s not easy. And that’s what we also face in our real situations. So, what would you do?

(Oh, and wear a mask when you’re out in public, please. You don’t know who you might be helping.)

 

Myths, publishers, and confusion

by 5 Comments

Myths book coverOn twitter the other day, I was asked how I could on one hand rail against myths, and on the other work with orgs who either sell or promote DiSC and MBTI. The problem, it appears, was a perception that I’m deeply involved with orgs that perpetuate the problem. I thought I’d try to clarify all this, and make sense of myths, publishers and confusion.

The dialog started as a reaction to an article I pointed to on twitter. This article made what I thought was a pretty good case against tools like MBTI and DiSC. And that matters. The arguments raised in the article were legitimate, and even didn’t go far enough. For instance, MBTI is based on Jungian archetypes, which Jung just made up!  So, one question raised is why ask practitioners to change, why aren’t we challenging the businesses?

For one response, I don’t call out the practitioners. I sympathize!  In the myths book, I deliberately addressed the appeal before pointing out it’s wrong (and, importantly, point to better alternatives). Instead, I rail against the tools. That, to me, is where the problem lies, and implicitly indicts the vendors. Now, the org that now owns DiSC was my first publisher. However, they bought it after I was locked into a contract with them. And when I heard, I complained about the choice to them. But they didn’t consult me on it ;).  And yes, they published my first 3.5 books. I dissociated from them on other reasons, but I’m no longer engaged.

Was there any relationship between DiSC and what I wrote? I was able to complain about learning styles in my fourth book with them. It’s a huge company, with many different divisions. There’s no provision to not say things that are contrary to their business interests. They publish and sell what they can sell. They can publish what’s right, and sell stuff that’s not. That’s their confusion, I reckon, not mine.

I’m now publishing with another org, who had, in the past, had learning styles in their competency model. When I found out, I asked and was told it was not in the latest version of the model. They also do make money selling exhibit space to folks with these tools. Note that the folks I work with may not agree, but also have to work in their part of the org and have little contact with the other entity (that makes much money). Yet, to their credit, they asked me to write the myths book. In fact, after I gave a myths talk to launch the the book, an anonymous audience member complained that they shouldn’t have speakers that disparage vendor products. And, they’ve continued to have me write and speak. Again, I suggest that’s their issue, not mine. I’m not responsible for that relationship between myths, publishers, and confusion.

And, yes, there are voices that cry out for the tools. For instance a TD article claimed that such tools are popular. (Under the guise of saying they’re effective.) Which is problematic. Asking folks for their assessments of tools they’ve invested in introduces a clear source of bias. We know that people’s judgments of effectiveness may not match reality. So it’s a problem. But not one I’m in a position to change (though I quietly try).  It does muddy the water. Which, to me, speaks even more to talk about how to review science and what science already says.

I try to be a consistent voice for science in our practice. My publisher gave me a forum to speak that to an audience that needs to hear the message. There are others who echo that voice (see Mythbusters here). I’d welcome having the opportunity to address those who are making the decisions to buy these tools. I don’t have reliable access (I welcome any assistance ;). Instead, now they can give the book to those leaders to bolster the resistance.

So, are my publisher activities part of the business end, or the education end? Do you really concern yourselves with my previous relationship or current publisher? I note that it’s pretty much a hands-off relationship: “if you propose a valuable offering, we’ll publish it.”

I’m saying “here’s what Quinnovation has to say” and the orgs are endorsing it. Not the other way around. Is that accurate? Do you see that as a conflict? I’m perfectly willing to be wrong, and if so I welcome ideas how to be more clear about what and how it’s wrong.

I think I’m fighting a good fight, for the right reasons, and pretty much in the right way. But it’s not my perspective that matters. So I ask you, am I off the mark here? Am I helping or hurting the issues in myths, publishers, and confusion?