In other fields of endeavors, there is a science behind the approaches.  In civil engineering, it’s the properties of materials.  In aviation, it’s aeronautical engineering.  In medicine, it’s medical science.  If you’re going to be a professional in your field, you have to know the science.  So, two questions: is there a science of learning, and is it used.  The answers appear to be yes and no.  And yet, if you’re going to be a learning designer or engineer, you should know the science and be using it.

There is a science of learning, and it’s increasingly easy to find.  That’s the premise behind the Serious eLearning Manifesto, for instance (read it, sign it, use it!).  You could read Julie Dirksen’s  Design for How People Learn  as a very good interpretation of the science.  The Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center is compiling research to provide guidance about learning if you want a fuller scientific treatment.  Or read Bransford, et al’s summary of the science of  How People Learn,  a very rich overview.  And Hess & Saxberg’s recent  Breakthrough Leadership in the Digital Age: Using Learning Science to Reboot Schooling  is both a call for why and some guidance on how.

Among the things we know are that  rote and abstract information isn’t retained, knowledge test doesn’t mean ability to do, getting it right once doesn’t mean it’s known, the list goes on.  Yet, somehow, we see elearning tools like ‘click to learn more’ (er, less), tarted up quiz show templates to drill knowledge, easy ways to take content and add quizzes to them, and more.  We see elearning that’s arbitrary info dump and simplistic knowledge test.  Which will have a negligible impact on anything meaningful.

We’re focused on speed and cost efficiencies, not on learning outcomes, and that’s not professional.  Look, if you’re going to do design, do it right.    Anything less is really  malpractice!

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the inaugural meeting of the Global Learning Council.  While not really global in either sense (little representation from overseas nor from segments other than higher ed), it was a chance to refresh myself in some rigor around learning sciences. And one thing that struck me was folks talking about learning engineering.

If we take the analogy from regular science and engineering, we are talking about taking the research from the learning sciences, and applying it to the design of solutions.  And this sounds like a good thing, with some caveats.  When talking about the Serious eLearning Manifesto, for example, we’re talking about principles that should be embedded in  your learning design approach.

While the intention was not to provide coverage of learning science, several points emerged at one point or another as research-based outcomes to be desired. For one, the value of models in learning.  Another was, of course, the value of spacing practice. The list goes on.  The focus of the engineering, however, is different.

While it wasn’t an explicit topic of the talk, it emerged in several side conversations, but the focus is on design processes and tools that increase the likelihood of creating  effective learning practices.  This includes doing a suitable job of creating aligned outcomes through processes of working with SMEs, identifying misconceptions to be addressed, ensuring activities are designed  that have learners appropriately processing and applying information, appropriate spread of examples, and more.

Of course, developing an accurate course for any topic is a thorough exercise.  Which is desirable, but not always pragmatic.  While the full rigor of science would go as far as adaptive intelligent tutoring systems, the amount of work to do so can be prohibitive under pragmatic constraints.  It takes a high importance and large potential audience to do this for other than research purposes.

In other cases, we use heuristics.  Sometimes we go too far; so just dumping information and adding a quiz is often seen, though that’s got little likelihood of having any impact.  Even if we do create an appropriate practice, we might only have learners practice until they get it right, not until they can’t get it wrong.

Finding the balance point is an ongoing effort. I reckon that the elements of good design is a starting point, but you need processes that are manageable, repeatable, and scalable.  You need structures to help, including representations  that have support for identifying key elements and make it difficult to ignore the important elements.  You ideally have aligned tools that make it easy to do the right things.

And if this is what Learning Engineering can be, systematically applying learning science to design, I reckon there’s also a study of learning science engineering, aligning not just the learning, but the design process, with how we think, work, and learn.  And maybe then there’s a learning architecture as well – where just as an architect  designs the basic look and feel of the halls &  rooms and the engineers build them – that designs the curriculum approach and the pedagogy, but the learning engineers follow through on those principles for developing courses.

Is learning engineering an alternative to  instructional design?   I’m wondering if the focus on engineering rather than design (applied science, rather than art) and learning rather than instruction (outcomes, not process), is a better characterization.  What do you think?

In addition to yesterday’s post about pedagogy, I also mentioned the need to get deeper on curriculum as well.  The notion is that we need to redefine curriculum as a way to get away from a content base, and start moving to an activity base.

The focus is on creating a curriculum that has tasks at it’s core, and these tasks are tasks  like the learner will be expected to be performing  in the world.  These tasks can be viewed as competencies that, if the learner possesses them, there is evidence that they are prepared to perform.

The goal is to choose tasks, with the final task likely being chosen  first and working backwards (as in Understanding By Design) to determine what needs to be done.  From each chosen ‘task’ will be a suite of activities that comprise the pre-, in-, and post-class activities, but here we are focusing on the overall curriculum before we get into the individual pedagogy.

Note that the content is subsequently chosen to support successful execution of the tasks, and is not presented to the learner but is, instead, made available to them at the time of the task.  The goal is to have them process the content in service of accomplishing the task, an approach more consonant with our cognitive architecture. We’re more likely to remember information we’ve had to process rather than information we’ve just been presented with.  Information that a learner can recite is unlikely to be activated at a relevant time (“inert knowledge) unless it’s been applied, and the focus should be on the application, not the recitation.

Again, this turns out to be  very much the approach of Roger Schank of  Socratic Arts as well, but emerged from my own thoughts and frustrations before I found out about the Story-Centered Curricula.  Of course, I referenced the Goal-Based Scenarios in my book on learning (game) design, but I hadn’t been aware of his curricular processes at the time of this or my Reimagining rant pointed to above.

There’re more details required to fully flesh out the process here. I reckon it’d be easier to do with an employer than faculty, but even with faculty, I reckon if you can get more than one in a room, focus on decisions, and help them understand the power of activity-focused learning, it’ll work. Fingers crossed ;).

In thinking through how to design courses that lead to both engaging experiences and meaningful outcomes, I’ve been working on the component activities.  As part of that, I’ve been looking at elements such as pedagogy in pre-, in-, and post-class sessions so that there are  principled reasons behind the design.

 So, here I’m  looking at trying for guidance  to align what happens in all three sections.  In this  case, two major types of activities have emerged: more procedural activities, such as using equipment appropriately; and more conceptual activities such as making the right decisions of what to say and do.  These aren’t clearly discriminated, but it’s a coarse description.

Of course, there’s an introduction that both emotionally and cognitively prepares the learner for the coming learning experience.

So for conceptual tasks, what we’re looking to do is drive learning to content.  In typical  approaches, you’d be presenting conceptual information (e.g. ‘click to see more‘) and maybe asking quiz questions.  Here, I’m looking to make the task of processing the information to generate  something,  whether a document, presentation, or whatever,  and that the processing is close to the way the information will be used.  So they might create a guide for decisions (e.g. a decision tree), or a checklist, or something that requires them to use the information. (And if the information doesn’t support doing, it’s probably not necessary.)  As support, in a recent conversation I heard that interviewed organizations said that making better decisions were the keys to better job performance.

Whereas in the procedural approach, we really want to give them practice in the task. It may be scaffolded, e.g. simplified, but it’s the same  practice that they’ll need to be able to perform after the learning experience. Ideally, they’ll have to explore and use content resources to figure out how to do it appropriate, in a guided exploration sense, rather than just be given the steps.

In both  cases, models are key to helping them determine what needs to happen.  Also in both cases, an instructor should be reviewing their output. In the conceptual case, learners might get feedback on their output, and have a chance to revise their creation.  In the case of the practice, the experience is likely a simulation, and the learner should be getting feedback about their success.  In either case, the instructor has information about how the cohort is doing.  So…

…for in-class learning, the learners should be reflecting on their performances, and the instructor should be facilitating that at the beginning, using the information about what’s working (and not).  Then there should be additional activities that the learners engage in that require them interacting with the material, processing (conceptual) or applying (procedural) it with each other and then with facilitated reflection.

Finally, the learners after class should be getting given elaborative activities.  In the case of the conceptual task, coming up with an elaborated version or some additional element that helps cement the learning would be valuable.  The practice or activity should get fleshed out to the point where the learner will be capable of appropriately acting after the learning experience, owing to sufficient practice and appropriate decontextualization. The goal is for retention over time and transfer to all appropriate situations.

Am I making sense here?

A while ago, I argued for an activity-based curriculum.  The point was to rebel against the usual content-based curriculum, and push us to more meaningful learning. And, of late, I’ve had a chance to reexamine both the curriculum ideas,  and the pedagogical implications.

So I’ve been in a situation where I’ve been handed a curriculum already developed, and the content is already being fleshed out. In trying to move beyond good, albeit  traditional, elearning, I’ve been working hard on the notion of what a meaningful activity (read: practice, task, etc) would be.  As context, we’re working here within a pre-class, in-class, and post-class model.

As a consequence, I’m pushing an alternative to what would be content presentation pre-class, practice and group discussion in-class, and simulation and summary assessment  as post-class.  While this is not too far from traditional blended learning, I’m also trying to get better alignment with what learners will be doing  after the learning experience with sufficient practice.

So for each module, I’m looking for a meaningful practice.  For even a knowledge based task, I’m asking learners to develop something that requires them to integrate the knowledge, not just present and test.  And revisit the knowledge several times.  So, for example, if learners are  looking at types of hacking attacks, I ask them to create a defense plan as a pre-class task.  They’ll get a chance to self-evaluate, and instructor feedback, before generating a second attempt.  In many ways, it doesn’t matter what they create as long as they’re making a suitably sincere effort, it’s the processing that matters.

A colleague asked whether this meant that they’d always generate a product of learning, and my preliminary answer was yes, and then I realized that there was another way to view it. It could also be the trace of the learner in a simulation, but in some sense that’s a product as well.  The important point is to have learners perform and create an output of that performance as a manifestation of their thinking.  It’s not taking knowledge tests (if it absolutely has to be known cold ‘in the head’, you’ve got the excuse for a tarted-up drill-and-kill, but make sure it absolutely does), but processing information in meaningful ways.

In-class, they’ll still be doing practice and reflection, but they should be processing and/or practicing. For example, discussing and comparing the guides, and maybe then an activity that refreshes their knowledge of the attacks.  The team came up with a game that has one side giving hints about an attack, and the other side trying to guess it.

After class, it’s more elaborated practice. For instance,  they might be implementing their defenses in a sim, or refining their attacks, or…  The activities need to reinforce and build, reactivating and reapplying the knowledge in ways that mimic how it will be used in the performance context so that practice is both meaningful and spaced.

I’m still working within the existing paradigm, but the work I’m inspired by is the work of Roger Schank and his team at Socratic Arts, where they’re rethinking the curriculum more comprehensively, where they get the subject matter experts (SMEs) to sit down and come up with a series of activities that  are the curriculum. This is what I intended, but at this point I’m still working within an already underway curriculum. Even this small change will be better learning, and we will get to the curriculum as well ;).

Having found a fun site of bad UX design, someone else followed me who had the UX Drinking Game site.  And it made me think maybe we need an LX Drinking Game.  So I started tweeting out some drinking game rules. I encourage you to join in with the hashtag #LXDrinkingGame.

So, my first list of ‘drink’ cues is:

if they ask for a pre-test/post-test design

if the alternatives to the right answer are so silly or obvious that you don‘t need to know anything

if the course objectives are ‘know‘ or ‘understand‘

if someone says ‘use a click to see more‘

if someone says, use an avatar because people like it

if someone comes in and says “we need a course for this”

if someone dumps PDFs and/or PPTs on you and expects a course in a few days

if all they‘re measuring is cost/time/seat

So, what other rules do we need?  Tweets (again, #LXDrinkingGame) or comments welcome ;).