Jon Landau gave an inspiring keynote about the need to focus on the experience, and innovate to bring those visions to fruition, driving tech versus the other way around.
Learning There
A respected colleague recently suggested Andy Clark’s Being There as a read to characterize the new views of cognition, so I checked it out. The book covers the new emerging views of cognition, grounded in the connectionist revolution and incorporating a wide variety of neural and robotic studies. The interesting thing to me are the implications for learning and instruction.
The book makes the case that the way we think is not only heavily tied to our contexts, but that we co-construct the world in ways that affect our thinking in profound ways. Studies across economic behavior, animal cognition, simulation studies, and more are integrated to make the point that they way we think is very different than the models of conscious minds sitting in meat vehicles. Instead, we’re very driven from below and outside, and our conscious thinking is rare, hard, and language based. Moreover, the constructs we create to think affect our thinking, making it easier. We automate much not only through learning, but we externalize. And, our representations and understanding are very much constructed ‘on the fly’ in each new situations, as opposed to existing abstract and robust.
This isn’t easy reading. Clark is a philosopher of mind, and covers much complex research and deep neuroscience. The emergent picture, however, is of a mind very different than the cognitivist model. I’m grateful that while I pursued my PhD in Cog Psych, the research going on in our co-shared lab by Rumelhart and McClelland on connectionist networks sensitized me to this viewpoint, and Hutchins work on Cognition in the Wild was similarly taking place at the same time. Despite the challenge, there are important reasons to get our minds around this way of thinking.
The notion that providing abstract knowledge will lead to any meaningful outcome has already pretty much been debunked both empirically and theoretically. What these models seem to suggest is that what can and will work is deep scaffolded practice and guided reflection, based upon a situated cognition. For other reasons, this is the model that Collins and Brown had in Cognitive Apprenticeship, and now we’ve a more solid philosophical basis for it. (I also think that there are rejoinders to Kirschner, Sweller, & Clark, and Anderson, Reder, & Simon; discussing how language, including writing, is social, and that iterations between abstract models and meaningful practice is guided reflection.)
This model suggests that language is our differentiator, and that much of our higher level cognition is mediated through language. There’s a reason consciousness feels like a dialog. Much of our processing is beneath consciousness, and things we monitor and develop through language become compiled away inaccessible to language.
The point, to me, is that the activity-based learning model I’ve proposed has both bottom up grounding in new cognitive models, theoretical framing from anchored instruction and social constructivism, as well as empirical validity from apprenticeships and work-place learning. We need to start aligning our learning design to the cognitive realities.
Push the envelope further
When I run my game design workshop, one of the things I advocate is exaggeration. And you need to take this to heart in two ways: one is why it’s important, and the other is how to get away with it. That is, if you want learning to be as effective as possible.
When individuals perform in the real world, they’re motivated. There are consequences for failure, and rewards (tangible or not) for success. Yet in the learning experience, if we try to make it as real as possible, those motivations aren’t likely to be there. We want it to be safe to fail, so there aren’t quite the same consequences. How do we make it closer to the real context, to maximize transfer? Exaggerate the circumstances:
- You’re not working on a patient, you’re working to save the ambassador’s daughter
- You’re not just making a deal, you’re making the deal that the business is going to need to keep from going into receivership
- You’re not just designing a networking solution, you’re designing one to support the communications for the rebels overthrowing the oppressive regime
You get the idea. You have to avoid stereotypes, and it’s a delicate dance to make it something that the learners will not dismiss but buy as more interesting than if you played it straight. Still, it’s worth the effort. And testing’s a good idea ;).
You want these exaggerations not just for task-based motivation, but you also want to make it more meaningful to the learner. Tap into not only the right application of the decision in context, but also a context learners will care about.
How do you get away with this? You know that you’re going to get reined in, stakeholders are always so precious about their content (“you can’t be flip about X!”). So go further than you think you’ll get away with. You’ll get reined in, but then you’ll still end up at a reasonable place.
For example, we were doing a learning experience about using web tools, and learners were going to create a web site. If you want youth to do it, we could’ve gone in different directions: a site for some environmental need, or for a subversive organization. In this case, we decided it would be plausible (larger context was a design agency) to do a client band.
If we’d said rock band, we’d be reined back to a pop band. Instead, we chose Goth Polka (and were surprised to find that it exists), and had a band name of the Death Kloggerz (in appropriate font). The client reined us in, because Death was too far for them to countenance, so we ended up with the Dark Kloggerz. Still, we got to keep in the odd elements that we felt were appropriate to keep it from being too banal.
The stakeholders will rein you in, but fight for the extreme. Your learners will thank you.
Focus on ‘do’
I’ve been working on a project where we’re reviewing the curriculum before we design the learning outcome. The level of detail is admirable: courses are defined by objectives, which then drive learning objectives, from which are extracted key concepts to present. And I’m finding one approach that’s making this go really well.
There are problems with the existing content. Some of the learning objectives are too specific, leading to an interpretation that won’t lead to transfer beyond the classroom. Some of the coverage in objectives or concepts is biased, so some topics are not covered enough, and others too much. Some of the learning objectives are focused on tasks that were clearly designed to incite learner interest, but not in an intrinsic way. And I’m not a domain expert, but I can still apply enough real world knowledge to make this determination (and we’ll review with SMEs).
What’s providing a very useful lever in identifying these gaps, even prior to remedying them, is a rabid focus on ‘do‘. That is: “what will the learner be able to do with this after the class”. Implied are two things: 1) that the learner will care about , and 2) that will let them have an impact somewhere.
This focus is letting me see that some things are so specific that they won’t generalize anywhere interesting; to identify that some of the goals are not really relevant anywhere else (e.g. a focus on ‘celebrity’ examples). That the coverage is spotty and some topics that have applicability have been skipped.
Such a focus will, I think, help in the discussions with the SMEs, and provide a way to work with them to get good outcomes for the learning and the learners. It’s a learning-centered approach (I think that’s a better phrase than learner-centric) that helps us meet the client’s goals in ways they understand.
What do you think?
The third goal of learning
I’ve regularly told workshop and talk attendees that our learning goals are twofold. It may be time to amend that.
Formally, our goals for learning interventions should be retention over time until needed and transfer to all appropriate situations (and no inappropriate ones). And these are important goals. If the learning’s atrophied by the time it’s needed, it’s of no use. If we don’t activate the learning in all relevant situations, we’re missing opportunities.
But it occurred to me there may be more. I was working with a group developing a certification in a particular area, based upon their wildly successful workshops. One of the outcomes they talked about, in an endeavor that occurs with a very high amount of stress, was that one of their outcomes was confidence on the part of the attendees.
It struck me that confidence on the part of the learner is very much a desirable, maybe even necessary outcome of any really successful learning. I regularly talk about the importance of the emotional component of successful learning: supporting motivation and reducing anxiety, and working to create a trajectory of building confidence. That confidence should be an outcome as well.
Too often we practice until we get it right, instead of until we can’t get it wrong. Add to that the learner knowing they’re fully capable of performing right, and we’re there’re. We have to continue to address the emotional side of the equation as well as the cognitive. It’s part of experience design. (And, now, I’ve got to go change my presentations ;)
Beyond eBooks
Among the things I’ve been doing lately is talking to folks who’ve got content and are thinking about the opportunities beyond books. This is a good thing, but I think it’s time to think even further. Because, frankly, the ebook formats are still too limited.
It’s no longer about the content, it’s about the experience. Just putting your content onto the web or digital devices isn’t a learning solution, it’s an information solution. So I’m suggesting transcending putting your content online for digital, and starting to think about the opportunities to leverage what technology can do. It started with those companion sites, with digital images, videos, audios, and interactives that accompany textbooks, but the opportunities go further.
We can now embed the digital media within ebooks. Why ebooks, not on the web? I think it’s primarily about the ergonomics. I just find it challenging to read on screen. I want to curl up with a book, getting comfortable.
However, we can’t quite do what I want with ebooks. Yes, we can put in richer images, digital audio, and video. The interactives part is still a barrier, however. The ebook standards don’t yet support it, though they could. Apple’s expanded the ePub format with the ability to do quick knowledge checks (e.g. true/false or multiple choice questions). There’s nothing wrong with this, as far as it goes, but I want to go further.
I know a few, and sure that there are more than a few, organizations that are experimenting with a new specification for ePub that supports richer interaction, more specifically pretty much anything you can do with HTML 5. This is cool, and potentially really important.
Let me give you a mental vision of what could be on tap. There’s an app for iOS and Android called Imaginary Range. It’s an interesting hybrid between a graphic novel and a game. You read through several pages of story, and then there’s an embedded game you play that’s tied to, and advances, the story.
Imagine putting that into play for learning: you read a graphic novel that’s about something interesting and/or important, and then there’s a simulation game embedded where you have to practice the skills. While there’s still the problem with a limited interpretation of what’s presented (ala the non-connectionist MOOCs), in well-defined domains these could be rich. Wrapping a dialog capability around the ebook, which is another interesting opportunity, only adds to the learning opportunity.
I’ll admit that I think this is not really mobile in the sense of running on a pocketable, but instead it’s a tablet proposition. Still, I think there’s real value to be found.
Transcending Experience Design
Last week’s #lrnchat touched on an important topic, experience design. I’ve talked about this before, but it’s worth taking several different cuts through it. The one I want to pursue here is the notion of transformative experience design.
A number of years ago, now, Pine & Gilmore released a book talking about an Experience Economy. In it, they posited that we’d gone from the agricultural economy, through a product and service economy, to what they termed an ‘experience economy’: where people paid for quality experiences. You can see this in themed cruises & restaurants, Apple’s product strategy, Disney, etc. I think it’s a compelling argument, but what really struck me was their next step. They argued that what was due next was a ‘transformation economy’, where people paid for experiences that change them (in ways that they desire or value).
And I argue that that’s what my book Engaging Learning was all about, how to create serious games, which really are experiences with an end in sight. The point here is not to tout the book, but instead to tout that a meld of experience design and learning design, learning experience design, is the path to this end.
There are things about experience design that instructional design largely ignores: emotion, multiple senses, extended engagement. While I feel that not enough has been written systematically about experience design (interface design yes, but not the total cross-media picture, e.g. Disney’s Imagineering), their intuitive approaches acknowledge recognizing the ebb and flow of emotions – motivation, anxiety – and beliefs about one’s role (epistemology, there I said it).
On the other hand, learning design is (properly done) grounded in cognitive science, with empirical results, but is incomplete in breadth. We know what we do, but our view is so limited!
Together, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It’s about thinking beyond content, it’s about contextualizing, designing to “bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses”. Really, it’s about creating a magic experience that transcends content and truly is transformative. Are you ready to take that next step?
Learning Design isn’t for the wimpy
I’ve had my head down on a major project, a bunch of upcoming speaking engagements, some writing I’ve agreed to do, and…(hence the relative paucity of blog posts). That project, however, has been interesting for a variety of reasons, and one really is worth sharing: ID isn’t easy. We’ve been given some content, and it’s not just about being good little IDs and taking what they give us and designing instruction from it. We could do it, but it would be a disaster (in this case, that’s what we’re working from, a too-rote too-knowledge-dump course). And it’s too often what I’ve seen done, and it’s wrong.
SMEs don’t know how they do what they do. Part of the process of becoming expert is compiling away the underlying thinking that goes on, so it moves from conscious to subconscious. So when the time comes to work with SMEs about what’s needed, they a) make up stories about what they do, or b) resort to what they’ve learned (e.g. knowledge). It’s up to the ID to push back and unpack the models that guide performance. Yet that’s hard, particularly when they’re not domain experts, and SMEs have issues.
It takes a fair bit of common sense (remarkable by how uncommon it is), and willingness to continually reframe what the expert says and twist it until it’s focused on how they make decisions. There’re formal processes call Cognitive Task Analysis when you need them, but a ‘discount CTA’ approach (analogous to Nielsen’s ‘discount usability‘) would be appropriate in many cases.Such an approach includes getting some really good examples of both successes and failures of the task under consideration, and working hard to extract the principles that guide success. But SMEs can’t be order takers; they have to be willing to fight to understand what decisions do learners need to make that they can’t make now, and how to make those decisions.
It really helps to either have a deep background in the field, or a broad background. You can get the former by teaching ID to a SME, or having an ID work in a particular field for a long time. The latter works if you’re more in the ‘gun for hire’ mode. You then need, however, a broad knowledge that you can draw upon to make some reasonable inferences. That’s what I typically do, as my deep expertise is in learning design, but fortunately I’m eternally curious (used to lie on the floor with a volume of the World Book spread out in front of me). Model-based and systems thinking help immensely.
You really have to work hard, use your brain, draw upon real world knowledge and go to the mat with the material. If you’re not willing to do this, you’re not cut out to be a learning designer. There’s much more, understanding the way we learn, experience design, and more, but this is part of the full picture.
Bob Mosher Keynote Mindmap #PSS12
Bob Mosher opened the Performance Support Symposium with a passionate keynote about Performance Support. It strongly made the case for a blended approach, which I support. As with mobile, the time is definitely now.
HyperCard reflections #hypercard25th
It’s coming up to the 25th anniversary of HyperCard, and I’m reminded of how much that application played a role in my thinking and working at the time. Developed by Bill Atkinson, it was really ‘programming for the masses’, a tool for the Macintosh that allowed folks to easily build simple, and even complex, applications. I’d programmed in other environments : Algol, Pascal, Basic, Forth, and even a little Lisp, but this was a major step forward in simplicity and power.
A colleague of mine who was working at Claris suggested how cool this new tool was going to be, and I taught myself HyperCard while doing a postdoc at the University of Pittsburgh’s Learning Research and Development Center. I used it to prototype my ideas of a learning tool we could use for our research on children’s mental models of science. I then used it to program a game based upon my PhD research, embedding analogical reasoning puzzles into a game (Voodoo Adventure; see screenshot). I wrote it up and got it published as an investigation how games could be used as cognitive research tools. To little attention, back in ’91 :).
While teaching HCI, I had my students use HyperCard to develop their interface solutions to my assignments. The intention was to allow them to focus more on design and less on syntax. I also reflected on how the interface encapsulated to some degree on what Andi diSessa called ‘incremental advantage’, a property of an environment that rewarded greater investments in understanding with greater power to control the system. HyperCard’s buttons, fields, and backgrounds provided this, up until the next step to HyperTalk (which also had that capability once you got into the programming notion). I also proposed that such an environment could support ‘discoverability’ (a concept I learned from Jean Marc Robert), where an environment could support experimentation to learn to use it in steady ways. Another paper resulted.
I also used HyperCard to develop applications in my research. We used it to develop Quest for Independence, a game that helped kids who grew up without parents (e.g. foster care) learn to survive on their own. Similarly, we developed a HCI performance support tool. Both of these later got ported to the web as soon as CGI’s came out that let the web retain state (you can still play Quest; as far as I know it was the first serious game you could play on the web).
The other ways HyperCard were used are well known (e.g. Myst), but it was a powerful tool for me personally, and I still miss having an easy environment for prototyping. I don’t program anymore (I add value other ways), but I still remember it fondly, and would love to have it running on my iPad as well! Kudos to Bill and Apple for creating and releasing it; a shame it was eventually killed through neglect.