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New recommended readings

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My Near Book ShelfOf late, I‘ve been reading quite a lot, and I‘m finding some very interesting books. Not all have immediate take homes, but I want to introduce a few to you with some notes. Not all will be relevant, but all are interesting and even important. I‘ll also update my list of recommended readings. So here are my new recommended readings. (With Amazon Associates links: support your friendly neighborhood consultants.)

First, of course, I have to point out my own Learning Science for Instructional Designers. A self-serving pitch confounded with an overload of self-importance? Let me explain. I am perhaps overly confident that it does what it says, but others have said nice things. I really did design it to be the absolute minimum reading that you need to have a scrutable foundation for your choices. Whether it succeeds is an open question, so check out some of what others are saying. As to self-serving, unless you write an absolute mass best-seller, the money you make off books is trivial. In my experience, you make more money giving it away to potential clients as a better business card than you do on sales. The typically few hundred dollars I get a year for each book aren‘t going to solve my financial woes! Instead, it‘s just part of my campaign to improve our practices.

So, the first book I want to recommend is Annie Murphy Paul‘s The Extended Mind. She writes about new facets of cognition that open up a whole area for our understanding. Written by a journalist, it is compelling reading. Backed in science, it’s valuable as well. In the areas I know and have talked about, e.g. emergent and distributed cognition, she gets it right, which leads me to believe the rest is similarly spot on. (Also her previous track record; I mind-mapped her talk on learning myths at a Learning Solutions conference). Well-illustrated with examples and research, she covers embodied cognition, situated cognition, and socially distributed cognition, all important. Moreover, there‘re solid implications for the redesign of instruction. I‘ll be writing a full review later, but here‘s an initial recommendation on an important and interesting read.  

I‘ll also alert you to Tania Luna‘s and LeeAnn Renninger‘s Surprise. This is an interesting and fun book that instead of focusing on learning effectiveness, looks at the engagement side. As their subtitle suggests, it‘s about how to Embrace the Unpredictable and Engineer the Unexpected. While the first bit of that is useful personally, it‘s the latter that provides lots of guidance about how to take our learning from events to experiences. Using solid research on what makes experiences memorable (hint: surprise!) and illustrative anecdotes, they point out systematic steps that can be used to improve outcomes. It‘s going to affect my Make It Meaningful  work!

Then, without too many direct implications, but intrinsically interesting is Lisa Feldman Barrett‘s How Emotions Are Made. Recommended to me, this book is more for the cog sci groupie, but it does a couple of interesting things. First, it creates a more detailed yet still accessible explanation of the implications of Karl Friston‘s Free Energy Theory. Barrett talks about how those predictions are working constantly and at many levels in a way that provides some insights. Second, she then uses that framework to debunk the existing models of emotions. The experiments with people recognizing facial expressions of emotion get explained in a way that makes clear that emotions are not the fundamental elements we think they are. Instead, emotions social constructs! Which undermines, BTW, all the facial recognition of emotion work.

I also was pointed to Tim Harford‘s The Data Detective, and I do think it‘s a well done work about how to interpret statistical claims. It didn‘t grip me quite as viscerally as the afore-mentioned books, but I think that‘s because I (over-)trust my background in data and statistics. It is a really well done read about some simple but useful rules for how to be a more careful reviewer of statistical claims. While focused on parsing the broader picture of societal claims (and social media hype), it is relevant to evaluating learning science as well.  

I hope you find my new recommended readings of interest and value. Now, what are you recommending to me? (He says, with great trepidation. ;)

The case for model answers (and a rubric)

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Human body modelAs I‘ve been developing online workshops, I‘ve been thinking more about the type of assessment I want. Previously, I made the case for gated submissions. Now I find another type of interaction I‘d like to have. So here‘s the case for model answers (and a rubric).

As context, many moons ago we developed a course on speaking to the media. This was based upon the excellent work of the principals of Media Skills, and was a case study in my  Engaging Learning book. They had been running a face to face course, and rather than write a book, they wondered if something else could be done. I was part of a new media consortium, and was partnered with an experienced CD ROM developer to create an asynchronous elearning course.  

Their workshop culminated in a live interview with a journalist. We couldn‘t do that, but we wanted to prepare people to succeed at that as an optional extra next step. Given that this is something people really fear (apocryphally more than death), we needed a good approximation. Along with a steady series of exercises going from recognizing a good media quote, and compiling one, we wanted learners to have to respond live. How could we do this?

Fortunately, our tech guy came up with the idea of a programmable answering machine. Through a series of menus, you would drill down to someone asking you a question, and then record an answer. We had two levels: one where you knew the questions in advance, and the final test was one where you‘d have a story and details, but you had to respond to unanticipated questions.  

This was good practice, but how to provide feedback? Ultimately, we allowed learners to record their answers, then listen to their answers and a model answer. What I‘d add now would be a rubric to compare your answer to the model answer, to support self-evaluation. (And, of course, we’d now do it digitally in the environment, not needing the machine.)

So that‘s what I‘m looking for again. I don‘t need verbal answers, but I do want free-form responses, not multiple-choice. I want learners to be able to self-generate their own thoughts. That‘s hard to auto-evaluate. Yes, we could do whatever the modern equivalent to Latent Semantic Analysis is, and train up a system to analyze and respond to their remarks. However, a) I‘m doing this on my own, and b) we underestimate, and underuse, the power of learners to self-evaluate.  

Thus, I‘m positing a two stage experience. First, there‘s a question that learners respond to. Ideally, paragraph size, though their response is likely to be longer than the model one; I tend to write densely (because I am). Then, they see their answer, a model answer, and a self-evaluation rubric.  

I‘ll suggest that there‘s a particular benefit to learners‘ self-evaluating. In the process (particularly with specific support in terms of a mnemonic or graphic model), learners can internalize the framework to guide their performance. Further, they can internalize using the framework and monitoring their application to become self-improving learners.

This is on top of providing the ability to respond in richer ways that picking an option out of those provided. It requires a freeform response, closer to what likely will be required after the learning experience. That‘s similar to what I‘m looking for from the gated response, but the latter expects peers and/or instructors to weigh in with feedback, where as here the learner is responsible for evaluating. That‘s a more complex task, but also very worthwhile if carefully scaffolded.  

Of course, it‘d also be ideal if an instructor is monitoring the response to look for any patterns, but that‘s outside the learners‘ response. So that‘s the case for model answers. So, what say you? And is that supported anywhere or in any way you know?

How to be an elearning expert

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I was asked (and have been a time or two before): “What’s the one most important thing you’d like to tell to be successful Ed Tech industry leader” Of course there wasn‘t just one ;). Still, looking at colleagues who I think fit that characterization, I find some commonalities that are worth sharing. So here‘s one take on how to be an elearning expert.

Let‘s start with that ‘one thing‘.   Which is challenging, since it‘s more than one thing! Still, I boiled it down into two components: know your stuff, and let people know.   That really is the core. So let‘s unpack that some more.   The first thing is to establish credibility. Which means demonstrating that you track and promote the right stuff.  

Some folks have created a model that they tout. Cathy Moore has Action Mapping, Harold Jarche has PKM, Con Gottfredson has the 5 moments of need, and so on.   It‘s good having a model, if it‘s a good, useful one (there are people who push models that are hype or ill-conceived at best). Note that it‘s not necessarily the case that these folks are just known for this model, and most of these folks can talk knowledgeably about much more, but ‘owning‘ a model that is useful is a great place to be. (I occasionally regret that I haven‘t done a good job of branding my models.) They understand their model and its contribution, it‘s a useful one, and therefore they contribute validly that way and are rightly recognized.

Another approach like this is owning a particular domain. Whether gaming (e.g. Karl Kapp), visuals (Connie Malamed), design (Michael Allen), mixed realities (Ann Rollins), AI (Donald Clark), informal (Jane Hart), evaluation (Will Thalheimer), management (Matt Richter), and so on, they have deep experience and a great conceptual grasp in a particular area. Again, they can and do speak outside this area, but when they talk about these topics in particular, what they say is worthy of your attention!

Then there are other folks who don‘t necessarily have a single model, but instead reliably represent good science. Julie Dirksen, Patti Shank, Jane Bozarth, Mirjam Neelen, and others  have established a reputation for knowing the learning science and interpreting it in accurate, comprehensible, and useful ways.  

The second point is that these folks write and talk about their models and/or approaches. They‘re out there, communicating. It‘s about reliably saying the important things again and again (always with a new twist). A reputation doesn‘t just emerge whole-cloth, it‘s built step by step. They also practice what they preach, and have done the work so they can talk about it. They talk the talk and walk the walk. Further, you can check what they say.  

So how to start? There are two clear implications. Obviously, you have to Know. Your. Stuff! Know learning, know design, know engagement, know tech. Further, know what it means in practice!   You can focus deeply in one area, or generate one useful and new model, or have a broad background, but it can‘t just be in one thing. It‘s not just all your health content for one provider. What you‘re presenting needs to be representative and transferable.  Further, you need to keep up to date, so that means continually learning: reading, watching, listening.

Second, it‘s about sharing. Writing and speaking are the two obvious ways. Sure, you can host a channel: podcast, vlog, blog, but if you‘re hosting other folks, you‘re seen as well connected but not necessarily as the expert. Further, I reckon you have to be able to write and speak (and pretty much all of these folks do both well).   So, start by speaking at small events, and get feedback to improve. Study good presentation style. Then start submitting for events like the Learning Guild, ATD, or LDA (caveats on all of these owing to various relationships, but I think they‘re all scrutable). I once wrote about how to read and write proposals, and I think my guidance is still valid.

Similarly, write. Learning Solutions or eLearn Mag are two places to put stuff that‘s sensibly rigorous but written for practitioners.   Take feedback to heart, and deliberately improve. Make sure you‘re presenting value, not pitching anything. What conferences and magazines say about not selling, that your clear approach is what sells, is absolutely true.  

Also, make sure that you have a unique ‘voice’. No one needs the same things others are saying, at least in the same way. Have a perspective, your own take. Your brand is not only what you say, but how you say it.

A related comment: track some related fields. Most of the folks I think of as experts have some other area they draw inspiration from. UX/UI, anthropology, software engineering, there are many fields and finding useful insight from a related one is useful to the field and keeps you fresh.

Oh, one other thing. You have to have integrity. People have to be able to trust what you say. If you push something for which you have a private benefit, or something that‘s trendy but not real, you will lose whatever careful credibility you‘ve built up. Don‘t squander it!  

So that‘s my take on how to be an elearning expert. So, what have I missed?

What about books | conferences?

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Responding to a frequent question  yet again, I decided to post an answer to the “what about books | conferences?” question.

And, as usual, the transcript.

Once again, after talking about how learning requires meaningful practice, I was asked the seemingly timeless question: “but what about books” Similarly, I regularly get “what about conferences”   So, for the record, let me say when and why books and lectures make sense. And when not. Hopefully I won‘t have to answer another “what about books | conferences” question.

To start, learning is action and reflection. That is, learning ‘outside‘ formal instruction. We act in the world and reflect on it to cement the lesson. It‘s slightly more complicated, because certain things, e.g. Geary‘s biologically primary things, may not really need reflection. Further some things may be really challenging to learn on your own even with reflection. But basically, doing things and reflecting (which can be reading, experimenting, writing/representing), etc is the way we learn on our own.  

Which, as I‘ve argued before, suggests that instruction  be designed action and guided reflection. That is, instructors should be choosing meaningful activities and scaffolding reflection around it. When we‘re designing for novices [link], in particular, when the learner doesn‘t know what‘s important nor why, we need to do the whole enchilada (darn, now I‘m hungry).

Which also means that when we‘ve segued beyond novice to practitioner (and beyond), we begin to know what‘s important and why, and we just need it. We want resources that can fill in the gaps. We want support for reflection.

So now we can explain why we can attend conferences, read books and articles, and the like. When we‘re deeply engaged in something, whether work or a passion, reading a book, listening to someone tell their story, and the like, serves as the necessary adjunct to our activity! They provide the complement to our own endeavors; the reflection to our action!

Now, hopefully, we‘ll never again need to discuss this. Realistically, we can point people here when we‘ get “what about books | conferences”? At least, that‘s my story, what‘s yours?  

Book hiccups

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As much as writing books is something I do (and I’m immodestly proud of the outcomes), they don’t always come out the way I expect. And that turns out to be true for almost every one!  So here, for the record and hopefully as both mea culpas and lessons learned, are my book hiccups. And you really don’t have to read this, unless you want some things to check for.

After my first book,  Engaging Learning, came out, someone asked me “how do I know it’s really your book?” He had a valid point, because while there was a bio, there was no picture of me. Somehow, I just expected it (and if memory serves, they’d asked for one). Yet it didn’t appear on the dust jacket nor on the author page. In fact, the only Wiley book that  did have my picture ended up being the next one.

Shortly after my next book came out,  Designing mLearning,  I got an email asking for clarification. The correspondent pointed to a particular diagram, and asked what I meant. It turns out, in editing (they’d outsourced it, I understand), someone had reversed the meaning of a caption for a diagram! Worse, I hadn’t caught it. At this time I can no longer find what it was, but it was an unhappy experience.

For my third book,  The Mobile Academy, I asked my friend and colleague John Ittelson to write the preface. And somehow, it wasn’t in the initial printing!  That was a sad oversight, but fortunately they remedied it very quickly.

I had been upset by how expensive the first two books were. Consequently, I was pleased to find out that my fourth,  Revolutionize  Learning & Development, that I really wanted to see do well, was priced much more reasonably. Of course, then I found out why; it was made with paper that wasn’t of the best quality. At least it’s affordable, and I continue to hear from people who have found it useful.

I’m happy to say that the next one,  Millennials, Goldfish & Other Training Misconceptions  has been hiccup free. After switching to ATD Press (they’d been a co-publisher of the previous book), they did a great job with the design, taking my notion of humorous sketches for each topic and executing against it graphically. It’s been well-recognized.

Unfortunately, as I just found out after getting my mitts on the most recent one,  Learning Science for Instructional Designers,  two of the four blurbs I solicited from esteemed colleagues don’t show up in the book!  They do show up on the ATD site, at least (and of course they’re on my own page for the book). I didn’t get a copy of the back cover beforehand, so I couldn’t have checked. My apologies to them. I checked, and it turns out having to do with a space issue because of book formatting. 🤷  Other than that, I’m  as  happy with this book as the last (that is, really happy)!

I can say that I’ve always tried to write in a way that focuses on the aspects that relate to our mental architecture. The goal is that as the technology changes, the implications are still appropriate. Our brains aren’t changing as fast at the tech! I guess I’m just not ready to accept planned obsolescence, so I’m keeping them available.

So there you have it, the book hiccups that can come with publishing. If you’ve made it this far, at least I hope you have some more things to check to make sure your books come out as good as possible.

 

How I write

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I’d queued up this topic for a post, and then a conversation with a friend and colleague moved it to the front. We were talking about our process, and he pointed me to an article that nicely catalyzed my thinking. So here’s a brief post about how I write my books (written, of course).

The article my friend pointed me to was titled: “The Simple Way To Outline A Nonfiction Book”, and it’s nicely resonant, and a bit deeper, than my own approach. If you’re thinking about writing a book, I think this is very good advice. And the author even provides a template to get you started. And you should be thinking about writing. It does a couple of things: it forces you to think through your topic, and if it comes to fruition, it gives you some collateral. Be aware: the advice I’ve found to be true is that you make more money giving the book away. It’s a better business card!

So what the article suggests, and what aligns with what I do, is outline. That is, I outline the whole book. He suggests first doing the table of contents, generating your chapters first, then elaborating each. I do a bit more, creating a multi-level outline (often as much as up to five levels, though the innermost level often is just notes to myself what I’ll put in that section). However, this isn’t a one pass thing, it’s iterative. I’ll revisit it a time or two beforehand, and then as I write sometimes I restructure.

Which is why I need industrial strength outlining in my writing package. I want to be able to manipulate the whole document, moving sections. Which is why I use Microsoft Word, I just haven’t found that Pages can do it. Similarly, Google Docs is too awkward, and I never got my mind around Scrivener.

From there, he has a template for chapters as well. It reflects what I’ve seen in many non-fiction books, starting the chapter with a story that sets up the topic. I haven’t been able to get that formulaic, but it might be better!  I tend to write to the outline, but I’m not always telling a story to start, but I do try to set the stage with some interesting element.

Different books have emerged differently. My first,  Engaging Learning, on designing serious games, just flowed. Probably because I’d been thinking about the topic for over a decade… My second one,  Designing mLearning, was much more incremental. I’d write some, then think of something else to add up above, and then maybe a restructure of a bit, and continue, and add a bit more above, and… It was quite the effort to get to the end!  The others have varied.

My most recent effort (I’m working on a ‘Make it Meaningful’ text; how it manifests is still an open question) is an interesting case, since I’ve restructured it somewhat once already, and I think it needs a more major overhaul.  It’s partly that I’m still exploring (and people are lobbing interesting things my way). Also, it’s partly that in trying to incorporate some of my earlier stuff, I was inconsistent. It’s just that even with structure like an outline, you write in spurts, and they don’t always proceed smoothly.

Even in my more immediately forthcoming book,  Learning Science for Instructional Designers, I’d find  that I’d written about the same concept in two different places. While a text is linear, the ideas are interconnected, and can appear more than once in any path through. However, you have to choose one, and saying the same thing again is redundant.

By the way, some of that awareness comes after writing. I’ll admit that it’s an incredible ego crush to get back feedback from the editors: copy and proof. I feel stupid with all the (virtual) red ink I get! Yet, I also see how my writing changes from session to session, and having someone pull it together and point out some reliable flaws helps me improve. I completely value my editors, and am so grateful to them.

Your mileage may vary. If you don’t have a process and structure, however, you’ll struggle more than if you do. Recognize you’ll struggle, at first, and that you should allocate appropriate time. Also, each book is unique and will require its own flow, so also allocate time to discover that on subsequent efforts. Also recognize that even if you block off regular time slots to work, and set goals for those slots (and I don’t do either, by the way, I grab time when I can), you’ll still need to allocate time for revisions and even restructuring.

However, the real value is sharing your learnings. I’ve argued before that you should speak at conferences. If your ideas persist to create a coherent whole, you should consider putting them into book form. Further, if you’ve ambitions to stand out, it’s a useful way. So you should write. In your own way, of course. This is just how I write, but writing, I believe, is a good thing.

 

 

Buzzwords and Branding

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I was reflecting on a few things on terminology, buzzwords and branding in particular. And, as usual, learning out loud, here are my reflections.

The script:

So I’ve been known to take a bit of a blade to buzzwords (c.f. microlearning). And, I reckon there’s a distinction between vocabulary and hype. Further, I get the need for branding (and have been slack on my own part).  So, here I talk about buzzwords and branding.

First, vocabulary is important. I’m a stickler (I’m sure some would say pedantic ;) about conceptual clarity. We need to have clear language to distinguish between different concepts. (You shouldn’t say ‘cat’ when you mean ‘dog’, someone’s likely to get a wee bit confused!)

And, to be clear, there’s internal and external vocabulary. For instance, other people don’t really care about objectives, they just want outcomes. This internal vocabulary can be shortcuts, and help us minimize what we need to say to still communicate. Brevity is the soul of wit, after all.

And then there’s hype. The distinction, I reckon, is when we start tossing in buzzwords that are new, drawn from elsewhere, and promise great things. Adaptive and neuro- are two examples of buzzphrases that are open to interpretation but sound intriguing. Yet they require careful examination.

Then, there’s branding. You attach a label to something to identify it specifically. Harold Jarche’s Personal Knowledge Mastery (PKM), for instance, is a brand for a framework. So, too, would be Michael Allen’s SAM (Successive Approximation Model) and CCAF (Context-Challenge-Activity-Feedback). They’re ways to package up good ideas. And of course, t0 take ownership.

This latter step, I confess, I’ve failed on. The alignment in Engaging Learning and the different categories of mobile are two places I dropped the ball. I recently tried a brief attempt to remedy another, when I released the Performance Ecosystem Maturity Model.

I  do have the 4C’s of Mobile, but while that turns out to be useful, it’s not the most important characterization. In a conversation with someone the other day, he asked what I called the mobile framework I mentioned and he found useful. And I didn’t have an answer. I’ve talked about it before, but I didn’t label it. And yet it’s kind of the most important way to look at mobile! I use it as the organizing framework when I talk about mobile (really, the performance ecosystem):

  • Augmenting formal learning
  • Performance support (mobile’s natural niche)
  • Social (more the informal)
  • Contextual (mobile’s unique opportunity)

I wasn’t sure what to brand this, so for the moment it’s the Four Modes of mLearning (4M? 4MM?).

And for games, that alignment I mentioned I briefly termed the EEA: Effectiveness-Engagement Alignment. The point is that the elements that lead to effective education practice, and the ones that lead to engaging experiences, have a perfect alignment. It’s been a good basis for design for me. But, again, that labeling came more than a decade after the book first came out.

Ok, so I was counting on the ‘Quinnovation’ branding. And that’s worked, but it’s not quite enough to hang products on. So…I’m working on it. (And it may be that having ‘Learnlets’ separate from Quinnovation is another self-inflicted impediment!)

Still, I think it’s important to distinguish between buzzwords and branding. And they shouldn’t be the same (trademarking ‘microlearning’, anyone ;). Again, vocabulary is important, for clarity, not hype. And branding is good for attribution. But they’re not the same thing. Those are my thoughts, what are yours?

Flow, workflow, and learning

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On LinkedIn, a colleague asked “Why do people think that integrating content in the flow of work equals learning in the flow of work?” An apt question. My (flip) response was “because marketing”. And I think there’s a lot to that. But, a comment prompted me to think a little bit deeper, because ‘flow’ is its own meaningful concept and we need to be careful about meaning. So here are some reflections on flow, workflow, and learning.

The response that triggered my reflection was:

I can’t recall the last time I told someone that I was in the “flow” of work today and learned so much!!

Flow state(Which is pretty funny!) The comment was a bit pointed, but it made me think about being in the ‘flow’ state, and the relationship with learning. I’ve previously pointed out how Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow and Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development  (ZoPD) are essentially the same. If the difficulty is too far above your skill level, the experience is frustrating. If it’s too easy, it’s boring. And in between is the flow state, and where learning happens.

Now, when we’re in the ‘flow’ at work (which is different than being in the workflow), we’re performing optimally. And I’m not sure learning happens there. Similarly with the ZoPD. You’re working and I’m not sure learning happens  then. When I state that learning is action and reflection, I think reflection is a necessary component.

Now, the original complaint talked about learning in the workflow, and opined that content in the workflow won’t necessarily equal learning. Another comment pointed out what I believe is often conflated with “workflow learning”, and that’s performance support. There are lots of reasons that we might want content in the workflow to help us succeed, but it may have nothing to do with learning. If, indeed, learning is to happen, it might need some content, and feedback, and so actually break the flow!

Now, I also recognize that many times we’re in the flow of work, but not in the ‘flow’  zone. So, we could definitely be learning in the workflow. And it happens by deciding to look up the answer to some contextually relevant question. Or from a comment from a person. But it’s a bit different than being in the zone, and we’d like to be there in our work too!

And, I wonder whether Vygostky’s ZoPD really aligns with the Flow Zone, or if it needs to be coupled with some offline reflection. It’s certainly possible. Maybe the flow zone is a superset of the ZoPD. More to ponder.

There isn’t a real revelation here about flow, workflow, and learning, other than we have to keep our concepts straight. We need to recognize when we’re supporting performance, and when we’re learning. And we need to be clear about workflow, and being in the flow zone. And there may be more here to unpack. Thoughts?

 

Ritual

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I’ve talked before about the power of ritual, but while powerful, it also seemed piecemeal. That is, there were lots of hints, but not a coherent theory. That has now changed. I recently found a paper by Nicholas Hobson & colleagues (Schroeder, Risen, Xylagatas, & Inzlicht; warning, PDF) titled  The Psychology of Rituals  that creates an integrated framework. And while my take simplifies it down, I found it interesting.

At core, what the model suggests is that there are two components that are linked together. The first element are things that involve the senses. The second element are the semantics we’re looking to create allegiance and adherence too. And there are important elements about this relationship.

There are a number of elements that are on tap for involving the senses. Certain movements, sounds, and words said or to be spoken can be used. There can also be food, drink, smells, and more. Objects also. Timing is an element; at the micro level of things in order, and at the macro level of the triggers for the ritual.

Semantics come, of course, from your needs. It can be about things you want people to believe, or a set of values you want people to subscribe to. Or, of course, both. From the design purpose, I’d suggest it’s about agreeing to be a member of a community of practice; to undertake certain actions when appropriate, and to uphold certain values.

Interestingly, according to their model, the relationship between the two is effectively arbitrary. That is, there is no intrinsic relationship between what you’re signifying, and how you do so. Rituals are about the practices. Which means you could in theory do just about  anything to make the relationship.

The other thing is that the ritual has to be invariable in its aspects. You define it, and so do it. Note that the execution can vary considerably; from several times a day to upon certain triggering conditions. So, for instance, having completed a course, or before engaging in certain activities.

While such a definition gives us lots of freedom, it also doesn’t necessarily serve as a guide for design. Still, thinking about it in this way does suggest the utility in developing deeply held beliefs and appropriately practiced behaviors. At least, that’s how I see it. You?

What is wrong with (higher) education?

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I was having a conversation with a colleague, sparked by dropping enrollments in unis. Not surprisingly, we ended up talking about flaws in higher education. He suggested that they don’t get it, and I agreed. He was thinking that they get the tech, but not the learning. I think it’s more complex. There are those that get some parts of the learning right. Just not enough, and not all of it right. Thinking further, post-convo, it occurs to me that there is a layer beneath the surface that matters. So I want to consider what is wrong with higher education.

And, let’s be clear, I’m  not talking about the problems with tuition and administration. Yes, tuition’s risen faster than the cost of living. And yes, there’s little commercial pressure to keep universities free from the persistent creep of increasing administration. I saw an interesting article talking about how universities without a solid financial foundation,  and ones without a good value proposition, will perish. It’s the latter I’m talking about.

I previously mentioned the three pillars I think create a valid learning offer:

  • a  killer learning experience,
  • being a partner in your success
  • and developing you as an individual.

I suggest that all three are doable, but it occurred to me that there’s a bit more to unpack.

The ‘being a partner in your success’ bit is most frequently seen. Here, it’s about looking for signs of trouble and being proactive about reaching out and assisting. It’s not ‘sink or swim’, but recognizing there can be troubles and helping learners cope. The Predictive Analytics work that Ellen Wagner did is the type of opportunity we have here.

The ‘developing you as an individual’ is really building your more general skills: communicating, working with others, a positive attitude, knowing how to search, etc. And, of course, knowing how to continue to learn. Given the rate of change, most of what you learn as the core of a degree may well be out of date in short order!  But you can’t address these skills on their own, they’re specifically about how you do domain things.  And that’s a layer I’ve yet to see.

And the ‘killer learning experience’ is a second area where I think folks still aren’t doing well. My short (and admittedly cheeky) statement about education is that they’re wrong on two things, the curriculum and pedagogy, other than that they’re fine. Most universities aren’t doing a good job of curriculum, focusing on knowledge instead of skills. And some are moving in a good direction. Startups are addressing this area as well.

The other problem is the pedagogy. There’re two elements here: the learning design, and engagement. Too often, it’s still the ‘information dump and knowledge test’. But even when that’s right, making it truly meaningful for the learners is sadly neglected. Even professors who care often forget to put the ‘why’ into the syllabus.

In short, what is wrong with higher education is the ability to successfully execute on  all these points. (It’s true for other education, too, but…) I’ve seen efforts that address one, or two (and plenty that get none right). However, as of yet, I have not seen anyone doing it the way it could be done.  It’s doable, but not without some serious attention to not only the elements, but their successful integration. And it’s important enough that we should be doing it. At least, that’s what I think. So, what do  you think?