I’ve argued before that the differences between well-designed and well-produced learning, and just well-produced learning, are subtle. And, in general, nuances matter. So, in my recent book, the section on misconceptions spent a lot of time unpacking some terms. The goal there was ensuring that the nuances were understood. And a recent event triggered even more reflection on this.

Learnnovators, a company I’ve done a couple of things with (the Deeper eLearning series, and the Workplace of the Future project), interviewed me once quite a while ago. I was impressed then with the depth of their background research and thoughtful questions. And they recently asked to interview me on the book. Of course, I agreed. And again they impressed me with the depths of their questions, and I realized in this case there was something specific going on.

In their questions, they were unpacking what common concerns would be about some of the topics.  The questions dug in to ways in which people might think that the recommendations are contrary to personal experience, and more.  There were very specifically looking for ways in which folks might think to reject the findings.  And that’s important. I believe I had addressed most of them in the book, but it was worth revisiting them.

And that’s the thing that I think is important about this for our practice. We can’t just do the surface treatment. If we just say: “ok we need some content, and then let’s write a knowledge test on it”, we’ve let down our stakeholders.  If we don’t know the cognitive properties of the media we use, don’t sweat the details about feedback on assessment, don’t align the practice to the needed performance, etc., we’re not doing our job!

And I don’t mean you have to get a Ph.D. in learning science, but you really do need to know what you’re doing. Or, at least, have good checklists and quick reference guides to ensure you’re on track. Ideally, you review your processes and tools for alignment to what’s known. And the tools themselves could have support. (Ok, to a limit, I’ve seen this done to the extent of handcuffs on design.)

Nuances matter,  if you care about the outcomes (and if you don’t, why bother? ;).  I’ve been working on both a checklist and on very specific changes that apply to various places in design processes that represent the major ways folks go wrong. These problems are relatively small, and easy to fix, and are designed to yield big improvements. But unless you know what they are, you’re unlikely to have the impact you intend.

So this just appeared in my email this morning.  Can you tell what’s wrong?

“The next generation of L&D is here. Millennials are quickly becoming the majority of the world’s workforce. They will need training to become successful leaders. But, because they’ve grown up with mobile devices and digital technologies, they learn differently than previous generations. A solid understanding of millennial learning styles will help you create effective training programs.”

Yep, snake oil. We’ve hit the myth jackpot!  How many can you spot?  This is the type of stuff marketers come up with that you can’t fight if you don’t know our brains (and more).  So let’s take it apart, shall we?  (This is  so  much fun!)

First, ‘next gen of L&D‘.  Um, maybe.  I don’t see things being done all that differently. It’s more evolution than revolution (despite my exhortations to the latter ;).  Still, no real myth yet.

Next, ‘millennials‘. And, yes, we have a winner!  The evidence says that there’re no meaningful differences between generations.  And if you think about it, it’s much more a continuum than discrete separations. It may be convenient, but it undermines people’s individuality. It’s really a mild form of age discrimination, dealing with people by the year they’re born instead of their unique circumstances. So, we’ve got our first myth. How much would you pay for this?  But wait, there’s more!

Need ‘leadership training’?  Er, yeah, so does pretty much everyone. Some folks may get there naturally, but that’s not the way to bet.  Moving on…

‘Learn differently’ because of growing up digital. This is the ‘digital natives’ story and the ‘digital learning’ story. And both have been debunked.  Turns out that folks who’ve grown up with digital technology aren’t necessarily any better at it. They don’t do better searches, for instance.  They  may be more comfortable, but that’s not what the claim is.  Again, this is sort of discrimination, categorizing people by their environment rather than their individual capability.

And, there’s the story that we’re now learning in fundamentally new ways.  Er, not. Our brains haven’t evolved that fast. We still need sustained and varied retrieval practice and feedback. No ‘knowledge downloads’ yet.  So here we have two, two, two myths in one! (Throwback: who recognizes  the reference?)  Keeping count? We’re up to three.  Now how much would you pay?  But wait, there’s still  more!

‘Learning styles’.  Ow!  The zombie that won’t die; kill it, kill it!  Back to the evidence: there’s no meaningful and reliable instrument to measure styles, so you couldn’t identify them.  And there’s no evidence that adapting to them helps either (which is implicit).  So really, this is  two more myths!  Wow, 5 myths in one paragraph. You’d be hard pressed to do better on purpose!

I worry who might fall prey to this marketing campaign.  I hate to tell you this, but there’s no there there.  You’d be far better off putting your effort in improving your learning design than buying into this misguided and misleading effort. If you want help with that, let me know (that’s what I do!), and there are plenty of resources (c.f. the Serious eLearning Manifesto).

Folks, my book on myths is coming out at the end of April. You can be prepared to defend yourself for the cost of just a few coffees. And, you can pre-order it now.  Our industry needs to get onto a proper basis. This is one small step, but one that needs to be taken.