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Good and bad advice all in one!

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I was asked to go to read an article and weigh in. First, please don’t do this if you don’t know me. However, that’s not the topic here, instead, I want to comment on the article. Realize that if you ask me to read an article, you’re opening yourself up to my opinion, good or bad. This one’s interesting, because it’s both. Then the question is how do you deal with good and bad advice all in one.

This article is about microlearning. If you’ve been paying attention (and there’s no reason you should be), I’ve gone off on the term before. I think it’s used loosely, and that’s a problem because there are separate meanings, which require separate designs, and not distinguishing them means it’s not clear you know what you’re talking about. (If someone uses the term, I’m liable to ask which they mean! You might do the same.).

This article starts out saying that 3-5 minute videos are not microlearning. I have to agree with that. However, the author then goes on to document 15 points that are important about microlearning. I’ll give credit for the admission that there’s no claim that this a necessary and complete set. Then, unfortunately, I also have to remove credit for providing no data to support the claims!  Thus, we have to evaluate each on it’s own merits.  Sorry, but I kinda prefer some sort of evidence, rather than a ‘self-evident’ fallback.

For instance, there’s a claim for brevity. I’ve liked the admonition (e.g. by JD Dillon) that microlearning should be no longer, and no shorter, than necessary. However, there’s also a claim here that it should be “3 – 10 minutes of attention span”. Why? What determines this? Human attention is complex, and we can disappear into novels, or films, or games, for hours. Yes, “Time for learning is a critical derailer”, but…it’s a factor of how important, complex, and costly if wrong the topic is. There’s no one magic guideline.

The advice continues in this frame: there’re calls for simplicity, minimalism, etc. Most of these are good principles, when appropriately constrained. However, arbitrary calls for “one concept at a time is the golden rule” isn’t necessarily right, and isn’t based on anything other than “our brains need time for processing”. Yes, that’s what automation is about, but to build chunks for short term memory, we have to activate things in juxtaposition. Is that one concept? It’s too vague.

However, it could be tolerated if some of the advice didn’t fall prey to fallacious reasoning. So, for instance, the call for gamification leans into “Millennials and Gen Z workforce” claims. This is a myth. Gamification itself is already dubious, and using a bad basis as an assumed foundation exacerbates the problem. There are other problems as well. For one, automatically assuming social is useful is a mistake. Tying competition into the need to compete is a facile suggestion. Using terms like ‘horde’ and ‘herd’ actually feels demeaning to the value of community. A bald statement like “Numbers speak louder than words!” similarly seems to suggest that marketing trumps matter. I don’t agree.

Overall, this article is a mixed bag. So then the question arises, how do you rate it? What do you do? Obviously, I had to take it apart. The desire for a comment isn’t sufficient to address a complex suite of decent principles mixed up with bad advice and justified (if at all) on false premises. I have to say that this isn’t worth your time. There’s better advice to be had, including on microlearning. In general, I’ll suggest that if there’s good and bad advice all in one, it’s overall bad. Caveat emptor!

Generic Thinking Skills?

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Recently, a colleague asked a few of us about our views on critical thinking skills. This is actually a contentious topic. There are broad claims of the need for them, increasingly, even showing up in job advertisements. On the other hand, researchers and others have weighed in against them, saying that expertise is the only lever. I tend to lump critical thinking skills in with the broader issue of generic thinking skills, so what are the issues?

Upfront, I’ll admit that I like the concept of generic thinking skills. Say, for instance, learning-to-learn skills. That is, domain independent skills that lead to better approaches. It seems to make sense that, in the absence of specific knowledge, some general approaches are more useful than others. For instance, faced with a new domain, I’d be inclined to expect that systematic experimentation and observation would be better than random trial and error.

On the other hand, prominent psychologists like John Sweller and Paul Kirschner have said that domain-specific skills are the only way to bet. There is significant evidence that expertise matters in successful approaches to problem-solving, and others. While we have some innate skills for domains that are biologically primary, learning in other domains requires expertise.

Is there, then, any evidence for generic skills? Based on Micki Chi’s work on the value of self-explanation, Kate Bielaczyc and others have found that instruction on systematically explaining steps in examples help, across domains. In my own Ph.D. thesis, I trained folks on analogical reasoning skills, and found improvement (for component skills that weren’t a) already ceilinged or b) were perceived to be immutable, across different problem types.

How, then, do we reconcile these conflicting viewpoints? My (self- :) explanation is that it’s a matter of degree, a continuum rather than a dichotomy. The more domain knowledge you possess, the more likely you are to find a good answer. However, what if you’re in a new domain where you don’t have relevant expertise to hand? In that case, I’ll suggest that there are benefits to some approaches over others, and training those general skills is justifiable. That is, general skills are weaker than domain specific skills, but general skills are better than nothing!

We know that there are practices that improve outcomes. For instance, I’ve written about how to, and not to, do brainstorming. Similarly, I believe Harold Jarche’s Seek-Sense-Share model works across domains. Systematic creativity is not an oxymoron!  That’s the story I’m holding on to about generic thinking skills. What are your thoughts on the topic?

Accreditation?

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As occasionally happens, I was asked a question on LinkedIn. In this case, it was about my thoughts on accreditation. Also, as occasionally happens, I thought that I’d share my thoughts in this forum, and look for feedback to improve my thinking. So here’re some thoughts on accreditation. I welcome yours!

First, let’s be clear, I am not an expert on accreditation. I haven’t accredited anything, for one ;). I did look into it, at one point many years ago. I’ve also served on independent board of directors or advisory boards for several entities. In the former case, we have a legal responsibility to provide guidance. In the latter case, we provide the best guidance, but of course the organization isn’t obliged to comply. The former, in particular, serves as a quality check, or a form of accreditation.

When I looked into accreditation for educational institutions, the requirement isn’t about the actual curriculum, but instead that there is a library and that there are processes for review and revision of course offerings. That is, it was about the support for learning and quality processes, not the actual offering. This creates a process support that should ensure quality, yet also the ability to apply this to institutions with a wide variety of offerings.

Institutions can also seek accreditation by organizations in particular areas of curriculum. Offerings in computer science, business, and others for instance, receive review and then can receive approval by bodies that represent the particular field. This depends on the quality of the organization doing the accreditation and their processes, of course.

There’s also accreditation on the quality of the educational process. You can also be reviewed and accredited on the basis of your pedagogy, for instance your online teaching approach. It depends, of course, on what they stipulate as quality, but that’s always going to be the case.

There are, of course, dubious accreditations. It’s not unknown for an organization or collection thereof to establish their own accrediting body that basically rubber stamps the organization(s). Caveat emptor.

In general, I think that having a scrutable external validation is a good check on quality. Whether that makes sense is probably an issue of scope. A small offering of a particular course might benefit from an independent advisory board, which provides some oversight. The larger the organization and the scope of activity, the greater the need for some external validity check.

From the other side, I think a certificate or credentials help the learner signify what they’ve accomplished.  However, without accreditation or at least a scrutable process, how do you know the skill/knowledge is appropriate and accurate? I think accreditation has the potential to be a ‘reality check’ on any offering.

Learning or Performance Strategy

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Of late, I’m working in a couple of engagements where the issue of learning and performance strategy have come up. It has prompted some thoughts both on my part and the part of my clients. I think it’s worth laying out some of the issues and thinking, and of course I welcome your thoughts. So here are some reflections on whether to use learning or performance strategy as an organizing concept.

In one case, an organization decreed that they needed a learning strategy. Taken with my backwards design diagram from the learning science book, I was tasked with determining what that means. In this case, the audience can’t be mandated with classes or tutorials. So really, the only options are to support performance in the moment and develop them over time. Thus we focus on job aids and examples. I think of it as a ‘performance strategy’, not a learning one.

In the other case, an organization is executing on a shift from a training philosophy to a performance focus. Which of course I laud, but the powers-that-be expect it to yield less training without much other change. Here I’m pushing for performance support, and the thinking is largely welcome. However, it’s a mindset shift for a group that previous was developing training.

I general, I support thinking that goes beyond the course, and for the optimal execution side of a full ecosystem, you want to look at outcomes and let that drive you. It includes performance consulting, so you’re applying the right solution to performance gaps, not the convenient one (read: ‘courses’ ;). Thus, I think it makes more sense to talk performance strategy than learning one.

Even then, the question becomes what does such a strategy really entail, whether learning or performance. Really, it’s about having a plan in place to systematically prioritize needs and address them in effective ways. It’s not just design processes that reflect evidence-informed principles, though it includes that. It’s also, however, ways to identify and track problems, attach organizational costs and solution costs, and choose where to invest resources. It includes front-end analysis, but also ongoing-monitoring.

It also involves other elements. For one, the technology to hand; what solutions are in use and ensuring a process of ongoing reviews. This includes both formal learning tools including the LMS and LXP, but also informal learning tools such as social media platforms and collaborative documents. Another issue is management: lifecycle monitoring, ownership, and costs.

There’s a lot that goes into it, but being strategic about your approach keeps you from just being tactical and missing the forest for the trees. A lot of L&D is reactive, and I am suggesting that L&D needs to be come proactive. This includes going from courses to performance, as a first step. The next step is to facilitating informal learning and driving innovation in the organization. Associated elements include meaningful measurement and truly understanding how we learn for a firm basis upon which to ground both formal and informal learning. Those are my thoughts a learning or performance strategy, what am I missing?

Courtesy, shopping carts, and the organization

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There’s a popular meme on the internet that I think is kind of apt. It asks whether you’re the type of person who returns your shopping cart. I think this is an important concept, because it illustrates to me one of the facets that make societies, and organizations, work. So let me talk about courtesy, shopping carts, and the organization.

The meme is basically saying do you return the cart, or leave it near your car. You’ve seen the results: parking spaces blocked by an abandoned cart, carts pulled up on curbs into planters, etc. This, to me, is like whether you bring a bag to clean up after your dog (and place it an appropriate receptacle). Or dump your ashtray and car trash on the side of the street. It’s about recognizing a) that there aren’t necessarily folks who have this as a job, and b) it interferes with innocent others, and c) therefore it undermines a pleasant environment. It may have to do with what your cultural expectations are, but I’ll suggest it’s worth the small effort.

Why does this matter? Because it seems to me that societies work better when folks are courteous. When folks respect one another, they find ways to make things work. When they don’t have that respect, they find or stumble into ways to aggravate situations. Now, I get that sometimes being discourteous is a way to get revenge against a real or perceived injustice. Yet, I suggest there are better ways to register your discontent that more accurately target the perpetrators of the injustice. Random acts of discourtesy can lead to perceptions that you’re just a jerk. Because some of it is people thinking that they don’t have to care about other people. I fear it’s getting worse.

The issue I want to address here, rather than a general societal rant, is about what this means in organizations. What does courtesy have to do with working life? I suggest it has to do with creating an environment in which people can work together for organizational success in an optimal way. That is, if we’re helping make the workplace pleasant, we’re making it effective. This means things like offering to help when you’ve useful information to provide. It means paying attention to the organizational norms. I suggest it also means pointing out when those norms aren’t best for positive interaction. Others: Refilling the printer paper tray when you’ve used the last. Taking notes for someone who has to miss the meeting. Mot missing a meeting if you’ve no real excuse. Keeping meetings on time and on point. Not holding a meeting when there’s a better way.

There are a lot of little courtesies in everyday life. You may have a grudge or grievance, but deal with it appropriately. A lack of courtesy because you’re upset about something else isn’t appropriate or helpful. I reckon it just makes you look like a jerk. That’s my take, what are your thoughts on courtesy, shopping carts, and the organization?

Happy New(s) Year!

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It’s the new year, and I’ve been hinting for a while that something’s up. Well, now I can announce it. The new year seems like the right time for news, so Happy New(s) Year!

While Quinnovation will continue, I have joined another initiative as well. If you’ve been paying attention, and I hope you have, two summers ago Will Thalheimer & Matt Richter ran a new and different event, the L&D Conference. It had two sessions of things, so it could reach most of the globe, and they were recorded so you could watch after the fact. There were also some asynch workshops. There was an emphasis on evidence-informed speakers and content.

It was successful enough that it convinced Matt and Will that there was the opportunity for a society promoting the same values. At the beginning of 2021, they began this initiative, the Learning Development Accelerator (LDA). The society has had regular events, articles, also workshops. They also ran the conference again.

However, Will got a full-time job with Tier 1. Thus, trying to keep up with demand was, well, trying. After one unsuccessful attempt, they settled on a second choice to replace Will. I’ve agreed. Thus, I will now be working with Matt (who’s heroically shouldered most of the work) to keep the society going. It’s started, and continued, as all virtual. Which helps support the goal of being quite global. The other emphasis continues, to be evidence-based. I can align with that. I think it’s our obligation as professionals. We need to promote those who are translating research into evidence-informed practices.

There’s a second initiative of LDA as well. Matt thinks LDA should publish, and had offered me the chance to serve as initial publisher (more like Editor-In-Chief). So LDA Press is kicking off. We’re going to have to start slow to grow, but stay tuned for initial publications. The goal is to fill in the gaps of the books we should have, and provide a better relationship with authors. We’re already talking to some folks.

That’s pretty much it. I’ll continue to speak, write, run workshops, and assist clients as Quinnovation as well, but I’ll also be putting energy into what I think is an important contribution. Of course, it’s also about learning, stepping out of my comfort zone. My focus will be on trying to help introduce members to people and ideas they should know. The more we know, the better we can do our job! So that’s my Happy New(s) Year, and wishing you and yours all the best for the coming year.

Time for Reflection

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My dad used to regale me with this tale of his best friend, who told his new employer when he started: “If you see me with my feet up on my desk and it appears I’m sleeping, I’m not. I’m working. I’ll still do the work of 2 other engineers.” And he did!  I love this story, because it brings out an element that we seem to be losing, the value of taking time for reflection.

Now, he may actually have been sleeping, yet that doesn’t concern me; sleeping is a mechanism for processing, too. What concerns me are folks who can’t be seen to be taking time off from ‘the work’. We’re in a mode where we push people to work harder and faster. We say “work smarter” but don’t tell people what that means!

I’ve spent time in a job early in my career reading (relevant) magazines like Byte, with my feet up on the desk. Yet, I immodestly suggest I cranked out work at least as fast as my colleagues. I found reading, and now searching for answers, to be a valuable use of my time. Why? Because I’m learning. I reflect on what I do and how to do it better, learning to do new things that I need to meet my current challenges.

Sure, I do the work. However, I also take walks, put my feet up and ponder, and more. I blog, for instance ;). There are other ways I write as well, and experiment, and look to refine my thinking. Also, I look things up, read books, and generally track my field and answers to specific questions.  My work improves as a consequence. Moreover, we all benefit from taking time to reflect. It’s documented in the work conducted by Garvin, Edmondson, & Gino as one of the elements of a learning organization.

So, I’ll keep promoting, and practicing, taking time for reflection. I hope you can, too. Moreover, I hope you can help get such time recognized as valuable in your organization. We focus too much on the fast, and as they say: “fast, cheap, or good, pick 2”. I’m not sure fast is always the best solution. Certainly for learning. After all, it is about learning…

 

Relevant and anchored

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In reviewing my forthcoming book on Make It Meaningful, I’m poring over my Education -Engagment Alignment (EEA). I’m rewriting part to revisit it. Which I’ve done, but in doing so I had a revelation. I’ve maintained that they’re independent elements. However, I now see Relevant and Anchored as complementary components.

‘Anchored’, in my terminology, is ensuring the learning outcome meets a real need. It’s about the relationship between the learning objective and the performance gap. If you’re trying to get better at something, for instance, the objective is specifically related. If you’re learning about dealing with customer objections, you’ve got a specific objective to use a particular approach. It is not ‘understand’ but ‘do’. You’re not anchoring if your root cause of the performance gap isn’t a lack of skill. If the learning covers information that’s ‘nice to know’, you’re not anchored. This is determined, by the way, by a performance consulting process.

‘Relevant’, again the way I term it, is about whether the learner cares about that learning objective. If learners don’t care about being a repair tech, having an objective about the problem-solving process can’t matter. This is something we should design into the experience. That is, we should be helping learners ‘get’ that the consequences of acquiring this skill matter to them. We can use curiosity, or consequences, or…but we should not leave it to chance!

Using the usual present/absent two-factor diagram, it looks like this:

That is, if you have neither the effort is worthless. Which is like a lot of what we see! When you’re anchoring, but not being relevant, the solution is likely to be moderately effective (tho’ not as much as it could be). People stay away if possible! If it’s relevant but not anchored, it’ll be engaging, but not effective and not meaningful. This is the typical tarted up stuff, aka well-produced but not well-designed and produced. However, if you get both in there, you’ve truly made it meaningful.

I suggest you want relevant and anchored. If we’re putting in the effort, we should be aligning both. I suggest LXD means the elegant integration of learning science with engagement. It sticks better! We know how to do this, reliably and repeatedly. Our learning doesn’t have to be dull nor ineffective, and we owe our learners this.

The case for good timekeeping

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It occurs to me that maybe not everyone has the same view of timekeeping that I do. So I thought I’d make the case for good timekeeping. To me, it’s about coping with change.

To me, it starts with respect. This includes respect for the audience, the speaker, topic, and context. There are times when timekeeping should be lax, I believe. My first take is that the defining circumstances are when there are no people involved who aren’t already part of it, there’s not a fixed time agenda, speaker times aren’t set, and the outcome is more important than punctuality.. In other words, rare for a public event.

When an event is public, there tend to be some other constraints. Most importantly, there’s liable to be a schedule. People need to know when to arrive. If it’s a more than one event in the schedule, extending beyond 1 hour, and the audience is diverse (e.g. not just one company), time becomes increasingly important.

Why should we care? Back to the starting point, people might be coming in to see someone in particular. If the schedule isn’t adhered to, folks who were counting on a particular time could be disappointed. If there’s a start and end time, and block, speakers further down the agenda could be impacted if someone runs long. Neither is fair.

I have experienced folks who seem to be unaware of time. In my personal experience as a speaker, I was on a joint presentation where the leadoff presenter seemed to forget that there was anyone else on the agenda! He was gracious once it was pointed out, but it was uncomfortable for me to have to break in and remind him. I’ve also seen people unaware that they were running long, and others unable to amend their presentation on the fly when they did become aware. I’ve literally seen someone have to stop where they are instead of finding a way to wrap up!

Having had early experience being a moderator, after being the victim of such sessions, I made a commitment (in line with the event organizer’s intent) to be rigorous. I’ve now no qualms about, after giving fair warning, stopping someone who hasn’t maintained control. To the contrary of a possible position, I think it’s rude not to! It’s the speaker’s fault, no one else’s. They aren’t being professional and respectful of the audience and the other speakers. That also includes getting out of the way in a timely manner if it’s a scheduled room, leaving time for the next person to set up.

So my guidelines for timekeeping:

  1. Designate someone as the timekeeper; there can’t be a question over who’s job it is.
  2. Warn speakers ahead of time about the rigor and practices. No excuses!
  3. Have a practice for signaling if things are getting close, e.g. signs for # of mins left, colored lights, messages in chat (tho’ some people seem unable to process them; beware), what have you.
  4. As a presenter, if you don’t have a good basis for assessing your likely length (e.g. I’m about a slide a minute, though with some quick builds it can be faster), practice and check your timing! Realize that live it’s likely to go a bit longer than your practice. Trim if necessary.
  5. Also, have enough awareness of your material that you can adapt on the fly. Sometimes other things happen (once the power went out in a presentation), and you have to adjust.
  6. Be firm; interrupt and stop speakers when it’s time.

That’s off the top of my head; I’m sure there are more comprehensive and thorough lists. My point is to be aware, and prepared. As a speaker, I appreciate it. As an audience member as well. That’s my case for good timekeeping.  What do you think?

Beyond Industrial Age Thinking

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I’ve long maintained that our organizational practices are too often misaligned with how our brains really work. I’ve attributed that to a legacy from previous eras. Yet, I realize that there may be another legacy, a cognitive one. Here I’ll suggest we need to move beyond Industrial Age thinking.

The premise comes from business. We transitioned from a largely agricultural economy to a manufacturing economy, of goods and services. Factories got economic advantage from scale. We also essentially treated people as parts of the machine. Taylorism, aka scientific management, looked at how much a person could produce if they were working as efficiently as possible, without damage. So few were educated, and we didn’t have sufficiently sophisticated mechanisms. Times change, and we’re now in an information age. Yet, a number of our approaches are still based upon industrial approaches. We’re living on a legacy.

Now I’m taking this is to our models of mind. The cognitive approach is certainly more recent than the Industrial Age, but it carries its own legacies. We regularly take technology as metaphors for mind. Before the digital computer, for instance, telephone switching was briefly used as a model. The advent of the digital computer, a general purpose information system, is a natural next step. We’re information processing machines, so aren’t we like computers?

It turns out, we’re not. There’s considerable evidence that we are not formal, logical, reasoning machines. In fact, we do well what it’s hard to get computers to do, and vice-versa. We struggle to remember large quantities of data, or abstract and arbitrary information, and to remember it verbatim. Yet we also are good at pattern-matching and meaning-making (sometimes too good; *cough* conspiracy theories *cough*). Computers are the opposite. They can remember large quantities of information accurately, but struggle to do meaning-making.

My concern is that we’re still carrying a legacy of formal reasoning. That is, the notion that we can do it all in our heads, alone, continues though it’s been proven inaccurate. We make inferences and take actions based upon this assumption, perhaps not even consciously!

How else to explain, for instance, the continuing prevalence of information presentation under the guise of training? I suggest there’s a lingering belief that if we present information to people, they’ll logically change their behavior to accommodate. Information dump and  knowledge test are a natural consequence of this perspective. Yet, this doesn’t lead to learning!

When we look at how we really perform, we recognize that we’re contextually-influenced, and tied to previous experience. If we want to do things differently, we have to practice doing it differently. We can provide information (specifically mental models, examples, and feedback) to facilitate both initial acquisition and continual improvement, but we can’t just present information.

If we want to truly apply learning science to the design of instruction, we have to understand our brains. In reality, not outdated metaphors. That’s the opportunity, and truly the necessity. We need to move beyond Industrial Age thinking, and incorporate post-cognitive perspectives. To the extent we do, we stand to benefit.