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Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

Learning and frameworks

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There’s recently been a spate of attacks on 70:20:10 and moving beyond courses, and I have to admit I just don’t get it.  So I thought it’s time to set out why I think these approaches make sense.

Let’s start with what we know about how we learn. Learning is action and reflection.  Instruction (education, training) is designed action and guided reflection.  That’s why, by the way, that information dump and knowledge test isn’t a learning solution.   People need to actively apply the information.

And it can’t follow an ‘event’ model, as learning is spaced out over time. Our brains can only accommodate so much (read: very little) learning at any one time.  There needs to  be ongoing facilitation after  a formal learning experience – coaching over time and stretch assignments – to help cement and accelerate the learning experience.

Now, this can be something L&D does formally, but at some point formal has to let  go (not least for pragmatics) and it becomes the responsibility of the individual  and the community. It shifts from formal coaching to informal mentoring, personal exploration, and feedback from colleagues and fellow practitioners.  It’s impractical for L&D to take on this full responsibility, and instead becomes a role in facilitation of mentoring, communication, and collaboration.

That’s where the 70:20:10 framework comes in.  Leaving that mentoring and collaboration to chance is a mistake, because it’s demonstrably the case that people don’t necessarily have good self-learning skills.  And if we foster self-learning skills, we can accelerate the learning outcomes for the organization. Addressing the skills and culture for learning, personally and collectively, is a valuable contribution that L&D should seize. And it’s not about controlling it all, but making an environment that’s conducive, and facilitating the component skills.

Further, some people  seem to get their knickers in a twist about the numbers, and I’m not sure why that is.  People seem comfortable with the Pareto Principle, for instance (aka the 80/20 rule), and it’s the same. In both cases it’s not the exact numbers that matter, but the concept. For the Pareto Rule it’s recognizing that some large fraction of outcomes  comes from a small fraction of  inputs.  For the 70:20:10 framework, it’s recognizing that much of what you apply as your expertise comes from things other than courses.  And tired old cliches about “wouldn’t want a doctor who didn’t have training” don’t reflect that you’d also not want a doctor who didn’t continue  learning through internships and practice.  It’s not denying the 10, it’s augmenting it.

And this is really what Modern Workplace Learning is about: looking beyond the course.  The course is one important, but ultimately small, piece of being a practitioner, and organizations can no longer afford to ignore the rest of the learning picture.  Of course, there’s also the whole innovation side and performance support when learning doesn’t have to happen  as well, which is  something L&D also should facilitate (cue the L&D Revolution), but getting the learning right by looking at the bigger picture of how we really learn is critical.

I welcome debate on this, but pragmatically if you think about how you  learned what you do, you should  recognize that much of it came from other than courses. Beyond Education, the other two E’s have been characterized as Exposure and Experience. Doing the task in the company of others, socially learning, and by the outcomes of actually applying the knowledge in context, and making mistakes.  That’s real learning, and the recognition that it should not be left to chance is how these frameworks help raise awareness and provide an opportunity for L&D to become more relevant to the organization.  And that, I strongly believe, is a valuable outcome. So, what do you think?

Levels of Design

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In a recent conversation, we were talking  about the Kirkpatrick model, and a colleague  had an interesting perspective that hadn‘t really struck me overtly. Kirkpatrick is widely (not widely enough, and wrongly) used as an evaluation tool, but he talked about using it as a design tool, and that perspective made clear for me a problem with our approaches.

So, there‘s a lot of debate about the Kirkpatrick model, whether it helps or hinders the movement towards good learning. I think it‘s misrepresented (including by its own progenitors, though they‘re working on that ;), and while I‘m open to new tools I think it does a nice job of framing a fairly simple but important idea. The goal is to start with the end in mind.

And the evidence is that it‘s not being used well. The largest implementation of the model is level 1, which isn‘t of use (correlation between learner reaction and actual impact is .09, essentially zero with a rounding error). Level 2 drops to a third of orgs, and it drops from there. And this is broken.

The point, and this is emphasized by the ‘design‘ perspective, is that you are supposed to start with level 4, and work back. What‘s the measurable indicator in the organization that isn‘t up to snuff, and what behavior (level 3) would likely impact that? And how do we change that behavior (Level 2)? And here‘s where it can go beyond training: that intervention might be a job aid, or access to a network (which hasn‘t been much in the promotion of the model).

To be fair, the proponents do argue you should be starting at Level 4, but with the numbering (which Don admits he might have got wrong) and the emphasis on evaluation, it doesn‘t hit you up front. Using it as a design tool, however, would emphasize the point.

So here‘s to thinking of learning design as working backwards from a problem, not forwards from a request. And, of course, to better learning design overall.

A Competent Competency Process

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In the process of looking at ways to improve the design of courses, the starting point is good objectives. And as a consequence, I‘ve been enthused about the notion of competencies, as a way to put the focus on what people do, not what they know. So how do we do this, systematically, reliably, and repeatably?

Let‘s be clear, there are times we need knowledge level objectives. In medicine or any other field where responses need to be quick and accurate, we need a very constrained vocabulary. SO drilling in the exact meanings of words is valuable, as an example. Though ideally, that‘s coupled with using that language to set context or make decisions. So “we know it‘s the right medial collateral ligament, prep for the surgery” could serve as a context, or we could have a choice to operate on the left or right atrial ventricle as a decision point. As Van Merriënboer‘s 4 Component Instructional Design talks about, we need to separate out the knowledge from the complex problems we apply it to. Still, I suggest that what‘s likely to make a difference to individuals and organizations is the ability to make better decisions, not recite rote knowledge.

So how do we get competencies when we want them? The problem, as I‘ve talked about before, is that SMEs don‘t have access to 70% of what they actually do, it‘s compiled away. We then need good processes, so I‘ve talked to a couple of educational institutions doing competencies, to see what could be learned. And it‘s clear that while there‘s no turnkey approach, what‘s emerging is a process with some specific elements.

One thing is that if you‘re trying to cover a whole college level course, you‘ve got to break it up. Break down the top level into a handful of competencies. Then you continue to take each of those apart, and perhaps another level, ‘til you have a reasonable scope. This is heuristic, of course, but with a focus on ‘do‘, you have a good likelihood to get here.

One of the things I‘ve heard across various entities trying to get meaningful objectives is working with more than one SME. If you can get several, you have a better chance of triangulating on the right outcomes and objectives. They may well disagree about the knowledge, but if you manage the process right (emphasize ‘do‘, lather, rinse, repeat), you should be able to get them to converge. It may take some education, and you may have to let them get the

Not just any SMEs will do. Two things are really valuable: on the ground experience to know what needs to be done (and doesn‘t), and the ability to identify and articulate the models that guide the performance. Some instructors, for instance, can teach to a text but really aren‘t truly masters of the content nor are experienced practitioners. Multiple helps, but the better the SME, the better the outcome.

I believe you want to ensure that you‘re getting both the right things, and all the things. I‘ve recommended to a client about triangulating not just with SMEs, but with practitioners (or, rather, the managers of the roles the learners will be engaged in), and any other reliable stakeholders. The point is to get input from the practice as well as the theory, identifying the models that support proper behavior, and the misconceptions that underpin where they go wrong.

Once you have a clear idea of the things people need to be able to do, you can then identify the language for the competencies. I‘m not a fan of Bloom‘s (unwieldy, hard to reliably apply), but I am a fan of Mager-style definitions (action, context, metric).

After this is done, you can identify the knowledge needed, and perhaps created objectives for that, but to me the focus is on the ‘do‘, the competencies. This is very much aligned with an activity-based learning model, whereby you immediately design the activities that align with the competencies before you decide the content.

So, this is what I‘m inferring. There would be good tools and templates you could design to go with this, identifying competencies, misconceptions, and at the same time also getting stories and motivations. (An exercise left for the reader. ;) The overall goal, however, of getting meaningful objectives is key to getting good learning design. Any nuances I‘m missing?