Twice out of three recent opportunities, I’ve been thwarted from my intentions by platform capabilities. And, once, I was supported. But this capability is so basic and so valuable, I thought I’d make the argument. So here I’m making the case for gated submissions.

First, what  are gated submissions? It’s pretty simple: learners post their response to a question, and can’t see others’ responses until they submit their own. A valuable extension is for them to then be able to comment on others’ submissions. Technically, it’s simple. Pedagogically, it’s powerful.

Why is this so valuable? Well, it starts from social cognitive processing. When you have to create a response, you have to apply knowledge. And that’s a necessary part of learning. The assignment matters, of course, so it’s about applying the knowledge in a way you’ll need to do afterwards, or reflecting. It’s useful additional processing.

Not seeing others’ responses before you create your own is important, just like in brainstorming. That means you’re processing on your own, before you see how others have processed. Thus, the importance of gating, not just any old discussion.

Then, when you’ve committed and come up with a solution, seeing others’ is now much more valuable. You can compare their output with yours, and infer their underlying thinking. And for anything with a reasonable amount of complexity, this is insightful. Even better, of course, if you have them also share their thinking.

Further, if then they can comment on others, substantively (not just “great work”), you’re getting even more processing. I recommend you require commenting on someone’s who hasn’t been commented on helps ensure everyone gets useful feedback. The instructor observes the overall tilt, and comments on that, addressing any misconceptions, etc.

It can just be text, or ideally they can also have attachments. Thus, the outputs can be videos, spreadsheets, documents, whatever captures the thinking, and appropriately if particular types of assignments. Students respond in either their preferred way, or as the dictates of the assignment suggest.

Overall, you’re supporting rich responses and having a way to see others’ thinking. Short of doing group assignments, this is a great way to support meaningful thinking. So that’s the case for gated submissions. Now, will you please go and implement them in your platforms? Please?

 

 

My colleague, Harold Jarche (the  PKM guy), has maintained that cooperation is of more value than collaboration. And for good reason, because cooperation comes from internal motivation instead of external direction.   But this has bugged me, so I naturally tried to make a diagram that helps me think about it. So here’s a stab an unpacking collaboration and cooperation.

His argument, most convincingly can be summed up in this quote (I’ve simplified) he takes from Stephen Downes:

collaboration means ‘working together‘. That‘s why you see it in market economies…
cooperation means ‘sharing‘. That‘s why you see it in networks…

That is, when you’re offering to work together without some recompense, it’s a higher order.   And I agree.

However, I like to think of collaboration as a higher form of thinking. That is, working together to generate a new, negotiated understanding richer than any we could generate on our own. Cooperation means I point to something or give you some feedback, but we’re not necessarily engaged in creation.

The question is how to reconcile this. And it occurred to me to pull it apart a bit. Because I’ve seen, heck I’ve  participated in exercises where we collaborate for the greater good. Sharing. So I wondered if I might tease out two dimensions.

I wondered whether there are two types of cognitive actions, e.g. collaboration and communication. That is, for one you’re just offering pointers or opinions, without necessarily having any skin in the game. In the other, you’re actively working with someone to generate a new interpretation.

That’s coupled with a second dimension, whether the goal has been dictated externally (e.g. here team, find a solution to this problem) or has emerged from the participant. It’s about locus of control.

You end up with different types of categories. If someone’s asked you to collaborate, it’s likely some sort of project team. Less intently, it may be a ‘show your work’ type of thing, where the organizational culture is supporting sharing, but it’s also an expectation.

On the other hand, you can be just contributing to others by commenting on their blog posts (hint hint, nudge nudge, wink wink). Or you could be part of a Community of Practice and actively trying to improve something.

And I could be totally missing the nuances he’s talking about.

I don’t know if this addresses the issue or not, but it’s my stab at unpacking collaboration and cooperation. And I share it, because I’m wrestling with it, and it’s how I learn out loud. I invite your thoughts.

 

I reported about a conversation on LinkedIn badly defending learning styles. And, the subsequent post came out. Sad to say, it doesn‘t do anything better, and instead is yet another bad example of reasoning. It‘s a ‘collective mind losing‘ redux!

So it starts out saying that those of us who decry learning styles maintain that they don‘t exist. That‘s not exactly what I said, at any rate. Here‘s what I said (and recited in yesterday‘s post):

Sure, learners differ, no one who’s taught can say otherwise. But, identifying how they differ, reliably? Er, no. And that we should adapt to learning styles? Again, not what research says.

Most frustrating, the arguments goes back to the claim that it‘s about different opinions. That‘s a complete mischaracterization. That‘s just not helpful in having a debate.

And there are claims to have research that says otherwise. But then they don’t materialize. He has opinions. They’re not the same ;).

Then, he goes on to claim that the response won‘t be a literature review, a theory discussion, or written as a journal post. OK, so instead an incoherent screed that tilts between blaming the attackers and then citing anecdotal stories? Um, again, that‘s an odd choice to defend against scientific studies.

There are two data points. One is a learning styles advocate who basically recanted. Yet this seems to be taken as support for learning styles??!? The other is a quote by Coffield et al that misconstrues the overall study. In short, no evidence at all.

Oddly, midway through the post, the article starts saying those of us who expect a good rebuttal won‘t like the argument. So the argument is  now going to start? And again the claim that this is about opinion. Again, opinion is fine about things that are aesthetic choices with no consequences. Here, it‘s about orgs trying to spend money sensibly and assist their employees in a scrutable way. I wouldn‘t want my doctor or plumber using bad science, nor do I want my L&D team doing the same.

Finally, what is cited, are two people (one named, one unnamed but purportedly a learning company exec). Who, apparently, believe learners have preferences. Yet we‘re not claiming otherwise. What is demonstrable is that preferences have essentially no benefit in learning. That point isn’t addressed.

And then there‘s this claim, which is fundamentally wrong: “If you can identify the learner‘s style, you can tailor content to meet that need.” First, you can‘t reliably identify a learner‘s style, there isn‘t a viable instrument. Second, there‘s no benefit to tailoring content to that need. Coffield, et al, and Pashler, et all, and now further studies have reliably, repeatedly, documented this. Check out the Guild’s research report, for instance.

And again a mischaracterization of the opposing viewpoint. It‘s certainly possible that we will, one day, reliably identify learning styles, and even find ways to adapt to it. But right now we don‘t, and claiming to the contrary is equivalent to selling ‘snake oil‘ (see Will Thalheimer‘s brilliant introduction to my myths book). You‘ll waste money and possibly damage learning and learner. Most importantly, we have a viable alternative: design for the learning outcome! There are good reasons to include multiple media, but they have nothing to do with learning style.

The final ‘nail in the coffin‘ against learning styles? Argument by analogy: SATs, gorillas, Einstein, and inventions that were doubted before proven true. With support like this, learning styles shouldn’t be so hard to kill…

What’s important is to see through this sort of argument. On one side, you have claims that it’s about opinions, and there’re several cited to support it. On the other hand, there’re clear pointers to research that’s looked deeply into and across this issue. We  must be better than this!

And if my complaints seem disorganized, that‘s because they follow the ‘flow‘ of the original article. The whole argument is specious!   There‘re mischaracterizations of the alternate argument, a lack of supporting evidence despite claims to the contrary, and sloppy thinking. It‘s on a par with flat earth, anti-vax, and other non-scientific beliefs. For goodness sake, please pay attention to the science, not illogical deniers.

The other day a tweet caught my eye that used a myth to get you to click a link. Worse, clicking the link led to another myth. These are folks I think are generally good, and it seems that their actual offering made sense, but the approach does not. It’s just more marketing myths, drawing upon common misconstruals, and that’s not a good thing. I think it’s worth calling out.

It’s like the claim that we’ve dropped to the ‘attention span of a goldfish’ to argue for shorter ads, learning, etc. That, of course, was a misinterpretation of data, with only a couple of implausibilities. First,  how  do you measure the attention span of a goldfish? More importantly, how would we evolutionarily change our cognitive architecture in the span of a few years? Er, no. Attention’s complex, and the argument is spurious. (Ever disappear into a novel/game/book and surface several hours later wondering where the time went? Yeah, that.)

In this case, they were supporting a proposition that makes sense. Instead of just having a research report, they’re suggesting a summary video. Yep, having a dynamic visual presentation of data is a supportable argument. As Jill Larkin & Herb Simon argued in their Cognitive Science  article,  Why A Diagram is (Sometimes) Worth Ten Thousand Words, it’s about mapping conceptual relationships to spatial relationships to allow our strong spatial processing to assist.

What was wrong was that the lead-in in the tweet was saying “65% of the population are visual learners.” Er, no. That’s the learning styles myth. First, there aren’t reliable instruments. Further, people change depending on what’s to be learned, why, where, when, and more.   We learn visually, and auditorily, and kinesthetically, and… Suggesting that we know how many people are a type of learner is basically wrong.

They went on to say “..enhances knowledge delivery by catering to how people want to learn.” There’s research to say that’s not a good basis, either. The relationship between people’s preferences and what’s effective is pretty close to zero.

It gets worse. When I clicked on the link, it took me to this claim: “Studies show that people remember…10% of what they hear, 20% of what they read, 80% of what they see and do”. Nope. That’s the Dale’s Cone myth, and that’s been shown to be made up. You should indeed remember more of what you do, but reading is seeing, and depending on context, hearing might be best, and…This is even worse, conflating seeing and doing. Dale never added numbers, and the numbers just aren’t plausible anyways, being too perfect.

So, really, three myths for the price of two. It’s more marketing myths in service of selling you things. The most important part is that you don’t need to do this! There are perfectly good, comprehensible ways to push this message without relying on myths. Please, be wary, be leery, be a skeptical consumer. Caveat emptor!

I normally don‘t speak on this blog outside of my focus on learning. That’s for other platforms. However, I can’t help notice; deaths, protests, abuse. And while I wrestle with what to say, I can’t in good conscious say nothing. And there is a connection: diversity and safety.

I tout the evidence that diversity and safety are critical to the best outcomes, and that‘s true beyond the workplace. It‘s true for society as a whole. And yet, it’s been clear that people of color don’t see the same safety that others do and can’t contribute equally. That. Is. Wrong. And the evidence is becoming all the more visible. It’s past time to address this.

On principle, everyone should be entitled to equal rights. Not only was it the premise upon which my home country was founded, it makes sense on philosophical and scientific grounds. So I’m on the side of fixing things. Black Lives Matter.   That’s what we need to address. Systemically. Thoroughly. When there’s an equal playing field, when we value diversity and safety for all, our world will be better for it.

One other thing consistent with my area of expertise is that learning is part of the solution. Here are links to three things I came across and found relevant to the situation at hand:

Emmanuel Acho’s first Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man

Sir Robert Peel’s Principles of Policing

The 8 “can’t wait” research-based policies to reduce deaths

I wrote about how I was frustrated with the lack of any decent learning expertise in too many vendors. And, lately I’ve been seeing more orgs making learning claims. Unrelated, of course, because it’s too soon. Still, are things improving? My experience suggests that it’s not yet quite the case. The problem is whether their learning expertise is shallow or deep. And, you can guess where this is going ;).

For one, a number of times I’ve taken down some silly myths based marketing. And, if people are putting out such snake oil, you really shouldn’t be trusting them. If they’re going on about how people are learning differently these days, you should be on notice. Or, rather, they should!

It goes further, however. If a company is posing as learning science informed, and then propagating myths stuff, you should be worried. Yet it seems all too common. After that myths piece, and the post by an ‘authority’ in the field, I came across another. This site talked about brain science, and says they know about ed psych, cognitive research, but also neuroscience. Going deeper, they’re talking Bloom’s Taxonomy, and dopamine.  And that’s not promising.

And the reason this worries me is not propagating myths, but instead it may be misleading about how capable an org really is. Lots of people can talk glibly, tossing around terms like cognitive, and psychology. And some actually do know their stuff. BUT, it takes more than a polished site and shiny patter to mean they really do know their stuff. And if you need real change (and otherwise why spend?), you need real expertise.

So, fair warning. Because they  say they get it, they may not really. Look, the human brain is the most complex thing in the known universe, so whether an org is shallow or deep really matters in delivering meaningful outcomes. If it matters (and it should).

Several times over the past years, I’ve posted about reading lists. And, for reasons that I’m still not clear about, I decided to create a sort of ‘ultimate’ reading list compilation. Not saying it’s definitive, for several reasons.

First, it’s  only  books. That is, published tomes. You may read them online or in print, but they’re books, not articles, for instance. So,  Cognitive Apprenticeship  isn’t on it.

Second, they’re  my preferences. And I have biases. I’m biased towards cognitive perspectives. I lean in to learning. I’ll be swayed by presentations that resonate with me. Likewise towards people I respect. Your mileage may vary.

And, it’s  fluid. I’m sure I’ve missed some things. I’ve already added Will Thalheimer’s Smile Sheets book, for instance, as an oversight. New things will cross my radar. I’ll find out certain people got their knickers (appropriately) in a knot since I missed them. And I may drop things, on reflection, or upon discovery of better choices.

Finally,  I simply haven’t read  everything. So it’s limited to my experience.

And a couple of other things. It’s broken down in several ways, like I did earlier. That is, there are entry level and more advanced, and some are different directions.

And it’s intended to be fluid. If I find more things, I’ll put them in. If I change my mind, that can happen. So, don’t take it as a given.

So, there it is.  My reading list compilation. For what it’s worth. Feedback, suggestions, etc all welcome.

 

 

(Ok, so I’m feeling silly, and feel free to tune out.) On my home computer, I have a spam filter. However, I can’t put one on my tablet and phone, so there I see much more of the spam. And I’m often on those devices, not the computer. So…I can’t avoid seeing the things that come in. The very silly things. So, here’s a ‘toast’ to spam silliness.

And, of course, I can’t really tell  why I’m getting these. Sure, I do searches, and occasionally click on product links. I’m sure my profile has my interest in pocket tools, tech devices, travel, movies, and searches related to certain health issues. But the mismatches, I have to say, are amusing. Sometimes it’s tangential, and sometimes it’s off the mark. But here’s a mashup of some of the things I’m getting:

The BoomPhone! Not only is this a fully capable smartphone, with text messaging, calendars, and more, but it’s fully bomb-proof! What’s more, it can serve as a tactical weapon; set it and forget it, it will go off when you say. Everyone should have one of these ready to reach for help and  defend oneself in any emergency.

Do you suffer from that ringing in your toes? Do your feet going off at night keep you awake? No more! Magic Toe’n’Deaf Lotion has been avoided by the pharmaceutical companies because it’s just too good! Cures bunions and toenail fungus, softens floors, and glues sequins as well. Get yours now, and sleep in peace.

Now you can move Antarctica off your bucket list and onto your travel plans! Our exclusive resort, IceDreams, with infinity pool, gourmet restaurants serving local specialities, and full-service bar is now available. Come relax amongst, and dine on, the ice, penguins, and leopard seals. Kick up your feet and truly chill out!

Recent studies in ancient science have recently revealed a previously unknown astrological learning style. And our mystic magicians have conjured up a special message just for you! Take our quiz, with questions designed to understand your family history, financial situation, and deepest secrets. From there, we can give you the advice for you to learn best according to the power of the stars, with a special lesson on gullibility. Maximize your opportunities by understand the fate that destiny has in mind for you!

Sorry, I couldn’t resist some spam silliness. Obviously, I have some writing I’m supposed to be doing!  I welcome hearing your mashups.

 

Memory’s funny. I recall attending Learning Technologies to speak on games, many years ago. And, as part of the conference, one keynote was a speaker who talked to the futility of predicting the future. However, I can’t find him nor the book I thought he wrote about it. Still, I want to push the point about ‘predicting’ just a wee bit.

The speaker’s point was more than just the famous quote “never predict anything, particularly the future”.  Instead, he suggested that what happens is that you follow the trends, but things take an unexpected turn owing to some influence no one had thought to account for. He illustrated (if memory serves), with a number of examples.

And I’ve made predictions in the past. But one time Stephen Downes checked on a bunch of folks predictions, and demonstrated that they were mostly off (or too vacuous). So I’ve started talking about what I’d  like to see.

But there’s more. As one of my favorite quotes has it: “the best way to predict the future is to invent it”, as Alan Kay opined. So, rather than just talk about what  will  happen, or what I’d  like to see happen, I want to talk about what I will  work to make happen.

In previous years, I’ve had a theme (usually two). And in many ways they’ve stayed the same under new banners. The theme remains tied to my (tongue-in-cheek) statement that “L&D isn’t doing near what it could and should, and what it is doing it’s doing badly, other than that it’s fine.” So last year I had Intellectricity and Transformation as my key words. And while I still believe in both, I’m keeping with Transformation.

What I care about is individual and organizational learning. And I want to make individual learning (whether alone or collectively) ‘transformative’. Which means we need to transform our learning design approach. Similarly, we need to transform how organizations learn. And that means we have to transform our own practices.

And I continue to work on these. I ran my LXD workshop at DevLearn this past fall, and spoke on the L&D Revolution at the ATD Japan Summit. I’ll be speaking on transformation again at TK2020, and on the Revolution for ATD New England’s annual conference.

So, instead of predicting the future, I’m trying to shape it. I hope you’ll join me! And if you’d like to tap into these changes for your organization, I welcome hearing from you! In the meantime, wishing you and yours all the best for the new year. May it be your best yet.

Some months ago, I talked about I was working virtually in a couple of instances. Using distributed tools, we’re able to coordinate and collaborate.  One team got together physically last week to get work done. And the outcome was intriguing about how we’d ended up building trust virtually that manifested in the real world.

This was an executive retreat for the officers of the board of a not-for-profit. Distributed nationally and even internationally, with a global focus, in the history it’s been rare but regular to meet. However, the group had gone through some hiccups, and was regenerating. I’m relatively new to the group, but interested and learning a lot (always a plus!).

I’d only ever met one of these people before, but we had video-chatted and I’d gotten to know them some. Also, collaborating with relevant comments and revisions similarly has built trust. Trust was initially established by credentials and commitment, but it’s been deepened through working together.

What pleasantly surprised me was how close we’d become. When we met to start work, it began with hugs, between people who’d never met before! I’ve seen it before with #lrnchat, but it’s still rare and treasured.

We also were able to work together quite effectively. We had already established a safe place to interact, and it carried over. Over the course of 2.5 days, we established what the opportunities were, what ones we’d address, and how we’d do it. There’s still work, but we accomplished what we needed to create a new direction.

My takeaway is that what matters is not the tools but the atmosphere. If you work together well, you can do so in either real or virtual worlds. It’s about building trust first, and having that relationship prosper through whatever communication media are available. I think of these folks as friends now, not just colleagues. And that’s all to the good!