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Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

Meaningful processing

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Sometimes I worry about the myths that are out there about learning.  Ok, to be honest I worry about them a lot. Learning styles, generational differences, digital natives, the list goes on. But one that has personally been surfacing a lot is the type of activity that leads to meaningful learning.  So it’s time for me to lay it out, for the record.

I’ve talked previously about social processing, so I’m going to focus specifically on individual processing.  And, realize, my goals are not the ability to recite rote knowledge, but I’ll even address that. Note, by the way, that there are really two types of knowledge (c.f. Van Merriënboer), the things you need and the complex problems you apply them to.  So, first we’ll start with the knowledge you need, and then the problems you apply them to.

To help folks get knowledge down, memorizing the core facts they’ll draw upon in solving complex problems, the main component necessary is reactivating the knowledge.  You need to match the term with the definition, the model with it’s relationships, etc.  Sheer repetition doesn’t help, even here it’s making choices and getting feedback.

So, for instance, coloring a poster with the associated words doesn’t do the necessary processing, you need to activate the necessary concepts with connections to relevant things.  You need to semantically process the terms again and again.  Elaborating them, putting them in context, applying them to simple problems is necessary.  Flash cards work because they require the association task.  Just exposure doesn’t work, even with testing, it’s discrimination from competing alternatives.

Then we get to the application. And frankly, if you’re not having folks learn things to use  them, why are you bothering? That’s why I like Cathy Moore’s Action Mapping, she works backwards from the task and then only focuses on the knowledge necessary to do  the task.  A good heuristic approach that couples elegantly to a principled foundation.  And, as converging theories suggest, you need to be applying knowledge to support the ability to transfer that skill out of the learning experience.

So, you need to be looking at the knowledge to be learned in a more discriminating fashion than just exposure, and you then need to be applying that knowledge to a suite of tasks to support making it useful. There’s more, such as the necessary spread of tasks to support appropriate decontextualization to support transfer, and sufficient and spacing of practice to support retention, but here I just want to emphasize that rote exposure to knowledge doesn’t mean it will be learned, and that learning facts without applying them doesn’t lead to any meaningful outcome.  So can we start focusing on learning activities that generate meaningful processing?  Please?

 

Ownership versus ubiquity

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The notion that soon everything will be in the cloud, and we’ll just use an interface surface near us is not new.  The notion is that the technology will recognize you and present your environment, ready for you to accomplish your goals.  This is a nice idea, and I can see it working, but it’s not trivial.

Contrast this to the element that Judy Brown talks about as important component of mobile learning.  For her, mobile devices have to be something you’re familiar with and have with you all the time.  And that, to me, is the sticking point.

With an interface surface you come upon, would you necessarily recognize the different ways the interface would manifest?  You don’t want a big touchscreen (despite Minority Report  imaginings) for very complex work, because the research shows your arms fatigue too quickly. So you might have a keyboard on some devices.  And the variety could be high.  And, yes, it’s your interface, but with all the different possible form-factors, could you make it comprehensible?  And you’re still at the mercy of availability of surfaces (kinda like waiting in line for computers to check email at conferences has been).

Now, I can see having a mobile device and  then using an accessible interface that recognizes you by the device proximity, so you’re not stuck. And I can imagine that it would be possible to make a scalable interface (just not necessarily easy).  I do wonder, however, about some surfaces being so designed for aesthetics that the usability is compromised (c.f. The Design of Everyday Things).

And, particularly for my notion of slow learning  (which I need to augment with ubiquity and personalization – quick, I need a new phrase! :), the ability for a device to be with you may be required to do the teachable moment  thing.  That is, having a context-sensitive device right that at the appropriate place and time may be needed to really develop us in the ways we deserve.

So I don’t take that vision of ubiquitous computing surfaces at face value, I think that there are some reasons why mobile devices may still make sense.  Which isn’t to say there’s not a way, but I’m still holding out for something with  me.

Working Smarter

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Work smarter, not harder.

Have you heard that?  I did, in my first job out of college; my boss said it, but it wasn’t clear what it meant.  What does ‘work smarter’ mean?  I already thought I was working smarter.  Well, as I’ve learned (in conjunction with my ITA colleagues), it means a number of things that organizations can, and should, do.

So, what is known about when we work smarter? We work smarter under a number of conditions: when we have a clear goal of what we’re supposed to achieve and we recognize it’s importance; when we’re free to experiment, explore, and even fail; when we have colleagues to collaborate with; and  when we have the resources we need available ‘to hand’.  This provides some guidance about what an organization should be doing to optimize the likelihood of success.

We need to be doing meaningful work that we’re excited about.  We need to be connected to a vision, and understand how our role contributes.  There needs to be transparency above and below as well as ahead, so we can see how the parts are working together.

We also need a culture where that transparency is empowering, not threatening. It has to be safe to perform in public, to share our thoughts, and to both provide and receive help to others.  Where, when mistakes are made, the lessons are learned and shared.

We need to see it as important to contribute, and be enabled to communicate to the right people, and be able to work together to get the job done.  We need time to reflect as well, to take time to think about what we’re doing. We should be doing that publicly too. We need to learn out loud and together.

Finally, we need the tools available. We shouldn’t have to take time to go multiple places to get what we need, and use inconsistent interfaces to use them. We should have an environment where we’re focused on our tasks, and can get who and what we need to stay focused.

How to work smarter isn’t a mystery. The mystery is why  more organizations aren’t systematically breaking down the barriers to working smarter.  Are you ready to get going?

Layering learning

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Electronic Performance Support Systems are a fabulous concept, as pioneered by Gloria Gery back in the early 90’s.  The notion is that as you use a system, and have entries or decisions to make, there are tools available that can provide guidance: proactively, intelligently, and context-appropriate.  Now, as I heard the complaint at the time, this would really be just good interface design, but the fact is that many times you have to retrofit assistance on top of a bad design for sad but understandable reasons.

The original were around desktop tasks, but the concept could easily be decoupled from the workplace via mobile devices.  One of my favorite examples is the GPS system: the device knows where you are, and where you want to go (because you told it), and it gives you step by step guidance, even recalculating if you make a change.  Everything from simple checklists to full adaptive help is possible, and I’ve led the design of such systems.

One of the ideas implicit in Gery’s vision, however, that I really don’t  see, is the possibility of having the system not only assist you in performing, but also help you learn. She talked about the idea in her book on the subject, though without elaborating how that would happen, but her examples didn’t really show it and I haven’t seen it in practice in the years since.  Yet the possibility is there.

I reckon it wouldn’t really take much. There is (or should be) a model guiding the decisions about what makes the right step, but that’s often hidden (in our learning as well).  Making that model visible, and showing how it guides the support and recommendations that are made, could be made available as a ‘veneer’ over the system. It wouldn’t have  to be visible, it could just be available at a click or as a preference for those who might want it.

Part of my vision of how to act in the world is to ‘learn out loud’. Well, I think our tools and products could be more explicit about the thinking that went into them, as well.  Many years ago, in HyperCard, you could just use buttons and field, but you could open them up and get deeper into them, going from fixed links to coded responses.  I have thought that a program or operating system could work similarly, having an initial appearance but capable of being explored and customized.  We do this in the real world, choosing how much about something we want to learn (and I still want everyone  who uses a word processor to learn about styles!) about something. Some things we pay someone else to do, other things we want to do ourselves. We learn about some parts of a program, and don’t know about others (it used to be joked that no one knows everything about Unix, I feel the same way about Microsoft Word).

We don’t do enough performance support as it is, but hopefully as we look into it, we consider the possible benefits of supporting the performance with some of the underlying thinking, and generating more comprehension with the associated benefits that brings. It’s good to reflect on learning, and seeing how thinking shapes performance both improves us and can improve our performance as well.

Goin’ Mobile

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This is a copy of an article I’ve written for a Wiley newsletter to promote my mlearning book.  

The indicators are clear: the world is going mobile.   Mobile subscriptions in the developed world are flattening out, not from lack of interest, but from saturation.   People are accessing the internet more from mobile devices than desktops, and some people  only  access the internet via mobile!   And when a small company like Google says that they‘re designing for mobile first and the desktop is an afterthought, it is safe to say mobile is on the move.

And the opportunities are huge.   Through the centuries, we have continually extended our physical capabilities with tools: we‘ve developed more capable clothing to let us go to further extremes, more powerful transportation that can let us travel thousands of miles in a matter of hours, tools that can let us work on the scale of mountains or of molecules.   We‘ve also used tools to augment our brains: books to serve as external memory, calculators to support our computational capability, phones to allow us to communicate at distances.   Digital technology has proven to be the ultimate cognitive augment, doing exactly the things that our brains don‘t do well, so together we‘re truly formidable problem-solvers. And now, we have that capability wherever and whenever we need it.   Which has important implications by itself, but there is more potential, too.

Don‘t be mislead by the label, mLearning is about so much more than courses on a phone.   In fact, that‘s almost contra-indicated.   What mobile learning really is about is  augmenting  formal learning, and augmenting performance regardless.   The old ‘event‘ model of learning really doesn‘t work very well, as our brains only can handle so much at a time. With mobile, however, we can extend that learning over time. And over space: we can turn the entire world into part of our learning environment, or to think about it another way, we can spread our learning environment over the world.   Beyond learning, we can bring specific support to wherever we are: accessing information to make our shopping more effective, our understanding deeper, our interactions richer. We can access information, support our decisions, and share our experiences.

But there‘s also something unique to mobile, beyond a pocketable desktop. As the devices get more capable, they begin to  know  where we are, even which way we‘re facing, and they can start adding unique information specific to our current context, location-aware.   We‘re just beginning to explore the possibilities, and you really do have to think differently to take advantage, but the potential is exciting.   Are you mobilizing?

Social Cognitive Processing

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In an earlier post, I tried to convey the advantages of social activities in formal learning from the cognitive processing perspective, but my diagram apparently didn’t work for everyone.  I took another shot for a presentation I gave on mobile social at the Guild’s mLearnCon, and I thought I’d raise it here as well.

Cognitive reprocessing via social interactionI’m going through this diagram line by line, from the top.

If you go from just having an idea (first line) to trying to capture it as a product (next), whether a diagram or a screed, to communicate to some hypothetical reader, you find out that you might not have thought it out fully (the first benefit to having a personal journal, e.g. blogging).  And you do some processing to generate that product.

Then, if someone actually reads it, they  do some processing.

If they write a response, they do more processing to crystalize their thoughts.

Then, the author, when reading it, also does some more processing.

If someone else reads it, that person does some processing, and if they write  a comment, well, the process continues.

The author could then write a reply to one or both, and that causes even  more  processing. And so on.

And this is good.  Processing is part of learning, and focused processing is part of good learning design.  So, having learners capture and communicate their thoughts is a valuable learning activity.  It can be personal reflections, e.g. “what does this explain in my past” or “what will I do differently in the future”, or responses to a question.

If other learners are asked to read and constructively  comment (not just “great post”), you can get valuable learning outcomes.

Cognitive processing in group assignmentsThis extends to the social learning situation. Here, you have every learner contribute their initial  thoughts on a group assignment (recommended).

Then, every learner reads the other proposals, and they start to put out their integrated ideas.

As they negotiate a shared understanding as a group response, some great processing is happening.

Ultimately, they create an outcome that’s richer than what they’d create on their own.

If you’ve created the right  amount of ambiguity in the project, you’ll get some great discussions.  The processing benefits here are because the learners will bring somewhat different interpretations and experiences to the project, and that diversity allows a mre robust understanding to emerge.

Consequently, I suggest that social learning adds benefits to the learning experience beyond what individual assignments can achieve. You can mimic some of these effects by staging additional information, but it’s not quite as effective as individual learning (nor near as engaging).

So, does this make sense?  And, hopefully, inspire you to find ways to add social interaction into your learning experiences? It’s not unique to social media, but social media give you a channel to bring these benefits to learning whenever and wherever.

Checklist Manifesto

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On the advice of Judy Brown, I picked up The Checklist Manifesto, and I have to say it’s a must-read.  This is a short, well-written, and mind-changing book.  Frankly, it ranks up there with Don Norman‘s Design of Everyday Things, and that’s saying a lot.

Atul Gawande is a medical doctor who’s also an eloquent writer.  In the course of his work he’s become interested in reducing errors, and has looked deeply into how to minimize them.  And he’s had the opportunity to put into practice and test his ideas, refining them until they work. This book documents his explorations, developing a thesis that he recognizes has applicability far beyond medicine.  And that’s important for us, if we care about improving outcomes both professional, personal, and societal.

He breaks up flaws in execution into those where we don’t have knowledge, and those where we make errors despite having the requisite knowledge.  And he explores eloquently how likely the latter are in the real world.  Demonstrably smart  and knowledgeable people, acting in complex situations, regularly make mistakes. Those who have heard me speak about how our minds work know that there’s some randomness built into our system. Frankly, we’re not really good at doing rote tasks.  He doesn’t go into the cognitive architecture, but rather documents it via stories and explanations of complexity.  And he develops a particular approach that is striking in it’s simplicity and powerful in it’s effects.

Not surprisingly, given the title, the solution are checklists.  He has two types, ones that help us execute those rote steps that are critical to success, and another that helps connect us at critical times.  He categorizes, in a way I find reminiscent of Van Merriënboer’s elegant task analysis in terms of the knowledge you need and the complex problems you apply it to, the benefits of both remembering those crucial but empirically overlooked steps and of having people build a quick rapport and share the critical information at critical times.  He illustrates with flight and large-scale architecture examples as well as medical,situations where performance literally is life-or-death.  The clear implication is that if it saves lives there, it can save dollars or more anywhere.

And, refreshingly, he admits you’re not going to get it right the first time, and you need to trial, iterate, and refine again. He recognizes that it must be quick, easy to use, and tuned for the context of use.  This is no quick fix, but it ends up providing small easy changes that actually save time as well as reduce error.  It’s really about performance support, and it’s not complex, and it can work.  It’s also a natural match to mobile delivery, which I’m sure is one of the reasons Judy pointed it out.

This short, eloquent book holds the power to make significant improvements in many fields.  I strongly recommend it.

Immersion or collaboration?

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In something I’ve just been involved in, I realized I had a question.  I’m a fan of scenarios (read: serious games), to the point that I’ve written a book about how to design them!  I’m also a fan of social learning, and consequently argue for the benefits of collaborative assignments.  They both have the opportunity for powerful outcomes.  The question, naturally, is which makes sense when?

This is an important question, to the point that I’ve recommended it as a critical hiring criteria: that a candidate can not only articulate when you should do which, but also articulate how to do both.  Really, if you’re responsible for learning design, you need to go farther: when would you use scenarios, role-plays, or collaborative assignments?  How would you capitalize on the experience, formatively?  How would you design such a practice?

This gets into not only your pedagogical philosophy, but also your meta-cognitive ability.  Before you read my answer, take a moment and think: what’s my answer?  Seriously: what is your answer?

In short. my take is on the nature of the task the learners will be performing in the real world. Will they be performing individually, or will they be working as a member of a team?    There are processing differences (I do recommend that there is collaborative reflection after an individual learning scenario, to get meaningful processing).  Regardless, the core nature of the real world task should be closely aligned to the practice situation. If they’ll perform alone, make it a scenario. If they’ll work in a group, make it  a collaborative task, or a multi-player scenario/role-play.

Regardless, it’s worth checking: who’s your audience, what are your learning goals, and what is the most appropriate practice.  So: immersion, or collaboration?

WIIFL

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What’s In It For Learners?

In organizations, we talk about addressing WIIFM (What’s In It For Me).  As a key component of motivation, we want to connect to individuals viscerally.  With my focus on engagement in learning, I’ve felt it’s important to address the conative (anxiety, motivation, etc) of learners as well.

What I’ve meant by this has included having introductions that viscerally capture the consequences of the knowledge (positive or negative, dramatically or comically; I’ve a predilection for comically negative), help them connect the learning to the broader context of the world, help them understand why it’s important for them, remove anxiety, etc.  I believe we need to open up learners emotionally as well as the well-known benefits of activating relevant knowledge cognitively.

I was just writing up a list of what would need to change for schools to be effective, and as I was riffing on epistemology (having learners understand and take responsibility for learners), it occurred to me that we needed to address the WIIFM, and I realized it’s about WIIFL.  We need to explicitly address what makes the learning experience valuable to learners.  I’m sure we’ve all heard learners say something like “I’ll never use this”.  If it’s true, bin it.  If it’s not, then help them see it.

On a set of content I was lead on the design of (math), I created the spec for our introductions to show how the content would get used in real life, and then we worked through meaningful examples and practice items. In another set of content I created the engagement for, we used a professional cartoonist to create a comic that introduced every section.

We don’t emphasize enough helping learners understand why they should care, so is it any wonder why they question the WIIFM?  And it’s not  presenting the learning objectives that we use to design, it’s a more coherent story that uses, essentially, marketing to get them to get it.

Ask yourself, if and when you’re creating a learning experience: WIIFL.  If you do, you can either eliminate unneeded content, or help learners connect in a motivating way. If you don’t, you risk learners tuning out and staying away.  Which isn’t a worthwhile investment of time and money.

Mind the SME (and process)

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At the recent Distance Teaching & Learning Conference I keynoted at, I met up with Jon Aleckson who, among other things, provided me a copy of his new book MindMeld. As the subtitle tells you, the book is about “micro collaboration between elearning designers and instructor experts”. To put it another way, the book is primarily about how to work successfully with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs).

Bsed upon Jon’s Ph.D. thesis work, this doesn’t read as an academic treatise for the simple fact that Jon’s run an elearning business for years now. While solidly grounded in good theory, the book is also focused very pragmatically on success factors. Written in a very accessible style, illuminated with case studies and hints and tips, this is a short and readable.

More importantly, the book is valuable. It talks about how to work with what the book calls instructor-experts in ways that increase the likelihood for success. Along the way, it provides useful coverage of topics like shared representations, process, and the value of project management. Along the way, the book isn’t afraid to touch upon the more intangible but real issues like culture and momentum.

The book is not without it’s flaws. Perhaps not surprisingly, situated in Madison WI, there’s a very strong emphasis on games as learning activities. Certainly I don’t disagree, but I would also emphasize collaboration equally. Also, despite not being academic, and admittedly also intended for academic designers as well as corporate, the examples appear to skew to the academic side. There also isn’t my favorite tip about where SMEs add extra value, finding their passion for the topic as a hint to designing the learning solution. These, however, are minor points.

Overall, I can strongly recommend this book to any individual or team that needs to be working to create a learning solution. The conceptual clarity around the practice of working as a team, and the practical advice, on a topic too seldom discussed, wrapped in a brief and accessible package, make this an easy recommendation.

PS: note that just because I get a copy of a book doesn’t mean I review it favorably; my integrity prohibits it (testimony in the stacks of free and unreviewed books that sit around my office).  I do not  recommend giving me a free book in any expectation of favorable consideration.