Search Results for: engag

Increasingly, we’re seeing that emotion matters. Scientific evidence supports what we intuitively know. Yet, in many cases, our actions don’t support that understanding. At least, in nuance. In particular, our learning designs suffer from trivialized ‘like’ as opposed to useful and effective approaches. We can and should do better to tap into the power of emotion.

Again, I’m using the term ’emotion’ loosely here. While we do care about emotions like joy and grief (though our picture is changing), what we really need to be caring about are non-cognitive elements like motivation, anxiety, and confidence. It’s about designing to appropriately address them: develop motivation, keep a lid on anxiety, and build confidence. Each has it’s elements.

Motivation improves learning outcomes, but requires understanding what makes us interested. We’re driven by a desire to understand the world (c.f. ‘predictive coding‘. Curiosity can assist in developing an interest. Certainly, self-interest plays a role as well, and helping people tune into the positive consequences of a learning experience (or the negative outcomes of not having the requisite understanding) is also useful. Self-Determination Theory (c.f. Deci and Ryan) talks about mastery, autonomy, and relatedness. We can use this to help people connect with others (instructors/peers/experts), give them tasks (autonomy) and support to succeed (mastery).

Anxiety interferes, if it’s too much. While a small amount helps, that’s quickly overwhelming. Given that learning can be intrinsically anxiety-inducing, keeping anxiety to a minimum is important. Making it safe to fail is an important component of this. Psychological safety is an important element in organizational operation, and learning as well.  We can not attach consequences to practice, certainly at first. We can also have the instructor make mistakes as well.

Building confidence is an adjunct here. As people master the skills, at greater and greater levels of challenge (an important component of successful learning experience design), they build confidence. That reduces anxiety, and maintains motivation. We don’t want false confidence, but we can steadily build confidence as we go. Ultimately, we want learners to have sufficient confidence to try out the skills (and succeed) after the learning experience.

There’s lots more that goes into making an experience effective and engaging, but understanding these elements, and how to enact them, is an important component. The power of emotion, properly harnessed, improves learning outcomes (which is what we should be about ;). I’ll be addressing these and more in my workshop Make It Meaningful at the upcoming DevLearn conference in Las Vegas on Oct 24. I’d love to see you there, as we talk about the complement to learning science that combines to achieve those experience goals.

In a current engagement, we’re faced with the challenge of being given large goals. They can be learning, or performance support, or even just awareness. One of the things we’re wrestling with is how and when to break things up into smaller chunks. To be clear, this is about whether to put it into a separate entity, rather than how to segment within an entity. This isn’t an area of my expertise, I admit. As a consequence, I’ve done some scouring and pondering, and here’re some thoughts and my request for help with breaking up.

My initial reaction is that this is about curriculum. That is, the level above pedagogy: not how to teach, but what to teach. A term which made sense is ‘curriculum mapping‘. Which works for K12, but the advice I found wasn’t helpful in this instance. It seemed to be about iterating, which is good, but I was looking for some research-based principles. We don’t have external standards.

Asking around, my colleagues suggested it’s more like information architecture. I know a bit about information architecture, but not a lot. In general, I take it as organizing around the way users think about the content. Which is good for information, but not necessarily for learning.

Of course, your learning objectives should provide a guide. There should be a path from the learner’s initial state, through enabling objectives, to the final objective. That should define the scope of an experience. If it gets too big, then make one or more of the enabling objectives their own piece. In this case, we’re taking something already created and trying to make sense of it.

Really, I’m fine with that latter, but I just wonder if there are any evidence based principles to guide this thinking. Something besides seemingly sensible breakups. It all seems based upon perception (and iterative testing). However, I wonder if there are metrics, or a principled basis. Hence, my request. I’m asking for help with breaking up. What am I missing? Any pointers?

I’ve been promoting the importance of the emotional ‘hook’. Which I was called out on, rightly. I freely admit that the phrase is less than fully accurate. So let’s explore the issue of whether we’re talking emotion, or motivation, or…

As context, one perspective from cognitive science is thinking of our ourselves as comprised of three components. One is cognitive, that is what we think and know. Which is malleable, as we can learn more! A second component is termed affective, that is who we are. Which isn’t malleable; these are our fixed characteristics, certainly personality (e.g. OCEAN/HEXACO). Finally, there’s our conative component. This is our intent: to learn, to act, and arguably what we value. 

This last bit, the conative, is what I suggest we neglect in our learning design. We address the cognitive, and there’s little to do on the affective side, but we too often basically assume that the learner is ready for what we’re presenting. Which I suggest is a mistake. 

There’s considerable evidence that we perform better when we’re engaged. When experiences are motivating, and anxiety is kept to a minimum, and our confidence is built, etc. Further, we can address these. We can help folks see the WIIFM, make it psychologically safe, and provide appropriate levels of challenge with useful feedback. (And we should!) However, too often we don’t.

So I use the shorthand term ‘emotion’ to address this.  I use the term to separate from the cognitive in a shorthand way. The problem, of course, is whether anxiety and motivation are truly ‘emotions’. Effectively, they’re not. My stance, however, is that I can’t be talking ‘conative’ to folks who aren’t aware of that concept!

I also resist just talking about motivation. Anxiety is an issue. So too is confidence. John Keller’ has his ARCS model (arguably the only ID theorist considering the conative aspect, though I don’t know if he uses that term ;). His model incorporates gaining/maintaining Attention, manifesting the Relevance of what’s being learned, building Confidence, and ensuring Satisfaction from the experience. Really, we want an umbrella term for these elements. 

There is the concept of engagement. However, it’s been trivialized. Claims that ‘click to see more’ is more engaging, that points & leaderboards are engaging, etc. have undermined the term. So I avoid it to avoid getting mired in that morass. Instead, I think talking about emotion as a shorthand way to address the non-cognitive. Yet…

I was called out for talking about an ‘emotional hook’ by a very learned client. Rightly so. The question is, do we have a better term? Is there a more appropriate and yet still accessible way ta talk about this? Obviously, I haven’t thought so as yet, but I want to keep learning. So if you’ve a better solution, please do let me know. (Feel free to also say that this approach is probably the only solution, at least for now.) Otherwise, I’ll keep looking for a better approach than emotion, or motivation, or…

I’ll be discussing ‘emotion’ in a session for the Learning Guild’s LXD conference, coming up at the beginning of next month. I’m also presenting a two half-days pre-event online workshop on LXD overall, integrating emotion with science. I’ll also explore ‘engagement’ in a full day face-to-face pre-con workshop at their DevLearn conference in October). Hope to see you at one of these!

Harold Jarche’s elegantly crafted announcement:

The Internet Time Alliance Memorial Award, in memory of Jay Cross, is presented to a workplace learning professional who has contributed in positive ways to the field of Informal Learning and is reflective of Jay‘s lifetime of work.

Recipients champion workplace and social learning practices inside their organization and/or on the wider stage. They share their work in public and often challenge conventional wisdom. The Award is given to professionals who continuously welcome challenges at the cutting edge of their expertise and are convincing and effective advocates of a humanistic approach to workplace learning and performance.

We announce the award on 5 July, Jay‘s birthday.

Following his death in November 2015, the partners of the Internet Time Alliance — Jane Hart, Charles Jennings, Clark Quinn, and Harold Jarche — resolved to continue Jay‘s work. Jay Cross was a deep thinker and a man of many talents, never resting on his past accomplishments, and this award is one way to keep pushing our professional fields and industries to find new and better ways to learn and work.

The 7th annual Internet Time Alliance Jay Cross Memorial Award for 2022 is presented to Céline Schillinger.

In her recent book, Dare to Un-lead, Céline asks, “Can there be liberty, equality, and fraternity at work” Then she shows examples of how this can be achieved. As Head of Quality Innovation & Engagement at Sanofi Pasteur Céline helped to create the ‘Break Dengue’ global community to fight dengue fever. Céline understands the power of community. She says that, “If you cannot find a community of practice for your professional development, then create one.”

Céline has often challenged the status quo, especially regarding the lack of diversity in many workplaces.

“What really matters is to mirror the diversity of the world we serve. We need more women… more humanities majors… more people of colour… more professionals coming from other jobs… in short, a much bigger diversity of viewpoints at all levels. We also need more network and co-construction across levels, as the old pyramidal system is no longer fit for purpose.”

Céline has said that companies must cultivate their rebels in order to remain relevant to their workers, while staying competitive in their arenas. These rebels can let them see beyond the organization‘s walls. We are sure that Jay Cross would agree.

Links:

https://weneedsocial.com/about-me

https://weneedsocial.com/praise-dare-to-unlead

https://www.europeanpharmaceuticalreview.com/article/69269/quality-lever-transformation-sanofi/