Search Results for: top 10

Creativity and rigor

30 September 2025 by Clark Leave a Comment

As I’m wont to do, I was thinking in the middle of the night. About creativity, in this case. Specifically, that I have repeatedly demonstrated the ability to integrate creativity and learning science. And, I tend to forget about it. (Which means you may, too!) Of course, I push the rigor of the cognitive and learning sciences, and advocate for the integration of emotion. However, it’s been decades since I’ve really emphasized my portfolio of work on games and engagement. Maybe since my first book on engagement? So, maybe it’s time to talk about creativity and rigor.

To be clear, I believe it’s important to get both learning and engagement right. Sure, pure computer games are fun (heck, I play them!). And, many have stories that are actually relevant, too. But serious games, ones that actually achieve an outcome, require integrating learning science with engagement. Which isn’t necessarily easy! But, it’s something I’ve reliably done, and I don’t want to forget it!

So, fresh out of college, my first real job was designing and programming educational computer games. (This was for Jim Schuyler at DesignWare.) I created Micro Discovery, a set of games based upon the Computer Discovery series but with my own little set. I then went on to FaceMaker for Spinnaker, before coding Spellicopter and Creature Creator for ourselves. (All before I headed off to grad school.) They weren’t great, as we only had 48K and were targeting the home market, but they were notable. Both FaceMaker and Creature Creator had graphic designers who assisted my lack of visual design capability!

From my graduate work on analogical reasoning, during my post-doc I built a game that required using the stories to solve problems, with a coherent theme. I even published a paper about Voodoo Adventure! This was all on my own, and the graphics weren’t great, but they were ‘good enough’. Hey, two kids at an open house played it all the way through and won (many others tried it out and gave up, to be fair).

At my first teaching position post-grad, I was asked to build a game that helps kids survive on the streets. Quest achieved many things: it achieved the goal of engaging the audience and driving them to important conversations with their counselors; it made it onto the local science program; it sparked a journal article that’s led to my subsequent books, Engaging Learning and then Make It Meaningful; and it’s still arguably the most rewarding professional thing I’ve ever done. It was assisted first by a talented student in programming, and then by graphic talents who addressed the look and feel.

I went on to build first a linear scenario and then a full game on project management (for non-project managers) for a major government organization. This was in conjunction with a team of graphic artists and a software engineer (a bit of that story is also here). I also led design of scenarios for psychiatric nursing. Then I went on and designed a demo game to go with textbooks.

Ok, so I also designed a course that used comics to start off each section, ran a web competition for school kids, did a compelling demo of how to do a good course on the cheap with Learnovators, created mobile games for a NASA test, and…have designed workshops on game design and more. I’m sure there’s more, but that’s off the top of my head. I have regularly combined creativity and rigor, it’s just hard to remember sometimes. And, if you can think of a useful way for me to continue, I welcome hearing!

Why the EIP Conference

1 April 2025 by Clark Leave a Comment

On my walk today, I was pondering the Evidence-informed Practitioner (EIP) conference (rapidly approaching, hence the top-of-mind positioning). And, I was looked at it a different way. Not completely, but enough. So, I thought I’d share those thoughts with you, as a possible answer to “why the EIP conference?”

To start, the conference was created to fill the gap articulated at our Learning Science conference. To wit, “this is all well and good, but how do we do it in practice?” Which, as I’ve opined, is a fair question. And we resolved to answer that.

I started with pondering, while perambulating, about the faculty. We’ve assembled folks who’ve been there, done that, know the underpinnings, and are articulate at sharing. Sure, we could ask people to submit proposals, but instead we went out and searched for the folks we thought would do this best.

My cogitations went further. What would be the best way for folks to get the answers they need? And, of course, the best is mentored live practice…like most learning would be. And, like most learning, that’s not necessarily practical to organize nor affordable. So, what’s the next best thing?

You could do uni courses in it all. You could read books about it all. Or, you could have a focused design. That is, first you have the best folks available create presentations about it. Then, have discussion forums available to answer the questions that arise. With the presenters participating. Finally, you have live sessions at accessible times to consolidate the content and discussions. Again, with the presenters hosting.

That last is what we’ve actually done. That’s what my reflection told me; this is pretty much the best way to get practical advice you can put into practice right away, and refine it. At least, the best value. From the time the videos are available ’til the live sessions, you have a chance to put what’s relevant to you into practice – that is, try it out – and have experts around to share what you’ve learned and answer the emergent questions!

Let’s be clear. Most confs have presentations and time to talk to the presenters, but not the time between presentations and scheduled discussion to try things out. Here, between my co-director Matt Richter and myself, we created a pedagogy that works.

Further, I got to choose the curriculum, starting with what most folks do (design courses), and then branch out from there: first, the barriers, then forward to analysis, and back to evaluation. Then we go broader, talking about extending learning via motivation and coaching, resources for continuing to learn, technology, and move to not learning via performance support. Finally we on to org-spanning issues including innovation and culture.

This is the right stuff to know, and an almost ideal way to learn it, in a practical format. It’s all asynchronous so you can do it at your own schedule, except for the live sessions, and for each they’re each offered at two different times to increase the likelihood that you can attend the ones you want to. Of course, they’re all taped as well.

But wait, there’s more! (Always wanted to say that. ;) If you order now, using the code EIP10CQ, you get 10% off! That makes a great deal become exceptional! Ok, so I’m laying it on a bit thick, but we really did try to make this the gala event of the season, and a valuable learning experience. So, I hope to see you there. Anyways, that’s my answer to why the EIP conference.

Knowledge or skills?

25 March 2025 by Clark Leave a Comment

Ok, I’ve been wrong before, and it appears I am again. I rail against pure knowledge, and felt Ed Hirsch was making that argument. Yet, Paul Kirschner and co-conspirators have him writing the intro to their latest work, The Case for Knowledge. In it, they make the case for the necessity of knowledge as a necessary precursor for critical thinking skills. And, Paul’s been on the side of Sweller in arguing against critical thinking skills. Yet, there’s also recently been shown that you can make valuable headway with teaching skills. How do we reconcile all this? Is it knowledge or skills that matters?

So, I took Ed Hirsch’s book Cultural Literacy, well, literally. That is, I heard him arguing that folks needed a common basis of facts. And, of course, I agree. I do think we need to all understand what 1492 means. But, to me, it was more. It doesn’t do anything to know that and not know in what context that makes sense: that it was the first western European path opened up to the lands of the Americas. Yes, it’d been done before, and yes, the resulting rapaciousness wasn’t beneficial, but it was the first opening of that particular corridor.

What I thought I saw (and consequently must have been wrong about), was that Hirsch stopped at the knowledge. Because Kirschner and co-authors of the recent work make an eloquent case for the need for knowledge. They’ve argued that critical thinking skills are specifically domain-dependent. That is, you need the knowledge of the domain to know how to adequately use that knowledge to make determinations.

Now, I’ve had mixed thoughts about this. For one, I do think we need these skills. Further, I have also believed that to teach them, you can’t do it without specific domains. On the other hand, I improved analogical reasoning skills (across problems) in my Ph.D. thesis, and succeeded. (At least, in the moment, I wasn’t shooting for persistent improvement.) Further, Micki Chi found self-explanation was a useful approach for understanding examples, and Kate Bielaczyc successfully tutored folks on those skills. More recently, I came across a paper from Bernacki, et al, that improved disadvantaged learners success by teaching learning to learn strategies. How do we reconcile this?

Of course, it’s knowledge and skills. I’d heard it said before, and am inclined to agree, that you get more impact with domain-specific skills. But, good approaches across domains should at least have some impact. I know Valerie Shute and Jeffrey Bonar wrote tutors that focused on experimentation skills across domains: geometric optics, economics, and electrical circuits. Of course, I don’t know whether they yielded impacts! Yet with the results mentioned, it seems like there’s measurable benefit to learning to learn skills.

What is clear, however, is that teaching to pass tests isn’t leading to the ability to think critically. I also recently read that teachers have to teach to the test and haven’t time to teach critical thinking skill. Certainly, from an organizational perspective, you can’t count on your employees knowing how to learn on their own. You might be in a situation where you can hire for such skills, but that’s not going to be all orgs. Further, I’ve argued before with the late Jay Cross that it might be the best investment to train same. Look, the answer to knowledge or skills is yes! You can’t do just one, yet there seems to be too much focus on the former, and not the latter. Don’t trust to folks having the thinking and learning skills you need, develop them. Please!

Evidence-Informed Practitioner conference deal

28 February 2025 by Clark Leave a Comment

So, this is a wee bit not my normal post, but…I did want to let you know about the Evidence-Informed Practitioner conference we (the Learning Development Accelerator) are running come April. This won’t be my last post on it, of course! Still, I’ll entice you with some details, and give you a special deal. It’s too good not to let you know about the Evidence-Informed Practitioner conference deal.

So, first, the conference is a follow-on to the Learning Science Conference we held last fall. That was a great conference, but there was one repeated sentiment: “but how do we do this in practice?” A fair question! And, frankly, a topic that’s gotten my mind going in other ways (stay tuned ;). So, we decided to offer a conference to address it.

First, the conference follows the well-received format we saw for that last event. We have the important topics, with canned presentations beforehand, discussions forums to discuss, and then live sessions. The presentations were great, and the emerging discussions were really insightful!

Then, we have top presenters, and I mean really top. People who’ve been there, done that, and in many cases wrote the book or built the company. Julie Dirksen, Dawn Snyder, Will Thalheimer, Lori Niles-Hoffman, Dave Ferguson, Emma Weber, Maarten Vansteenkiste, and Nigel Paine, along with Nidhi Sachdeva and Kat Koppett. These are folks we look to for insight, and it’s a real pleasure to bring them to you.

I get to offer you 10% off. You can use my code to get 10% off the regular price. The secret password is EIP10CQ. That’s EIP (the conference acronym), 10 (percent), CQ (my initials).

I realize I should’ve mentioned this all before, but it’s not TOO late. Hope to see you there, it’ll be great (as my firstborn used to say)! Look, I don’t usually do such a promotion, but I really am excited to offer Evidence-Informed Practitioner conference deals. Hope to see you there!

They’re ripping you off

7 January 2025 by Clark Leave a Comment

Ok, so I am grateful. But there may also be times to rant. (Maybe I’m grateful for getting it off my chest?) But I’m seeing a continual rise in how folks are looking to take advantage of me, and you. And I don’t like it. So, here are some of the ways they’re ripping you off!

So, first, it’s the rise in attempts to defraud you. That can be scams, phishing, or more. As I was creating this post, this was a repost on Bluesky:

Robocalls are seeing a massive increase lately. Keep in mind that efforts to stop caller-ID spoofing have largely had no real effect, because callers now use “throw away” numbers that verify correctly and then are abandoned after days or even hours. In fact, if you get an “unknown caller” on your phone, it’s likely NOT a spam call, because spammers can now so easily not bother spoofing or blocking their numbers, they just keep switching to different “legit” numbers that spam blocks usually don’t detect.

Email phishing is on the rise, and much of it now is bypassing SPF and DKIM checks (that Google and other large mailers started requiring for bulk mailings) due to techniques such as DKIM replay and a range of other methods. Fake PayPal invoices are flooding the Net, and they often are passing those checks meant to block them. It’s reported that many of these are coming from Microsoft’s Outlook, with forged PayPal email addresses. Easiest way to detect these is to look at the phone number they want you to call if you have a question — and if it’s not the legit PayPal customer service number you know it’s not really from PayPal. Getting you to call the scammers on the phone is the basis of the entire scheme.

It’s all getting worse, not better. – From Lauren Weinstein Lauren.vortex.com

Another one are Google Calendar announcements, and recently DocuSign frauds. Plus, of course, the continual fake invoices for Macafee, etc. I don’t know about you, but the earlier scam of pretending to be someone on LinkedIn has returned. I’m seeing a renewal of folks saying that I have an interesting profile, or that I’d be a good match for their company’s new initiative. Without knowing anything about me, of course.

Worse, I’m now seeing at least the former showing up in Bluesky (so I’m keeping Mastodon around; quinnovator on both), and even on Academia.edu! I hear about some attempts to crack down on the factories where they house (and exploit) folks to do this. Which, of course, just drives them to smaller and harder to find such activities. The tools are getting more powerful, making it easier.

The one that really gets me is the increasing use of our data to train language models. I was first alerted when a tool (no longer freely available) allowed me to check one of the AI engines. Sure enough, this blog was a (miniscule) percentage of it. In the column on the right, you can see I’m ok with my posts being fodder. Er, only if you aren’t making money, share alike, and provide attribution! Which isn’t the case; I haven’t had contact nor seen remuneration.

This is happening to you, too. As they say, if you’re not paying, you’re the product. If you use Generative AI (e.g. ChatGPT), you’re likely having your prompts tracked, and any materials you upload are fair game. Many of the big tools (e.g. Microsoft) that connect to the internet are also taking your data. Some may make not taking the default, but others aren’t. In short, your data is being used. Sure, it may be a fair exchange, but how do you know?

In short, they’re ripping you off. They’re ripping us off! And, we can passively accept it, or fight. I do. I report phishing, I block folks on social media, and I tick every box I can find saying you can’t have my data. Do we need more? I like that the EU has put out a statement on privacy rights. Hopefully, we’ll see more such initiatives. The efforts won’t stop; shareholder returns are at stake after all, but I think we can and should stand up for our rights. What say you?

Looking forward

31 December 2024 by Clark Leave a Comment

Last week, I expressed my gratitude for folks from this past year. That’s looking back, so it’s time to gaze a touch ahead. With some thoughts on the whole idea! So here’s looking forward to 2025. (Really? 25 years into this new century? Wow!)

First, I’m reminded of the talk I heard once. The speaker, who’d if memory serves had written a book about predicting the future, explained why it was so hard. His point was that, yes, there are trends and trajectories, but he found that there was always that unexpected twist. So you could expect X, but with some unexpected twist. For instance, I don’t think anyone a year ago really expected Generative AI to become such a ‘thing’.

There was also the time that someone went back and looked at some predictions of the coming year, and evaluated them. That didn’t turn out so well, including for me! While I have opinions, they’re just that. They may be grounded in theory and 4+ decades of experience, but they’re still pretty much guesswork, for the reason above.

What I have done, instead, for a number of years now is try to do something different. That is, talk about what I think we should see. (Or to put it another way, what I’d like to see. ;). Which hasn’t changed much, somewhat sadly. I do think we’ve seen a continuing rise of interest in learning science, but it’s been mitigated by the emergence of ways to do cheaper and faster. (A topic I riffed on for the LDA Blog.) When there’s pressure to do work faster, it’s hard to fight for good.

So, doing good design is a continued passion for me. However, in the conversations around the Learning Science conference we ran late this year, something else emerged that I think is worthy of attention. Many folks were looking for ways to do learning science. That is, resolving the practical challenges in implementing the principles. That, I think, is an interesting topic. Moreover, it’s an important one.

I have to be cautious. When I taught interface design, I deliberately pushed for more cognition than programming. My audience was software engineers, so I erred on getting them thinking about thinking. Which, I think, is right. I gave practical assignments and feedback. (I’d do better now.) I think you have to push further, because folks will backslide and you want them as far as you can get them.

On the other hand, you can’t push folks beyond what they can do. You need to have practical answers to the challenges they’ll face in making the change. In the case of user experience, their pushback was internal. Here, I think it’s more external. Designers want to do good design, generally. It’s the situation pragmatics that are the barrier here.

If I want people to pay more attention to learning science, I have to find a way to make it doable in the real world. While I’m finding more nuances, which interests me, I have to think of others. Someone railed that there are too many industry pundits who complain about the bad practices (mea culpa). That is, instead of cheering on folks that they can do better. And I think we need both, but I think it’s also incumbent to talk about what to do, practically.

Fortunately, I have not only principle but experience doing this in the real world. Also, we’ve talked to some folks along the way. And we’ll do more. We need to find that sweet spot (including ‘forgiveness is easier than permission’!) where folks can be doing good while doing well. So that’s my intention for the year. With, of course, the caveat above! That’s what I’m looking forward to. You?

Beyond Learning Science?

19 November 2024 by Clark Leave a Comment

The good news is, the Learning Science Conference has gone well. The content we (the Learning Development Accelerator, aka LDA) hosted from our stellar faculty was a win. We’ve had lively discussions in the forum. And the face to face sessions were great! The conference continues, as the content will be there (including recordings of the live sessions). The open question is: what next? My short answer is going beyond learning science.

So, the conference was about what’s known in learning science. We had topics about the foundations, limitations, media, myths, informal/social, desirable difficulty, applications, and assessment/evaluation. What, however, comes next? Where do you go from a foundation in learning science?

My answer is to figure out what it means! There are lots of practices in L&D that are grounded in learning science, but go from there to application. My initial list looks like this:

Instructional design. Knowing the science is good, but how do you put it into a process?
Modalities. When you’re doing formal learning, you can still do it face to face, virtually, online, or blended. What are the tradeoffs, and when does each make sense?
Performance consulting. We know there are things where formal learning doesn’t make sense. We want gaps and root causes to determine the right intervention.
Performance support. If you determine job aids are the answer, how do you design, develop, and evaluate them? How do they interact with formal learning?
Innovation. This could (and should; editorial soapbox) be an area for L&D to contribute. What’s involved?
Diversity. While this is tied to innovation, it’s a worthy topic on its own. And I don’t just mean compliance.
Technology. There are lots of technologies, what are their learning affordances? XR, AI, the list goes on.
Ecosystem. How do you put the approaches together into a coherent solution for performance? If you don’t have an ‘all singing, all dancing’ solution, what’s the alternative?
Strategy. There’s a pretty clear vision of where you want to be. Then, there’s where you are now. How do you get from here to there?

I’m not saying this is the curriculum for a followup, I’m saying these are my first thoughts. This is what I think follows beyond learning science. There are obviously other ways we could and should go. These are my ideas, and I don’t assume they’re right. What do you think should be the followon? (Hint: this is likely what next year’s conference will be about. ;)

What L&D resources do we use?

29 October 2024 by Clark 1 Comment

This isn’t a rhetorical question. I truly do want to hear your thoughts on the necessary resources needed to successfully execute our L&D responsibilities. Note that by resources in this particular case, I’m not talking: courses, e.g. skill development, nor community. I’m specifically asking about the information resources, such as overviews, and in particular tools, we use to do our job. So I’m asking: what L&D resources do we need?

I’m not going to ask this cold, of course. I’ve thought about it a bit myself, creating an initial framework (click on the image to see it larger). Ironically, considering my stance, it’s based around ADDIE. That’s because I believe the elements are right, just that it’s not a good basis for a design process. However, I do think we may need different tools for the stages of analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation, even if don’t invoke them in a waterfall process. I also have categories for overarching strategy, and for specific learning topics. These are spaces in which resources can reside.

There are also several different types of resources I’ve created categories for. One is an overview of the particular spaces I indicate above. Another are for information resources, that drill into a particular approach or more. These can be in any format: text or video typically. Because I’m weird for diagrams, I have them separately, but they’d likely be a type of info resource. Importantly, one is tools. Here I’m thinking performance support tools we use: templates, checklists, decision trees, lookup tables. These are the things I’m a bit focused on.

Of course, this is for evidence-based practices. There are plenty of extant frameworks that are convenient, and cited, but not well-grounded. I am looking for those tools you use to accomplish meaningful solutions to real problems that you trust. I’m looking for the ones you use. The ones that provide support for excellent execution. In addition to the things listed above, how about processes? Frameworks? Models? What enables you to be successful?

Obviously, but importantly, this isn”t done! That is, I put my first best thoughts out there, but I know that there’s much more. More will come to me (already has, I’ve already revised the diagram a couple of times), but I’m hoping more will come from you too. That includes the types of resources, spaces, as well as particular instances.

The goal is to think about the resources we have and use. I welcome you putting in, via comments on the blog or wherever you see this post, and let me know which ones you find to be essential to successful execution. I’d really like to know what L&D resources do we use. Please take a minute or two and weigh in with your top and essential tools. Thanks!

A busy few weeks

22 October 2024 by Clark 1 Comment

Things always seem to come in fits and spurts. It may be relatively quiet (that is, lots to do but can schedule as suits) and then boom. What’s coming up are a busy a few weeks, and I thought I’d share. Because, of course, some may be relevant to you.

Next week isn’t. Relevant to you, that is. I’ll be off for a couple of days guiding a client strategy. I was just supposed to do a keynote, but…when I heard it was a strategy session I offered to help facilitate it. That said, I do think we’ve created a good plan. Fingers crossed.

The week after that is DevLearn, arguably my favorite F2F L&D conference. I’ll be speaking at 3PM on Thursday, 7 November on achieving impact with your interventions. Then I’ll be signing books at 9:30 AM on Friday the 8th near the conference bookstore. I’m coming in for the full thing, arriving Tuesday and leaving Saturday, but it won’t be my usual visit. I’ll be around, saying hi to old friends and meeting new, of course. I’ll also be introducing a colleague new to L&D around.

Then, and this is exciting, I’ll be spending the subsequent week (11-15 November) either participating in or presenting in sessions for our Learning Science conference. I’m doing a couple (informal/social learning, and making learning ‘stick’) of our curated sessions on my own. Then I’m doing one on myths with my LDA co-director, Matt Richter. The rest of the conference, as mentioned is great folks and important topics. Content’s up front, and no conflicting sessions when we discuss the topics live.

I’ll have a week after that to recover, and then of course Thanksgiving week. I hope to see you live around LV, or online the subsequent week. I’ll try to keep posting here once a week, but things may be a wee bit more random what with a busy few weeks until mid-November. By December, somewhat back to normal except of course the holidays. In the meantime, as I say to my family: be good, stay safe, and have fun!

Learning Science Conference 2024

15 October 2024 by Clark Leave a Comment

I believe, quite strongly, that the most important foundation anyone in L&D can have is understanding how learning really works. If you’re going to intervene to improve people’s ability to perform, you ought to know how learning actually happens! Which is why we’ve created the Learning Science Conference 2024.

We have some of the most respected translators of learning science research to practice. Presenters are Ruth Clark, Paul Kirschner, Will Thalheimer, Patti Shank, Nidhi Sachdeva, as well as Matt Richter and myself. They’ll be providing a curated curriculum of sessions. These are admittedly some of our advisors to the Learning Development Accelerator, but that’s because they’ve reliably demonstrated the ability to do the research, and then to communicate the results of theirs and others’ work in terms of the implications for practice. They know what’s right and real, and make that clear.

The conference is a hybrid model; we present the necessary concepts asynchronously, starting later this month. Then from 11- 15 November, we’ll have live online sessions led by the presenters. These are at two different times to accommodate as much of the globe as we can! In these live sessions we’ll discuss the implications and workshop issues raised by attendees. We will record the sessions in case you can’t make it. I’ll note, however, that participating is a chance to get your particular questions answered! Of course, we’ll have discussion forums too.

We’ve worked hard to make this the most valuable grounding you can get, as we’ve deliberately chosen the topics that we think everyone needs to comprehend. I suggest there’s something there for everyone, regardless of level. We’re covering the research and implications around the foundations of learning, practices for design and evaluation, issues of emotion and motivation, barriers and myths, even informal and social learning. It’s the content you need to do right by your stakeholders.

Our intent is that you’ll leave equipped to be the evidence-based L&D practitioner our industry needs. I hope you’ll take advantage of this opportunity, and hope to see you at the Learning Science Conference 2024.

« Previous Page