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Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

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Personal Mobile Mastery

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A conversation with a colleague prompted a reflection.  The topic was personal learning, and in looking for my intersections (beyond my love of meta-learning), I looked at my books. The Revolution isn’t an obvious match, nor is games (though trust me, I could make them work ;), but a more obvious match was mlearning. So the question is, how do we do personal knowledge mastery with mobile?

Let’s get the obvious out of the way. Most of what you do on the desktop, particularly social networking, is doable on a mobile device.  And you can use search engines and reference tools just the same. You can find how to videos as well. Is there more?

First, of course, are all the things to make yourself more ‘effective’.  Using the four key original apps on the Palm Pilot for instance: your calendar to remind you of events or to check availability, using ToDo checklists to remember commitments to do something, using memos to take notes for reference, and using your contact list to reach people.  Which isn’t really learning, but it’s valuable to learn to be good at these.

Then we start doing things because of where you are.  Navigation to somewhere or finding what’s around you are the obvious choices. Those are things you won’t necessarily learn from, but they make you more effective.  But they can also help educate you. You can look where you are on a map and see what’s around you, or identify the thing on the map that’s in that direction (“oh, that’s the Quinnsitute” or “There’s Mount Clark” or whatever), and have a chance of identifying a seen prominence.

And  you can use those social media tools as before, but you can also use them because of where or when you are. You can snap pictures of something and send it around and ask how it could help you. Of course, you can snap pictures or films for later recollection and reflection, and contribute them to a blog post for reflection.  And take notes by text or audio. Or even sketching or diagramming. The notes people take for themselves at conferences, for instance, get shared and are valuable not just for the sharer, but for all attendees.

Certainly searching  things you don’t understand or, when there’s unknown language, seeing if you can get a translation, are also options.  You can learn what something means, and avoid making mistakes.

When  you are, e.g. based upon what you’re doing, is a little less developed.  You’d have to have rich tagging around your calendar to signal what it is you’re doing for a system to be able to leverage that information, but I reckon we can get there if and when we want.

I’m not a big fan of  ‘learning’ on a mobile device, maybe a tablet in transit or something, but not courses on a phone.  On the other hand, I am a  big fan of self-learning on a phone, using your phone to make you smarter. These are embryonic thoughts, so I welcome feedback.   Being more contextually aware both in the moment and over time is a worthwhile opportunity, one we can and should look to advance.  I think there’s  much  yet, though tools like ARIS are going to help change that. And that’ll be good.

 

Why models matter

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In the industrial age, you really didn’t need to understand why you were doing what you were doing, you were just supposed to do it.  At the management level, you supervised behavior, but you didn’t really set strategy. It was only at the top level where you used the basic principles of business to run your organization.  That was then, this is now.

Things are moving faster, competitors are able to counter your advances in months, there’s more information, and this isn’t decreasing.  You really need to be more agile to deal with uncertainty, and you need to continually innovate.   And I want to suggest that this advantage comes from having a conceptual understanding, a model of what’s happening.

There are responses we can train,  specific ways of acting in context.  These aren’t what are most valuable any more.  Experts, with vast experience responding in different situations, abstract models that guide what they do, consciously or unconsciously (this latter is a problem, as it makes it harder to get at; experts can’t tell you 70% of what they actually do!).  Most people, however, are in the novice to practitioner range, and they’re not necessarily ready to adapt to changes,  unless we prepare them.

What gives us the ability to react are having models that explain  the underlying causal relations as we best understand them, and then support in applying those models in different contexts.  If we have models, and see how those models guide performance in context A, then B, and then we practice applying it in context C and D (with model-based feedback), we gradually develop a more flexible ability to respond. It’s not subconscious, like experts, but we can figure it out.

So, for instance, if we have the rationale behind a sales process, how it connects to the customer’s mental needs and the current status, we can adapt it to different customers.  If we understand the mechanisms of medical contamination, we can adapt to new vectors.  If we understand the structure of a cyber system, we can anticipate security threats. The point is that making inferences on models is a more powerful basis than trying to adapt a rote procedure without knowing the basis.

I recognize that I talk a lot in concepts, e.g. these blog posts and diagrams, but there’s a principled reason: I’m trying to give you a flexible basis, models, to apply to your own situation.  That’s what I do in my own thinking, and it’s what I apply in my consulting.  I am a collector of models, so that I have more tools to apply to solving my own or other’s problems.   (BTW, I use concept and model relatively interchangeably, if that helps clarify anything.)

It’s also a sound basis for innovation.  Two related models (ahem) of creativity say that new ideas are either the combination of two different models or an evolution of an existing one.  Our brains are pattern matchers, and the more we observe a pattern, the more likely it will remind us of something, a model. The more models we have to match, the more likely we are to find one that maps. Or one that activates another.

Consequently, it’s also one  of the things I push as a key improvement to learning design. In addition to meaningful practice, give the concept behind it, the why, in the form of a model. I encourage you to look for the models behind what you do, the models in what your presented, and the models in what your learners are asked to do.

It’s a good basis for design, for problem-solving, and for learning.  That, to me, is a big opportunity.

Defining Microlearning?

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Last week on the #chat2lrn twitter chat, the topic was microlearning. It was apparently prompted by this post by Tom Spiglanin which does a pretty good job of defining it, but some conceptual confusion showed up in the chat that makes it clear there’s some work to be done.  I reckon there may be a role for the label and even the concept, but I wanted to take a stab at what it is and isn’t, at least on principle.

So the big point to me is the word ‘learning’.  A number of people opined about accessing a how-to video, and let’s be clear: learning doesn’t have to come from that.   You could follow the steps and get the job done and yet need to access it again if you ever needed it. Just like I can look up the specs on the resolution of my computer screen, use that information, but have to look it up again next time.  So it could be just performance support, and that’s a  good thing, but it’s not learning.  It suits the notion of micro content, but again, it’s about getting the job done, not developing new skills.

Another interpretation was little bits of components of learning (examples, practice) delivered over time. That is learning, but it’s not microlearning. It’s distributed learning, but the overall learning experience is macro (and much more effective than the massed, event, model).  Again, a good thing, but not (to me) microlearning.  This is what Will Thalheimer calls subscription learning.

So, then, if these aren’t microlearning, what is?  To me, microlearning has to be a small but complete learning experience, and this is non-trivial.  To be a full learning experience, this requires a model, examples, and practice.  This could work with very small learnings (I use an example of media roles in my mobile design workshops).  I think there’s a better model, however.

To explain, let me digress. When we create formal learning, we typically take learners away from their workplace (physically or virtually), and then create contextualized practice. That is, we may present concepts and examples (pre- via blended, ideally, or less effectively in the learning event), and  then we create practice scenarios. This is hard work. Another alternative is more efficient.

Here, we layer the learning on top of the work learners are already doing.  Now, why isn’t this performance support? Because we’re not just helping them get the job done, we’re explicitly turning this into a learning event by not only scaffolding the performance, but layering on a minimal amount of conceptual material that links what they’re doing to a model. We (should) do this in examples and feedback on practice, now we can do it around real work. We can because (via mobile or instrumented systems) we know where they are and what they’re doing, and we can build content to do this.  It’s always been a promise of performance support systems that they could do learning on top of helping the outcome, but it’s as yet seldom seen.

And the focus on minimalism is good, too.  We overwrite and overproduce, adding in lots that’s not essential.  C.f. Carroll’s Nurnberg Funnel or Moore’s Action Mapping.  And even for non-mobile, minimalism makes sense (as I tout under the banner of the Least Assistance Principle).  That is, it’s really not rude to ask people (or yourself as a designer) “what’s the least I can do for you?”  Because that’s what people generally really prefer: give me the answer and let me get back to work!

Microlearning as a phrase has probably become current (he says, cynically) because elearning providers are touting it to sell the ability of their tools to now deliver to mobile.   But it can also be a watch word to emphasize thinking about performance support, learning ‘in context’, and minimalism.  So I think we may want to continue to use it, but I suggest it’s worthwhile to be very clear what we mean by it. It’s not courses on a phone (mobile elearning), and it’s not spaced out learning, it’s small but useful full learning experiences that can fit by size of objective or context ‘in the moment’.  At least, that’s my take; what’s yours?

Rethinking Redux

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Last week I wrote about Rethinking, how we might want and need to revise our approaches, and showed a few examples of folks thinking out of the box and upending our cherished viewpoints.  I discovered another one  (much closer to ‘home’) and tweeted it out, only to get a pointer to another.  I think it’s worth looking at these two examples that help make the point that maybe it’s time for a rethink of some of our cherished beliefs and practices.

The first was a pointer from a conversation I had with the proprietor of an organization with a new mobile-based coaching engine.  Among the things touted was that much of our thinking about feedback appears to be wrong.  I was given a reference and found an article that indeed upends our beliefs about the benefits of feedback.

The article investigates performance reviews, and finds them lacking, citing one study that found:

“a meta-analysis of 607 studies of performance evaluations and concluded that at least 30% of the performance reviews ended up in decreased employee performance.”

30%  decrease performance?  And that’s not including the others that are just neutral.  That’s a pretty bad outcome!  Worse, the Society for Human Resource Management is cited as stating   “90% of performance appraisals are painful and don‘t work“.  In short, one of the most common performance instruments is flawed.

As a consequence of tweeting this out, a respondent pointed to another article  that he was reminded of.  This one upends the notion that we’re good at rating others’ behavior: “research has demonstrated that each of us is a disturbingly unreliable rater of other people‘s performance”.  That is, 360 degree reviews, manager reviews, etc., are fundamentally based upon review by others, and they’re demonstrably bad at it.  The responses given have reliable biases that makes the data invalid.

As a consequence, again, we cannot continue as we are:

“we must first stop, take stock, and admit to ourselves that the systems we currently use to reveal our people only obscure them”

This is just like  learning styles: there’s no reliable data that it works, and the measurement instrument used is flawed. In short, one of the primary tools for organizational improvement is fundamentally broken.  We’re using industrial age tools in an information age.

What’s a company to do?  The first article  quoted Josh Bersin when  saying “companies need to focus very heavily on ‘collaboration, professional development,  coaching  and empowering people to do great things’“.  This is the message of the Internet Time Alliance and an outflow of the Coherent Organization model and the L&D Revolution.  There are alternatives that are more respectful of how people really think, work, and learn, and consequently more effective.  Are you ready to rethink?

#itashare

Reflections on 15 years

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For Inside Learning & Technologies 50th edition, a number of us were asked to provide reflections on what has changed over the past 15 years.  This was pretty much the period in which I’d returned to the US and took up with what was kind of a startup and led to my life as a consultant.  As an end of year piece, I have permission to post that article here:

15 years ago, I had just taken a step away from academia and government-sponsored initiatives to a new position leading a team in what was effectively a startup. I was excited about the prospect of taking the latest learning science to the needs of the corporate world. My thoughts were along the lines of “here, where we have money for meaningful initiatives, surely we can do something spectacular”. And it turns out that the answer is both yes and no.

The technology we had then was pretty powerful, and that has only increased in the past 15 years. We had software that let us leverage the power of the internet, and reasonable processing power in our computers. The Palm Pilot had already made mobile a possibility as well. So the technology was no longer a barrier, even then.

And what amazing developments we have seen! The ability to create rendered worlds accessible through a dedicated application and now just a browser is truly an impressive capability. Regardless of whether we overestimated the value proposition, it is still quite the technology feat. And similarly, the ability to communicate via voice and video allows us to connect people in ways once only dreamed of.

We also have rich new ways to interact from microblogs to wikis (collaborative documents). These capabilities are improved by transcending proximity and synchronicity. We can work together without worrying about where the solution is hosted, or where our colleagues are located. Social media allow us to tap into the power of people working together.

The improvements in mobile capabilities are also worth noting. We have gone from hype to hyphens, where a limited monochrome handheld has given way to powerful high-resolution full-color multi-channel always-connected sensor-rich devices. We can pretty much deliver anything anywhere we want, and that fulfills Arthur C. Clarke’s famous proposition that a truly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Coupled with our technological improvements are advances in our understanding of how we think, work, and learn. We now have recognition about how we act in the world, about how we work with others, and how we best learn. We have information age understandings that illustrate why industrial age methods are not appropriate.

It is not truly new, but reaching mainstream awareness in the last decade and more is the recognition that the model of our thinking as formal and logical is being updated. While we can work in such ways, it is the exception rather than the rule. Such thinking is effortful and it turns out both that we avoid it and there is a limit to how much deep thinking one can do in a day. Instead, we use our intuition beyond where we should, and while this is generally okay, it helps to understand our limitations and design around them.

There is also a spreading awareness of how much our thinking is externalized in the world, and how much we use technology to support us being effective. We have recognized the power of external support for thinking, through tools such as checklists and wizards. We do this pretty naturally, and the benefits from good design of technology greatly facilitate our ability to think.

There is also recognition that the model of individual innovation is broken, and that working together is far superior to working alone. The notion of the lone genius disappearing and coming back with the answer has been replaced by iterations on top of previous work by teams. When people work together in effective ways, in a supportive environment, the outcomes will be better. While this is not easy to effect in many circumstances, we know the practices and culture elements we need, and it is our commitment to get there, not our understanding, that is the barrier.

Finally, our approaches to learning are better informed now. We know that being emotionally engaged is a valued component in moving to learning experience design. We understand the role of models in supporting more flexible performance. We also have evidence of the value of performing in context. It is not news that information dump and knowledge test do not lead to meaningful skill acquisition, and it is increasingly clear that meaningful practice can. It is also increasingly clear that, as things move faster, meaningful skills – the ability to make better decisions – is what is going to provide the sustainable differentiator for organizations.

So imagine my dismay in finding that the approaches we are using in organizations are largely still rooted in approaches from yesteryear. While we have had rich technology opportunities to combine with our enlightened understanding, that is not what we are seeing. What we see is still expectations that it is done in-the-head, top-down, with information dump and meaningless assessment that is not tied to organizational outcomes. And while it is not working, demonstrably, there seems little impetus to change.

Truly, there has been little change in our underlying models in 15 years. While the technology is flashier, the buzz words have mutated, and some of the faces have changed, we are still following myths like learning styles and generational differences, we are still using ‘spray and pray’ methods in learning, we are still not taking on performance support and social learning, and perhaps most distressingly, we are still not measuring what matters.

Sure, the reasons are complex. There are lots of examples of the old approaches, the tools and practices are aligned with bad learning practices, the shared metrics reflect efficiency instead of effectiveness, … the list goes on. Yet a learning & development (L&D) unit unengaged with the business units it supports is not sustainable, and consequently the lack of change is unjustifiable.

And the need is now more than ever. The rate of change is increasing, and organizations now have more need to not just be effective, but they have to become agile. There is no longer time to plan, prepare, and execute, the need is to continually adapt. Organizations need to learn faster than the competition.

The opportunities are big. The critical component for organizations to thrive is to couple optimal execution (the result of training and performance support) with continual innovation (which does not come from training). Instead, imagine an L&D unit that is working with business units to drive interventions that affect key KPIs. Consider an L&D unit that is responsible for facilitating the interactions that are leading to new solutions, new products and services, and better relationships with customers. That is the L&D we need to see!

The path forward is not easy but it is systematic and doable. A vision of a ‘performance ecosystem‘ – a rich suite of tools to support success that surround the performer and are aligned with how they think, work, and learn – provides an endpoint to start towards. Every organization‘s path will be different, but a good start is to start doing formal learning right, begin looking at performance support, and commence working on the social media infrastructure.

An associated focus is building a meaningful infrastructure (hint: one all-singing all-dancing LMS is not the answer). A strategy to get there is a companion effort. And, ultimately a learning culture will be necessitated. Yet these components are not just a necessary component for L&D, they are the necessary components for a successful organization, one that can be agile enough to adapt to the increasing rate of change we are facing.

And here is the first step: L&D has to become a learning organization. Mantras like ‘work out loud’, ‘fail fast’, and ‘reflect’ have to become part of the L&D culture. L&D has to start experimenting and learning from the experiments. Let us ensure that the past 15 years are a hibernation we emerge from, not the beginning of the end.

Here’s to change for the better.  May 2015 be the  best year yet!

Types of meaningful processing

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In an previous post, I argued for different types and ratios for  worthwhile learning activities. I’ve been thinking about this (and working on it) quite a bit lately. I know there are other resources that I should know about (pointers welcome), but I’m currently wrestling with several types of situations and wanted to share my thinking. This is aside from scenarios/simulations (e.g. games) that are the first, best, learning practice you can engage in, of course. What I’m looking for is ways to get learners to do processing in ways that will assist their ability to  do.  This isn’t recitation, but application.

So one situation is where the learner has to execute  the right procedure. This seems easy, but the problem is that they’re liable to get it right  in practice.  The problem is that they still can get it wrong when in real situations. An idea I had heard of before, but was reiterated through Socratic Arts  (Roger Schank & cohorts) was to have learners observe (e.g. video) of someone performing it and identifying whether it was right or not. This is a more challenging task than  just doing it right for many routine but important tasks (e.g. sanitation). It has learners monitor the process, and then they can turn that on themselves to become self-monitoring.  If the selection of mistakes is broad enough, they’ll have experience that will transfer to their whole performance.

Another task that I faced earlier was the situation where people had to interpret guidelines to make a decision. Typically, the extreme cases  are obvious, and instructors argue that they all are, but in reality there are many ambiguous situations.  Here, as I’ve argued before, the thing to do is have folks work in groups and be presented with increasingly ambiguous situations. What emerges from the discussion is usually a rich unpacking of the elements.  This processing of the rules in context exposes the underlying issues in important ways.

Another type of task is helping people understand applying models to make decisions. Rather than present them with the models, I’m again looking for more meaningful processing.  Eventually I’ll expect learners to make decisions with them, but as a scaffolding step, I’m asking them to interpret the models in terms of their recommendations for use.  So before I have them engage in scenarios, I’ll ask them to use the models to create, say, a guide to how to use that information. To diagnose, to remedy, to put in place initial protections.  At other times, I’ll have them derive subsequent processes from the theoretical model.

One other example I recall came from a paper  that Tom Reeves wrote (and I can’t find) where he had learners pick from a number of options that indicated problems or actions to take. The interesting difference was then there was a followup question about why. Every choice was two stages: decision and then rationale. This is a very clever way to see if they’re not just getting the right answer but can understand why it’s right.  I wonder if any of the authoring tools on the market right now include such a template!

I know there are  more categories of learning and associated tasks that require useful processing (towards do, not  know, mind you ;), but here are a couple that are ‘top of mind’ right now. Thoughts?

 

 

Learning in 2024 #LRN2024

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The eLearning Guild is celebrating it’s 10th year, and is using the opportunity to reflect on what learning will look like 10 years from now.  While I couldn’t participate in the twitter chat they held, I optimistically weighed in: “learning in 2024 will look like individualized personal mentoring via augmented reality, AI, and the network”.  However, I thought I would elaborate in line with a series of followup posts leveraging the #lrn2024 hashtag.  The twitter chat had a series of questions, so I’ll address them here (with a caveat that our learning really hasn’t changed, our wetware hasn’t evolved in the past decade and won’t again in the next; our support of learning is what I’m referring to here):

1. How has learning changed in the last 10 years (from the perspective of the learner)?

I reckon the learner has seen a significant move to more elearning instead of an almost complete dependence on face-to-face events.  And I reckon most learners have begun to use technology in their own ways to get answers, whether via the Google, or social networks like FaceBook and LinkedIn.  And I expect they’re seeing more media such as videos and animations, and may even be creating their own. I also expect that the elearning they’re seeing is not particularly good, nor improving, if not actually decreasing in quality.  I expect they’re seeing more info dump/knowledge test, more and more ‘click to learn more‘, more tarted-up drill-and-kill.  For which we should apologize!

2.  What is the most significant change technology has made to organizational learning in the past decade?

I reckon there are two significant changes that have happened. One is rather subtle as yet, but will be profound, and that is the ability to track more activity, mine more data, and gain more insights. The ExperienceAPI coupled  with analytics is a huge opportunity.  The other is the rise of social networks.  The ability to stay more tightly coupled with colleagues, sharing information and collaborating, has really become mainstream in our lives, and is going to have a big impact on our organizations.  Working ‘out loud’, showing our work, and working together is a critical inflection point in bringing learning back into the workflow in a natural way and away from the ‘event’ model.

3.  What are the most significant challenges facing organizational learning today?

The most significant change is the status quo: the belief that an information oriented event model has any relationship to meaningful outcomes.  This plays out in so many ways: order-taking for courses, equating information with skills, being concerned with speed and quantity instead of quality of outcomes, not measuring the impact, the list goes on.   We’ve become self-deluded that an LMS and a rapid elearning tool means you’re doing something worthwhile, when it’s profoundly wrong.  L&D needs a revolution.

4.  What technologies will have the greatest impact on learning in the next decade? Why?

The short answer is mobile.  Mobile is the catalyst for change. So many other technologies go through the hype cycle: initial over-excitement, crash, and then a gradual resurgence (c.f. virtual worlds), but mobile has been resistant for the simple reason that there’s so much value proposition.  The cognitive augmentation that digital technology provides, available whenever and wherever you are clearly has benefits, and it’s not courses!  It will naturally incorporate augmented reality with the variety of new devices we’re seeing, and be contextualized as well.  We’re seeing a richer picture of how technology can support us in being effective, and L&D can facilitate these other activities as a way to move to a more strategic and valuable role in the organization.  As above, also new tracking and analysis tools, and social networks.  I’ll add that simulations/serious games are an opportunity that is yet to really be capitalized on.  (There are reasons I wrote those books :)

5.  What new skills will professionals need to develop to support learning in the future?

As I wrote  (PDF), the new skills that are necessary fall into two major categories: performance consulting and interaction facilitation.  We need to not design courses until we’ve ascertained that no other approach will work, so we need to get down to the real problems. We should hope that the answer comes from the network when it can, and we should want to design performance support solutions  if it can’t, and reserve courses for only when it absolutely has to be in the head. To get good outcomes from the network, it takes facilitation, and I think facilitation is a good model for promoting innovation, supporting coaching and mentoring, and helping individuals develop self-learning skills.  So the ability to get those root causes of problems, choose between solutions, and measure the impact are key for the first part, and understanding what skills are needed by the individuals (whether performers or mentors/coaches/leaders) and how to develop them are the key new additions.

6.  What will learning look like in the year 2024?

Ideally, it would look like an ‘always on’ mentoring solution, so the experience is that of someone always with you to watch your performance and provide just the right guidance to help you perform in the moment and develop you over time. Learning will be layered on to your activities, and only occasionally will require some special events but mostly will be wrapped around your life in a supportive way.  Some of this will be system-delivered, and some will come from the network, but it should feel like you’re being cared for  in the most efficacious way.

In closing,  I note that, unfortunately,my Revolution book and the Manifesto were both driven by a sense of frustration around the lack of meaningful change in L&D. Hopefully, they’re riding or catalyzing the needed change, but in a cynical mood I might believe that things won’t change near as much as I’d hope. I also remember a talk (cleverly titled:  Predict Anything but the Future  :) that said that the future does tend  to come as an informed basis would predict  with an unexpected twist,  so it’ll be interesting to discover what that twist will be.

Learning Engineering

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Last week I had the opportunity to attend the inaugural meeting of the Global Learning Council.  While not really global in either sense (little representation from overseas nor from segments other than higher ed), it was a chance to refresh myself in some rigor around learning sciences. And one thing that struck me was folks talking about learning engineering.

If we take the analogy from regular science and engineering, we are talking about taking the research from the learning sciences, and applying it to the design of solutions.  And this sounds like a good thing, with some caveats.  When talking about the Serious eLearning Manifesto, for example, we’re talking about principles that should be embedded in  your learning design approach.

While the intention was not to provide coverage of learning science, several points emerged at one point or another as research-based outcomes to be desired. For one, the value of models in learning.  Another was, of course, the value of spacing practice. The list goes on.  The focus of the engineering, however, is different.

While it wasn’t an explicit topic of the talk, it emerged in several side conversations, but the focus is on design processes and tools that increase the likelihood of creating  effective learning practices.  This includes doing a suitable job of creating aligned outcomes through processes of working with SMEs, identifying misconceptions to be addressed, ensuring activities are designed  that have learners appropriately processing and applying information, appropriate spread of examples, and more.

Of course, developing an accurate course for any topic is a thorough exercise.  Which is desirable, but not always pragmatic.  While the full rigor of science would go as far as adaptive intelligent tutoring systems, the amount of work to do so can be prohibitive under pragmatic constraints.  It takes a high importance and large potential audience to do this for other than research purposes.

In other cases, we use heuristics.  Sometimes we go too far; so just dumping information and adding a quiz is often seen, though that’s got little likelihood of having any impact.  Even if we do create an appropriate practice, we might only have learners practice until they get it right, not until they can’t get it wrong.

Finding the balance point is an ongoing effort. I reckon that the elements of good design is a starting point, but you need processes that are manageable, repeatable, and scalable.  You need structures to help, including representations  that have support for identifying key elements and make it difficult to ignore the important elements.  You ideally have aligned tools that make it easy to do the right things.

And if this is what Learning Engineering can be, systematically applying learning science to design, I reckon there’s also a study of learning science engineering, aligning not just the learning, but the design process, with how we think, work, and learn.  And maybe then there’s a learning architecture as well – where just as an architect  designs the basic look and feel of the halls &  rooms and the engineers build them – that designs the curriculum approach and the pedagogy, but the learning engineers follow through on those principles for developing courses.

Is learning engineering an alternative to  instructional design?   I’m wondering if the focus on engineering rather than design (applied science, rather than art) and learning rather than instruction (outcomes, not process), is a better characterization.  What do you think?

Resources before courses

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In the course of answering a question in an interview, I realized a third quip to complement two recent ones. The earliest one (not including my earlier ‘Quips‘) was “curation trumps creation”, about how you shouldn’t spend the effort to create new resources if you’ve already got them.  The second one was “from the network, not your work”, about how if your network can have the answer, you should let it.  So what’s this new one?

While I’ve previously argued that good learning design shouldn’t take longer, that was assuming good design in the first place: that you did an analysis, and concept and example design and presentation, and practice, not just dumping a quiz on top of content.  However, doing real design, good or bad,  should take time.  And if it’s about knowledge, not skills, a course doesn’t make sense. In short, doing courses should be reserved for when they are  really needed.

Too often, we’re making courses  trying to get knowledge into people’s heads, which usually isn’t a good idea, since our brains aren’t good at remembering rote information.  There are times when it’s necessary, rarely  (e.g. medical vocabulary), but we resort to that solution too often as course tools are our only hammer.  And it’s wrong.

We  should be trying to put information in the world, and reserve the hard work of course building when it’s proprietary skills sets we’re developing. If someone else has done it, don’t feel like you have to use your resources to do it  again, use your resources to go meet other needs: more performance support, or facilitating cooperation and communication.

So, for both principled and pragmatic reasons, you should be looking to resources as a solution before you turn to courses. On principle, they meet different needs, and you shouldn’t use the course when (most) needs can be met with resources. Pragmatically, it’s a more effective use of  your  resources: staff, time, and money.

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Changing Culture: Changing the Game

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I previously wrote about Sutton & Rao’s Scaling up Excellence, and have now finished a quick read of Connors & Smith’s  Change the Culture, Change the Game.  Both books cover roughly the same area, but in very different ways.  Sutton & Rao’s was very descriptive of the changes they observed and the emergent lessons.  Connors & Smith, on the other hand, are very prescriptive.  Yet both are telling similar stories with considerable overlap.

Let’s be clear, Connors & Smith have a model they want to sell you.  You get the model up front, and then implementation tools in the second half. Of course, you  aren’t supposed to actually try this without having their help.  As long as you’re clear on this aspect of the book, you can take the lessons learned and decide whether you’d apply them yourself or use their support.

They have a relatively clear model, that talks about the results you want, the actions people will have to take to get to the results,  the beliefs that are needed to guide those actions, and the experiences that will support those beliefs. They aptly point out that many change initiatives stop at the second step, and don’t get the necessity of the subsequent two steps. It’s a plausible story and model, where  the actions, beliefs, and experiences are the elements that create the culture that achieves the results.

Like Kirkpatrick’s levels, the notion is that you start with the results you need, and work backward.  Further, everything has to be aligned: you have to determine what actions will achieve the new results, and then what new beliefs can   guide those new actions, and ultimately what  experiences are needed  to foster those new beliefs.  You work rigorously to only focus on the ones that will make a difference, recognizing that too much will impact the outcome.

The second half talks about tools to foster these steps. There are management tools,  leadership  skills, and  integration steps.  There’s necessary training associated with these, and then coaching (this is the sales bit).   It’s very formulaic, and makes it sound like close adherence to these approaches will lead to success.  That said, there is a clear recognition that you need to continually check on how it’s going, and be active in making things happen.

And this is where there’s overlap with Sutton & Rao: it’s about ongoing effort, it requires accountability (being willing to take ownership of outcomes),  people must be  engaged and involved, etc.  Both are different approaches to dealing with the same issue: working systematically to make necessary changes in an organization. And in both cases, the arguments are pretty compelling that it takes transparency and commitment by the leadership to walk the talk.  It’s up to the executives to choose the needed change, but the empowerment to find ways to make that happens is diffused downward.

Whether you like the more organic approach of Sutton & Rao or the more formulaic model of Connors & Smith, you will find insight into the elements that facilitate change.  For me, the synergy was nice to see.  Now we’ll see if these are still old-school by comparison to Laloux’s  Reinventing Organizations,  that has received strong support  from some  colleagues I have learned to trust.

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