I feel pretty confident answering yes, – and only partly because I have a boss who’s a huge fan of research-based instructional design. We literally spent half of our last company-wide meeting reviewing the basics from learning researchers like Ruth Clark, Robert Gagne, and Benjamin Bloom. One of the criticisms I saw from some of the bloggers who called the brain-based instruction craze a lot of hooey was that the principles were just “common sense”. The problem with common sense is that some of what I see as common practice doesn’t necessarily make sense with what we know about how people learn. Here are the top three “common sense” practices I see that run completely counter to what we know about how people learn.Interesting facts will help the learner better remember the informationRuth Clark’s coherence principle is pretty clear that extraneous information detracts from learning. This extraneous information won’t drive performance, even if the learner does remember it. And the space it takes up in the learner’s brain might well be better used for performance-driving information.Often, subject matter experts want to compound the damage by putting the interesting but irrelevant information right at the start of the training. The basic instructional design principle of primacy tells us that right up front is prime learning real estate – definitely not the place to put something you don’t really care if the learner remembers or not.Pictures engage the learnerThe multimedia principle (Ruth Clark again – we like her stuff quite a lot around BLP) says that pictures have to be relevant to be useful in learning. Sounds obvious enough – but how many powerpoint slides or e-learning pages have you seen with graphics that are clearly there to just make the page look better? Pretty is good – pretty and relevant is required for the instruction to be effective.Practice is a nice-to-have, but can be skipped if you run out of timeWhile I very seldom hear clients talk about this one when designing instructor led training, we’ve all seen it happen. Instructors run out of time, or simply want to win points with their audience by getting done early, and the first thing to go is the exercises. We’ve all heard that practice makes perfect – and most of us have heard the nitpicky version, “perfect practice makes perfect”. Common sense, sure, but also often ignored in practice.This entry was posted on Sunday, July 11th, 2010 at 9:55 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Showing posts with label Training. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Training. Show all posts
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Designing Training that Helps the Brain Learn and the Learner Perform
It’s been awhile since I tackled one of The Learning Circuits Blog Big Question of the Month – but this one is intriguing ” “Does the discussion of how the brain learns impact your e-learning design?”I feel pretty confident answering yes, – and only partly because I have a boss who’s a huge fan of research-based instructional design. We literally spent half of our last company-wide meeting reviewing the basics from learning researchers like Ruth Clark, Robert Gagne, and Benjamin Bloom. One of the criticisms I saw from some of the bloggers who called the brain-based instruction craze a lot of hooey was that the principles were just “common sense”. The problem with common sense is that some of what I see as common practice doesn’t necessarily make sense with what we know about how people learn. Here are the top three “common sense” practices I see that run completely counter to what we know about how people learn.Interesting facts will help the learner better remember the informationRuth Clark’s coherence principle is pretty clear that extraneous information detracts from learning. This extraneous information won’t drive performance, even if the learner does remember it. And the space it takes up in the learner’s brain might well be better used for performance-driving information.Often, subject matter experts want to compound the damage by putting the interesting but irrelevant information right at the start of the training. The basic instructional design principle of primacy tells us that right up front is prime learning real estate – definitely not the place to put something you don’t really care if the learner remembers or not.Pictures engage the learnerThe multimedia principle (Ruth Clark again – we like her stuff quite a lot around BLP) says that pictures have to be relevant to be useful in learning. Sounds obvious enough – but how many powerpoint slides or e-learning pages have you seen with graphics that are clearly there to just make the page look better? Pretty is good – pretty and relevant is required for the instruction to be effective.Practice is a nice-to-have, but can be skipped if you run out of timeWhile I very seldom hear clients talk about this one when designing instructor led training, we’ve all seen it happen. Instructors run out of time, or simply want to win points with their audience by getting done early, and the first thing to go is the exercises. We’ve all heard that practice makes perfect – and most of us have heard the nitpicky version, “perfect practice makes perfect”. Common sense, sure, but also often ignored in practice.This entry was posted on Sunday, July 11th, 2010 at 9:55 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I feel pretty confident answering yes, – and only partly because I have a boss who’s a huge fan of research-based instructional design. We literally spent half of our last company-wide meeting reviewing the basics from learning researchers like Ruth Clark, Robert Gagne, and Benjamin Bloom. One of the criticisms I saw from some of the bloggers who called the brain-based instruction craze a lot of hooey was that the principles were just “common sense”. The problem with common sense is that some of what I see as common practice doesn’t necessarily make sense with what we know about how people learn. Here are the top three “common sense” practices I see that run completely counter to what we know about how people learn.Interesting facts will help the learner better remember the informationRuth Clark’s coherence principle is pretty clear that extraneous information detracts from learning. This extraneous information won’t drive performance, even if the learner does remember it. And the space it takes up in the learner’s brain might well be better used for performance-driving information.Often, subject matter experts want to compound the damage by putting the interesting but irrelevant information right at the start of the training. The basic instructional design principle of primacy tells us that right up front is prime learning real estate – definitely not the place to put something you don’t really care if the learner remembers or not.Pictures engage the learnerThe multimedia principle (Ruth Clark again – we like her stuff quite a lot around BLP) says that pictures have to be relevant to be useful in learning. Sounds obvious enough – but how many powerpoint slides or e-learning pages have you seen with graphics that are clearly there to just make the page look better? Pretty is good – pretty and relevant is required for the instruction to be effective.Practice is a nice-to-have, but can be skipped if you run out of timeWhile I very seldom hear clients talk about this one when designing instructor led training, we’ve all seen it happen. Instructors run out of time, or simply want to win points with their audience by getting done early, and the first thing to go is the exercises. We’ve all heard that practice makes perfect – and most of us have heard the nitpicky version, “perfect practice makes perfect”. Common sense, sure, but also often ignored in practice.This entry was posted on Sunday, July 11th, 2010 at 9:55 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. 
Friday, October 1, 2010
Similarities – and Differences – Between Training and Communication
“I need training.”
Don’t get me wrong, I dearly love to hear those words when I pick up the phone, because it means that I might get the chance to help someone and work on a new exciting project. The problem, of course, is that a pretty significant percentage of the time that declaration is just not quite…true.
Training, as far as I’m concerned, means that the person going through it can do something at the end that they couldn’t do at the start. Most of what businesses call training actually isn’t training by that definition. It’s communication.
Training and communication share a lot of elements, but they have some distinct differences, as well.
Clear, concise language that gets right to the heart of the matter.Clear, concise language that gets right to the heart of the matter.Say the same thing more than once, applying the “Repeat to Remember” brain rule.Maybe say the same thing more than once, applying the “Repeat to Remember” brain rule.Use worked examples to help the audience see the principles you’re talking about in action.Maybe used worked examples to help the audience see the principles you’re talking about in action.Identify and focus on how the information will actually be put into practice on the job.No need to identify or emphasize how the information will actually be put into practice.Give the audience opportunities to practice the key skills you are trying to teach.Communication is very effective for most business goals. Really, the biggest difference is that in a straight communication piece, you aren’t trying to help the recipient APPLY the information. That’s appropriate an a lot of situations, either because the recipients will already know how to apply the information you provide, or because it’s not really information you need them to apply. Both happen in business all the time.
That’s not to say it’s a good practice. I would submit that if you can’t identify HOW someone needs to use the information you want to provide them, perhaps you shouldn’t be providing it. At the very least, you shouldn’t be pushing it. Instead, focus on making it available to those who want it. More importantly, focus on making it valuable to those you believe need it – so they will seek it out on their own.
That’s where an instructional design focus can be helpful even for communication projects. Instructional design is all about giving people information in a way that lets them apply it to the work they do every day. Even if you aren’t going to truly train people on a topic, you still typically want the information to be constructed in a way that makes it useful.
Do you distinguish between training and communication projects? How are they different when you create them?
This entry was posted on Monday, August 23rd, 2010 at 4:57 pm and is filed under learning design, learning transfer, project management of learning solutions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.Thursday, September 30, 2010
Training Trends 2010: What’s happening and so what?
I just finished giving a talk on training trends – what they are and the “so what’s” associated with them.
Here’s a link to the slides associated with this presentation
We had a nice group of folks participating, and we generated lots of discussion. Here – for those of you who don’t want to access the slides – are the top 6 trends we see, and the “so-what’s associated with these trends. Feel free to agree, disagree, or propose other trends.
The need/demand to compress time.The shift from “training” to “learning.”The shift from F2F to online classroom.Rapid authoring (and we aren’t talking about Articulate here!)The new blend – formal and informal.Mobile and web delivery.The trends are pretty self-explanatory. I think it’s the “so what’s” associated with them that are more interesting. What implications do the trends have for learning professionals, learners, and, indeed, companies who employ people and, in theory, support learning.
Traditional learning design models need to be revamped and re-thought. We have to consider usability data from learners as part of this.Remembering is WAY less important than it used to be. Now…FINDING stuff is most important. (Think WebMD)Instructional design – and the role of instructional designers – has to change. (Yeah, this one kind of links with Point 1).The tech toolbox HAS to be big – you can’t just use one tool and expect it do be your one-size fits all learning solution. Instructional designers may not have the technical proficiency to use all the tools, but they better be able to identify appropriate tools and figure out what to use when (or know who to ask.We have many more distractions for learners and IDers to manage – NO ONE gives 100% attention to most learning events – formal or informal!The new blend – formal and informal – only works so well. The holy grail right now is to “formalize informal learning” which sounds great but may not be a really good idea. Informal learning that is “formalized” requires a gardener/moderator to tend to it and cultivate interactions/community. Informal learning that is mandated (e.g. You will submit X blog posts/week gets the required minimum….but doesn’t really foster better learning. For me, it’s more about recognizing when letting people learn on their own is okay – and creating tools that make it easier for this to happen.I’m going to deliver this presentation again on July 14th in Bloomington, IN and again via webinar in late July. Check out our website if you’d like to sign up for the next webinar:
This entry was posted on Thursday, June 24th, 2010 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.Monday, September 27, 2010
Training vs. Learning: When all you really need to do is communicate
I’ve been doing a bit of work with clients lately where their “training request” is really a request for communication design. I devised a graphic to help clarify the distinctions in “learners” using terminology that I’ve heard several clients use: shallow dive vs. deep dive. Shallow dive implies we need to tell them SOMETHING, but we don’t really expect them to have to use a lot of the knowledge on the job – they will ask others to help them. Deep dive implies they are teaching other people to swim or they are applying the knowledge in pretty significant ways. There’s a third group – left standing on the shore – that are just supposed to be “aware.” (This group doesn’t use the knowledge at all…they just have some peripheral awareness of stuff that’s going on.)
Often, organizations REALLY just want to communicate stuff to people – they don’t really expect them to learn to DO anything. This is not a bad thing…except when we over-engineer the “learning solution” when all we really want to do is tell someone something and ensure they can locate the information later when they need it. In instances such as these, people don’t need courses – they need a place to find information.
How many of you, dear readers, have visited Web MD? It’s a great website, full of info. I’ll bet most of you have been there – and most of you can’t remember exactly what you’ve looked up the last 5 times you’ve visited. Doesn’t matter, though, because you can go back when you need to and find more info.
I think Web MD is a terrific example of creating a tool that is useful for communicating information and make it it easy for people to FIND information. This is is a frequent, unrecognized goal of lots of “learning solutions.” We create e-courses with NEXT buttons when what we really need is a resource that helps people find information when they need it.
We just created a learning solution that I think is really cool. It’s an “online quiz” that simply asks people questions about what they know. If they get the question right, terrific – they move on. If they don’t get it right, they get a “hint” about where they can find the right info. The “hint” links them to a reference document -already available on their website – that gives them the relevant info. This solution does three things:
1) It let’s learners quickly access whether or not they know core information that they should know as part of their jobs.
2) It gives them immediate feedback about what they don’t know. If they get a question wrong, it points them to the right reference source for locating information. This reference source is available to them outside the “online quiz.” The quiz simply helps orient them to the presence of the reference and helps them use the reference immediately AND figure out where to find it later.
3) It eliminates reading screen after screen of information learners won’t remember.
With the quantify of information we are all fed each day, designing solutions that are more about helping us locate information and less about attempting to embed things in memory is a critical need.
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