Dave's Whiteboard

Cammy Bean, on her Learning Visions blog, summarized a live session by Brent Schlenker.  Brent’s topic:  “Marketers and Game Developers Know More about Learning than We [learning design folks] Do.”

Both Cammy’s post and the extended comments are worth reading; I’m going off on my own, starting with Brent’s notion that we need to move from “event-based learning” (the course, whether classroom or e-learning) to “learning campaigns.”

He contrasts what corporate learning does with what corporate marketing does.  Marketing is about a campaign, “a series of events/operations/continuing storyline.”  A learning campaign, he suggests, is not about t-shirts and email blasts (the latter always strikes me as both offensive and fatheaded).  “It’s about providing more ways for learners to engage with and accent content.”

That’s part of the mind shift for corporate learning: it’s not about getting the word out, if the word is mostly “we’ve got these courses, this elearning, the fabulous LMS.”  Sometimes the message received is: “We’ve got lots of ways to consume your time while distracting you from your real job.”

If I quibbled with Brent, it’d be about the statement, “Marketing brings in the money.”  I think marketing brings in the attention.  But the entire organization–product development, sales, production, customer service–has to deliver on that attention in order to bring in the money.  Or at least to bring it in more than once.

Take the Starbucks campaign for VIA Ready Brew.  If your local area has paved roads and indoor plumbing, you’ve probably experienced part of the marketing campaign around “100 percent natural roasted arabica coffee in an instant form that is rich and full bodied just like a fresh-brewed cup.”  But have you tried it?

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I say “quibble” because I think both Brent and Cammy would agree with this: the concept of campaign aligns well with the idea of an overall performance system.  People who know about communications will tell you that your web site isn’t a brochure; it’s one way that your organization talks with people.  And before you decide on the colors and the layout, you need to think about who those people are and how the conversations might go.

So: corporate learning is about identifying skills people need but don’t have, skills that connect clearly to results that those people and their groups need to produce.  And the learning must not only engage (a far better word than “entertain”); it must do so in a way that isn’t divorced from my real work.

“Campaign” entered English some 300 years ago, referring to large military operations in a geographic area.  In other words, not the Big Idea at headquarters, but theory-meets-practice on the front line.  A successful learning campaign, whatever it looks like, clearly knows the territory.

Stephen Downes recently posted a detailed essay on “21st century skills,” An Operating System for the Mind. He’s asking whether and why a common core of knowledge is necessary, and whether students ought to be tested on that core.

Downes is thorough–copied into Word, the post comes to eight single-spaced pages. I wanted to read it and follow what he’s saying, which explains this post. If things aren’t clear here, blame me.  Then, read Stephen’s original for yourself.

The bottom line: while factual knowledge is helpful, certain key skills are essential; they are a kind of operating system for the mind, which can then work with data from the outside world.

What’s at the core?

By “core knowledge,” he’s talking about a body or collection of things that provide the basics in a given field (e.g., you “need to know about bones to study medicine”).  He’s not saying you can’t teach (or learn) facts; learning facts is “the great shortcut in human development.”  And in order to do anything, you need to know stuff.

The question is, why these specific facts? In other words, is there a common core?

Downes says that facts learned as facts (like the multiplication tables) are a kind of direct programming, the sort of thing that remains unquestioned.  And, frankly, facts aren’t enough.

It’s not just the facts, ma’am

Here’s my summary of his six main reasons that an education based strictly and solely on facts is insufficient:

• Too many facts: you can’t learn them all, so you have to know how to find them.
• Facts aren’t fixed: things change, and we need to learn, to “change the previously existing state of our knowledge.”
• Some facts matter more: we have to select and filter so that we can decide what facts are important to ourselves and to others.
• Calling something a fact doesn’t make it one: we need to compare and assess things presented as facts.  (For example, I have no interest whatsoever in any “facts” proving that the earth is less than 10,000 years old.)
• Some facts invite acts: we need skills to decide whether the facts we have are something we should act on, and the sense that we can by acting create new facts.
• Facts aren’t capabilities: Beyond seeing the possibility of acting, we need the ability to act.

The flip side of these insufficiences, for Downes, becomes a summary of so-called 21st-century skills.  I like that there’s nothing about multi-tasking or hardware infrastructure or evolutionary changes to the brain in them.  They’re stated in more general terms, and could have applied a century ago.

So what’s different?

President Kennedy said at a 1962 dinner for Nobel laureates:

I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.

But that was 47 years ago, and 28 years before the world’s first web server.  We’ve got more facts and less static facts all the time.  (Remember how science “knew” that stomach ulcers were caused by stress?)  Beyond knowing what’s new and what’s changed, we have to cast a wider net.  Here Comes Everybody is not just a book title–it’s a new form of input.

Downes argues we also have new types of knowledge and skill, and that more of us need to use them every day.  (Baby Boomers are sometimes uneasy when they read “email is for old people.”)

Consider also the skills needed to manage just your professional presence and reputation.  That used to be done almost exclusively on paper and in person.  Now you’ve got networking sites, blogs, personal domains, avatars… your “online self” is a sort of conceptual clown car, with all sorts of characters inside.  Good thing we have so many more ways to do that.

Downes says, in part, that the role of facts is decreasing as the need for dynamic skill increases:

People need such greater capacities in literacy, learning, prioritizing, evaluation, planning and acting.

Facts: they don’t compute

Downes has an extended, useful comparison between these skills and the way we use computers.  To vastly oversimplify, other than its operating system, a computer doesn’t know anything.  (I tend to say it’s dumb as a rock but fast as hell.)  “If we had…programmed into [the computer] the knowledge of finances, literature, and mathematics, it would have been a less useful computer.”

That’s why, when we design computers, first we build the hardware, then we install the operating system, then we install application programs, and only then do we add the data – the facts with which we expect our computer to work.

The same principle applies in education and learning.

Take driving, for example. If our knowledge of how to drive depended on a set of facts, then at a certain point it would become impossible, because while we could teach people how to drive on common streets and in common situations, as we drive further and further away from home, in newer and different vehicles, our knowledge becomes less relevant, until eventually we are simply unable to drive. If, instead of focusing on the ‘facts’ of driving, we think of driving as an activity or skill, then we are able to adapt, and develop new abilities, and new knowledge, mastering the ability to drive in strange places as we progress.

…which is why Downes sees 21st-century skills as an operating system for the mind.

What the new operating system does

These skills enable us to navigate, to see, to understand, and to make our own decisions.  More important, says Downes, they change how we see facts.

To me, this is like the old view of the atom as an indivisible particle.  A fact is a thing, it’s true, it’s “real.”  Downes argues that “our relation with facts is much more contingent than previously supposed.”  (His italics.)

• Facts are not independent of how they’re expressed. Literacy means reading the lines, and between the lines, but also “reading faces, photos, ideas, omens, and portents.”
• Facts change. That’s a fact.  The earth isn’t the center of the universe.  Solid rock isn’t solid.

nobody
belongs anywhere
even the
Rocky Mountains
are still
moving
— George Bowering

• Some facts are salient, some aren’t. There’s no one set of facts that’s important to everyone.
• You can learn to tell fact from non-fact. Detecting deception (or, I think, error, or misrepresentation) is a skill, Downes says, “and you need just as much as your computer needs to be able to detect malware.”
• You’ve gotta decide. This point is key: decision-making isn’t rote performance, which means it’s not based solely on facts.
• You need to act. That action depends on skill much more than on a big ol’ heap of fact.

To be a man is to be responsible: to be ashamed of miseries you did not cause; to be proud of your comrades’ victories; to be aware, when setting one stone, that you are building a world.

—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I’m skillful enough to let Downes finish for himself:

We still to a great degree treat facts as things and education as the acquisition of those things. But more and more, as our work, homes and lives become increasingly complex, we see this understanding becoming not only increasingly obsolete, but increasingly an impediment.

Today…if you simply follow the rules, do what you’re told, do your job and stay out of trouble, you will be led to ruin. It’s like sitting on a log floating in a river: it works for a while, and seems like the safest place to me, but all the while, you’re approaching a waterfall. Whether it be a financial crash, the degradation of the environment, war and terrorism, or even something as simple as a car accident or family crisis, you will need more and more the ability to keep yourself afloat in troubled and rapidly changing circumstances, and an abundance of facts will not help you, it will instead sweep you over the waterfall.

CC-licensed images:
Rolodex cards by mrbill;
facets of faces by Axel Bührmann.

I’ve already mentioned David Sousa’s How the Brain Learns, but I keep going through it and thought it deserved a little more exposure.

Sousa’s writing for teachers (including college and university faculty), along with principals and staff development folks. Almost everything here offers value for the corporate trainer or instructional designer, in terms of more structured learning

A lot of makes sense for less formal learning as well.

It’s clear from the outset that Sousa does what he encourages you to do.  By the time you get to page 9 (there are 300 pages), he’s nudging you to do more than just read:

One of the best ways to assess the value of the strategies suggested in this book is to try them out in your own classroom or in any other location where you are teaching. conducting this action research allows you to:

• Gather data to determine the effectiveness of new strategies and affirm those you already use,
• Acclaim and enhance the use of research in our profession, and
• Further your own professional development.

Besides which, he says, you get feedback on how you’re doing (as an instructor or designer), and you can collaborate with your peers to apply the research more broadly or more deeply.

So, what’s he offering?  The chapter titles are clear:

1. Basic Brain Facts (parts, development)
2. How the Brain Processes Information (models and their limitations)
3. Memory, Retention, and Learning
4. The Power of Transfer (both transfer during learning and transfer after learning)
5. Brain Specialization and Learning (lateralization, spoken language, learning to read)
6. The Brain and the Arts
7. Thinking Skills and Learning
8. Planning for Today and Tomorrow

Each chapter includes a section called Practitioner’s Corner. These are short, focused sections to help the teacher (trainer, learning professional) move stuff off the pages and into her repertory of skills.  For chapter 3 (memory, learning, retention) there are ten practitioner’s corner items.  They range from “avoid teaching two very similar motor skills” to “strategies for block scheduling” to “using rehearsal to enhance retention.”

I’ve actually felt a little intimidated by How the Brain Learns. I look at what Sousa’s done and think “I ought to be doing my own action research.”  I ought to create and document not only some successes from what I’ve done–but make those potential resources for future clients and coworkers.

• What am I trying to do?  What’s telling me to try it?
• What difference will it make?  How can I tell?
• What difference did it make?
• What do I do now?  What can I do better?  What’s telling me that?

I’m reading e-Learning and the Science of Instruction by Ruth Colvin Clark and Richard E. Mayer.  I’ve admired Clark for years; she energetically and effectively applies research to the problem of learning at work.

One strategy they recommend for elearning (and that you’ll find applies in other situations) is the use of worked examples.

A worked example is a step-by-step demonstration of how to perform a task or solve a problem.

That means that in some cases, a worked example can look a lot like a job aid.  Especially for procedural tasks (those you perform the same way each time), worked examples are natural ways to show specifically how to accomplish some task.

Clark and Mayer offer four guidelines:

• Replace some practice problems with worked examples.
• Apply good practice when using text, audio, and graphics in worked examples.
• Provide diverse, job-realistic worked examples to help build mental models.
• Train learners to self-explain as they use worked examples.

Practice: less can be more

Remember homework?  It’s an attempt to strengthen the use of procedure skills.  Clark and Mayer cite research (as they do throughout the book) to suggest that you can save learning time by replacing some practice with worked examples.

“One [caveat] is that worked examples are only effective if the learner studies them.”  So design some worked examples as completion problems: partly-worked examples that the learner finishes.

Other approaches: make the worked example interactive — like, say, a widget that allows the learner to change one or more factors and see the result.

The authors point out that worked examples seem to benefit novices more than they do people already skilled in a topic.

The media can work

I heard more than an echo of Ten Steps to Complex Learning. (That’s no coincidence; the book cites research by Ten Steps co-author J. J. G  van Merrienboër.)  Clark and Mayer advocate applying sound principles for media use when you create worked examples.  For instance:

• Integrate text with graphics; don’t restrict text to a caption at the edge.
• Use audio to expand on visuals; don’t use it to narrate text on the screen.
• Personalize.  Use conversational tone.  Use virtual agents (like a coach who addresses the learner).

Act like work

It’s almost depressing to think this point needs stressing.  When you create worked examples, make sure they involve realistic tasks that people face on the job.  (All the more reason to involve typical performers in the design, if you ask me.)

And vary the examples.  That’s more than changing the names; change the structure of the example.  Doing so helps you approximate the range of problems that show up on the job, where not everyone comes in asking the same thing.

…When teaching tasks that require judgment and problem-solving–tasks known as far transfer–more than one example will be needed…

Thre is no one right method for performing these tasks, since each job situation will be different.  Solving these far-transfer tasks, whether in highly structured domains such as programming…or in more ill-defined areas such as sales…requires more flexible knowledge in long-term memory.

Interestingly, worked examples help to lower extraneous cognitive load (the mental burden imposed by the course design).  A variety of examples adds to the intrinsic cognitive load, which can improve learning.

The idea is that the learner works at figuring out what the different examples have in common, and thus builds up her own mental model for the skills in question.

Do-it-yourself explaining

“Successful learners can explain worked examples to themselves, and their explanations focus on the principles behind the examples.”

So Clark and Mayer suggest that a virtual coach can demonstrate how to work through a worked example.  In other words, the worked example is an example of explaining a worked example.  From the text:

• (Onscreen text in a quality-control unit)
  Take 4 sequential widgets off the line every hour for 24 hours.  These are your subgroups.
• (Jim, the onscreen virtual coach, in audio:)
  First, I notice that the subgroups are selected on a regular basis–four in a row, every how.

So what?

Here’s what I think is worthwhile about the use of worked examples (and about the book generally):

• It’s based on research, not someone’s preferred way to present.
• It works for both procedural and non-procedural skills.
• It suggests that design does, in fact, matter, so that even an advocate of informal learner can benefit by applying the principles to things meant to foster that learning

How fully do you immerse yourself in new skills?

The University of New England’s program in geriatric medicine gives students a “diagnosis” and places them in nursing homes.  The students spend two weeks living as they would with the symptoms and limitations of their condition.

Here’s 38-year-old Kristin Murphy, who said, “I said I want the full gamut [of treatment].  And I said that completely not knowing what I was getting in to….’Well, do you want a Hoyer lift?’  And I had said, sure.  I did not know what a Hoyer lift was.  I had no idea, none whatsoever.”

(I can’t seem to embed the video; click the image to view it on the New York Times site.)

Here’s the full article, which appeared in the August 24 New York Times.

I think the program is remarkable for what it demands of the medical students.  Doctors generally and specialists in particular are rarely on the receiving end of the full range of treatment that a patient experiences.

The two-week length of the “condition” provides time for a variety of experiences–the daily routine of eating, bathing, using the toilet.  There’s also at least the potential for the spirit-sapping dreariness of nursing home life: your personal space is limited to a bed, a dresser, a closet, a few shelves.  Your roomate, not chosen by you.  A television always on; a call-light signal pinging away endlessly; people younger than your grandchildren calling you by a nickname–or just “honey” or “dear.”

And twenty-four hours, after which the cycle starts again.

I’d like to know what happens when participants return from this experience.  How do they process what doesn’t happen? They don’t (and can’t) experience the full burden of pain and frailty. They don’t (and can’t) experience the full burden of medication.

It’s sobering to read that only 10 students have gone through this program…and more so to see that only about two-thirds of geriatric fellowship slots (required for certification) are filled.