Will at Work Learning

Case Question -- Concept Mapping, Question Answering, Multiple Sessions

In this scenario, John and his best instructional-design team have to decide whether to utilize concept mapping, question answering, or multiple sessions instead of just presenting material in the normal way. Can you help them make the best decisions?

Stealth Messaging for Chief Learning Officers (and other learning executives)

After years of being embedded as a consultant in organizations who have struggled to move their stakeholders beyond a training-centric model to a performance-improvement approach, I finally realized that our painstakingly slow progress might be due to our own failures in getting our messages heard.

We in the workplace learning field are over-reliant on conveying our messages in a way that attempts to connect to our stakeholders' logical, analytical, conscious cognitive processing. The problem with this -- beside the fact that it is obviously not working -- is that most cognition occurs subsconciously. We've been trying to sing underwater.

I've always been enamored with the idea that we need to find the most important causal factors and focus on those--not on the hundreds of factors that might have minor impact. I've followed this approach in reviewing the learning research -- finding the most important learning factors, not the fad-of-the-year learning factors. But this leverage-point approach applies to our workplace-learning organizations as well. We should be looking for our most potent leverage points and focusing on those.

So, after some lengthy reflection, I have written a book chapter which describes how our leaders -- our chief learning officers, training managers, and other learning executives -- might restructure some of their organizations' standard operating procedures to send stealth messages that resonate at both a conscious and unconscious level with their stakeholders.

You can access this chapter -- which I should warn you is in rough-draft form -- by clicking here.

If link doesn't work for you, go to Work-Learning Research catalog.

 

Speaking on Stealth Messaging

Also, come here me talk about this at the ASTD International Conference next week (May 7-9, 2012 in Denver, Colorado, US). Here are the details:

Tuesday 10:00 to 11:15AM

• Room: Mile High 1F
• Research-Inspired Rubrics to Boost Training Transfer to On-the-Job Performance: The Example of the Course Review
• Co-Presenter: Russ Spaulding of DIA

Wednesday 10:30 to 11:45 AM

• Room: Mile High 1F
• How Learning Executives Can Use Stealth Messages to Change Their Organizations. For Example:  Moving from a Training-Centric Approach to a Performance-Improvement Approach

I'm speaking under the auspices of the ASTD Forum, a group of organizations who meet regularly to share best practices.

Work-Learning Research highly ranked on search engines.

The Work-Learning Research website is ranked as follows:

• #4 on Google
• #4 on Bing
• #7 on Yahoo

When searching for "learning research."

Interestingly, we hardly ever get paid to do research. Mostly we get paid to use research wisdom to make practical recommendations, for example in the following areas:

1. Learning Design
2. E-Learning
3. Training
4. Onboarding
5. Safety
6. Learning Evaluation
7. Organizational Change
8. Leadership Development
9. Improving the Learning Department's Results
10. Making Fundamental Change in Your Organization's Learning Practices

Research for me is a labor of love, and also, a way to help clients cut through opinions and get to practical truths that will actually make a difference.

But still, we are happy that the world-according-to-search-engines (WOTSE) values the research perspective we offer.

And here's a secret. We don't pay any search-optimizer companies, nor do we do anything intentional to raise our search profile (who has time or money for that?). Must be our dance moves or something...

Five Failures Translated into French

My post on the Five Failures of Workplace Learning Professionals has been translated into French:

• FRENCH 
• Original in American English

Many thanks to Frédéric Domon of Entreprise Collaborative.

http://www.entreprisecollaborative.com/index.php/fr/articles/231-5-erreurs-de-la-formation-en-entreprise

Instructional Designers vs. Scientists, A Challenge for You!

Who is better at crafting an instructional message about science, scientists or instructional designers?

I say we instructional designers SHOULD be able to do a better job, so I'm encouraging YOU, my colleagues, to give Alan Alda's Flame Challenge a try.

Here's Alda's challenge:

"We’re asking scientists to answer the question – “What is a flame?” – in a way that an 11-year-old would find intelligible and maybe even fun."

You can read the full challenge by clicking here.

The deadline is April 2nd, so you better get moving!!

To see what you're up against, consider the content, which you can find, for example, on Wikipedia, under the entry for flame.

Some thoughts on how to be successful:

1. Consider pairing with an actual scientist (it's not really us against the SME's!)
2. Use adult learning principles, but not in the stupid, static, uncreative way most of us use them on adults, which is pretty ineffective for adults too. SMILE.
3. Realize that if you really want to win, you may actually have to craft your piece in a way that won't really do all the things that we'd like to do as instructional designers. For example, where we know extra spaced practice would be good, those who judge the contest may not understand all that.
4. Utilize multimedia and visually beautiful images.
5. Utilize language that, like a flame, (a) illuminates, (b) produces emotional heat, (c) and mesmerizes attention.

Good Luck Instructional-Design Team!!

Neon Elephant Award 2011

The Neon Elephant Award 2011 went to a researcher whose work translates complicated research into instructional-design models with practical value.

Click here to see who won...

Click here to learn more about the Neon Elephant Award...

Immersive Learning University -- Upcoming Conference

This is going to be a great conference, first, because I'm doing a keynote address, second, because I'm also speaking on Situation-Based Learning Design, and third, because this conference will have some very unique elements.

In addition to me, the conference highlights other experts in learning and simulation. Dr. Richard Saetti will speak on using cinema and simulations. Brandon Andrews and Dean Fouquet will talk about mobile simulations. Phil Clements will speak on the business ethics of immersive learning. Mike Graham and Ken Spero will discuss how to blend soft and hard skills in simulations. Ron Kantor will speak on social media and immersive learning. And the list goes on.

This conference provides many unique advantages compared with other conferences, which aren't as focused on the development of simulations and immersive-learning environments. First and foremost, the folks who are leading the discussions provide a blend of practical wisdom. These folks don’t just talk about immersive learning; they’ve actually built simulations that work. The conference is designed to have two tracks, one more conceptual—to ensure that we learn the right mental models about simulation design and delivery—and one more focused on the how-to’s of authoring simulations—to help us understand the nuts and bolts of how to actually build simulations that work.The conference is also going to provide a great opportunity for learning and networking, because it's going to be a small, intimate affair. If you want a chance to hob-nob with learning and simulation experts, here is your chance.

The conference is sponsored by NexLearn, creators of SimWriter (a simulation authoring tool). All conference attendees will get a copy of SimWriter Simplicity--so even folks new to simulation authoring can build their own simulations.

EARLY-BIRD SPECIAL Ends Shortly in about a week.

To check it out or to register, click here.