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How do I use this thing? Learning to learn from e-learning

18 Apr

It is a timeless scene: A high school class is about to begin, and just about every student pulls out their notebook and pen, perhaps a text, ready for the lesson. Inevitably, there are always one or two kids who just sit there, empty-handed and desk uncovered. The teacher wearily prompts those students: “Would you care to join the class today by getting out your notebook and pen?” Most of the time, with visibly exaggerated fanfare, they will prepare to join

At least he Jeff didn't come empty handed.

At least Spicoli didn’t come empty handed.

the lesson.

These kids don’t need to be told how to learn in class. Most will take notes, raise hands, ask questions, highlight text. But there is nothing instinctive or natural about it. They have learned through their school years how to learn, or at least how to give the appearance of learning. They do it because they were taught to do it, and it is a skill that improves with practice. (Whether this is a good system for a modern classroom is debatable, but that’s not the point here.)

Even though I have been designing e-learning for years, I was recently reminded of the importance of teaching learners how to learn in what for many may be an unfamiliar learning environment: alone at their screen. Instructional designers should know that learner analysis is part of the job, but we should dig in to find if there is a place to learn how to learn in our e-learning programs. It took this video from the Global Online Academy to remind me of this valuable lesson.

 

While we can safely assume that manipulating mouse and keyboard through an e-learning course is a familiar enough activity, we should not assume that learners know how to use it as they would a live, classroom session. Depending on our audience, we may need to take on the responsibility to teach learners effective ways to learn from an online course. Strategies may include:

  • Copying-and-pasting into a digital notebook
  • Bookmarking more difficult sections to return to after an initial pass
  • Pointing out ways to contact subject matter experts (SMEs) and instructional designers to answer questions
  • Using course links effectively
  • Doing independent search, clip, compile and share activities around the topic (PKM), formally or informally
  • Taking traditional notes on paper (back to the future!)

Moving social learning from tadpoles to guppies: First the bucket, then the pool

6 Apr
Thanks, Jane. http://c4lpt.co.uk

Thanks, Jane. http://c4lpt.co.uk

I saw a great quote from a presentation by Jane Hart the other day, via a tweet by Tracy Parish (@Tracy_Parish): “You can’t train people to be social, only show them what it is like to be social.” As usual, Jane is quite right.

But, showing is only part of it. Showing the introvert or resolute wallflower what it is to mingle at the office party will not convert anyone to a new behavior. At minimum, a bit of gentle coaxing and some handholding are in order. A more structured ice-breaker or purposeful conversation period would likely go a long way to integrate the cautious.

Thinking about how to coax the shy or fearful reminded me of the swimming lessons I used to teach as a teenager. I was given the group of 5-to-7-year-olds who were afraid to get in the water. For them, dangling their feet in the water was an entire first lesson. It was several lessons to build up enough confidence for The Bucket. Each tadpole was given a bucket big enough to fit their heads. Each student filled their buckets with water, and step-by-slow-step we would work together until they could submerge their heads: First one ear, then the other. Then the top of the head. Eventually the face, and once they could do that, the entire head in for 10 seconds. It was amazing the sense of accomplishment these kids felt with their new-found ability to stick their heads in the water and hold their breath. From there, getting into the pool didn’t seem so scary.

bucket

Social Learning?: Get the bucket!

All the while, they could see the guppies kicking around on their kickboards and even doing some real swimming – the role model of those little fish was the crucial unspoken motivation.

OK, perhaps the analogy is a bit strained, but here’s the point: The tadpoles had the tool (the pool), and the model (the guppies), but there was no way that would be enough for them to get into the pool without the planning and instruction that class provides. I don’t think that social workplace learning is so different. You can tell people about the benefits, provide great tools, and even show them how your vanguard group of social learners use it. But there’s no substitute for putting the structures in place to allow people to experiment in a safe environment. So, even though social learning by nature is without hierarchy or preconceived goals, it will not be as inclusive or ultimately as useful without learning structures – and learning professionals to guide tadpoles in their development into guppies.

Learn to Teach, Teach to Learn

21 Mar

Imagine this: Learners need to learn to run data, analyze the numbers, and report the findings in a coherent, consistent way. (It could just as easily be “operate a software system” or “build community outreach programs”… it doesn’t really matter.) There are 20 of them. Plus, they have very limited time to meet and are geographically disperse. Go!

What to do, Ms. Instructional Designer? Mr. E-Learning Practitioner?

One approach is to allow the learners to become the expert trainers, and have them teach each other. Who doesn’t recall the details of a topic they’ve had to teach? Want to learn to play chess better? Teach a lesser player to play better, and your game will improve, too.

So, in our hypothetical example, you could divide the learners roughly into thirds (7-7-6), and charge them with becoming an expert on one of the three essential training content areas (collect, analyze, and report). If each team can collaborate, all the better. If not, individual effort is fine, too.

Then, when you do have your precious opportunity to gather in person (live or online), each person/group takes their turn as expert trainer to teach the others on their particular topic. (Yes, this is a flipped-classroom model.)

Angelos Morenao, Yoga-Inspired Art

Angelos Morenao, Yoga-Inspired Art, Yoga-Art.net

Approaching a complex organizational performance need in this way has several benefits:

  • Empowers active learning
  • Teaching, by its very nature, reinforces and deepens learning
  • Builds collaboration and organizational learning culture – learners are in it together
  • Creates internal experts for future help
  • Allows the trainer/ID to relax and let others do their work for them

Sadly, that last point is not even remotely true. But, it does make us approach our role quite differently. Rather than tight authority over a specific e-learning track or training room, we open our controlling fist to the chaos of the crowd. What that means is we become curators, coaches, mentors and evaluators.

  • Curate: We provide the materials, links, and other resources that are going to allow learners to build and contextualize their growing expertise in their area.
  • Coach: We want to monitor, redirect and reward learning along the way; in particular, we will need to guide how they intend to teach what they are learning. Training is hard, and we know it is a skill that many don’t have naturally. So…
  • Mentor: We need to work with individuals to find their strengths in how to present the content (talking, demonstrating, visual depiction, metaphoric illustration, interpretive dance, etc.).
  • Evaluate: Was our flipped method successful? What follow-ups, resources and continuous learning scaffolds need to be in place to build on both the content and the learning culture that has taken root? (Seems like a great place to start an online Community of Practice, but that is a topic for/from another day.)

Seen this way, our job is less to prepare and deliver training “products” or “events,” and more about adjusting to a digital age learning culture. The constant stream of information is relentless, and we need to help our learners make sense of it and flourish beneath the deluge.

Think Beyond the Course

8 Nov

Training is not a singular event. The notion of “doing to the training” was never a useful paradigm, but even less so now with our always-on digital world. What information will the learner have already found on his own before taking the course? What social media posts has he already read about the training event he is set to undertake? After the fact, where will he turn and what will he discover to reinforce, amplify, or potentially torpedo the e-learning activity?

Learning is an ongoing activity that now takes place significantly online. ImageRather than think of e-learning as an event, smart organizations deliver timely useful information throughout the year on a continuous basis. People are always going to search for interesting, useful and engaging information. Human nature demands we find patterns, connect the dots, synthesize information.

How does your organization deliver information so that people are learning lessons that map to their success? And, how do e-learning products, be they courses, webinars, job aids, social media posts, etc., fit in to that larger strategy? We need to step back to consider if the digital milieu supports or undermines effective training, and take action accordingly (see more on this from Jane Hart). E-learning becomes an act of information curating rather than – or in addition to – creating content.

The digital native advantage: Integrate the world into e-learning

26 Sep

In most organizations, learners spend much of their day in front of the screen. Don’t fear that email, the Internet, Twitter, et. al., will distract learners from your module: Of course it will!

However, what was a worry, with some holistic thinking, can become an asset (see Lessons 1 – 4). Flip the scene to imagine how social learning, the organizational intranet or forum feed, and the larger on-screen window-to-the-world become an asset to your e-learning goals.

monitor-68156_640

E-learning is only one small stream reaching your learner. Learn to employ the full spectrum.

A learner, even if taken away from his computer for coursework  at a dedicated “e-learning terminal” carries the world with him in his mind (not to mention phones and tablets!). It is beneficial, if done thoughtfully, to invite the world at his fingertips into the course. Make a browser search part of a directed activity. Require that he IM his manager at key points throughout the e-learning course. Perhaps he’ll be directed to add to the intranet forum on the given topic. Why not? Learning is not separate from, but an important part of his working life. The outside world is not a threat if we bend it to our needs.

What’s more, for many topics the tool he uses to train on – his computer – is the same tool he uses to complete tasks. All the better! He is much more apt to remember and transfer his e-learning lesson when he is supported by the same visual and environmental cues that were there when he first learned it.

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