Will Thalheimer is a learning professional and researcher whom The Training Doctor recently interviewed

T/D: Let’s focus on learning design and the research that you've done in this area.

Thalheimer: One of the things that I think a lot of us forget is that we're not really trying to create learning as much as we're trying to help our learners remember what they've learned.  We’re trying to make sure that not only do they learn it, but they're able to retrieve it from memory at a later time. We not only want to increase learning, making sure they understand, but we also want to minimize forgetting. Minimization of forgetting is something a lot of us don’t think about.

When I looked at the research there are three things that are very powerful in allowing people to minimize forgetting.  I'm going to go through the list. The first term is 'retrieval practice'.  That means giving learners practice retrieving the information from memory like they would in the real world.  Too often we present information that helps them learn, but that doesn't help them practice retrieval.

T/D: We assume that they'll remember it at the right time. That’s a good point.

Thalheimer: If people go down the forgetting curve and they can't remember it, which often happens after learning, the training was a waste of time.  One of the things is retrieval practice.  The second thing is 'context alignment'.  People have to perform in a context - in a real situation.   In the environment there's visual cues, noise cues, there's smell, there’s all kinds of things.

T/D: Things that brought you to this point - something that led you to now make a decision, right?

Thalheimer: Absolutely, all these environmental cues trigger memory retrieval, bringing information into working memory.  One of the things that researchers have found is by aligning the learning context with the performance context. You have some of the same cues in the learning context that are in the performance context.  When people go back to the performance context they are more likely to remember what they learned.

T/D: Can you give us an example?

Thalheimer: Absolutely.  It's interesting, the army knows about this and pilots and people in dangerous situations - we need to scaffold them up to the place where they can deal with the stress of their jobs AND still make decisions.  They may need to develop an understanding of things in a non-stressful situation, but in order for them to be able to retrieve the information in that real world stressful environment, we can maximize that retrieval if we put them in that kind of stressful environment.

T/D: What does scaffolding mean?

Thalheimer: Well, scaffolding means start slow and progress to more difficult.

T/D: Until it's as realistic as possible.

Thalheimer: Correct, as realistic as possible.  That's why the army has people with real bullets flying over their heads because that's a real world situation

We've gone through retrieval practice and context alignment. The third thing is 'spacing' or the spacing effect. It’s one of the most studied phenomenons in all research psychology.  It's the notion that if you space repetitions over time they're much more powerful than if you space them over less time.  Those three things enable people to remember over a long period of time. They minimize that forgetting curve.

T/D: The fact that we send people to one training class and then send them back to work is fruitless.

Thalheimer: Fruitless may be too strong, but it's certainly not the best design.  One of the things that people need to be able to do as a trainer is not only  help people understand and learn, but also minimize forgetting.  That's what we're all about, helping them remember on the job.

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Will Thalheimer founded Work-Learning Research which is a consulting practice that helps clients build more effective learning interventions.  He’s been in the learning and performance field since 1985.  His professional focus is on bridging the gap between the research side and the practice side. Visit his excellent blog here: http://www.willatworklearning.com/