How are we preparing our future workforce?
Young people don't want jobs... apprenticeships aren't a "thing" anymore... and EDUCATION is not enough to create a skilled workforce. We need to change the system and the handoff from school to work.
Are You A Slow Thinker? Good for you!
First, a quick tutorial on Fast and Slow thinking – or System 1 and System 2 Thinking as popularized by Nobel Prize winner Danny Kahneman - in case you are not familiar.
Fast / System 1 Thinking
System 1 thinking can be thought of as our “immediate response” to something. When the alarm goes off in the morning – we get up. We don’t stop and ponder – what is that noise? what does it mean? should I get up right now? There is an immediate understanding of the information coming in and an immediate and knowledgeable response to that information. (Caution! This sometimes leads us to applying bias to situations that do in fact require more thought, and System 1 can be manipulated through the use of priming and anchoring.)
System 1 also enables us to do several things at once so long as they are easy and undemanding. System 1 thinking is in charge of what we do most of the time.
However, you want system 2 to be in control.
Slow / System 2 Thinking
System 2 thinking is the kind of thinking that requires you to struggle a bit. In this short (4:22) video featuring Kahneman, he gives the example of being able to answer 2x2 vs. 17x24.
The latter causes you to pause and put more mental energy in to arriving at the answer. If you’d like to try a fun activity to test your slow thinking ability, click here. Or watch the famous Invisible Gorilla video which illustrates that when System 2 is concentrating on one thing (counting the number of passes) it cannot concentrate on another (seeing a gorilla walk through the frame).
With practice System 2 can turn in to System 1 thinking, as in the case of a firefighter or airline pilot. Once sufficient application of System 2 thinking has occurred over an extended period of time and in varying circumstances, it becomes “easy.”
System 1 is all about “knowing” with little effort – as an expert is able to.
System 2 Thinking in Learning
What does System 2 Thinking mean for learning in organizations? Quite a lot, actually.
In a recent blog post by Karl Kapp, in which he describes purposefully causing his students to struggle, he states, “Unfortunately most learning is designed to avoid struggle, to spoon feed learners. This is not good… The act of struggling and manipulating and engaging with content makes it more meaningful and more memorable.”
Another important job of System 2 thinking is that it is in charge of self-control. This is an important skill / quality in the workplace. It allows us to measure the information coming at us and respond appropriately (which means, sometimes, not responding at all). Controlling thoughts and behaviors is difficult and tiring. Unfortunately many people find cognitive effort unpleasant and avoid it as much as possible (so says Kahneman in Thinking Fast and Slow).
Because of this tendency, we need to make teaching thinking skills a priority in workplace learning and development. This could be a challenge. Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School, says that older Americans may be better equipped for serious thinking because they didn’t grow up with smartphones and can “stand to be bored or more than a second.”
And a study conducted at Florida State University determined that a single notification on your phone weakens one’s ability to focus on a task. The ability to focus is crucial not only in completing tasks but in learning new things as well. The ability to focus without distraction and to perform cognitively demanding tasks is THE job skill of the future.
It Ain't Learning if it's Microlearning
Microlearning is the short-term, focused delivery of content or involvement in an activity. Lately I’ve seen a lot of chatter about best practices for “microlearning.” By most standards microlearning should be less than six minutes and often the suggestion is that it is no more than two minutes.
The thinking is that learners have the “capacity” to sit still and watch an informational tutorial for only so long before they’ll zone out, hit pause, or be interrupted by their work. Companies that create micro learning promote it by touting its ability to quickly close a “skills gap” – a learner can learn a new topic or take advantage of a refresher, in a short snippet that they can apply immediately. About to close a sale? Watch this microlearning video on 5 steps to closing a sale. Need to perform cardiac surgery? Look at this flowchart which will lead you through the process (I’m kidding. I hope.).
Another advantage – per proponents of microlearning – is that the learner himself can control what and when to learn.
Pardon my upcoming capitalization: THIS IS NOT LEARNING. This is performance support. How and when did we get these two terms confused?
Why the Ice Bucket Challenge is a Great Example of a Lack of Thinking Skills - but an awesome fundraiser!
Do you remember the "ice bucket challenge" of a few years ago? It was a fundraiser of the ALS Association. ALS is also referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease.
In case you are not familiar - the challenge was to dump a bucket of ice water over your head (or have someone do it for you) OR make a donation to the ALS Association.
One of our colleagues uses his Ice Bucket Challenge experience to illustrate the lack of thinking skills prevalent in society: His children challenged him, via social media, to take the challenge. Seeing the bigger picture, and not really wishing to be drenched in ice cold water, AND due to the fact that he had had a family member die of ALS, he chose option B - making a donation to the ALS Association. His children (who were adults, by the way) were FURIOUS that he didn't "do it." He explained to each of them that the challenge offered two options and that he actually made a bigger impact by making a donation to the cause rather than just a silly video. No matter. To this day they rib him about not being brave enough to take the ice bucket challenge.
What thinking skills do you see as lacking in this scenario? Here's what we see:
Inability to see the "big picture"
Not understanding the purpose of a request - but going along with it anyway
Group think
Choosing to ignore facts that don't "suit" you
Not asking about or looking for alternate "solutions"
Not looking for (or understanding) long-term ramifications
When working with your learners - the above bullets can be used as great discussion starters for any topic. Just pause. Look at the big picture. Seek alternatives. Think individually. Is this a solution for "right now" or more long term? What are the options? What is the best option?
= = = = = = =
Facts about the Ice Bucket Challenge
17 million people doused themselves with cold water; 2.4 million people posted videos of themselves on Facebook
2.5 million people donated money to the cause during the challenge; close to 1 million made no subsequent donations
$115 million dollars was donated to the ALS Association in 8 weeks!
The year prior to the ice bucket challenge the ALS Association received $19.4 million in donations
People who chose the ice water over a donation were referred to as "slacktivists" or arm-chair activists
The success of the ice bucket challenge caused the Muscular Dystrophy Association to end its annual telethon fundraiser citing its need to "rethink how it connects with the public"
One death was attributed to the challenge
The Ice Bucket Challenge has become an annual "event" held in Aug - so get your video camera's ready (or, preferably, your checkbooks)
A "Gut Feeling" or Intelligence?
The Power of Intuition
Malcolm Gladwell's Blink has been out for over a decade now, but it remains an engaging look at how we make decisions seemingly in the "blink of an eye."
Intuition is defined as the "ability to understand something immediately without the need for conscious reasoning." In reality, intuition is the product of a lifetime of experiences and knowledge. You intuitively know that sitting on a ledge or railing is risky - a toddler does not. You intuitively know that rolling your current car loan in to your next car loan can't be a sound financial strategy - a young college graduate with his / her heart set on a flashy new car does not. Gerd Gigerenzer, a German social psychologist, calls this "the intelligence of the unconscious," (also the name of his most recent book.)
In some ways intuition flies in the face of what we've been taught in school for 12+ years - look at the facts, weigh the options, choose wisely and deliberately. Decision making is often thought of as a "well reasoned" approach. Gigerenzer says that in many instances this is over-analysis and too slow. Gladwell says the trick to intuition is not to amass information but instead to discard it; essentially, to know when more information does not help the decision-making process.
There are many processes which are based on a "gut feeling" - scientific research, homicide investigations, and stock picking to name a few. Are these professionals making irrational decisions? No. They have honed their years of experience and knowledge to the point where they instinctively know the path to pursue.
According to Gladwell, just as we are able to teach ourselves to think logically and deliberately, so too we can teach ourselves to make better snap decisions. So how do we develop this split-second intelligence? Well, like most ways in which we teach thinking, it isn't easy and it isn't quick.
One way is to ask people to analyze and verbalize their learning after an event. What went well? What went poorly? Could you have changed the outcome? What variables played a role? Is there a way to make them less variable in the future? And more. Asking people to consciously process what they have learned is very helpful in developing intuition. As people become more adept at this processing, they can begin to contemplate these questions in parallel (rather than sequentially) or in-the-moment, rather than after the fact.
One reason to teach intuitive thinking is the highly complex world in which we live, today. It is impossible to consider all the information or options before us. Things are changing all the time, there are often contradictions and ambiguity. Having experience to guide us helps us make better decisions in the "blink of an eye."
Albert Einstein said, "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."
We can help your people develop their gifts. Give us a call to find out how or learn more here.
The Limits of Working Memory and Training Effectiveness
learning
In this fascinating blog post from Patti Shank on the ATD site, she discusses the reasons we can't have a one-size-fits-all approach to training.
Aside from the typical learning styles excuse, Patti explores an interesting point related to neuroscience: knowledge and experience dictates the way we can present the content and further impacts the way the learner is able to work with it.
The crux of the difference is working memory vs. long term memory. When newbies are learning a topic, everything they "know" is in working memory - and they are paddling madly to keep processing and applying that information to the learning process. But when a more knowledgeable or more experienced employee has long-term memory associated with a topic, we can work with that topic in deeper and more meaningful ways for the learner.
This chart is an excellent comparison of working memory approaches to training vs. long term memory approaches. This chart may cause you to rethink your training designs altogether.
Interview with Connie Malamed: Visual Design Solutions
Malamed
What motivated you to write this book?
There are many wonderful graphic design books in the world, but none that teach visual design to learning professionals. I see many instructional materials that fail visually simply because most learning professionals are not trained in this area.
A little known secret is that trainers, instructional designers and educators can become competent in visual design by learning the foundation principles of design and applying them through practice. Since I have degrees in art education and instructional design, I wanted to write a book that closes this gap. I wanted to clearly explain the basics of design and demystify what professional designers do and how they solve visual problems.
If you could distill your message down to just one - what would it be?
The message I want to broadcast to all learning professionals is that aesthetically pleasing instructional materials can enhance learning and improve motivation. People make instant judgments as to the credibility and value of a learning experience. Well-designed materials are one critical signal that a learning experience is worthwhile and that the creators care about the learners.
How can training use this book to assist them in the work that they do?
Visual Design Solutions can be read in its entirety as a course in visual design with a learning context. Or it can be used as a reference for design advice and inspiring ideas. The book is divided into four sections and it's easy to start at any point:
The first section will help readers learn to think and work like designers.
The second section explains how to use the three basic elements of design: visuals, text and graphic space.
In the third section, readers will learn how to apply the power principles that will most impact their work (color harmonies, visual hierarchy, unity, etc.)
The final section provides solutions and inspiration to common visual design problems, such as how to transform bullet points into visuals or how to tell a story in visuals.
Do you have a personal motto that you live by (related to the book or your area of expertise)?
The audience is the most important factor in the work we do. When we care about the audience, we will find creative and innovative ways to solve problems and support learning in ways that are well designed and aesthetically pleasing.
Connie Malamed, Learning Strategy Consultant and publisher of The eLearning Coach.
Teaching Thinking Through Debate
man at podium
Remember the debate club in high school? It was an excellent tool to help young people think critically about various issues and honing their communication skills to be able to intelligently articulate issues. With debate season upon us in the United States, this is an excellent time to point out the thinking skills that are developed through using debate.
Debate requires someone to construct an argument. That argument can be pro or against, but it must incorporate research, analysis, reasoning, and sometimes synthesis and evaluation in order to establish and substantiate one's position. Debate also requires the debater to master their content, to practice both listening and speaking skills in order to counter the opposing side, and to not only be able to verbalize but also to speak persuasively about their position.
These skills are known on Bloom's Taxonomy (here is a quick and easy definition) as higher order thinking skills. Debate takes one beyond the ability to research and "know" information to the ability to construct something and do something with that information.
An additional benefit of using debate in a learning curriculum is that it helps people to understand how to deal with conflict in a constructive and measured way. Countering an opposing argument does not mean name calling, introducing distracting or off-topic issues, or simply blustering louder than one's opponent.
In a previous blog post, we discussed the importance of using questions to help think. In the context of debate however, questioning skills are more musings: What is my position on this topic? What do others say? How do they substantiate their positions? Am I in agreement or disagreement with others? If I am in disagreement with others, how can I substantiate my own position? These types of questions require the skills of research, analysis, synthesis, reasoning, clarifying ... in other words, thinking skills!
Debate as a thinking skill can be used with any topic and in any industry and is best taught in teams (at least 2 individuals) which helps to expand one's thinking as well. Working with one or more teammates requires collaboration skills in order to create a premise, rationale, and presentation.
All in all, debate is one of the best learning strategies you can employ, in order to boost your employee's thinking skills.
Where Have All The Corporate Universities Gone?
The simultaneous impact of several major forces contributed to the decline of Corporate Universities.
Organizations began to adopt a bottom-line approach focused on cost cutting to improve efficiency during the global economic meltdown of 2008. Investments in learning and development initiatives declined, which impacted leadership commitment towards sustaining CUs.
Second, professional associations, consultants, and leading organizations shifted their attention towards talent management. Organizations became inwardly focused on improving and developing their existing human resources..
Third, the changing demographics exacerbated socio-cultural pressures on traditional universities and questioned their legitimacy and value in society.
Because corporate universities were established to closely approximate traditional universities in terms of developing cutting edge knowledge and innovation, they were affected by these contextual factors, and suffered from decreasing interest. A shrinking global market, privatization of education and a spurt in the private online education providers, and the increasing demands for complex skill sets demanded individualized approaches for developing the full potential of human resources.
Visuals Enhance Learning
"Pictures are understood on many levels. The most literal level is what the picture depicts. When you see a line drawing of an airplane, you recognize the shape and features of the object and identify it as an airplane.
“On another level, the context of the picture provides meaning. The same picture of an airplane on a freeway sign means that an upcoming exit will take you to the airport. This is a different context than a photograph of an airplane you may see in an airline advertisement, which suggests that is is persuasive rather than an informational purpose.
“Understanding the meaning of the picture depends on the context of where the picture exists. Another level of meaning is based on the style of the graphic. This is expressed in many ways, such as through symbols, spatial layout, and accepted conventions. For example, certain attributes of an illustration indicate when a drawing is an architectural blueprint and when it is a scientific illustration.
“There are also metaphoric meanings in some graphic. Metaphors convey meaning beyond a simple depiction and provide another layer of meaning."
Excerpted from Connie Malamed's Visual Design Solutions - a fantastic text for understanding the power of using visuals in learning.
Learn about the trainee's typical day
Before you design any training program, ask the requestor to tell you about the audience's typical day and overall job responsibilities. Ideally, you would like to observe the future-trainees in their day-to-day routine so that you can get the "big picture" of the work that they do and the environment in which they do it. If that is not possible, then ask for a thorough description of the future-trainee's typical work day and job responsibilities.
Very often, with this information, you can spot work-process breakdowns that are contributing to the symptoms which precipitated the request for training. Also, you are able to redirect the training or include elements which would not have been addressed had you not had the big picture of work responsibilities.
For example: A manufacturing organization was seeking to cross-train shop-floor workers in order to offset the downtime associated with machine breakdown. Because the organization had only one maintenance person, when a machine would break down, it could take a few hours for the technician to turn his attention to that machine. The intent of the request for cross-training was to be better able to utilize the machine operators during their idle time, while they were waiting for their primary machine to be repaired.
Gaining a better understanding of their overall job responsibilities, however, highlighted the fact that most machine operators refused to complete preventative maintenance and did not follow the start-up protocol which included oiling and gauge adjustments, etc., and simply switched their equipment on.
A more strict enforcement of start-up procedures, or having the maintenance technician come in an hour earlier each day to start the machines properly, was the primary solution to the machine breakdown dilemma. Without this understanding of the worker's typical day the company may have spent tens of thousands of dollars cross training their workers in order to compensate for the down-time created by the machine breakdowns.
The ultimate solution was to minimize the downtime by following company protocol, NOT providing training.
Teaching Thinking Through Job Shadowing
job shadowing
Job shadowing is often thought of as a way to gain exposure to a field or profession. Think you might want to be a police officer? Sign up for the ride-along program. Perhaps owning a flower shop is more your idea of career fulfillment? Then become an apprentice to a nursery or flower shop to understand more about the field.
These processes are spot-on for the individual who is curious and wants to learn more; but in the workplace we often slot people in to a role and leave them there. We hire accountants and leave them as accountants. We hire machinists and leave them as machinists. But what if that accountant would be better suited to being an auditor? And what if the machinist really would excel in quality control? When and how will they expand their horizons to learn about the possibilities within your organization?
Too often people leave organizations in order to expand their knowledge and skills.By instituting job shadowing as a regular developmental process you can maintain the curiosity of your employees and help them to identify their own career path. People accept responsibility for their own development when they are excited and engaged about the possibilities that are open to them.
Additionally, job shadowing helps individuals to understand how the business as a whole works. We have worked with too many organizations in which only the "people at the top" understand how each division or unit works and supports the others. Having a greater understanding of different roles within the business, and how those roles support the business, helps individuals develop critical thinking and decision making skills. For instance, a salesperson would not promise a delivery by a certain date if s/he were well-aware that manufacturing, testing, and shipping alone require at least three weeks lead time.
Job shadowing should be an on-going, planned event. It should not be reserved for "hi-pos" or instituted on a person-by-person basis. As a whole, every business will grow and benefit when every worker understands how the business works and who is impacted by various processes. And, from a developmental standpoint, as individuals see the breadth and depth of careers within your organization they will often take control of their own development and career path and mitigate the turnover issue that so many organizations battle on a daily basis.
Case Study: Bite-sized Instructor Led Training
telephone
When we think of bite-sized learning, we often think of something that is self-paced, just-in-time, mobile or e-Learning.
We recently visited with a client that is providing bite-sized learning (10 minutes or less) delivered by live instructors. Picture this: a room of 40 trainers who sit in cubicles wearing headsets, at desks with two computer monitors. The trainees call the trainers when they are ready for their lesson. The trainees go in to a queue and any trainer can pick up the call and teach any topic thanks to a script that pops up on one screen. On the other screen they document the learner, the lesson, and the advice / next steps prescribed for that learner.
In a 10-minute-or-so conversation, the trainer and trainee discuss how the last lesson has been working for the learner, practice a read-through of the new lesson, role-play the new lesson, audio-record the new lesson and listen-back for a self-critique as well as a trainer critique.
Lessons are meted out, one-per-week, for a period of weeks depending on the topic. The learner is expected to practice one minute technique during the week and then the next technique is introduced, the following week.
Bite-sized learning? More like crumb-sized learning! And SUPER effective. Just ask their 850 clients!
Great Work Everyone! Here's an Avocado for your Efforts!
Do you regularly give out candy as a reward during your F2F training sessions? Well, you're not doing your learners any favors. Instead put out piles of beans, eggs, fish, berries and, ok, dark chocolate.
In this fascinating article (and quick read) by Jeremy Teitelbaum, he challenges us to think about our "tried and true" methods of delivering training and learning, using what we know from 25 years of brain research. Suggestions include:
Stop forcing people to multitask.
He cites research by Stanford University which determined that even when people claim they are multi-tasking, they really are not processing more than one piece of information at once.
Feed the mind to teach the mind.
The author makes an interesting point: In recent years physical fitness training has included the mind and the way it thinks about fitness, body image, health, eating habits and the like; but the opposite hasn't proven true. Nobody training the mind thinks about what the body needs to enable the mind to be successful. Hmmmm
You are unique - just like everyone else.
Brain research focuses on generalizations based on small samples of "brains." This might cause us to categorize people, types of learning, or personality factors.
Hard and Soft Skills Aren't as Important as Emotion
All learning has an emotional component - something most of us in training simply ignore as we 'get down to business.'
Brain Matters: Interview with Margie Meacham
Megan
An interview with the author: Margie Meacham
What motivated you to write this book?
I was really inspired by my clients. They were frustrated that so many articles about neuroscience didn't really provide actionable advice. They wanted something that would give them practical ways to apply neuroscience to their roles as learning professionals. After looking in vain for such a resource, I decide to write one for them.I
f you could distill your message down to just one - what would it be?
Every person alive has an amazing potential for growth and change. All we have to do is harness the power of our amazing brains.
How can trainers use this book to assist them in the work that they do?
There are two ways to read the book. You could read it the usual way, from cover to cover, or you could open it to the chapter that is most important to you at the time. The book is divided into different topics that are applicable to adult learners in the workplace, so you can turn to a specific chapter and get the information you need. I've also included references at the end of each chapter for those who want to dig deeper.
Do you have a personal motto that you live by?
My personal motto is "Survive and thrive to stay alive." It reminds me that our brains are built for survival, which explains why they work the way they do. In order to thrive, we need to remember this survival imperative and use our brains to the fullest to continue to thrive and stay alive.
Don't Touch That Stove! It's Hot!
6833ea12-1f30-43ef-9b31-df3ceb9516e4
For 25+ years now, we have been a knowledge economy; yet we use training methodologies designed for the industrial age. Much of what we attempt to accomplish in workplace training requires thinking, reasoning, and decision-making skills.
When we teach soft-skills we are teaching reasoning and decision making. When we teach financial management we are teaching thinking and reasoning skills. When we teach how to operate a piece of equipment we are teaching thinking and decision-making skills.
There really is no skill - hard or soft- addressed by workplace training, that does not include the underpinnings of reasoning, decision making and thinking. Yet most training is fixated on the "what" and "how to," and does not include the "why," "when," or "what if?"
For true learning to occur, people need to experience the content in some way. This is often a difficult task when you are teaching a concept and not a physical skill AND it is not easy to achieve in a short time period (8 hours or 4 hours or absolutely NOT in a 20 minute eLearning "course").T
he onus is on us (trainers) to create learning environments which maximize the experiential aspect of how individuals learn. A perfect example is teaching your child to stay away from a hot stove. We've all given the "instruction" (and been the recipient of same) -
Don't touch! It's hot!
Stay away, you'll get burned!
Be careful! That's dangerous!
And yet, inevitably, every one of us does touch the stove; and THAT is when reasoning and decision making kick in. Although we understand the concepts of "dangerous" and "hurt," the actual experience of touching the stove is the time when all of those words and concepts gel together and create meaning. From that point on, we are fully capable of assessing the dangers of a hot kitchen appliance and changing our behavior accordingly (AND we can extrapolate it to other appliances like a grill or a teapot)
.In the workplace, these same types of outcomes need to be achieved through creating learning experiences that enable the reasoning and decision-making skills of our participants to kick in. As stated earlier, this is not easy to achieve and it is usually never quick; however it is always the longest-lasting of lessons.
If you'd like to brainstorm or discuss with us the methodologies behind enhancing learning through experiential learning, give us a call or download our whitepaper on thinking skills.
Taking the ME out of SME
In the design work that we do at The Training Doctor, we are more often than not working with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs).Subject Matter Experts are crucial for us to design technically accurate training processes as well as understanding what an expert in a role must be able to do.
Very often these same Subject Matter Experts then become the facilitators of the training because the content is so technical or proprietary. One of the consistent struggles of the SME is recognizing the right perspective. We once heard a SME described as a person who is captivated by "the cool" and the "unique." So, in other words, when training a class of newbies, they might talk about a situation that happened in 2007 that was a real anomaly, but would never happen again. The problem is - a newbie doesn't know that this is non-essential information.
So, one of the practices we have to teach and enforce with Subject Matter Expert facilitators is that the course is not about them. It's not about showing off their expertise or focusing on the topics that are stimulating to them.
What's important is to get a Subject Matter Expert to recognize that when they are acting in the role of facilitator or trainer, the learning is not "all about SME," their focus should be on the learner and what the learner needs to know to be successful on the job.
You're Probably Wondering Why I Invited You To This Training
As our newsletter subscribers know, one of the services The Training Doctor provides is "Training Triage," that is, helping companies to redesign training they already have in place, but which doesn't hit the mark, for some reason.
One of our more recent projects highlighted one of the more typical situations we encounter: there was not much point for the trainees to be there. It was a three-hour class - delivered online - which was strictly lectured. This approach violated a number of learning principles - both general, classroom principles, and more specifically, online learning principles.
One of the easiest ways to determine if you are designing a quality learning experience is simply to ask yourself: What is the audience doing during this class? If the answer is "nothing," then you really have not designed a class at all!
One of the wonderful things about technology is that it freed us from having to bring people together to simply transmit information. We now have the ability to create e-Learning, podcasts or videos which allow for self-study.
So, if your audience is truly doing nothing during your class time, then you need to take "classtime" out of the equation. Look to an alternative means of relaying your content. The adult learning principle that was violated in the course that we were assessing as that it was strictly lectured and there was no purpose to having the learners gathered together. The online learning principle that was violated was that live and online learning should be reserved for those topics which truly benefit from having "minds together."
The benefit of bringing people together is to achieve more creative ideas and benefit from the collaboration and synergy which results from having many thoughts on one topic. A simple question to answer, but a hard objective to achieve: What is the audience doing during this class?
Reading Teaches Thinking Skills
There is no argument that technology has donewondrous things for us over the years. My carlasts longer, my food cooks quicker and I cancall anywhere in the world for pennies if notfor free.One argument that some will make is thattechnology (the web) has also made us smarterdue to our ability to find vast quantities ofinformation - far more than one could find in their local library or - horrors - confinedto one tome. And isn't more always better?Another argument is that technology allows us to retrieve information at lighteningspeeds. Have a question or concern? Look it up. Think you might have malaria? Aquick web-search returns 10 very authoritative sources of information about thedisease.A third argument is that this vast "library" of information, available at ourfingertips, allows us to learn from entities we would never have heard of or hadaccess to in the past. How else would we have learned of the Handbook of MusicalDevelopment published by Oxford University Press?These are all very compelling - and true - arguments... to a degree.The "pro" pundits overlook the fact that having information and making meaning fromthat information are very different. There is also the risk of interpreting opinionas fact and limiting one's "research" to the first answer that is returned or theone that seems most popular (because everybody thinks this way).The Training Doctor is challenging organizations to get back to basics. Readingfor comprehension is a basic, yet seldom-used skill.Being able to read critically instead of skimming for factoids requires one to assessthe words that are used, the logic of the argument, or the validity of one opinionover another.The skills of logic, reasoning, extrapolation, and synthesis are critical to runningbusinesses, yet we rarely, if ever, teach or encourage people to learn these skillsthrough our L+D efforts. (If you have an example of a curriculum that DOES teachthese skills - please send it along!)After purposeful and thought-provoking reading assignments, we need to ask Socraticquestions (see article #1) such as, Do you agree with the validity of this argument/premise? Why or why not? How does this compare to this other author / theory? Howcan you incorporate this new information into your day-to-day responsibilities?What are the risks (or rewards) of ignoring this information? What economic,societal, or technological impacts could change this premise?The possibilities for stretching people's thinking abilities are endless. But don'tbe overwhelmed. Let's just start with this one: Assign purposeful reading assignmentsas part of your L+D curriculums and begin to require learners to truly think aboutwhat they are reading.
The Next "Generation" of Learning
Generation means that people need to make their own meaning, literally generating their own links while learning, not just passively listening to ideas. We need our brains to create rich webs of links to any new concept, linking ideas to many parts of the brain.
Using different types of neural circuitry to link to an idea is the key. Meaning, we should be listening, speaking, thinking, writing, and other tasks about any important ideas.
Source: Your Brain on Learning, published in Chief Learning Officer, May 2015