Quotable: Peter Casebow

"Some would say you can't control or plan for something like informal learning, but you can put a strategy in place. Based on our experience, any strategy for informal learning needs to include three basic areas: improving basic skills, such as searching for information effectively, creating opportunities and encouraging sharing and collaboration."

Quotable: Peter Casebow, CEO of GoodPractice

Graphic tools for instructional designers

Here's a great blog posting with a collection of graphic tools we should possess as instructional designers.  Remember the addage: a picture is worth 1,000 words. We'll add a caveat: only if it's a good picture. <grin>

Create a web page for exclusively for your next training class

We've been hearing a lot lately about the need to use different modalities in our learning (aka blended learning), the need to optimize technology, and the need to bring social learning to corporate America.  Well, now you have the chance to try all of those things, risk free.

At www.Weebly.com you can create a website and host it for free "in the cloud." It has an easy drag-and-drop user interface which is very intuitive and doesn't require any skill or knowledge about web design. You can add pictures, audio, video, documents (such as uploading your slide set after a classroom training, for instance) and even create a blog so that you can post assignments, reminders and coaching tips, and ask for your learner's feedback and response.

Truly amazing - considering this service is free - is that Weebly automatically  creates a mobile-friendly version of your site so your learners can connect via their smart phones, as well.

Give it a try for your next course and send us your web page - we'd love to share it!

Quotable: Daniel Burris

Mobile learning is a bigger deal than most organizations realize. It represents an amazing disruption and opportunity in how we educate.

Quotable: Daniel Burrus, CEO of Burrus Research Associates Inc.

Why the 2-hour training class doesn't work

Research on what’s known as the “spacing effect” shows that we form stronger and more lasting memories by exposing ourselves to information over time. Repeated cycles of learning, consolidating, and then re-encountering material fix it firmly in our minds.

Quotable: Jim Kelso

The best training programs are a combination of just-in-time training and practical application.

Quotable: Jim Kelso, Intel's Accelerated Leadership Program Manager

American education - preparing kids for the real world?

Here are some interesting perspectives on the American education system from Harvard Business Review blogger Tammy Erickson:

• While kids today communicate widely using technology, their teachers and school systems do not

• Kids often suggest a teacher or parent "Google" an answer "just to be sure" rather than relying on the knowledge or experience of the adult

• What kids learn in school today will prepare them for the Industrial Age, which is long gone; kids themselves want learning that is relevant and will enable them to be gainfully employed as adults

You can read the entire blog here.

When does the learning occur?

Let’s preface this article with two assumptions:

1. Most people who design training are not schooled in how to design training, these days. They are more typically subject matter experts.

2. Most people who ARE schooled in training still are not schooled in adult learning theory.

Over the years, we have noticed a recurring fault: designers (and facilitators) of training often equate participating in an activity with actually learning from it.  Not so.  Here are two examples:

• A course in sales training, that we designed  for a client, required a breakout group activity. At the end of the activity, each group was to present back their outcomes.  As each group finished their presentation the facilitator replied with “good dialogue, good dialogue” and then moved on to the next group.  The facilitator spent NO time asking for further interpretation of their decisions or outcomes, he spent NO time comparing one group’s response to another, he never asked any other group to respond to or ask questions of the presenting group.

• A training design that we reviewed for a client included a 10-minute, independent, web browsing activity in which learners were to research the “key selling features” of a particular product. Once the activity was over, the course moved on to the next topic. There was no discussion of what people had found. There was no compare and contrast. There was no knowing if you did the activity right or not!

So the question we pose is this: When does the learning occur?

Lucky for you, we’ll give you the answer as well: It occurs in the debrief. The debrief happens after the activity. Rarely, if EVER, do participants get the ah-ha moment from simply participating in an activity. Ninety-nine percent of the time it occurs during the debrief when they are asked to process, sort and supply their findings. When they hear what others, or other groups, have come up with and compare it to their own. When they are asked “so what does this mean for you, on the job?”

Simply designing or facilitating an activity is not sufficient.  The REAL learning comes after the activity.  Discussions with peers, working collaboratively or competitively, all help to ensure that learners actually process what has just occurred and gain meaning from it.

Ensure that you think that far ahead when you design for your learners.

Quotable: Daphne Koller

While the rising costs of healthcare in the United States seems to make the news daily, the cost of higher education has risen 559% since 1985.

Quotable: Daphne Koller; Co-founder: Coursera

Speed to Mastery - from Forum Corporation

Forum Corporation has designed a salesforce.com-like product for training. It combines classroom training, individualized support for when learners are back on the job, and a game-like interface.  It’s an innovative and inspiring way to learn and ensure on-the-job skills application!

You can learn more here: https://vimeo.com/44737652

Note: Forum Corp is one of The Training Doctor’s clients but we aren’t promoting Speed to Mastery because of that – we are promoting it because it is BRILLIANT.

Quotable: Donald Kirkpatrick

There is general agreement that the same approach should not be used for appraisals aimed at salary decisions and those aimed at improving performance. But in both approaches, an appraisal of performance IS necessary.  The main difference is that performance appraisal looks back, and the training looks ahead.

Quotable: Dr. Donald Kirkpatrick, Professor Emeritus University of Wisconsin and Honorary Chairman of Kirkpatrick Partners

Look BEYOND the training - if you want it to be successful

According to Robert Brinkerhoff, training events alone typically result in only 15% of transfer of learning to on the job behavior. So if you truly want your participants to be successful on the job, after training, you need to think beyond the training event itself.

There must be processes or systems in place that reinforce, monitor, encourage , or reward the performance of those things you consider to be critical on the job behaviors. We spend much of our time as trainers, worried about Level 1 and Level 2 outcomes (did the trainees like the training in the short-term and did the trainees leave with more knowledge than they came with) but not enough time on whether or not the trainees are implementing their new skills and knowledge on the job.

Before you start any training program, start with the end in mind, because the training will only contribute 15% to the success of your initiative. Be especially analytical of what you expect to see people doing differently on the job and how you expect them to be successful on the job. Very seldom will someone have the initiative or the time or the thorough understanding to be able to transfer what they learned in a class to their real work responsibilities.

The futility of tests

Sorry - no idea where this came from. Was forwarded on to us by a colleague. 

Quotable: Dr. Roth Tartell

Clearly, much of what the leader needs to do to increase employee engagement levels can be shaped through learning.

Learning professionals have a responsibility to their organizations to ensure that  perspectives and approaches critical to successful engagement are built in to curricula, incorporated into developmental plans, and then included in the talent discussions that shape the future leaders of the organization.

Quotable: Dr. Roth Tartel is Learning and Development Manager - North America for GE Capital Real Estate

Delta Takes Training Evaluation to the 4th Degree

Delta flight operations training goes through level three evaluations for "everything we do," says Scott Nutter, Flight Operations General Manager, and level four evaluation by tying training data to operational performance and safety metrics.  

As a result, Delta has received several awards including Travel Weekly's Magellan Award and being named to Fortune's World's Most Admired Companies in 2011.

Delta and Northwest merged more than three years ago and had a smooth integration of their training initiatives by keeping focused on these important level 3 and level 4 outcomes.

March /  April 2012 Training Magazinep. 40