Tips for online learning
A recent Edudemic article titled 20+ Tips from the Most Effective Online Teachers provides a wealth of good information, not only for those who are teaching online, but also for those organizations that are considering offering courses online. For all the business factors that make distance learning or virtual learning a plus - there are some weighty considerations as well.
We highly recommend reading the full article - it will really give you something to think about. If you don't have time - here are a few of the things we consider to be "gems" in the article:
What the students can teach each other is just as important as what the instructor teaches
Online does not mean easy
Online courses take much more time to develop and facilitate than classroom courses
Being an online educator is more a life style than an occupation
Be proactive about course management
Quotable: Bob Pike
Instructor-led, participant-centered training is about involving participants in every way possible in the learning process. The more participants are involved in the content, the greater the retention and application.
Quotable: Bob Pike, Creative Training Techniuqes
Quotable: Michael Rosenthal
For the most part, adults learn skills through action and reflection. One can't learn to swim by simply reading a book or attending a lecture, despite the presenter's mastery of language, PowerPoint, or multimedia. Instead, the learner has to get in the water and practice. They refine their breathing and strokes by experiencing and correcting for coughing, sinking, and inefficiency. The same holds true for amost any skill improvement - it's how we learn.
Quotable: Michael Rosenthal, Managing Partner of Consensus
Incentivize your training - a great model
On September 29 a concert was held in New York City's Central Park to bring awareness to worldwide issues such as disease, poverty and lack of drinking water.
The concert was free and 60,000 people attended BUT they had to earn the right to attend. First, they had to register at a website. Then, they had to earn points to get in to a lottery to be awarded the free tickets. They earned points by watching various videos on the issues above and / or then forwarding those important messages to their friends via Facebook or Twitter.
What a GREAT model for making your training viral! Especially when you are constrained by having to disseminate your learning through asynchronous methods (in other words, people will engage in the learning on their own time and schedule). Why not have prizes or awards for completing the training and certain tasks along the way?
If you'd like to read more about the concert, click here
Your "smart phone" will make you dumber
Have you ever obligingly followed your GPS even though you were pretty sure it was steering you wrong (pun intended)? Have you ever followed your GPS to a location and, shortly thereafter, when you had to return, you realized you needed the GPS to do it?
While having the technology to save us time and save us from mistakes is wonderful, it also "saves us" from having to think. The more we don't have to think, the less capable we become of it.
Here is a simple experiment: pretend you are teaching how to tell time, on a clock. to a 7 year old. We have become so used to digital displays of time - on our microwave, cable box, telephone and car dash - that it is a struggle to explain how the hands and the numbers on a dial indicate the time. And that is just one, very simple, example.
More and more in our professional journals we see articles about mobile technology. With every person (practically) in possession of a smart phone or tablet, the field of training is increasingly obsessed with ways to "push" information and answers to the learner, rather than teaching people how to think, investigate, reason or create an answer on their own.
Smart devices may save us time in the short term, but in the long run, they will hobble our learners' ability to actually learn.
Don't forget to cut of the ends of the ham!
Are you familiar with the story of the woman who, for years, cut off the ends of her ham before baking? When her daughter asked her why, she replied, "That's what MY mother always did." When the granddaughter asked the grandmother why she cut the ends off the ham, the grandmother replied, "Because my pan was too small to fit a large ham." <insert chuckle here>
Seems we have experienced the same phenomenon in e-Learning. We've been forced, all these decades, to create "click next to continue" e-Learning because of constraints of Flash and the fact that the scroll wheel on the mouse had not yet been invented.
Now, with the advent of "drag your finger down," technology, the format of e-Learning is ready to be set free from its 800 x 600 box.I
nteresting insight here - quick read.
Educational achievement in the US goes down
The US ranked fourth-worst among 29 developed countries for children obtaining a higher level of education than their parents, According to a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
In the US, only 21.6% of those 25 - 34 years old achieved a higher level of education than their parents. That compares to the OECD average of 36.8%.
Source: WSJ.com
We are obsessed with time - let's embrace that
Apparently we are obsessed with time - how to save it, how not to waste it.
Just this week we saw two new book titles:T weet this! Manage your Twitter account in 30 minutes a day or less, and Learn Marketing with Social Media in 7 Days
Both books immediately grabbed our attention. Wow! That sounds easy! quick! do-able!
Sooooo what's the lesson we can learn from this?
Answer: What a great way to market our training! Don't just title your class "PowerPoint for Beginners," name it "Be a PowerPoint Pro by Tomorrow!" Instead of "Executive Coaching Conversations," name it "Quick Hit Feedback Tips for Unbeatable Performance."
Quotable: Fletcher Kittredge
Given the ever increasing rate of change, companies need to structure themselves so that they can adapt quickly to changing conditions. It is neither practical nor economical to be constantly hiring new employees to meet the new needs caused by rapid change. The only feasible strategy is to hire talented people of good character and constantly train them in new skills. Education and training will have to be a fundamental competency of any company that wants to be successful over the next decade.
Quotable: Fletcher Kittredge CEO and founder of GWI
How much do you really know about learning?
Parade Magazine recently had an informative back-to-school quiz focused on learning facts. Follow this link to see how much you really know. After you answer each question it will tell you the research behind the answer. We'll give you a few clues because they are important to training:
Testing doesn't simply measure what you know-it reinforces what you know, says psychologist Henry Roediger III, Ph.D., of Washington University in St. Louis. Every time you summon facts from memory, you strengthen your brain's hold on the material. (Editor's Note: this is why, at The Training Doctor, we always say that the quiz is just the final part of the learning process.)
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.
It's much more effective to "interweave" different types of problems - mixing them up so you learn how to quickly identify which approach is needed to solve each one. For example, a study of baseball batters found that when different types of pitches - fastballs, curveballs, sinkers-were mixed up unpredictably during practice, the players became more adept at scoring a hit.
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
Seeing is.... comprehending
You know the phrase "seeing is believing?" There is much truth to that, it turns out. However, in our world, the phrase should be, "seeing is comprehending."
Although it is our eyes that take in visual stimuli, it is our brains that make sense of it. John Medina has a chapter (#10) in his book, Brain Rules, which includes some interesting examples of patients who have perfect sight but damage to their brains, in one way or another, that prevents them from understanding or interpreting what they see.
The brain processes shapes and symbols by putting them together in an 'organized' way and thereby making sense of them and making a connection to them. The brain works hard to make these connections. One of the reasons optical illusions work so well is because they purposefully interrupt the making of connections.
What is the lesson to be learned here in terms of training? Only one that we have been trumpeting for years: use visuals in your learning materials. The brain will naturally associate the content with the visual. It helps to have visuals that link to the content (e.g. Here are the 5 keys to qualifying a sales prospect, accompanied by a photo of a key) however, they don't have to. Any visual will cause an associated link in the learner's mind. You could simply have the 5 bullets set off in a colorful table and that would make a visual connection to the words for the learner, as well.
Visuals belong in the obvious places (your slides) and the not so obvious places (the workbook, the job aid). Our visual cortex is the most developed of all our senses so you use it to your advantage in developing training.
Employee training leads to strong business performance
The #1 focus of Hubert Joly, Best Buy's new CEO, is employee training. He believes that inconsistent training across stores is what has led to uneven performance among stores and overall sales decline. His mission is to make store employees an "undisputed point of reference" for customers.
Source: Chicago Tribune
Paying workers to learn? Yes! Great idea!
Now here's a twist - and a good one at that. Okanagan College (British Columbia) is offering free training for retail and food service workers. Upon successful completion the learners get paid $500.
The curriculum includes: exceeding customer expectations; powerful sales systems; productivity and efficiency; product knowledge; effective communication; problem solving; accountability and ownership; and workplace health and safety.
The retail employees will have their own "track" as will the food service workers. There are four days of training (9a - 4p) as well as six hours of self study.
Learners must be presently employed in the industry and have no college degree.
What a win-win-win - the employers get free training provided to their employees (and lots of it! How many organizations give 24 hours of training to retail or food service workers?); the employees get enhanced business knowledge and skills that can be put to use immediately as well as being an important addition to their resume; and the local region has a pool of well-trained individuals which can only help the local economy as a whole.
Mobile device usage for workplace learning
In a study of 40 large companies in various industries conducted in the fourth quarter of 2011, Boston-based Aberdeen Group found that mobile devices were used by:
55% for internal online communities or forums
48% for informal learning activities and development
42% for formal learning and development.
The results suggest that mobile devices represent a "strategic part of the formal learning plan," Mollie Lombardi, Aberdeen's research director for human capital management, wrote in a January report titled Learning on the Move