Learning

Learning

Cappuccino U

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I love those serendipitous moments on the Web. I happened across Helge Scherlund’s blog via Technorati and noticed a post recommending the e-book, Cappuccino U, available from Spotted Cow Press. This short, CC-licensed book is by Jerome Martin, of Edmonton, Alberta and it is a pleasant flow of a read that discusses formal education, personal learning and the role of third-spaces. It’s a great introduction to learning for the 21st century:

This e-book is about a new style of learning in which innovative people have combined new information technology with traditional ways of learning to develop a new, personally-driven approach to learning. It happens predominantly in “the third place”, a location that is neither home nor office. The third place is usually a coffee house, one which is designed to serve this particular audience.

People gather in their favourite third places to work, relax, visit and learn. They work independently and in groups. Some of them use computers which may or may not be linked to the web. Some are taking courses online; others are writing books like this one.

This is Cappuccino U.

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Canadian Attitudes on Post-Secondary Education

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The CCL has just released survey results stating: “Public to Canada’s leaders: pay attention to post-secondary education“. There’s lots to review in the 80 questions that were asked of Canadians from across the country, summed up by the CCL President:

“What this poll tells us is that Canadians recognize that education and training are necessary to support economic growth and strong communities. They understand what a knowledge society means, and they want Canada to become a knowledge society,” said Dr. Paul Cappon, CCL’s president and CEO. “This is a message to our country’s leaders that higher education and skills training must be a national priority.”

Because I’m the type of person who reads the fine print, I found the responses to Question 54, available in the complete report, much more interesting:

Do you think that a college or university education is necessary for a person to be successful in today’s work world, or do you think that there are many ways to succeed in today’s work world without a college or university education?

  • Yes, necessary – 9%
  • No, many ways to succeed – 47%
  • DK / NA – 11%

Therefore, almost half of Canadians do not believe that post-secondary education is necessary to be successful in today’s work world.

Perhaps they had already read Will Richardson’s post, Dear Kids, You don’t have to go to College.

Update:

Here is another survey that I reported on last year in Work, Education & Taxes, where the results show that Canadians may be getting too much formal education, without any economic benefits. One comprehensive survey showed that Canadians have the highest rates of formal learning in the world, while another report indicated that there is a productivity gap in this country. If education can be directly correlated to economic productivity (as the CCL’s public statement infers) then we have a problem with the effectiveness of our post-secondary institutions. I’m not quite so sure about the correlation, and would not lay the blame on academia, but neither do I think that formal education is the key to economic productivity.

Let’s get to maybe

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Rob Paterson has been reflecting on his reading of Getting to Maybe, and I was so taken by these ideas that I walked down to our local independent bookstore and bought a copy. I’m only a few pages into the book and I come across this paragraph:

Similarly, we organize our schools to be efficient in supplying education to large numbers and largely unresponsive to the wide range of learning styles and capacities that we know exists. Then we diagnose those who cannot learn efficiently as suffering from learning disorders and attempt to treat them, not the system.

Digression: As I write this, our son comes home from school, grabs a quick snack and goes upstairs to do his homework – a number of math exercises; the obligatory, nightly English assignment but no additional work tonight. As he leaves, I wonder how many adults appreciate bringing work home. Do schools assign homework because it will toughen students for the real world, or just to make them miserable?

On the bright side, I’m looking forward to delving into Getting to Maybe as it seems to be upbeat and positive, as described on the jacket:

Getting to Maybe applies the insights of complexity theory and harvests the experiences of a wide range of people and organizations … to lay out a brand new way of thinking about making change in communities, in business, and in the world.

Training – the 8% Solution

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Does your organisation live in complicated or a complex world?

When you are developing training, are you addressing complicated or complex issues?

Via Rob Paterson, and the book More Space, are two important differentiations between complicated & complex systems given by Johnnie Moore, in Simple Ideas, Lightly Held:

complicated = not simple, but ultimately knowable (e.g. the wiring on an aircraft)
complex = not simple and never fully knowable. Just too many variables interact.

If you are working with a complicated system, such as an aircraft, then the entire system is knowable, even though it would take much time and practice. Training would be the right tool to develop your skills to fly or fix the aircraft. I know, because I’ve designed aircraft training. There’s a lot of stuff to know and do, but training works and people can eventually master the system.

Complicated systems and the training for them can be controlled. Complex systems and learning how to work with them cannot.

If you are working with a complex system, you will never be able to know everything. For instance, the environment and communities are complex systems that cannot be controlled, only influenced. There are no right answers, there are many ways of trying to achieve your goals and there are too many variables to control.

The other day I was asked about the essence of implementing informal learning, and I believe that it is the act of giving up control. This is scary for many inside the organisation, but it’s the only way to manage in a complex environment. As the world becomes more networked, interdependent and environmentally challenged, all organisations are moving into complex environments.

Here is an indicator of how complex our work is becoming. It used to be that you could master the majority of what you needed for your work. This is no longer the case, as shown by Robert Kelley of Carnegie-Mellon University, when he asked this research question (via Jay):

What percentage of the knowledge you need to do your job is stored in your own mind?

  • 1986: 75%
  • 1997: 15-20%
  • 2006: estimated 8 -10%

This is one more reason why informal learning structures (not procedures) are necessary to support individual learning in a complex environment, where it is impossible to control the process as we could with training. Informal learning is the way in which your employees, bosses and colleagues will have to learn that significant other 92% of knowledge necessary for their jobs – today. It’s not that we don’t need training; we just need a lot more informal learning.

The Modern Chautauqua

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Of Conferences, Chatauquas and Boundary Objects, at Green Chameleon, discusses the relationships between small independent conferences; large-scale commercial events; academic sessions and then muses:

If the KM conference scene really is a complex ecosystem, then the failure of any element of it can have unpredictable, perhaps negative consequences. If the role of the conference really is to perform a boundary object role between different communities (vendors, experienced practitioners, corporate sponsors of KM, novice practitioners, thought leaders), then anything that fractures the communities and sends them into self-serving spheres, will surely drive the profession into stagnation and decline.

At the moment, it seems to me, out at the periphery, the cracks are already showing on the walls. Unless the stable centre recognises this, and unless we find new models for the economics and formats of conferences, and new models for collaboration and interaction between communities, my fear is that these cracks will spread. I hope I’m wrong.

The article also refers to those American traveling cultural shows called chautauqua.

 

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I had read about chautauqua in Nine Shift (recommended reading):

In 1920, chautauqua, those great cultural and educational programs that traveled from rural small town to small town, bringing history, music, and entertainment to an agrarian society, had its largest attendance. Some 25 million people were said to have attended a chautauqua that year. The following year they folded, never to put up a chautauqua tent again.

It’s fascinating to look back and see what is taken for granted at a certain point in time. In 1920, with millions of people going to chautauqua, you probably would have the majority of Americans not predicting their demise. Yet, one year later, chautauqua are finished.

Perhaps the commercial conference will follow the same path. Who knows? Looking into the past can show us that we too should not take current conditions for granted. Personally, I’m drawn more to the unconference.

e-Learning Project Management Book

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The Canadian eLearning Enterprise Alliance (CeLEA) has recently released its new e-book Plan to Learn: case studies in e-learning project management. Edited by Beverly Pasian (who is working on her PhD in project management) and Dr. Gary Woodill (who has recently become Senior Researcher at Brandon Hall Research), this volume of 22 case studies from 8 countries documents the successes and failures of a variety of e-learning implementations. Case studies are drawn from the higher education, K-12, government, non-profit and corporate sectors. The book also contains a thorough review of the literature on elearning project management. To obtain your free copy, go to www.celea-aceel.ca.

This 192 page PDF from CeLEA covers dozens of case studies on e-learning management (focus = A-DDI-E). Almost all of the cases are academic situations, using the online course model, so this book would be best suited for those developing e-learning in higher education. There is little mention of performance support, knowledge management, communities of practice, or informal learning. Nor is there much reference to aligning the learning methods to operational or business requirements.

One exception is a case study on developing math skills for nurses at Mount Royal College. In this case, the work requirement, or gap, was quite clear:

According to a May 2004 study published by the Canadian Medical Association Journal, one in nineteen adults will be given the wrong medication or dosage upon a hospital visit.

The goal was defined, though too academic in my mind:

The goal of the online Nursing Math Tutorial was to ensure that nursing students were successful in their clinical courses without the need for so much time.

A better goal would have been to reduce the number of incorrect dosages. This is obviously the performance they were really trying to achieve.

The design considered the context of the work:

The intention of the tutorial was to provide practical information to the learner, that being the basic principles and illustrations of math sequences and their relation to practical clinical settings.

However, the ADDIE model seems to have been too constraining and resource-intensive:

In the creation of the online Nursing Math Tutorial, the successes arose from creative project management solutions, which conserved resources and maintained a higher quality of student learning as a result.

I’m wondering if a better approach in this case may have been to create a series of contextual visualizations on the necessary math concepts. These could then be placed in an online collaborative environment, such as Elgg, and the learners themselves could have constructed meaning around these visual artifacts, through discussions with each other and with facilitators. Some of the visualizations could also be the test objects, such as, “here is a case, calculate the dosage”.

For those in the thick of e-learning course development, you may find some helpful nuggets in these pages. Most of the cases discuss tools for learner-to-learner discussions, so we are seeing clear moves away from just information dissemination. However, if you’re looking for innovative performance-oriented alternatives to ADDIE, you will have to look elsewhere.

Whither ISD, ADDIE & HPT?

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Here is the question of the month from The Learning Circuits Blog:

Are ISD / ADDIE / HPT relevant in a world of rapid elearning, faster time-to-performance, and informal learning?

First, some definitions:

  • HPT – Human Performance Technology
  • ISD – Instructional Systems Design [or Development]
  • ADDIE – a process incorporating Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation, stemming from the Systems Approach to Training (SAT)

SAT, ISD and ADDIE stemmed from the need to train military personnel for the Second World War. They were necessary to train lots of people really fast. My initial experiences as a military trainer were from the point of view of ISD, SAT, & ADDIE.

Later I became immersed in HPT, and found it a good method to analyse certain aspects of organisational performance. One thing that HPT does well is to ensure that training, which is costly, isn’t prescribed unless it addresses a verifiable lack of skills and/or knowledge.

SAT, ISD and ADDIE are excellent methods to develop training that is stable. I spent several years using these methods to develop helicopter training for aircrew and maintenance personnel. These methodologies were highly suitable for the task. These methods are not suitable for developing educational programming. The problem with using training development for education is that the performance objectives are not clear. What are you supposed to do at the end of this education and how do you measure it?

As I have said before, I think that one of the problems with our education system is that there is too much of a focus on getting quantitative data, like testing. These functions are more suited to a “training” system, where the performance requirements are clear, measurable and observable. In education, the performance requirements are fuzzy. There is nothing wrong with either a training focus or an education focus; each one has its merits. The problem is when you try to mix the two.

So, are these methodologies suitable for today? The short answer is yes, but not everywhere. Too often we see training as a solution looking for a problem. Training often worked before, or at least didn’t create more problems, when work processes and organisations were stable. As we move to more networked businesses, training’s weaknesses are becoming evident. These weaknesses are also evident when we don’t really know what the performance objectives are in a constantly evolving society, economy and marketplace.

Enter the two-way web and the ubiquitously connected computer. We now have several new tools to address other performance issues that training was never good for anyway:

  • Unclear expectations – collaboratively constructed wikis and up to the minute blogs
  • Inadequate resources – user generated knowledge bases through tagging and social bookmarking
  • Unclear performance measures – direct feedback from customers via blogs

The Web is also providing an open platform for people to connect and converse with others all over the world, expanding informal education opportunities for millions. Both training and education are being opened up and exposed as individuals create their own networks and converse with each in their personal searches for knowledge and community.

The Internet is forcing us out of our self-constructed disciplinary boxes. As work and learning become connected online, the barriers are blurring between organisational development, HR, training, education, HPT, etc. A new, amalgamated field of practice requires better tools and integrated theories from which to base our practice.

These models are relevant, but they’re not enough.

Elgg Spaces Launches

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Elgg Spaces is the new offering from Curverider for hosted informal learning applications. I’ve used Elgg a fair bit and like the amalgamation of blogging, social networking and online portfolio applications on one platform. I also like the ability to control the access levels for each entry, so that Elgg can be used for closed group discussions.

Elgg Spaces offers tiered hosting, as well as a free, unsupported version. What I am looking forward to is the ability to “Allow your users to collaborate with those in other communities, both on Elgg Spaces and across the web”. Lack of integration with other systems has been the main reason that I haven’t fully adopted Elgg, even though I still recommend it for individuals or inside a “walled garden”.

Words of discomfort

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I spent this evening with several concerned parents who were discussing their concerns with the amount of homework that their children in elementary school have to do. Near the end of our talk, I was told about a recent article in a national newspaper, written by the Canadian Council on Learning. You may remember that the CCL received $85 million from Canadian taxpayers last year to set up five knowledge centres. In Words of Comfort to Parents About Homework, posted on the CCL site, Paul Cappon states:

Research supports the idea that homework assignments in reasonable amounts can substantially contribute to learning. Not surprisingly, students who do homework perform better on tests and other assessments than students who duck it. And, up to a point “there is such a thing as too much homework” the more homework students do, the better they perform.

Please Mr. Cappon; what research? The only positive research that I know of was conducted by students; was not peer reviewed; and had small sample sizes. Please post references to any other valid research data here, in case I am ignorant of some reputable studies on the subject.

So, do reasonable amounts of homework contribute to learning? The authors of The Homework Myth, The Case Against Homework and The End of Homework, strongly disagree, and cite several studies to support this position. In our small group of parents, several with PhD’s and statistical analysis expertise, not a single person has been able to find any data to support this statement by the CCL. Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth, puts it quite categorically:

For starters, there are no data whatsoever to show that elementary school students benefit from doing homework. None. And even in high school there’s only a modest correlation between time spent on homework and achievement – with little reason to think that the achievement was caused by doing more homework. Then there’s other evidence, including a brand-new study of TIMSS data from 50 countries, and it shows no positive effects from homework, even for older students. I wasn’t able to find any reason to believe that students would be at any sort of intellectual disadvantage if they had no homework at all.

So why is a publicly-funded learning institution making flawed statements in the national press about educational practices? These are words of discomfort for me.

Sacrificing the joy of learning

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This week we had “take you child to work day” for our son in Grade 9. He wasn’t interested in seeing what a home-based consultant does, as he sees this every day. Instead, we arranged a day with a family member who is a helicopter pilot. We drove the 150 km to the hangar and on the way our son did his homework.

His math work had to do with exponentials and reducing equations to a less complex form; or something like that. I looked at the equations and realised that I did not have a clue how to do them. Not only that, but I couldn’t tell him where he might apply this later in his life. So here I am, unable to do Grade 9 math, even though I have two years of university-level calculus and algebra, as well as two years of physics [I went to a military college where even those majoring in History had to have a “well-rounded” education in the sciences].

My inability to do Grade 9 math got me thinking about the usefulness of the public education curriculum (again). I can see the requirement for having skills in mathematics. Of particular importance today would be understanding statistical analysis and how stats can be used to tell almost any lie.

A couple of days later, I came across this article by Roger Schank; blaming the laziness of college professors for the focus on arcane subjects:

“Universities dictate curricula to high schools to make professor’s lives easier. If everyone takes physics and calculus and most never use it, well, professors claim it was good for the students anyway when in fact it was only good for making sure professors didn’t have to teach it in college. As long as professors don’t have to teach the basics it is okay that high school students are forced to study stuff they will never use in their whole lives. We have ruined an entire generation of high school students who don’t like learning and think the subject matter is irrelevant because professors only want to teach the good stuff.

We sacrifice the joy of learning for an entire generation so professors can have an easier time teaching incoming students.”

I have 18 years of formal education, 25 years of work experience, have never used exponential equations outside of school, and don’t remember how to do them today. What are we teaching, and why?