Time for a clearout of urban myths

At the time of writing, I am on my to speak at the  eLearning Network�s annual conference in London. While I am looking forward to sharing my views on how learning and development professionals need to skill up to meet new challenges and to take advantage of new opportunities, I am enthusiastic to hear from the other keynote speaker, Pedro De Bruyckere, co-author, with Paul Kirschner and Casper Hulshof, of Urban Myths about Learning and Education.

The learning and development world seems to be inhabited by rationalists and romantics, with a distinct leaning towards the latter. I characterise them as typefaces. While the rationalists are analogous to Times New Roman, sensible but uninspiring, the romantics remind of Comic Sans, cuddly but daft as a brush. As a liberal sort of person, I should be really happy to see such diversity, but I�m really not sure that romanticism is such a good strategy to hold when you belong to a profession that people look to for advice and inspiration. After all, would you not be just a little un-nerved if your doctor prescribed you a herbal remedy, or taken aback to discover that an astronomer ordered his life around the predictions of astrology?

Of course I am exaggerating. Most learning and development people are sensible enough and want to do the best job possible, but their own teachers on train-the-trainer courses have provided them with totally inappropriate tools with which to understand the world of adult learning. Yes, I�m talking about learning styles, NLP, MBTI, 70-20-10, Dale�s Cone of Experience and much more. Now some of these have some groundings in genuine research and have simply been misinterpreted and miscommunicated over the years, some have been offered up as legitimate theories but been since been discredited, and some are just somebody�s opinion (which is not a problem unless you start to treat it as some sort of universal truth).

To discredit a widely-held and much-loved myth does not make you popular. It makes you a party pooper, like someone who pronounces themselves an atheist at a funeral, warns of a house price bubble or tells you that bacon is bad for you. And there are times when it is better to keep these views to yourself. However, working as a professional is not one of those times. A true professional is always looking for evidence that will better enable them to provide an effective service to their clients, even when that sometimes means giving up on an idea that you�ve taken to heart.

Suggested reading for myth busters and other rationalists:

Evidence-Based Training Methods, 2nd Edition by Ruth Clark (ATD Press, 2014)

Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn by John Hattie and Gregory Yates (Routledge, 2003)

Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter Brown and Henry Roediger (Harvard University Press, 2014)

Urban Myths about Learning and Education by Pedro de Bruyckere, Paul Kirschner and Casper Hulshof (Academic Press, 2015)

Design for How People Learn by Julie Dirksen (New Riders, 2015)

The Debunker Club

Towards Maturity 2015 benchmark shows just how much we've got stuck

Last week I attended a preview of this year�s Towards Maturity benchmark results, due for public release on November 5th (you can register for the launch webinar on this page).

In case you don�t know Towards Maturity, they were established in 2003 as a government-funded body to promote the use of learning technologies in workplace learning across the UK. Their main focus from that day on has been the provision of a benchmarking service which allows organisations to compare their progress in renewing the L&D offerings against 100s of others. Over 4000 organisations and 18000 learners have contributed to the reports.

Since TM became independent of government in 2010, they have broadened their focus considerably to offer a truly  international service across 50 countries worldwide and to move beyond the confines of learning technology to promote a whole new approach to workplace learning. I share the values of TM and believe they have played their part admirably. You will find their 2015 report is full of valuable insights and enthusiastic calls to action.

And therein lies the problem, for the call seems only to be heard by the already converted. What TM calls the �Top Deck� (those organisations that are showing the best results from their L&D efforts) are shooting ahead, overcoming barriers and exploring all the possibilities for workplace learning in all its contexts, formal and informal. The rest have been stuck for years.

I do feel for Laura Overton, TM�s CEO. I�m sure she would love to report huge progress year on year but it just isn�t happening. This is all the more remarkable when you consider the huge changes taking place in our use of technologies for learning outside the workplace.

People are empowered as never before, through their ever-present mobile devices, to explore, share, learn and develop. Learners are doing it for themselves: 88% learn by finding things out for themselves; 74% know how to access what they want; 74% want to do their job better and 87% know what they need. Some 42% are prepared to learn at evenings and weekends, 42% at the point of need and 29% while travelling to and from work.

Those employers who can re-shape themselves to take advantage of this opportunity will find themselves pushing against an open door.

As ever, the problem is with L&D professionals, with some 56% of organisations citing a lack of L&D skills as a major barrier to progress. We have to wonder why organisations are not doing more in terms of CPD for learning professionals.

One reason, it pains me to say, is that, for too many people, their only encounter with learning technologies at work has been through mind-numbing compliance e-learning. Compliance has so damaged e-learning that I fear its reputation is now damaged beyond repair. Learning professionals do not want to be associated with damaged goods.

We need a new push based on a simple premise - bringing what is working in our personal lives into the workplace. People do not go home to engage with instructional e-learning programmes, they want how-to-videos, animated explainers, thriving communities of practice, thought-provoking podcasts, blog posts and interviews, gamified apps that encourage spaced practice, compelling dramas, challenging quizzes and the rest.

I reckon any learning professional would want to get behind media like these, blended intelligently with activities such as coaching, practical workshops and action learning. The future is not single-hit e-learning any more than it is single-hit classroom. The future is already with us - we just need to bring it to work.

Fighting back

OK, but the standing desk's a start.

Compelling content hooks you in and won't let go

We are told that learners are no longer able to concentrate on content that's more than four or five minutes long. And there's no doubt that, when it comes to consuming information, we'd prefer it concise. After all, we want that information to help us achieve some goal and we don't want to take too long in the process. GIGIGO - get in, get it, get out.

But meaningful learning does not take usually place in minutes; it can take days, months or years of testing ideas out, reflecting and discussing, honing our skills and building our confidence. Our content can play a valuable role in that process, not just by informing the learner of what they need to know and do, but by sparking ideas, generating insights, challenging assumptions and enabling them to take their first steps along the skills journey. But that takes time - four or five minutes will not be enough.

In this last post in the series, we discuss two elements in learning content that can hook learners in and not let them go; that will give you the time to make a more meaningful difference. We start with storytelling.

Slice our brains open and out pour all our stories

A well-told story - whether real or fictitious - will immerse us in someone else's world and make us care about their problems. We can concentrate on stories for many hours - just think how much time in a week you spend reading novels, watching films, catching up on soaps or wading through box sets.

As Jeremy Hsu writes in Scientific American, 'Storytelling is one of the few human traits that are truly universal across culture and through all of known history.� For more than 27,000 years, humans have been communicating by telling stories. I�m sure that if you were to open up our brains and tip the contents onto the floor, what would come out but piles and piles of stories. According to a 1997 study by Robin Dunbar at the University of Liverpool, personal stories and gossip make up 65% of our conversations. That seems like an underestimate to me.

In my post Seven ways in which stories power learning, I explained why I thought storytelling made such an impact in a learning context:

1. Stories speak to us as humans
2. Stories hold our attention
3. Stories engage us emotionally
4. Stories provide us with good and bad examples
5. Stories provide us with insights
6. Stories help us to remember lots of other stuff (when we recall the story, we remember lots of other details)
7. Stories are likely to be shared

Stories also provide an escape from the mundane, as this poem by Julia Donaldson reminds us.

I honestly believe that any subject can be made more interesting through storytelling. In fact I'd go further: any subject can be taught using storytelling. Here are two of my own examples:

• The Emperor's New Slide Show: which demonstrates how dangerous Powerpoint can be in the wrong hands.
• No regrets: a short film which provides insights into good blended learning design.

Good teachers tell lots of stories. So does good learning content.

Only one thing beats a good story and that's being in the story

There is one thing that engages people even more than storytelling and that is a challenging problem to solve; something that tests our wits, that allows us to show what we can do; nothing impossibly hard, but not so easy that it insults our intelligence.

Every one of us can think of examples in which we've laboured into the night to meet a challenge; when we've been so 'in the flow' that we have forgotten about the need for sleep or sustenance: solving a puzzle, perhaps, programming a computer, developing a plan, making something, playing a game.

Compelling challenges provide us with the incentive and the opportunity to put our learning into practice and to revisit our assumptions and attitudes. In the context of learning content, these challenges might take the form of practice exercises, case studies, quizzes, scenarios, simulations and games. Challenges require the ability to interact, so you won't find them in content such as podcasts and web articles, but you might find them in a blend alongside these more passive media.

I know the word 'gamification' is a monstrosity, but we should take it seriously, because plenty of people are finding great success by adding game elements to their interactive content: rising up through levels, leaderboards, high scores, time constraints, competitions, winning badges and so on.

There are interesting examples of gamification in these scenarios:

• Lifesaver, an interactive film by Martin Percy, which teaches you cardio-pulmonary resuscitation
• Connect with Haji Kamal, designed by Cathy Moore, which looks at the cultural issues soldiers face when interacting with local people
• Sales Refresher Course (part of the More Than Blended Learning taster course), which provides practice in taking a brief for a new training programme

And that's it folks

I hope you've enjoyed discovering my six characteristics for compelling content, a distillation of hundreds of discussions I've had with learning professionals and media creatives over more years than I would like to admit.

Many of the recommendations I've made in this series require us to challenge convention and not be a corporate drone. You have to be a little brave to break away from the routine of just shoving information down people's throats. It will take a little time to develop the skills but I've seen lots of people make this transformation successfully.

Good luck!

In case you missed it:

Six characteristics of compelling content - an introduction

Compelling content requires a cunning plan

Compelling content requires some media chemistry

Compelling content requires some media chemistry

Media chemists know less is usually more

Media consumers, especially learners, want the easy life. They're interested in the content, not the container. The technology and the interface with which they interact should be invisible. Your design decisions should be invisible. And all that requires a little media chemistry.

There is a limited range of elements which make up all media formats. While there is generally more than one element capable of fulfilling any task, they each have their own particular strengths:

Text is precise. You can read it at your own pace. It requires the barest minimum of bandwidth.

Still images (photos, illustrations, charts and diagrams) show what things look like, clarify cause and effect relationships and depict trends and proportions. They are memorable.

Speech is more expressive than text and combines brilliantly with moving images (animations and videos).

Music creates an emotional response. Elephants like it (see my previous post).

Animation provides the best possible way to illustrate processes (how things work). The movement attracts attention.

Video depicts real-life action. It shows people as they really are.

Media chemists do not throw all these elements into a test tube and heat them up. They take care over what goes with what. However, you do not need a media chemistry degree to sort it out. There's a simple rule.

Text and speech are verbal elements. Still images, animation and video are visual elements. Music's an embellishment that we can put to one side for now. Generally speaking you want to major on a single visual element and a single verbal element. So ...

• text and still images work well together
• animation (perhaps even a sequence of pictures) combines well with speech
• video works just fine with an audio soundtrack (speech, sound effects, music)

But ...

• text and speech used together alongside any visual element makes for difficult viewing (the brain can only process one verbal element, so the learner has to choose which to concentrate on and try to ignore the other)
• video (say a presenter's webcam), alongside still images or animation, is equally distracting because the learner cannot watch both at the same time

See Richard E Mayer's Multimedia Learning (Cambridge University Press, 2009) to see the research that backs all this up.

At this point, you may be feeling a little uncomfortable. After all, lots of e-learning breaks these rules and so do most Powerpoint presentations. That's not an excuse for continuing as things are. A lot of e-learning courses and Powerpoint presentations are tolerated at best, hated at worst. We're trying to be compelling, remember?

It is OK to have a personality

On the assumption that you're not an artist or a video producer (the ones I know don't do a lot of reading), let's concentrate for a moment on the verbal channel. We're talking words.

Back in 2008, Cathy Moore advised us to Dump the Drone. What she meant was that we should write like human beings and not like the legal department. Why do so many talented designers leave their personalities at home when they set about creating learning materials? Probably because they believe that is what their bosses and clients expect. Something safe, non-controversial, corporate and impersonal. No jokes, no anecdotes, no practical examples. Nothing for the elephants at all.

Believe it or not, learning content is written for learners - everyone else just gets in the way. And learners want material that engages, enthuses and explains.

As a general rule:

• use simple words
• limit paragraphs to a single point
• use the active voice (the passive voice is hated by Clive Shepherd)
• use lists like this (but not all the time)
• if you're writing for voiceover, then write like you speak
• keep it brief (edit, edit and then edit again)

And we'd better act fast, because it seems the corporate drones are getting to our children:

A shoe was lived in by an old woman there was. What to do was not known, so many children were had by her. Some broth without bread was given to them, They were all whipped soundly and sent to their beds by her.

Coming next: Compelling content hooks you in and won't let go

In case you missed it:
Six characteristics of compelling content - an introduction
Compelling content requires a cunning plan

Compelling content requires a cunning plan

Second in the series: Six characteristics of compelling content

First you need a compelling concept

Yes, you probably got it - they�re talking about the same subject. One person�s boring compliance course is another person�s hot topic. If you approach the development of learning material as a tedious chore, that�s how it will come over to your audience. Your job is to engage your learner and that starts with a compelling concept.

In our leisure time, we might choose to consume content, such as TV shows, novels and music, for the entertainment value alone. The content is an end in itself. At work, things are different. We are not interested in content in its own right; we�re interested in solving problems. We want information that will help us to meet a current work challenge or provide us with a competitive personal advantage.

So, your job is to position your content in such a way that the learner can clearly see what�s in it for them (as opposed to you, their employer, a vendor or anyone else who�s sponsoring the content). They won�t want to dig deep to find the benefits - they�ll want them to be absolutely obvious. Benefits are critical to motivation because a person won�t put effort in when they can�t see what�s in it for them.

Motivation also has a second dimension. Not only do the benefits need to be desirable to your learner, they also need to be readily attainable. A prize of �1m is going to be desirable to most people, but not if it means swimming the English Channel. In the context of learning content, attainable means not too complex and not too lengthy; the path to the benefit should be short and clear of obstacles.

Compelling concepts:

• provide clear benefits (avoiding risk, solving a problem, explaining a tricky concept, showing you how to do something);
• can be articulated in an eye-catching title (so �Five closing techniques used by the masters� or �Quantitative easing explained in two minutes�);
• provide the benefit with the minimum hassle (so not �Fifty ways to close a sale� or �Quantitative easing - a new 13-part series�).

Creating a concept might seem like a creative exercise but it actually requires some in-depth analysis. To provide relevance you need to understand your audience well. In particular you need to understand how content can in some way enhance their working lives. What do they most need to know, to be able to do, to feel? That means getting out there and meeting your audience. Relevance cannot be contrived in an ivory tower. And relevance drives out resistance.

Then you need a compelling structure

There�s more work to do before you type a single word, draw your first picture or shoot your first scene. You need at very least an outline of how your content will be structured. As the picture above shows, structures clearly affect how compelling your content can be.

Whatever the type of content you are designing, your first goal is to engage the elephant ...

In Switch � How to Change Things When Change is Hard, by Chip and Dan Heath, the authors make a key distinction between what we think consciously and what our more primitive, emotional system will have us do. They liken the emotional system to an elephant and the intellect to the rider of the elephant. As you can imagine, when you�re trying hard to resist that bar of chocolate or force yourself up out of bed on a cold morning, the rider has a heck of a job keeping the elephant under control and can easily become exhausted in the process.

While the rider may be engaged by the long-term benefits of a learning activity or an intellectual curiosity, the elephant is much more interested in what�s in it for him right now. The prospect of a solution to a real, current problem will definitely do the job. The elephant may also be motivated by a challenge - perhaps a game which involves some form of competition. Humour may also do the trick, or just plain novelty.

Once you have the learner engaged emotionally, you should spell out clearly what your content is going to cover and how. Not only are you aiming to reassure the learner that those benefits are going to be readily attainable, you want to provide them with an advance organiser that helps them prepare for what will follow.

A compelling structure includes the following:

• a start that engages the learner emotionally;
• a clear overview of what is to follow;
• a sequence that aligns with your chosen learning strategy;
• clear signposting for the learner in terms of where they are, how far they�ve gone, how far there is to go, how they�re progressing;
• a call to action (what you suggest the learner does next, links to related content, people to talk to, etc.);
• and, if your content forms part of a series, a teaser for what comes next (think soaps).

At this stage, you may be concerned that you still have nothing on the screen to show for your efforts. Don�t worry, because in the next post we�re talking images, speech, music, animation, video and perhaps even some text - the basic media elements. You�ll discover how to manipulate these elements like a true media chemist.

Coming next: Compelling content requires some media chemistry

In case you missed it: Six characteristics of compelling content - an introduction

Six characteristics of compelling content: an introduction

Compelling is not the same as compulsory

Meet Meili. She has been working for three months on a 4-hour e-learning programme that teaches employees how to use her organisation�s new CRM system. So far the only people who have used the programme are those for whom it was made mandatory. Other employees have gravitated instead to a collection of quick and dirty software demos produced by an enthusiastic user of the system.

And here�s Paul. He made a video recording of a one-hour presentation he gave at a recent conference and then made it available online. To date, 100 people have accessed the video, but only one has watched it through. Paul suspects that was him. In contrast some 5000 people have read an entertaining account of the presentation, posted by a blogger who was in the audience.

And finally here�s Stephanie. She produced a 2-minute animated video that clearly explained a scientific theory that for most people had been impenetrable. The video went viral and Stephanie was elevated to star status.

You have competition

There is a lot of content out there competing for our attention:

• 100 million YouTube videos
• 5 million English language articles on Wikipedia
• 5 billion web pages
• 25 million songs on iTunes
• 14000 films on Netflix

Clearly we can�t consume more than a tiny fraction of all this. We�ve become adept at ignoring content that isn�t compelling, in our personal lives and at work.

To get attention your learning content needs to be compelling. This isn�t achieved by magic, just focused thinking and hard work.

But there is hope

Focused thinking starts with a plan and that means (1) a compelling concept and (2) a compelling structure. It means making the most of visual and verbal channels with (3) compelling imagery and (4) compelling copy. And, lastly, it means maximising engagement through (5) compelling storytelling and (6) compelling challenges.

That�s six characteristics that you can apply to videos, articles, blog posts, screencasts, slide shows, podcasts, tutorials and interactive scenarios. Characteristics that will help you to cut through the noise, hold your learner's attention and make a difference.

Unfortunately, this is far too much to handle in one article, so expect three more over the next three weeks to complete the series. And do let me know if any of this makes sense to you.

Coming next: Compelling content requires a cunning plan

Twenty questions to ask when taking a brief

As a learning professional, it�s absolutely vital when you�re taking a brief from a project sponsor that you ask the right questions and are persistent in making sure you get a clear and satisfactory answer. 

Here�s my list of essential questions: 

About the need

1. What goal is this intervention intended to support? It�s vital to identify the real underlying purpose of the proposed intervention. In the workplace, learning is usually just a means to an end. 

2. At which people is this intervention aimed? This question establishes the scope of the intervention in terms of target population. 

3. What does this target population need to be doing in the future that it may not be doing now if this goal is to be achieved? This question places the emphasis on performance not on learning, which is vital if you are to design a solution that is focused on changing behaviour and not on developing knowledge. 

4. Why are they not doing this now? Have they ever done it? You want to establish as soon as possible whether there really is a learning gap and what other factors could be impacting on performance. 

If there really is a learning gap, proceed with the following questions: 

About the learning requirement

5. What absolutely must learners know in order to meet the performance requirements? The emphasis here is on the �absolutely must�. Many learning interventions end up as knowledge dumps and cause a great deal of unnecessary pain for the learner. You want to know what the minimum is that people need to know (retain in memory in the long-term) to get started applying the new behaviours.

6. To what additional information must they have access in order to meet the performance requirements? This complements the previous question because there is likely to be a lot more information to which people need ready access than they need to actually remember. Think resources rather than courses where possible.

7. What �big ideas� (key principles) do they need to understand and buy into in order to meet the performance requirements? Many learning interventions have at their heart one or more big ideas that cannot simply be presented and applied - the learner needs to buy into them at an emotional level. This includes all compliance courses, which have at their heart a big idea - data security, keeping healthy and safe, protecting customers, etc.

8. What skills do they need to acquire and/or put into practice in order to meet the performance requirements? If skills are needed then you will have to build in lots of opportunities for practice with informed feedback. Typically we underestimate the time needed to develop skills and devote too much time to instilling knowledge. 

About the learners

9. What prior knowledge, skills and experience does the target population have with regard to the subject of this intervention? This is a particularly important question because novices will need much more structure and support than those who are more experienced.

10. What interest is the population likely to have in this learning? How motivated are they likely to be? If motivation is high, you will be able to get straight on with your intervention. If it�s low, you�ll have a job to do to build enthusiasm.

11. What hopes and fears is this population likely to have with regard to this learning? Performance cannot be your only focus because learners are human beings with aspirations and anxieties to which you must pay attention.

12. What expectations does this population have in terms of how they learn? Different organisations, countries and generations have different learning cultures. You do not have to pander to these if you feel that doing this might get in the way of a successful outcome but you do need to know what you�re up against.

13. What basic skills does this population have/not have that are relevant to this learning (numeracy, literacy, language, computer literacy, etc.)? These skills are obviously important because they may be pre-requisites or you may have to adapt the design to cope.

14. What other information about this population will help to inform the design? There will undoubtedly be more you need to know, depending on the nature of the problem. Just don�t waste a lot of time figuring out learning styles - at least not until there�s a reliable model you can trust. 

About the logistics

15. What is the size of the target population? How is it distributed geographically? These questions will have a big impact on how you deliver your solution.

16. What budget is available to support this intervention (take into account all costs including those incurred by learners)? Budget is important  but it may not affect the nature of your solution as much as you might think - there are plenty of ways of getting a job done without Hollywood budgets.

17. By when must this intervention be completed? When can it start? For how long can learners be made available for learning? Time is critical because it will place constraints on many aspects of your solution. But if you cannot respond to tight time constraints you will not be providing a useful service.

18. What human resources do you have available for analysis, design, development, facilitation, marketing, support, etc.? What software and other tools are available to these people? These questions establish your firepower, who and what you have supporting you as you proceed with your solution.

19. What equipment is available to the target population to support the intervention? This matters because it will determine your options in terms of technology-based solutions.

20. What systems and facilities are available to support delivery? This question might bring out information about LMSs and other platforms, as well as facilities such as meeting rooms. 

These questions form the basis of the analysis phase for the More Than Blended Learning design model. They are not intended to cover every eventuality, so if you have any favourite questions that are not listed here, please let me know. 

Every learner is different but not because of their learning styles

I've been reading Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter Brown and Henry Roediger (Harvard University Press, 2014). What a great book! It provides a whole load of useful tips for learners, teachers and trainers based on solid research. Although, believe it or not, I do have a romantic side, primarily I'm a rationalist and I'm drawn to new evidence relating to learning and teaching, even if this confounds my current thinking.

Finishing this book coincides with The Debunker Club's Debunk Learning Styles Month. And learning styles really do need debunking, not because we, as learners, don't have preferences, but because there is no model out there which has been proven to be genuinely helpful in predicting learner performance based on their preferences.

Luckily, I don't have to rant about why learning styles are unhelpful, because I can allow Brown and Roediger to do that for me:

"The idea that individuals have distinct learning styles has been around long enough to become part of the folklore of educational practice and an integral part of how people perceive themselves. The underlying premise says that people receive and process new information differently: for example, some learn better from visual materials and others learn better from text or auditory materials. Moreover, the theory holds that people who receive instruction in a manner that is not matched to their learning style are at a disadvantage for learning."

There appears to be no scientific evidence to support learning styles theories and plenty of evidence to suggest that they may be doing more harm than good:

"A report on a 2004 survey conducted for Britain's Learning and Skills Research Centre compares more than seventy distinct learning styles theories currently being offered in the marketplace, each with its companion assessment instruments to diagnose a person's particular style. The report's authors characterise the purveyors of these instruments as an industry bedevilled by vested interests that tout 'a bedlam of contradictory claims' and express concerns about the temptation to classify, label and stereotype individuals."

This is not to say that learner differences do not matter. Every person in the world has a unique brain shaped by their genetic inheritance and their life experience, and good teachers and trainers are empathetic to these differences. So what differences should learning professionals take into account?

In my book More Than Blended Learning, I suggest some characteristics which both research and practical experience have shown to be important:

• A learner's prior knowledge of the subject or skill in question (novices will require a lot more structure and support than those with more elaborate mental models).
• A learner's likely level of interest in the learning experience (without this, you are going to have to make a special effort to engage them).
• A learner's cultural expectations for a learning experience.
• The hopes and fears which learners bring to the experience.

Brown and Roediger suggest some more:

• Language fluency and reading ability.
• A learners ability to abstract underlying principles from new experiences and to convert new knowledge into mental structures.
• How a learner sees themselves and their abilities: "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right."

As professionals, I believe we have to respond to the evidence of what works and not to fads, fashions and what people are trying to sell us. As such, I would be perfectly comfortable with shifting my position again on learning styles if you can provide me with some solid evidence.

Let�s face it, compliance is not the same as learning

A while back I did something quite unusual. I completed a self-study e-learning programme, as a student, not as a consultant running their eye over someone else's work. Some time later, having had the chance to reflect on the experience, I can't resist making a few comments. I'm not going to tell you what the programme was or who it was made by. but I will say it was a compulsory piece of training, completion of which was required if I was to be able to go ahead with some work with a client. Contrary to the nature of much compliance training, the subject in this case was inherently interesting and gave an insight into the lives of people who work in much more hazardous environments than south east England (which, in case you were wondering, explains the picture). All in all it was competently produced and lively in its presentation. At this point you're expecting a 'but' and I don't intend to disappoint.

There were some relatively minor annoyances:

• The on-screen text was mirrored by audio narration you couldn't turn off. As I could read much faster than it took to listen to the narration, the two were always out of synch and I had to resort to turning the sound down on the computer.
• There was no clear indication of what was really important to remember and what was nice to know.
• There was far more information than any human being could possibly hope to absorb; much of this would have been better presented as auxiliary reading materials.
• The assessment tested what was easy to assess rather than what was really important.
• The scoring of multi-answer questions was far too harsh - if you missed one option from a 'which of the following ...' question, you scored nothing.

Compliance changes everything

My main concern is the effect that compulsion has on the learning process. In fact, it's clear to me now that compliance changes everything. Knowing that I had not only to complete this course but pass an assessment to demonstrate the fact, made all the difference to me. The content itself took a back seat, because I became fixated with picking out the key points that I thought would be tested, skipping through any material that I suspected was superfluous, and getting on to the assessment as fast as possible before the material had evaporated from my mind. I achieved this. True, I missed the 80% pass rate by 3% the first time, but I noted down the answers to the questions I got wrong and simply took it again. No problem second time. Job done. Material already largely forgotten. Move on.

Except this material was important - indeed it could easily have been life-saving - and it was fascinating. I would have enjoyed exploring it in detail and probably would have done so if the end objective had been my competence (or at very least enhanced awareness) rather than simple compliance. It seems you can't effectively combine the two, at least not when compliance takes the leading role.

Compliance is such an ugly word

All this has got me thinking again about the whole nature of compliance training and what an ugly word 'compliance' is. Here's how Dictionary.com defined it:

• the act of conforming, acquiescing, or yielding
• a tendency to yield readily to others, especially in a weak and subservient way
• conformity; accordance: in compliance with orders
• cooperation or obedience

These sound like rather derogatory concepts to me. Who wants to be yielding, acquiescing, compliant, obedient? And what self-respecting learning professional wants to induce these characteristics in others?

Why compliance is killing e-learning

E-learning producers are in a difficult position, because a great deal of their work comes in the form of compliance training (according to Charles Jennings, 80% of all e-learning produced in Australia is to meet compliance needs). But in the long run they must surely feel the effects of a poor user experience:

1. Employees hate doing compliance training
2. As a result, trainers hate training it
3. The answer, then, is to use e-learning instead
4. With the result that now learners hate e-learning

Sorting out this problem may, in the end, determine whether formal, self-study e-learning, at least in a corporate context, continues to exist.

When compliance is not enough

Some time ago, Tom Kuhlmann posted about Those Pesky Compliance Courses, making the point that these aren't usually performance based and therefore a 'course' is probably not what's really required; he recommends keeping them simple, putting a test up front so those who already know the rules can exempt themselves from the body of the material, and un-locking all the navigation, so no-one's forced to sit through something they don't need.

All good advice, but only assuming the whole process is just one of getting boxes ticked to satisfy an external regulator. If the material is really not relevant, then it makes sense to make the box-ticking exercise as painless as possible, like renewing your passport or some similar administrative chore.

Now I'm not going to pretend that I'm an expert on compliance courses. I've never had much to do with designing them and, as someone who hasn't been an employee for 30 years, I have only occasional cause to take one. It's just that, when I have been required to undertake a mandatory course, typically as a consequence of some client engagement, it has seemed pretty important to me; important because my behaviour really could put me or my client at risk. If I just bluffed my way through a quiz or flipped across a few screens, I wouldn't be sensitised, because I would not have been emotionally engaged (except, I must admit, in the challenge of passing the quiz).

When the risks are small in terms of probability but serious in terms of consequence, mere compliance may be enough to get the boxes ticked, but wouldn't reduce the risk and surely that matters. When you look at the subjects of most compliance courses, then they do seem to be quite important:

• Stopping money laundering
• Avoiding mis-selling
• Promoting health
• Reducing accidents
• Promoting inclusion and equal opportunities
• Keeping confidential data safe

See what I mean?

A formula for changing behaviour

So, if mere compliance is not enough, and you really need employees to take note, what would I recommend? Well, first of all, I'd need answers to some important questions:

• What do we want employees to do that they may not be doing now, if the organisation is to achieve its goals?
• What must (note the emphasis) employees know if they are to do these things?
• What big ideas/principles do they need to understand and buy into in order to do these things?
• What skills, if any, do they need to acquire and/or put into practice in order to do these things?
• Over and above knowledge and skills, what else needs to be in place in the work environment if performance is going to change?

The answers to the questions above will obviously determine the shape of the solution. However, more often than not I would expect to see many of the following elements in the solution:

• A resource, probably a video, which ramps up the level of emotional engagement. Using a documentary approach, I would interview real people who have been in real situations of risk related to the area of compliance. Statistics are not enough - we are much more likely to engage with the stories of real people. The important principle to get across here is that non-compliance really matters - it could threaten your employer's future and your own.
• A diagnostic assessment which determines how much of the programme you need to take - none, some or all. This assessment would comprise of a series of mini-scenarios (the portrayal of a situation, followed by one or more 'what would you do?' questions) rather than a knowledge test.
• For novices, a clear and concise exposition of the absolute essentials of the policy, backed up with examples and rationales. Probably best if this is easily accessible and printable, so not a piece of e-learning.
• A series of more in-depth scenarios tackling ever more challenging but realistic situations, ideally directly relevant to your particular job role. An element of gamification here might add something.
• Resources which support the scenarios with in-depth explanations. These can take the form of web articles, videos, PDFs or whatever is necessary. The idea is that you will go to these to fill any gaps in your knowledge brought out by the scenarios.
• A final assessment, again based on mini-scenarios, and ideally drawn from a large pool to reduce the risk of cheating. To avoid users guessing, I'd include the option 'I don't know' in every question. This would score zero points, whereas wrong answers would score minus points, making a guess a risky response.
• To follow-up, I'd provide a forum where you could ask experts for answers to really tricky questions not covered in the programme.
• I'd also keep up a steady flow of new stories and reminders by email, on the intranet or any social platform.
• And I'd try and make sure that compliance was not only modelled by managers but backed up by the performance management system.

Compliance or competence, you choose

There are two ways of looking at compulsory and regulatory training:

1. You can regard it as a simple box-ticking exercise in which employers and employees go through the motions of delivering and receiving training, in order to satisfy regulators and insurers that the job is being done.
2. You aim to bring about a shift in behaviour such that infringements are very unlikely to occur, because employees believe in the policy and have the necessary knowledge and skill to put it into practice.

Option 1 is based on the assumptions that infringements are unlikely, the regulations are a nuisance and that compliance is a necessary evil. Option 2 is founded on the principles that infringements can and do happen, that the regulations are rightly in place to prevent harm to third parties, and that policies are not enough - delivering on these policies requires competence. Quite a difference.

Unlike those employees who undertake this sort of training, you do have a choice. Use it wisely.

Do no harm - the duty of the learning professional

One of the key differences between professions and other forms of occupation is the fact that professionals are bound by ethical codes. If they contravene these codes they are liable to be disbarred from the profession. Doctors sign a Hippocratic oath, which binds them to do no harm to their patients. Their patients� interests take priority over those of government or their own opportunities to make financial gains. Now we all know that, in practice, some doctors, lawyers, bankers, accountants and other professionals do break this trust and put themselves first, but generally we are shocked when this happens and expect it to be dealt with harshly.

Those responsible for managing the learning of adults in the workplace also like to be regarded as professionals. But you don�t become a professional just by calling yourself one. You have to behave like one - a trusted consultant not an order taker, an architect not a builder.

In my mind, learning professionals also have a duty of care - to do no harm to learners. This might seem like a no-brainer - after all, which learning professional does not care about the welfare of learners? Teaching and training are, after all, people professions. But in practice there are strong competing interests:

• those of senior managers, to keep costs and time commitments to a minimum;
• those of subject experts, to cover in any courses or materials every possible aspect of their particular subjects;
• those of compliance departments to tick boxes;
• those of colleagues who want to strut their stuff, avoid change, keep life simple, promote their own causes, and so on.

If the learning professional pays disproportionate attention to these interests, then what harm can they do to learners?

• They can overwhelm them with content, leaving them frazzled.
• They can fail to engage them emotionally, so they never really pay attention.
• They can fail to establish the relevance of a learning activity, causing anger and resentment.
• They can patronise them with activities that are insufficiently challenging.
• They can embarrass them with activities that have the potential to humiliate them in front of their peers.
• They can provide them with inadequate opportunities to practise new skills, so they never have the confidence to put the skills into practice.
• They can fail to provide sufficient follow-up resources in the workplace, so the learning quickly fades into oblivion.
• They can fail to act on what we know about the science of learning, thus plying learners with dangerous quack medicines (which is like doctors advising homeopathy or astronomers applying the principles of astrology - please let�s be rationalists not romantics).

Learning professionals may calculate that, by putting the interests of management, clients, SMEs and others above those of the learner that they will benefit personally in terms of how they will be seen in the organisation and that this could �make or break� them. But this is short-term thinking, because if you do them harm then learners can break you all too easily:

• They will only engage in learning activities under duress.
• They will not learn what you want them to learn (you cannot force anyone to learn something, at least not in any deep or meaningful way).
• They will make no effort to put your ideas or instructions into practice.
• They will bad mouth you and your courses (and not necessarily openly, on the happy sheet).

It takes courage to stick to your principles even when under pressure from people in power. But courage is surely what you expect of a professional. If you haven�t got it in you to be courageous, then are you in the right job?

Engaging your learner - four dos and four don'ts

Whether you�re teaching in a classroom, developing some e-learning or producing a video, you�ll be concerned about engaging your learners. Why? Because, if learners aren�t engaged they�ll pay little attention to what you�re offering and they�re very unlikely to retain anything. You can spend a fortune trying to engage learners, but the secrets to engagement do not demand you break the bank. Here are four dos and four don�ts:

DOS

1. Make an emotional impact: Too much of what we teach is aimed at the rational, reasoning side of the human psyche, but that�s less than half the battle. If we�re not emotionally engaged we won�t be listening to the facts, figures and scientific evidence. Do what you have to do to up the emotional ante - humour, shock, pathos, drama.

2. Tell stories: Which brings us to stories, the currency of any great learning experience. We are engaged by stories (often for hours on end), we remember them and we pass them on. You can�t say that for theoretical models, processes and procedures. And don�t forget, learners� own stories are more important than yours.

3. Be relevant: �Relevance drives out reluctance,� so hook into what is interesting your learners right now. Relate the learning experience to real work issues. And don�t forget those more fundamental needs - self-image, relating to others, sex, money, football, whatever.

4. Be challenging: We love a challenge, just so long as we feel we have a chance of success. Nothing too easy, nothing too hard. We will spend any amount of time solving an interesting problem. So this time isn�t wasted, relate the challenge to the goals of the learning experience and the lives of the learners.

DON'TS

1. Overload on glitz: It�s a common misconception that super-high production values will provide that elusive engagement, but there�s no evidence to support this. There�s nothing you can do with video, 3D models, animation or high-speed interactivity that learners won�t have seen before (only done much better) in movies and video games. Overdo the bling and learners are more likely to complain that you�re wasting money.

2. Interact for the sake of it: Interaction is important for learning but only when it's relevant to the objectives of the learning experience and sufficiently challenging. Questions with obvious answers don�t count. Interactions that simply reveal information don�t count. And don�t forget that questions from learners are far more valuable than questions from you.

3. Cross the line: In the effort to relate to your audience you might be tempted towards the lowest common denominator. There is a time and a place for everything and a learning experience is definitely not the right place for offensive humour. If you�re not sure where the line is, test your content with representative learners.

4. Pretend to be what you are not: It is patently obvious when you are trying too hard to talk the language of your audience, to be like them. You can be empathetic to your learners without pretending to talk like them or like the things they like.

Clive's Cone (if Dale can have one so can I)

Are you fed up with all that pseudoscience with which the learning profession is plagued? If so, join the Debunker Club. For April Fool's Day we're going after Dales Cone of Experience.

E-learning: what is it good for?

First of all, before we get started, let me just clarify that I am not talking about e-learning in the broadest sense, encompassing live online sessions and all sorts of online collaboration. I prefer to refer to these as learning technologies, perhaps even 'digital learning'. No, what I�m referring to in this post is the use of interactive self-study materials, particularly in the workplace. For most learning professionals that I meet, that is what they mean when they use the term e-learning.

The problem is that the term e-learning, used in this specific context, carries too much baggage. When it was first coined, in the late 1990s, it promised a brave new world of engaging, multimedia-rich learning freed from the confines of the classroom, providing unlimited accessibility, flexibility and scalability.

And in many cases it fulfilled the promise. However, the majority of people that I encounter associate it with tedious tell-and-test slide shows that they must sit through whether they like it or not. E-learning as a label is, I�m afraid, broken.

At the same time, digital learning, in the broadest sense, is having a huge impact on our lives. Billions of people of all ages use YouTube, Wikipedia, SlideShare and all sorts of other tools to access web articles, blog posts, videos, podcasts and infographics to find out just about everything they could ever want to know. If we are looking for a model for information delivery in organisations, we just need to look at the way this works in our personal lives.

E-learning is not a great medium for delivering information. If it was, we would see it all over the Internet and be using it every day, but that is obviously not the case. In the past five years, I have not once recommended to a client that they use e-learning to deliver information and I cannot imagine doing so in the future.

So, what is e-learning good for? Actually, quite a few things, as long as they are primarily interactive in nature and we don�t call them e-learning:

Drill and practice: Interactive learning materials are brilliant at providing you with repetitive practice in a wide range of skills (typing, mathematical problem-solving, etc.) and the opportunity to rehearse important knowledge sets (vocabulary, terminology, visual recognition, etc.). Of course computers aren�t good for all sorts of skills practice but where they do work, they work wonderfully. Drill and practice is ripe for gamification.

Exploration: Interactive learning materials allow you to explore all sorts of objects and environments in 2D or 3D, whether that�s oil rigs, historical events, aero engines or organisation structures.

Performance support: Interactive learning materials can help you troubleshoot problems and make informed decisions in situations in which there are too many variables and options to easily consider. Learning is incidental here, but may happen anyway.

Discovery: Interactive learning materials can present you with problem-solving situations with which you can interact and gain insights into important principles and processes. Case studies, scenarios, simulations, strategy games: they come in varying levels of complexity and realism, but the idea is essentially the same - just make them as realistic and challenging as you can.

Assessment: Interactive learning materials can test you on your knowledge and, in some cases, understanding. Yes, there are limits in what you can achieve given current technology, but developments in AI will mean we will soon be able to do a lot more than multiple-choice quizzes.

Tutorials: We have to be careful with this last option, because I don�t mean tell-and-test slide shows. I mean something that has the character of a real tutorial, with continuous dialogue between the learner and the software. Materials like this were relatively common in the 1980s but rarely seen now. The nearest I�ve got to reproducing the feel of a tutorial was with Oppia software, which I used within the More Than Blended Learning taster course.

As you can see, there is plenty of on-going potential to create genuinely interactive learning materials that provide an experience that cannot be achieved with multimedia alone. We have the tools we need but, as ever, the problem is not with the tools but with the way we use them. Hesitate before you import more slides into your development tool. Think: how can I enrich learning through interactivity?

Seven ways in which stories power learning

I�d never written a film script before. The nearest I�d got to so-called creative writing was penning the dialogue for interactive scenarios, so this was a brave move. To be honest, I was pushed hard by my colleague Asatuurs Keim, a film-maker with a passion for storytelling and someone who believes we have failed to realise the full potential of film as a vehicle for learning at work.

Now I was only ever proposing a really short film, but I was encouraged by Asatuurs to use the classic script structure:

• Setup: Establishes the main characters, their relationships and the world they live in. As the plot unfurls, the protagonist is confronted with a dramatic problem to resolve.
• Confrontation: The protagonist attempts to resolve the problem, only to find him/herself in ever worsening situations.
• Resolution: The main tensions of the story are brought to their most intense point and the dramatic question answered, leaving the protagonist and other characters with a new sense of who they really are.

I�m sure experienced writers don�t approach their task in such a formal manner, but for a beginner like me this structure proved invaluable. Although my principal goal was to provide insights into the value of end-to-end learning solutions, I also needed the storyline to be engaging in its own right and to demonstrate the power of storytelling as a tool for learning. You can come to your own conclusions as to whether I managed to achieve both of these (I�ll provide a link to the film later).

Here are seven ways in which I believe that stories power learning:

1. Stories speak to us as humans

As Jeremy Hsu writes in Scientific American, 'Storytelling is one of the few human traits that are truly universal across culture and through all of known history.� For more than 27,000 years, humans have been communicating by telling stories. I�m sure that if you were to open up our brains and tip the contents onto the floor, what would come out but piles and piles of stories. According to a 1997 study by Robin Dunbar at the University of Liverpool, personal stories and gossip make up 65% of our conversations. That seems like an underestimate to me.

2. Stories hold our attention

Stories with characters to whom we can relate will attract and hold our attention. If you don�t believe that 'people nowadays' can maintain attention on anything for longer than a few minutes then you�d be wide of the mark. It�s true that we want our information to come in the smallest possible chunks, but we�ll happily spend hours wading through a box set or turning the pages of a great novel.

3. Stories engage us emotionally

Emotion can have a powerful impact on memory. Numerous studies have shown that our most vivid memories tend to be of emotional events. And stories are highly effective at triggering emotions - they make us laugh, they make us cry, they surprise us, they scare us, they inspire us. Above all, they make us care and caring matters when it comes to learning.

4. Stories provide us with examples

Stories have another very simple value to a learning experience: they provide us with examples that help us to understand difficult concepts, principles and rules. If you�re struggling to figure out the difference between education and training, a good teacher will tell you that old joke, you know, the one about when your daughter comes home and tells you about the sex education class she attended that day. Fine, but what if she came home and told you about the sex training she�d received?

5. Stories provide us with insights

According to Wikipedia, 'an insight is the understanding of a specific cause and effect in a particular context'. Insights are what allow us to respond to situations in which we don�t have clear-cut rules to follow, which in the developed world is true of a great deal of the work that we do. You cannot be provided with insights by simple exposition, you have to obtain them for yourself, by figuring things out. We can do this through our own experience, but also by observing the experiences of others, either directly or through stories.

Literal accounts of real or fictitious events may provide us with insights (my short film being an example). On the other hand, stories can use metaphors to position an idea in a context that may be more familiar to a learner. This is a technique we used for most of the explainer videos that accompany the More Than Blended Learning approach (see So What is Blended Learning? as an example). Learners can readily adapt the lessons embedded in these stories to analogous situations.

6. Stories help us to remember other stuff

As humans, we can struggle to learn factual information. As Ed Cooke explains in The Guardian, 'Whether you wish to learn a set of directions, a recipe, the events during an historical epoch or the members of the cabinet, imposing a story line over what you wish to learn is a wonderfully simple and powerful way of binding the ideas together in a manner that allows easy and enjoyable recollection.'

7. Stories are likely to be shared

Because that�s how we relate to other people - by telling them stories. If you want to get your message out there, don�t rely too heavily on rational argument (this post being an example); tell stories instead.

Which brings me back to my short film, a story of love and learning. It�s called No Regrets, and you�ll find it in three parts here, along with some short preview videos in which Nicole, one of the main characters, provides some background to her journey to England to start her new job. Little does she know.

The teacher as storyteller

A few days ago, I sat down to write a post explaining why I thought stories were such a powerful tool for learning. In my research, I came across a post I originally published in 2005. Once I had got over the shock of realising that this post was a full ten years old, I decided to share it again, given I probably now have a very different audience. I also believe it holds true today, although what I refer to as �the science� has probably moved on. Anyway, I�m still working on my new post on storytelling and I�ll share it soon.

Back in 2003, I devoted a great deal of energy to the design of a new CD-ROM course entitled Ten Ways to Avoid Death by PowerPoint. In blatant disregard of all the usual constraints of time and budget, I set out to design a programme that was both highly interactive and media rich, engaging as many of the senses as possible.

As the course was nearing completion, I came up with the idea of introducing the programme with a short story, adapted from a classic fairy tale. Because the moral of the tale seemed to echo the main message of the course, I added this in, even though I was concerned about starting a course in such a passive, linear manner.

Some time later, I met with a colleague who had been reviewing the course. She had showed it to several managers in her company and got some feedback. I asked if anything stood out that they found particularly enjoyable or memorable - perhaps the games, the multimedia, the illustrations? No, you guessed it, it was the story. It made the point, it stirred the imagination, it stuck in the mind.

You may not be surprised, but I was. Can stories really be more powerful than interactivity in bringing about learning? I investigated further, and consulted Google. According to storyatwork.com, "We are story-making machines. Cognitively speaking, every experience, every relationship, every object is stored in the mind as a story." OK, but any website that calls itself 'story at work' is going to be biased. What about the science?

Well, Jerome Bruner, the father of cognitive psychology, believes storytelling is hardwired into our brains. The primary reason infants are motivated to learn to speak is because they have stories inside them that they want to share with others. Simple stories like "I fell over" or "I had a bad dream and I'm scared", but stories nonetheless.

In his book Tell me a Story, psychologist and artificial intelligence expert Roger Schank argues that "knowledge is stories" and that intelligence may be more or less equated with the ability to tell the right story at the right time. Even the old timers agree. According to the old Hopi proverb, "He who tells the stories rules the world". Hollywood already knows that.

When you attend a really good workshop, the one thing you can guarantee is that the facilitator will have some good stories. Perhaps a few are just good jokes, but many will be extremely relevant to the subject in hand. They illustrate a point, they stimulate discussion. That's why it's so much more difficult to run a workshop for the first time - it can take quite a while to come up with all those anecdotes and examples that bring the event to life. It also explains why your average facilitator's guide is never quite enough of a foundation on which to run a workshop - however thoroughly it lists all the steps involved in preparing and running the event, it's inadequate if it doesn't also provide you with a repertoire of interesting and illuminating anecdotes.

There's a clue here as to why so much e-learning is dry and boring. The typical instructional designer will work with a subject expert to define the learning objectives and list the important learning points. They will structure this information and support it with visual aids and practical exercises. If they're not careful, what they will end up with is the online equivalent of the facilitator's guide, when what they should have done is spend hours in conversation with the subject expert, wheedling out their favourite stories on the topic - the successes, the horror stories, the amusing incidents.

Even if you don't fancy yourself as a budding chat show host, you are unlikely to encounter much opposition. Subject matter experts will find it much easier to tell stories than to articulate what they know in terms of neat and tidy abstractions. Funnily enough, learners won't be any different. Try as you may to come up with clever mnemonics to help them remember the five stages in this, or the seven elements in that, they're much more likely to recall the tales you have told or the experiences shared by other participants. They'll also waste no time in passing these stories on to their colleagues. After all, they're only human, and if the scientists are to be believed, simply story-telling machines.

In case you�re interested, here is the story that accompanied the Ten Ways to Avoid Death by PowerPoint course: The Emperor�s New Slide Show.