Reflections on using Curation for Designing Learning Programmes

Rachel Burnham writes:  This week the topic of using curation for design has been much on my mind.  Partly because I have been doing an update and refresh of a programme I work on that makes use of curated resources.  Partly because I have been thinking through how to further improve another programme I work on to make most effective use of the resources within it.   Partly because of conversations I have been having around this topic, through #LDInsight and particularly with Michelle Ockers (@MichelleOckers) and also with my regular collaborator, Mike Shaw (@MikeShawLD) as he puts the finishing touches to a presentation on this same topic for the World of Learning Conference in Birmingham.  

So the topic has been circling around my head and I have been reflecting on my own experience of curating resources when designing programmes.   Looking back I can see that I have been doing this for some time, though it is only in the last few years that I have consciously thought of it as curation.  It is now just a part of how I do things. 

What is curation for designing learning programmes?

What I mean by curating resources when designing programmes, is using existing resources, typically publicly available, as a substantial part of the triggering material for a learning programme.   It involves seeking out relevant materials, selecting carefully which to use, explaining the reasons for your choices so that they are put in context for the intended user, possibly sequencing and combining materials and then making them accessible to the intended user.  I make use of Harold Jarche’s Seek, Sense, Share model to support this.  This repurposing doesn’t stop there, as it also needs to include some tasks or activities that challenge the user to make sense of the material and identify what and how they can apply this to their own work.  It is this latter part that turns this from a collection of resources into a learning programme.

I know that the issue of whether simply using resources could lead to learning, was something that was bothering some of the participants in the recent #LDInsight chat that took place on 5/10/18.  For me, it is the addition of reflection, practical tasks and social and collaborative elements that transmutes these resources into rich and rewarding learning experiences.

Whilst conversations about using curation for designing learning programmes, often focus on the use of existing external resources, these are not the only elements that can be made use of.  Ben Betts in a chapter of ‘Ready, Set, Curate’ describes on pg 58  ‘thinking in thirds’:

• ·       Making use of existing material within the organisation – this could be learning material, performance support material or other useful stuff.  This allows you to make best use of what you already have and also to include material that is highly specific and particular to your organisation and its way of doing things. 
• ·       Secondly, is the external, already existing material.  This is great for subject areas that are in common across many organisations or where you want to bring in particular expertise from outside of your organisation.
• ·       The final element is newly created resources.   There may be somethings that you simply can’t find ready-made or where you want to tailor some content to be particularly specific to the needs of your intended users. 

Why use a curated approach?

For me, there are three main reasons for using a curated approach when designing learning programmes:

• ·       Abundance - there are already a lot of existing resources, either in-house or externally, around the topic and it therefore makes sense to build with these existing building blocks.   So this is about using resources wisely – time, effort, energy and of course finances.
• ·       Agility – this links to the first, but places more emphasis on the ability to meet learning needs in a timely fashion, creating a minimum, viable product or solution and possibly building on this in subsequent iterations.
• ·       Access to different voices, perspectives and expertise – I think this one is often the most compelling reason. Using curation allows you to give access to material from different sources that can lead to a wider and richer learning experience.   Michael Bhaskar in his book ‘Curation: The power of selection in a world of excess’  makes the point that we can search to find things that we know exist, but what curation adds value by giving us access to things we don’t know about.  So curation can enable us to introduce users to a topic and directly to experts in that field, enabling them to more quickly build foundation knowledge and understanding.  It also enables us to help users to stretch by encountering different perspectives and emergent expertise, because curation can allow you to easily update and refresh a programme.   Actually, if the programme stimulates and supports social and collaborative learning, it may well be the participants in the programme, who identify and share that emergent thinking either through their own work or by sharing other resources that they uncover.  

Three reflections from my experience

A.  Using a curation approach when designing a learning programme alters how you design.   When designing traditionally, broadly speaking, you identify needs, specify aim & objectives and gradually get more and more specific about what is required in the design.  And you can be as specific as you like. 

When designing using curation, again you identify needs, specify aims & objectives, but you then need to search and see what is available already both in-house and externally.   And you need to be rather more open-minded about what you are looking for, because if you are over-specific you may not find it or spend so long looking that this is a poor use of time.   Once you have identified what is available, then you can fill in gaps with material that you create.

So, the traditional design approach is a bit like commissioning a tailor-made outfit in a particular colour combination to your specific measurements.  Whereas a curated approach is more like looking through your wardrobe, reviewing what you have, then going shopping to see what is available that combines with what you have, and recognising that you may not be able to find exactly what you picture in your mind’s eye in the shade you want.

It is a change in mindset.

B.  The importance of building in regular maintenance and refreshing.

As with any learning programme, it is important to keep a curated programme up-to-date and current.  What can be different is that links to particularly external resources can stop working and resources can be withdrawn or move behind a firewall and so no longer be available.  This means that there is a need to build in regular maintenance of the programme and it may be necessary to replace links to materials with alternatives.  As ‘like for like’ replacements may not be available (see point A), this requires a flexible approach.

It is tempting to think that the answer to this issue, is to ensure that you include full copies of the material you have curated within your programme, but that of course will bring problems of copyright.   Stick to links, but be alert to the need to update.   You may find this helpful guidance from Ben Betts at HT2 Labs of assistance in relation to these issues around copyright. 

My conversation with Michelle Ockers reminded me that this maintenance review, is also an opportunity to refresh a programme and that ideas for this may well come from recent participants and what they have shared within the social and collaborative elements of the programme. 

C. My third reflection comes from working as an external contributor to curated programmes and realising that pricing work for curated programmes is an interesting challenge.   Often we have experience to base the pricing of creating content and this is well understood by clients.  Pricing the curation of content can be a bit more tricky - the product of a link to a resource seems like the work of a moment, but like many other roles involving professional expertise, it is the underlying expertise, skills and judgement that have led to you finding and selecting that particular link, that is being paid for.  

I would be very interested in hearing your experience of curating resources for learning programmes and in your response to the points I have shared.

Rachel Burnham

14/10/18

Burnham L & D works with individuals and organisations to help them learn and work more effectively.  As part of this I help L&D professionals to be even more effective through updating their skills and know-how.  I have a particular interest in curation and the use of digital technologies in learning.  I frequently Sketchnote at events and offer workshops in Sketchnoting.  

The value of asking - my learning from working with people with disabilities

Rachel Burnham writes: A couple of weeks ago the #LDInsight twitterchat explored how we work with people with disabilities on learning.  Many of the participants identified that this was not something that they had experienced very often within their professional careers.   My experience is rather different and looking back I realise that I have fairly regularly worked with colleagues and clients with disabilities.   These have included people with visual and hearing impairments, people with mobility problems and people with dyslexia, which takes many forms.  Actually, the disability comes from the environment, a failure to adapt the learning programme and our attitudes, rather than the condition itself. 

I thought it might be useful to share two key learning points from my experience.  I make no claims to expertise and I am definitely still learning about how to more effectively make learning accessible to all.

My first learning point, came from very early in my time in training – it definitely was training then!   I think it was only about the third or fourth programme that I had been involved in delivering and I’ve never forgotten it. We were working with an external client on a two day programme.   To our surprise one of the participants in the programme was blind and we hadn’t known that until we turned up.  I remember feeling so embarrassed that we hadn’t known in advance and also feeling that we had been dropped in it by the client.   When we reflected afterwards, myself and my co-trainer, realised that actually we had never asked about whether any of the participants had any particular needs.  We had just assumed that they wouldn’t.

So we changed our practice and from then on always asked as part of the commissioning and identification of learning needs. 

I think it is worth building this kind of prompt into our processes and practices – so I ask this when I am talking with stakeholders or I might build it into an application form or discussion with individual learners.   I think this sits alongside asking about dietary requirements and in an ideal world shouldn’t really be any more difficult to ask and answer than that.  I know that not everyone wants to share this information – I think by including it in, we start to build an environment in which it is OK to be open and explicit about our individual needs.   

I know I am influenced in this by my personal experiences of disability – for example since I became diabetic, dietary requirements and specific needs go hand in hand.  As a child measles damaged my hearing, which in turn affected my schooling for a short while, until I was able to have some treatment.  I am comfortable with being open about this – but then I work for myself.  And I know that there are many disabilities that are perceived far more negatively than diabetes.

So my first piece of learning is  to ask the question.

My second piece of learning is that when it comes to making adaptations to enable an individual with a disability to participate in a learning experience, it is always worth speaking with that person and asking for their advice.  Don’t make assumptions or work from generalisations.   Many disabilities impact on people very differently.  In my experience, it is always worth talking to the individual directly - they are an expert on their needs and have usually discovered what works for them best.

I was once tasked with organising an induction/initial training programme for an individual joining one of our regional teams, in an office at some distance from where I was based.  Normally, their manager would have had this responsibility, but they had just moved onto to a new role outside of the organisation themselves.   The challenge was that we had severe budget restrictions at the time, so I had no money to travel in person to the location and this was so long ago that there was no online way of communicating in our organisation (hard to imagine now!) and so I needed to mostly work with her over the phone.  And she was deaf.  So, I contacted her before she formally started and asked her advice.  She was able to suggest the type of modified phone that would best suit her, where to order in from and how to get funding to do this!  I asked her what else would help her induction and she made a number of other practical suggestions including on office layout, as she used lip-reading and so it was important that she could easily see her work colleagues when they were speaking together.  I was so glad I asked her advice!!

So, my second piece of learning is to ask the individual concerned for their advice.   In fact, I find I increasingly ask the question of all the people I work with ‘What can I do to make this learning experience work better for you?’

Most L&D professionals I come into contact with are keen for learning to be accessible for all.  I suspect as a profession that we have not done as much as we could to make this a reality.  Time for a change.

Rachel Burnham

1/9/16

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals become even more effective.  I am particularly interested in blended learning, the uses of social media for learning, evaluation and anything that improves the impact of learning on performance. 

L&D and HR - Better Together

Rachel Burnham writes: The #LDInsight chat question discussed this week was ‘How can L&D support other HR functions eg recruitment, talent management, ER?’ and as is usually the case this generated lots of discussion, thought and some disagreement.  Here is a link to the Storify if you want to find out more.

I was particularly struck again by the difference between those, like myself, who see L&D as a part of HR and those who see L&D as quite distinct and separate from HR.  This issue has come up before on other occasions in #LDInsight chats.   This is familiar territory for me as it is a subject that almost always comes up with each new group that I tutor for the CIPD Certificate in L&D for MOL Learn.  

My experience is that very many people coming into the L&D profession come seeing L&D as different and as distinct from HR.   This is usually because in their organisation L&D (or training) is organised as a separate team from HR, perhaps with few links (or few positive links) with HR and a different focus to their work.  And of course, there are some ‘trainers’ whose work is customer focused, supporting their organisation’s clients to use their products and services effective (eg with specialist software or equipment); and there are other ‘trainers’ from training providers, who sometimes model their approach more from an educational model of delivery.  It is easy to imagine that the whole world mirrors your own experience – I’ve certainly done that and often people starting out in L&D only have limited networks within the L&D profession to challenge that perception.

One of the joys of my work is encouraging conversations between fellow students to explore the differences and similarities between their organisations and how they organise their L&D work, including that relationship with HR.  And in supporting them in developing wider networks amongst the HR profession, including L&Ders, so that they have access to other perspectives and get a deep understanding of the importance of context.  I usually learn lots from this too about different sectors, different organisational cultures, specific niche markets and so on.

Sometimes, though this view of the separateness and distinctiveness of L&D and HR is also held with people with many years of experience of L&D.  I know individuals who cite poor experiences of HR within their organisation or business sector and who identify this as the root of their wish to distance themselves from a bureaucratic and rule-driven HR.  And of course there are undoubtedly HR functions who are like this.  And many HR functions who are not.  There are even some L&D teams, who I might quite like to distance myself from –  content-dumping, over-powerpoint using, push button e-learning compliance chasing, irrelevant to real organisational needs and slow to respond teams.

I think there is real value in seeing L&D as part of HR.  L&D and the other specialisms that make up HR are a bit like a family or group of house mates sharing a house – at our best when we work together.  Sometimes there are disagreements between house mates/family members about X not pulling their weight and doing their share of the cleaning.  Sometimes, the writing on the shopping list is a bit unclear and the wrong items are bought by the designated shopper.   And sometimes, everyone is sat in their own room each watching a TV programme on a different device and not speaking to each other – though in fact everyone is watching the same programme.

In fact, we cannot afford not to work together.  Just think of the damage done to an organisation when recruitment and L&D responsibilities for induction don’t work effectively.  Or when reward policies pull in the opposite direction to the change programme OD is working on. Or when line managers find that HR rules ‘prevent’ them from using ideas developed on a recent L&D programme.

But I would draw the net wider too.  I think we in L&D need to be talking and working with other teams and stakeholders too.  It is increasingly important that we have effective working relationships with IT, given how important technology is to enabling modern workplace learning.  We need to be connecting with Internal Comms – again there are lots of potential overlaps here particularly with engagement and seeing learning opportunities as a campaign rather than a one-off programme.   I also think we need links with teams such as Health & Safety and Compliance/Quality and finance.  Which is, of course, in addition to working alongside operational teams and their managers.

One of the things that I think helps to get this working together, is being clear about where the focus is in L&D.   For me, Mervyn Dinnen nailed it with his tweet in the #LDInsight chat when he said ‘Only one strategy. The business strategy. That’s the one you need to understand and speak.’  We share responsibility for delivering on this with the rest of HR and all the other functions and teams across the organisation.  

In L&D we are starting, at last, to focus more on impact on peformance, not just learning.   And this is something we need to work together on with the rest of HR and across the organisation.  It isn’t something that can be tackled in isolation.  As being our ‘precious’. 

If we focus on the business strategy and performance improvement then we will need to work together.  And we will be better together.

(The title of this blog was tugging at my memory and I realised that ‘Better Together’ is the title of a track by Jack Johnson, so here is the link.  Have rather surprised myself by remembering this piece, as I usually only remember jazz & hymn tunes!  )

Rachel Burnham

5/6/16

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals become even more effective.  I am particularly interested in blended learning, the uses of social media for learning, evaluation and anything that improves the impact of learning on performance.