Review of the OU 'Trends in Learning' Report 2018

Rachel Burnham writes: Whilst at the CIPD L&D Show 2018 on Wednesday, I picked up a copy of the Open University’s ‘Trends in Learning Report’ for this year.  This annual report was launched at the show that day and is based on research from the OU’s Institute of Educational Technology, which gives it credibility and a sound basis.   Today I have been reading through the report and reflecting on its contents and the topics it highlights – I think it is well worth a read - here is a link to download a copy.  You might also be interested in this 12 min podcast from Mike Shaw,part of the CIPD Blogsquad for the event, on the report.

The report is concise and well produced, making it very easy to read.  It focuses on five key topics:

·       Spaced learning

·       Post-truth learning

·       Immersive learning

·       Learner-led analytics

·       Humanistic knowledge building communities

Each section explores one of these topics, includes an example/perspective from an L&D practitioner, plus some links to some further resources related to the topic and some practical and well-focused tips for L&D.  This makes the report very accessible, relevant and useful.   All this and only 15 pages long!

Spaced Learning

The first topic explored is the well-researched finding that people learn better through a series of learning sessions with gaps in-between them, rather than a long intense one-off exposure to learning content.   This approach can be used both for gaining knowledge and developing skills.

This is often a factor in the effectiveness of blended learning programmes or in shorter-bite-sized learning programmes.  

I think this is a really valuable approach for developing knowledge, however, I would first caution that it is worth questioning whether we really need employees to learn such knowledge at all.  For some aspects of work it is essential for employees to have key pieces of knowledge embedded, but there are lots of aspects of work where a more effective approach is for employees to simply know where to easily access the information as and when they need it.  We need to be able to distinguish which knowledge is which and therefore which is the most effective approach to take to enable people to do their jobs well.  A great resource for thinking this through is Cathy Moore’s ‘Ask the flowchart’, which I am constantly recommending to people.

If knowledge or skills need to be built, then let’s invest in spaced learning.  If not, let’s use a resources-led approach.

If you would like to find out more about Spaced Learning and also how it can be used alongside other well-researched approaches such as 'retrieval practice’ – I recommend listening to ‘The Learning Scientists’ Podcast’.  This series of short podcasts provides an excellent introduction to these and other techniques, with examples of both use of these techniques and the research upon which they are based.  

Post-truth Learning

For me this was the most intriguing of the topics identified and is about the need that we all have to be able to distinguish credible, accurate and current information, theories, models, from those that are ‘fake’ or otherwise unreliable.  It also links to the move to an evidence-based practice approach. 

This need to distinguish helpful information is becoming increasing challenging with the sheer abundance of information available to us and the ease of access directly to it ourselves – now we need to act as our own ‘gate-keepers’ and ‘quality-assessors’.  This is something that is a key part of the work I do around curation, whether curation for myself, supporting others in developing their personal curation approaches and when curating for others, perhaps as part of the design of a programme.

One of the conference sessions by Martin Couzins focused on ‘How to curate learning for performance support’ – here is a Wakelet with the tweets from this session – and in the session participants were encouraged to have a go at selecting which resources they would use in a particular context.  This process of ‘filtering’ or the ‘sense’ part of Harold Jarche’s ‘Seek, Sense, Share’ model, includes the need to careful sift material to pick out what is valuable.

The need for us to develop our skills in doing this and to support the managers and other employees we work with in doing this was also something brought out in the Good Practice report ‘Google It’ from 2016, which identified that ‘managers will benefit from guidance about how to evaluate the content they find’ when using search engine’s such as Google.

I am particular impressed with one of the resources referred to in this section, which is a E-book guide to evaluating information on social media – do take a look at this.

Immersive Learning

The third topic identified is something that I have been learning about over the last 18 months, along with my collaborator Niall Gavin @niallgavinuk, by exploring the fast developing fields of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) and how they can be used effectively to aid learning.  You can find out about our learning journey through these links to blogs and resources lists.

The practitioner comments here are clear about the need for us to build our awareness of the potential for this kind of approach before jumping in. I particularly rated the tips of L&D in this section and especially the final one ‘Start small, test it, learn, refine and build’.

Learner-led Analytics

We have been hearing a lot about how we need to be making more use of the data available through our use of technology to support learning and in particular of data analytics for a few years.  During the Show, I attended an excellent session on the exhibition floor presented by Ben Betts @bbetts of HT2 Labs about how data analytics can be used to assess the impact of learning programmes – he presented two very interesting case studies from HT2 Labs work with clients.   Here is my Sketchnote of this session:

And the Open University has itself shared in previous L&D Shows its experience of using data analytics in 2016 talking about ‘the virtuous circle of learning design and learning analytics’ - here is a link to my Sketchnote from this session.

However, the report focuses on the slightly different topic of how analytical information can aid learners be more effective learners and how learning can become more targeted and personalized.   Again, there is some great guidance in the tips about the need to be ‘cynically curious’ when finding out more about this topic.

Humanistic knowledge building communities

I think this is about building social and collaborative learning communities – this is the only place in the report, where I felt that there was a use of unnecessary jargon.    This section explores how technology can be used to support these communities and links to ideas of communities of practice and working out loud (WOL).  The practitioner input in this section is from Mike Collins @Community_Mike, well known for his interest and experience in developing and supporting online communities.  He includes some helpful tips about what is involved in doing this.  

I think this report is a great introduction to these topics and the addition of further resources and the tips gives this report additional practical value.   I encourage you to get hold of a copy and make use of it. 

Rachel Burnham

29/4/18

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.  

Curation - What's in a name?

Rachel Burnham writes: I have been thinking a lot about curation over the last few months.  This has been partly because I have been reviewing my own personal curation practice, partly because I have been engaged in some collaborative learning around this, with my regular learning partner, Mike Shaw (@MikeShawLD), and partly because of a line of enquiry started by Martin Couzins, which has got me thinking.   Martin asked ‘What is the state of curation in learning?’ in blog post in August. 

Curation is one of those terms that seems to be used in different ways by different people.   As Martin mentions in his piece, curation in learning was all the talk of the conference circuit about four or five years ago, but is less mentioned now. But it has seeped into L&D conversation and I hear it used all over the place.   Sometimes, I get why this term is being used for example in the broader context of ‘resources rather than context’, or when contrasting ‘curation and creation’ in the design of L&D materials, or in Jonathan Marshall’s excellent blog ‘Getting to grips with MOOCs’, but increasingly I feel rather confused about why this term is being used.  It is a bit like what’s happened with the term ‘agile’ in the context of learning and development, where it went from being used in a very specific way to be stretched to encompass a whole range of meanings and situations – in my view unhelpfully.  I think the same is happening with curation. 

So, I notice individuals talking about curating articles, videos, infographics etc in the context of what they share via social media.   Or I hear someone referring to curating a collection of music.  Or recently, I read an otherwise excellent article which referred to L&Ders as ‘helping to curate change’ – I really have no idea what this means! 

I think one of the reasons for this confusion over the term is that ‘curation’ as a term and as a practice has migrated from museums and art galleries over into other fields.  So we have ‘cherry picked’ some aspects of curation from these fields and the rest is emerging practice, which is being interpreted and developed by different people in different ways. 

 

Another factor is that L&D is only one of the fields that has adopted the use of this term.   Much of what is written about ‘content curation’ or ‘digital curation’ is actually written from a marketing perspective, which is rather different to how we might want to use curation in the context of learning.  There is of course much to learn about curation from its use in marketing, but it is worth highlighting that it is different and so there may be a different emphasis in purpose or in practice. 

  

In a recent sessionby Stephen Walsh, from Anders Pink at Learning Live 2017, the following definition of curation was offered from Rohit Bhargava ‘A content curator is someone who continually finds, groups and organizes and shares the best and most relevant content on a specific issue online.  The most important component of this job is the word continually.’ Most of this definition fits with my understanding of curation for learning, but I don’t place the same emphasis on ‘continually’ nor do I think that it curation has to be around a specific issue – for me some of the most effective curation is done by people who bring together diverse issues and who link and relate topics to bring deeper or fresh understandings to light.   This definition seems to me to relate more to a content curation role in the context of marketing – and that is what Rohit Bhargava’s background is.  

The identification, careful selection and sharing of individual pieces however relevant, interesting and enlightening those pieces are, is also not curation in my view.   I think curation involves bringing together pieces, that build on one another, or perhaps with different perspectives.   This could be done over time in the pattern of materials shared, but I think it is more effective and valuable, when the curator in some way brings together the resources and presents them in a single, more easily accessible place.   This could take many different forms: a Storify of diverse materials produced through the backchannel of a conference (Ian Pettigrew @KingfisherCoach is an exemplar of this aspect of curation); through materials linked in a blog; through materials stored on an accessible platform; or through resources curated to form a learning programme, perhaps held in a VLE.    Even this on its own is not curation, but aggregation – grouping materials together – curation also involves sense-making and sharing this through some narration, editorializing, labelling & sequencing to put the disparate resources into context and to highlight the relevance for the intended users.  

Sketchnote of 'Content Creation: Your New Learning SuperPower' session by Ben Betts

So curating for learning involves - searching out materials, selecting the most relevant, grouping them, making sense of them, narration and sharing.  This can be summed up through Harold Jarche’s ‘Seek, Sense and Share’ model.

One aspect of curation in the context of museums and art galleries, that we in L&D often overlook, is the role of curators in caring for and maintaining the artifacts and works of art in their care.   As we know most museums and art galleries have far more objects in their care, than they have room to display.  So as well as the work of selecting, creating and putting on displays, another aspect of the role of a curator is safely storing all the material not currently in use, ensuring that it can be found when needed for research or display and making sure it is kept in good condition.   A recent article by Helen Blunden on the issue of ‘link-rot’ brought home to me the parallels with this latter aspect of the museum curator’s role.

This is what I think curation for learning is:

‘It involves searching out and selecting credible, relevant content to aid either your own or other’s learning or performance needs.   It involves explaining the thinking behind your choices and putting it into context for your intended recipients.  It involves making your selections available in an easily accessible format and storing material in a safe and searchable way. Relevance of materials includes content, level, type of resource, diversity of viewpoints, accuracy and currency.’

I would be very interested in hearing your views on this.  What does ‘curation for learning’ mean to you?

I plan to return to this topic in future posts to share my experiences of reviewing my personal curation practice and some reflections on my experiences of designing learning programmes using curation. 

Rachel Burnham

30 October 2017

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals update and refresh their skills.  I am particularly interested in blended learning, the use of digital skills for learning, evaluation and anything that improves the impact of learning on performance. 

‘Google It: The Secret Online Lives of UK Managers’ Sketchnote

Rachel Burnham writes: Last week I was fortunate to be one of a number of L&Ders to be at the launch, on board HMS Belfast, of a new research report from GoodPractice.  The new report ‘Google It: The Secret Online Lives of UK Managers’ explores the way that managers are addressing their learning needs.  This new report builds on a report from 2015, also from GoodPractice, called the ‘Secret Learning Life of UK Managers’.  The research carried out with ComRes digs into a number of ways that managers say they are using to respond to workplace challenges and in particular the way they are using online searches for this.

The launch involved a presentation of key points from the research by Owen Ferguson, one of the authors.  The report can be found here and a storify of the tweets from the launch which was put together by Martin Couzins will give you an outline of the key points.  Here is my Sketchnote of the event:

Donald Taylor was in the chair for the launch and he began the event by reminding us that this report was important, firstly because it was based on research.  He made the point that we have comparatively little research to base our L&D work on and so it is great when new work is done.  When many of the old models used within L&D are being questioned, we need new evidence based ideas to replace them with.  

Secondly, this report is important because it is about managers and they play a crucial part in the effectiveness of the L&D work with other employees.  I would also add that anything that helps us to understand how to better enable effective management is important, because effective line management is so vital for improving productivity – this is something I have written about in a previous blog 'Productivity, fairy dust and developing effective managers'. 

The third point I would make is that this research raises a number of interesting questions for those of us in L&D, such as:

·       How do we encourage managers and others using online searches to do this effectively and critically evaluate what they find?  How does this fit with broader ideas of curation and Personal Knowledge Mastery?

·       Are external social networks relevant for all occupational groups?  Where they are relevant, where are these networks to be found?  How do we help employees find relevant networks?

·       Have we been too quick to see internal social networks as established ways of working – when actually they are still struggling to get going in many organisations?  What approaches can be used to nurture the effective use of internal social networks?

This research has certainly got me thinking and has got me questioning a few aspects of my own practice.   Have a read for yourself and see what questions it raises for you.   I’d love to hear what you think?

Rachel Burnham

28/11/16

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals update and refresh their skills.  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. 

Learning to listen effectively to podcasts

Rachel Burnham writes: I have a love/hate relationship with podcasts – actually that is way too strong!  I can see the value of podcasts; I frequently recommend them and build them into programmes I’m designing;  and sometimes I even listen to them myself – but I don’t really find them an effective way of learning personally.   I can listen to comedy podcasts fine and I can certainly listen to jazz based podcasts with great enjoyment and attention, but when it comes to business podcasts all that goes out the window.  I get distracted; I start clock-watching – ‘Are we really only 8 minutes into a 20 minute programme?’; I instantly forget what is being discussed; and if the podcast is good it gets me thinking, I start chasing that thought and then lose my place in the broadcast.  On many occasions I don’t even make it through the whole podcast!

But what is a podcast?

If you haven’t come across the term ‘podcast’ before, it refers to a digital audio-recording and is a bit like a short radio programme, except that they are usually available via the internet.  They can be a one-off programme, but many are produced as part of a regular series and can be subscribed to, so that every time a new one is ‘broadcast’ your phone or tablet or PC receives it.  Just like a radio programme, a podcast can be a single person talking, an interview, a panel discussion or a whole mix of segments.  There is no reason why they can’t involve drama or music too – although these are less frequent components of business podcasts.  Podcasts can be used as part of corporate communications or as a learning resource and are particularly suited to being accessed from mobile devices.  They are relatively cheap and easy to produce and so can be a valuable option for L&D.

 I love to read

But for myself, I prefer to read.  I love to read and have done since I was a child.  Even though I struggled to learn to read, I always loved books.  With books you can have pictures and diagrams.  With books you can read at your own pace, pause at any point to think more about what you’ve read, easily go back and re-read a section or jump forward to a more interesting page.  And you get to hold them and smell them.  I am a proper bookworm and I read to the end of the book. I do love to read!

 The experiment

So, when we started to explore the use and creation of podcasts as an L&D resource, during the ‘E-learning: Beyond the Next Button’ year-long MOOC that I am studying with Curatr this year, I was intrigued and slightly embarrassed about my own lack of enthusiasm for podcasts.  Eventually, during a Twitter Chat (#LTMOOC16) I owned up to my reservations.  As I shared them, I noticed that they sounded very like the sorts of comments, I often hear from people who don’t like reading – they get distracted, they forget what they have read, it doesn’t go in, it seems endless.  In this situation, I have often recommended highlighting key points, adding your own notes linking the material to your own experience or mind-mapping to summarise what you have read. So I decided to take my own advice and try this sort of strategy with podcasts myself.  As I like Sketchnoting, I decide to experiment with sketchnoting whilst listening to some podcasts and see if this made a difference to my experience with podcasts.

So over the last fortnight, I have listened to three different podcasts and created a Sketchnote for each one.   The three podcasts were from different sources and in each case, I sketchnoted as I listened.   The three podcasts were:

‘Communities of Practice and Showing your Work’ a Good Practice podcast 13 September 2016

‘Curating & Sharing Knowledge’ a CIPD ToolClicks podcast featuring Martin Couzins

‘Neuroscience & the Organisation’ a Learning Now Radio podcast featuring Amy Brann 2^nd June 2016

By comparison, I have probably only listened to about three podcasts in the past year prior to this fortnight (excluding jazz related podcasts).

 Did it make a difference?

I felt that Sketchnoting made a huge difference to my experience.  In all three cases, I felt that I had a much clearer sense of what the podcast was about – I could picture it.

I actually enjoyed listening to the podcasts and was still attentive at the end of each one – this is a major breakthrough for me.  

When listening to the middle podcast, I was interrupted by family members who came to chat and by a phone call, but because I was Sketchnoting, it was easy to find my place again and pick up the thread by looking at my picture.  In the past, I probably would have used the interruption of the phone call as a reason to give up on the podcast and not complete it.

From previous experience of Sketchnoting, I know that I do refer back to Sketchnotes that I have produced to remind me of key points and that they do work to jog my memory.  It helps that I have them altogether, in a bound notebook and so it is easy to find these notes.  It is interesting that I hardly ever referred back to more traditionally made notes, except when doing a formal course and I have needed to for an assessment or exam.

So, although three podcasts is a small sample, I do feel that Sketchnoting has improved my ability to listen effectively to a podcast and has as a result changed how I feel about podcasts for the better.

If you haven’t listened to any podcasts before why not give it ago.  All three of the podcasts I listened to are part of series and there are many others available for free via ITunes. 

Rachel Burnham

25/9/16

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.