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.
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