ADDIE Deconstructed

Every where I turn these days, I’m thinking about the instructional design process.  I’m teaching an advanced ID course that begins with an overview of a number of different approaches to instructional design and an in-depth discussion about what each brings to the table.  We talk about how designers use these models in their day-to-day work, and about the ID Debate – the occasional round of blog posts that take a stand on whether or not ADDIE is dead.  I’ve also been reading up on constructivist ID, which has a slightly different take.  And at work, we’re in the midst of a reevaluation of our ID process, looking to get LEAN in our approach to getting the work done. 

With all that input, I’m beginning to think that part of the problem is that we try to conceive an overarching process when it might be more fruitful and useful to break the process apart so that we give each aspect the attention and flexibility needed to get the job done.  One process just can’t handle all the potential variety.  Think about it…

Analysis comes in many shapes and sizes.  Organizational analysis, performance analysis, learning environment analysis, job/task analysis, learner analysis, and more – each conducted using any number of possible data collection approaches.

Design is a creative, heady part of the process that almost defies definition. A variety of important decisions get made during design, including delivery method and choice of instructional techniques or activities. And as we move to more specific detail design, new flavors of design are needed: game design, web site design, simulation design, social media design – techniques that weren’t much in the picture when most instructional design models were outlined.

Development needs to be managed on a case-by-case basis, because these days we could be developing anything - a traditional classroom program, a series of podcasts, a user-populated web site, a stand-alone e-learning program, or a combination of any or all of the above and more besides.  One development process can’t be conceived to fit all of these situations.

Implementation requires facilitation of many different kinds of live events – on-the-job training, coaching, webinars, online learning and traditional classroom-based events.  Administrative implementation requires its own expertise and might involve rules regarding elevation of web materials, set-up on a learning management  system, or reserving and configuring physical rooms or virtual classrooms. 

Evaluation seems to be the one area stuck in place – we still haven’t found widely accepted approaches to supplement or replace traditional models.

So with all that in the mix, maybe we should hone in on deconstructing ADDIE and using our best judgement to tackle each aspect of the process as it comes to the forefront.  I really like knowing the features and strengths of a variety of approaches so that I can consider well how each project should be managed.  A little of this and a little of that may seem at first to be too unstructured, but I don’t think so.  All ID seems to be following an overarching ADDIE arc, but our watchwords are flexibility and iteration. 

The only problem is, newer designers need and want more definition than that, and we need to figure out how to help people become skilled at crafting an appropriate process in relatively short order.  Like all arts, it takes practice and experience to do it well.

Objectives – Starting point for ID?

Anyone who knows me knows that I am something of a stickler about objectives.  I advocate for a set of tri-level or “cascading” objectives and insist that these objectives be established at the very beginning of a design project.  My logic is that in order to create something that is effective, you have to start by knowing what your client is trying to achieve in business terms (business objectives), the context for how the learning you engender is meant to be applied (performance objectives), and what your learning solution will address (learning objectives). 

But I’ve been teaching a course on constructivist learning environments, and constructivism is a perspective that matches a lot of what I believe about adult learning.  In his book about constructivist instructional design, Jerry Willis has this to say about objectives:

The beginning of a project is probably the worst time to create specific detailed objectives.  That is when there is the least agreement about what should be learned.  The beginning is also the worst time to complete learner, task, and concept analyses.  Such work can begin there, but that understanding will emerge across the design process and will be of much higher quality than information and perceptions gained primarily at the beginning.  Knowledge and understanding will emerge across the design and development process.

Mmm…  That may sound easy to dismiss when you’ve been trained to conduct thorough front-end assessment and to define your objectives as the starting place for the design process.  And I want to dismiss it – truly I do – my friends at work will gasp aloud if I don’t dismiss it and argue, as I always have, for the idea that objectives come first.  But…

We recently held a course review session at work that also really caught my attention on the subject of objectives.  The course that we discussed was really terrific… it was performance-based; the activities were interesting and engaging (and not the same-old same-old); the discussions were designed to go deep; and the course had a nice e-simulation at the end that brought everything together.  There was only one problem.  On the question of whether the course met the objectives as defined, the answer was an unequivical “no.”  As written, the course’s objectives required that participants would be able to perform complex tasks, and there wasn’t near enough individual practice activities to achieve that end. 

In discussions about this particular project, a couple of things came to light… it was possible that the objectives for the course were actually written after the course was designed (kind-of similar to how middle school students go back and write the required outline after they’ve finished the essay).  Of course, if you’re writing objectives after the fact, it should be easier to write objectives that match what you did.  But regardless, this terrific course was likely the result of having a real strong understanding of the performance we were going after, and designing learning activities that would help employees get there, maybe without ever solidifying the learning objectives in behavioral terms.  Mmm…

As I read further into Jerry Willis’ conceptualization of constructivist design, I found that his description of the design process rang true for my own practice of doing design.  I’ve always recognized that ADDIE (or any ADDIE-like instructional design process you might pick) is iterative, not linear.  As such, while I craft objectives to get started, I constantly compare how the end product is shaping up against those objectives.  And when the design and the original objectives don’t match, I’m more likely to change the objectives than I am to change the design.  I’ll add in some objectives that I find I need to address but failed to account for up front.  Or I’ll decide I don’t have time to go as deeply into an area that I might have liked, and so I have to cut back on more ambitious objectives.  By the time I’m done, the course meets the objectives – or is that the objectives effectively preview the course I have created? 

Mabye it’s semantics, but maybe we don’t have objectives when we start.  (Gasp!)  Maybe the objectives “emerge across the design and development process.”

As I’ve taught this constructivist design course, I’ve advised students that we need to understand the business and performance objectives of the learning solution we’re designing, but we don’t have learning objectives in the same sense that we do when we are creating and instructional solution.  (The specific constructivist techniques taught in my course include: experiential learning, reflective practice, action learning, job rotation, developmental relationships, communities of practice, online collaboration, webquest, problem-based learning, simulation, case study, and more.)  The constructivist perspective is that learners construct their own meaning, we can’t guarantee they will learn specifically what we intend, but we can craft an environment that is likely to help them to develop ideas and practices that are in alignment with what we hope.  (I probably just got myself in trouble with a lot of constructivists… I’m sort-of a practical constructivist.)

So here’s where I think I’m landing… 
It’s ridiculous to think that we can nail everything we need to know about a project before we even begin to design the solutions.  The world is too complicated for that, and the variables that influence decisions too numerous.  That doesn’t mean we work without objectives.  Developing a strong understanding of business and performance objectives has to be among our first priorities – they help us to decide whether the project is worth the investment of time and energy, and they give us a starting place for analyzing whether learning is an important input to the desired performance.  It’s an important practice to draft learning objectives early and to constantly compare them against the emerging program so that by the end of the project, the objectives are a true reflection of what is accomplished in the program.

I’m going to stop this post here (it’s already too long), but there are tons of implications…related to handoffs (to my colleagues at work: like between Consult and Produce?!), decision-making authority, validation of learning, client relationship management, and more.  I’d be pleased to hear reactions, questions, and other perspectives…

Quote source:  A General Set of Procedures for Constructivist Instructional Design by Jerry Willis (p. 317).  In Constructivist Instructional Design: Foundations, Models, and Examples (2009) edited by Jerry W. Willis.

To regular readers… thanks for your patience regarding the long pause since my last post.  So much to do, so little time…

Edupunk

In the September issue of Fast Company magazine, an article entitled “Who Needs Harvard?” gives the low-down on a growing internet trend.  With more and more colleges and universities posting their syllabi, lectures, exercises, tests, etc. online, “edupunk” entrepreneurs are actively working on ways to support a new way of gaining an education that’s a lot cheaper than a formal degree program, and arguably more targeted to a learner’s specific needs.

Mmm…  There’s a lot to think about regarding this “edupunk” movement.  It’s exciting to see all of the material available… I get lost just browsing the titles.  But, as author Anya Kamenetz points out, “there’s still a big gap between viewing such resources as a homework aid and building a recognized, accredited degree out of a bunch of podcasts and YouTube videos.”

While I’m not worried that Edupunk will eliminate my job as an adjunct faculty member anytime soon, I realize that I must be at the top of my game as a professor.  Because if all I am doing is delivering content – students can get that through other avenues.  The value that I provide is my perspective, my guidance in thinking more deeply about a subject, my ability to coach students and encourage them to really wrestle with the challenges of the profession. 

But I do wonder if Ms. Kamenetz misses an important point with the comment about whether we can build a “recognized, accredited degree” out of all this.  It will be interesting to see over time if people stop worrying so much about aggregating a check-box list of credits for a degree and instead seek to link up with the smartest minds teaching on a given subject and learn in a more open market.  If a potential employee could show that he or she studied with known experts and collaborated with them on a variety of projects, would it matter so much if that candidate achieved a specific degree at the end? 

We take pride that our degree programs cover a specific set of content and skill areas, but how often do these exactly match what the student really needs at the moment?  Would it be better for people to take a longer-term view of their learning and continue to build their skills as they need them rather than complete a once-and-done degree program?  We might argue that people need a broad grounding even if they don’t immediately apply their learning, but lots of theory and research basically says “use it or lose it.”  And given the rapid rate of change, grounding that isn’t used immediately will become dated pretty quickly.

So how will professors of the future offer their expertise to continue to build our profession?  Will we be able to offer our support to students seeking to build depth in our areas of expertise through an open system?  (Note to self: must be at the top of my game to be the kind of professor these students will seek out!)  I kind-of like this idea, and will be keeping my eye out for ways to opt in to this new system as it develops.  Or maybe I can carve my own niche now?  Maybe I, too, can be “edupunk.”

Mmm….  Comments welcome!

I knew I’d regret it

Earlier this summer, I accepted an invitation to speak at the beginning-of-the-school-year convocation for the faculty of one of the universities for which I serve as adjunct faculty.  The minute I said yes, I knew I’d regret it… and I was wrong.

Sure, I regret the summer Saturdays when I could have been reading or enjoying activities.  I regret how many times my Facebook page said “working on my speech.”   But I can’t regret what I learned by having taken on this challenge. 

The content of the address is not new to me; I did a little research to solidify the case to be made, but most of the key points were things I talk about regularly.  It’s amazing, though, how much you clarify your thinking when you’re going to try to communicate it to others in a formal way.  As a learning facilitator, I know that, of course, but it’s been a while since I actually had to communicate at this level, and it was enlightening, energizing, and daunting.

I also learned a thing or two about crafting a decent speech (I hope) - with a shout out to Brent Schlenker and Karl Kapp – two experts who I heard speak in the last month and who really set the bar.  I’m pleased with the slides I created, too, with a little help from expert colleagues.  So it’s been a good journey, if a time-consuming one.

The topic of the address is “Educating the 21st Century Professional; Emerging trends in teaching and learning.”  (Spoiler alert if you happen to be attending on Wednesday.) 

I started out thinking that the 21st century professional was a moniker of the millennial generation, but a snide remark from my brother reminded me that in 2009, we are ALL 21st century professionals (unless you happen to be retired, I suppose).  We are all living in a rapidly changing world and most of us have access to an amazing array of tools and technologies that support our performance and our learning.  There are no generational differences in terms of the way the mind works to accomplish learning – and all of us are capable of using the spiffy new tools for access and collaboration as well as using the tried-and-true methods of interacting with others, learning by doing, and reflecting on experience.

The bigger change in teaching the 21st century professional is in the content of what we teach.  In researching the talk, I came across this quote by Dr. Ann Pendleton-Jullian:

A twentieth-century approach to education holds fast to the notion of teaching as a systematic delivery of knowledge—knowledge that is vetted and sanctioned and delivered in discipline-based packages from expert teachers to students. It is education in which one learns about specific stuff and how to do specific things.

In contrast, twenty-first century learning environments are about learning that extends far beyond the classroom… The assumption is that we need to prepare for futures in which the specific things we will be doing, and specific stuff we will need to know, do not yet exist. (emphasis mine)

So teaching in this century is not so much about transfer of knowledge as it is about helping students learn to think more deeply.  We need to prepare students to grapple with the real, challenging issues of their professions (and of our world in general).  We also need to support students in recognizing and learning to deal with issues of ethics and with concerns about social, economic, and environmental sustainability.  That’s quite a charge for those of us in the business of educating the 21st century professional!

Fingers crossed, I think it will be a pretty good speech; I figure if I learned some things along the way, then my colleagues in the audience ought to be able to take a few ideas away as well.  All in all, it’s been a good journey, even if it has put a crimp in my summer and made me miss a few weeks of blogging.  Wish me luck! 

The big shift

Thanks to my blogroll and Twitter stream, I came across a post on The Big Shift by John Hagel.  It’s a marvelously succinct and coherent description of the movement toward more peer-based learning and its implications.

What strikes me is how critical it has become to be consistently connected in some way to the pulse of our profession.  We can’t wait for the next journal or conference to know what people are talking about and what they’re doing to address immediate challenges.  The beauty of the blogosphere and the twitterverse (or <insert your favorite social media here>) is that they allow us to “tap into knowledge flows” in real time. 

I would suggest as well that the knowledge flows will become more powerful as more and more people decide to share their perspectives.  Whether it’s posting comments, contributing conference sessions, writing a blog, or tweeting – we need to find ways for all of our voices to be heard.  We need to reach out to those who are not so public about their thoughts and bring them into the conversation to ensure its richness and productivity.

Not by performance support alone

I’ve been actively thinking about all of the excitement I’ve been hearing recently about mobile applications for learning.  I think it’s important to note that accessing performance support and learning are not the same thing.

Don’t get me wrong… I think the ways that we can provide performance support in the internet age are phenomenal.  No more memorizing facts just in case you might need them.  No more practicing an infrequently-needed process so it will be engraved in your brain if you had to use it.  No more having to commit to long courses of study just to have enough information to hold a conversation or make basic choices in life.  We don’t even need to remember phone numbers any more!  Mobile apps that provide performance support are way cool, and critical to our success in an ever-changing world. 

As Karl Kapp said in Gadgets, Games, and Gizmos for Learning:  “Don’t educate; automate.”  If we can outsource learning to performance support, let’s do it!

But most employees can’t live by performance support alone.  Most of them need learning, too, and that’s different.  That requires some thought and practice. 

I’m not saying we don’t learn from performance support.  If you follow your GPS system’s directions to Grandmom’s house a few times (spaced close enough together), you’ll probably learn the way.  If you look up information in order to answer a customer question often enough, the answers will become part of your knowledge base for the future.  But performance support tools aren’t designed to help you learn – they’re designed to make it easy for you to get through a task or a situation without needing to learn.

So here’s a question I’m asking myself.  As a learning expert, how do I contribute to the design of performance support systems? 

I’m tempted to step aside and let the performance support experts take on that challenge, but many of the learners that I hope to support are using performance support tools for informal learning.  I’m guessing that there are ways to make those tools useful in that capacity that are slightly different than the ways we make performance support tools useful strictly for performance support.

Another tack I could take is to focus on simply integrating the performance support tools into a broader learning environment that also provides deeper learning tools.  In other words, I could position performance support tools as learning resources and “wrap” the learning around them.

Gloria Geay brought learning professionals into the world of performance support many years ago, and folks like Allison Rosset and Bob Mosher continue to call for us to contribute in this space.  I’m thinking a little research on performance support practices will help me to be more effective in supporting the design of these applications (or help me decide to leave it to other experts) as well as give me a better understanding of how to integrate them with learning.

Or maybe it’s a lot easier than I think.  Your thoughts?

Notes from eLearning Guild, Boston

I’m just back from spending a couple of days at the eLearning Guild summer seminar in Boston.  ELG conferences are always a terrific place to take the pulse on what’s happening in elearning in organizations.  Here’s what I’m bringing back to ponder, and it’s mostly about how learning professionals can put themselves in a position to add tremendous value now and in the future…

Brent Schlenker, the Guild’s Emerging Technologies Evangelist (great job title!), gave the opening keynote.  He told us that if we are going to thrive in the 21st century (that is, be able to add value), we need to attend to these four trends:   

> Marketing trends – The ultimate objective of marketing is to change behavior (sound familiar?).  We can learn from marketing, plus it’s usually the department with the money and the vision to initiate use of new technologies (“they get all the fun toys”).

> The Brain – There is a lot of exciting work going on in the realm of brain science, and it may help us to understand learning better.  (Editorial note: I’m not entirely convinced we are making the right leaps in applying brain science to learning, and I’ve seen strong arguments to that effect.  But Brent cited John Medina’s Brain Rules as a good source and I have to say I don’t disagree with what Medina says is important.)

> Social Media – It changes everything…  We need to figure out how to capitalize on social media by focusing on the functionality, not the technology.  User-generated content is key.

> Game Design – There is more and more evidence that people playing internet games are learning exactly the kinds of soft skills that businesses need (decision making, resource management, group dynamics, talent management, monitoring a variety of inputs, etc.).  We can leverage this technology to create exceptional learning environments.

At the other end of the confernece, the final session provided a chance to poll a high-profile panel of experts on the future of elearning.  Panelists included Lee Maxey, Allison Rossett, Marc Rosenberg, Ellen Wagner, Bob Mosher, and Will Thallheimer.  Here again, the conversation focused on how we can best add value.

Figuring out how to leverage new technology continued to be a theme (this is, after all, the eLearning Guild conference).  According to these folks, the most interesting new technologies are Twitter and a variety of performance support applications made mobile by smart phones.  I’ve been trying to figure out how these new technologies can serve a purpose for learning (and frankly, I’ve been coming up short on ideas)… but listening to the panel discussion, it finally hit me that these applications enable the kind of just-in-time, just-enough support that our learners so urgently want.  (Duh!!) 

For example, Allison shared that she had taken several courses in the past to learn about wines, but they didn’t really help her do what she wanted to do.  Now, with several applications on her iPhone, she can get wine recommendations (what to serve with a specific dish) and reviews (on a particular wine) in an instant – and being able to make wine choices was what she had been trying to learn but didn’t retain.  (Wine selection is likely not the kind of application you might need in business or academics, but it won’t take us long to come up with ideas.)  Think awhile on the ability to marry photo capabilities (face and object recognition) with GPS capabilities with access to the web – the possibilities are endless.

Another brief discussion focused on instructional design and the skills needed to be effective.  Marc immediatedly cited writing skills as a critical ingredient, and Lee underscored the need to be able to do an effective front-end analysis of the audience and their needs.  Of course, that also means we need to have the ability to influence clients to allow us to do the right kind of assessment at the front end of a project. 

The conversation echoed an earlier session offered by Ellen Wagner, who passionately argues that instructional design is emphatically NOT dead, that it is one of the most critical skills we offer (one that makes us unique and uniquely valuable).  Ellen cites four prerequisites for designers: the ability to write using a variety of forms and styles for different effects, the ability to present ideas so as to inform, engage, and persuade; demonstrated technological proficiencies using a variety of software in a variety of platforms, and having an appreciation for design.  Tall order. See Ellen’s blog for more…

In some ways, the conversations were not new, but in other ways, presenters gave a fresh perspective and new urgency, which is why I am so energized by attending conferences.  I was intrigued by the sessions, pleased to have the chance to share some of my company’s activities in enabling informal learning, and delighted to visit Boston (and to walk along the Charles River).  I’ll be giving in and buying some kind of smart phone soon. 

Update on Learning Environment Design

As I imagine most of you do, I’m constantly testing and refining my personal theories about how the world works. Recent projects have given me the opportunity to use, and adjust, my Learning Environment Design model, and I’ve updated the slides on the Learning Environment Design page to reflect these changes.

The most important change (and something of an obvious miss in the original model) is the addition of a category to the list of potential components in a learning environment.  I added an “In-the-Job Action and Reflection” category to call out the importance of real experience in the whole scheme of things.  The category encompasses learning-by-doing, experimenting, and roll-up-your-sleeves collaboration with others as well as the reflection we do to turn that experience into learning.  I avoided the “on-the-job” terminology because in my world, OJT is used to describe teaching that happens to occur at the desk, and that’s formal learning in this model.

In-the-job learning is so obvious, you might wonder why it wasn’t in the original model.  I was too focused on separating learning from doing, which now seems an odd thing to worry about (Although I haven’t changed my mind about being more concerned about learning (achieving competence) than performance – See Tony Karrer’s recent ruminations on that subject and my comment if you’re interested.)  If you’ve studied the model, you’ll also noticed that I removed the descriptions of three “spaces” for learning (learning space, application space, and performance space) – those were just not contributing to the message I wanted to convey. 

I’m trying to craft the model so that it can be used to guide the conceptualization of a comprehensive learning space for a role or skill set.  It also describes learning writ large, but I’m more interested in helping designers see how they can conceptualize and implement a strategic learning environment to support learning a specific competency.  These ideas have been getting some good reaction in my advanced design and constructivist learning environments courses.

At this week’s eLearning Guild seminars in Boston, I’ll be sharing how my organization has been applying similar concepts to tackle the challenge of strategizing informal learning.  It’s pretty cool when you take the time to document your theory-in-use and it turns out to be pretty useful!  Until I write the book I’ve been considering, you can read more about the model by perusing the LED tag in this blog.  You’ll see how my thinking has changed (except, now that I think about it, I’ve removed the previous versions of the model…). 

Comments are welcome – they help me to think through ideas.

Applying theory to practice

I’ve been doing some thinking lately about the challenges of applying theory and research to practice.  I’ve written before about the challenges of balancing my practitioner side and my scholar side (see My Secret Life), but my recent ruminations take a different tack.

One of the best theory-to-practice projects I worked on was to create a set of guiding principles based on adult learning theory.  A team of experienced practitioners and I reviewed a variety of learning theories, pulled out key practice recommendations that we wanted to keep top of mind in our work, and crafted a pretty neat document that serves as a helpful reminder.  (It’s proprietary, or I would show it to you.)

Here’s the challenge.  Once you reduce theories to bullet points, it’s very, very easy for us to forget what the underlying concepts really mean.  And individuals who never learned the underlying theory may also misinterpret a bullet point albeit with all good intentions.  At lunch the other day, a colleague was discussing a similar example from her own work.  She’s written about the way the work of Carl Rogers has been reduced to the tactical practices of “active listening,” which is a real loss of the depth of what Rogers had to offer and leads to misapplication of the approach. 

So we have a dilemma.  In order to support the application of theory to practice, we often craft a set of key ideas or process steps.  Over time, that set of bullet points becomes everything that practitioners know about the theory, and it’s woefully inadequate (although it might have a lot of face validity). 

So here’s what I’m pondering, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter.  As a person who is committed to scholarly practice, how do I avoid the reductionist trap when I make the translation of theory to practice?  Better still, how do I make sure that my presentation of theory to a practitioner audience (as in my graduate classes) effectively represents the rich depths of the theory without having students’ eyes glaze over?  (I’ve been wrestling with this as I’ve been revising one of my courses this summer.)

These challenges are important outside the small circle of the scholar-practitioner community.  Much of our rich understanding of the world is being reduced to bullet points for presentation on the internet.  Not only do we need to be concerned that folks may have stopped reading in any depth (see Is Google Making Us Stupid?), but we have to be concerned that they are skimming over something that has already lost a lot in the translation to bullet points. 

What are your thoughts about this issue?

My two cents on the business of learning

Tony Karrer has launched a fascinating discussion on the future of the business of learning, and I invite you to pop over and read his original post and all of the comments if you haven’t done so already.  It’s truly thought-provoking stuff.  Here is (are?) my two cents on the conversation…

Basically, Tony wonders aloud what the new business model for learning should be. If the market for training is lessening, what’s next?  Tony says:

There’s an increasing need for learning, but a demise of training.  I can’t say this is really anything new.  The writing has been on the wall (or in blogs) for quite a while…  The gist: we need to completely rethink training departments and responsibilities from the ground up (both literally and figuratively) and we need to recognize that we are midst of a transition to a new normal.

The challenging question he posed is “What will internal or external customers pay for that’s not traditional training?”  As a consultant, Tony looks at the issues from a slightly different perspective than I do.  He needs to find a set of products and services that are valuable to decision makers in a variety of organizations.  As learning leaders on the inside, my colleagues and I have to be constant students of our own company’s business challenges and be looking for opportunities to leverage learning and development to enable the achievement of our business goals.  As Tony rightfully points out, the best learning and development responses in this day and age are often not training solutions. 

Gary Wise, Senior Director of Learning Architecture (a telling title) at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center put it best in his response, and I offer a round of applause in copying part of it here…

The point is, as learning professionals, our job focused has shifted even if we have not. Our deliverable now is ensuring the right knowledge worker has access – seamless, frictionless and ubiquitous access to the right learning assets at the right time, in the right amount, in the right format, and to/from the right devices. No small task – and training ain’t the solution! And traditional ISD ain’t the approach – though neither are wrong or “dead”, they’re just a smaller fish in a bigger pond.

One of your readers professed performance was the all important link to learning outcomes. I partially agree, but it’s bigger than that. I think our target needs to be creation of a “sustained capability”. And our job is to sell “sustained capability” as our product. Again…that ain’t training – at least not by itself.

Our challenge as learning professionals trying to find our place in this “new normal” is to be able to articulate why a company needs experts like us to help create a learning environment that everyone seems to be convinced will rise up of its own accord if we just get out of the way.  I agree completely that people will routinely access the internet, intranet, shared workspaces, and accessible colleagues (live or online) to satisfy urgent learning needs.  But I’m not entirely convinced that they always get what they need, and I am pretty certain that many folks don’t know how to do that efficiently (or don’t have the tools to do it efficiently). And I don’t think that this kind of just in time learning is the only form of learning they need.

That’s where we can help if we step up to the plate.  If we can get a handle on the knowledge and skill areas that performers need, we can help to architect a learning environment that supports learning needs as they arise. (That’s what I’ve been advocating for in discussing the Learning Environment Design model.) 

We need to be able to put our finger on what makes for good learning solutions in these new resources.  It’s not the same as good information architecture or good user experience.  In training’s boom years, we were able to identify critical characteristics of training that ensured that it would have the impact we intended.  We need to get clear on the critical characteristics of these new tools for learning and help our organizations and our learner groups get started on the right foot.  For example, we would provide a great deal of value if we could give solid advice for creating a user-generated knowledge database that is immediately useful for the users themselves.  (I don’t know about you, but I more often find systems that are kludgy and intermittently helpful rather than the amazing resource they’re proclaimed to be.)

This means using our knowledge base and skills in a new way.  It means taking a look at research and best practice case studies to synthesize what might work for the applications our clients need.  In addition to being instructional designers, we have to become learning environment architects, podcast producers, expert internet researchers, community developers, coaches, etc. We have to come up to speed quickly to be credible and helpful in these new arenas.

Our clients, by the way, aren’t entirely convinced that they need us to do this. The kids are doing it already, they think. It’s an IT solution, not a learning solution, they think. If we just open up access and provide shared workspaces, the rest will come, they think.  I don’t think so. But until we can show the difference between good design and bad, it will be a difficult sell.  But we’ve made the case for good design before, and we can do so again.

Your thoughts welcome… add to Tony’s post or share them here!