Evaluating and Adopting Change

We live in an age where change is constant. In the learning field there are a lot of new products, processes and methodologies that we as learning professionals should review, consider and hopefully, find some that will work for us. As we review the new, we also want to keep in mind what is already working and add or augment to what we know works for us.

As Crystal Kadakia and Lisa M.D. Owens point out you can update what you have, refreshing and adding without getting rid of what is good.

https://www.td.org/Publications/Magazines/TD/TD-Archive/2017/03/Modernizing-the-Learning-Design-Process
Association for Talent Development (ATD)
Wednesday, March 01, 2017 – by Crystal Kadakia, Lisa M.D. Owens

“Don’t throw away your existing programs just yet. You can modernize them by adding a few of the nine elements commonly seen in modern learning:
• accessible 24/7
• autonomous
• chunked into smaller bites
• easily updateable
• experiential
• self-selected
• hyperlinked to related content
• MVAK—that is, multimedia, adding visual, auditory, or kinesthetic input
• social.”

Here is another list from early in the year about the new topics for 2017:
http://www.yourtrainingedge.com/top-learning-and-development-trends-in-2017/
Top Learning and Development Trends in 2017
By Guest Contributor – 01/16/2017

Your Training Edge: Your Online resource for Corporate Training
• Mobile Learning
• Social Learning
• Adaptive Learning
• Virtual Reality
• Measuring Effectiveness

Both of these lists are good because so much is going on these days. I think when the 2018 review of the 2017 new trends and predictions for 2018 come out we will once again read about a multitude of new and innovative ways we can enhance and improve learning events in our organizations.

I think the guest author of the “Top Learning and Development Trends in 2017” has it right.

“As an astute professional, you need to keep a close eye on every development in the training and development space and other areas. Connect the dots and use newer techniques even from outside the learning and development domain to make your strategies unique and innovative.”

However, I also want to mention that we should not lose sight of several other factors to consider in modernization the way we plan and create learning materials. I believe the most important element is still the need to begin with identifying the end result at the beginning of any effort. The end result is what we want learners to be able to do as a result of what they have learned. In this way we can develop the training with a focus on what needs to be included to achieve that end result. Yes, this isn’t new, but it needs to be considered in our modernization activities.

We need to continue to focus on both how we present learning events as well as how people learn. We also need to look at things like explaining the concept or process that needs to be learned. In addition, we need to include examples, practice, feedback, and an explanation of where things can go wrong and how to prevent or fix issues. Yes, again, these things are not new but they need to continue to be mentioned as sometimes we get wrapped up in the new and we forget what still is relevant and important.

Development of learning products can be roughly divided into a few areas, formatting the content of the presentation, looking at how people learn, and determining what has to be integrated into the learning event to make learning happen. We need to give learners the ability to assess how well they are doing, which practice exercises allow them to do. In addition to practice questions about the concepts or processes, we need to provide the learner with situations that allow them to use what they have learned to solve problems. It is not enough to ask learners to explain a concept or a process; they also need to apply their learnings to real world situations. A very good way to do this is to develop scenario questions. Scenario questions describe a situation in which the learner has to apply what they have learned to respond to the question. Feedback explaining how and why things need to be done to address the situation described in the questions is critical for learning to occur. Learners need feedback and they also need pointers to places where they can learn more.

In the last few years we have really begun to make good progress in finding ways to enhance learning events. But we still need to pull all the components together, test how well they are working, and see what else we need to do. It is great that we have new tools and that we can make things available 24 seven but we still need to focus on how learning happens and what is needed for learning to occur. So let’s continue to find new ways to design, develop and deliver learning products.

Tags: Change, Development, Learning, Learning Theory, Technology