Learning Styles

For several years learning professionals were writing and reading about different learning styles. The talk was about how different people learn more effectively from different styles of content presentation. In more recent years some educators are saying that learning styles are not a factor. They are saying that all learners can learn from good presentations regardless of the modality.

In a January 9, 2019 Inside Higher Ed article Greg Toppo, a senior editor at Inside Higher Ed., discusses the topic of learning styles.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/01/09/learning-styles-debate-its-instructors-vs-psychologists

“But Daniel Willingham, a cognitive psychologist and professor at the University of Virginia, said the categories themselves ‘haven’t been shown to mean anything.’ Nonetheless, recent surveys have found that about 90 percent of Virginia students believe in them.”

In this article Toppo also says there are learning professionals who very much support the concept of different learning styles.

“Richard Felder, a professor emeritus of chemical engineering at North Carolina State University who has written in support of learning styles, said psychologists have spent decades working to debunk the theory. ‘On the other side are literally millions of people who have used learning styles to design instruction’ and to help students become better learners, he said.”

A quick search of scholarly articles about learning styles produces a host of articles. In recent years there have been many learning professionals who have written to deride the concept of learning styles. At the same time there are many others who have written scholarly articles based on the theory that different people learn differently.

A good number of learning professionals continue to develop and deliver learning products designed to deliver instruction geared to different learning styles. I am not sure there is any harm in doing so, even if it is true that the learning styles theory is invalid. I also believe that the learning style theory is a comfortable concept. We believe we understand what needs to go into content for each type of learner. We can include graphics and pictures and so forth for the visual learner, audio for the auditory learner, and materials that can be handled for the kinesthetic learner.

However, I believe that a good learning professional, using whatever methodology works for them, will provide what is needed for learning to occur. It is the design of the learning product as well as the instructor’s delivery of the content that will provide the learner with what they need to grasp the content not the learner’s perceived learning modality.

I am perplexed at how much time and effort is being put into arguments for and against the concept of learning styles. I understand that the research that has been reported is that learning styles do not have merit. I think it is time for researchers to design some new studies. Learning events that make use of different modalities to deliver the same instruction should be developed. In addition instruction covering the same content using various modalities should also use different instructors’ preferred delivery styles.

Each of these instructional units should administer the same evaluation instruments to each group of learners. Comparisons of the outcomes should be informative and might help us to understand if there are indeed differences, or if all well designed and well delivered modalities lead to effective learning outcomes.

Another Way

I have found that when technical professionals are tasked with developing instruction, the hardest thing for them to do is learn how to write learning objectives. In this post I suggest a method for communicating what the learner will be able to do without writing those dreaded objectives. Even better, using this method will allow you to translate the end result of this exercise into objectives that are painless to develop.

Rather than beginning with writing statements of objectives, begin by writing questions that you want a person who took your training module to be able to answer. These questions should ask something about every area that you plan to cover in the module. Keep in mind as you do this, that we are now talking about covering small, discrete units of training in an instructional product.

 

https://www.shiftelearning.com/blog/numbers-dont-lie-why-bite-sized-learning-is-better-for-your-learners-and-you-too

 

“According to the Journal of Applied Psychology, learning in bite-sized pieces makes the transfer of learning from the classroom to the desk 17% more efficient. Here’s why microlearning is more efficient than traditional longer-duration courses:

When bite-sized learning content is easily and readily accessible, learners can take it at their own pace, wherever they are, and most importantly, when they are “ready.”

Because bite-sized courses are more focused, learners don’t have to clutter their memories with irrelevant information. This makes retention easier.

Learners have to digest only small chunks of information. This makes comprehension easier without spending too much effort.

Because microlearning content addresses only 1-2 learning objectives, courses, on an average, yield 4-5 learned takeaways.”
…….

“Cut to the chase. Do away with the history, the background information, and the theories. Deliver the “how-to” right away. Remember, your learners are looking for just-in-time solutions.”

 

If however, you are not developing a small unit then I suggest you partition out each area that you will be covering and develop questions for each of them. You may want to develop questions for just the first section and proceed as I recommend below before moving to the next segment of your learning product.

Develop a list of all the questions that you want somebody to be able to answer when they complete the training. In some cases your training might require a demonstration rather than an answer. For example if you are training someone in how to drive a car there are many questions that you will want to ask them to answer but you will also want them to demonstrate their ability to drive the car. In this case questions can be developed that say something like show what you will do when you get into the car, show what you will do when you want to turn left, show what you will do if someone darts out into traffic unexpectedly, etc.

The end result of developing these questions will provide you with an outline of what you should include in the learning materials.

You may find as you develop the learning materials that you think of additional questions. That is OK; add them to your list. Keep at this until you believe you have listed all the questions that someone will need to be able to answer and you are ready to begin to develop the instruction. It is at this point that you can stop and translate the questions into objective statements.

Examples:

• Describe how to develop learning objectives from a set of questions designed to cover the content of a learning module
• Explain what needs to be done to make a legal left turn

Hopefully this technique for developing objectives will help both you and your learners.

A Snapshot of Learning Today

These days there are many people presenting new and exciting ways to make learning happen. There are also many techniques that have been around for a long time and are still valid. It might do us well to revisit the existing techniques as we find the need to employ different methods for improving learning.

In this blog I am going to overview some of these techniques. The references from Wikipedia, wikihow, and Business Insider are not marketing materials. The other two references are from marketing materials, but in spite of that, the materials present interesting techniques for improving learning. Please note that I am not advocating purchase of these products, but rather I believe the concepts underlying their creation are valid and worth covering in this blog.

4 New Effective Teaching Methods To WOW Your Students

4 New “Effective Teaching” Methods To WOW Your Students
Ari Sherbill

This article presents four attention grabbing ways that the author, Ari Sherbill, believes can hold students’ attention. The first way he presents to get and keep learner’s attention is to tell them up front what is in it for them. This is a concept that is used in many different circumstances. Advertisements tell you the benefits of the products they present, for example food that tastes good, clothes that make you look great, medicines that will cure your problem. Since learners hear about different benefits in their every day lives, telling them the benefits of completing the training is very likely to be familiar to them. Therefore, this method should grab the learner’s attention.

The next method presented is finding ways to show the learner what they will miss if they don’t learn what is being presented. Here the learner needs to hear about the impact to them. For example, if they don’t learn what a healthy diet is they won’t have the ability to choose foods that are good for them. Perhaps they need to learn how chemicals interact with each other. The instructor might need to mention up front that the training will cover which products can be used together and which can cause an unsafe condition if mixed. It is all about telling the students the impact to them if they don’t learn what is going to be covered in the lesson. The benefit to them for learning is to avoid the pain that comes from not knowing whatever it is that will be covered in the training.

The third benefit presented by the author is to create anticipation of what will be taught; to give a preview of what they will learn later.

“Think Hollywood. They never just release a movie, it’s against attention hacking DNA. Every movie ever released from Hollywood is first launched with a Preview.”

The fourth and final attention grabber presented by Ari Sherbill is what he calls VAC, an abbreviation of what has been presented as the three main types of learners – Visual, Audio, and Kinesthetic. Recent research is now discounting classifying learners into these three types. However, Sherbill does say that learners need to be stimulated with all three types of presentations and therefore is talking to the need for all learners to be exposed to all three types. “The IDEAL learning environment is when the Student sees, hears, and feels the material themselves.”

http://www.businessinsider.com/auditory-visual-kinesthetic-learning-styles-arent-real-2018-2
Hilary Brueck Feb, 20,2018
Title: “There’s no such thing as ‘auditory’ or ‘visual’ learners”

Hilary Brueck presents even more thought and research on learning styles in her post in Business Insider.

“For decades, there’s been an idea that people have set “learning styles,” which are often categorized into three types: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Some people also believe that some learners are more concrete while others are abstract.”
….
“In fact, research shows that teaching students according to different learning styles has no effect on how they perform on assessments. Every time scientists have tried to prove this theory, they’ve failed.”
…..
“The ‘learning styles’ myth is dangerously flawed
Promoting the idea that some people learn better in certain ways is not only ineffective, it’s also harmful and potentially discriminatory.”

So, while the idea of crafting a learning approach to an individual learning style is now deprecated, the effectiveness of presenting to all three styles has been shown to be effective. No matter which kind of hook you use to grab the attention of your learners, the end goal remains the same: Help the learners commit the material to long-term memory and to give them the ability to use what they have learned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsC9ZHi79jo
How to triple your memory by using this trick | Ricardo Lieuw

A Ted Talk caught my attention this past week. This talk is about memorization. When this talk was recommended to me I first thought “memorization? We really need to do it so little today with all the electronic tools we have.” But, of course I stopped and realized I myself need help with memory. Every time I meet someone new it is a struggle to remember his or her name, especially when I meet more than one person at the same time. So I watched the Ted Talk, twice actually. I was impressed with his presentation. In reality I have read articles about memory techniques in the past, but I never attempted to apply the techniques as I had an excellent memory. However, that was the past, it is now no longer the case, so the Ted Talk was the right information at the right time for me.

Essentially my take away was to tie images to a person’s name, or anything else you’d like to memorize. Yes, I have heard this before but the presentation in this talk helped me to internalize how to use this technique.

Two other references about how to use these methods to improve memory are also in my opinion worth reading.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci

https://www.wikihow.com/Build-a-Memory-Palace
Perhaps, like me, this information will be something that comes at the right time and you will be interested in trying out these techniques.

What Is Lost?

More and more businesses are offering opportunities for employees to learn what they need and want to know through individualized platforms. Offerings set in traditional classrooms are becoming less available for business learners. However, learners in a business environment are able to go on-line to learn pretty much what they want and when they want it. This tends to provide the knowledge the business needs them to have in a timely manner.

While it is good to learn at your own pace, I think that there has to be more interaction with other learners during the learning process. Yes, most on-line learning platforms have interaction among the learners to complete assignments or review the work of others as part of the program. But, learners in classroom settings have the opportunity to socialize and get to know the other students while remote learners don’t generally have this opportunity.

I think this is an important component of learning and we might want to consider how we can incorporate this aspect of the traditional learning environment into non-traditional learning environments. I say this because learning about others participating in a learning event provides people with information in addition to what is included in the curriculum. People might learn about the roles others are preparing for, the backgrounds others bring to the learning event, or information about other learning events people plan to take after completing the event they are currently attending. Of course there is much more of value that people learn from others when they are in classroom events that we should consider how we could incorporate these ancillary learning experiences into on-line or other non-classroom learning experiences.

While most individualized courses and other offerings do provide for learner-to-learner interactions, they vary in their degree and effectiveness compared to the interaction available in traditional classroom settings. What happens when people who have done most of their learning in an individualized setting need to apply what they know working with others to achieve business or other goals? How do these learners work to agree on processes? Do people who haven’t worked in teams during their educational experiences need training in teamwork?

Do we need to develop learning experiences for these skills? I think yes. I also think it might be a good idea to provide these experiences in workshops as people move into job roles. I know that there are companies that put new hires directly into training programs so that they learn about the company offerings and other key factors that they will need to perform their job roles. I don’t know that any of these companies have soft skill training in their programs but I think it is becoming more important to offer this type of training to new hires.

In thinking about what might be needed to round out what might be missing in on-line learning programs that are provided by traditional classroom settings, here are some questions that come to mind. I know that there are many more questions that can be added to this list.

• What do learners need that may have been missing from their remote learning experiences?
• What types of activities will provide them with the experiences that they need?
• What is the best way to provide these missing elements?
• How can practice be provided?
• Do we need to provide these experiences in the context of job roles? (for example, marketing vs. technical vs. sales vs. back room functions vs. customer facing roles)
• Should people who work together be trained together or should learners receive this training as they enter the company regardless of the roles they will perform?

Another factor to be considered is that people from all over the world will wind up working with each other. Whether their desks are side-by-side or perhaps they are in different countries, people will very often be working together. They will likely come in with different learning experiences, as well as different life experiences. These different backgrounds will need to be factored into how people are integrated into the company and their roles.

I think we need to address all of the changes in how workers are prepared for entering new roles going forward. We already know that younger workers, taken as a whole, have some different expectations and goals then the populations that have come before them. I believe that needs and wants of the new populations are best taken into consideration along with business goals and strategies.

A Learning Consultant Reviewer

Lately I’ve been wondering if we are developing learning products in the most efficient way. Are we maybe missing out on developing a better learning product? I’m not thinking about cost effectiveness or timeliness or any other factors yet. Just for right now I’m talking about the learning product itself.

Okay, first I need to share my bias. I believe that content developed by course developers should be reviewed by learning consultants like me, in addition to being reviewed by technical resources.

For many years my role in various learning organizations was to review learning materials and consult to course developers. I would have preferred to be involved from the very start, when the need for the learning product was first identified. But in most cases I was brought in to review and provide feedback to the almost complete product.

My role was to identify areas that needed to be enhanced, revised, developed further, and so on. Sometimes I recommended exercises so the learner could self-test the application of what was being taught. At other times I recommended revisions to the language used. Often, because we were working with international audiences, I needed to determine whether there might be a better way to present the material to different audiences. I also reviewed the instruction for several other factors. While this was my role, it isn’t as far as I know a role that many other people have filled currently or historically.

While I wish that I could say that large portions of my recommendations were implemented, in most cases they weren’t. In almost all cases it was simply too late to make any but the smallest non-technical revisions or additions or corrections.

Now, what if I was a partner to a team of course developers, and I reviewed each component as it was developed? If this were the case, I could not only recommend enhancements but often I could draft a version of my recommendations.

For example, if I believed a story or an exercise would allow for better absorption of the content, I would draft a version of what I was recommending. This is something I was actually able to do on occasion, but not as often as I would have liked.

I was never a subject matter expert (SME), nor did I know very much about the technical content being taught. But I did have the developing instructional materials as a basis to work from. I most often got things right enough so that the SME could revise or build on what I had developed. My products usually had holes in them where I just didn’t know enough. And sometimes those holes even let the course developer know that additions were needed. But, I’d write what I knew and then put a note for the SME to add content where needed. Sometimes I’d include an example from life.

Maybe the content was talking about how to solve a technical problem and the steps needed to resolve the problem. I might include an example of solving a problem like changing a light bulb and the steps and thought process needed to get there. This usually was enough for the SME to develop a better example if necessary.

At other times, I saw that detailed and complex content was being presented and I thought an exercise would help the learners to integrate and also verify that they understood what was being presented. Again, I developed questions based on the content. For example, I would turn a concept that was presented in the instruction into a question and try to develop the correct response along with incorrect responses for review and modification.

The key was that I gave a direction to work with. If for example, the instruction was covering how to code in a new language. I might use an example of a new feature in a new car. I’d explain how the new model contained a new feature. Perhaps the car now made a sound when the driver changed lanes without having the turn signal on. I might give this example to a course developer writing a module on an upgrade to an existing product and ask that they include this type of example.

Having a trained consultant provide this kind of support to course developers would produce better learning products. Learners would in turn be better able to understand and use the product. This resource might not only improve the learning products, it might also lead to better sales, support, marketing or whatever roles for which the product was developed.

It’s an idea that, like I said above, still needs a lot of consideration regarding cost, timeliness, and other factors. But the rewards might far outweigh the price. What do you think?

All Together Now

As learning professionals, it is important to constantly monitor what your organization is doing and what type of learning events they will need to be successful. While you may not consider yourself to be in a sales role, you still need to be tuned into what your business organizations are doing and what they are planning to do. It is important for you and your colleagues to figure out the type of learning events the organization will need to be successful. If you only function as an order taker and wait for your client organizations to tell you what they need, it is likely that you will not be giving them what they actually need.

You need to be plugged into each organization that you serve. You need to get copies of their plans, marketing materials and hiring needs, as well as anything else that will inform you of where the organizations will be going.

In years past, once the business directions were identified, the training team could work with key individuals to develop training and development products that met the organizational needs. Today things are different. Instructor-led training events with learners all in the same place is rarely an option. Learners are frequently scattered all over the world. In addition, each learner is likely to need to develop a different set of competencies, knowledge and skills. Learners will also likely want or need to consume their learning at different times and in different ways.

While training events need to meet individual employee’s learning needs, events also need to ensure that the employees learn how to apply learnings as a team. Very often, a product or service offering requires the involvement of different corporate organizations. Sales needs to sell the product; support needs to service the product; marketing needs to make customers aware of new offerings and how they will meet their needs. Most successful organizations have representatives from all these internal organizations working together to meet customer needs and business objectives.

I recommend that as you move forward into 2018, your training organizations develop connections to members from each business function to develop mini-modules that together meet customer wants and needs for your product and service offerings. I believe it would be a good idea to have a training team with members from all organizations – for example, sales, services, marketing, finance and so on – that meets regularly, just like product and service teams. This training team should discuss the learning needs both for internal folks and customers regarding new and existing product and service offerings. This will allow for the development of mini-modules of training. These modules should include information from all organizations whose work relates to the product. It should also include service offerings that the organization wants customers to be informed of, and of course to purchase them as well.

While corporations that develop and sell services and products may have different internal groups working on their offerings, the customer likely has multiple organizations using the vendor’s offerings in different ways in different places. Developing mini-modules of instruction that can be consumed by different people and in different ways for different purposes will go a long way towards helping us improve the effectiveness of our learning offerings.

New Year, New Blog

Happy New Year Everyone!

A while ago I was speaking to a women who taught English to recent arrivals from Spanish-speaking countries. She told me that one of the most important things for teaching them how to pronounce English words was to not show them the written word. She said she has had much more success by keeping them from pronouncing words as they would in Spanish when they encountered a new written word.

Remembering this conversation got me to thinking about how we train people. Would we get better results if we presented information in the abstract? Would we get better results without telling them where the new content connected to what they already know?

Yikes, I can’t believe I even wrote that paragraph. I have always been a big believer in telling the learner where things fit into what they already know. But, I have also been thinking about flipped learning and the Khan Academy practices. While this blog isn’t about applying these concepts, it is about looking for opportunities to think outside the box, which is what both the flipped learning and Khan concepts do. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking_outside_the_box)

My thought is that, while we have had some good successes in improving learning, we are still looking for additional ways to improve how learning happens. In particular, I want to address learning in business environments.

Perhaps we can apply some strategies that wouldn’t be applicable to university settings. Perhaps in some business cases, it might be that people need to learn how to do specific things in a specific way. Given that we are starting with this premise then people only need to learn how to do the specific activities and how to correct any missteps. In this situation, you wouldn’t need to teach the context, the history, or any of the whys or wherefores. Yes, I’m out on a limb here, but please stay with me.

So for these specific situations, we could begin by creating a list of what learners need to be able to do. Then we could break each topic into all the steps that need to be taken. Next we divide each topic into what the learner needs to do step-by-step, and also what the learner needs to know to take the step. Then we identify where things could go wrong and how to apply fixes. Next, list just the minimum actions that the learner needs to take. Finally we can create an exercise that the learner will need to be able to do in order to demonstrate that they know how to do the activities.

One of the best ways to identify the steps that need to be taken is to have someone perform the steps while someone else takes notes. After each step, discuss what could go wrong and document it. Then integrate how to recover from the missteps as part of the instruction.

Once you are satisfied with the process, review the write-up and remove extraneous content. Does a new learner need to learn everything that has been documented? Also is there anything else that needs to be added to the steps?

Document the steps but don’t add any instruction. Next have someone who has the prerequisite background but doesn’t know the new activities test out the instruction. Sit with them and ask them to “think out loud” about what they understand about what needs to be done, as well as anything that they don’t understand or anything that confuses them.

I realize what I’m suggesting requires a bit of up front work but I hope that the results will provide better learning and performance. It is, at the very least, an experiment worth trying, I think.

A To Do List for 2018

As we begin to look toward 2018, I recommend we look at both our successes and the areas that still need work. We need to look at how our learning products and processes have evolved and where we still need to improve in 2018.

Here are the areas I think we need to look at. Please respond to this blog with additional areas to add. We’ll take a closer look at successes next week and I will be blogging about these topics (and more!) as we venture into 2018.

What I Intend to Write About in 2018:

1. Explain new concepts, techniques, processes, or other new content
a. Why is it needed?
b. How does it integrate?
c. How does it do what it does?

2. Practice
a. Identifying effective exercises
b. Developing learn-by-doing practice items
c. Develop practice items that require learner interaction

3. Feedback
a. How to develop feedback that works
b. What type of feedback doesn’t work and why
c. Where and when to use feedback in different types of learning events

4. Examples
a. Real world applications of what has been taught
b. Use stories to help learning occur
c. Use the right example at the right time

5. Integrating new tools into learning events
a. How tools support learning
b. Why new or fun doesn’t necessarily mean effective
c. Learning which tools will work for an audience

6. Using new techniques to develop learning events
a. How to evaluate what is new for different learning needs
b. How to validate what is new for different learning needs
c. Using formative evaluation techniques

7. Team Learning
a. What is Team Learning?
b. When is Team Learning applicable?
c. When does Team Learning work?

8. Integrate vs. References
a. Learning for memorization
b. Learning to apply to new situations
c. Using references

9. Keeping it simple and short
a. Mini modules
b. Just the facts
c. Test, test, test to find what is missing

10. Switch It Up
a. Keeping the learners engaged
b. Learner participation
c. Get learner feedback

Less is More

As a course developer you want to cover each topic and overall module content sufficiently to provide learners with enough information for the job or real life situations. But, what should you include and what should you exclude? You want the learner to be able to perform the work, but you shouldn’t try to teach them everything there is to know about the topic. You want to ensure they learn what they need to know to do the work but not get lost in a forest of information. So how do you decide what to teach them and how much of each topic to cover?

Recommended steps:
1. Write objective statements
2. Develop questions which will test the learners’ ability to perform the objectives
3. List what learners will need to be able to do
4. List what they will need to know for successful performance of the objectives
5. Outline steps that need to be taken to do the work
6. Map each step to “need to know” statements
7. Identify any problems someone might encounter while completing each step
8. Add the steps that need to be taken to address identified problems to the outline of steps needed to do the work
9. Add examples that show how it is done

Add whatever words are needed to communicate these ideas but don’t add anything new at this stage. This is you minimalist unit of instruction.

Ray Jimenez has a wonderful short piece addressing these concepts.

http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs130/1011065179978/archive/1122903861032.html
Cut the Crap!!!
Ray Jimenez, PhD

As Ray Jimenez says “Simplifying your content is a conscious design choice. It means getting into the shoes of your learners and including only what you have thoroughly assessed and determined they really need. What’s not necessary is dropped and what is retained are only the stuff that matters.”

Now look at the questions you wrote for the objectives. Do they cover everything you have outlined? Is there anything that needs to be added to either the questions or the outline based on this review? If yes, add what is needed. What you have now produced is your draft lesson. If possible find one to three members of your target population to pilot the lesson. If you don’t have members of your target population available to field test the training, find someone who doesn’t know the topic and ask them to work through the instruction. Sit with the field test participants as they work. Ask them to identify anything that isn’t clear or if they have any questions. Consider what they say and make revisions that you believe are necessary. Unless you believe something really should be revised immediately, collect and compare all field test comments before making any revisions, and then only make revisions that are critical for understanding the objectives.

This may seem a bit involved but like anything else, a good foundation will prevent or decrease problems down the line. Later on in the process it will likely be more difficult to make revisions.

And following my own advice from this mini lesson, here is where I will stop and ask for feedback. Please provide feedback, questions and comments.

Thank you!

Brainstorm: Let’s Come Up With Some Ideas

As far back as I can remember, those of us in Learning & Development roles have been writing and reading about how to improve our industry, how to get a seat at the table, how to identify learner needs, and several other how to’s. Each year we write about the same issues and problems. We offer a few new twists and hope that things will change. While I don’t pretend to have the definitive solution to these ongoing issues, I do want to talk about a few of my own thoughts as well as a few things that are currently being posted in the literature. Many of us have already agreed about things such as chunking instruction, my hope is that we can all help with some ideas about using small steps to get the change we need.

Here are some of the issues we need to address. Our challenges are mostly the same as in previous years. Below are some of the challenges and a few solutions gleaned from this year’s literature.

Click to access lil-workplace-learning-report.pdf

2017 Workplace Learning Report
How modern L&D pros are tackling top challenges

In this report the following points are covered
• How to demonstrate ROI from training programs
• How to demonstrate business impact
• How to give learners the ability to talk to or otherwise interact with trainers
• How to give learners the flexibility to learn anyplace at any time

To this list I would like to add a few additional “need to” items that appear each year on various lists and still are on this year’s lists:
• Interview the requesting organization. This is the stage where we gather the information on the actual need. This might be the most important suggestion in this post. We need to stop being order takers and we need to start being detectives. We need to use a line of questioning that will lead us to discover the issues and then identify the need based on the issues
• Identify what will be needed based on what is happening in the organization before the need is apparent to the organization that will need it. For example, what will field sales and support people need to know and be able to do concerning products and services currently being developed. As learning developers, we need pipelines into the organizations that need training as well as organizations developing the products and services. We also have to keep tabs on what customers are saying. We need to find out which publications to read and who we have to talk to. We need insights into what is happening worldwide.
• And lastly, but of key importance, we need to measure the right metrics

One technique for addressing some of our needs is to actively involve management in the learning process. While this article talks to the sales organization, integrating coaching activities into training implementation, should, in my belief, be applied to all organizations.

https://trainingmag.com/trgmag-article/industry-insight-three-ways-make-your-workplace-learning-stick
Article Author: Byron Matthews, President and CEO, Miller Heiman Group

“When you embed coaching activities into training implementation, sales managers will be equipped to coach more effectively and drive the kind of behaviors that can lead to better selling.”…
“Training, when combined with good, consistent coaching that’s tightly integrated into the company’s business processes, and delivered in a way to reinforce what the workforce has learned, drives behavior change and leads to performance improvement. Coaching guides sales professionals during the journey of understanding concepts to practice to independent application to ‘muscle memory’ of what they have learned.”

Another suggestion for finding new ways to improve the role of the L&D organization is to incorporate diversity into the L&D organization.

https://trainingmag.com/trgmag-article/creating-ld-team
CREATING AN L&D A-TEAM
Article Author: By Gail Dutton

“Cultivating diversity in the workplace is essential to drive innovation, according to 96 percent of respondents to the “Voice of the Workplace” survey conducted in March by Waggl and the Northern California Human Resources Association (NCHRA). That’s true for L&D, too.

“We’ve all witnessed cases in which diversity has directly driven innovation by creating an environment where ‘out-of-the- box’ ideas are heard and encouraged,” Greg Morton, CEO, NCHRA, said when the survey results were announced. “Having multiple perspectives encourages management to see things differently, and can help enormously with problem solving. It also helps us to avoid ‘group think.’””…

““L&D is shifting from creating, delivering, and administering training to coaching and advising in ways it hasn’t done previously,” acknowledges Daniel Stewart, president of Milwaukee-based Stewart Leadership. “That opens a tremendous need for new skill sets and alternative views from outside L&D.””

Please share with me and the others who read this blog what you are doing (or what you know about what others are doing) to address the problems we face as L&D professionals. Let’s talk about the small things, and maybe we will make changes that will have an impact on the challenges we have been facing.