I had an interesting situation where I was talking about sleep (or the lack of it). Then I came across the following link: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/the-organizational-cost-of-insufficient-sleep?kui=A1OcUHPLEb4aNa1Z_Hcdow&utm_content=buffere1994&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer. It’s important to get good sleep not just to feel your best but to do your best work. For quite awhile, I’ve been working under the impression that I need to be “on” 24/7. It is time to reconsider this philosophy. I’m hoping this will make a difference in my work and in my life.
Category Archives: Reflection
We learn fast…
I saw this article on my twitter stream, and it really piqued my interest:
Quote: “The role of L & D professionals in their background and their present form will disappear soon.”
Reflection: This may be the case, but I think that many will be willing to have others tackle this problem. Those who understand this will be the most successful and stand out.
Quote: “His apprentice-employees need to be nimble and quick in learning new technologies, acquire new flexible and continuously and permanently skills.”
Reflection: This is the part where we fail. I think that we push too much on drill and kill. But it may be necessary to keep some of the drill around, just make sure that it plays a lesser role.
Quote: ” Understanding how the brain learns and how we can optimize our ability to learn pioneers will cause changes in learning and development.”
Reflection: It is interesting that this isn’t more at the core of teaching and learning. We take ideas from teaching and learning more from experience than from physical study.
Why Organizations Don’t Learn
I came across the following article on my twitter feed:Why Organizations Don’t Learn. There are a few items that really resonated with me. The author tackles bias and how to handle the organization as a leader to avoid pitfalls.
According to the article there are 4 consequences of a bias toward success:
- Fear of failure
- A fixed mindset
- Over reliance toward past success
- Attribution bias
To me, the consequences of failure are the real sticking point. Without success, at some level, a venture will be short lived.
I really like the part that directs leaders in how to overcome the bias toward success:
- Destigmatize failure
- Embrace and teach a growth mindset
- Consider potential when hiring and promoting
- Use a data-driven approach to identify what caused success for failure
Next, there is the bias toward action, which means reaction. Here are the consequences of this bias:
- Exhaustion
- Lack of reflection
How do leaders help to overcome this bias:
- Build breaks into the schedule
- Take time just to think
- Encourage reflection after doing
Now, the consequences for a bias toward fitting In are addressed:
- Believing we need to conform
- Failure to use one’s strengths
How to address bias toward fitting in:
- Encourage people to cultivate their strengths
- Increase awareness and engage workers
- Model good behavior
Finally, there may be a bias toward experts with these consequences:
- An overly narrow view of expertise
- Inadequate front-line involvement
And how to address this bias in leadership:
- Encourage workers to own problems that affect them
- Give workers different types of experiences
- Empower workers to use their experience
Great article by Francesca Gino and Bradley Staats. I look forward to applying these principles.
Reflection for 6/15/15 to 6/19/15
I’ve been out of the office all week for a conference. Monday was a travel day and so will Friday. I had some time to enjoy the scenery and outdoors on Tuesday. I’ve been getting up early to take a hike each morning. It reminds me how introverted I can be. I gain strength from the time alone.
Some big take-aways from the conference are the philosophy that people are more important than pedagogy and technology. I believe this to my core, and I’m encouraged to see that Canvas believes this as well. Also, pedagogy and strategy trump technology. This transition to Canvas from ANGEL is going to be about innovating, not technology. I’m also seeing that it is important to use Canvas to train faculty and walking the talk while we train is also going to be of utmost importance.
It was a great week to learn, grow, and connect. I’m realizing at the end of the week that I really needed that professional development opportunity.
Gaming Brown Bag: Interactive Fiction
It’s been awhile since I’ve blogged for several reasons that I won’t go into here. But I’m hoping to get back to this. Today, I attended a session by Brett Bixler on Interactive Fiction (IF). I felt like I was going back into the history before graphic and media intensive text-based games. Brett laid out the progression as well as showed us tools that can be used to create these games. Let’s start with a definition of IF: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_fiction. During the session we played a classic game called Adventure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_fiction#Adventure. It was an interesting exercise to talk with the group and try to figure out what we should do next. There was a prompt and we could use a terse sentence to direct the game on where we wanted to go. Later we played a game that Brett had put together using the following site: http://textadventures.co.uk/. Many of the engines that Brett proposed using are free. Sometimes, it is necessary to download free software to create games. Other times, it is possible to work in the browser. Here are a few suggested tools from the talk:
After Brett went through the meat of the content, he challenged us to think about how we could apply this to courses. Here were some thoughts:
- Language learning
- Scavenger hunts
- Ways to teach elements of a game
- Interesting way to teach a concept like surgery
- Diagnostics – detective work
- Problem-based learning
- Simulations
Ultimately, this a low-cost way to introduce games and allow for them to get in the hands of students. Definitely something worth pursuing further.
Blog on Kirkpatrick
Back from Thanksgiving vacation and hope to stay on top of these reflections through the end of the year and into next year. Here are my thoughts on Clark’s blog on Kirkpatrick.
Quote: “Level 1 Reaction At reaction level one asks learners, usually through ‘happy sheets’ to comment on the adequacy of the training, the approach and perceived relevance. The goal at this stage is to simply identify glaring problems. It is not, to determine whether the training worked.“
Reflection: Interesting that the levels aren’t chronological.
Quote: “Level 2 Learning The learning level is more formal, requiring a pre- and post-test. This allows you to identify those who had existing knowledge, as well as those at the end who missed key learning points. It is designed to determine whether the learners actually acquired the identified knowledge and skills.“
Reflection: Intuitively, this level seems to be the most important for planning purposes
Quote: “Level 3 Behaviour At the behavioural level, you measure the transfer of the learning to the job. This may need a mix of questionnaires and interviews with the learners, their peers and their managers. Observation of the trainee on the job is also often necessary. It can include an immediate evaluation after the training and a follow-up after a couple of months.”
Reflection: I’m always a bit more leery when I see the word behavior and learning.
Quote: “Level 4 Results The results level looks at improvement in the organisation. This can take the form of a return on investment (ROI) evaluation. The costs, benefits and payback period are fully evaluated in relation to the training deliverables.”
Reflection: I tire a bit of the business definition of ROI. It doesn’t take into account many important intangibles.
Quote: “Kaufman has argued that it is merely another internal measure and that of there were a fifth level it should be external validation from clients, customers and society.”
Reflection: I agree with Kaufman.
Quote: “Traci Sitzmann’s meta-studies (68,245 trainees, 354 research reports) ask ‘Do satisfied students learn more than dissatisfied students?’ and ‘Are self-assessments of knowledge accurate?’ Self-assessment is only moderately related to learning. Self-assessment captures motivation and satisfaction, not actual knowledge levels. She recommends that self-assessments should NOT be included in course evaluations and should NOT be used as a substitute for objective learning measures.”
Reflection: There are so many students that collect data like this. It never made sense to me why we are worrying so much about how people feel v. how much they learn. From personal experience, I know that how I feel is not always equal to how much I am learning.
Quote: “Learners can be happy and stupid. One can express satisfaction with a learning experience yet still have failed to learn.”
Reflection: Why do we care about the learner? There is much of higher ed which has turned to customer satisfaction as the most important metric. It is easy to move to this model because instructors both educate and evaluate what the learner has done. If we moved to a model where there are standardized, that problem could be addressed. But that may not be the best plan. Maybe we need to learn how to test relevance and longevity of knowledge.
Quote: “Learners often learn under duress, through failure or through experiences which, although difficult at the time, prove to be useful later. ”
Reflection: Resilience is important at every level. A learner with high motivation, effort, and character will accomplish much.
Quote: “Tests are often primitive and narrow, testing knowledge and facts, not real understanding and performance.”
Reflection: Completely agree that testing and evaluation is one of our biggest obstacles. How do we evaluate students authentically in such a way that instructors don’t spend most of time during a course evaluating student performance?
Quote: “…Level three data should take precedence over Level two data. However, this is complicated, time consuming and expensive and often requires the buy-in of line managers with no training background, as well as their time and effort. In practice it is highly relevant but usually ignored.”
Reflection: This makes my argument. And I’m not completely sure that education is the only answer. There are several complicated factors working together that affect organizations. Without a full analysis and unbiased perspective, it is difficult to determine the best way to handle training.
Quote: “In practice Level 4 is often ignored in favour of counting courses, attendance and pass marks.”
Reflection: I’m hoping that looking into Agile Learning Design that we will find a way to make training more meaningful.
Quote: “Kirkpatrick is the first to admit that there is no research or scientific background to his theory. This is not quite true, as it is clearly steeped in the behaviourism that was current when it was written.”
Reflection: I mentioned this earlier. Good to go through the process of thinking and reflecting to come to your own conclusions. Feeling like I’m following Clark’s line of reasoning when this happens.
Quote: “The Kirkpatrick model can therefore be seen as often irrelevant, costly, long-winded, and statistically weak. It rarely involves sampling, and both the collection and analysis of the data is crude and often not significant. As an over-engineered, 50 year old theory, it is badly in need of an overhaul (and not just by adding another Level).”
Reflection: Strong statement by Clark. He clearly lays out the argument to support his opinion.
Quote: “Evaluation should be done externally. The rewards to internal evaluators for producing a favourable evaluation report vastly outweigh the rewards for producing an unfavourable report. There are also lots of shorter, sharper and more relevant approaches…”
Reflection: Easier said than done. Is all training something that is standard from company to company? How is customization handled? Who will do the evaluation?
Reflection on Gardner
This is Thanksgiving Week, so I’m hopping on this seemingly early in the week. But this is almost the end of the work week. Here is the link to Clark’s blog on Gardener.
Quote: “Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences is opposed to the idea of intelligence being a single measurable attribute. His is a direct attack on the practice of psychometric tests and behaviourism, relying more on genetic, instinctual and evolutionary arguments to build a picture of the mind.”
Reflection: As a classroom educator, I heard alot about this theory. Many were drawn to it by how much it makes sense. I had a friend in the elementary years who struggled in school but had the best mind for sports stats. I always felt he had a sports intelligence.
Quote: “He [Gardener] viewed intelligence as “the capacity to solve problems or to fashion products that are valued in one or more cultural setting”“
Reflection: Basis for thought.
Quote: “2. The existence of idiot savants, prodigies and other exceptional individuals.“
Reflection: This is like the example that I cited above from my own experience.
Quote: “
8. Naturalist: Ability to draw upon the immediate environment to make judgements.“
Reflection: These are the intelligences. I guess my friend would fall in the logical-mathematical.
Quote: “John White has criticised the theory as being subjective and not validated by evidence. Rather than being derived from solid empirical evidence, Gardner seems to draw his taxonomy from broad observations. It is also not clear how this maps on to actual cognitive functions, as it depends (variably) on the learner dealing with actual content in various forms. In fact, it also bears an uncanny resemblance to the current curriculum subjects. White suggests that this is why it has been so enthusiastically adopted by teachers.“
Reflection: I had the feeling that this theory was much like the ones that Clark had most recently covered. And I’m seeing much of the same criticism. It’s crazy to me that there is so much adoption among educators. Most educators don’t have the time or the power to put these in the classroom. Many times those in higher positions are the ones that push these outside theories.
Quote: “Gardner has also been criticised for simply perpetuating the idea of ‘intelligences’, pigeon-holing students, rather than exploring their potential.“
Reflection: This is a strong argument. It makes sense to introduce materials that is best for the ideas to be learned instead of placing content into difficult models that don’t make much sense. I’m feeling a bit liberated by this notion.
Quote: “Gardner himself has been surprised and at times disappointed by the way his theory has been applied in schools, in one case as, “a mish-mash of practices…Left Right brain contrasts….learning styles….NLP, all mixed up with dazzling promiscuity“.“
Reflection: Interesting that Gardener himself is criticizing his own theory’s application. Many times these types of ideas grow on their own.
Quote: “In the US some schools have redesigned the whole curriculum, classrooms and even entire schools around the theory, which may be several steps too far. The point is to be sensitive to these intelligences, not to let them prescribe all practice.“
Reflection: Great point!
Reflection on Eysenck
In my attempt to get really caught up, here is a second reflection on the same day :). This one is on Clark’s blog on Eysenck.
Quote: “Binet, the man responsible for inventing the IQ (intelligence quotient) test, warned against it being seen as a sound measure for individual intelligence or that it should be seen as ‘fixed’. His warnings were not heeded as education itself became fixated with the search and definition of a single measure of intelligence – IQ.”
Reflection: Reinforces to me how important effort is. Intelligence and the ability to reason is only one measure of a person’s competence. Effort can often overcome any type of obstacle to learning or completion of a task.
Quote: “Eysenck worked with Cyril Burt at the University of London, the man responsible for the introduction of the standardised 11+ examination in the UK, enshrined in the 1944 Butler Education Act, an examination that, incredibly, still exists in parts of the UK.“
Reflection: Crazy to me how marketing and power run so many parts of existence.
Quote: “Eysenck also contributed (with his wife) to the idea that personality can be defined in terms of psychoticism, extraversion and neuroticism. This provided the basis for the now widely respected OCEAN model proposed by Costa & McCrae:
Neuroticism“
Reflection: Hard to believe any of this could have been seen as something that is serious, but I guess that shouldn’t be so surprising given what I have been reading here lately.
Quote: “Interestingly, when measuring IQ, the Flynn Effect, taken from military records, shows that scores have been increasing at the rate of about 3 points per decade and there is further evidence that the rate is increasing This was used by Stephen Johnson in his book Everything bad is Good for You to hypothesise that exposure to new media is responsible, a position with which Flynn himself now agrees. This throws open a whole debate and line of research around the benefits of new media in education and learning. Highly complex and interactive technology may be making us smarter. If true, this has huge implications for the use of technology in education and society in general.“
Reflection: We may be increasing in intelligence but that doesn’t make us wiser. Interesting to think that we could improve teaching and learning. Anecdotally, I think that makes sense since we have been using methods that don’t work and models that are less than effective for quite awhile. Infusing good ideas in regards to teaching and learning will result in good results.
Reflection on Honey & Mumford
I am in the process of becoming more manager within the office, so I slipped a bit on getting this done and also my reflection of the week for 11/11-11/15.
Here are my reflections on Clark’s blog on Honey & Mumford:
Quote: “If VAK became a well-marketed, viral success in education, Honey & Mumford was the viral success in adult education and training.”
Reflection: Last several entries have been about models that were fakes. So it makes sense that this one would be too. I’ve been at several professional development trainings that work in this way. I enjoy them since they give me a glimpse into how to handle a highly complex situation. But ultimately, they make things too simple.
Quote: “…learning styles were then labelled:
Reflection: From first look, it doesn’t look too bad. People fall into different categories, and it is good to reflect on how you may react to different stimuli. But it is wrong to put everyone into a very specific category that ultimately may be too simplistic to be effective.
Quote: “Honey and Mumford’s model, although marketed heavily, and used widely in adult education and training, seems to have no serious academic validity. As a theory it does attempt to widen the trainers’ view of learning, and trainees’ view of themselves as learners. However, beyond this intuitive appeal to difference, the theory is crude, crudely applied and even when the learning styles questionnaire is applied, rarely carried through to different types of learning experience for the supposed different types of learners.“
Reflection: So why is it that these widely accepted philosophies and ideas become so comm place and accepted? It seems there must be something at the basis of how we have learned and will continue to learn that is present here.
Quote: “Learning styles theories, in general, have been diagnosed as being flaky and faddish. They have an intuitive appeal but, given the proliferation of these theories, with success based more on marketing than evidence, it is a largely discredited field.“
Reflection: Good to have this perspective moving forward. As an educator in the classroom, I was inundated with these types of ideas and internalized much of this. Now, I’m armed with the truth and hope to use this to halt and redirect my understanding.
Blog on Fleming
This should catch me up on the blogs. It’s been relatively crazy lately to say the least. Here are my reflections on the Clark blog about Fleming.