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The Gamification of Work

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Courtesy of Blanco River Lodge
How do you distinguish between work and play?
Are they really that different?

Consider this:

1) Many games these days - particularly those online - are highly complex and taxing. They require skills in strategic planning, negotiation, resource allocation, tactics, practice (and more practice), and the use of specialised tools (from rackets to balls to enchanted axes).

2) The advent of social networks have resulted in more businesses embracing blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Google +, YouTube, and Pinterest, all in the name of work. Yes, you can now surf and update stuff on the Internet during office hours, and get paid for it.

3) Hierarchy and pecking order apply equally in both contexts. A be-medalled badminton player/ RPG grand master is just as respected as a star engineer or target-exceeding sales manager.

4) Peer acceptance and team support is crucial. A manager who dominates others through fear and intimidation eventually finds himself or herself in cold storage. Similarly, the best players in team sport always look out for their friends.

5) Hobbies these days are becoming more and more involved. People are no longer content with simply cooking but are creating recipes, posting them on Instagram/Tumblr, and teaching others how to bake that world-class souffle.

The huge difference, however, is this. What is the frame of mind that you adopt while performing that activity? What moves you to complete that task?

Are you driven by:

A) The sheer necessity to earn an income and to pay your bills?

B) The opportunity to express yourself and indulge your muse?

C) The conviviality and camaraderie of doing stuff with people you care about?

D) The chance to make a difference in a future that you believe in?

E) The insatiable need to “score” and achieve points, besting your previous record?

If your answer is A and that alone, it is probably time for you to consider looking for another job. Doing something merely because you have to isn’t going to bring out the best in you. On the contrary, it will sap your energies and weaken your spirit.

If your answer is B, C, D, E (or all four), you are actually not “working” in the traditional sense but playing. Earning a keep is really a bonus (OK, maybe its more than that, but you get the drift).

The differences between work and play is nicely summarised by the table below from the Gamification Wiki. Have a look and see if you agree.

Source: Work Game

Tasks repetitive dull repetitive fun
Feedback once a year constantly
Goals contradictory, vague clear
Path to Mastery unclear clear
Rules unclear, untransparent clear, transparent
Information too much and not enough right amount at the right time
Failure forbidden, punished expected, encouraged, spectacular, brag about it
Status of Users hidden transparent, timely
Promotion kiss-up-o-gracy meritocracy
Collaboration yes yes
Speed/Risk low high
Autonomy mid to low high
Narrative only if you are lucky yes
Obstacles accidental on purpose
Courtesy of Gamification Wiki

The challenge for all of us is this:

How do we make our work more like play (and less like work)?

For a start, consider embracing the principles of gamification at the workplace. This can perhaps be summarised as follows:
1) Adopt accelerated feedback cycles so that employees know when they’ve done well and when they’ve slipped up. The faster and more frequently you can do so, the better.
2) Establish clear objectives and “rules of the game” with boundaries that are clear and unambiguous.
3) Encourage socialisation and cross-team efforts. Make it clear what project teams are working on.
4) Develop a compelling story that is woven into aspects of the “game”. This narrative should resonate with players and engage them in proactive participation.
5) Provide clear and achievable rewards for intermediate milestones. This shouldn’t wait till the completion of a 12 month project, but could be established at various junctures.
6) Break down tasks into challenging but achievable quantums. In gamification, the achievement of intermediate wins are an important component of sustaining energy levels throughout the endeavour.
7) Be public and transparent about the different “games” that are being played. If possible broadcast the progress of various teams through multiple corporate channels.
8) Most importantly, build a culture that celebrates failure. In fact, a resounding crash during a Formula One race attracts far more attention than a run-of-the-mill victory. Having said that, it is good to institute a system that encourages people to learn fast from their mistakes and move on.

via The Gamification of Work | LinkedIn.

The Educators Road Map For The Next Generation of Work

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This road map for the next generation of work is for the up and coming generation to make sure they start on the right foot.

What happens when the tools & technologies we use every day become mainstream parts of the business world?
What happens when we stop leading separate “consumer” & “professional” lives when it comes to technology stacks?

The result is a dramatic change in the products we use at work and as a result an upending of the canon of management practices that define how work is done.

New tools are appearing that radically alter the traditional definitions of productivity and work. Businesses failing to embrace these changes will find their employees simply working around IT at levels we have not seen even during the earliest days of the PC. Too many enterprises are either flat-out resisting these shifts or hoping for a “transition”—disruption is taking place, not only to every business, but within every business.

The Educators Work Culture

Continuous productivity is an era that fosters a seamless integration between consumer and business platforms. Continuous productivity manifests itself as an environment where the evolving tools and culture make it possible to innovate more and faster than ever, with significantly improved execution. Together our industry is shaping a new way to learn, work, and live with the power of software and mobile computing—an era of continuous productivity.

Continuous productivity is possible

Continuous productivity shifts our efforts from the start/stop world of episodic work and work products to one that builds on the technologies that start to answer what happens when:

  • A generation of new employees has access to the collective knowledge of an entire profession, experts, or enterprise.
  • Collaboration takes place across organisation and company boundaries with everyone connected by a social fibre rather than the organisations hierarchy.
  • Data, knowledge, analysis, and opinion are equally available to every member of a team in formats that are digital, sharable, and structured.
  • People have the ability to time slice, context switch, and proactively deal with situations as they arise, shifting from a start/stop environment to one that is continuous.

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The vast majority of organisations are struggling right now with how to face these challenges. Beside the ones who try to ignore this shift, majority of the organisations are trying to use this new technology to run their old system. You are welcome to join The Eductors as an individual and develop your teaching environment or join any of our current and futur group projects.

How Different is the way we work:

The availability of the information and communications tools has allowed us to move from a hierarchical access model of the past to a much more collaborative and sharing-first approach. Every member have access to the raw “feeds” that could be material to their role. Teams become the focus of collaborative work, empowered by the data to inform their decisions. The increasing use of “crowds” and product usage telemetry able to guide improved our services, based not on sampling and forecasting but on what amounts to a census of real-world usage.

The following table contrasts the way we work (continuous productivity) and the current norms.

Traditional way
 Continuous Productivity
Process Exploration
Hierarchy, top down or middle out Network, bottom up
Internal committees Internal and external teams, crowds
Strategy-centric Execution-centric
Presenting packaged and produced ideas, documents Sharing ideas and perspectives continuously, service
Data based on snapshots at intervals, viewed statically Data always real-time, viewed dynamically
Process-centric Rhythm-centric
Exact answers Approximation and iteration
More users More usage

The cultural changes encouraged and enabled by continuous productivity include:

  • Innovate more and faster. The bottom line is that by compressing the time between meaningful interactions between members of a team, we will go from problem to solution faster. Whether solving a problem with an existing product or service or thinking up a new one, the continuous nature of communication speeds up the velocity and quality of work.
  • Flatten hierarchy. Equal access to tools and information, a continuous multi-way dialog, and the ease and bringing together relevant parties regardless of place in the organisation flattens the hierarchy, this is the key.
  • Improve execution. Execution improves because members of teams have access to the interactions and data in real-time. Gone are the days of “game of telephone” where information needed to “cascade” through an organization only to be reinterpreted or even filtered by each level of an organization.
  • Respond to changes using telemetry / data. With the advent of continuous real-world usage telemetry, the debate and dialog move from the problems to the solution. You don’t spend energy arguing over the problem, but debating the merits of various solutions.
  • Strengthen organization and partnerships. Organisations that communicate openly and transparently leave much less room for politics and hidden agendas. The transparency afforded by tools might introduce some rough and tumble in the early days as new “norms” are created but over time the ability to collaborate will only improve given the shared context and information base everyone works from.
  • Focus on the destination, not the journey. The real-time sharing of information forces organizations to operate in real-time. Problems are in the here and now and demand solutions in the present. The benefit of this “pressure” is that a focus on the internal systems, the steps along the way, or intermediate results is, out of necessity, de-emphasised.

Follow the following article for further reading.

 

  1. Road Map For The Next Generation of Work – Paradigm shift (1)
  2. Road Map For The Next Generation of Work – Theory & Technology (2)
  3. Road Map For The Next Generation of Work – Examples and Checklist (3)

 

 

Harness the New Tools for Training

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Transform Training

Over the next five years, how you train and educate your staff won’t just change; it’ll transform.

What’s the difference?

  • Changing means continuing to do essentially the same thing, only introducing some variation in degree.
  • Transformation means doing something utterly and radically different.

For example, moving our music from cassette tape to CD changed how you listen to music. But going from a CD to having all your music in digital format on your smart phone and with you at all times transformed how you listen to music.

Exponential changes driven by processing power, storage, and bandwidth are now reaching a stage that allows us to transform business processes including how we educate and train our workforce. This transformation will certainly accelerate. The only question is whether your organization will take advantage of it.

So what does the future of corporate training look like? To get a clear picture, you first have to know a few facts:

  • The majority of phones professionals are using worldwide are smart phones. In other words, your employees’ phones are actually multimedia computers with internet access. That alone has huge ramifications for training them.
  • Tablets and smartphones are outselling PCs globally and employees have access to them wherever they go including home. So smart mobile devices like phones and tablets are rapidly becoming the new platforms for training and education. That doesn’t mean employees are no longer using laptops, it means we are using them in different ways and much less.
  • These smart devices will get exponentially smarter every year, giving us new capabilities. It used to be to access a super computer you had to be a university or major corporation. Today, even a small company can access (from their phone) a super computer in the cloud and run advanced simulations.

Knowing these things, it’s time to rethink how to train your employees from here on out.

Here’s how to do it

New Tools for Training:

  • Implement Just-in-Time Training
    For most people, the best way to learn something is by doing it. That’s what just-in-time training enables people to do. Rather than sit in a classroom or one-on-one with someone and learn, people can learn in real-time. Remember, most employees have a multimedia computer with them at all times (their phone or tablet). With just-in-time training, they can access any element of what they need to know at the moment of need. If they have a question or need assistance, they simply touch an icon on their device’s screen and are connected to a live trainer who can help. If the trainer needs to see something to give assistance, the employee can aim the device’s built-in camera to the problem so the trainer can see it. This alone would cut training costs tremendously.Does this mean we eliminate classroom or other formal training sessions? No. There will still be formal training, but less of it because now we can have distributed training in real-time that’s just-in-time. So this isn’t about getting rid of something; it’s about using a new tool for training and education.
  • Create Interactive Training Materials
    We also now have the ability to create interactive training manuals and textbooks. In the past, e-books have been static, basically an electronic PDF of the book. Now they are becoming dynamic e-books where you have embedded audio, video, and links to other resources. And thanks to visual communications, you can even have a way for employees to tap a special button in the training manual and be connected to someone who can give more advanced training on a specific subject.Additionally, employees can tap into a series of videos that allows them to personalize the training for their specific needs. Since the training manual is no longer static, employees can personalize the manual by plugging into a menu of more advanced training options embedded within.
  • Today, training is measured in one-hour blocks of time. One hour needs to become ten-minute blocks of highly focused time.
    I recently heard some one say they watched “an entire TED talk” as if it was a long amount of time. Our attention spans are short and the list of things each of us must accomplish seems to be getting longer. Measuring the units of training in one-hour blocks of time is already obsolete.By taking advantage of the virtual, mobile, social, and visual revolutions that are already taking place, we should measure employees training units in ten-minute blocks that include a short focused lesson with an application tool.
  • Tap Into the Gameification of Training and Education
    Gaming isn’t just for kids. Interactive gaming is a tool that can transform training and education. I’ve identified five core elements of gameification that when applied together can dramatically accelerate learning. They are:
  1. Self-diagnostic. Interactive, competitive, and immersed training modules can know each person’s skill or knowledge level and progress accordingly. It can know where someone left off and give next steps from that point when the person logs back in. This is the best way to allow for individual training and learning.
  2. Interactivity. Regardless of someone’s inherent learning style, learning is much more effective when you’re interacting with the material, not passively sitting there. When you learn by gaming, you’re interacting with the information and concepts and actually doing things. It’s no longer passive training.
  3. Immersion. In the recent past to the present, video games use interspatial 3D, where you go into worlds. So instead of images popping out at you, you go inside to them. That’s how games on the Xbox 360 and others have been working for years, by using a regular television set or flat panel display. This sort of technology gives an immersed effect, which engages people more.
  4. Competition. Humans are naturally competitive beings. When you’re sitting in class or doing one-on-one learning, there’s little competitive value. No one advances until the session is over. However, when you’re competing, as in a game, there’s an adrenaline rush that keeps you engaged and focused on the task at hand. In an effort to “win,” people master concepts faster.
  5. Focus. When you’re playing a game, you’re forced to focus. You have to do A in order for B to occur. If you don’t do A, then you won’t get far in the game. Focus is the result of interactivity, competition, immersion, and self-diagnosis. When you can focus, you can learn virtually anything…fast.

Embrace the New Era of Training

The ideas mentioned here are already possible. Use them to redefine how your company trains its employees. Since businesses spend large sums of money on training and education, anything that can accelerate or enhance learning will save both time and money.

And always remember, if it can be done it will be done; if you don’t do it someone else will.

Based on article by:

 

online-teaching

Course Designers Package

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In 2013 we introduced a free comprehensive guide on how to take your course online to help both the digitisation and structuring of knowledge for our readers. The Educators’ initiative for 2014 is to promote the preservation of knowledge (in diverse digital formats) and structuring of the knowledge as a teaching tool. In 2014 we are extending our existing service with more direct collaboration with this extensive package:

Training programmes (Course Designers Package):

  • Teachers Starter Pack
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  • Help with Curriculum Design
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  • Virtual Class Room

Our workshops and online programs are built round the simple principles of providing high quality, practical and pragmatic solutions that enable you to deliver a significant improvements in terms of quality, efficiency and performance to your current activity. 

If you have an in-depth knowledge and understanding on your specialised subject and are ready to learn new technology, then we are interested to hear from you.

A passion to help others together with exemplary facilitation and presentation skills is essential. We will be your partner and provide both technical and marketing help.

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Empower Yourself

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You can, and should, empower yourself.

We tend to think of empowerment as a gift granted to us by others. Your supervisor empowers you to make decisions; your government empowers you to vote; a business empowers you to customize a product. These are all examples of empowerment, to be sure, but they are not the only ways we can experience it.

Empowering yourself means deciding your own path and doing what you need to do to acquire the skills and opportunities necessary to follow that path.

Steps to Self-Empowerment

Step 1: Expand Your Mind. Before you act in an empowered manner, you must be able to think in an empowered manner. Often, this means learning to let your mind roam beyond the parameters of what you have learned in school or been trained to do on the job.

Opening your mind to the possibilities is a skill that must be constantly practiced. Study, read, engage with others who can teach you something new.

Step 2: Expand Your Territory. If you are in extend your field of studies, start teaching part times, study abroad. If you are in the workplace, seek opportunities to travel, take assignments in another city or country, expand your expertise, get involved with new technology. Your exposure to new visions of success will radically change your thinking.

Next Step - The Educators Starter Pack

The starter pack is designed to empower you to manage your students community from different sources in one place. In most cases The Educators provide related test and content online to assist your teaching. The starter pack is offered free of charge (subject to approval) and is made of two stages:

Stage 1- You are given an online training/inductions programme. This online programme is designed to give you an understanding or how a virtual room works. Here you will be using the system as a student, this gives us the opportunity to not only to train you but also you will gain the learner experience which is crucial for the next stage.

Stage 2- On a successful completion of the first stage you will be given a class room to manage (content in the class is subject to your expertise). You will be expected to enrol few students (5 min. to 10 max.) on your course and manage them through their tasks. Next step is to run your class subject to contract. (Click here for Standard Service Rates)

TheEducators.com aims to create a wider spectrum of possibilities for its members. We create the opportunities, and you empower yourself.

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What Matters in Training and Development

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The Science of Training and Development in Organizations:

What Matters in Practice

Companies know that they need to encourage the continued learning and development of their workforce in order to stay on top in their field. Because a trained workforce can provide a competitive advantage to companies, it makes sense to implement the best training program possible — especially one guided by sound science.

Each year, organisations in the United States spend roughly $135 billion on employee training.

In this article, Salas (University of Central Florida), Tannenbaum (The Group for Organizational Effectiveness), Kraiger (Colorado State University), and Smith-Jentsch (University of Central Florida) describe the current state of the science and practice of training, discuss why organizations should care about employee training, and outline processes for creating the most effective training program possible.

Training research and practice have greatly advanced within the last 30 years, moving from what was once described as a “nonempirical” field to one based on science. Research not only has shown that well-designed training programs work, but also has provided insights into what makes a program effective. According to the authors, what occurs during training is not the only thing that matters; what occurs before and after training is just as important for program success.

Based on past research, the authors suggest several steps that should be taken before, during, and after training to maximise a program’s impact.

Before:

Research indicates that organizations should take steps before training to create an appropriate learning climate and conduct a Training Needs Analysis — a diagnosis of what needs to be trained, to whom, and in what organisational system.

During:

During training, organizations should take steps to create the right trainee mindset and should use training strategies that utilize appropriate instructional principles.

After:

After training, employers should ensure that transfer of the training has occurred and should evaluate the training methods to see if any improvements could be made.

By becoming informed about and active in the training process, business leaders and policy makers can positively influence the scientific rigor — and therefore effectiveness — of training at their organisations, thus maximising the potential of their workforce and of their organisation as a whole.

About the Authors (PDF)

Editorial: Commentary on the Science of Training and Development in Organizations: What Matters in Practice

By Paul W. Thayer - Read the Full Text (PDF)

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Metacognitive And Learning

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Strategies For Instructional Design

Do you know how to learn? Many people don’t. Specifically, they don’t know how to look inward to examine how they learn and to judge what is effective.

That’s where metacognitive strategies come in. They are techniques that help people become more successful learners. Shouldn’t this be a crucial goal of instructional design?

Improved metacognition can facilitate both formal and informal learning. It can improve the performance of new tasks on the job and help teams problem solve more effectively.

Here are some things instructional designers should know about metacognition.

What is metacognition?

  1. Metacognition is often referred to as “thinking about thinking.” But that’s just a quick definition. Metacognition is a regulatory system that helps a person understand and control his or her own cognitive performance.
  2. Metacognition allows people to take charge of their own learning. It involves awareness of how they learn, an evaluation of their learning needs, generating strategies to meet these needs and then implementing the strategies. (Hacker, 2009)
  3. Learners often show an increase in self-confidence when they build metacognitive skills. Self-efficacy improves motivation as well as learning success.
  4. Metacognitive skills are generally learned during a later stage of development. Metacognitive strategies can often (but not always) be stated by the individual who is using them.
  5. For all age groups, metacognitive knowledge is crucial for efficient independent learning because it fosters forethought and self-reflection.

The Two Processes of Metacognition

Fortunately, many theorists organize the skills of metacognition into two components. This makes it easier to understand and remember.

  1. According to theory, metacognition consists of two complementary processes: 1) the knowledge of cognition and 2) the regulation of cognition.
  2. Knowledge of cognition has three components: knowledge of the factors that influence one’s own performance; knowing different types of strategies to use for learning; knowing what strategy to use for a specific learning situation.
  3. Regulation of cognition involves: setting goals and planning; monitoring and controlling learning; and evaluating one’s own regulation (assessing results and strategies used).

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Metacognition and Expertise

  1. Many experts cannot explain the skills they use to elicit expert performance. (Perhaps this is due to the automatic functioning of the expert.)
  2. Metacognitive strategies often separate an expert from a novice. For example, experts are able to plan effectively on a global level at the start of a task—a novice won’t see the big picture.
  3. Some adults with expertise in one domain can transfer their metacognitive skills to learn more rapidly in another domain.
  4. On the other hand, some adults do not spontaneously transfer metacognitive skills to new settings and thus, will need help doing so.

Examples of Metacognition Skills You May Use

Successful learners typically use metacognitive strategies whenever they learn. But they may fail to use the best strategy for each type of learning situation. Here are some metacognitive strategies that will sound familiar to you:

  1. Knowing the limits of your own memory for a particular task and creating a means of external support.
  2. Self-monitoring your learning strategy, such as concept mapping, and then adapting the strategy if it isn’t effective.
  3. Noticing whether you comprehend something you just read and then modifying your approach if you did not comprehend it.
  4. Choosing to skim subheadings of unimportant information to get to the information you need.
  5. Repeatedly rehearsing a skill in order to gain proficiency.
  6. Periodically doing self-tests to see how well you learned something.

Metacognitive and learning Strategies

Metacognitive strategies facilitate learning how to learn. You can incorporate these, as appropriate, into eLearning courses, social learning experiences, pre- and post-training activities and other formal or informal learning experiences.

  1. Ask Questions. During formal courses and in post-training activities, ask questions that allow learners to reflect on their own learning processes and strategies. In collaborative learning, ask them to reflect on the role they play when problem solving in teams.
  2. Foster Self-reflection. Emphasize the importance of personal reflection during and after learning experiences. Encourage learners to critically analyze their own assumptions and how this may have influenced their learning.
  3. Encourage Self-questioning. Foster independent learning by asking learners to generate their own questions and answer them to enhance comprehension. The questions can be related to meeting their personal goals
  4. Teach Strategies Directly. Teach appropriate metacognitive strategies as a part of a training course.
  5. Promote Autonomous Learning. When learners have some domain knowledge, encourage participation in challenging learning experiences. They will then be forced to construct their own metacognitive strategies.
  6. Provide Access to Mentors. Many people learn best by interacting with peers who are slightly more advanced. Promote experiences where novices can observe the proficient use of a skill and then gain access to the metacognitive strategies of their mentors.
  7. Solve Problems with a Team: Cooperative problem solving can enhance metacognitive strategies by discussing possible approaches with team members and learning from each other.
  8. Think Aloud. Teach learners how to think aloud and report their thoughts while performing a difficult task. A knowledgeable partner can then point out errors in thinking or the individual can use this approach for increased self-awareness during learning.
  9. Self-explanation. Self-explanation in writing or speaking can help learners improve their comprehension of a difficult subject.
  10. Provide Opportunities for Making Errors. When learners are given the opportunity to make errors while in training, such as during simulations, it stimulates reflection on the causes of their errors.

In summary, metacognition is a set of skills that enable learners to become aware of how they learn and to evaluate and adapt these skills to become increasingly effective at learning. In a world that demands lifelong learning, providing people with new and improved metacognitive strategies is a gift that can last forever.

learning style

learning strategies

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What’s the key to effective learning? One intriguing body of research suggests a rather riddle-like answer:

It’s not just what you know. It’s what you know about what you know.

To put it in more straight forward terms, anytime a student learns, he or she has to bring in two kinds of prior knowledge: knowledge about the subject at hand (say, mathematics or history) and knowledge about how learning works. Educators are pretty good at imparting the first kind of knowledge. We’re comfortable talking about concrete information: names, dates, numbers, facts. But the guidance we offer on the act of learning itself—the “metacognitive” aspects of learning—is more hit-or-miss, and it shows.

“Metacognition” is often simply defined as “thinking about thinking.”

Metacognition refers to higher order thinking which involves active control over the cognitive processes engaged in learning. Activities such as planning how to approach a given learning task, monitoring comprehension, and evaluating progress toward the completion of a task are metacognitive in nature. Because metacognition plays a critical role in successful learning, it is important to study metacognitive activity and development to determine how students can be taught to better apply their cognitive resources through metacognitive control.

In most of the teaching institutions, “the emphasis is on what students need to learn, whereas little emphasis—if any—is placed on training students how they should go about learning the content and what skills will promote efficient studying to support robust learning,”John Dunlosky, professor of psychology at Kent State University in Ohio”

Teaching students how to learn is as important as teaching them content, because acquiring both the right learning strategies and background knowledge is important—if not essential—for promoting lifelong learning.”

Research has found that students vary widely in what they know about how to learn, according to a team of educational researchers from Australia writing last year in the journal Instructional Science. Most striking, low-achieving students show “substantial deficits” in their awareness of the cognitive and metacognitive strategies that lead to effective learning—suggesting that these students’ struggles may be due in part to a gap in their knowledge about how learning works.

Teaching students good learning strategies would ensure that they know how to acquire new knowledge, which leads to improved learning outcomes. Students who use appropriate strategies to understand and remember what they read, such as underlining important parts of the texts or discussing what they read with other people, perform mush better (equivalent to one full school year) in their assessments.

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Students can assess their own awareness by asking themselves which of the following learning strategies they regularly use (the response to each item is ideally “yes”):
• I draw pictures or diagrams to help me understand this subject.
• I make up questions that I try to answer about this subject.
• When I am learning something new in this subject, I think back to what I already know about it.
• I discuss what I am doing in this subject with others.
• I practice things over and over until I know them well in this subject.
• I think about my thinking, to check if I understand the ideas in this subject.
• When I don’t understand something in this subject I go back over it again.
• I make a note of things that I don’t understand very well in this subject, so that I can follow them up.
• When I have finished an activity in this subject I look back to see how well I did.
• I organize my time to manage my learning in this subject.
• I make plans for how to do the activities in this subject.

Research shows that those students who used fewer of these strategies reported more difficulty coping with their schoolwork. Educators can use a series of proactive questions which they can drop into the lesson on a “just-in-time” basis—at the moments when students could use the prompting most. These questions, too, can be adopted by any educator to make sure that learners know not just what is to be learned, but how.

• What is the topic for today’s lesson?
• What will be important ideas in today’s lesson?
• What do you already know about this topic?
• What can you relate this to?
• What will you do to remember the key ideas?
• Is there anything about this topic you don’t understand, or are not clear about?

 

What Is Your Learning Style?

This quiz asks 24 questions and will take less than five minutes to complete. Try not to think too hard — just go with your first thought when describing your daily activities and interests. By the end, you may have some new insights into your learning preferences.

This article has been based on an article by Annie Murphy Paul.

You can email her at annie@anniemurphypaul.com.

You can also visit her website, follow her on Twitter, and join the conversation on Facebook. Be brilliant!

Learning Styles

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Extract from the Article on Learning Styles by: Christopher Pappas

There are 7 main Learning Styles, but the first three are the most common and widely used:

  1. Visual: Where learners prefer to use pictures, images and spatial understanding
  2. Aural: Where learners prefer acoustic stimuli
  3. Kinesthetic: Where learners prefer to use their body, hands, gesturing and touching
  4. Verbal: Where learners prefer speech and writing
  5. Mathematical: Where learners prefer using logic and reasoning
  6. Interpersonal: Where learners prefer to learn and function within groups
  7. Intrapersonal: Where learners prefer self-study and to learn alone

Advocates of the learning style theory argue that instructors can achieve much better results when they take their student’s learning style under consideration and create a course that best fits this exact style.

The adversaries of the learning style theory say that this concept is misunderstood and not scientifically proven, and they argue that learning styles do make instructors understand what motivates and cerebrally stimulates their students, but they can’t guarantee a successful outcome nor predict it.

So where is the truth in that and where lies the Learning Styles myth?

What truth lies beneath?

  • First of all, it’s true that people are different and that these exact differences affect the way they learn. Some have special needs. Some have special abilities. And no one can argue that intelligence comes in various levels and forms.
  • Second, people have different interests and when someone is interested in a subject, chances are that he will learn about it faster and more in depth.
  • Third, learners have diverse backgrounds, something that undoubtedly affects their learning.
  • And, last but not least, there are people with various learning disabilities, something that ultimately affects the way they learn and that requires a special approach on behalf of the instructor.

learning Strategies

What’s the key to effective learning? Read the learning strategies post.

It’s not just what you know. It’s what you know about what you know.

Debunking the myth of Learning Styles

  • There is no convincing evidence to prove that when an instructor changes the presentation mode of his course to match the learning style of his students actually helps them learn.
  • There is no “better” or “faster” learning as an outcome of implementing individual preferences into a course. It’s just a style that ultimately makes no difference in learning.
  • Instructors should not just take under consideration the learning styles of their students, but also their background and interests.
  • Content is the parameter that should directly affect the mode of presentation and not the learning style of the students.
  • It’s definitely more efficient to create a course based on the motivational characteristics of the students and not their learning styles, and always be ready to adjust the learning methods and techniques and engage multiple senses rather than just one.
  • Perceptual learning has to do with senses and there is nothing restrictive about that. It doesn’t prove that someone is a specific type of learner. It merely suggests that people have preferred learning styles.
  • Not all learning happens the same way and nor should teaching. What’s crucial is to decide which techniques are best for which learning outcomes and not about customizing a course based on learning styles.
  • We mostly think of learning styles as de facto, without questioning their true value, purpose and relevance. And the truth is that according to recent research conducted by major US universities there is no correlation between learning styles and successful learning.

 

Christopher Pappas

Founder of The eLearning Industry.

via The Myth of Learning Styles.

reading glasses

E-learning’s Most Annoying Traits

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E-learning’s most annoying traits

Over 100 learning professionals were asked what one thing most annoys them about online learning materials. Their responses were both varied and numerous.

Of these, the 17 most annoying traits of online learning materials were:

  1. Patronising the learner.
  2. Having a section called ‘How to use this e-learning module’.
  3. Spelling out the materials’ objective, such as, ‘By the end of this module you will have learnt…’
  4. Text-heavy sections labelled ‘Background’ or ‘History’, and the related issue of getting learners to read a company policy in the guise of it being ‘e-learning’.
  5. Poor screen design
  6. Pages cluttered confusingly with text and Clip Art graphics.
  7. Using text to explain what each button does, rather than letting the users explore and find out for themselves.
  8. The use of fading text and pictures – in and out, in and out – which just frustrates the user.
  9. Inane, irrelevant and ineffective interactions, including fatuous multiple-choice questions.
  10. Poor program design
  11. The lack of a ‘page-turning’ running theme to maintain user interest.
  12. Having a robotic voice read all of the text as it appears on the screen, with no option to move on until the voice finishes (it’s a timeline the user can’t control).
  13. Seeing the messages ‘Error 404. Not Found’ and ‘Unable to open http://www…..’
  14. Step locking, which is making the user click everything that’s possible to click on before the page will advance (to ‘ensure understanding’ by the learner).
  15. Performance issues
  16. Images, such as an animated clock, along with the message ‘Loading’, which takes several minutes to disappear, or the message, ‘Hang on, we’re having technical difficulties’, followed by a frozen screen.
  17. As the user submits something, the following message appears on screen, ‘Sorry, your session has timed out’, resulting in everything the user has produced disappearing into the ether.

If these traits seem worryingly familiar or, worse still, they’re recognisable in some of your own e-learning output, then do something about it.

On a different level, though, is the e-learning material – however it’s delivered – really what the learning is all about? Isn’t the real learning encapsulated and demonstrated in the activities that learners undertake, applying the knowledge they’ve gained having worked through the e-learning materials? After all, you can learn the Highway Code by rote and you can use all of the driving simulators there are but you can never say you’ve learnt to drive until you do it in a vehicle on a real road in the real world.

It’s well-known that we learn by doing. Yet e-learning materials still ask learners to read something, watch a video and/or listen to audio and then answer some questions. How does anyone, including the user, know they’ve really understood what they’re supposed to have understood unless their understanding is demonstrated in reality?