Tag Archive for: learning

New Book: Design Thinking for Training and Development

Design Thinking is all the rage! Even now in the Learning & Development field. A powerful methodology if done right, but a process that can go wrong when applied inappropriately to learning design. In their new book, Sharon Boller and Laura Fletcher show us how to use design thinking right—when we apply it to learning design.

 

Background

First, a little background on design thinking. The folks from IDEO, one of the exemplars of design thinking, say this about their work, “Human-centered designers are unlike other problem solvers—we tinker and test, we fail early and often, and we spend a surprising amount of time not knowing the answer to the challenge at hand. And yet, we forge ahead. We’re optimists and makers, experimenters and learners, we empathize and iterate, and we look for inspiration in unexpected places.”

Let me highlight two key things: Iteration and Empathy.

Too often in learning design and development, we design in a lockstep ADDIE fashion, from point A to point E. Instead of rapid prototyping and improvement, we are so insular in our overconfidence, that we build learning that just doesn’t work that well.

We also have a tendency to trust our learners too much with their learning design intuitions, even though tons of research shows us that learners have large misconceptions about learning. Some of us have taken the empathy notion from design thinking too far, blindly trusting learners. The history of this goes back long before design thinking to the harmful optimism of Malcolm Knowles and his theory of Andragogy.

The Fix

Sharon Boller and Laura Fletcher have long been believers in evidence-based practice. Just as importantly, they spent years utilizing and fine-tuning their learning development processes to include design-thinking principles and techniques. In Design Thinking for Training and Development: Creating Learning Journeys that Get Results, Sharon and Laura blend evidence and practice into workable and pragmatic guidelines for using design thinking. They integrate the power of design thinking and eliminate the wrong turns that happen when research and evidence is ignored.

Even in the subtitle, “Creating learning journeys that get results,” you can tell that Sharon and Laura are talking about creating meaningful learning designs. They seek out learner data, but put safeguards on this process, including special review iterations, routine prototyping, and meaningful evaluation.

The Upshot

Boller and Fletcher, in Design Thinking for Training and Development, build a powerful tool-set for learning professionals. By augmenting Design Thinking with research-based wisdom and practical insights about learning, the book provides a new learning-development methodology—a worthy replacement for learning-neutral processes like ADDIE.

The book is available tomorrow on Amazon. Click on these words to get the book.

 

Great Book by Neelen and Kirschner

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Mirjam Neelen and Paul Kirschner have written a truly beautiful book—one that everyone in the workplace learning field should read, study, and keep close at hand. It’s a book of transformational value because it teaches us how to think about our jobs as practitioners in utilizing research-informed ideas to build maximally effective learning architectures.

Their book is titled, Evidence-Informed Learning Design: Use Evidence to Create Training Which Improves Performance. The book warns us of learning myths and misconceptions—but it goes deeper to bring us insights in how these myths arise and how we can disarm them in our work.

Here’s a picture of me and my copy! The book officially goes on sale today in the United States.

 

Click to get your copy of the book from Amazon (US).

The book covers the most powerful research-informed learning factors known by science. Those who follow my work will hear familiar terms like Feedback, Retrieval Practice, Spacing; but also, terms like double-barreled learning, direct instruction, nuanced design, and more. I will keep this book handy in my own work as a research-inspired consultant, author, provocateur—but this book is not designed for people like me. Evidence-Informed Learning Design is perfect for everyone with more than a year of experience in the workplace learning field.

The book so rightly laments that “the learning field is cracked at its foundation.” It implores us to open our eyes to what works and what doesn’t, and fundamentally to rethink how we as practitioners work in our teams to bring about effective learning.

The book intrigues as can be seen in sections like, “Why myths are like zombies,” and “No knowledge, no nothing,” and “Pigeonholing galore.”

One of my favorite parts of the book is the interviews of researchers that delve into the practical ramifications of their work. There are interviews with an AI expert, a neuroscientist, and an expert on complex learning, among others. These interviews will wake up more than a few of us.

What makes this book so powerful is that it combines the work of a practitioner and a researcher. Mirjam is one of our field’s most dedicated practitioners in bringing research inspirations to bear on learning practice. Paul is one of the great academic researchers in doing usable research and bringing that research to bear on educational practice. Together, for many years, they’ve published one of the most important blogs in the workplace learning field, the Three-Star Learning blog (https://3starlearningexperiences.wordpress.com/).

Here are some things you will learn in the book:

Big Picture Concepts:

  • What learning myths to avoid.
  • What learning factors to focus on in your learning designs.
  • How to evaluate research claims.

Specific Concepts:

  • Whether Google searches can supplant training.
  • What neuroscience says about learning, if anything.
  • How to train for complex skills.
  • How AI might help learning, now and in the future.
  • Types of research to be highly skeptical of.
  • Whether you need to read scientific research yourself.
  • Whether you should use learning objectives, or not, or when.
  • Whether learning should be fun.
  • The telltale signs of bad research.

This book is so good that it should be required reading for everyone graduating at the university level in learning-and-development.

 

 

Click on the book image to see it on Amazon (US).

 

Futility and Error in Learning Industry Awards

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Industry awards are hugely prominent in the workplace learning field and send a ripple of positive and negative effects on individuals and organizations. Awards affect vendor and consultant revenues and viability, learning department reputations and autonomy, individual promotion, salary, and recruitment opportunities. Because of their outsized influence, we should examine industry award processes to determine their strengths and weaknesses and to ascertain how helpful or harmful they are currently, and suggest improvements if any can be recommended.

The Promise of Learning Industry Awards

Industry awards seem to hold so much promise, with these potential benefits:

Application Effects

  • Learning and Development
    Those who apply for awards seem to have the potential to reflect on their own practices and thus learn and improve based on this reflection and any feedback they might get from those who judge their applications.
  • Nudging Improvement
    Those who apply (and even those who just review an awards application) maybe be nudged toward better practices based on the questions or requirements outlined.

Publicity of Winners Effect

  • Role Modeling
    Selected winners and the description of their work can set aspirational benchmarks for other organizations.
  • Rewarding of Good Effort
    Selected winners can be acknowledged and rewarded for their hard work, innovation, and results.
  • Promotion and Recruitment Effects
    Individuals selected for awards can be deservedly promoted or recruited to new opportunities.
  • Resourcing and Autonomy Effects
    Learning departments can earn reputation credits within their organizations that can be cashed in for resources and permission to act autonomously and avoid micromanagement.
  • Vendor Marketing
    Vendors who win can publicize and support their credibility and brand.
  • Purchasing Support
    Organizations who need products or services can be directed to vendors who have been vetted as excellent.

Benefits of Judging

  • Market Intelligence
    Judges who participate can learn about best practices, innovations, trends that they can use in their work.

NOTE: At the very end of this article, I will come back to each and every one of these promised benefits and assess how well our industry awards are helping or hurting.

The Overarching Requirements of Awards

Awards can be said to be useful if they produce valid, credible, fair, and ethical results. Ideally, we expect our awards to represent all players within the industry or subsegment—and to select from this group the objectively best exemplars based on valid, relevant, critical criteria.

The Awards Funnel

To make this happen, we can imagine a funnel, where people and/or organizations have an equal opportunity to be selected for an award. They enter the funnel at the top and then elements of the awards process winnow the field until only the best remain at the bottom of the funnel.

How Are We Doing?

How well do our awards processes meet the best practices suggested in the Awards Funnel?

Application Process Design

Award Eligibility

At the top of the funnel, everybody in the target group should be considered for an award. Particularly if we are claiming that we are choosing “The Best,” everybody should be able to enter the award application process. Ideally, we would not exclude people because they can’t afford the time or cost of the application process. We would not exclude people just because they didn’t know about the contest. Now obviously, these criterion are too stringent for the real world, but they do illustrate how an unrepresentative applicant pool can make the results less meaningful than we might like.

In a recent “Top” list on learning evaluation, none of the following organizations were included, despite these folks being leaders in learning evaluation. Non-award winners in learning evaluation were the Kirkpatrick’s, the Phillips’, Brinkerhoff, and Thalheimer. They did not end up at the end of the funnel as winners because they did not apply for the award.

Criteria

The criteria baked into the application process are fundamental to the meaningfulness of the results. If the criteria are not the most important, then the results can’t reflect a valid ranking. Unfortunately, too many awards in the workplace learning field give credit for such things as “numbers of trainers,” “hours of training provided,” “company revenues,” “average training hours per person,” “average class size,” “learner-survey ratings,” etc. These data are not related to learning effectiveness, so they should not impact applicant ratings. Unfortunately, these are taken into account in more than a few of our award contests. Indeed, in one such awards program, these types of data were worth over 20% toward the final scoring of applicants.

Application

Application questions should prompt respondents to answer with information and data that is relevant to assessing critical outcomes. Unfortunately, too many applications have generally worded questions that don’t nudge respondents to specificity. “Describe how your learning-technology innovation improved your organization’s business results.” Similarly, many applications don’t specifically ask people to show the actual learning event. Even for elearning programs, sometimes applicants are asked to include videos instead of actual programs.

Data Quality

Applicant Responses

To select the best applicants, each of the applicant responses has to be honest and substantial enough to allow judges to make considered judgments. If applicants stretch the truth, then the results will be biased. Similarly, if some applicants employ the use of awards writers—people skilled in helping companies win awards—then fair comparisons are not possible.

Information Verification

Ideally, application information would be verified to ensure accuracy. This never happens (as far as I can tell)—casting further doubt on the validity of the results.

Judge Performance

Judge Quality

Judges must be highly knowledgeable about learning and all the subsidiary areas involved in the workplace learning field, including the science of learning, memory, instruction. Ideally, judges would also be up-to-date on learning technologies, learning innovations, organization dynamics, statistics, leadership, coaching, learning evaluation, data science, and even perhaps on the topic area being taught. It is difficult to see how judges can meet all the desired criteria. One awards organizer allows unvetted conference goers to cast votes for their favorite elearning program. The judges are presumably somewhat interested and experienced in elearning, but as a whole they are clearly not all experts.

Judge Impartiality

Judges should be impartial, unbiased, blind to applicant identities, and have no conflicts of interest. This is made more difficult because screen shots and videos often include branding of the end users and learning vendors. And actually, many award applications ask for the names of the companies involved. In one contest many of the judges listed were from companies that won awards. One person I talked with who was a judge told me how when he got together with his fellow judges and the sponsor contact, he told the team that none of the applicants solutions were any good. He was first told to follow through with the process and give them a fair hearing. He said he had already done that. After some more back and forth he was told to review the applicants by trying to be appreciative. In this case there was a clear bias toward providing positive judgments—and awarding more winners.

Judge Time and Attention

Judges need to give sufficient time or their judgments won’t be accurate. Judges are largely volunteers and they have other involvements. We should assume, I think, that these volunteer judges are working in good faith and want to provide accurate ratings, but where they are squeezed for time—or the applications are confused, off-target, or include large amounts of data, there may be poor decision making. For one awards contest, the organizer claimed there were near 500 winners representing about 20% of all applicants. This would mean that there were 2,500 applicants. They said they had about 100 judges. If this was true, that would be 25 applications for each judge to review—and note that this assumes only one judge per application (which isn’t a good practice anyway, as more are needed). This seems like a recipe for judges to do as little as possible per application they review. In another award event, the judges went from table to table in a very loud room, having to judge 50-plus entries in about 90 minutes. Impossible to judge fully in this kind of atmosphere.

Judging Rubric

Bias can occur when evaluating open-ended responses like the essay questions typical on these award applications. One way to reduce bias is to give each judge a rubric with very specific options to guide judge’s decision making, or ask questions that are in the form of rubrics (see Performance-Focused Smile-Sheet questions as examples). For the award applications I reviewed, such rubrics were not a common occurrence.

Judge Reliability

Given that judging these applications is a subjective exercise—one made more chaotic by the lack of specific questions and rubrics—bias and variability can enter the judging process. It’s helpful to have a set of judges review each application to add some reliability to the judging. This seems to be a common practice, but it may not be a universal one.

Non-Interference

Sponsor Non-Interference

The organizations who sponsor these events could conceivably change or modify the results. This seems a possibility since the award organizations are not uninterested parties. They often earn revenues by getting consulting, advertising, conference, and/or awards-ceremony revenues from the same organizations who are applying for these awards. They could benefit by having low standards or relaxed judging to increase the number of award winners. Indeed, one award winner last year had 26 award categories and gave out 196 gold awards!

Awards organizations might also benefit if well-known companies are among the award winners. Judges may subconsciously give better ratings to a well-respected tech company rather than some unknown manufacturing company if company identities are not hidden. Worse, sponsors may be enticed to put their thumbs on the scale to ensure the star companies rise to the top. When applications ask for number of employees, company revenues, and even seemingly-relevant data points as number of hours trained, it’s easy to see how the books have been cooked to make the biggest, sexiest companies rise to the top of the rankings.

Except for the evidence described above where a sponsor encouraged a judge to be “appreciative,” I can’t document any cases of sponsor direct interference, but the conditions are ripe for those who might want to exploit the process. One award-sponsoring organization recognized the perception problem, and uses a third-party organization to vet the applicants. They also bestow only award one winner in each gold, silver, and bronze category, so the third-party organization has no incentive to be lenient in judging. These are good practices!

Implications

There is so much here—and I’m afraid I am only touching the surface. Despite the dirt and treasure left to be dug and discovered, I am convinced of one thing. I cannot trust the results of most of the learning industry awards. More importantly, these awards don’t give us the benefits we might hope to get from them. Let’s revisit those promised benefits from the very beginning of this article and see how things stack up.

Application Effects

  • Learning and Development
    We had hoped that applicants could learn from their involvement. However, if the wrong criteria are highlighted, they may actually learn to focus on the wrong target outcomes!
  • Nudging Improvement
    We had hoped the awards criteria would nudge applicants and other members of the community to focus on valuable design criteria and outcome measures. Unfortunately, we’ve seen that the criteria are often substandard, possibly even tangential or counter to effective learning-to-performance design.

Publicity of Winners Effect

  • Role Modeling
    We had hoped that winners would be deserving and worthy of being models, but we’ve seen that the many flaws of the various awards processes may result in winners not really being exemplars of excellence.
  • Rewarding of Good Effort
    We had hoped that those doing good work would be acknowledged and rewarded, but now we can see that we might be acknowledging mediocre efforts instead.
  • Promotion and Recruitment Effects
    We had hoped that our best and brightest might get promotions, be recruited, and be rewarded, but now it seems that people might be advantaged willy-nilly.
  • Resourcing and Autonomy Effects
    We had hoped that learning departments that do the best work would gain resources, respect, and reputational advantages; but now we see that learning departments could win an award without really deserving it. Moreover, the best resourced organizations may be able to hire award writers, allocate graphic design help, etc., to push their mediocre effort to award-winning status.
  • Vendor Marketing
    We had hoped that the best vendors would be rewarded, but we can now see that vendors with better marketing skills or resources—rather than the best learning solutions—might be rewarded instead.
  • Purchasing Support
    We had hoped that these industry awards might create market signals to help organizations procure the most effective learning solutions. We can see now that the award signals are extremely unreliable as indicators of effectiveness. If ONE awards organization can manufacture 196 gold medalists and 512 overall in a single year, how esteemed is such an award?

Benefits of Judging

  • Market Intelligence
    We had hoped that judges who participated would learn best practices and innovations, but it seems that the poor criteria involved might nudge judges to focus on information and particulars not as relevant to effective learning design.

What Should We Do Now?

You should draw your own conclusions, but here are my recommendations:

  1. Don’t assume that award winners are deserving or that non-award winners are undeserving.
  2. When evaluating vendors or consultants, ignore the awards they claim to have won—or investigate their solutions yourself.
  3. If you are a senior manager (whether on the learning team or in the broader organization), do not allow your learning teams to apply for these awards, unless you first fully vet the award process. Better to hire research-to-practice experts and evaluation experts to support your learning team’s personal development.
  4. Don’t participate as a judge in these contests unless you first vet their applications, criteria, and the way they handle judging.
  5. If your organization runs an awards contest, reevaluate your process and improve it, where needed. You can use the contents of this article as a guide for improvement.

Mea Culpa

I give an award every year, and I certainly don’t live up to all the standards in this article.

My award, the Neon Elephant Award, is designed to highlight the work of a person or group who utilizes or advocates for practical research-based wisdom. Winners include people like Ruth Clark, Paul Kirschner, K. Anders Ericsson, Julie Dirksen (among a bunch of great people, check out the link).

Interestingly, I created the award starting in 2006 because of my dissatisfaction with the awards typical in our industry at that time—awards that measured butts in seats, etc.

It Ain’t Easy — And It Will Never Be Easy!

Organizing an awards process or vetting content is not easy. A few of you may remember the excellent work of Bill Ellet, starting over two decades ago, and his company Training Media Review. It was a monumental effort to evaluate training programs. So monumental in fact that it was unsustainable. When Bill or one of his associates reviewed a training program, they spent hours and hours doing so. They spent more time than our awards judges, and they didn’t review applications; they reviewed the actual learning program.

Is a good awards process even possible?

Honestly, I don’t know. There are so many things to get right.

Can they be better?

Yes!

Are they good enough now?

Not most of them!

Ulrich Boser Book Now Updated in Paperback Edition

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Today, Ulrich Boser released an updated paperback version of his book, Learn Better: Mastering the Skills for Success in Life, Business, and School… It is available on Amazon (make sure you get the paperback version).

Ulrich does good work and his book has been hailed by Walter Isaacson as “Alternately humorous, surprising, and profound,” and by Amazon Editors as one of the Best Science Books of the Year.

You can learn more about Ulrich’s work at his website.

 

What Should We Call Ourselves? Let us Come to Consensus NOW!

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A huge fiery debate rages in the learning field.

 

What do we call ourselves? Are we instructional designers, learning designers, learning experience designers, learning engineers, etc.? This is an important question, of course, because words matter. But it is also a big freakin’ waste of time, so today, I’m going to end the debate! From now on we will call ourselves by one name. We will never debate this again. We will spend our valuable time on more important matters. You will thank me later! Probably after I am dead.

How do I know the name I propose is the best name? I just know. And you will know it too when you hear the simple brilliance of it.

How do I know the name I propose is the best name? Because Jim Kirkpatrick and I are in almost complete agreement on this, and, well, we have a rocky history.

How do I know the name I propose is the best name? Because it’s NOT the new stylish name everybody’s now printing on their business cards and sharing on LinkedIn. That name is a disaster, as I will explain.

The Most Popular Contenders

I will now list each of the major contenders for what we should call ourselves and then thoroughly eviscerate each one.

Instructional Designer

This is the traditional moniker—used for decades. I have called myself an instructional designer and felt good about it. The term has the benefit of being widely known in our field but it has severe deficiencies. First, if you’re at a party and you tell people you’re an instructional designer, they’re likely to hear “structural designer” or “something-something designer” and think you’re an engineer or a new-age guru who has inhaled too much incense. Second, our job is NOT to create instruction, but to help people learn. Third, our job is NOT ONLY to create instruction to help people learn, but to also create, nurture, or enable contexts that help people learn. Instructional designer is traditional, but not precise. It sends the wrong message. We should discard it.

Learning Designer

This is not bad. It’s my second choice. But it suffers from being too vanilla, too plain, too much lacking in energy. More problematic is that it conveys the notion that we can control learning. We cannot design learning! We can only create or influence situations and materials and messages that enable learning and mathemagenic processes—that is, cognitive processes that give rise to learning. We must discard this label too.

Learning Engineer

This seems reasonable at first glance. We might think our job is to engineer learning—to take the science and technology of learning and use it to blueprint learning interventions. But this is NOT our job. Again, we don’t control learning. We can’t control learning. We can just enable it. Yes! The same argument against “designing learning” can be used against “engineering learning.” We must also reject the learning engineering label because there are a bunch of crazed technology evangelists running around advocating for learning engineering who think that big data and artificial intelligence is going to solve all the problems of the learning profession. While it is true that data will help support learning efforts, we are more likely to make a mess of this by focusing on what is easy to measure and not on what is important and difficult to measure. We must reject this label too!

Learning Experience Designer

This new label is the HOT new label in our field, but it’s a disastrous turn backward! Is that who we are—designers of experiences? Look, I get it. It seems good on the surface. It overcomes the problem of control. If we design experiences, we rightly admit that we are not able to control learning but can only enable it through learning experiences. That’s good as far as it goes. But is that all there is? NO DAMMIT! It’s a freakin’ cop-out, probably generated and supported by learning-technology platform vendors to help sell their wares! What the hell are we thinking? Isn’t it our responsibility to do more than design experiences? We’re supposed to do everything we can to use learning as a tool to create benefits. We want to help people perform better! We want to help organizations get better results! We want to create benefits that ripple through our learners’ lives and through networks of humanity. Is it okay to just create experiences and be happy with that? If you think so, I wish to hell you’d get out of the learning profession and cast your lack of passion and your incompetence into a field that doesn’t matter as much as learning! Yes! This is that serious!

As learning professionals we need to create experiences, but we also need to influence or create the conditions where our learners are motivated and resourced and supported in applying their learning. We need to utilize learning factors that enable remembering. We need to create knowledge repositories and prompting mechanisms like job aids and performance support. We need to work to create organizational cultures and habits of work that enable learning. We need to support creative thinking so people have insights that they otherwise wouldn’t have. We also must create learning-evaluation systems that give us feedback so we can create cycles of continuous improvement. If we’re just creating experiences, we are in the darkest and most dangerous depths of denial. We must reject this label and immediately erase the term “Learning Experience Designer” from our email signatures, business cards, and LinkedIn profiles!

The Best Moniker for us as Learning Professionals

First, let me say that there are many roles for us learning professionals. I’ve been talking about the overarching design/development role, but there are also trainers, instructors, teachers, professors, lecturers, facilitators, graphic designers, elearning developers, evaluators, database managers, technologists, programmers, LMS technicians, supervisors, team leaders, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Acknowledged!!! Now let me continue. Thanks!

A month ago, Mirjam Neelen reached out to me because she is writing a book on how to use the science of learning in our role as learning professionals. She’s doing this with another brilliant research-to-practice advocate, the learning researcher Paul Kirschner, following from their blog, 3-Star Learning. Anyway, Mirjam asked me what recommendation I might have for what we call ourselves. It was a good question, and I gave her my answer.

I gave her THE answer. I’m not sure she agreed and she and Paul and their publisher probably have to negotiate a bit, but regardless, I came away from my discussions with Mirjam convinced that the learning god had spoken to me and asked me to share the good word with you. I will now end this debate. The label we should use instead of the others is Learning Architect. This is who we are! This is who we should be!

Let’s think about what architects do—architects in the traditional sense. They study human nature and human needs, as well as the science and technology of construction, and use that knowledge/wisdom to create buildings that enable us human beings to live well. Architects blueprint the plans—practical plans—for how to build the building and then they support the people who actually construct the buildings to ensure that the building’s features will work as well as possible. After the building is finished, the people in the buildings lead their lives under the influence of the building’s design features. The best architects then assess the outcomes of those design features and suggest modifications and improvements to meet the goals and needs of the inhabitants.

We aspire to be like architects. We don’t control learning, but we’d like to influence it. We’d like to motivate our learners to engage in learning and to apply what they’ve learned. We’d like to support our learners in remembering. We’d like to help them overcome obstacles. We’d like to put structures in place to enable a culture of learning, to give learners support and resources, to keep learners focused on applying what they’ve learned. We’d like to support teams and supervisors in their roles of enabling learning. We’d like to measure learning to get feedback on learning so that we can improve learning and troubleshoot if our learners are having problems using what we’ve created or applying what they’ve learned.

We are learning architects so let’s start calling ourselves by that name!

But Isn’t “Architect” a Protected Name?

Christy Tucker (thanks Christy!) raised an important concern in the comments below, and her concern was echoed by Sean Rea and Brett Christensen. The term “architect” is a protected term, which you can read about on Wikipedia. Architects rightly want to protect their professional reputation and keep their fees high, protected from competition from people with less education, experience, and competence.

But, to my non-legal mind, this is completely irrelevant to our discussion. When we add an adjective, the name is a different name. It’s not legal to call yourself a doctor if you’re not a doctor, but it’s okay to call yourself the computer doctor, the window doctor, the cakemix doctor, the toilet doctor, or the LMS doctor.

While the term “architect” is protected, putting an adjective in front of the name changes everything. A search of LinkedIn for “data architects” lists 57,624 of them. A search of “software architect” finds 172,998. There are 3,110 “performance architects,” 24 “justice architects,” and 178 “sustainability architects.”

Already on LinkedIn, 2,396 people call themselves “learning architects.”

Searching DuckDuckGo, some of the top results were consultants calling themselves learning architects from the UK, New Zealand, Australia. LinkedIn says there are almost 10,000 learning architecture jobs in the United States.

This is a non-issue. First, adding the adjective changes the name legally. Second, even if it didn’t, there is no way that architect credentialing bodies are going to take legal action against the hundreds of thousands of people using the word “architect” with an adjective. I say this, of course, not as a lawyer—and you should not rely on my advice as legal advice.

But still, this has every appearance of being a non-issue and we learning professionals should not be so meek as to shy away from using the term learning architect.

I was listening to a podcast last week that interviewed Jim Kirkpatrick. I like to listen to what Jim and Wendy have to say because many people I speak with in my work doing learning evaluation are influenced by what they say and write. As you probably know, I think the Kirkpatrick-Katzell Four-Level Model causes more harm then good, but I like to listen and learn things from the Kirkpatrick’s even though I never hear them sharing ideas that are critical of their models and teachings. Yes! I’m offering constructive criticism! Anyway, I was listening to the podcast and agreeing with most of what Jim was saying when he mentioned that what we ought to call ourselves is, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it: “Learning-and-Performance Architects!” Did I mention that I just love Jim Kirkpatrick! Jim and I are in complete agreement on this. I’ll quibble in that the name Learning-and-Performance Architect is too long, but I agree with the sentiment that we ought to see performance as part of our responsibility.

So I did some internet searching this week for the term “Learning Architect.” I found a job at IBM with that title, estimated by Glassdoor to pay between $104,000 and $146,000, and I think I’m going to apply for that job as this consulting thing is kind of difficult these days, especially having to write incisive witty profound historic blog posts for no money and no fame.

I also found a podcast by the eLearning Coach Connie Malamed on her excellent podcast where she reviews a book by the brilliant and provocative Clive Shepherd with the title, The New Learning Architect. It was published in 2011 and now has an updated 2016 edition. Interestingly, in a post from just this year in 2019, Clive is much less demonstrative about advocating for the term Learning Architect, and casually mentions that Learning Solutions Designer is a possibility before rejecting it because of the acronym LSD. I will reject it because designing solutions may give some the idea that we are designing things, when we need to design more than tangible objects.

In searching the internet, I also found three consultants or group of consultants calling themselves learning architects. I also searched LinkedIn and found that the amazing Tom Kuhlmann has been Vice President of Community at Articulate for 12 years but added the title of Chief Learning Architect four years and eight months ago. I know Tom’s great because of our personal conversations in London and because he’s always sharing news of my good works to the Articulate community (you are, right? Tom?), but most importantly because on Tom’s LinkedIn page one of the world’s top entrepreneurs offered a testimonial that Tom improved his visual presentations by 12.9472%. You can’t make this stuff up, not even if you’re a learning experience designer high on LSD!

Clearly, this Learning Architect idea is not a new thing! But I have it on good authority that now here today, May 24, 2019, we are all learning architects!

Here are two visual representations I sent to Mirjam to help convey the breadth and depth of what a Learning Architect should do:

 

I offer these to encourage reflection and discussion. They were admittedly a rather quick creation, so certainly, they must have blind spots.

Feel free to discuss below or elsewhere the ideas discussed in this article.

And go out and be the best learning architect you can be!

I have it on good authority that you will be…

 

 

 

Proposed Taxonomy for Types of Learning

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I’m trying to develop a taxonomy for types of learning. I’ve been working on this for several years, but I want to get one more round of feedback to see if I’m missing anything. Please provide your feedback below or contact me directly.

Types of Learning (Proposed Taxonomy)

SHORT LEARNING

  • READ AND ACKNOWLEDGE (rules, regulations, or policies)
  • WEBINAR (90 minutes or less)
  • DISCUSSION-BASED LEARNING (not training, but more of a discussion to enable learning)

TRADITIONAL GUIDED LEARNING

  • CLASSROOM LEARNING (where an instructor/facilitator leads classroom activities)
  • LIVE-FACILITATED ELEARNING (eLearning facilitated and/or presented by a live person; more involved than a basic webinar)
  • SEMI-FACILITATED ELEARNING (eLearning periodically facilitated by an instructor or learning leader as learning takes place over time)
  • NON-FACILITATED ELEARNING (where materials are presented/available, but no person is actively guiding the learning)

LEARNING OVER TIME

  • SELF-STUDY LEARNING (learners provided materials that they largely learn from on their own)
  • SUBSCRIPTION LEARNING (short nuggets delivered over a week or more)

PRACTICE-BASED LEARNING

  • SKILL-PRACTICE (where focus is on improving based on practicing, not on learning lots of new information)
  • ACTION LEARNING (involving both training and on-the-job experiences designed to support learning)
  • APPRENTICESHIP (where people learn by working under the close guidance of more-experienced others)
  • MENTORSHIP, INTERNSHIP, COACHING, SUPERVISION (where a person gets periodic feedback and guidance to elicit learning)

MISCELLANEOUS LEARNING

  • ONBOARDING (where people are introduced to a new organization, unit, or job role)
  • TEAM LEARNING (where groups of people plan and organize themselves to intentionally learn from each other)

Evaluation Models by RedThread Research

Dani Johnson at RedThread Research has just released a wonderful synopsis of Learning Evaluation Models. Comprehensive, Thoughtful, Well-Researched! It also has suggestions of articles to read!!!

This work is part of an ongoing effort to research the learning-evaluation space. With research sponsored by the folks at the adroit learning-evaluation company forMetris, RedThread is looking to uncover new insights about the way we do workplace learning evaluation.

Here’s what Dani says in her summary:

“What we hoped to see in the literature were new ideas – different ways of defining impact for the different conditions we find ourselves in. And while we did see some, the majority of what we read can be described as same. Same trends and themes based on the same models with little variation.”

 

“While we do not disparage any of the great work that has been done in the area of learning measurement and evaluation, many of the models and constructs are over 50 years old, and many of the ideas are equally as old.

On the whole, the literature on learning measurement and evaluation failed to take into account that the world has shifted – from the attitudes of our employees to the tools available to develop them to the opportunities we have to measure. Many articles focused on shoe-horning many of the new challenges L&D functions face into old constructs and models.”

 

“Of the literature we reviewed, several pieces stood out to us. Each of the following authors [detailed in the summary] and their work contained information that we found useful and mind-changing. We learned from their perspectives and encourage you to do the same.”

 

I also encourage you to look at this great review! You can see the summary here.

 

 

2019 is The Year of Data in Workplace Learning

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Donald Taylor, learning-industry visionary, has just come out with his annual Global Sentiment Survey asking practitioners in the field what topics are the most important right now. The thing that struck me is that the results show that data is becoming more and more important to people, especially as represented in adaptive learning through personalization, artificial intelligence, and learning analytics.

Learning analytics was most important category for the opinion leaders represented in social media. This seems right to me as someone who will be focused mostly on learning evaluation in 2019.

As Don said in the GoodPractice podcast with Ross Dickie and Owen Ferguson, “We don’t have to prove. We have to improve through learning analytics.”

What I love about Don Taylor’s work here is that he’s clear as sunshine about the strengths and limitations of this survey—and, most importantly, that he takes the time to explain what things mean without over-hyping and slight-of-hand. It’s a really simple survey, but the results are fascinating—not necessarily about what we should be doing, but what people in our field think we should be paying attention to. This kind of information is critical to all of us who might need to persuade our teams and stakeholders on how we can be most effective in our learning interventions.

Other findings:

  • Businessy-stuff fell in rated importance, for example, “consulting more deeply in the business,” “showing value,” and “developing the L&D function.”
  • Neuroscience/Cognitive Science fell in importance (most likely I think because some folks have been debunking the neuroscience-and-learning connections). And note: These should not be one category really, especially given that people in the know know that cognitive science, or more generally learning research, has shown to have proven value. Neuroscience not so much.
  • Mobile delivery and artificial intelligence were to two biggest gainers in terms of popularity.
  • Very intriguing that people active on social media (perhaps thought leaders, perhaps the opinionated mob) have different views that a more general population of workplace learning professionals. There is an interesting analysis in the book and a nice discussion in the podcast mentioned above.

For those interested in Don Taylor’s work, check out his website.

 

What Learning Evaluation Metrics are We Using? Indexed by LTEM!

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For years, we have used the Kirkpatrick-Katzell Four-Level Model to evaluate workplace learning. With this taxonomy as our guide, we have concluded that the most common form of learning evaluation is learner surveys, that the next most common evaluation is learning, then on-the-job behavior, then organizational results.

The truth is more complicated.

In some recent research I led with the eLearning Guild and Jane Bozarth, we used the LTEM model to look for further differentiation. We found it.

Here’s some of the insights from the graphic above:

  • Learner surveys are NOT the most common form of learning evaluation. Program completion and attendance are more common, being done on most training programs in about 83% of organizations.
  • Learners surveys are still very popular, with 72% of respondents saying that they are used in more than one-third of their learning programs.
  • When we measure learning, we go beyond simple quizzes and knowledge checks.
    • Tier 5 assessments, measuring the ability to make realistic decisions, were reported by 24% of respondents to be used in more than one-third of their learning programs.
    • Tier 6 assessments, measuring realistic task performance (during learning), were reported by about 32% of respondents to be used in more than one-third of their learning programs.
    • Unfortunately, we messed up and forgot to include an option on Tier 4 Knowledge questions. However, previous eLearning Guild research in the 2007, 2008, and 2010 found that the percentage of respondents who reported that they measured memory recall of critical information was 60%, 60%, and 63% respectively.
  • Only about 20% of respondents said their organizations are measuring work performance.
  • Only about 16% of respondents said their organizations are measuring the organizational results from learning.
  • Interestingly, where the Four-Level Model puts all types of Results into one bucket, the LTEM framework encourages us to look at other results besides business results.
    • About 12% said their organizations were looking at the effect of the learning on the learner’s success and well-being.
    • Only about 3% said they were measuring the effects of learning on coworkers/family/friends.
    • Only about 3% said they were measuring the effects of learning on the community or society (as has been recommended by Roger Kaufman for years).
    • Only about 1% reported measuring the effects of learning on the environs.

 

Opportunities

The biggest opportunity—or the juiciest low-hanging fruit—is that we can stop just using Tier-1 attendance and Tier-3 learner-perception measures.

We can also begin to go beyond our 60%-rate in measuring Tier-4 knowledge and do more Tier-5 and Tier-6 assessments. As I’ve advocated for years, Tier-5 assessments using well-constructed scenario-based questions are the perfect balance of power and cost. They are aligned with the research on learning, they have moderate costs in terms of resources, and learners see them as challenging and interesting rather than punitive and unhelpful like they often see knowledge checks.

We can also begin to emphasize more Tier-7 evaluations. Shouldn’t we know whether our learning interventions are actually transferring to the workplace? The same is true for Tier-8 measures. We should look for strategic opportunities here—being mindful to the incredible costs of doing good Tier-8 evaluations. We should also consider looking beyond business results—as these are not the only effects our learning interventions are having.

Finally, we can use LTEM to help guide our learning-development efforts and our learning evaluations. By using LTEM, we are prompted to see things that have been hidden from us for decades.

 

The Original eLearning Guild Report

To get the original eLearning Guild report, click here.

 

The LTEM Model

To get the LTEM Model and the 34-page report that goes with it, click here.

19 of the Most Popular Blog Posts in the Learning Field

What do our most popular blog posts say about our field—the learning field?

A few months ago (in the last half of 2018), I reached out to bloggers in the learning field to find out. This blog post includes the numbers, wit, and wisdom from these bloggers. In addition to me, there are 18 other bloggers who generously shared their most popular blog posts.

I’m thrilled with the cross section of bloggers who are included here. We’ve got mega-bloggers (people who get over 25,000 people coming to their homepage each year, we’ve got medium bloggers, and we’ve got folks with small but passionate audiences. We’ve got some of the biggest names in the learning field. We’ve got folks focused on workplace learning and folks focused on education. We’ve got about an even split between men and women. Most of all, we have a group of folks bold and generous enough to share the reality of their blogs.

My Observations From the Results

I highly encourage you to peruse the contributions below. Each blogger shares his/her most popular blog post—the post that gets the most yearly visits—and reflects on what makes it so popular. They also share their feelings about why they’re blogging in the first place.

Some of the most popular posts are short. Some are long. Some are personal, even intimate. Some recount research with cold steely precision. Some have a negative slant, raging against poor practices. Some have a positive slant, reveling in the wonder of learning and service to others.

So what makes for a popular blog post in the learning field? Well, we have a relatively small and certainly not-fully representative sample, but the most important thing seems to be providing people with information that is perceived as valuable and/or unique. Some characteristics that seem especially important:

  • Answering important questions—questions that often get asked.
  • Providing definitive or research-based information.
  • Debunking myths or arguing against common traditional practices.
  • Providing a list of information.
  • Providing links where readers can learn more.
  • Introducing a creative or unique concept or idea.
  • Focusing on a topic of current popular interest.
  • There is a visual element to the blog post.
  • The topic is one likely to be assigned by university professors.
  • Timeless topics, because over time they engender lots of links.
  • Topics that help people do their work better.

These are some of the lesson learned from my reflections. You will probably see other things in the list of most popular blog posts. Please add your observations and conclusions in the comments below.

The bloggers are listed in random order below.

What the Blog Posts Say about the Learning Field

Our sample of bloggers offer thoughtful reflections on the practice of learning and development. It seems readers are hungry for useful, validated, and unique information—as long as it is presented in ways that are pithy, straightforward, and powerful.

To me, as a research-to-practice guy, I’m encouraged by the interest in evidence-based information and the number of people searching for information on learning myths. I’m also delighted that none of the most popular blog posts are advocating silly or harmful fads. This could be a result of the kinds of people likely to respond to a call to action from me, someone known for a certain perspective and approach. On the other hand, I did ask people to share the call-to-action widely and we did get quite a broad range of bloggers.

The most popular blog posts also suggest that blog readers in the learning field are looking for information that they can use right away—that add value and help them do their work.

Our readers also want unique perspectives. Not the same old thing. Some of the most popular posts talked about humble leadership, training ghettos, being human on social media, and digital body language—topics so compelling that readers can’t help but engage.

What do you think the list of most popular blog posts say about the learning field? Respond below! I’d love to hear multiple perspectives on this.

I got interested in the popularity of different blog posts because one of my blog posts is ridiculously more popular than my blog itself, regularly getting more than three times more traffic than my home page!! I’ll give you my stats first, and then share each blogger’s responses one at a time—shared in a random order.

Will Thalheimer

What is the name of your blog? (NOT YOUR URL)

Will’s Blog (formerly Will At Work Learning)

Blog Address:

https://www.worklearning.com/wills-blog/

What do you try to do in your blog? What’s your focus, goal, or slant?

My blog is designed to share research-based practical wisdom with the workplace learning field and news and research of importance to those who follow my work. Focuses more and more on learning evaluation.

What is the URL of your most visited blog post?

https://www.worklearning.com/2006/05/01/people_remember/

What is the title of this blog post?

People remember 10%, 20%…Oh Really?

How many page views FOR THIS PARTICULAR BLOG POST in the last 12 MONTHS?

34,135

How many page views FOR YOUR BLOG’S HOME PAGE in the last 12 MONTHS?

9,994

What is the gist or main message of THIS blog post?

The post debunks the myth that people remember 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see, etc. These numbers have often been associated with the learning pyramid and Edgar Dale’s Cone. This was my original blog post from 2006 and has been updated over the years.

Why do you think this post is so popular with your readers?

The myth is so widely shared and so many people have taken responsibility to debunk this myth on their own blogs and websites that lots of traffic gets pointed to this post as it was among the first warnings posted on the internet.

Mike Taylor

What is the name of your blog? (NOT YOUR URL)

Ask. Learn. Share.

Blog Address:

https://mike-taylor.org/

What do you try to do in your blog? What’s your focus, goal, or slant?

Share useful things from the intersection of learning, design, and technology.

What is the URL of your most visited blog post?

https://mike-taylor.org/2011/06/10/21-questions-to-ask-before-designing-any-training-program/

What is the title of this blog post?

21 Questions to ask before Designing Any Training Program

How many page views FOR THIS PARTICULAR BLOG POST in the last 12 MONTHS?

2,244

How many page views FOR YOUR BLOG’S HOME PAGE in the last 12 MONTHS?

7,254

What is the gist or main message of THIS blog post?

This page is just a collection of the most recent posts.

Why do you think this post is so popular with your readers?

I think this is a very key foundational idea for how to get started on any learning-related project.

Andrew Jacobs

What is the name of your blog? (NOT YOUR URL)

Lost and Desperate.

Blog Address:

https://lostanddesperate.com/

What do you try to do in your blog? What’s your focus, goal, or slant?

Writing about learning in a way which helps me reflect and tries to move the industry forward.

What is the URL of your most visited blog post?

https://lostanddesperate.com/2014/03/14/50-big-ideas-to-change-l-and-d/

What is the title of this blog post?

50 BIG IDEAS TO CHANGE L AND D

How many page views FOR THIS PARTICULAR BLOG POST in the last 12 MONTHS?

151

How many page views FOR YOUR BLOG’S HOME PAGE in the last 12 MONTHS?

1,097

What is the gist or main message of THIS blog post?

There are lots of ways you can develop your L&D offer that just need you to think a bit bigger.

Why do you think this post is so popular with your readers?

It’s aspirational, it’s practical, it’s a bit evangelical.

Jo Cook

What is the name of your blog? (NOT YOUR URL)

Lightbulb Moment Blog

Blog Address:

https://lightbulbmoment.info

What do you try to do in your blog? What’s your focus, goal, or slant?

Virtual classroom and webinars, but also learning and development more broadly.

What is the URL of your most visited blog post?

https://lightbulbmoment.info/2018/04/04/what-is-digital-body-language/

What is the title of this blog post?

What is Digital Body Language?

How many page views FOR THIS PARTICULAR BLOG POST in the last 12 MONTHS?

704

How many page views FOR YOUR BLOG’S HOME PAGE in the last 12 MONTHS?

6,189

What is the gist or main message of THIS blog post?

That there is an online equivalent of body language for when delivering virtual classrooms.

Why do you think this post is so popular with your readers?

It’s a new concept on an area where people don’t have much experience or confidence.

Ryan Tracey

What is the name of your blog? (NOT YOUR URL)

E-Learning Provocateur

Blog Address:

https://ryan2point0.wordpress.com

What do you try to do in your blog? What’s your focus, goal, or slant?

To provoke deeper thinking about digital learning in the corporate sector.

What is the URL of your most visited blog post?

https://ryan2point0.wordpress.com/2010/01/12/taxonomy-of-learning-theories/

What is the title of this blog post?

Taxonomy of Learning Theories

How many page views FOR THIS PARTICULAR BLOG POST in the last 12 MONTHS?

1,113

How many page views FOR YOUR BLOG’S HOME PAGE in the last 12 MONTHS?

8,019

What is the gist or main message of THIS blog post?

A brief overview of, and a proposed taxonomy for, key theories that apply to workplace learning.

Why do you think this post is so popular with your readers?

Because practitioners are confused by different theories and are uncertain as to how they apply to their role.

Wilfred Rubens

What is the name of your blog? (NOT YOUR URL)

WilfredRubens.com over leren en ICT

Blog Address:

http://www.te-learning.nl/blog/

What do you try to do in your blog? What’s your focus, goal, or slant?

I am very interested in how technology can enhance and facilitate learning. I use my blog to share information about technology enhanced learning.

What is the URL of your most visited blog post?

http://www.te-learning.nl/blog/voor-en-nadelen-gebruik-sociale-media-door-jongeren/

What is the title of this blog post?

Voor- en nadelen gebruik sociale media door jongeren

Translated into English by Google: Pros and cons of the use social media by young people

How many page views FOR THIS PARTICULAR BLOG POST in the last 12 MONTHS?

16,515

How many page views FOR YOUR BLOG’S HOME PAGE in the last 12 MONTHS?

14,227

What is the gist or main message of THIS blog post?

Overview of pro’s and con’s of the use of social media by young people. People who are currently arguing in favour of ‘ban the media’ are gradually putting themselves outside social reality. It is better to focus on sensible use, using the possibilities of social media. That is more effective than fighting against windmills.

Why do you think this post is so popular with your readers?

Actual for more than ten years. Content is appealing. Food for thought. Well indexed by search engines.

Julie Drybrough

What is the name of your blog? (NOT YOUR URL)

fuchsia blue blog

Blog Address:

https://fuchsiablueblog.wordpress.com

What do you try to do in your blog? What’s your focus, goal, or slant?

I write about organisational learning/ change/ culture as I see them. I write vignettes about my consultancy work and observation pieces about our profession/ field. I try to get folk thinking more deeply or oddly about what they do.

What is the URL of your most visited blog post?

https://fuchsiablueblog.wordpress.com/2016/03/05/the-power-of-humble-leadership/

What is the title of this blog post?

The Power of Humble Leadership

How many page views FOR THIS PARTICULAR BLOG POST in the last 12 MONTHS?

208

How many page views FOR YOUR BLOG’S HOME PAGE in the last 12 MONTHS?

2,852

What is the gist or main message of THIS blog post?

Intro to fuchsia blue – about me etc

Why do you think this post is so popular with your readers?

It’s the front-page when you hit the site, generally

Neil Von Heupt

What is the name of your blog? (NOT YOUR URL)

Divergent Learning

Blog Address:

https://divergentlearning.wordpress.com/

What do you try to do in your blog? What’s your focus, goal, or slant?

I try to write things that will add value to those who might read them.

What is the URL of your most visited blog post?

https://divergentlearning.wordpress.com/2017/08/25/a-human-social-media-experiment/

What is the title of this blog post?

A human social media experiment

How many page views FOR THIS PARTICULAR BLOG POST in the last 12 MONTHS?

99

How many page views FOR YOUR BLOG’S HOME PAGE in the last 12 MONTHS?

163

What is the gist or main message of THIS blog post?

Being human on social media

Why do you think this post is so popular with your readers?

It had two things going for it – a trip down memory lane via childhood books, and a curated list of L&D reading material. And it was quite visual, so I guess that’s three!

Brett Christensen

What is the name of your blog? (NOT YOUR URL)

Workplace Performance

Blog Address:

https://workplaceperformanceblog.wordpress.com/

What do you try to do in your blog? What’s your focus, goal, or slant?

Promote the science of performance improvement.

What is the URL of your most visited blog post?

https://workplaceperformanceblog.wordpress.com/2016/05/26/needs-assessment-or-needs-analysis/

What is the title of this blog post?

Needs Assessment or Needs Analysis

How many page views FOR THIS PARTICULAR BLOG POST in the last 12 MONTHS?

521

How many page views FOR YOUR BLOG’S HOME PAGE in the last 12 MONTHS?

3,577

What is the gist or main message of THIS blog post?

There is a difference between needs assessment and needs analysis.

Why do you think this post is so popular with your readers?

Because it’s a common question and I hope I am writing in a way that connects with everyone.

Dennis Callahan

What is the name of your blog? (NOT YOUR URL)

Learnstreaming

Blog Address:

http://learnstreaming.com/

What do you try to do in your blog? What’s your focus, goal, or slant?

Sharing my thoughts on workplace learning.

What is the URL of your most visited blog post?

http://learnstreaming.com/learning-means-believing-in-yourself/

What is the title of this blog post?

Learning Means Believing in Yourself

How many page views FOR THIS PARTICULAR BLOG POST in the last 12 MONTHS?

4,440

How many page views FOR YOUR BLOG’S HOME PAGE in the last 12 MONTHS?

Not Sure

What is the gist or main message of THIS blog post?

To learn, you need to have confidence in yourself, You can do it!

Why do you think this post is so popular with your readers?

With so much change and uncertainty, you are always the constant. Trust and believe in yourself and you can grow.

Mirjam Neelen and Paul Kirschner

What is the name of your blog? (NOT YOUR URL)

3-Star Learning Experiences

Blog Address:

https://3starlearningexperiences.wordpress.com/

What do you try to do in your blog? What’s your focus, goal, or slant?

Our blog aims to present learning professionals with evidence-informed ideas on how to make both the instructional and the learning experience more effective, efficient, and enjoyable. We discuss fads & fallacies, we try to find nuance, and we provide our readers with concrete ideas on how to design 3-star learning experiences based on the evidence out there!

What is the URL of your most visited blog post?

https://3starlearningexperiences.wordpress.com/2018/06/05/no-feedback-no-learning/

What is the title of this blog post?

No Feedback, No Learning

How many page views FOR THIS PARTICULAR BLOG POST in the last 12 MONTHS?

5,761

How many page views FOR YOUR BLOG’S HOME PAGE in the last 12 MONTHS?

13,583

What is the gist or main message of THIS blog post?

This blog discusses why feedback is critical for learning as well as different types of feedback for learning and how they hurt or support learning.

Why do you think this post is so popular with your readers?

I think people realize that feedback is one of the most, if not the most important tools for supporting learning. Giving effective feedback has also been found to be one of the most powerful educational interventions to improve learning. Effective feedback positively affects learning outcomes and motivation to learn, and can help build accurate schema.

Christy Tucker

What is the name of your blog? (NOT YOUR URL)

Experiencing E-Learning

Blog Address:

https://christytucker.wordpress.com

What do you try to do in your blog? What’s your focus, goal, or slant?

Mostly instructional design for elearning, especially scenarios for workplace learning.

What is the URL of your most visited blog post?

https://christytucker.wordpress.com/2007/05/26/what-does-an-instructional-designer-do/

What is the title of this blog post?

No Feedback, No Learning

How many page views FOR THIS PARTICULAR BLOG POST in the last 12 MONTHS?

32,246

How many page views FOR YOUR BLOG’S HOME PAGE in the last 12 MONTHS?

7,141

What is the gist or main message of THIS blog post?

It’s my explanation of what instructional designers do, as a response to all the times I have had to explain my work to others

Why do you think this post is so popular with your readers?

It answers a question people genuinely have (what is instructional design). It used to rank better in search engine results, but has dropped because the post is now over 10 years old.

Donald H Taylor

What is the name of your blog? (NOT YOUR URL)

Donald H Taylor

Blog Address:

http://donaldhtaylor.co.uk/

What do you try to do in your blog? What’s your focus, goal, or slant?

Share my thoughts on learning and performance at work.

What is the URL of your most visited blog post?

http://donaldhtaylor.co.uk/are-you-in-the-training-ghetto/

What is the title of this blog post?

Are you in the Training Ghetto?

How many page views FOR THIS PARTICULAR BLOG POST in the last 12 MONTHS?

Not Sure

How many page views FOR YOUR BLOG’S HOME PAGE in the last 12 MONTHS?

Not Sure

What is the gist or main message of THIS blog post?

Many L&D departments run the risk of being sidelined as they fail to adapt to change at the same speed as the rest of the business.

Why do you think this post is so popular with your readers?

People recognise the issues involved, and can place themselves on the 2×2 grid I provide.

Matt Guyan

What is the name of your blog? (NOT YOUR URL)

Learn. Show. Repeat.

Blog Address:

http://www.mattguyan.com/

What do you try to do in your blog? What’s your focus, goal, or slant?

To share what I’m learning as well as my thoughts about eLearning.

What is the URL of your most visited blog post?

http://www.mattguyan.com/letter-to-an-elearning-creator/

What is the title of this blog post?

Letter to an eLearning Creator

How many page views FOR THIS PARTICULAR BLOG POST in the last 12 MONTHS?

4,760

How many page views FOR YOUR BLOG’S HOME PAGE in the last 12 MONTHS?

2,615

What is the gist or main message of THIS blog post?

I was venting my frustration at many of the things that are wrong with eLearning!

Why do you think this post is so popular with your readers?

People seemed to relate to it either as a developer or user.

Guy Wallace

What is the name of your blog? (NOT YOUR URL)

Pursuing Performance

Blog Address:

https://eppic.biz/

What do you try to do in your blog? What’s your focus, goal, or slant?

Share on the topics and tasks of performance-based ISD and Performance Improvement, and pay it forward, as my many mentors had done for me.

What is the URL of your most visited blog post?

https://eppic.biz/2012/03/26/the-big-5-in-human-personality-assessments-canoe/

What is the title of this blog post?

The Big 5 in Human Personality Assessments: CANOE

How many page views FOR THIS PARTICULAR BLOG POST in the last 12 MONTHS?

12,815

How many page views FOR YOUR BLOG’S HOME PAGE in the last 12 MONTHS?

43,428

What is the gist or main message of THIS blog post?

Sharing a valid approach to personality assessments: The Big Five factors are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (common acronyms are OCEAN, NEOAC, or CANOE).

Why do you think this post is so popular with your readers?

Those that become aware of the shortcoming of MBTI, DiSC, etc. in some uses within HR need something valid in its place.

Connie Malamed

What is the name of your blog? (NOT YOUR URL)

The eLearning Coach

Blog Address:

http://theelearningcoach.com

What do you try to do in your blog? What’s your focus, goal, or slant?

My focus is on designing learning experiences in the workplace to support adult learners and to help them improve their performance at work. I try to cover topics related to this, such as instructional design, cognitive psychology, visual design and multimedia, technology-based learning, etc.

What is the URL of your most visited blog post?

http://theelearningcoach.com/learning/10-definitions-learning/

What is the title of this blog post?

10 Definitions of Learning

How many page views FOR THIS PARTICULAR BLOG POST in the last 12 MONTHS?

90,730

How many page views FOR YOUR BLOG’S HOME PAGE in the last 12 MONTHS?

25,541

What is the gist or main message of THIS blog post?

We all know that the human brain is immensely complex and still somewhat of a mystery. It follows then, that learning—a primary function of the brain—is understood in many different ways. Here are ten ways that learning can be described.

Why do you think this post is so popular with your readers?

I think the traffic is coming from any type of learning professional (IDers, teachers, professors, trainers) who are interested in the variety of ways to think about learning. They are trying to figure out what learning is or they have a philosophical interest. It could also be coming from students who need a definition for a paper they are writing.

Christopher Pappas

What is the name of your blog? (NOT YOUR URL)

eLearning Industry

Blog Address:

https://elearningindustry.com

What do you try to do in your blog? What’s your focus, goal, or slant?

The best collection of eLearning articles, eLearning concepts, eLearning software, and eLearning resources.

What is the URL of your most visited blog post?

https://elearningindustry.com/the-20-best-learning-management-systems

What is the title of this blog post?

The 20 Best Learning Management Systems (2018 Update)

How many page views FOR THIS PARTICULAR BLOG POST in the last 12 MONTHS?

151,345

How many page views FOR YOUR BLOG’S HOME PAGE in the last 12 MONTHS?

288,334

What is the gist or main message of THIS blog post?

Choosing the right Learning Management System for the deployment of your eLearning courses might seem a daunting task. Care to find out about the best Learning Management Systems the eLearning industry has to offer? In this article, I’ll present a list of the 20 best Learning Management Systems for all needs and budgets.

Why do you think this post is so popular with your readers?

There are many organization that are looking to find or replace their Learning Management System. They are interested to read what eLearning Industry has to offer.

Michelle Ockers

What is the name of your blog? (NOT YOUR URL)

It doesn’t have a name.

Blog Address:

http://michelleockers.com/blog/

What do you try to do in your blog? What’s your focus, goal, or slant?

(1) Thought leadership – opinions on role and future of L&D. Increasingly targeted at business leaders. (2) Daily dispatches – Narrating my work (term from Austin Kleon) http://michelleockers.com/daily-dispatches/.

What is the URL of your most visited blog post?

http://michelleockers.com/mo-blog/how-we-modernised-our-learning-and-development-model-mindset-and-capabilities/

What is the title of this blog post?

How We Modernised our Learning and Development Model, Mindset and Capabilities

How many page views FOR THIS PARTICULAR BLOG POST in the last 12 MONTHS?

Not Sure

How many page views FOR YOUR BLOG’S HOME PAGE in the last 12 MONTHS?

Not Sure

What is the gist or main message of THIS blog post?

Modernisation of L&D practices, mindset and capability.

Why do you think this post is so popular with your readers?

Case study. Tips.

Tracy Schiffmann

What is the name of your blog? (NOT YOUR URL)

Brain-Based and Trauma-Informed Teaching

Blog Address:

http://www.tracyschiffmann.com

What do you try to do in your blog? What’s your focus, goal, or slant?

Support teachers and trainers in working more effectively with trauma-impacted adult learners.

What is the URL of your most visited blog post?

http://tracy-schiffmann.squarespace.com/blog/2016/12/17/10-trauma-informed-classroom-strategies-for-navigating-behavior-emergencies

What is the title of this blog post?

10 Trauma-Informed Classroom Strategies for Navigating Classroom Behavior Emergencies

How many page views FOR THIS PARTICULAR BLOG POST in the last 12 MONTHS?

429

How many page views FOR YOUR BLOG’S HOME PAGE in the last 12 MONTHS?

66

What is the gist or main message of THIS blog post?

I introduce 10 practical strategies for responding to challenging classroom behavior that may be a result of trauma-impact. I then share a true story from my teaching experience and demonstrate how the strategies were used to respond to the upset adult learner.

Why do you think this post is so popular with your readers?

I have many readers who teach trauma-impacted adult learners in prisons, jails, community-based organizations, and community colleges. They see the impact of trauma on both behavior and on their student’s ability to learn. Institutionalized racism, natural disasters, bullying, childhood abuse, and even the current political climate are traumatizing.