At a recent online discussion held by the Minnesota Chapter of ISPI, where they were discussing the Serious eLearning Manifesto, Michael Allen offered a brilliant idea for learning professionals.

Michael’s company, Allen Interactions, talks regularly with prospective clients. It is in this capacity that Michael often asks this question (or one with this gist):

What is the last thing you want your learners to be doing in training before they go back to their work?

Michael knows the answer—he is using Socratic questioning here—and the answer should be obvious to those skilled in developing learning. We want people to be practicing what they’ve learned, and hopefully practicing in as realistic a way as possible. Of course!

Of course, but too often we don’t think like this. We have our instructional objectives and we plow through to cover content, hoping against hope that the knowledge seeds we plant will magically turn into performance on the job—as if knowledge can be harvested without any further nurturance.

We must remember the wisdom behind Michael’s question, that it is our job as learning professionals to ensure our learners are not only gaining knowledge, but that they are getting practice in making decisions and practicing realistic tasks.

One way to encourage yourself to engage in these good practices is to utilize the LTEM model, a learning evaluation model designed to support us as learning professionals in measuring what’s truly important in learning. LTEM’s Tier 5 and 6 encourage us to evaluate learners’ proficiency in making work-relevant decisions (Tier 5) and performing work-relevant tasks (Tier 6).

Whatever method you use to encourage your organization and team to engage in this research-based best practice, remember that we are harming our learners when we just teach content. Without practice, very little learning will transfer to the workplace.