The Case for the Learning Construction Site

Why is the collaborative learning of the Learning Construction Site a better way than traditional teaching?

Here are twenty reasons; there may be more. I hope you will use them to communicate the power of the Learning Construction Site to stakeholders, co-workers, bosses and anyone who thinks “despair”, “irrelevance” and “bore” are synonymous of training in organizations. There is a better way!

Teaching is competitive and ineffective; the Learning Construction Site is collaborative and more effective

As far as research is concerned, the method has its ex-post validation from the research about cooperative learning by Roger T. Johnson and David W. Johnson. They researched the subject and demonstrated that cooperative learning strategies work better than individualistic or competitive ones. In several studies they demonstrated that the strategy and experience of cooperative learning scores higher in the following areas:

• Ability to motivate to learn more about the subject area being studied;
• Ability to create positive attitudes toward both the subject area and the instructional experience;
• Ability to work productively in a group, to grow their “collaborative competencies”;
• Ability to understand how a situation appears to another person and how that person is reacting to it. (Called “cognitive and affective perspective-taking” with the opposite as egocentrism);
• Ability to promote constructive socialization and expectations toward more rewarding, pleasant and enjoyable future interactions among students.***

 

*** Additionally collaborative learning score higher than traditional methods to build self-esteem; to think critically and use higher reasoning strategies; to generate beliefs that one is personally liked, supported and accepted by other students (in a way that others are perceived to want to help one learn).

 

Teaching is old-fashioned; the Learning Construction Site is state-of-the-art

 

We have had developments in the art of teaching adults. We have new research and ideas. So then why are we teaching people the same way we have always done? The learning research of the last 50 years keeps repeating: adults are not to be taught as kids, interactivity and learner autonomy improves learning. Why on earth are we still in the Stone Age when it comes to teaching?

 

Let’s be honest here: today lecturing is still the prevalent way of having adults learn. The most we can get is “interactive” lectures, which are still one-way communication based on the assumptions of an old model. When will we throw this old-fashioned model away and start from scratch? Why do we prize the latest technology for computers but despise it for adult learning and human interactions?

 

I am often exposed to the old-fashioned ritual of training that is still prevalent today. It does not work, at least as well as it could. Collaborative learning uses the power of a group to bring about learning. It acknowledges the latest research on adult learning that favors handing over the stick of the learning process to the learners themselves. Revolutionary? Hardly since the ideas and its supporting research has been around fro half a century. Hard to implement? Evidently.

Asking “Are there any questions?” at the end of a lecture does not change the dynamics. Why do you think people hardly ask any questions after this tip of the hat to collaboration? They have been shown throughout the lecture that their input does not count, so they do not give it. Traditional teaching is about having answers for questions. Collaborative Learning is about questioning reality and the answers that you have. Together.

Teaching is funny; the Learning Construction Site is serious

How do you capture attention with teaching? Tell a joke. Be funny. Be entertaining, but what is so funny about not having skills to do your job? Teaching has a serious problem: the jokes may be funny, but they are not credible. Often while teaching repeats the punch line from the last presentation’s guru, trainees ignore the content of the session. All the books about how to give presentations come to the rescue. Still haven’t “icebreakers” become synonymous with “goofy games” trainers force people to perform in front of their colleagues?

 

Building skills or knowledge is serious business that requires an effective approach. Defining tasks that replicate real-skill application, selecting those that reflect trainees’ interests and jobs, deciding how one should start, testing specific items that will create the final assessment, imagining which areas are important to cover in a follow up session… These and other questions are serious. “Tell us: what is your favorite food?” of “What song will you sing?” are not. These platitudes are often used to show that the session is interactive (!)

 

Collaborative Learning is light-hearted, fun and relaxing. But never funny. We like to leave the jokes and the clever statements to traditional teachers so they can make their teaching more palatable. 

 

Teaching is easy for trainers and hard for trainees; the Learning Construction Site is difficult for trainers and easier for trainees

I can understand how traditional teaching became the standard for making adults learn: it’s a matter of time and resources. Teaching takes so little time! One can even read from a written page (!). In collaborative learning you are creating learning exercises: you need to know about what they want to learn, how they want to learn it and what works best.  With teaching you can walk into class with a PowerPoint presentation and you are done with it. With collaborative learning you need time and resources. Guess which of the two models is most used for low-paid instructor jobs? They pay you to teach in the traditional way and there is no compensation for planning or evaluating the learning. And the cost for the learners of not doing those two things is never considered.

 

As you know once an opinion gets established it is tremendously hard to change. Take a few examples: “Accounting is hard”, “I’m not good with languages”. With complex subjects that elicit people’s sense of powerlessness teaching has created monsters: “Has accounting ever being taught using collaborative learning? Not likely. But Laszlo Polgar, the Czech Chess master and trainer used to say about difficult subjects: “We were warned that algebra was going to be really difficult, whereas Einstein was told that it was a hunt for a creature known as “X” and that when you caught it, it had to tell you its name”.

 

Why have the subject of foreign languages instruction been such a fertile ground for new methods of teaching, like Berlitz? It might be because teaching ineffectiveness in that area is so visible, there is a stronger need for something to replace it. Additionally the international business world might have contributed an healthy focus on results. And resources.

 

Teaching is full of words; the Learning Construction Site is full of actions

In the western tradition we worship words. We consider the holy books of the revealed three religions as the expression of a universal belief that what is written is more real than words. “Words fly and the written ones stay”, states an old Latin saying. As a result teaching today is almost entirely written. Images or clip art just reinforce the word.  But – I argue – written words have little credibility in training.

 

If I tell you: “You should do this” or “You should do that” is that learning? Showing people the final destination is not the same as getting there. Imagine you are lost trying to drive to a train station because you do not know how to drive. How useless would it be if someone passes and simply points me to my destination? Don’t actions speak louder? I can see the same Indiana Jones movie 20 times but I still do not know how to jump from a cliff and survive!

 

Quintilianus in the 88 AD defined a good teacher as a”good man, skilled at talking”. Isn’t the image many of today’s training professionals would like to emulate? Unfortunately in the ancient Rome teachers were teachers of rhetoric, often lawyers, and winning an argument was their focus. This was 1800 years before Livingston, Montana, the birth place of Malcom Knowles, the father of Adult education movement was even founded!

Collaborative learning must work to create not a “speaker” instructor but content that speaks to trainees through actions. The focus needs to shift from the words of the trainer to the words already in the mind of the trainees (in the analysis phase) and those they share during the session (in the delivery phase) and spark some action, some error, something. Interact with other people, defend your position, argue point and counterpoint, be challenged and collectively get the answer. This is a good way to for them to cross – like Indiana Jones – the rope bridge of real learning laid between the “I do not know it” and “I know it” on the edge of the abyss.

Teaching is untrustworthy; the Learning Construction Site is credible

Invariably it has never been easy to measure the impact of training. Training has a terrible reputation for results and has not been accountable in the past. Based as it is on involvement and sharing practices, the whole Instructional System Design process flows better in a collaborative learning program. If your training is an exercise in talking and lecturing, how credible can you be as a listener with stakeholders in preparation for training?

 

Why aren’t training directors invited into boardrooms? Because in the 21^st century 2005 it is still unclear to the majority of the non-training professionals what results training brings to a company’s bottom-line and teaching has not done a good job explaining it.  Advertising agencies in their infancy understood that without market research to prove impact they could not convince companies to spend on advertising. Without results there are rumors, without evidence and facts there is no credibility.  If it is not measured we cannot have either teaching or collaborative learning take credit for it. Is teaching up to this challenge? I suspect that the moment accountability comes into the picture, teaching will disappear and collaborative learning will takes its place.

 

Trainers who do not bother to test their trainees or to evaluate them because it is risky are missing an opportunity to take credit for their own work and fail to practice a key quality commandment: feedback. Teaching repeats itself and a teacher may repeat the same materials for years. In collaborative learning this cannot happen. Beyond everything else, training needs credibility. Credibility calls for results. Collaborative learning can produce and document its results better.

Teaching makes the content hard to believe; the Learning Construction Site makes the content easy to believe

 

I was at a session for trainers once. A presenter was proudly showing how trainers can use the power of magic in their sessions. He then proceeded to make coins disappear and flowers pop up all while casually introducing the subject. The high point of the magic show would be to turn a tiger into a showgirl! Incredible! Teaching wants to create the same impression:  if the trainer guesses the number of coins in your pocket, the trainee is supposed to think: what a great, incredible trainer.

But incredible is, by definition hard to believe. No matter how much creative camouflage your lecture has, at its core remains teaching: at the end of the day it’s one person talking. Collaborative learning has a credibility issue too.  Do you believe everything that is said and done in a small group? Of course not. But there is an important difference: trainees in a small team are trying to learn in a joint effort: nobody is supposed to say the right thing all the time. And people are supposedly learning so they are giving it a try.

Additionally, when people learn they supposedly start with a clean slate. With collaborative learning, new skills, ideas and knowledge have little chance of rejection. If you don’t know anything about organic chemistry and a co-worker is sharing what she knows you are more likely to hear what is said in the group with an open mind. When you do not know better about something and a person – not perceived as distant – say something about it you are likely to believe it. Why should they lie to you? It may not be true but for the time being, it is a good block to build on. It comes from a credible source (a co-worker) not an incredible one (the teacher). Collaborative learning is peer-learning.

Here is the only magic I advocate for trainers in their learning events: turn trainees with a little info, knowledge or skill into informed practitioners of the subject at hand, willing to learn more. Collaborative learning can do it and, believe me it is more significant than turning a tiger into a showgirl!

Teaching is autocratic and directive; the Learning Construction Site is democratic and other-directed

 

Have you ever wondered what happen to good, honest professionals at work when they talk about training? Perfectly nice human beings who give to charity and think of themselves as progressive, suddenly turn into autocratic small dictators full of “They should do what we say”, “They have to do this otherwise they lose their job”. Teaching feeds into the need for control of one’s work life and is more attractive when promises conformity to the rules of management.

 

Sit. Jump. Stay. Isn’t this an agenda for teaching? Unfortunately for those improvised “social engineers” not even dogs learn by orders alone; it is the awesome power of the learning relationship established with an instructor that makes the trick. Training is not about “Do what I say”. Period. How about trying something different? Maybe you can try to establish a relationship with those who are counting on you to share knowledge and see where it leads.

An organization launching a corporate training program has decided in most cases what to teach, to whom, and how. With collaborative learning an organization literally puts its future in the hands of others. It’s them that will be telling you what they need to learn, and what part of your content is more useful to them. As a trainer if you ignore this information it is at your own risk. If at the end of your training session they do not learn, listen very hard for the reasons why. Change something and do it again. If they do either they learn with it or not. If they do not learn it is either because they do not care, do not want to or they can’t. Again, ask them. They will appreciate it. You are modeling learning. You are learning from them.  Letting the trainees dictate your training may seems kind of foolish. But if you think about it what choice do you have? You should not fight your learners. They will win every time. Persistence sometimes is paid off with animosity as far as trainees are concerned! Resistance? It is easy to resist a training program based on traditional teaching. If you want to resist a collaborative learning program, they have their work cut out for them!

Teaching teaches the subject with little creativity; the Learning Construction Site teaches people creatively

Groups have a life of their own. Teaching often does not consider this. Teaching is too frequently the same for a group of 5, 15 or 50.  Collaborative learning takes into account the human relationships that people establish when they work together. Teaching assumes that people are ready to learn, like bottles to fill. Collaborative learning assumes that people bring their life to learning and co-create together. 

 

Creativity does not belong to many traditional teaching methods because the basic aim of many traditional teaching methods is control over the learners. This means that there is an effort to achieve uniformity and neat and differences and confusion is seen as failure. How creative can you be if you have to respect all policies, minimize all risks and avoid at all costs to be exposed for even the smallest mistake? So teaching can be creative up to a point. Collaborative learning needs to be original in the sense that it needs to put people joined together in charge of learning with each other.

 

Is collaborative learning cheerleading? No it is not: learning is about doing something together using group dynamics. It takes creativity to do it. Can the content of the training become an excuse to get together? The task of a collaborative learning trainer is to take the skills or knowledge to be taught, and with a generous dose of creativity, find ways to create something enjoyable people would like to do in groups cooperatively so that they can learn from it. People want to learn with as little effort as possible. The creative work of collaborative learning is to find activities that bring learning to life while minimizing the effort to make it happen.

Teaching is unaccountable public speaking; the Learning Construction Site is accountable change

 

You cannot force your way into another person’s mind to teach. Traditional teaching is an imposition, an ineffective process to impart learning, a process that generates resistance, ignores the nature of adult learning and subtracts powerful resources from the act of learning itself. Particularly true at the beginner level, the harder the teaching the harder the resistance.

Could you do some basic conversation in French after your French class? Can you use Word after a computer class for beginners? Do you feel more able to do a presentation after a presentation skills class? The proof is in the pudding. Rather that how can I teach someone something, the question we should ask is – what tools do I have at my disposal so that learning a new knowledge skill or attitude can bring about real change in the life of learners? The pudding we have been served for years is the traditional, ever-present model of the expert-that dazzles-us, usually not accountable to anyone except the executives that will be invoiced. This is reminiscent of the Wizard of Oz: there is no wizard, no expert only practitioners with higher or lower levels of experience. It’s painfully true. It’s hard work.  Done together.

Unconventionally the contributors to our understanding on how adults learn like Rogers, Knowles, Johnson and Johnson, Freire, Vella and Heron think differently. From teaching the focus switches to learning, and learning it is no longer about the teacher. It is about the customers. Suddenly corporate training becomes accountable to customers and we start speaking the language of business. Customer service for training? Marketing management for training services? Training learner analysis? Why not?

Training is about change. People attend a class because they want to change from well lower to master presenters; from unable to draw to doodlers extraordinaire. Have my meetings run smoother after that meeting management class I took? Now that I have my accounting certificate can I make sense of a company balance sheet or guide my accountant in defining a financial plan for my family? Teaching is a mean to an end.  If the end is missing isn’t it time to replace the mean?

Teaching is predictable; the Learning Construction Site is dramatic

 

Corporate training efforts are like military campaigns, planned around a date and carried on in different “theatres”. Corporate training initiatives may be security training delivered through CBT, or Supervisory skills program in five separate 2-day sessions, etc..

But what happens when the smoke clears away? Normally the excitement is over and all looks as before. The teaching attitude is the same: trainees go on with their life and Human resources have one more line in their files that says that a training course was taken. It is very hard to force your way into a well defended beach in Normandy, as it is very hard to force your way into the mind of an adult person, no matter how cool your materials, how high the ranking of your top stakeholder, or how funny your presenter.

Collaborative learning is linear. One things lead to another and the elements unfold over time working together to strengthen each other. Collaborative learning may lead to a discussion forum on the internet. That brings to the posting of more materials for download. Then a conference call is organized and brings together all graduates. A small team decides to take a stab and create its own training tasks … With a professional orchestrating the effort you end up with drama, buildup, and climax. Not so with teaching. Everybody knows what happens next. Year in, year out, new teaching programs want to develop the “knowledge assets”, or “turn employees into skilled workforce” or “leverage the human capital”. A new trainer, a new course, a new PowerPoint presentation… but all a little less credible than the previous year. Soon it will not matter anymore: whatever the training department rolls out it does not make change happens at the corporate level.  At that point the link between results and training is lost and executives do not see any reason to involve the training function in key company decisions. Do you know anyone who is really excited about a new round of skill-based training classes in your company? If so congratulations: you work in an organization that probably already uses some form of collaborative learning. I would like to hear from you.

Teaching creates dependency and compliance; the Learning Construction Site creates autonomy
 

Teaching might be good for “preaching to the choir”. But if people have a hard time incorporating new information in their daily life or if the content is particularly complex Collaborative learning is better. Teaching might be used for acquiring information, but collaborative learning is better for processing it.

 

Unfortunately the “expert” model – with the knowledgeable teacher sharing information through a cool Powerpoint presentation – creates dependency. Sometimes a trainee learns from teaching. But not as well as she/he could. How can students be finally responsible for their own learning – as we want them to do after the session – if all we ask them to do in the session is to follow the instructions of the “guru”? With collaborative learning you cannot force a group to learn: it’s entirely in their hands. All you can do is to try to be thee with them as a resource. With an approach like that they will see you as someone who is trying to be helpful.  And you are. Really.

Teaching invades people’s privacy; the Learning Construction Site appeals to people’s sociality

 

We think that mysteries alone are significant and worthwhile exploring. One of those mistery is the process of how learning happens in individuals. Every time I am involved with training adults I feel like I am touching an almost sacred sphere of an individual. It is something that demands an inordinate amount of respect. It is almost an invitation to a person’s sanctuary. A way to show respect is to listen to the process. When adults learn something all individual insecurities mingle with memories of past failures or bad experiences with the subject; all conjure up to make people anxious and frustrated, and often, shy away from the difficulties encountered in the process.

 

With collaborative learning we appeal to people’s sociality as other people join us for the same journey on the road to learning. That provides some comfort.  With traditional teaching people are not heard and are instead talked to. Is this learning or is just informing? Asserting maybe? Stating perhaps? Learners are often forced to share their own input; input normally disregarded and collected to publicly homage participation. Paradoxically in an environment where everything suggests hierarchical control often “out of the box” thinking is solicited.

 

Every time I see the sparkle of learning light on a trainees face I am reminded that learning is a mysterious process hard to manage with words only. What ignites the spark of curiosity? What makes you search for it? What is really happening on the other side as I manage a group during a training session? According to teaching not much. According to collaborative learning, everything. And that is the side where “learning” takes place. 

 

 

 

Teaching makes trainers expert; the Learning Construction Site makes trainers resources

 

Is traditional teaching a way to make people learn? Maybe but a very inefficient one, as it turns out. In fact, if humans were meant to learn by listening alone we would be fine with it. But are people good at listening today? What about the content of the message? For instance, we know that if disagree with the message we hear for some reason is much harder to listen. So in traditional teaching, how does the trainer-“Big Mouth” deal with the skeptical that resist the message? It does not and normally ignores them. But look at collaborative learning: no one pushes, and right there it disappears the need to resist. Making teaching scarce makes resistance from trainees go away.

 

Soft selling?  Maybe, but consider this: if the content is complex or carries some emotional implications teacher/trainers need to help. To help we need to do something that may sound weird: we need not to identify with the content. In other words e are not the content, we are just practitioner with a greater level of experience on it. If we manage to present ourselves as a resource rather than as the expert, in that case in their difficulties with the subject-matter, learners struggle with the content not with you. And as a resource person yu can really help

And that is actually a sign they are really learning something.

 

Learning takes time and tenacity. How do I pass this key message to them? Teaching deals with this problem repeating: “Careful, this is hard!”.  With Collaborative learning you stay away and suddenly the power of learning cooperatively takes a life of its own. It is all about them and their struggle. My favorite intervention in the class is to sit down and let trainees know that they have work to do. Listening to the unfolding of the struggle to learn reminds me of my own limitations and of people’s potential.

 

I do think the job of educators it is to make learning easier not easy. Because easy it is not.

Teaching reaches everybody; the Learning Construction Site reaches those who need it

 

Teaching likes big numbers: 200 people attended the training; 500 hours of instruction were delivered. Does this tell that people who need it have learned it? Advertising reaches everybody too. But still some people do not act upon the information it provides. And when the advertisement is repeated over and over again the risk is to create boredom and frustration, especially if the message lacks credibility.  Traditional teaching seems to act the same way and reaching everybody is seen as job one.

 

Collaborative learning reaches still many people but in a different way. If the experience of a collaborative learning session has been positive they will carry their learning with them to their co-workers: those who learned already will become the “ambassadors” or “resource persons” for the others and – provided they have basic instruction skills – they will deliver instruction in-context.  When the source of information is credible and closer to the receiver of the message – like “rumors” or “gossip” – the information is sure to reach everyone, probably faster than the “official information”.

 

It would be ideal to be able to deliver learning that features both numbers (as many people as possible) and quality (ability to do something new after the session), but this is not realistic. Collaborative learning is more efficient so does not need to reach everyone. Simply tap into groups’ ability to share learning collaboratively and you will have taught more efficiently than traditional teaching.

 

 

 

Teaching is scattered tension; the Learning Construction Site is focused relaxation

In traditional teaching all energies are spent in controlling the audience through the instructor’s power to speak. In collaborative learning this power is shared equally among all people. People then can feel free to relax because they are engaged in a conversation, sharing and learning from their peers more than from the trainer.

 

Some people may say that trainees are practicing shared ignorance. I ask: in those cases in which adults have no previous knowledge of a subject what alternatives exists? When you go to your first class of a Spanish or French, you assume you know nothing. Instead I am sure you unwittingly already know at least 10 words. Well, those words shared in your group can build a mini vocabulary the class can work with. In my experience discovering this is more effective than asking students to learn the words in lesson one. With personal study and guided feedback from the instructor ignorance, gives way to some informed input, then to some more and eventually – with proper guidance and learning space – to real knowledge. Sure: it takes some time. It’s not the silver bullet of teaching in its “find and destroy ignorance” mission.

A successful teacher of improvisation for actors, Keith Johnstone before starting teaching said “… I pinned up a list of things my teachers stopped me from doing and used as a syllabus”. Teachers want people not to make mistakes, in so doing preventing the error recognition process that is so important for learning. So in collaborative learning we gently invite people to work in groups, to fail gracefully and – in doing so – to release their potential to learn. Teachers want people to concentrate and in so doing making the act of learning unnatural. In collaborative learning we make it difficult to be original or to concentrate too much because we know that people ability to learn is a natural one that needs focus but not stress. In collaborative learning we fight hard to keep the spontaneity that teaching seems to try so hard to prevent.

Teaching is expensive; the Learning Construction Site is inexpensive

 

Why do managers who would not blink to authorize a multimillion dollar new technology infrastructure project find no budget for training departments? Because there are less tangible results for training and more difficulties to get everyone on board about it.

 

Even when money is spent on learning, organizations normally overspend on traditional teaching rather then on collaborative learning. That makes collaborative learning look like it’s not a good investment. If the old advertising saying: “I do not know which 50% of my budget is wasted” would apply to traditional teaching, would the number be higher or lower than 50% in your organization?

 

Organizations are more accustomed to spending on teaching. They are almost resigned to it and would rather spend their budgets on expensive teaching and invite “keynote speakers” than giving voice to the many internal experts or financing relatively inexpensive “learning space” retreats, “internal knowledge circles” meetings or simple off-site sessions for “project lessons learned”.

 

Which one is easier: inviting “the expert” to talk or getting twenty managers away from their offices to talk about ways to improve their organization? While management-celebrities need no explaining, the second option, though inexpensive, is much harder to sell in its simplicity and possible far-reaching results.

 

Teaching is static; the Learning Construction Site is dynamic 

 

Traditional teaching is not sophisticated. Like Big Band music it uses massive force and a lot of noise to attract attention, be heard and make change happen overnight. But if we study how change and new learning comes about in human communities we are surprised on how slowly it normally happens. Strongly held belief takes a long time to die, ask Galileo or Columbus!

It’s true: change can happen overnight, but still, it takes the small buildup of bolero music that starts unnoticed, evolves and then develops in a strong melody before it can become a song appreciated by its listeners.

 

Giving a presentation? Traditional teaching is unsuited for the complex job of building new competencies in an organization, a job in which you try to accomplish many things at once. You try to be heard and believed, to capture attention, to build trust, to pass information, to convince people that the new competence is worthwhile learning, to train, to evaluate the learning, to keep the communication open, to develop additional occasions for reinforcement,  to report back to the organization about the trainings progress and value etc… The complexity of the task calls for competency in several areas: from organizational development to project management, from marketing management to group facilitation, from event management to desktop publishing. All in collaborative learning is finalized in making lasting change happen in the most natural way using what people have and letting them into the process.

 

Teaching is individualistic; the Learning Construction Site is work-like team-based

Who among adult educators would do one-on-one sessions for each person when tasked with training a group of thirty people? Traditional teaching implements in the class the same approach used for a one-on-one session, presenting the information. However one can only rarely maximize her own talents working in isolation. Collaborative learning knows this and uses the group as the ideal environment to foster learning. The management literature on group-work and team creativity suggests that we are just now starting to assess the wonders of people joining together. Collaborative learning takes full advantage of that hidden capacity and releases it to its full potential for the purpose of learning.

 

What do people do when they don’t remember how to accomplish something using Word? Do they read the manual or do they ask one of their colleagues nearby? Do they call the trainer that taught in class? With collaborative learning the learning environment of the class replicates the situation where the skill is really used. Collaborative learning understands that skills in an organization need to be analyzed, taught and evaluated as close as possible to the real environment where the skills “live”. Instead, top-down courses in traditional teaching mode keep teaching people as if they work and operate in isolation, strengthening the idea that trainees “do not know”.

 

Traditional teaching gives the illusion of quick and efficient results. In traditional teaching, the expert talking from the podium relieves the burden of participation for learners to deal with  pointless or stiff group sessions that are going nowhere.  But is this really productive? When working together, if new ideas are not generated, mindsets are not challenged, differences are not explored, reflections are not allowed are people really learning?

If people hate conflict and ambiguities and like to get things done fast is there any wonder that people do not want to work with each other in groups?  Collaborative learning states that the price to pay for long-lasting, real learning is personal involvement and time for group work.

 

Everyday observations of what people do when working together – the battlefields of egos, political struggles, posturing – give a bad name to group work, which in turns limits further opportunities available for collaboration. Critics point out that collaborative learning is messy and time-consuming. Traditional teaching reigns.

 

With collaborative learning we challenge the dangerous assumptions that the work of groups is not real work. With collaborative learning we challenge people unwillingness to work together.  

The message of collaborative learning is that there is a better way, that the “expert” approach does not work in the long run and that there is no alternative to passing the stick, even if it will take a little longer.

 

 

Teaching dies; the Learning Construction Site lives on

 

In the nineties the new drive for e-learning and Computer based training have had people using the new technology applying the principles of traditional teaching to it. The results – advertised as “Multimedia Interaction Learning” – turned out to be text on a screen (also known as “page-turners”) and quickly dismissed. Traditional teaching principles can not easily be converted in a new concept for learning as powerful as e-learning. The reason for this is that traditional teaching is by nature not multi-medial. What is more multi-sensory and multi-format than a well blown collaborative learning program? Collaborative learning creates a community of practice that lives on using multiple media. Teaching needs a class, but in the era of e-learning people attend to their learning needs with or without a class.

 

Teaching lives a brief moment and then it dies. Not so for collaborative learning. A good Collaborative learning session is memorable: the fundamental way to make it so is through the participant shared experience. Technology has accelerated this process allowing a rapid switch from one communication medium to another.

 

Consider this example: a Collaborative learning session has just ended. The sharing of the input from participants continues on a web site where a forum has been set up as a place where people interested can continue the dialogue after the class is over. The thread from the forum generates additional materials for a job aid. The job aid is sent by regular mail to all graduates, together with photos from past sessions and an invitation for the next one…

Unlimited possibilities.

Live from the Learning Construction Site…

Why bother with stakeholders during the need assessment?

“We would never have known about…” is a common response when trainers that design programs are asked what they learned from their stakeholders during planning. Regardless of how well educators think they know their audience, listening to stakeholders is an important task during the planning and needs assessment stage.

In one program, the overlooked stakeholder was the office director. That program ran into real problems when the offi ce director revealed concerns over the focus of the program. In another example, the educator forgot to ask the teachers the program had planned to train how or if the topic might fi t into the science standards of that grade level. Needless to say, trainers weren’t as excited about the program as the planner thought they’d be!

Stakeholder involvement in planning can vary greatly. In some cases, a whole group of stakeholder representatives might be brought together to talk with the trainers-planners. In most situations, however, individual stakeholders are called on the phone or spoken to in casual conversation about the pending program in order to get their informal feedback.

And what are stakeholders asked? Some are asked questions as simple as, “What do you think about this idea?” For major projects, however, stakeholder input is much more vital and therefore more formalized. The bottom line is, as one educator put it, “We’d have made a lot more mistakes if we hadn’t talked with the people who have a reason to care about the program.”

What’s your experience with stakeholders’ involvement in educational projects?

Teaching with Dialogue? Three things to do if you want to try

A learning dialogue is inspired and honors three principles expressed in the following three quotes: 

• “Learning is acquired by experiences in the environment.”(Maria Montessori)

• “Reflection is the critical thinking by means which people discover each other to be ‘in a situation.” (Paulo Freire)

• “If you don’t dispute it you don’t learn it.” (Jane Vella) 

Whether is a simple dialogue with a learning partner, a group dialogue among team members or a learning dialogue with the entire class failure is always an option when you try dialogue for adult learning.  However when my dialogue have failed – meaning lack of participation, engagement, educational value or lack of interest – I have observed that a few conditions for dialogue were consistently not met. What are those three necessary but hardly sufficient conditions?  

 

The silence of the trainer.

The condition for dialogue to flourish in the class is rather simple for the trainer: he/she needs to be silent more or as Stephen Brookfield and Stephen Preskill wrote: “…curbing the compulsion to say all they would like to say in the interests of promoting engagement and participation.” (Discussion as a Way of Teaching, 1999) Our idea is that people learn best when they talk about what they are learning. I am advocating giving time for people to talk about the content and giving them time to extract their own personal meaning about it. Now a teacher’s knowledge shared in the class is valuable, but far more powerful is a trainer promoting students learning actively by helping them find their own voices.  I do not know a better way to do this than to let trainees talk: whether in a conversation, a debate or a question panel, a real-world problem open as a questions to the trainees will make personal meaning of what is to be learned. This is far more effective than the most inspired of the lecturer.

A safe learning environment.

No Learning dialogue is possible if the learning environment has not been clearly identified as safe. Dialogue has started already in the setting of the right class atmosphere. Steer away from conference rooms and use or replicate informal living room settings with natural light and round tables. 

A set of clear ground rules.

Additionally to ensure a learning dialogue is properly conducted and fully participated is important to state and clarify its ground rules to improve people’s thinking together. Here are the ones I circulate:

• Shift focus from ideas, to the connection between ideas

• Shift focus from conflicting views, to how differences bring new insight to the whole

• Shift focus from the person to the idea, respect the last always be skeptical the least 

Five simple ideas to help dialogue in your class.

Preface the conversation with an invitation to remember a time in their lives when they had a really good conversation. The ability to have good conversations is already owned by people, they simply need to use it in a different context. Remembering what they already know is much easier to do than learning it from scratch. 

1.    A talking stick. Only who holds it can speak.

2.    A bell in the middle of the table. Whoever feels the speaker is off subject can ring the bell and ask a question about the connection between the subject and what was said.

3.    A Study group focusing only on portion of the content. The content is shared at the table, possibly written on a poster and eventually shared.

4.     A stone for your thoughts. Distribute three stones at the beginning of the class. Whoever talks must relinquish one stone (very good if some people are dominating the conversation!)

Is it Work or is it Training? Work-based Learning

By Adriano Pianesi

I would like to share my excitement for the effectiveness of an approach to learning from experience called Action Learning. I recently completed my certification as an Action Learning coach and have already facilitated two workshops using the method.

Action Learning is an instructional method of solving a problem in a group setting while learning from experience under the guidance of an Action Learning coach.
In an Action Learning session people discuss and reflect about a problem owned either by an individual, a group or a team. Dialogue is guaranteed by one of the method’s critical ground rules: “Statements can be made only in response to questions.” This rule is established at the beginning of the session and generates a spirit of inquiry that releases the pooled knowledge of the group to solve a problem. The process is this: a participant presents a real problem to the group and participants proceed to ask questions in order to understand the problem and come up with potential solutions. While the group is in this discussion, the Action Learning coach focuses exclusively on the learning that comes from experience and intervenes from time to time stopping the action to solicit learning reflections from participants.

In addition, at the beginning of an Action Learning session the coach asks each participant to name a leadership skill he/she wants to work on. At the end of the session each individual receives feedback from the group on how he/she did in reference to that particular skill during the conversation. In this way, Action Learning serves the dual purpose of solving problems and developing leadership skills.

An Action Learning program is such if six key elements are in place:
• A team willing to meet face-to-face at least once, better if more or on a regular basis
• An Action Learning Coach
• An urgent problem that needs some resolution. The problem must not have an existing solution. For example, “What is the capital of Kyrgyzstan?” does not qualify as an Action Learning problem as only one solution exists; “How can I find out what the capital of Kyrgyzstan is?” does, as there are several ways for somebody to find out.
• A commitment to questioning and reflecting by the members of the group
• A commitment by the problem-owner to action based on the result of the session
• A commitment to learning.

 

As such Action Learning:
• is not a task force or a quality circle, because in those groups the purpose is exclusively to act while learning is incidental. In Action Learning, learning is one of the main objectives of the session.
• is not a simple dialogue, because the session generates action items as solutions to the problem that the problem owner commits to use in real life.
• is not coaching individuals about a problem, because the group generates the solution while the Action Learning coach only focuses on the learning of the group.

One of the Action Learning’s elements that I found most important is that it uses one of the key findings of contemporary learning theory — that the process of acquiring expertise must be through applied learning and communication with peers and experts in the workplace, not with top-down communication.

Action Learning addresses effectively the unwillingness of many organizations to send managers away from work to training and the common misconception of seeing learning as separated from “real work” and, ultimately, of little value.
Why? Because Action Learning generates value and distills learning from experience while solving real-world problems. Peter Drucker’s 1959 idea of the “knowledge worker”—the visionary concept of a workforce whose primary job is to develop knowledge to, in turn, generate value fits to Action Learning to a T.

Yet, I worry about how far from this concept the reality of today’s workplace is, with the trainer’s job still shaped by the traditional model of an expert teaching with Power Point presentations!

Colleagues, let’s step up our efforts! I announced my first Action Learning workshop “No Training! Action Learning for Managers” with an invitation that read: “Disclaimer: No PowerPoint slides were created for the design of this course.” and “Bring your work problems with you; we will solve them together and learn something in the process!” This set the collaborative and original tone that lasted through the highly enjoyable session. I might add that the session was also highly effective.

One of the elements I was struck with about Action Learning is its ability to bridge formal corporate knowledge needs with the unpredictability of informal workplace communities. In fact Action Learning implicitly assumes that:
• The solution to problems exists already in workplace communities—not with experts
• The pooled knowledge of learners is the critical resource for learning —not a textbook
• Learning at work must generate knowledge to solve problems –not abstract theory
• Learning is facilitated in action – not away from it

Today, the demand for more and better workplace learning calls for a new generation of training that focuses on pooling and creating knowledge rather than on functions carried out more effectively by computers (like information-dispensing and skill-drilling). I believe Action Learning can be a useful additional tool in the repertoire of adult educators to address this challenge.

I am planning to facilitate another Action Learning workshop soon and I am looking forward to continuing to share my experience further with the readers of my blog.

I own Participaction Consulting, Inc., a consultancy that develops custom training solutions through collaboration to reach lasting organizational change.

Conflict Resolution Training: Aim high

We published – with the author’s permission – an article about the purpose of conflict resolution training in government agencies. I feel Geoff’s article applies not just to Conflict Resolution Training but to many other Federal Government training classes . Enjoy!

Conflict Resolution Training: Aim high

The cardinal rule of organizational behavior is that what gets measured gets done. Applied to training, the means the criteria used to evaluate a course not only dictate how it is designed and delivered, they also shape how trainees interpret and apply the course content.

This article discusses how three approaches to evaluation used by government agencies affect the extent to which conflict resolution training has a positive impact on the workplace.

Compliance
The purpose of many training courses is to comply with a statute, regulation, Executive Order, or agency directive that requires certain categories of employees to receive training on a particular subject within a designated timeframe. These mandates rarely, if ever, require employees to retain or use the knowledge
or skills conveyed to them. They require only that certain information be transmitted. As a result, agencies typically track only whether such transmission occurs.

One method is documenting content and attendance. For live training, this means ensuring that employees’ names appear on sign-in sheets, and that the video or PowerPoint slides they view and the manual they receive contain the requisite content. A second method for documenting the transmission of information
is requiring employees to answer questions designed to test
their comprehension of the material. Both methods provide a clear audit trial for proving compliance with a training mandate, but they reveal nothing about
what employees do when they return to the workplace.

As a result, these measures provide no incentive to provide quality training. The simplest and quickest ways to convey information are passive: requiring students to listen to a lecture, watch a video, or read materials on a website. Unfortunately, these are also the least effective methods for training adults. In theory, testing would create a demand for quality, but in reality this often is not the case. Since the agency’s goal is documenting compliance, it wants as high a pass rate as possible. Retraining, retesting, or, worse yet, having to discipline employees who fail tests is an administrative burden. The easiest ways to ensure a high pass rate are to teach to the test (stress the material covered in the questions) and to make the questions as easy as possible to answer. If they are warned during a course that certain actions are illegal and could lead to prosecution, disciplinary action, or other adverse consequences, employees are likely to adjust their behavior accordingly regardless of how the course is evaluated.

But if the course is intended in whole or in part to inspire rather than command certain behaviors, the agency’s apparent lack of concern about what they do when they return to their workstations is likely to strongly influence employee behavior.
The message that usually comes through loud and clear is that this course is just another bureaucratic interruption of their real work.

Reaction
Training in conflict resolution skills is often used to react to perceived problems in the workplace. If there are a lot of disputes, why not provide training in how to resolve them? If communication seems to be lacking or ineffective, communications
training seems like a sensible response.

Are lawyers and other agency personnel spending a lot of time or money on litigation?
Training in negotiation or mediation skills might help. The methods typically used to gauge the success of this type of training are attendance and participant feedback. At the end of the course, employees are asked to rate various aspects
of the training. Participant evaluations provide an incentive to make a course enjoyable and provide valuable information about what participants like and dislike.

But there is a serious downside to assuming that if employees like a course they will
use what they learned in some beneficial way. Without any proof of a return on investment, it is hard to justify spending money on training. Many theoretically sound ideas fail to hold up in real world testing. Furthermore, as is the case with compliance training, if an agency does not commit to measuring the impact of skills
training on workplace behavior, employees may assume the agency is more concerned with “looking good” by reacting to a problem than it is with changing how things are done.

Everyone in the federal sector has seen flavor-of-the-month initiatives that come and go faster than celebrity marriages.

Performance
An agency may commit to bettering its performance on a mission- related goal and determine that training is a means to this end. Training in conflict resolution skills may further such agency goals as reducing complaints or grievances; improving
employee satisfaction or productivity; or lowering sick leave abuse, attrition, or transfer requests.

Measuring the impact of conflict resolution training on employee performance creates a powerful incentive to provide top quality training. Measuring impact also makes it imperative to incorporate training into a comprehensive plan for promoting positive
change. If employees are tasked with achieving a goal and are informed that training will help them achieve it, they have a strong incentive to figure out how to apply the skills they learn productively. It all gets back to the simple rule that what gets measured gets done. If the measure of success for conflict resolution training is workplace performance, employees get the message that improving performance matters.

Since impact on a mission-related goal cannot be measured until well after a course ends, content, attendance, testing, and course evaluations are useful for ensuring a course is on track. Used as tools instead of goals, these measures can play a constructive role in promoting effective training.

The downside of measuring success by employee performance is the increased risk of failure. Content and attendance are a breeze to control, and good trainers can easily ensure that employees pass tests and review a course favorably. But
staking your reputation on how others perform post-training may seem downright scary. Just remember there is tremendous power in letting go. If an agency demonstrates its belief in the skills it is teaching and the employees it is teaching them to by committing to measurable results, employees will strive
to live up to expectations.

Geoff Drucker is the Director of Federal Dispute Resolution with the McCammon Group and can be reached at 703.582.9971 www.mccammongroup.com

Designing Change or Start Designing Conversations?

When change is designed in an organization, there is an assumption that someone somewhere knows better or more than someone else. When we design conversations, we create the space for change to emerge without directing it—it occurs as a result of ownership derived from knowledge and connection to what really matters. Change actually emerges from there. This space — not mine, not yours, but ours — is less threatening, less directive and more representative of a mutual ownership and commitment to what is required.

In an era where everybody is as intelligent as everyone else, no one anywhere knows better or more than people inside the organization. In order to create continuous learning, we need a stable platform of processing increasing complexity and ambiguity. The platform created through conversations is the foundation for organizational agility — the capability to adapt readily and willingly to rapid change and uncertainty.

In essence, the key missing ingredient in all models derived from mechanical or inorganic methods of viewing business reality, are the connections that have to occur between the component parts.

Everyone in organizations today needs to be involved in strategic conversations —conversations from and with all perspectives. The person most efficient and trained to create that conversation is a facilitator. The facilitator helps to forward the integration of personal and business reality.

To produce organic change, which is far less costly over time than top-down change, we must allow leadership (learning and teaching capabilities) to carry the weight of change through effective conversations and interactions.

The design is not about change. The design is about creating a system to carry the continuous natural adaptation — to support discontinuous change – through connected conversations around what really matters.

Audience Analysis

In the training company where I used to work, at the beginning of a three-day class we asked participants to put themselves in one of three
categories—a prisoner, a vacationer, or a learner, based on how they view themselves relative to the session.

A prisoner is someone who has been sent by management and personally doesn’t see the need to attend.

A vacationer is the person who says, “I can chill out in this class! I really don’t need to work. I’ll just come to the workshop and do other
work.”

A learner, on the other hand, is someone who truly desires to gain new skills and knowledge and grow personally and professionally.

It happens sometimes that all the participants are prisoners and do not want to be there (sounds familiar?).

Here are a few points that can help you manage a class of “prisoners”:
§ What may have caused the workshop participants to all feel like prisoners?
§ What could you have done earlier in the workshop to get people to be willing to engage?
§ What do you need to make clear to others so that they can choose whether or not to engage in a training session?

When you have a resistant audience you need to name what’s going on in the room and tell the truth about how you are experiencing it.

You also need to give people choices. In my experience, when given a choice about applying themselves, most people are “willing to work”because they want to do what’s right.

Training Checklist

TRAINER’S CHECKLIST

o Informed Manager about training initiative.
o Identified how many people need training.
o Decided how we are giving them training (Classroom session, Small groups Demo, One-on-One, Selfinstruction, etc…).
o Selected Lab exercises to teach.
o Send an e-mail to all people attending the training to inform them of the session’s time/place.
o Collect Labs booklets needed for session.
o Reserved room for classroom session or set up space for one-on-one (pulling one chair may not be
enough!).
o Verified User ID to use in the training.
o Tested links and user ID in the room before class (possibly not the same day of training).
o Brought markers, posters and training materials in the class.
o Prepared poster for questions I am not able to answer.
o Left “controlling” attitude behind and shifted into a “giving” attitude.