"L&D still stuck in the course paradigm" - how can we change things?

Yesterday I retweeted a tweet (from @CharlesJennings) with a link to an ASTD article by Allison Rossett that showed that most Learning & Development (L&D) departments are stuck in the course paradigm.  All my tweets are automatically sent to Facebook, so it appeared as follows:

This triggered off a long series of comments which covered a lot of ground and included some interesting resources.  Janet Clarey remarked..

I have therefore copied the comments below. 

Maggie McPherson Interesting! Agrees with our Systematic Lit Review Findings: http://www.journal.elnet.com.au/index.php/impact/issue/current Donald Clark Complete failure to recognise that e-learning is now largely web-based, informal learning. The very fact that we're posting and looking at this report via a link on a tweet says it all. ASTD folks are carthorses with massive side blinkers. I'm sure that all those song and dance trainers will 'like this'. Christina Merl @ Donald Clark: what's your definition of a "song and dance trainer"? Donald Clark Those who see the classroom as the primary means for the transmission of knowledge and skills, and who are so wedded to the model that they can't see the wood for the trees. Training has long attracted hordes of 'amateur-dramatics types' who confuse learning with 'performance' and 'teaching'. Christina Merl Thank you. This is an interesting definition. And I do not necessarily disagree. But how would you define the learners then who ask for the 'amateur-dramatics types'? Donald Clark They're conditioned into thinking that this is the only way that 'learning' takes place. Conditioned by trainers and teachers, who should know better. In training, it's a day off work to watch someone talk at you - easy, lazy and inefficient. Christina Merl Interesting perspective. And I fully agree with your last sentence. So what would be necessary to change the system? Maggie McPherson For my MSc in 1991, I did a evaluation of learners' views of f2f compared to CBT - learners liked f2f because: day out and away from the office (often in nice hotel), free lunch, token of appreciation by employers, being 'entertained' by trainer - CBT meant: no free lunch, lack of employer's appreciation, a working 'break', lower status in company. Similar reasons remain, I guess... Jane Hart Maggie, I don't think the traditional CBT/e-learning approach is any better - as it just automates the traditional face-to-face teaching approach. Organisations need to be aware of the different ways that people learn - see my piece http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/handbook/state.html Maggie McPherson Employers need to understand not only 'how' people learn, but their motivation for doing so too :) Jane Bozarth Always concerned that this is a false distinction: There's plenty of bad F2F training and great online; there's plenty of good F2F but surely plenty of bad online. As a learner, I want the one that gives the best experience, meets my needs, helps me learn. For me it depends on the quality, not the delivery method. Christina Merl @ Jane Bozarth: Thanks for your valuable comment. It is wonderful to finally get a learner's perspective on this! Jane Hart Maggie, I read this recently in an old article on self-directed learning "What these studies have shown is that adults learn what they want to learn. Other things, even if acquired temporarily (i.e., for a test), are soon forgotten (Specht and Sandlin, 1991). Students, children, patients, clients, and subordinates may act as if they care about learning something, go through the motions, but they proceed to disregard it or forget it-unless, it is something which they want to learn" Jane Hart Here's the URL of the article - http://www.eiconsortium.org/reprints/self-directed_learning.html Jane Hart I take this to mean that training - whether f2f or online - is not likely to succeed unless the learners WANT to learn. In fact the article says "The "honeymoon effect" of typical training might start at 30-40% improvement immediately following the training, but within 1-3 months it would drop to about 10% and stay there." Jane Bozarth Christina: I doubt I'm the "learner" you may have in mind. Don: LOVE "song and dance trainer" and am stealing it now... Christina Merl @ JB: Aren't we all learners? Jane Bozarth Jane H, to your comment on the Specht and Sandlin piece, Tough has done some interesting research on the adult learner and self-directed learning that might interest you -- motivation in their view is not "learning" so much as "solving a problem" . Jane Hart Thanks Jane, do you have a link? Jane Bozarth I need to find it 7 am here and I am not even on my 2nd cup of coffee yet! Give me a little while ... :-) Jane Bozarth I used the data in my "Growing Better Learners" workshop years ago; I apparently had it in paper copy rather than electronic. The Allen Tough piece is Tough, A. "Major Learning Efforts: Recent Research and Future Directions." Adult Education 28 (Summer 1978): 250-263. (ERIC No. EJ 197 451); my notes say it was also cited in Piskurich, G. (2004). Getting the most from online learning. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.   Jane Bozarth Also, a really perspective-changing grad school piece for me was Schommer, M. (1998). Role of adults’ beliefs about knowledge in school, work and everyday life (Chapter 7). In Smith, M.C. and Pourchot, T. (Eds.) Adult Learning and Development. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, She sent it to me in PDF if you want it-- JB   Jane Hart Thanks Jane - please do email it Jane Bozarth On the way-- have a good day! Donald Clark Interesting debate - probably because we're not in some classroom listening to some trainer reciting stuff. One thing I would add is a reaction to the phrase "Employers should..." The problem is not, in my experience, employers, but the training profession, who reactively trot out classroom courses year after year, without much reflection on whether they're good or bad. A clutch of useless happy sheets and everyone's content. Maggie McPherson Aha - that's true. I'd agree that the training profession needs to rethink the notion of trotting out the "same 'ol, same 'ol", but it is the employer who pays them and lets them get away with it... Donald Clark Boards tend to be indifferent to 'training' departments because training is not presented as a core business activity or even aligned with business objectives. With the advent of oodles of dull compliance training, that situation has got worse. My belief is that training departments are eating themselves alive, while less fossilised 'classroom' alternatives are being found. Jane Bozarth Donald: Dave Ferguson has a new blog post today, includes comments on employers being 'complicit' in allowing poor training to self-perpetuate: http://www.daveswhiteboard.com/archives/3060 Jane Bozarth I've seen 2 instances where vendors have circumvented the resistant training dept and gone straight to IT to get solutions different from traditional training implemented. Jane Hart Jane, that's right - and I've seen many more sort it out for themselves, by organising their own informal, personal or group"learning" (often using social media) Jane Bozarth I did too. That sort of community of practice (self-created, self-managed, volunteer members) was the subject of my dissertation. Also see Orr's "Talking about Machines". Donald Clark Organisational leaders may be complicit, but they're largely responding to a fixed model presented by training professionals, who long ago abandoned 'learning' in favour of amateur 'theatre'. The real question is what happens next? Will training professionals rise to the challenge or continue to be sidelined, while others innovate in learning? I know where my money is! Jane Bozarth I worry that as long as senior management thinks "learning" looks like people sitting in a room at a desk, with a (pick one) teacher/facilitator/instructor/trainer, and as added benefit being entertained, that change will not be very widespread. Jane Hart Yes, Donald - Like you, I see L&D/Training "painting themselves into a corner" if they continue to think that formal teaching/training/theatre is the only model that works. Jane Hart So, the question is: How can we REALLY change things? Jane Bozarth For one: We need to work on changing management beliefs about what is "learning". The data we throw at them conflicts with what they believe to be true. Donald Clark That's right - Kirkpatrick has held back training for 50 years with it's over-worked, often irrelevant, statistically flawed behaviourist approach to evaluation - giving a talk on this at Learning Technologies London at end of month. Jane Bozarth I know-- Kirkpatrick TAXONOMY, not theory, not 'model'. I included chapter on that in my 3rd book. Here's an abbreviation/blog post from early 2009 http://bozarthzone.blogspot.com/2009/01/alternatives-to-kirkpatrick.html Donald Clark The problem is that Kirkpatrick is widely regarded as being founded on theory (which it is - just old behaviourism). Glad to see that someone else is similarly sceptical. See my Donald talks bollocks post http://tinyurl.com/ykcfphw Jane Bozarth Very good. I also think it's fun to watch people get all tangled up in their taxonomies: Devotees of Kirkpatrick are also devotees of Level 5 ("ROI") of training, and don't realize Kirkpatrick himself says there's no such thing.

If you'd like to continue this discussion, please do add your thoughts in the post's comments below

Comments

[David Hopkins]

Thanks for posting this Jane, I missed all this on Twitter as I was absorbed in watching the white stuff cover everything in the garden.

All the best, David.

[Jane Hart]

David - you didn't miss it on Twitter - as it took place in Facebook? Are you my friend in Facebook?

[Frank Budimir]

Great subject and great debate! Makes me consider breathing life in to my old Facebook profile :) I do think we often underestimate L&D, they rely on informal learning or peer to peer learning to quite some extent, in my experience. But more often than not, to solve problems, and might not file it under 'learning'.

Hopefully, that will change.
I agree that we need to change management beliefs about what is learning. Top management and boardrooms need to realize this. Considering the majority of top management consider skills and competence to be the business' major competitive advantage, that message is surprisingly hard to "sell". But I'm convinced we'll succeed in time

[Dick Carlson]

Amazing conversation -- I'm going to have to stay on Twitter 24x7 so I don't miss stuff like this.

I've often said that there's nothing wrong with "Song & Dance" training (which I, too, am stealing) if that's what you want. We all like to go to a good show, sit back, and enjoy being entertained. And sometimes, during the entertainment, we may learn something or change our point of view.

It's kind of like my view of the different models of content consumption. People get all wrapped up in how learners consume information, but I use the metaphor of the Rolling Stones.

If I like Mick's singing, I can:

Download a stolen file off the web (Free)
Get a file off of i-Tunes (.99)
Buy an album -- well, CD (12.00)
Go to a movie -- (25.00)
Watch a tribute band -- (100.00)
Fly to NY and see a show -- (2,000.00)

All of these are exactly the same song, but the EXPERIENCE is different. And some of us are willing to pay more (in time, money and effort) to participate. And there will be a corresponding impact on us in terms of memory and change in our behavior.

And the experience that the learner chooses is EXACTLY right for them, at that time.

[Simon Bostock]

Oh, no. Now I'm going to have to get a Facebook account.

With regard to 'blame' for lack of progress at work, Donald Clark appears to be pinning it on training departments. And you only have to go on Training Zone or follow the UK training tweeters to see that (in the UK, at least) Training Depts are pretty backward. If only the trainers were as entertaining as 'song and dance' implies.

But it's managers who keep the trainers locked up in HR - almost certainly the literally-worst-place for them to live. And managers who insist on using HR as their command and control tool.

This is a wonderful discussion and, as I Tweeted, I'm slightly worried about how strongly I agree with it all. Am in severe danger of experiencing reverse reactance and reverting to ice breakers and Learning Styles questionnaires.

[Paula Colwell]

Thanks for posting Jane and thanks for the suggestion Janet! Jane, I have just sent you a friend request on Facebook so I can access the whole debate. Currently working to change those exact management beliefs so this is very helpful!

[Charles Jennings]

Donald said above "The real question is what happens next? Will training professionals rise to the challenge or continue to be sidelined, while others innovate in learning?" I know where my money is..

I'm not a mind-reader (there's probably a course available ..) but I am a gambling man so I'd put money on Donald's bet being that training professionals won't rise the the challenge. In many cases I'd guess he's right. The characteristics that draw many people into training in the past are just the characteristics that will hamper them transmogrifying into performance guides, facilitators and innovators.

Training has been referred to as the 'graveyard of ambition'. I'd bet there will be plenty of bodies over the next few years.

[Stu Weinberg]

A very intriguing discussion...

To tag all traditional training as "song and dance" seems a little harsh, although some of it is. Same for lumping all corporate training directors together (some will never change, some will be slow to adapt and some will only go kicking and screaming).

I think what is also missing here that there are people who prefer (or need the structure of) f2f training. Traditional training done right is still better than no training for those unable or unwilling to look at alternatives. The ASTD study mentioned that most of the participants had 10 or more years experience - that puts an age reference in the mix that skews things, IMHO.

And not all training companies are missing the boat. This year we will be instituting assessments based on students goals prior to classes and tailoring the class evaluations to having reached those goals; we will be introducing a blended learning solution that incorporates synchronous self-directed multimedia experiences and social interaction with real-time (virtual) instructor time; and we are looking at micro-learning, use of social media, etc. We serve primarily a corporate client so we hope to open some eyes along the way. There is hope for the future...

[Dave Ferguson]

Management complicity: it may be true that some in upper-middle management (people below the VP level, say) are buying into a fixed model "presented by training professionals." I can only say that during the 25 years I spent as an instructor / developer / training officer / learning factotum as a corporate employee, my experience was more what Jane Bozarth suggests.

Decision-makers (both within my company and at client sites) skewed toward the model of "learning" they were most familiar with, and that's basically high school and undergrad college.

That's simplistic, but so too is the learning-as-training, training-as-a-course model that's in an awful lot of heads.

During last year's ASTD conference here in Washington DC, I met some attendees one night at a reception sponsored by a vendor. One woman said she was following the Dinosaur Track--including Kirkpatrick himself, complete with overhead transparencies.

(There was a time when one of the questions God Himself could not answer was "How many makes of overhead projector are there?")

[Anne-Marie]

I prefer to use the term “learning opportunities” to “training / courses” when talking with people about development options. It opens the discussion up to consideration of a host of informal learning options – mentoring, discussion groups, involvement with projects, developing new ideas that the individual has, etc. These options have the potential to provide more value to the organisation (both idea development and silo breaking) than sending someone on a course – particularly if the course is external, and therefore less likely to be linked to organisational context, which can prevent any application in the workplace.

[Simbeckhampson]

I read the same article yesterday morning. It's sparked off a great discussion. Just need to find some time to read it all. Thanks for posting.

[Jane Bozarth]

Thanks to the publicity here I'm getting a lot of friend requests at my personal Facebook account. I don't friend people there I don't know, but feel free to send a request to my business Facebook account, "Jane Bozarth Bozarthzone". I accept all requests there, and interact w/ Jane Hart from there as well. And of course feel free to find me on Twitter @janebozarth .

JB