Using Kirkpatrick's Four Levels to Create and Evaluate Informal & Social Learning Processes

In my last post, The Tools of Our Craft, I wrote how the Four Level Evaluation model is best used by flipping it upside down and that it can be used to evaluate informal and social learning. In this post, I want to expand on the second point—evaluating informal and social learning.

Backwards Planning and Evaluation Model

1. Results or Impact - What is our goal?
2. Performance - What must the performers do to achieve the goal?
3. Learning - What must they learn to be able to perform?
4. Reaction - What needs to be done to engage the learners/performers?

Inherent in the idea of evaluation is “value.” That is, when we evaluate something we are trying to make a judgment about the worth of it. The measurements we obtain gives us information to help base our judgment on. This is the real value of Kirkpatrick's Four Level Evaluation model as it allows us to take a number of measurements throughout the life span of learning process in order to place a value on it, thus it is a process-based solution rather than an event-based solution.

Each stakeholder will normally only use a couple of the levels when making their evaluation, except for the Learning Department. For example, top executives are normally only interested in the first one—Results, as it directly affects the bottom-line. Some are also interested in the last one, Reaction, as they are interested in the engagement aspect—are the employees engaged in their job? Managers and supervisors are normally most interested in the top two levels, Results and Performance, and somewhat in the last one, Reaction. While the Learning Department needs all four to properly deliver and evaluate the learning process.

Note that this post uses as actual problem that is based on informal and social learning for the solution. I wrote about part of it in Strategies for Creating Informal Learning Environments, thus you might want to read the first half of it (you can stop when it comes to the section on OODA).

Results

Implementing a learning process is based on what results or goals you are trying to achieve—and identifying what measurements you need to help evaluate your results will help you to zero in on identify the result or goal you are trying to achieve. For example, saying that you want your employees to quickly find information is normally a poor goal to shoot for as it is hard to measure. Starting with a focused project and then letting demand drive additional initiatives is normally the best way to start implementing social and informal learning processes.

If you find that you are unable to come up with a good measurement, that normally means you have not zeroed in on a viable goal. In that case, use the Japanese method of asking “Why?” five times or until you are able to pinpoint the exact goal you are trying to achieve. Establishing new or improving learning/training processes normally begin with a problem, for example, a manager complains that when he reads the monthly project reports he finds that employees are often faced with the same problems as others and in turn, repeat the same learning process again, thus the same mistakes are repeated throughout the organization.”

“Why?”

“No one realizes that others within the organization have had the same problem before and have normally documented their solution (Lesson Learned).”

“Why?”

“There is no central database for them to look and the people who work next to them are normally unable to help.”

Zeroing in on the actual cause of the problem helps you to build a focused program, in this example, it's a central database for “Lessons Learned” and a means of connecting the people within the organization to see if anyone has been faced with the same problem (and vice versa—allowing people to tweet (broadcast) their problems and their solution that may be of help to others).

In addition, you now have a viable measurement—counting the number of problems/mistakes in the project reports each month to see if they improve.

Performance

In a normal training situation, performance on the job is normally easily evaluated. For example, when I instructed forklifts operations in a manufacturing plant, after the training/practice period we would assess the learners performing on the forklifts in the actual work environment to ensure they could operate safely and correctly under actual working conditions.

In addition, I used to train users to use Query/400 (a programming language to extract information from a company's computer system). One of the methods we used to assess the performers was that when they returned to their workplace, we required them to build three queries that were assessed by someone from the training department to ensure they could perform on the job. Thus the training is transformed from an event to a process by ensuring their skills are carried over to the workplace.

However, in our working example, it would be hard to observe the entire “Lessons Learned” process as it is a three-prong solution that uses informal and social learning:

• Capture the Lessons Learned by using an After Action Review (AAR)
• Store it in a social site (such as a wiki or SharePoint) for easy retrieval
• Provide a microblogging tool, such as Yammer, to help others to ask about lessons learned that might pertain to their problems and to tweet lessons learned

The first part of the solution could somewhat be evaluated by observing some of the AARs and watching the informal learning taking place as they discuss their problems and solutions, however, the second and third points would be difficult as it would be hard to sit at someone's desk all day to see if they are using the wiki and microblogging tools. While there are probably a number of solutions, one method is to identify approximately how often the social media tools should be used on a daily, weekly or monthly basis and then determine if expectations are being met by counting the number of:

• contributions per month to the wiki (based on their Lessons Learned in the AAR sessions)
• contributions to the microblogging tool (short briefs on their Lessons Learned)
• questions asked on the microblogging tool by employees who could not find a Lesson Learned in the wiki that matched their problem

The approximations are based on the number of problems/mistakes found in the project reports and the total number submitted. You might have to adjust your expectations as the process continues, but it does give you a method for measuring the performance. Note that Tim Wiering has a recent blog post on this method in the Green Chameleon blog.

In addition, once the performers have started using the tools, you can interview them by asking how the new tools are helping them and then capture some of the real success stories, such as videotaping them or using a question and answer interview and then blogging about it. These stories have a two-fold purpose:

• The stories themselves are evidence of the success of the performance solution.
• The stories can be then be used to help other learners/performers to use the new tools in a more effective manner as stories carry a lot of power in a learning process because the learners are able to identify and relate to them.

Learning

First, the purpose of this level is not to evaluate what the performers are learning through the AARs, microblogging, and wiki tools when they return to their job (that measurement is captured in the Performance Evaluation), but rather what they need to learn so that they can use the tools on the job. Look around almost any organization and you see processes, programs, tools, etc. that were built on the idea that if we build it, they will come, but are now wastelands because the performers saw no use for them and/or had no real idea how to use them. Just because a tool, such as Yammer or Twitter may be obvious to you, does not mean the intended performers will see a use for it, and for that matter, know how to use it.

In addition, while one organization may not care if someone sends an occasional tweet about the latest Lady Gaga video, another may frown on it, so ensure the intended performers also know what not to use the new tools for.

Since these learning programs can be elearning, classroom, social, informal, etc. and the majority of Learning Designers know how to build and evaluate them, I'm not going to delve into that in this post.

Reaction Engagement

While this may be the last level when flipping Kirkpatrick's Evaluation Model, it is actually the foundation of the other three levels.

One of the mistakes Kirkpatrick made is putting too much emphasis on smiley sheets. As noted in the excellent article, Are You Too Nice to Train?, measuring reaction is mostly a waste of time. What we really want to know is how engaged the learners will be in the learning level and will that engagement carry through to the performance level. People don't care so much about how happy they are with a learning process, but rather how will the new skills and knowledge be of use to them?

For example, when I was stationed in Germany while in the Army we trained on how to protect ourselves and perform during CBR (Chemical/Biological/Radiological) attacks. One of the learning processes was to don our CBR gear (heavy clothing lined with charcoal to absorb the chemical and biological agents, rubber gloves, rubber boots, the full-face rubber protective mask, and of course our helmets to protect our heads) in the midday heat of the summer time and then using a compass and map, move as fast as we could on foot to a given location about two miles away. And I can tell you from experience, this is absolutely no fun at all, yet we learned to do it because no one wants to die from a chemical or biological agent—a ghastly way to go. Thus the training had us totally engaged even though the training was absolutely horrible.

Thus the purpose of this phase is to ensure the learner's are on board with the learning and performance process, which is often best accomplished by ensuring a portion of them and their managers are included in the planning process. You need the managers to help ensure they are on board as employees most often do what their managers emphasize (unless you have some strong informal leaders among them).

Reversing the Process

By using the four levels to build the learning/performance process (going through levels 1 to 4 in the chart below), it is now relative easy to evaluate the program by reversing the process (going through the levels in reverse order [4, 3, 2, 1]:

 

Evaluation Level	Create	Measurement/
1. Results or Impact - What is our goal?	Implement a process that allows the employees to capture Lessons Learned so that others may also learn from them when similar problems arise.	Reduce number of repeated problems/mistakes in the project reports by 90%.
2. Performance - What must the performers do to achieve the goal?	Identify and capture “Lessons Learned” in an AAR, post them on a wiki, and tweet them using Yammer. When problems in their projects arise, they should be able to search the wiki and/or use Yammer to see if there is a previous solution.	Count the : contributions per month to the wiki contributions to the microblogging tool questions asked on Yammer Interview performers to capture success stories.
3. Learning - What must they learn to be able to perform?	Perform an AAR. Upload the captured “Lessons Learned” to a wiki. Search and find documents in a wiki that are similar to their problem. Microblog in Yammer.	Proficient use of an AAR is measured by using Branching Scenarios in an elearning program and performing an actual AAR in a classroom environment. The proficient use of the wiki and Yammer are measured in their respective elearning program (multiple choice) and by interacting (social learning) with the instructor and other learners on Yammer.
4. Reaction - What needs to be done to engage the learners/performers?	Bring learners in on the planning/building process to ensure it meets their needs. Managers will meet with the learners on a one-on-one basis before they begin the learning process to ensure the program is relevant to their needs. The instructional staff will meet with the learners during the learning process to ensure it is meeting their needs. The managers, with help from the learning department, will meet with the performers to ensure the new process is not conflicting with their daily working environment.	Learner/performer engagement problems/roadblocks that are encountered will be the first item discussed and solved during the weekly project meetings.

Since we started with a focused project, we can now let demand drive additional initiatives that expand upon the present social and informal learning platform.

How do you build and measure learning processes?

The Tools of Our Craft

The latest edition of Chief Learning Officer magazine contains an interesting article, Time's Up (you can also read the article on the author's blog). It is about Donald Kirkpatrick's Four Level Evaluation Model that was first published in a series of articles in 1959 in the Journal of American Society of Training Directors (now known as T+D magazine).

The author, Dan Pontefract, sums up the article in his last statement, “Diverging from the cockroach, it's time for the learning profession to evolve.” While Dan's article is thought-provoking, I believe it misses out on two points, 1) since it is old, it's no good and 2) it has not evolved.

Old Does Not Mean Outdated

Interaction Design is closely related to our craft, training and learning. While the concept of interaction design has been around for ages, it was not formerly defined until 1990 by Bill Moggridge, co-founder of the Silicon Valley-based design firm IDEO. While it is one of the newer design professions, it still relies on older tools. For example, one of the tools used is the affinity diagram that was developed by Jiro Kawakita in the early 1960s. Thus, being old does not mean a tool should be extinct. If that was true, the cockroach would have disappeared millions of years ago, yet, because it has evolved, it has managed to survive... much to the disgust of anyone who has had their home invaded by them.

enso circle by Vibhav

“Nature itself is full of beauty and harmonious relationships that are asymmetrical yet balanced. This is a dynamic beauty that attracts and engages.” - Garr Reynolds

While people who have had their homes invaded by the cockroach look at them in disgust, entomologists look at them as one of the marvels of natures. Learning/Instructional Designers should not look upon our tools, such as ADDIE and Kirkpatrick's model as disgusting objects that have invaded our craft, but rather more as entomologists look upon the lowly cockroach—marvels of our craft that have survived the test of time.

The Evolution of Our Tools

Just as the ADDIE model has evolved over time, Kirkpatrick's model has also evolved. One of its main evolutionary steps was flipping it into a backwards planning model:

1. Results or Impact - What is our goal?
2. Performance - What must the performers do to achieve the goal?
3. Learning - What must they learn to perform?
4. Reaction - What needs to be done to engage the learners/performers?

While I blogged of this in 2008, Flipping Kirkpatrick, Kirkpatrick himself wrote of this several years earlier. This method align's with how Dan's article says we should start, “start with an end goal to achieve overall return on performance and engagement.” In addition, this in no way treats learning as an event, but rather a process. What is interesting, is how closely Kirkpatrick's evolved model fits in with other models, such as Cathy Moore's Action Mapping.

Like the ADDIE model, Kirkpatrick's model is often called a process model. However, this is only true if you blindly follow it. If you remove your blinders and study and play with it, it becomes a way to not only implement formal learning, but informal, social, and nonformal learning as well. For example, in step three, What must they learn to perform?, does not imply strictly formal learning methods, but rather any combination of the four learning processes (social, informal, nonformal, and formal).

How do you see our tools evolving?

 

Star Diagram of the Continua of Learning

In my last post, Should the Door be Closed or Open, Nick Kearney commented that the star diagram was a better representation than the various continua I laid out. I agree; however, since the star diagram is composed of continua, I think when discussing a particular one, as I did in the last post, it helps to just show the one being discussed.

As show in the diagram below, I did some adjustments to it (you can click the diagram for a larger version):

Star Diagram of the Continua of Learning

As I noted in my last post, I put social learning and reflection on the same continuum (The Door), as the real purpose is that sometimes we need to be alone with our thoughts, while at other times we need to interact with others. And of course there are a lot of alternatives between the two (social reflection being one of them).

I also dropped the Purpose of Learning Continuum (intentional and incidental/serendipitous). While it is an interesting concept, I don't believe that it fits in with the diagram in that it does not help us to design better learning/performance platforms.

David Winter (@davidawinter) tweeted me with the suggestion of adding another continuum: Impact - 'reinforcement/augmentation' of existing understanding/behaviours/identity vs 'transformation.' After thinking about it, I believe it belongs on the Workflow Continuum (EPSS/performance support and training). However, I'm not sure which of the terms are better. I'm thinking that it should be called the 'Workflow Continuum' with augmentation on one end and transformation on the other. I believe that EPSS/performance support and training would be some of the options that lie between the two:

What are your thoughts?

Should the Door be Closed or Open: Thoughts on the Social Learning and Reflection Continuum

I have been doing some more reflecting on the Social Learning and Reflection Continuum. This reflection includes both social reflection (mostly via Twitter) and self-reflection. Part of it includes how the continuum fits in with other continuums and does the Social Learning and Reflection Continuum really make sense? I created the diagram below to see what would happen if I changed it and how other forms of learning fit in. If you click the diagram it will bring up a larger diagram in a new window:

In the diagram I replaced the Social Learning and Reflection Continuum with Social Learning and Achorite. This was mostly because of some tweets with Marcia Conner (@marciamarcia) where she thought that Solitude should be on the opposite side of Social Learning. I did not really like that word so I used the term anchorite, which in part means “rural countryside” in order to contrast it to social, as meaning village or town” (e.g. it takes a village or number or people).

NOTE: While the opposite ends of the various continuums discussed below may be a choice of one or the other, they are more often shades of various degrees and/or combinations. That is, don't just look at the ends, but also picture a wide rage of possibilities inside of them.

The Door

I had the thought, “What is the real purpose of the continuum? Is it to count the number of people involved? Or does it have a deeper meaning.” Then I remembered of what I read when the physicist Freeman Dyson commented on the subject. He noted that when writing, he closes the door, but when doing science, he leaves it open. This is because when writing you need to perform deep reflective thoughts, but when doing science you welcome being interrupted because it is only by interacting with other people that you get anything interesting done.

Thus it is not really about the number of people involved in the learning episode, but rather, do you welcome the thoughts of others or do you need to sort out your thoughts and ideas without being interrupted? Counting the number of people in a learning episode does not make sense as it sort of like counting the number of seats in formal learning — who cares? The real purpose is do you need to discuss ideas with others or do you need to sort ideas, order them, toss out invalid ones, etc. within your own mind.

So I named this continuum “the door” – do you need it open or shut during a specific point when learning? And of course you may decide to choose a combination and have Social Reflection — engaging with others in a way that encourages talking with, questioning, or confronting, to aid the reflective process by placing the learner in a safe environment in which self-revelation can take place.

Thus, I am now sticking with my initial premise that reflection belongs on the same continuum with social learning.

Direction of Control

David Winter (@davidawinter) thought perhaps that Autonomous should be placed opposite of Social Learning. At first I thought his term was better than Achorite or Solitude. But then I thought some more and decided that Guided Learning was really its opposite, thus in the first diagram above I have them on their own continuum. But when I started to name them, it dawned on me that they had the same purpose as the Formal and Informal Continuum — who controls the learning? Since Autonomous and Guided Learning has slightly more precise meanings than Formal and Informal, I placed them on the inside of the Direction of Control Continuum.

Known or Unknown?

Collaborative Learning is quite similar to cooperative learning in that the learners work together in teams to increase their chance of deeper learning. However, it is a more radical departure from cooperative learning in that there is not necessarily a known answer. For example, trying to determine the answer to "how effective is reflection?" would be collaborative learning as there are a wide ranges of possibilities to this question, depending upon the learners' experiences and perspectives.

Purpose of Learning

I included a Purpose of Learning Continuum as learning normally has a purpose during an informal or formal episode, but often we learn something that was not in the initial plan. However, that learning may prove later to have a real and important purpose.

Processing

The processing continuum is important because it determines how we will learn something. If it is easy to learn, we may only have to listen, observe, feel, etc. But as it becomes more complicated, we need to actually do it. Of course that is not always possible, so between the two ends of the continuum are the various activities that we may practice in order to be able to perform in a real work setting.

Workflow

While writing this post, I thought of another learning continuum, workflow — can the learning be embedded within the learner's workflow or does it call for a training process?

Thoughts?

What are your thoughts on these various learning continuums? Are there more? Do these make sense? Please let me know by leaving a comment, Twitter me (I'm @iOPT), or carrying the discussion further on your own blog (send me a tweet so I can RT it).

The Social Learning and Reflection Continuum

Recently I had a Twitter conversation with Marcia Conner (@marciamarcia), Aaron Silvers (@mrch0mp3rs), and David Winter (@davidawinter) on the subject of reflection. Or more specifically, is reflection on the same continuum as social learning:

Being on opposite sides of the continuum does not mean it's one or the other, but rather there are different degrees and combinations of social learning and reflection. The reason I place them on the same learning continuum is that their definitions seem to be just about the opposite (one is performed with others while the other is often performed in one's head):

• Social Learning: a process of learning caused or favored by people being situated in a common environment and interacting and observing one another. This allows the learners to not only perceive each other for comparison and self-evaluation, but also see others as a neutral source of information, which may help or speed several forms of instrumental learning.
• Reflection is thinking for an extended period by linking recent experiences to earlier ones in order to promote a more complex and interrelated mental schema. It normally involves looking for:
  • commonalties
  • differences
  • interrelations beyond their superficial elements

The middle of the learning continuum might be termed Social Reflection: engaging with another person in a way that encourages talking with, questioning, or confronting, in order to aid the reflective process by placing the learner in a safe environment in which self-revelation can take place (Hatton, Smith, 1995):

And of course we can combine the Learning Continuum with other continuums to form a quad:

Note: examples of tools that promote reflection

How do you view the Social Learning and Reflection Continuum?

Designing eLearning

A learning methodology is a set of procedures composed of methods, principles, and rules for enhancing individual capacity and performance. Yet, some elearning designers only think of the technology and content, which normally leads to a “page-turning” design — the learner reads what is on the screen and then clicks the next button. While this can bring about knowledge, which is important, the design often fails to follow-up with the next step — performance — having the learners practice the skills in order to master them. While there are a number of means of achieving this, one option is using a design architecture composed of the “Five Types of Content in eLearning” (Clark, Mayer, 2007) and the six categories of Bloom's Revised Taxonomy:

Five Types of Content in eLearning

• Fact - unique data (e. g., symbols for Excel formula)
• Concept - a category that includes multiple examples (e. g., Excel formulas)
• Process - a flow of events or activities (e. g., how a spreadsheet works)
• Procedure - step-by-step task (e. g., entering a formula into a spreadsheet)
• Strategic Principle - task performed by adapting guidelines (e. g., doing a financial projection in a spreadsheet)

Bloom's Revised Taxonomy

Design Architecture Matrix

Putting the above two concepts into a matrix gives us an idea of what type of activities the learners need in order for them to learn the required performance skills. The chart below lists various activities and aids that can help increase the possibility of turning learning into performance. Since the chart will be cut off in the blog, this link will bring up the chart in a new window: eLearning Design Chart.

	Fact	Concept	Process	Procedure	Strategic Principle
Remembering (or being able to locate data by searching)	EPSS or mLearning for finding facts Multiple choice, puzzles, or Drag and Drop for learning facts	EPSS or mLearning for finding examples Demonstration Reading or podcast Social Learning Media - learning from others	EPSS or mLearning for finding the activities Social Learning Media - learning from others Demonstration (rich media) Reading or podcast Multiple choice, puzzles,or Drag and Drop for learning the events	EPSS or mLearning for finding the steps Social Learning Media - learning from others Demonstration (rich media) Reading or podcast Multiple choice, puzzles, or Drag and Drop for learning the steps	EPSS or mLearning for discovering the basic principles Social Learning Media for discussing principles Demonstration (rich media) Reading or podcast Multiple choice, puzzles, or Drag and Drop for learning the principles
Understanding		Matched example/non-example pairs Demonstration Reading with simple graphics	elearning, EPSS, or mLearning for demonstration (rich media) Social Learning Media - discussing and sharing Demonstration Reading with graphics Podcasts	elearning, EPSS, or mLearning for demonstration (rich media) Social Learning Media - discussing and sharing Demonstration Reading with graphics Podcasts	Social Learning Media - discussing and sharing eLearning - Interactive Scenario Case study followed by questions
Applying		Case study followed by questions Drag and Drop or puzzles Social Learning Media - sharing experiences Creating wiki entry or blog post	EPSS - list activities eLearning - Interactive Scenario Social Learning Media - sharing and receiving guidance Creating wiki entry or blog post	EPSS - list steps eLearning - Interactive Scenario Social Learning Media - sharing and receiving guidance Creating wiki entry or blog post	EPSS - list activities Social Learning Media - sharing and receiving guidance Creating wiki entry or blog post eLearning - Interactive Scenario
Analyzing		eLearning - Interactive Scenario Social Learning Media - reflecting and sharing	Matched example/non-example pairs Social Learning Media - reflecting and sharing	Matched example/non-example pairs Social Learning Media - reflecting and sharing	Case study followed by questions Social Learning Media - reflecting and sharing
Evaluating		Social Learning Media - sharing experiences and creating blog posts	Case study followed by questions Social Learning Media - sharing experiences and creating blog posts eLearning - Interactive Scenario	Case study followed by questions Social Learning Media - sharing experiences and creating blog posts eLearning - Interactive Scenario	Social Learning Media - sharing experiences Case study followed by questions and blog post or wiki entry
Creating		Social Learning Media - project interaction (chat, wiki, blog)	Blended Learning - elearning and face-to-face - Action Learning Social Learning Media - project interaction (chat, wiki, blog)	Blended Learning - elearning and face-to-face - Action Learning Social Learning Media - project interaction (chat, wiki, blog)	Blended Learning - elearning and face-to-face - Action Learning Social Learning Media - project interaction (chat, wiki, blog)

What tools are you using to to help ensure your learning platform goes beyond a page-turner?

ADDIE Backwards Planning Model

I have been working on this model for some time, so I wanted to present my latest version.

The ADDIE Backwards Model is quite similar to most other ADDIE type models. Note that the Learning Platform (Implement) rests on the Analysis, Design, Development, and Evaluation Phases. The steps in the Analysis Phase closely align with Phillips' Needs Model and Kirkpatrick's Four Levels of Evaluations. In addition, the Analysis steps align with the Design and Development steps:

Click for a larger version with “clickable” links

Analysis Phase

• Business Needs - how a learning initiative will support the organization's initiatives, strategies, or goals
• Job Performance Needs - determine the cause of the performance deficiency that is preventing the business unit from reaching its objectives and identify the performance required to reach it
• Training Needs - define appropriate performance, instructional, and informational material (includes both formal and informal)
• Individual Needs - ensure the goals and tasks will be judged by the learners as important and doable

Design Phase

• Develop Objectives - what tasks the learners will be able to perform after they finish the learning process
• Develop Tests - how well the tasks must be performed
• Identify Learning Steps - how to perform the tasks
• List Entry Behaviors - what the learners must know before entering the learning process
• Sequence - sequenced and structured to provide the best opportunity for learning that will lead to performance

Development Phase

• List Learner Activities — activities that help the learners perform in order to meet the Business Needs.
• Choose Delivery System — the medium is selected that will not only best deliver the learning platform to the learners, but also has the least interruption on their jobs (performance aids, social media, informal learning techniques, etc.)
• Review Existing Material — see if any preexisting content can be recycled to meet the performance needs
• Develop Instruction — the courseware, such as the activities, performance aids, content, context, etc. are created
• Synthesize — combine into a coherent whole so that it best integrates the information and activities into a learning platform that fosters performance
• Validate Instruction — ensure the learning platform helps the learners to reach the business objective and informs them of the need to perform to the required standards

Implementation Phase

The Analysis, Design, and Development phases provided the underlying support to ensure the learning platform:

• Performs as predicted (solves a real business need)
• Flows with the job performance needs (improves job performance rather than interrupt it)
• Supports all training and learning needs
• Ensure the learners see the training as important and doable so that they are motivated to engage in it

Evaluation Phase

Aligning the ADDIE model with Kirkpatrick's Four Levels of Evaluation helps to ensure the learning platforms performs as expected

Ideas Favor the Connected Mind

In a recent TED Talk, Steven Johnson, the best-selling author of six books on the intersection of science, technology and personal experience, gives a presentation titled, Where good ideas come from.

Connecting

He notes how England's coffee houses became a social meeting place for people that began one of the great intellectual periods in the last 500 years — “The Enlightenment” — in that it allowed different people with different backgrounds and different fields of expertise a place to meet and exchange ideas.

An idea is a network (a new configuration); however, that idea is normally cobbled together from whatever parts happen to be nearby — we take ideas from other people, people we learn from, people we meet in the coffee shop, and then stitch them together into new forms. Fred Stratton (CEO of Briggs & Stratton) once said that genius lay in the ability to see how two or more ideas that nobody else sees as related are indeed related. This ability to make an analogy between different ideas unlocks a world of potential. And the means that we get to see various ideas is often accomplished by connecting with others.

These meeting places where we connect are often called “common environments.” However, social media tools, such as blogs, micro blogs (e.g., Twitter & Yammer), file sharing (e.g., Flickr & SlideShare), virtual meeting places, (e.g., Adobe Connect & Elluminate), social sites (e.g. Facebook & MySpace), and wikis now provide a virtual bridge by acting as the common environment in many instances. This virtual bridge allows people to interact with each other in much the same manner as they would in a common environment, thus they are virtually able to observe, gather new ideas, and learn from others.

Space has shifted as people do not have to be in the same physical location. The availability of the common environment has been greatly extended.

The Formation of New Ideas

While people often say they get their ideas in sort of an eureka minute, they are for the most part unreliable when performing this self-reporting on where they get their new ideas. Rather than being an eureka minute, ideals normally happen when people get together so that they can bounce ideas off other people, absorb the thoughts of others, and then build relationships between the various ideas..

Steven Johnson tells the story of how Charles Darwin wrote that he came up with the idea of natural selection in an eureka minute; however, his notebooks tell a slightly different story — he had the full concept of natural selection in them months before he was actually able to put the final theory forward.

While we might think that our ideas come in one spark, they normally are created in an incubation period consisting of 1) connecting with others 2), seeing a relationship between different ideas, 3) developing each part of the new idea, and 4) the joining of the parts in order to create the finalized idea (it is this last step that gives the illusion that the idea is an eureka moment).

Asking if Something Can be Done

In his talk, Steven Johnson tells the story of when Sputnik was launched, two guys named Guier and Weiffenbach started listening to the pings coming from its signal. After a while they noticed small frequency variations that allowed them to calculate the speed of the satellite. They began talking to their colleagues who had other kind of specialties and about three or four weeks later they mapped the exact trajectory of this satellite orbiting earth.

A couple weeks later their boss, Frank McClure asked them, “You've figured out an unknown location of a satellite orbiting the planet from a known location on the ground. Could you go the other way? Could you figure out an unknown location on the ground, if you knew the location of the satellite?” After thinking about it they discovered it would actually be easier. Guier and Weiffenbach's boss needed to be able to do this as he was working on new nuclear submarines in which it was extremely difficult to calculate the aim of a missile so that it lands on top of Moscow, if you don't know the exact location of a submarine located in the middle of the ocean.

Open Innovation

Guier, Weiffenbach, and McClure opened the avenue of GPS. Thirty years later, Ronald Reagan opened it up and made it an open platform that anybody could build upon and anybody could build new technology that would create and innovate on top of this open platform. A closed system connects with a small number of minds, while an open system has an opportunity to connect with a large number of minds that in turn, greatly increases its chance of becoming a new idea, which in turn can become a new innovation.

The Process of Creating Ideas

Thus, connecting people allows the exchange of ideas that form new ideas, which in turn can create another idea that works best when it is opened up to innovation:

This process of creating ideas is important when designing learning environments.

Agile Design

For example, one of the concepts of Agile Design is bringing the designers, managers, learners, and subject matter experts and/or exemplary performers in on the planning stage as a high degree of collaboration needs to take place to accurately identify the problem and solution. When extending instructional system design to solve complex problems, you need to fully immerse yourself in the problem to fully understand it.

Extending Instructional Design

To accomplish either of these requires connections so that the idea creation process can begin.

And we need to not only include the process of creating ideas in our building of learning platforms, but also extending them to the learners so that they can create ideals that will help lead to innovation. Rather than build walls, have no walls. The physicist Freeman Dyson once wrote:

When writing, I close the door, but when doing science, I leave it open. Up to a point you welcome being interrupted because it is only by interacting with other people that you get anything interesting done.

What have you done lately to help increase the creation of ideas within your organization — have you helped to tear down the walls rather than build walls?

Blog Book Tour: Social Media for Trainers

Welcome to the seventh stop of the Blog Book Tour for Jane Bozarth's new book, Social Media for Trainers. If you have been following the blog book tour, then you know Jane's book not only provides an introduction for understanding how to use social media tools, such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and wikis; but is also chock-full of examples. And these examples are quite important as they provide models for learning.

However, perhaps you are still somewhat leery of using social media for learning, thus I'm listing a few points for you to consider.

We often think of new technologies or concepts as being silver-bullets or replacements for present training and learning initiatives. Past examples include video tapes and elearning. And yes, sometimes they are able to stand by themselves as the learning platform; however, they often work much better in blended solutions. Thus, social media should not normally be thought of as a stand-alone solution, but rather as extensions of face-to-face exchanges in order to extend the learners' networks.

Social media can provide a virtual bridge by acting as the common learning environment (see Instructional Design — Social Learning and Social Media). Thus it extends and in some instances may replace the required social interactions that takes place in a lot of learning processes.

As noted earlier, examples provide learners with real models. Social learning works in a similar manner in that it allows the learners to perceive others for comparison and self-evaluation. In addition, we can bounce ideas off of them and are often a neutral source of information, which may help or speed several forms of instrumental learning (Conte, Paolucci, 2001). We know these social interactions are important because while we might picture someone learning informally as being a “lone learner,” studies have shown that during an informal learning episode a learner normally interacts with an average of 10 people (Tough, 1999). And even though you might only be interested in formal learning, you have to support these informal learning episodes because informal and formal learning are closely tied together — an average of one-hour of formal learning spills over to four-hours of informal learning (Cofer, 2000).

Thus to transform training from an event to a real process you have to support the informal learning that accompanies the majority of formal learning. Bell (1977) used the metaphor of brick and mortar to describe the relationship of formal and informal learning. Formal learning acts as bricks fused into the emerging bridge of personal growth. Informal learning acts as the mortar, facilitating the acceptance and development of the formal learning. He also noted that informal learning is not a replacement for formal learning processes as it is this synergy that produces effective growth.

To make training an effective process, you really have think about tying the various parts of learning into a whole, such as formal and informal learning, and the social learning that normally needs to accompany the other two. While the main reason for training failing in the past was most likely the failure to link formal learning to a real business need, I would think with all the emphasis on it the last few years that we have now gone beyond that and we now need to refine our efforts. Jane's book can be an important part of the solution.

Next stop for the Social Media for Trainers Blog Book Tour is Gina Schreck, that is scheduled on September 22.

You can follow Jane on Twitter: @janebozarth and @SoMe4Trainers; connect with her Facebook pages: Jane Bozarth Bozarthzone and Social Media for Trainers; or read some of her thoughts and ideas on her blog.

References

Bell, C. R. Informal Learning in Organizations. Personnel Journal, 56, no. 6 (June 1977): 280-283, 313. (EJ 160 136).

Cofer, D. (2000). Informal Workplace Learning. Practice Application Brief. NO 10. U.S. Department of Education: Clearinghouse on Adult, Career, and Vocational Education.

Conte, R. & Paolucci, M. (2001). Intelligent Social Learning. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation. vol. 4, no. 1.

Tough, A. (1999). Reflections on the study of adult learning. Paper presented at the 3rd New Approaches to Lifelong Learning (NALL) Conference, University of Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto, Canada. Retrieved January 8, 2008 from http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/depts/sese/csew/nall/res/08reflections.pdf

On The Media

A recent On The Media Podcast has several short stories about media that might be of interest to many of you. Unlike their original podcast in which all the stories are combined into one podcast, their web page on the podcast has the stories broken down into short segments so that you can pick and choose the ones you want to listen to.

Field Guide

The first story that might be of interest is titled, Field Guide (transcript), that discusses the popularity of the Madden NFL video game among pros, college, and high school football players. One thing is for certain — the new players are much more familiar with offensive formations, defensive formations, play calls, etc. than new players 20 years ago; and both players and coaches agree that they are learning a lot about football through the video game.

The Uncanny Valley

The next one is titled the The Uncanny Valley (transcript). The story is about simulations and the human sims within them. What is interesting is that if you create a sim that is 95 percent lifelike, it is great; however, if you made one that is 96 percent lifelike, it is a disaster because it is like a a human being with something wrong. That is, if it gets too life-like, but something is slightly off, it starts to look horrifyingly dead and dull — which freaks people out.

The Facebook Effect

Why does Facebook trump all it's competitors? The Facebook Effect (transcript) story says it is because:

• You use your real name on Facebook, and while this seems so familiar now, it was really quite revolutionary when Facebook launched
• The service improved from a technology point of view
• They live by the rule “only the paranoid survive”

The Death of the Web?

While the recent story in Wired magazine left many people scratching their heads, the story, The Death of the Web? (transcript) notes that we have to realize that the “web” is NOT the “internet.” The web is what we surf via our Web browser (web sites and HTML). While the internet is composed of the network, the wires, the routers and all that on which digital information flows. And it is non-web applications that are starting to have a big impact in how we receive our information (think iPad and iPhone).