I wrote this article before the Covid-19 outbreak. I hesitated to post it today, but decided it is important right now as organizations (and educational institutions) move things online in order to avoid human to human contact. In the short term, online learning will fill a gap; however, it is not a long term solution after the virus is effectively contained.
Technology is sexy.
It’s appealing to design programs employees can access from anywhere. You save travel costs, time, and can verify learning has occurred through online testing. Information is immediately available, searchable, and learner driven.
Technology isn’t the only answer for learning.
We need to be careful to not so quickly overlook classroom training. Yes, we’ve all been guilty of too many PowerPoint slides, lectures that drone on too long, and a lack of learner centered activities. Bad training is bad training. That’s not the training I’m talking about.
Training that is vital to an organization (and individual’s) success is collaborative, hands on, and learner centered with a specific learning objective in mind. Learners step into the room knowing what they are going to learn TO DO. Together, they problem solve, explore, and practice new skills in a safe environment before they return to work. They receive feedback from each other as well as the trainer.
But self-paced e-learning, the most-reported last organizational training received, is clearly missing the mark when it comes to the desire for learning with and from others collaboratively, and isn’t leading directly to the kind of on-the-job application required for real behavior change and organizational transformation.
IntrepidLearning.com 2020 The State of High Stakes Learning Survey
In our efforts to move all learning online, we need to weigh what is best learned electronically and what benefits from face to face interaction.
You can begin making this decision by looking at the work itself.
- What will people be doing on the job?
- Will they be doing it alone?
- Does it require collaboration or interaction?
- What resources will they reference?
- What’s the next step after they complete the work?
Knowing how the work will be done helps us to make the distinction between what learners need to know versus what they need to do — knowledge versus performance. I may be able to identify the parts of a grammatically correct sentence, but that knowledge is lost on me if I can’t write a sentence. Consider Knowledge versus Skill (or performance).
Let’s take for example, presenting a report to managers. Let’s break it into two main tasks — write the report, present the report. We can then divide the two areas into knowledge and skill (performance).
In order to write a report you need knowledge of:
- grammar
- punctuation
- analytical writing
- report structure
- the report’s subject
To present the report you need knowledge of:
- presentation techniques
- methods to calm nerves
Now, we can create online learning to cover all of the topics above. Our learner will leave with the knowledge of each of those, but not the performance. So we’ll add a few more elements to our elearning. We’ll give them topics to write on that are reviewed virtually with a program or a real instructor. Do you begin to see the problem?
We could create virtual opportunities for our learner to practice the last two elements — presentation techniques and calming nerves, but they’d be artificial. They wouldn’t have the same impact that could be achieved standing in front of the room.
The rule of thumb I was taught and have taught many trainers, is to make the training mirror the work to be performed. If you want someone to change a tire, they need their hands on the tire. Much of our work can easily translate to practice in an online environment, but not all of it. Presenting to a computer camera is not the same as presenting to real people.
So, let’s mirror the performance.
Now, take a look at the following list to see what you would choose for each task — virtual or face to face learning?
- Analyze two options to determine which is most impactful for an organization
- Communicate feedback to an employee
- Evaluate three proposals to determine which meets requirements
- Make coffee
- Present a report to managers
- Deescalating customer complaints
Here are our best elearning candidates:
- Analyze two options to determine which is most impactful for an organization
- Evaluate three proposals to determine which meets requirements
The remaining three are best suited for face to face training. Their performance requires the learner to do something that can’t be replicated with an online simulation. Could you provide online learning for these? Yes, but they wouldn’t allow the learner to mirror the situation in which they are actually performing the task.
What about deescalating customer complaints? It depends. Are the complaints face to face, phone, mail, or electronic? Let the type of complaint determine the type of method we use.
Let learning drive the methodology. If we make the most of how we learn then we are being most responsible with our resources.
