Cognitive learning theory focuses on learning through understanding and meaning, as opposed to memorizing facts and figures. We observe, listen, touch, read, or experience new information before processing and then recalling it. Although it might seem passive, cognitive learning is quite active. The difference is that all the activity is going on inside the processing and storage areas of the brain.

Roger Schank, a leading visionary in cognitive science and learning, defines learning not as an accumulation of knowledge, but as an improvement in one’s own cognitive processes. In his book Teaching Minds: How Cognitive Science Can Save Our Schools, he outlines twelve learning processes organized into three categories:

• Conceptual processes: prediction, modeling, experimentation, evaluation
• Analytic processes: diagnosis, planning, causation, judgment
• Social processes: Influence, teamwork, negotiation, describing

According to the ASTD Handbook, the cognitive view of how learning takes place is “based on how information is processed, stored, and retrieved in the mind, rather than on how behavior changes.” The approach helps learners remember information, comprehend how things work, and refer to new procedures when needed.

That’s a high-level view of cognitive learning theory. So how do we use cognitive learning theory to actually design training for adults? Here’s what the ASTD Cognitive Training Model recommends:

• Gain attention: Start with a relevant way to grab the learners’ attention right away. Focus the attention on the new knowledge to generate encouragement and excitement for learning.
• Recall and relate: Draw a connection between the information the learners already know and the new knowledge they’re about to gain. Highlight similarities between the old and new knowledge throughout the course.
• Structure content: Be clear about the desired behaviors and knowledge. Organize new information into bite-size pieces to avoid cognitive overload and to promote learning that will stick.
• Use visuals throughout: Along with organized on-screen text, graphics and animations may help introduce and support new content.
• Assimilate the old and new knowledge: Use real-life or realistic examples to demonstrate how the new knowledge works in a context that appeals to the learners.
• Strengthen the new knowledge: Engage learners by having them do something with their new knowledge, such as through interactive exercises, games, or on-the-job application of their new skills.

Which would you choose? A PowerPoint file that reviews reasons why drinking and texting is bad…

…or a wrecked car display at the school with a reminder to avoid texting and driving?

Which do you think will evoke more emotions?

Which do you think will come to the driver's mind as he or she decides whether or not to text and drive? Why?

Emotions act as the framework that learners of all ages use to interpret meaning. They play a major role in defining our personalities. We make thousands of decisions every day based on our emotions. In his book Brain-Based Learning, Eric Jensen describes that emotions also have the ability to influence how we learn by:

• Helping us figure out what's real and what we believe and feel
• Activating long-term memory; the more intense the amygdala arousal, the stronger the imprint
• Helping us make faster decisions by using gut judgment
• Helping us engage our values while making decisions

The old way of thinking was that rational decision-making was the way to go; eliminate feelings and let the pros and cons guide the way. But modern brain research casts a new light on the important role of emotions in learning and decision-making.

According to research by the Center for Development and Learning, the brain relies on emotions to drive action. The limbic system in the middle of the brain is where we determine and manage our emotions and behavior. In response to internal and external stimuli, the amygdala releases chemicals that stimulate our brain, which can help us process and remember information. When the limbic system receives information, it sets the "emotional tone" of the information before sending it to the cortex for processing.

When the brain interprets information as positive, it sends off a signal of purpose and excitement and directs our behavior toward a goal. The result is motivated learning, thinking, and enhanced memory. But when information is interpreted in a negative manner, chemicals are released in the bloodstream that produce a range of stress-related bodily responses, like sweaty palms, internal tension, and increased blood pressure. These emotions often prevent us from learning and remembering.

Trainers and educators can enhance learners' ability to absorb new information by consciously allowing emotions to help shape their experience instead of shutting them out. Here are some ideas for incorporating emotional aspects of learning into your curriculum.

• Provide projects that are personally meaningful to the learners.
• Design a classroom environment that's comfortable and allows for non-threatening collaboration.
• When reviewing goals for learning, ask your learners why they want to reach them, and encourage them to share their answers with other participants. According to Jensen, "It is the emotions behind the goals that provide the energy to accomplish them."
• To minimize stress, make sure helpful resources are available for every learner.
• Try to engage as many senses as possible. When multiple senses are engaged, the brain has a very rich learning experience.
• Encourage learners to discuss feelings and emotions that relate to the new material. 

Is emotional learning part of your training program? Ask us how we can help.

We’re in a new age of connectivity with the Internet. Despite all the distractions, the Internet era is helping us get back to our roots: forming communities of interest, sharing and improving upon ideas, and ultimately innovating in a collective manner—in real time. And modern crowdsourcing is gaining traction. It involves identifying a problem and putting out an open call to a group of people to solicit ideas, solutions, and innovations. The belief is that by combining expertise and creative thinking, the best solutions will ultimately emerge from collaborative effort.

People rarely come up with amazing ideas in an instant or by themselves. Innovative ideas usually take a lot of time to percolate. History is full of half ideas that only became powerful innovations after combining forces with other ideas. Stephen Johnson explores this concept in his insightful video on collective innovation.

Although crowdsourcing is a relatively new buzzword, the concept is hardly new. In fact, we can partially blame the industrial era for interrupting our natural tendency to collectively create. In his book Crowdsourcing, Jeff Howe goes on to explain that prior to the industrial age and the rise of mass production, the line between audience and creator was not as rigid. People met in parlor rooms and coffee houses to exchange and evolve innovative ideas. The decentralized Internet is helping us dismantle the boundaries we’ve been used to for multiple generations, bringing us back to an ancient tradition of shared storytelling.

At ILG, we’re most interested in what crowdsourcing has in store for the learning/training field. Crowdsourcing encourages sharing ideas in order to mine the most innovative solutions to learning challenges. It’s improving our ability to collaborate, making learning easier and more innovative than ever. We’re all pretty familiar with certain crowdsourced resources: wikipedia.com, stock photography sites like istockphoto.com, product and service review sites like Yelp.com and TripAdvisor.com all come to mind. Companies are developing new crowdsourcing tools that give users access to essential information when they need it.

Crowdsourcing is also gaining popularity with online training. Basic topics are established and then content is solicited from either a defined group or an open audience. The result is often an interactive learning experience based on the collection of content. The Faculty Project is one example, where professors from all over the world join together to create free online courses on a wide variety of topics using PowerPoint files, PDF documents, videos, and other supporting materials.

In his article for TrainingZone, Matt Pierce discusses the role of crowdsourcing in the flipped training content model, which gives learners access to training materials prior to the training session. He suggests crowdsourcing as a way to survey an organization’s workforce to find people with expertise in certain areas who can share their knowledge. Incentives and prizes for the most valuable contributions are built in.

How have you used crowdsourcing in your organization to build and share common knowledge?

The Nature of Learning

Social learning builds a sense of community, creates standards or reference points, and offers alternative perspectives. It also generates support and encouragement within our networks.

The essence of social learning for businesses is that people collaborate and share to make sense of new ideas. In her excellent post on social learning on FastCompany.com, Marcia Connor sums it up this way: “Social learning combines social media tools with a shift in the corporate culture, a shift that encourages ongoing knowledge transfer and connects people in ways that make learning a joy.” New technologies are making it possible to create vibrant working environments that are “enthusiastically supported, where your sense of wonder returns and creativity blossoms — where people thrive.”

Children seem to learn through social interaction quite naturally. In days past, workers regularly learned by doing, by finding mentors and observing their behaviors. Our learning hasn’t always been bound by rigid org charts and corporate seminars.

Why has the business world taken such a siloed approach to learning for so long? The explosive potential for social media has helped us improve the way we learn at work, beyond the org chart. Perhaps social media tools are letting us tap back into something fundamental to learning: a sense of curiosity and exploration.

The Tools of Social Learning

If learning is a journey, then online social learning tools allow us to leave a trail of breadcrumbs—without geographical restrictions. Here are some common tools many of us already use every day to learn and share new information:

•  Wikipedia: A free content encyclopedia that anyone can edit, Wikipedia is one of the most popular sites in the world. It attracts more than 400 million visitors a month and a total of 1.2 million contributors. This is made possible by a software platform that simplifies collaboration.

• Twitter: People flock to twitter because it allows them to connect, communicate, share, and collaborate with people all over the world, as well as find the most current topics of interest. These topics can be organized using hash tags (#) for easy searchability.
• Company Blogs: External blogs let employees contribute posts and invite comments from visitors. They help build a company’s brand and allow a free-flowing exchange of new ideas.
• Internal Wikis: These sites let employees share knowledge within an organization, access common files like job descriptions, style guides, policies and procedures, and browse resources created by company subject matter experts.

 Social Learning Strategies at Work

Many of us are more than knee-deep in social media through sites like facebook, twitter, and pinterest. Then when we go to work, it’s as if we’re reverting back to how we used to communicate a decade ago. With email as the standard mode of communication at work, it’s difficult to openly communicate and collaborate on projects.

Embrace social learning or be left behind, says journalist Debra Donston-Miller. Users are tired of just searching for information online; now they want to network. It’s the next big step in social communication.

The opportunity for growth in the social business industry is vast. One company that has claimed a big stake in this space is Jive Software. The company’s enterprise-wide social platform leverages the social graph to offers people better ways to collaborate and communicate at work without having to resort to outdated modes of communication like email. Hundreds of big-name companies have adopted the technology with incredible results.

You don’t always need fancy tools for social learning to take place. For example, one of our clients needed a leadership program and a way for participants to practice applying their knowledge outside the classroom. We helped create a “lunch buddies” program to pair different individuals together for lunch following every training session over a nine-week period. They also participated in monthly cohort meetings as an opportunity to review and practice what they learned together.

Zappos.com is another company widely recognized for innovative uses of social strategies that support its customer service and culture. The company’s CEO says that he views social media use as more of a communication channel than a marketing channel. Zappos encourages positive and negative feedback exchanges from customers and employees to align with the core values of openness and honestly. The company offers twitter training to employees, and more than 400 have active accounts. They post YouTube videos and manage several corporate blogs focused on culture and customer service.

Professionals are also using social learning strategies to build their own personal learning networks (PLN) to keep up to date on topics of interest. Learning expert Jane Bozarth recommends using social networking to find people you want to know, participate in interesting conversations, and expand your usual horizons. By creating your own PLN, you can create your own professional brand and build a community of those who share—or even oppose—your interests.

One obvious downside to these abundant inlets for social learning is information overload. It’s something we’re all learning to manage as we juggle our many devices, online accounts. As we become more social online, we must develop stronger filters to weed through the distractions and irrelevant details.

Which social learning strategies do you use at work?

AR is actually a first cousin to Virtual Reality and a second cousin to the one-person 3D theater from the 1960s called the Sensorama. But while the older technologies were designed to replace the user’s environment with a virtual one, AR enhances the user’s actual environment with computer-generated sensory input like sound, GPS data, or video. It’s all about imagination and wonder.

AR in Mobile Technology

Things are changing so fast with AR in mobile technology—it’s hard to keep up! All you need is a smartphone with a camera, an Internet connection, GPS, and an AR app. Hundreds of apps are designed to help us dig deeper to find useful information when we’re mobile. When you’re out and about, you can point your phone at your environment to magically identify spots of interest to you. For example, if you’re in the market to find new office space, an app called Rofo lets you point your smartphone at a building to learn about vacant space. You can click a button to learn details about the vacancy, or fire off an email to the rental company.

Another app called RedFin is great when you’re looking for a house to buy. You can use this map-based app while riding in your car (only if you’re the passenger!) to view house prices, interior images, and realtor contact information.

Google is developing AR-infused “glasses” that use heads-up display (HUD) technology. The idea is that you place the device over one eye and essentially look through the lens of a camera to see detailed information from GoogleMaps or other GPS systems when you’re out walking around.

 AR in Marketing

Marketing is driven by visuals, so AR has so much potential in this area. If you’ve been inside a Lego store lately, you might have played with a “Digital Box” kiosk that lets you scan a product box and see a 3D rendering of what’s inside. It’s a toy for your toys!

The US Postal Service has an online Virtual Box Simulator AR tool that lets you compare the size of objects you want to mail to the size of a virtual flat-rate 3D shipping box—without waiting in line. You can easily switch out the virtual box if it doesn’t fit until you find the one that works.

The Nintendo 3DS systems come with a collection of “AR cards.” The player puts the device on a flat surface, looks through the special camera, and seemingly brings characters and game content to animated life.

AR in Education

AR technology is all about self-paced exploration, discovery, and user engagement, and so educators and trainers have much to look forward to with AR in the classroom. Learners can use AR apps to practice skills, make mistakes, and experience virtual consequences. Check out how BMW service employees use AR goggles to help diagnose and fix problems.

Schools are beginning to adopt AR technology as well. This PBS video describes some great examples of how AR programs help teach complex information in an engaging way, such as physics concepts in a 3D format, gravity concepts, ramp building skills, and even new styles of 3D art creation.

AR in Safety

Safety is area where AR technology is experiencing incredible growth. NASA is working on a display system that pilots wear on their heads that displays a clear electronic image of the environment around the airplane, which is especially helpful at night or during cloudy or rainy weather.

GM has a system that augments a car’s windshield with transparent overlays that highlight objects in the real world not easily seen by the driver. The system is designed to enhance the driver’s ability to see objects, edges of the road, animals along the road, and other safety concerns. The technology uses forward-looking sensors and cameras in the car to track a driver’s position.

We’re in an era where technology is opening up new dimensions for exploring the world around us. What’s in the store for the future? In a few years will we be wearing contact lenses to see robust layers of information as we walk around, shop, or take classes?

What are your experiences using AR technology, and how do you think it’s affecting the way we live?

But we’re not here to debate whether or not elearning is superior to classroom learning. The fact is elearning is here to stay. The demand is growing for mobile training that’s accessible anywhere, anytime. In fact, one of the most popular requests we receive is to transform classroom materials for online learning.

Before starting the process of converting materials, the big question is: what’s the actual purpose of the elearning? Will it replace the classroom training, or will it supplement it? This is a very important question, because it affects the overall direction you take.

For example, the curriculum might require participants to complete a classroom portion first, with the elearning available as a refresher or as a just-in-time resource. In this case, the online course doesn’t need to include every detail from the face-to-face training materials. But if the elearning is designed as a standalone experience that replaces the classroom learning, you’ll need to carefully construct the course so that all the essential details are included—without overwhelming the learners.

Here some of our strategies for adapting classroom materials for a fun, engaging online learning experience:

• Organize the content in a logical manner for elearning. This doesn’t mean copying the script from the PowerPoint file onto the screen and inserting the “Next” button every now and then. Start with writing learning objectives, and organize your course so that each section maps to an objective. You don’t necessarily need to reveal the objectives on screen. Consider “what’s in it for me?” language to pique their interest. For example, compare these two:

“At the end of this course, you should be able to create your intuitive exercise program using our four-part proprietary method.” versus “How do I create a custom exercise program that’s easy to follow?”

• Adapt the tone for online learning. If you’re addressing a wide range of learners with various levels of experience, the elearning should be broad enough to engage them all without isolating anyone. Adjust the tone accordingly if you know your audience is primarily made up of either experts or novices.

• Create content layers. One of the great benefits of elearning is that it easily accommodates people’s various learning modes. People read differently online than on paper; online, they rarely scroll down past the “fold” of the page. Unlike chapters in a book, elearning content doesn’t need to be available on the same level. The essentials should be included in the main content areas of an online course. Secondary information can be discovered through rollover or clickable areas. And third-level content can be organized as PDF files in a resource library for on-demand access. Keep in mind that arranging content into layers doesn’t mean you should bury it; an intuitive navigation design makes it easily accessible.

• Give learners choices for exploring content. It’s fine to provide a map, but forcing learners down a one-way road with no opportunity for side trips just promotes falling asleep at the wheel. There are exceptions, however, such as when you’re trying to teach a compliance process that must be followed in a particular order.

• Give learners the chance to practice what they’ve learned. We can’t emphasize this enough. Just like with classroom training, practice doesn’t just entail answering multiple-choice questions. It could be a game, a scenario, or a quest. A good online practice exercise sets up an appropriate context, gives the learners a challenge to solve, and helps connect what they’ve learned to real-life ways they can apply that information.

• Take advantage of the opportunity to give learners feedback on their progress. Although scripted feedback can’t really replace real, live human feedback, try to make it as meaningful and relevant as possible. For example, in a branching scenario that gives learners multiple options, create custom feedback for each option they choose. In other words, don’t just tell them the choice is correct or incorrect, but tell them why.

No matter what your reason is for converting classroom materials to online learning—budget, time, efficiency, or geographical constraints—working with a team that specializes in elearning development will help you create the best experience for your learners.

“Wanted to share some feedback from a participant with you and reiterate how pleased we were with the class pilot that took place yesterday.  It’s exciting to see this work come to fruition!”

Participant Feedback – “Your database training is outstanding.  It should be made mandatory for the whole company.”

Thanks team ILG!

 Recently I facilitated a workshop with a group of preschool educators. I chose the Ladder of Accountability metaphor to help guide our discussion about peer coaching and team-building.

We started with an activity in which the participants completed a simple task together. Although on the surface the exercise seemed easy to accomplish, it was actually deceptively difficult. They attempted to do the task several times together, only to discover that the result was exactly the opposite from what they expected.

The group was permitted to talk to each other to solve the challenge. It’s amazing how differently people respond! Those who have not completely bought in to the experience will often make excuses, blame and complain, or just wait for someone else to figure it out. And those who are allies in the experience tend to own the situation. They seek solutions…they find constructive ways to make it happen.

So what do you do with the information you discover about people on the Ladder of Accountability? Knowing where your learners stand on the ladder will greatly inform the approach you take to build a meaningful curriculum or modify one to better suit the audience, no matter what type of learning experience you’re creating.

Posing a challenging activity is a great way to find out how accountable your learners are. It’s about awareness of where people are coming from. Obviously the ladder is there to be climbed. If you find yourself hanging around on a lower rung with others who make excuses or wait and hope for a solution to materialize, think about stepping up to a higher level to make more of a team effort.

I introduced a three-part process for giving peer feedback: Describe the situation, the behavior and the outcome. I was so impressed when one of the clients demonstrated her new coaching skill when she flew a paper airplane toward me. Inside it simply read “Great job Jillian.” She then used the Situation, Behavior, Outcome model to tell me specifically what she liked about the training, and how she would be applying it in her job.

After the session, other participants reported that they felt emotionally engaged, that they enjoyed the physical activity as a complement to the more academic content we discussed, as well as the opportunity to practice solving a challenge together.

To me, this feedback supports an important phase in the IdeaLearning Group’s process that we use to frame our curriculum: Think, Feel, Move. We believe in supporting a variety of learning approaches, from jumping right in to reading instructions first. We believe humor is an important part of the learning experience. And we understand the strong connection between movement and learning.

The steady development of innovative mobile devices brings exciting opportunities for mobile learning, also known as “mlearning.” Tablets, gaming consoles, smartphones, and other types of handheld units all offer mlearning opportunities. What makes mlearning especially powerful is that it enables easy access to relevant information on demand and on the go.

The concept of mobile learning has already become ingrained in the minds of the youngest generation. (Just observe the baby who can’t get a magazine to “work.”) Although “digital natives” are easily catching on to mobile learning, it’s not gaining widespread traction in schools yet; with limited budgets, it’s not always possible to implement schoolwide mobile learning programs. Still, 40% of teenagers have smartphones and the number is growing. Think of the possibilities!

For students who do have access to mlearning resources, here’s how they’re using them:

• Taking notes at school using mobile apps
• Reinforcing learned content through podcasts, videos, and other supporting resources
• Taking on-the-spot quizzes to measure knowledge
• Exploring interactive graphics, charts, and timelines online

Mobile learning is also very promising for businesses. In his “Five Steps to Mobile Learning” article in Learning Solutions magazine, Brian Taliesin reports that by 2013, mobile workers will account for 35% of the workforce worldwide. Naturally, mobile workers will need more mobile ways to learn as the remote workforce continues to expand.

The International University Consortium for Executive Education (UNICON) recently issued a report that outlines some of the promising benefits for business-related mobile learning:

• Just-enough learning: Provides relevant, easily understood content for time-crunched professionals.
• Just-in-time learning: Offers convenient, flexible information exactly when it is needed.
• Just-for-me learning: Allows access to content on mobile devices in flexible ways, which makes it appealing to many different types of learners.
• Collaborative learning: Facilitates working together through use of texting, as well as knowledge-sharing and question-based forums, which can strengthens interaction between participants and instructors.

Like with students in school, the possibilities for workplace learning are enormous. Imagine a forklift driver with easy mobile access to a loading plan, which was updated after his shift began. Or emergency responders who need up-to-the-minute details that helps them maximize their effectiveness on the job. Or a retail sales rep who can order products for customers on the spot. Some of these technologies are already in place, but there is much more room to grow.

Mobile learning doesn’t need to be intensely interactive to be effective. Remember, the focus is to give learners the information they need when they need it an in easily accessible format. That can mean simple text-based instructions, a how-to video, a map, or a reference drawing. For content managers and instructional designers, it’s important to keep in mind that mobile learning usually draws form existing resources. The strategy is to pull together the most relevant information and organize it in a way that maps to how and when the learners need it. Build in practice opportunities to help reinforce learned content.

What mobile learning resources have you used? What do you find most exciting for the future of mlearning?

Intended Audience
The Learning Leaders’ Forum is designed for workplace learning professionals who have a minimum of 10 years of workplace learning experience (or equivalent) and are responsible for developing workplace learning strategies. These programs are designed to offer strategic insight and time for round table interaction with peers.

Overview
Understanding the neuroscience of how adults learn can help trainers and instructional designers build training that maximizes employee retention, and help training departments improve the effectiveness of training efforts throughout their organizations. In this session, you’ll learn six of Dr. John Medina™s Brain Rules and their implications for leading learning strategies. Based Dr. John Medina breakthrough book, this session employs video, discussion, and research, plus you’ll walk away with a strategy for integrating brain-based learning in your organization.

Outcomes

• Identify opportunities to leverage neuroscience to improve the effectiveness of training efforts throughout your organization
• Outline a strategy document for integrating brain-based learning in your organization.

Register: http://www.astdcascadia.org/events/learning_leaders/2012/02-21-12.htm