Qualifications. Who needs them?

In what I hope will become a tradition I’ll give a brief run down of a brief post…

First I talk about my Dad and how he influenced me in my view of exams. Then I wander off into a dark corner about qualifications before finally coming out to a small summary:

They’re pointless (unless you want a new job).

Read on to what a laughingly call the good stuff…

When I was young I discovered that exams and qualifications are the most important thing in the world (according to my Dad). As I got older I realised that they’re only important to get you to the next level. Then you need qualifications in that too. Then I entered the workplace and discovered that if I got a piece of paper to say I was good at something my salary would go up.

So guess what I did.

After a while I realised the obvious - certifications/qualifications are good at giving you a nice feeling and they give benchmarks to potential employers about how far you are along in your profession.

But in actual fact they’re of little practical value.

I suspected this when I was a techie but confirmed it once I moved into Learning (to become a Learning Geek). Think about it. A curriculum for a course that lasts 1 year must be written more than a year before right? So by the time you start it’s already out of date. Are you sure you want to do that qualification?

I see little value in qualifications nowadays. I think the value is in being able to be flexible, to be adaptable and to be smart in getting the information you need when you need it. Learning shouldn’t be tied down to qualifications, it should be freed.

Now if someone came up with a qualification on maximising your informational search capabilities then that’d be a different story…

“Hey - I’m a certified super fast learner, give me a job…”

Help! My pigeons are holed!

Once again, I’ll give you a run down first so you can decide if I’m going to bore you or not. This one is about learning styles and pigeons. Pigeons don’t live in holes but we put them there. No idea why.

Anyway - I will talk about a few different learning styles and why I like them or hate them. Then I’ll explain that it’s not the styles that are the problem, but just like pigeons don’t live in holes, styles shouldn’t either. I’ll explain that these aren’t directive - they’re meant to be guides to help us understand other people and therefore produce better learning.

Read on for the good stuff…

Learning styles. Ah the warmth of the feeling coming towards me already when I think about the arguments we can have about them. There are so many and cause so much dispute. But why? Let’s take a look.

If I start to talk about learning styles I immediately worry about pigeon holing. I mean, I do a test and suddenly my learning style is set and I’m being bombarded with activist visuals. Or someone is getting theoretical with my towards options. Learning styles have a lot of bad press and sometimes rightly so. I would suggest though that they’re not all that bad - they’ve just sometimes been implemented poorly and with little understanding.

You see - the problem isn’t with the styles per se, but with the concept that you can pigeon hole them. But they’re not, and were never meant to work like that. Some of them weren’t even designed to relate to learning. Lets think about 4 of my favourites and 1 of my hates.

VAK
Ooo - a pet hate of many this one. But actually all it does is state that most people have a preference towards a couple of the modalities: Visual, Audio or Kinaesthic (and gustatory and olfactory if we’re going to be correct about this). That means that if I have a visual preference I’ll like to see things to help me learn. It’ll also come out in my speech.

Honey & Mumford
Interesting one - this one says that in a particular context you’ll probably have learnings towards being either and Activist (jumps in first), a Reflector (likes the big picture), a Theorist (facts figures and numbers) or a Pragmatist (wants to see the benefits). So at work I’m a Activist Pragmatist. That means I have leanings towards those traits. At home (in the different context) I’m different. Much more of a Reflector for a start.

Meta Programs
There are loads of these and they represent where you are on a sliding scale between:
Towards (goes after goals) and Away From (avoids bad things happening like deadlines)
Options (likes them) and Procedures (likes to do things be the book)
Internal (doesn’t need praise) to External (graves feedback).
Either end of the scale or in the middle with leanings is all fine. There are no good and bad bits here.

4MAT
Not really a learning style but useful all the same. This one sets out how we process information and in what order. Again, we have preferences for what types of information we like. The 4 are What, Why, How and What if/Where else. I tend towards What If/Where Else but I actually need all the others too.

Ok - so that’s a little list of some learning styles I like to use. Now one I don’t because I think it’s been debunked too often.

Left Brain/Right Brain
This is a pigeon hole waiting to happen. If you’re more left brain then you’re Logical, if you’re right brain then you’re creative. And there isn’t a lot you can do about it. Urgh. Incidentally (I can’t remember the source so you’ll have to take my word on this) brain scan tests have proved that all areas of your brain fire when being logical or creative. It’s not based on side.

Ok - so we’ve looked at some styles. I agree - you “could” use them for pigeon hole purposes. But that’s not where they’re useful. If you consider your audience when you’re designing learning they’re a REALLY good place to go to make sure you’re going to reach and engage with the maximum number of users.

For example. I want to make sure that my learning includes seeing bits, hearing parts and doing parts. I want to ensure that I give an overview with a sequence of points in there. I want to ensure I tell the users that they’ll be doing something soon and make sure they understand the benefits of what they’re doing. I want to give users the option to jump around or go through it logically, I want them to be able to take timed tests or a leisurely stoll.

Sure - this is going to make me think really hard about what I do, and may mean that I have to work harder when designing my learning. But at the end of the day it means that my users come out top. They’re going to be engaged, they’re going to realise that I care about them enough so that they care.

So - stop dissin’ the learning styles and start to think about how they can help us achieve our goal of helping users perform better because of our learning.

Training or Learning - what’s it to be?

For those of you with short attention spans here’s a brief synopsis of what I’m going to say:

1st I’ll talk about the difference between training and learning.
2nd I’ll bemoan the fact that we call it learning but it’s training
3rd I’ll ramble a bit about pilots and how it’s good that they’re trained (rather than “learned”)
4th I’ll wrap up with a blindingly obvious conclusion that I think all us learning folks might not have thought about recently.

Read on for the “good” stuff.

When I first entered the world of learning it was called training. I trained people to do “stuff”. At the end of my training session I hoped that they could do said “stuff”. Sometimes they could. Sometimes they couldn’t and it’s those that couldn’t that bugged me.

Then I formally went into a Learning department and discovered that what I should have been doing was helping people learn. So the difference is that training is where you try and pour knowledge and skills into someones head. Learning is where you help them find the knowledge and skills themselves.

Pretty obvious right?

Well - erm, no. Because we still do training. We just call it learning now. We still go to subject matter experts and take their knowledge - split it into small, instructionally sound chunks and then present it to people (either face to face or electronically).

So why are we (the royal we - corporate learning functions is the “we” here) deluding ourselves that we’re helping people learn when actually we’re still “training” them?

Don’t get me wrong - training has it’s place. I would really like my pilot to have been thoroughly trained before he sits in the cockpit. Imagine what it would be like if pilots were allowed to “learn” how to fly? They’d take some eLearning courses, maybe have a go in a simulator. A keen one might even try it out on a real plane… However, when they sit in the cockpit for their first flight they suddenly realise that what they practiced wasn’t the real world and does anyone know where the manual is please?

Ah - I think I’ve just described where corporate learning functions are going wrong. We’re training when we should be enabling learning (background information, overviews of processes, context and concepts) and we’re enabling learning when we should be giving training (skills, tasks etc).

Before you decide you hate me for saying that - let me clarify a little then I’ll end. By saying we train people I mean we give them the opportunity to practice skills and tasks in a real environment. Ideally with people who have already done it or know what they’re doing. Kind of like informal learning but more informal training (also known as performance support..).

Where is this going? Well - this is call to “thinks” (like a call to arms but for your brain).

Training has it’s place. Learning has it’s place. They’re not mutually exclusive so don’t ignore either of them.