We’re now ready to examine the most important roadblock to effective learning . We’ll spend a few blogs on this ultra-critical and far-too-often-ignored impediment to learning and retention.

Training Challenge Number Three: “The failure to provide training that is designed to meet the needs of the 21st Century Learning Culture.”

FACT: Today, more than 40% of America’s workforce cannot read above a 4th grade level.

FACT: Little more than one-third of our current high school seniors are able to form opinions from what they read.

I would suggest that in order to effectively educate/train a group of people, an instructor must have some awareness of the “learning styles” with which he or she is working today.

And no single vendor can help the trainer make the correct choices. Don’t most courseware providers have but a single solution to offer? Their own! And isn’t their task to get you to bend ‘your problem’ to meet ‘their solution’ so that they can sell their own proprietary products to you? Do they genuinely care about your needs, or do they really only care about your money?!

An educator/trainer has to first solve the problem of differing learning styles within his/her organization. This may not be as difficult a task as one might initially think. For example, some jobs require good reading ability. If the instructor knows this skill is required, then the networking technology that places lots of words and graphics on the computer screen is an acceptable choice. The same would also hold true for books and manuals.

But, what about the vast number of jobs that do not require reading skills in order to be successful? Are we going to throw these same books, manuals, PowerPoint presentations and CBT technologies at those individuals?

If we do, we will be wasting the resources of our organization – for little learning will be the result – and, consequently, skills improvement will be minimal.

Most people are multi-sensory learners when it comes to skills acquisition. ‘Seeing,’ ‘hearing’ and ‘doing’ – in combination – is still the best way. Stand-up instruction (with hands-on exercises), distance learning (with good facilitation), videotapes (with hands-on practice), self-paced interactive multimedia (with full-motion video and full audio) are all more effective media for the large majority seeking to acquire, or improve, skills. And, appropriately designed E-Learning is becoming the best of all. (But, don’t think for a moment that most E-Learning instructs well. It does not – and in later blogs we’ll see why.)

In fact, studies continue to reveal that using “seeing-hearing-doing” learning-media (in a multi-sensory environment) will increase the majority of learners’ understanding by more than 50%, resulting in a 25-50% greater learning retention, and with a 50-60% greater consistency in content understanding – the ultimate aim of all learning. Stay tuned for more . . .

— Bill Walton, Founder of ITC Learning

“AMERICA WILL CONTINUE TO BE BUILT BY THE HANDS OF ITS MEN AND WOMEN”

Let’s continue with our examination of the major reasons that lie behind the failures of many corporate training initiatives.

Training Challenge Number Two: “The failure to tailor training to knowledge gaps.”

Too often, individuals charged with spending organizational money on training needlessly squander corporate resources. One-size-fits-all is a wasteful way to go today.

No longer does a company have to assign every electrical maintenance worker or instrument tech the very same curriculum. The means exist today to administer a valid skills assessment in order to determine exactly just what skills a specific worker already possesses – and, which ones he or she does not.

Since the most expensive cost in training is personnel costs, huge dollars can be saved.

By far, the smartest thing to do before making an investment in training is to administer a skills assessment test. The results of that test will clearly demonstrate the knowledge gaps for each worker who needs to be trained.

And then, of course, the individual worker can invest only that time necessary to fill in those knowledge gaps, without having to perform a seat-warming activity in those classes he or she does not need.

Corporations desiring to control costs would benefit significantly if they could successfully limit the away-from-my-job time that a “one size fits all” approach demands.

Organizations that implement a skills assessment system, when combined with targeted skills development, will certainly improve their business performance – because they will be making informed decisions. When an organization undertakes such a targeted program, investments in training begin to pay huge dividends.

And isn’t that what we all want? Training that actually works!

As we shall see in future blogs, delivering targeted training to the appropriate worker while using today’s most valid learning delivery methods (e-learning and multi-sensory multimedia) is really what it’s all about.

— Bill Walton, Founder of ITC Learning

“AMERICA WILL CONTINUE TO BE BUILT BY THE HANDS OF ITS MEN AND WOMEN”

For the next few posts, we’re going to be examining many of the major reasons behind the failures of many corporate training initiatives.

Training Challenge Number One:  “The failure to tie training to corporate objectives.”

Too many investments in training are made which are unrelated to company objectives.  It should come as no surprise, then, that management too often regards training costs as superfluous and unnecessary.

How different management attitudes would be if training was tied to corporate objectives and training expenditures could be linked to company growth and profitability.

A CEO in a recent Business Week article said it all, “An organization’s ability to learn and translate that learning into action is the ultimate competitive advantage.”

So how can you assure that your training efforts will help your company achieve that competitive advantage?

In order to successfully connect training initiatives to corporate objectives, you should:

a)      Study the company’s business plan

b)      Meet with some of the individuals who created the business objectives

c)      Build a sound business case for how your proposed training initiative will positively contribute to company results.

Connecting learning to the business strategy will, in almost all cases, be a successful and wise investment.  That’s because your training can be targeted, allowing only those training activities that add measurable value to company goals, while increasing the competitive position of your business.  Such focused training will be both more effective and more efficient.

In the days to come, we will be discussing other key factors necessary for effective training.  And, as always, please keep in mind that today’s learning environment is tied directly to multi-sensory instruction and to the promise of e-learning – but only when knowledgeable instructional design is paramount.  The powerful tools for pay-back learning have never been so strong.  Harness them wisely.

– Bill Walton, Founder of ITC Learning

“AMERICA WILL CONTINUE TO BE BUILT BY THE HANDS OF ITS MEN AND WOMEN”

Certainly, the training requirements of today’s workplace are intensifying.  A recent National Adult Literacy Survey undertaken by the Department Of Education has reported that, “Growing numbers of individuals are expected to be able to attend to multiple features of information in lengthy and sometimes complex displays, to compare and contrast information, to integrate information from various parts of a text or document, to generate ideas and information based on what they read, and to apply arithmetic operations sequentially to solve a problem.  The results from this and other surveys, however, indicate that many adults do not demonstrate these levels of proficiency.” 

Obviously, it is no longer enough to simply stand on the assembly line and push one button over and over.  Today’s workplaces — and the global economy — have rendered much of this rote activity obsolete.  And where repetitive task labor is still required, the corresponding remuneration allows only for a life bordering on subsistence.

An even more recent CBS News report under the lede, “U.S. Faces Less-Literate Workforce” warned that by 2030 American workers may be significantly less literate than they are today. 

It doesn’t have to end up that way.

Whether we like it or not, our learning culture has changed.  We must realize that we are no longer a nation of avid readers.  It may be that we never were, but reading today continues to shrink as the most effective way by which the majority of us can assimilate knowledge and form opinions.

But ours is not a stupid nor uninformed society.  On the contrary; only our primary means for communicating information has changed.  Media-based industrial skills training, PC skills training and safety training can all attest to that.

Stop and think for a minute.  Where do most of us get the majority of the information we assimilate today?  From television and computer screens, of course!  And yet, for all of the advances made in linking technology with learning, most organizations today still rely on the old traditional methods of stand-up lecturing and reading.  The result is that the learning needs of nearly two-thirds of our citizens are being largely ignored through the exclusive use of these traditional methods. 

Just one more reason why online learning (e-learning) and interactive CD-ROMs can expand the traditional definition of “literacy,” liberating it to include additional learning tools in our constant struggle against illiteracy.  People learn best when multiple senses are involved.

— Bill Walton, Founder of ITC Learning

“AMERICA WILL CONTINUE TO BE BUILT BY THE HANDS OF ITS MEN AND WOMEN”

We’ve come a long way down the technology trail in the past three decades.  The training challenges facing our industrial workforce have been immense, and the trade-offs involving instructional design and production values – plus cost and efficiency issues – have complicated the entire process.

Maintenance and operations training for our workforce has never been more necessary – and the opportunities for more effective learning have never been greater.  E-learning and CD-ROM technology have made more and better learning a reality while increasing necessary retention time.  Mechanical maintenance, electrical maintenance and instrumentation training are all better attuned to job and task applicability today.  Full media-rich training has, provably, contributed to the financial returns enjoyed by the wiser American corporations and to the blue collar workers in our workforce.

We’re going to need these better skills, too, as processes get more complicated and multi-craft training continues to evolve.  Well-designed multimedia training will help secure incomes in these difficult economic times and improve conditions for our workers and their families.  And, in the process, American industry will regain its competitive edge.

Training and education can never be replaced or long delayed.  Media training has reopened the doors to productive learning.  We are successfully transitioning from less successful lecture-textbook instruction to newer, media-rich learning opportunities.  As Marshall McLuhan first foresaw nearly fifty years ago, “the medium is the message.”

Today, “the medium has become the message” and is ratcheting open bright new worlds of learning and productivity.  Online learning and information will lead our way.  The American workforce will embrace it.  Management, at their peril, must not underestimate its critical importance to their corporate futures – and to the competitive future of the United States.

–Bill Walton, Founder of ITC Learning

“AMERICA WILL CONTINUE TO BE BUILT BY THE HANDS OF ITS MEN AND WOMEN”